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The Family of an
Automobile Worker
(Georgia)
Tom's note:
This article's authorship is unattributed, and that may be for the best.
The writer is extremely condescending and judgmental in his or her
observations. For the most part the life histories I've reviewed so far
usually have at least a veneer of respect for the subject, but the author
of this one is practically transparent in his or her contempt for the
subject. On a different angle, this life history is interesting in
that it puts a human face on a historically significant General Motors
assembly plant in Atlanta (Lakewood).
A few months ago the Chevrolet plant in
Atlanta was shut down and all the workers were idle for several weeks. But
now the labor troubles are over, and the plant is working five days a
week. The change in the outlook of the employee was typified in the
expression of Mr. Whelchel when he came into the labor union office with a
broad grin on his face, to get the lunch that his oldest son had brought
in a basket. He recognized one of the interviewers, who had formerly
taught a class among the automobile workers. They exchanged quick, hearty
greetings before Mr. Whelchel hurried into the back of the office with his
lunch. The interviewer asked if it would be all right for him to go down
and interview his wife.
"Sure, go ahead."
The Whelchels live on a side street near the automobile plant, in a brown
frame house of seven rooms - seven small rooms, as we found when we made a
tour of the house. The lot is narrow but deep, stretching back almost two
hundred feet to form a pasture for the cow which supplies the family with
milk. The front yard is very small, but sodded with bermuda grass. The
houses around the Whelchel's are similar in style and size, all frame
structures, with small front yards planted in grass, and a few shrubs here
and there.
Mrs. Whelchel was sitting on the porch, with her youngest child on her
lap. She was combing and curling its hair. When we told her what we wanted
she said that we had come to the wrong place, for she didn't think that
she could tell us much that would be interesting. However, she began
talking anyway, and told us that she was chairman of the home arts
committee of the Women's Auxiliary. The home arts class, she said, was
then working on some "gypsy glaze" pictures. She showed them to us later,
and we found them to be designs painted on glass in transparent colors,
with tinfoil on the back to reflect the light. She showed them with pride
and sincere interest, and was genuinely pleased when we evidenced some
enthusiasm over a design of a sombre looking ship sailing a black ocean.
She regarded her work critically, and remarked of one of the pictures, "I
haven't ever been satisfied with the way that bird in the middle looks.
I'll have to do it over." Impartially considered, the pictures were crude
and gaudy, inharmonious mixtures of bright reds, yellows, and greens; but
it was obvious that they were to Mrs. Whechel an outlet for the creative
impulse. She did not draw the designs freehand, she said, but traced them
from stencils the teacher of the class supplied. They included a ship,
butterflies, and flowers, and parrots.
She showed us over the house, first explaining, however, that it was not
all cleaned up. There was a mixture cleanliness and untidiness. The
plaster of the walls and ceilings was badly cracked, giving an air of
dilapidation, as did the mantel, with its cracked mirror, and the empty
aquarium upon it. The living room had many cheap and incongruous
knicknacks here and there. The large calendar which hung on one wall of
the dining room helped the gaudy 'gypsy glaze" pictures to make the walls
look like the displays at the midway of the fair. The front bedroom was a
jumble of bedclothes, an old bedstead - which Mrs. Whelchel explained was
the only piece of furniture that Mr. Whelchel had brought from his
mother's home - a box full of books, and trash. It was evident, however,
that some degree of order and cleanliness was usually maintained, for the
colored girl who lived in one of the back rooms had just mopped the
floors. All the floors were covered with linoleum. "Sam wanted to get
regular rugs," said Mrs. Whelchel, "but I said, no, we'd better get
linoleum on account of the children, and they're so much easier to keep
clean."
Mrs. Whelchel had first told us that we
had better come back for the interview when she was not so busy, and up to
now had been merely extending to us a sort of preliminary hospitality. But
there didn't seem to be a time when she would not be busy, after some
minutes of trying to arrange a future date, she decided that now was as
good a time as any. We sat down in the living room, and she took up some
crocheting so that she might work with her hands while she talked. She was
making some coasters for iced-tea glasses.
One of the interviewers, seeing some wandering jew in a hanging vase,
casually asked if it were not bad luck to have wandering jew in the house.
"I never heard of it," she said, "but did you ever hear that it was bad
luck to have goldfish in the house? There's a lady down the street from me
that won't have any because she believes it is bad luck." Mrs. Whelchel,
however, did not share this superstition, but planned to fill her empty
aquarium and get more fish.
We had both noticed a large atlas that sat on a table in a corner of the
living room, and asked about it. "I was hoping you would ask about that,"
she said, obviously proud if it. "We got that with a set of books we
bought for the children. Sam bought the Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia,
and we could either get that or a bookcase. We took the atlas, because I
had always wanted one." She carried us into the front bedroom where the
books were still in the box in which they were shipped. On examination
they proved to have bad print and worse reproductions of photographs and
other illustrations. We asked how much they cost. "Eighty dollars," she
replied. "We pay four dollars a month." It was impossible for the
interviewers to refrain from observing mentally that the books were not
worth that much, even with the atlas, which was almost as cheap looking as
the "gypsy glaze" pictures. She had bought the books for the children, she
said, and this led us to ask what plans she and her husband had for their
children's education. "It looks like now we will be doing good if we can
put them through high school. Then if any of them shows any talent for
anything special, we'll try to send them to college."
Neither Mrs. Whelchel nor her husband went to college, and Mr. Whelchel
did not finish high school. "I graduated from Piedmont High School at
Demorest, Georgia," she said. Don't get it mixed up with Piedmont
College," she cautioned, "I wish it was, but it was Piedmont High School."
She was proud of the fact that she had had five more points than was
necessary when she graduated, even though she had attended the school only
two years. She had attended another high school for one year before going
to Piedmont, however. From high school she went to a business college in
Athens, Georgia, and took a general course.
Mr. Whelchel's various jobs include being a shipping clerk, refinishing
furniture for the Western Union Telegraph Company, and working as a
lineman for the Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company. He is now on the
unloading platform of the Chevrolet Company, having been until a few
months ago a buffer, which, Mrs. Whelchel explained, meant that he
polished off the scratches from the fenders of new cars. He now works
forty hours a week on the unloading platform, making eighty cents an hour.
"No, we'll never get rich at that," she remonstrated, "but it's all right
while it lasts. But two weeks off will just ruin you."
We were interrupted by one of the little boys coming in with an orange
which he wanted his mother to peel for him. It was Bobby, who had broken
his arm a few days before and now carried it in a sling. He is the middle
child, aged four. Philip, the oldest, is six years old, and he is the one
who carries lunch to his father each day. Tommy is the baby, only two
years old. Mrs. Whelchel fixed the orange, while Bobby stood at her side,
very shy in the presence of the visitors, and whispered something in her
ear. In a few minutes Philip came in, also very shy, and walked timidly
into the back part of the house. "Hello, Doll," greeted Mrs. Whelchel, but
the little fellow was too timid to reply where the strangers could
overhear. It was evident that Mrs. Whelchel was fond of all her children,
and we were surprised that they were so very timid. During the whole time
we were there they did not speak to us, though we tried to get a rise out
of them by making comments about the toy mechanical train and asking them
to explain how it worked.
Someone knocked on the door, and Mrs. Whelchel got up and paid the
insurance collector. "We have two policies on each child," she said. "We
let them lapse a while back, "but we've renewed them." One of the policies
on each child is with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and
includes a free nursing service. "Yes, it's right good," she answered our
query, "but when one of my children gets sick I don't wait for the nurse.
I send for the doctor right then." The nurse attended Mrs. Whelchel when
she returned from the hospital after her last confinement, and also helped
when the youngest child had the measles some weeks ago.
"No, we haven't got a car. We had one up to the time we moved over here.
We were living in a house up there near the school then, and paying
fifteen dollars a month rent. The landlady said we could have the house
for a year for that much, but in about six months she told us that in two
weeks the rent would be raised to twenty-two fifty." Both Mrs. Whelchel
and her husband were angry at this breach of contract, and decided to move
rather than pay more rent. They wanted to buy a home, but Mrs. Whelchel
knew that they could not afford both a home and a car. "'It's either a
home or a car," I said to Sam," Mrs. Whelchel related. "Sam sat there a
while, and said, 'I can't live in the car. I'll let the car go and get me
a house we can sleep in.' So we found this house and bought it because the
terms was reasonable, and it was close to Sam's work." When they moved
into their new home it needed much work done on it. The front yard was a
series of red gullies. There was no bathroom, and the only toilet was in a
shack connected to the back of the house. They fell to and sodded the
yard, built a concrete-floored bathroom with shower, and painted the
woodwork on the inside. Recently a new sleeping porch has been added, the
work being done by Mrs. Whelchel's father. The whole family sleeps on this
porch.
She carried us back through the house to see the sleeping porch, of which
she was very proud. On the way through the kitchen she showed us her
electric ironer and new gas stove. "A while back," she said, "when Sam was
laid off for so long, he wanted to let the ironer go, but I just couldn't
see it, with the two little ones coming on. We managed to hold on to
everything." While we were examining the new stream-lined kitchen stove
Mrs. Whelchel opened the oven door and gave us some cupcakes which she had
just baked. She gave us also a glass of milk each. She had told us before
that she kept a cow. "Sam can't quite see havin' her, but we use so much
milk I told him it was cheaper. Two quarts a day pays for the feed."
We asked if she ever sold any milk. "I have sold some, but we use it all
now." She also showed us a calf in the backyard, which she said they would
kill soon.
The sleeping porch was not so much a porch as we had imagined, having no
more windows than an ordinary bedroom.
In the living room we had seen a gas heater, and asked her now if that was
the only kind of heat they had. "That's all," she replied. "We have three
heaters, and an automatic water heater that holds thirty gallons, and a
gas refrigerator." We wondered if this were not expensive. "Cheapest heat
we've ever had," she said. "Our gas bill was five dollars and two cents
last month, and the coldest month last year was only eleven dollars. The
other people around here burn about a ton of coal a month, and we figure
this is cheaper.
There are two boarders with the Whelchels. "Sam kind of lets me do what I
want to with the board money," she said, "but I usually pay bills with
it." Besides this extra income from boarders, they sometimes sell milk or
chickens. "We raised thirty-five chickens once, and sold enough of them to
pay for the cost and the feed, and had the rest clear. We ate about twenty
of them ourselves." Although Mrs. Whelchel does not sew for others, she
does her own sewing. "I sew it all," she said. "Make clothes for the
children and for myself too." It was apparent that the dress she was
wearing was home-made.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Whelchel were reared on farms in the northeast section
of Georgia. Mr. Whelchel worked in all the surrounding states before
finally settling down. "I always said that he went all over the country
first, and then come back home to get him a wife," commented Mrs. Whelchel.
They are both between thirty and thirty-five years old.
Mrs. Sam E. Whelchel
1391 Miller Reed Ave., S.E.
Atlanta, Ga.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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