Personal Legacies Column
By Robin A. Edgar

During the Depression, families worked together, helped one another, kept the faith, and just plain made do. Federal relief programs like the Work Projects Administration (WPA), National Youth Administration (NYA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) also helped to fill in the gaps.

Harold Taylor was born in 1923 near Greer, South Carolina where his father, J.W., was a sharecropper. The hard times hit there even before the Crash, so his dad moved him, his mother, Mamie, younger brother, Seth, and an older sister, Rowena, to Tryon in 1927 to work with his brother-in-law for the Shields Plumbing Company. There was plenty of work and they did all right for a while, but, when the Depression hit in 1929, he lost his job.

“I remember my momma and daddy crying a lot because they did not have any money saved and didn’t know what to do. They decided to clear some land that we had access to and do some truck farming. With hard work and a lot of prayer, we had plenty to eat, but we needed a little cash for sugar and coffee, so my mother sent me to Melrose Avenue where the wealthy people lived to sell the produce she grew. I used to cart eggs to the Spanish Court and one morning I smelled something good and asked the maid what it was. She said it was toast and, when I asked what toast was, the lady of the house asked if I wanted some. I said, “Yes ma’am, we just have plain old biscuits at home.” After that, just about every time I came by, she had a bag of cookies and candy for me and every once in a while she would give me a nickel and I felt rich. People helped other people whenever they could, but eight or nine years was a long time.”

“If you had an apple crate, you could pick up some apples off the ground. I also used to hunt rabbits as a kid — fried rabbit with biscuits and gravy was good eating back then. You had to cut back somewhere so we ate corn meal mush every Sunday night. When I was in the third grade, Dr. Jervey’s wife taught school and she gave us raisins every morning because we were not getting enough iron in our diet.”

“I only had to walk 300 yards to school. Colored people lived in the houses between our house and the school and I played with a little black boy whose last name was Cowan. Even though he could look out his window and see my school, he had to walk two miles to a school in Emery.”

“Mr. Ballinger helped to build the First Baptist Church if Tryon. The minister lived in the house next door and he was pounded for his pay so people would bring him a pound of this or that from their farms. They paid me a dollar to dust the pews and I always asked for four quarters because it seemed like more.

“For entertainment we would watch the trains come in. Four passenger trains came through everyday and you could set your watch by them. The Southern Mercerizing Mills would throw away tangled balls of yarn that we would use for baseballs that probably weighed three times as much as they were supposed to. We also used the empty spools to make homemade yo-yos.”

“The three darkest years were 1930 to 1932. Thankfully, when Roosevelt came into office in 1933, he started the WPA, CCC, and NYA programs. You didn’t get rich working for the WPA, but you got some flour, corn meal, cheese and some cash so you could survive. The WPA built schools and new toilets for people. We had a double-seater outhouse when we lived on Lockhart Road.”

“The best thing that happened to Tryon was when the Adams Millis Mill opened in 1938 and employed about 250 people for decent wages. They made full fashion hosiery out of silk until Pearl Harbor and couldn’t get it anymore. They eventually had to switch to nylon.”

Harold worked at the Adams Millis Mills when it opened. He graduated in 1941, married Ruth Day in 1942, and was drafted in 1943 as an army gun sergeant. He went back to Adams Millis after the War and, after they started making pantyhose, he sold insurance and was maintenance supervisor for Tryon City Schools.  After he retired, he worked as a volunteer at St. Luke’s, the Outreach Ministry, and his church. His advice to future generations is to save some money for a rainy day.

Did your family live in Polk County during 1929 to 1939? For more information on how to share your story, please contact Robin Edgar at 2robinedgar@gmail.com or call the Tryon Daily Bulletin at 828-859-2737.