Edited interview with Peggy Smith (PS), niece of Fannie Sweeney. Conducted by Joe Manning (JM), on March 26, 2009. Transcribed by Hilary Buxton and edited by Manning.

JM: Fannie grew up in a very large family. Did she talk a lot about that?

PS: She reminisced quite a bit about it. They were a very close family. They stayed close in touch and got along very well with each other.

JM: Was there a time when most of the children were living in the house at the same time?

PS: Well, I have one picture of 13 of the children with their parents. The father, James Jefferson Sweeney, had two wives and 19 children altogether. The first wife died, and then he married the second wife, who was the mother of Fannie.

JM: What was the name of the first wife?

PS: I have a printout of the family history right in front of me. Her name was Artelia Foster. He married her on February 24, 1869. She died November 3, 1880, in Lynchburg, Tennessee. His second marriage was to Martha Jane Eslick, on March 20, 1884. The last child of that marriage was my mother, Lela. She was born in 1908.

JM: Were all of the children from the first marriage out of the home by the time the children from the second marriage came?

PS: Probably. Two of those children died in infancy. The family was living in Limestone County, Alabama, at the time that Fannie and my mother were born.

JM: What brought them from Limestone to Tennessee?

PS: Most of the children were old enough to work, so the family moved here to work in the cotton mill. They actually moved back to Alabama again, to Huntsville, a few years later, and worked in the mills down there. Then they returned to Fayetteville again.

JM: When they were in Limestone, did the parents work in the mills?

PS: No, they were sharecroppers.

JM: Did Fannie talk about working as a child?

PS: I remember her talking about being in the mill when they were children, and I heard the stories about how they would hide the children when the inspectors were around.

JM: The caption on her picture says she's seven years old. The family history information I have confirms that. That's pretty young. I presume she was helping her sister and hadn't become a full-fledged worker yet.

PS: I don't remember her talking about being a full-time worker at that age, but I know she did start work at the mills at a young age.

JM: Did she work at the mill after she got married?

PS: Fannie and her husband Frank worked at that mill all their life, until they retired. Frank died at the age of 61, and she worked a number of years after that.

JM: How many children did they have?

PS: Just one. Her name was Jean.

JM: What kind of a house did Fannie and Frank live in when they got married?

PS: They lived in a house that was close to the mill. They owned it. The house is still there.

JM: What about the house Fannie grew up in?

PS: I know of two or three of the mill houses that they lived in, and then later they lived in an area called Mulberry, out in the country near Fayetteville?

JM: When did Fannie marry Frank?

PS: January 5, 1923.

JM: Did she work while she was raising the one child?

PS: Yes.

JM: What did she do at the mill?

PS: She was what they called a winder.

JM: What was your Aunt Fannie like?

PS: She was very independent, and a very self-sufficient person. She was very frugal; in fact, you might say she was tight as far as money was concerned. She was tough and strong willed. A lot of people thought of her as a hard person, but underneath, there was a softness about her, and she had a funny side about her, too. She had a kind of a subtle sense of humor. If she was in the mood, she could be hilarious. She talked a lot about her church; she was strong about her Southern Baptist belief. She was a very moral person and thought everyone else should be. She was also very intuitive. She could size up anybody with just a little bit of intertwining with a person. Nobody could fool her. And she was very quick to tell you what she thought about something. She had strong opinions. But if you looked at the record, she was usually right.

JM: How far did she get in school?

PS: Probably not farther than grammar school. I know my mother went to high school a little when they were in Alabama, but I've never heard Aunt Fannie talk about it.

JM: Did her daughter Jean finish school?

PS: Yes, she finished high school and married soon after, which was against Fannie's wishes terribly, because June had wanted to go to business school, and then she didn't.

JM: Did Jean stay in the area all her life?

PS: She was here for a while and then lived in Atlanta. But she came back when she retired, but she died right after Fannie did.

JM: Did Fannie and Frank live in the same house all their lives?

PS: When they were thinking of retiring, they had another house built over closer to the city of Fayetteville. Just before Frank died, they had bought a little farm - they were going to move to the farm when they retired - but after he died they sold the farm and then she stayed in the house that they had built.

JM: So maybe if he hadn't died, they would have both retired?

PS: Yes, that's what they had planned.

JM: Did you know Fannie' parents?

PS: No, they were both dead before I was born.