Charles LeRoy Lewis - Special Collections - University of Baltimore

they were pretty much all native people from around here.
But they only brought these few in, but they kept them . . .
I don't know what kind of work they done, but I know they
couldn't go anywhere without - they had police stationed
there all the time in that little cubicle.
Harvey: Do you remember any fires in the m ills?
Lewis : No fires of any consequences when I was in the m ills
as a boy; even when I carried lunch to my grandfather down
around Mt, Vernon - well, he run carding machines in Mt.
Vernon m ill for years, lower Mt. Verncln for years - and I
used to carry his lunch. When he was up there I used to
carry his lunch in summertime it was on my vacation; got
a quarter a week for six days' work . . . and they were
all nice, dirty, dusty roads - you needed a bath every
evening before you even think about going to bed.
And the boys up an Mt. Vernon throw stones
sa all you had to do was push them, they was down in the
road there on Falls Road and had us dancing trying to duck
stones and not upset the lunches. In those days the wives
all sent hot lunches to the men working in the m ills when
you worked Mt. Vernon to Clipper.
And of course somebody has to work in the mill to live
in the company houses; and regardless of a lot of things that's
said about companies - when there was no work in the mills
and they were closed, the people didn't have to pay rent,
You didn't have to worry about getting shipped out, and the
company would haul wood and stuff through there for them.