Edited interview with Howard Leazer (HL), son of James Leazer. Interview conducted by Joe Manning (JM) on September 5, 2008.

JM: What did you think when you saw the picture?

HL: It was just overwhelming. That was 1912, and I was born in 1932. I had never seen my mother or my father looking so youthful. They were both very handsome folks at that time. I was amazed, and so was my one surviving sister when she saw it. My mother had 14 children. My oldest sister, Ruby, the baby in the picture, only lived a few years.

JM: How many of the children survived until adulthood?

HL: Only seven. I think there were two born after me, and one lived about six months and the other not much longer. Probably all these kids that died - if someone had taken them to a doctor, or they could have afforded to take them to a doctor - they might have lived. My mother and father separated in 1946.

JM: Why did they separate?

HL: My father was a bad guy. He brought another woman into our house once. He snuck her in the back door. He would come home intoxicated and just beat up on everybody, for no reason. I can still remember things like that from my childhood. I remember one time he hit me with a two-by-four. When they split up, I don't know where he went, but then he showed up at our house again one time when my mother was home. I was working at the cotton mill, and she came and told me that my father was at the house and that he was drunk. So I started toward home right away, and he met me about halfway, and he had a knife in his hand. He looked like he was going to attack me. That was about 1949.

JM: How was he able to work and support such a large family, will all the problems that he had?

HL: My mother did it all. She would have a baby one day, and go to work the next day.

JM: Was that at the Highland Park Mill?

HL: No, that was before I was born. This was at the Victoria Mill, also in Rock Hill. Both my parents were weavers there.

JM: How did your mother take care of the children while she was working?

HL: One of the older siblings took care of us.

JM: Did most of your siblings go to school?

HW: Yes, but none of them graduated from high school, including me. I dropped out in the eighth grade and went to work in the mill. I worked there till I was 17, and then went into the Navy. At the beginning of WWII, my oldest sister was married and had a child, and she and her husband moved to Baltimore and worked at the old Martin Company, which is now Lockheed Martin. My two other sisters followed her up there during the war years and worked there, too. When I got out of the Navy, in 1953, I went to work as a machinist at Martin. My wife and I got married in 1955. We first lived in Baltimore, then in Towson, near Baltimore, and then we moved to a small town in Pennsylvania just across the Maryland line. We lived there for about 20 years, and then in 1999, we moved down here to Florida.

JM: When your parents split up, how did your mother continue to support the family?

HL: At that time, it was only me and my younger brother at home. When I went into the Navy, I sent her a monthly allotment, because she was unable to work, for health reasons. At that time, the mill was about ready to shut down anyway. I went back there a few years later, and the mill and all the millhouses were completely gone.

JM: After they split up, did she have any kind of relationship with your father?

HL: No, she didn't. I believe he moved to Delaware, where one of his sisters lived. He stayed with her for a while, and then he showed up again, in Baltimore, and stayed with me for a little while. That must have been about 1961 or so.

JM: How did that work out?

HL: He just drank all the time. I never had any kind of civil conversation with him that I can remember. He finally left voluntarily, and my wife said she found wine bottles in all the cupboards. I had an older brother who lived in Rock Hill, and I believe my father spent some time with him.

JM: I hope you don't mind me asking the obvious question. Why did your mother put up with your father so long, and have 14 children by him?

HL: I have no idea.

JM: I know that it's hard for a woman to deal with an abusive husband. Sometimes they are afraid to do anything about it, or they feel shamed by it.

HL: The shame was probably the main reason. Of course, that still happens today.

JM: Do you have any idea why your father was the way he was?

HL: I have no idea. He had five or six brothers and sisters, and they were all decent people.

JM: Did you know your father's parents?

HL: Yes, but they both died in about 1946. I was 14 then. They owned a farm in North Carolina, and we had no transportation, so I never really got to know them.