Life in the Valley 3 - Langdale Mill

Life in the Valley 3

Langdale Mill

At the ages of 5, 6 and 7, I didn’t worry about the economy, people’s jobs, union’s or how people made a living. I didn’t know poverty or wealth.  Like many children born in the 50’s, my world was made of doll babies and carriages, puppies and kittens, the invention of tv, attending kindergarten where we lived in Columbus, Ga and going to visit my grandparents in the Valley which was in Langdale and Shawmut Alabama.

 I was one of the third generation of children who enjoyed the amenities that were offered in this small-town atmosphere now known as Valley, Alabama.  In my mind I could never have imagined that people would ever need to commute to places like Atlanta, Columbus, Montgomery, or Birmingham for work or that large foreign vehicle manufacturers would have to move in to boost the economy.  We thought the large textile mills in the towns of Fairfax, Langdale, Riverview, Lanett, Shawmut, Alabama and West Point, Ga. would live on forever.

 Life revolved around the mills. So that production did not slowdown, the floors of the spinning room were worn thin with the women and men who kept the looms and the spindles filled with thread cones and the machinery in top notch condition. Before her stroke, Granny Crowder worked in the Spinning Room and with the looms as did my mother.

My Papo Crowder was a second-generation mill worker and a people person who supervised hundreds of workers in the Langdale Mill encouraging them to keep up the good work.

Dan Crowder was a dark haired gentle man, always wore a smile and loved life. He stood about five foot seven, was slender, wore glasses , had a receding hairline and a sense of humor.   He smoked heavily and was a diabetic which most likely contributed to his untimely death at the age of 62.  He took his work seriously and was devoted to his wife, Lottie Belle.  He had a wonderful baritone voice and I remember him spontaneously singing in the kitchen as he helped to make the evening meal or wash dishes, "Are Ye Able, Said the Master" or Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me".

 Workers and residents alike enjoyed the "mill" lifestyle in its heyday. My Uncle Danny worked as a mechanic for the mill as did my daddy. Life revolved around the mill and whatever was going on was influenced by "the company". Events and holidays were celebrated by the company as were the people.

 Almost everyone in the Valley had a parent, son, daughter or a relative that worked in the mills in some capacity but as they saw the company changing hands over and over it would seem that the writing was on the wall and the utopia would not last.

My mother and father worked in the mills right after they were married however Daddy already knew that he wanted a better life for their future.  Mama’s had lots of bad memories about her childhood and I'm sure he hoped to give her some relief.

  As the mills changed hands so did some of the amenities that were offered by “the company” Daddy feared that the mill would not see them through to raising their children and retirement so he signed up  at a local recruiting office for the Navy and became a recruiter himself in Columbus, Ga.

Going "Home" - Our arrival

Many were the visits to my Papo and Granny Crowder’s home in Langdale and my Papo and Granny McDonald in Shawmut from the time I was born in 1954 until the late 60’s.  Both my sisters, Donna and Jennifer were born in Langdale at George H. Lanier Hospital, in 1952 and 1961, respectively.  I was born in New London Connecticut Naval Hospital in Groton, Connecticut in between my daddy’s tour of duty there.

Moma and Daddy came " home" for the important things like having a baby and because Moma had to have cesarean births they wanted to be somewhere that family could help with the recuperation.  On the other hand, Moma had followed Daddy to Groton because she was so homesick for him so they opted to have me in the New London Connecticut Naval Hospital.

We spent our summer vacations and Christmas’s in “the Valley”.  I thought there was nothing better than to go to town with Papo and visit the department stores in West Point.  Sometimes Mama would take me to the shoe store for a new pair of sneakers or JC Penny to get a new dress or a pair of shorts for the summer but what I looked forward to the most was going into Woolworth’s five and dime to buy a package of brightly colored bamboo umbrellas…the kind that go in adult beverages.  To me they were perfect as parasols for my paper dolls and the dime I got from Papo would burn a hole in my pocket until I scarfed them up and quickly tore the cellophane wrapper off with the little oval gold tag that said “made in china” on it.  I would lose the next couple of days in my make-believe world with my paper dolls dancing around with their new umbrellas.

Bedtime at Granny and Papo Crowder’s

When we visited, Mama and Daddy got the guest bedroom, with a tiny little pedestal sink and a toilet in it. Donna got the studio couch in the living room.  I always got to sleep with Granny.

Granny and Papo’s bedroom had two double beds on either side of the bathroom door.  Granny needed to frequent the bathroom several times during the night because the stoke had affected the strength of her bladder.

 She could get herself out of the bed on her right side easily if she needed to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, without disturbing Papo.   I later figured out that Granny’s stroke had also affected her circulation and she was always cold.  She slept with multiple layers of blankets on her bed. My guess is that Papo just couldn’t handle all that heat either.   I know because I was the recipient of it too. There were no fans in the windows during the summer and no air conditioning.  Nevertheless, she was always cold.

  Granny was a terrific storyteller and bedtime stories before I went to sleep was a treat.  But getting Granny ready for bed was a production.   While I put my pajamas on I lay on the side of her bed next to the wall propped up on mounds of pillows I’d watch and wait while my Papo patiently slipped off her cardigan sweater, unbuttoned her shirtwaist dress, (something she always wore) and slipped her flannel nightgown around her crippled arm. She also wore an elasticized bonnet to protect her hair-do and keep her warm at night. She always wore white anklet socks and brogan shoes during the day and at night she wore tennis shoes because they didn’t want to chance her falling.  I suppose going to the bathroom was traumatic for both my grandmother and grandfather because she said that when she had her stoke she had fallen in the bathroom.

Once granny was ready for bed I climbed under the piles of blankets and she sort of free fell onto her side of the bed.  She rocked back and forth until she could lift her left foot with her right leg and get it into the bed. Her left side didn’t work at all and she had no feeling in it.

 I listened to the stories of the three Billy Goat’s Gruff, Uncle Remus’s Tar Baby with Brer Rabbit getting his fist caught in the tar baby and Brer Fox laughing at him behind the bushes because he’d out smarted Brer Rabbit again.

She often told me about Chicken Little having an acorn fall on his head and thinking the sky was falling and how he told Turkey Lurkey and he told Henny Penny and she told Goosey Loosey and they all decided that they needed to run all over creation screaming the “Sky is falling and  go tell the King” Or the story of the Little Red Hen who did everything for herself because she couldn’t get anyone to help her.  When she got tired and slurred her words because she was falling asleep I’d interrupt saying, “And then what happened”, or I’d catch her rushing through the details and remind her that she wasn’t telling the story right.  Id say, “Tell the part where the troll came out on the bridge and wouldn’t let the billy goats cross “. She’d laugh and try to finish telling the story but finally, she’d tell me she had to go to sleep and that her “jaws were aching”.

 I huffed, cross my arms furrowed my brows and pouted.  She’d tell me, “Patty, Papo needs to go to work tomorrow so we needed to go to sleep.  Now you go on to the bathroom, so you don’t wet the bed.”

Crawling up over her, I jumped down on the wooden floor in my bare feet, went to the bathroom and crawled back over her and under the covers, pop my thumb in my mouth and try my best to go to sleep.

 A few hours into the heavy pile of covers I would start to roast like a Thanksgiving turkey.  My whole body was like it had been slid into an oven. My long brown hair now sticking to my head my neck had beads of sweat like a glistening necklace and my feet felt like they were on fire.  I flailed and kicked my legs until I had uncovered my body and it could breath again and I fussed aloud, “I’m ‘bout to burn to death, it’s too hot in this bed!” Although Papo was in the other bed, I often heard him giggle.

After I cooled off and went back to sleep, sometime before morning, Granny managed to pull those covers back over me.

End of an ERA

Going to their house was always a treat and something I never thought would end but my parents continued to thrive in other areas and my grandfather passed away one day shortly after he retired at the age of 62.   Afterwards my father felt compelled to take my grandmother with us to Virginia and share her  care giving between my dad and his older brother. She lived with us and alternated between us and my aunt and uncle in the late 60's and early 70's.

A brief History lesson of The Valley from Encyclopedia of Alabama

 

A brief history lesson from the Encyclopedia of Alabama

The Valley, as everyone called it, is in the east central part of the state that bordered Georgia in Chambers County which was a former Creek Indian territory that ceded to the United States during the 1832 Treaty of Cusseta. With the arrival of the Montgomery and WestPoint Railroad near the town of Cusseta the area received a boost in the economy with the sale of cotton goods. Before the Civil War the area was a leading grower of cotton and later became a hub for textile mills.   The towns of Langdale, Fairfax, Lanett, Riverview and Shawmut, Alabama and WestPoint, Ga became the home of WestPoint Manufacturing in the Chattahoochee Valley on the west side of the Chattahoochee River.  It lies between Montgomery, Alabama and Atlanta, Ga. 

After the Civil War the region suffered economic recession but was revitalized when local businessmen and planters established two textile mills known as The Chattahoochee Manufacturing Company and the Alabama and Georgia Manufacturing Company. In 1866 Langdale Mills named after its founder Thomas Lang laid its first cornerstone.

 West Point Manufacturing acquired the Alabama and Georgia Manufacturing Company in 1921. As West Point prospered, three other mills were added at Fairfax, Riverdale, and Lanett.

 All four mills were set in company-owned towns that provided workers and their families with schools, housing, recreational facilities, and other amenities. Eventually the four mills became known as "the Valley" and in 1980, citizens from three of the four towns (Lanett became an incorporated town in 1895) came together to build a new town named Valley, which is currently the largest population center in the county.

 The prosperous mills produced towels and cotton duck, a heavy material used to make canvas.  In 1965 stock in West Point manufacturing became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. That same year the company merged with Pepperell Manufacturing of Maine and in 1988 acquired J.P. Stevens Inc. From 1880 to 1990 the company operated under one family, the Lanier’s. In 1993 the company changed its name to WestPoint Stevens. The company was a leading manufacturer of bed and bath linens however, today most of the mills have now been shut down and demolished. Morton, Patricia Hoskins. Chambers County. Auburn University, 27 Aug. 2007, www.enclclopedia+of+Alabama/+Chambers+County.

A field in Shawmut

Sears Memorial Hall

Valley High School

Langdale Baptist Church

Langdale Elementary School and Gym

Life in the Valley 2

Life in the Valley-2

Langdale Pool-Learning to swim

My mind goes back to walking up to the back of my grandparent’s property, trees behind the area they kept mowed were heavily laden with Kudzu and Sumac. We carried our towels and wore our bathing suits and flip flops and covered up in an old shirt and shorts.

 My clown of a cousin, Greg, myself and my older sister, Donna, pushed onward to the paved back road and up a steep hill where we had made a path past a giant oak tree.  We picked up acorns and watched squirrels scamper up the tree when they saw us coming. We moved along the path up to another paved road taking a short cut past the big house the Overseer’s lived in. They were the rich people lived and we loved to imagine what they looked like inside and how they lived.

There was talk around town that one of them had a secret room that was walled up and inside it had toys of a child that had died.  Making our way hurriedly passed the houses Greg made up stories about the house on the end being haunted with the ghost of that child. We were all uneasy when we passed by and laughed nervously

 It seemed like a long walk at our ages and it seemed like it took forever when in fact it probably only took us 15 minutes to get there.  We made our way down the hill and wound past more houses past Overseer’s Row.  To our right you could see the white picketed fence of the little white building of Langdale kindergarten with its ducks marching across all in a row and across the street was Langdale Elementary. Behind the kindergarten was Langdale Pool. 

Entrance to the pool only cost us 10 cents a day. It opened at 12 noon and we were always on time.  The Langdale Mill company constructed the pool, recreation areas, the schools ,a” Picture Show” and  contributed  to many businesses and churches for the residents of Langdale. 

The pool itself was not that big.  It had one diving board, no high dives, and a shallow end and cement walking pads all around. It had a bath house where we kept our street clothes in a wire basket with a number on it. We got a steel Safety pin with the same number on it to attach to our swim suits, so we could retrieve our belongings when we headed home. 

 The lounge chairs were the aluminum kind that had woven webbing on them but we just spread our towels out on the hot cement if we wanted to sit or lay down.  There was no concession stand but they did have coke cola and snack machines.  We usually ate lunch before we left for the pool.  Before we left someone would holler at us, Ya’ll be careful, you’ll get a cramp if you go in the water too soon after you eat.”  It didn’t take an hour for us to get to the pool by foot and we got in as soon as we got there.  To my knowledge we never got a cramp.

On any given day we played in the pool turning upside down in the eater with our feet up in the air.  We did somersaults, tried to do synchronized swimming and occasionally played “Piggy Back” and “Chicken -Rooster”.

 In the game of “Chicken-Rooster” you had to have at least three players but we had the “Mark Twain” effect on all the kids at the pool and everybody wanted to play.  The person who was the Rooster started out with an object that would float.  They got to take it to the bottom of the pool and release it but not without swimming around all over the place to confuse “the chickens” standing around the deep end waiting for it to surface.  When the object surfaced the first player to see it yelled “Chicken- Rooster” and jumped in after it.  Chaos ensued as everyone jumped in as well. The first one to capture it got to be the “Rooster” and hide the object next. 

 We played for hours and hardly knew where the time went when the Langdale Mill whistle blew for the day shift to be over at 4 pm.  And our pool day was over.  We filed in to the bath houses and got our things, put a shirt on and wrapped a towel around us to catch the water dripping off our bathing suits.

Once again, we rushed past the Overseer’s homes as we shared ghost stories and our day at the pool.  Our waterlogged fingers and toes and sun drenched bodies began to succumb to the fatigue of the hours we had spent in the pool. The walk going home was much longer than the one getting us there.  Arriving at my grandparent’s house I could smell the ham and boiled potatoes cooking on the stove. I looked forward to a pone of cornbread slathered in butter, the ham and potatoes and some English peas mixed in just before serving. One of my favorite meals.

It would be another hour until Papo would arrive from the Mill and then we could all eat together.  Coming in off the back porch we grabbed a small green bottle of coke cola pulled the aluminum ice trays out of the refrigerator and broke the ice cubes out of the trays.   We snapped off the lids and poured glasses full with the caramel colored foam and sweet stinging black beverage as we crowded around the kitchen table with a jar of Jiffy peanut butter a box of vanilla wafers and made ourselves a sandwich of about 10-15 of those cookies. It did not spoil our supper in any way. The next day we made our way back to Langdale Pool for another day of the same. 

I was about 5 when I learned to swim. Short for my age, I was given the name “Little Bit” by the pool staff. When I edged close to the deep end from time to time I was very unsure of myself and feared that I would not be able to get back by myself.  My big sister, Donna, got irritated with me asking her for “piggy back rides” She dutifully carried me on her back and then with an evil grin, drop me off near the rope going into the deep end, so I would have to struggle to get back to the shallow area. She let me know she was tired of babysitting.

My daddy grew up in Langdale and went to school there.  One of his summer jobs was working as a life guard at the pool. So, when it was time for me to learn how to swim, he saw to it that I learned how.

He knew if we were going to spend our summers at the Langdale pool we were going to have to learn to swim and he intended to teach me.

 I remember him telling me before we left Papo’s and Granny’s, “Today, I’m coming to the pool to teach you how to swim”. I truly didn’t know what that meant, except that I would be able to jump off the diving board and hang out in the deep end. We played in the water all afternoon until about an hour before it closed he and my mother showed up.  The staff knew daddy, so they just waved him in.

Daddy got in his swimming trunks in the bath house and took me over to the deep end beside the diving board.  He said” Now, you have been watching everyone move their arms and kick their legs when they jump in the pool.  That is what I want you to do, and I’m going to help you”.

I protested, “But Daddy, I don’t know how”.  He smiled and said, “That’s why I’m here.  I want you to get on the board and jump off and when you hit the water I want you to move your arms back and forth one at a time like you are slicing them through the water and kick your legs together back and forth  like a fish and see if you can get back to the side of the pool.

 With my eyes wide, I put my hands on my hips and screamed, “No, I’m too scared!”.  In his gentle coaxing, he convinced me he would be right by my side and told me, “If you want to keep coming to the pool, you need to know how to swim in the deep end.  You have to get over your fear of getting in the deep water.”  I trusted my daddy, so I shook my head as my body shook along with the fear that gripped me.  He helped me on the board and the other kids stepped aside as the yelled and screamed and cheered me on to “Jump”.

  I inched to the end of the board and he gently said, “Go ahead, jump…I will catch you.” He slipped into the water at the end of the board and held out his arms to me.  He counted,”1-2-3, jump!”.  I closed my eyes and took a flying leap and splashed into the water.  No floaties, no life preserver, just my Daddy’s strong arms to catch me.

Daddy quickly held me up and said, “kick!” I practiced with pride the arm strokes and leg moves as my mother and others cheered me on. I rounded back to the board end of the pool and headed up the ladder.  The feeling was exhilarating.  It was as if you were flying when you jumped off the board and I felt confident that I could do it again.  Still shaking, I hopped up on the board and told daddy, “Let’s do it again”.  For about an hour he worked at teaching me to jump and swim.  I loved the attention with him.

  In todays world mothers everywhere use their smart phone to capture moments like this but in my world cell phones would not be invented for another 50 to 60 years.  So, this memory was etched in our minds by my mother and daddy retelling it to my Papo and Granny when I got back to their home.

  Of course, I was the best new swimmer there ever was and my daddy bragged to his father how I swam across the deep end doing the crawl and the breaststroke.  I was so proud of myself that day that I never looked back to the shallow end.  I had learned to swim.