Savannah Ballard married James Oscar Rimmer about 1916. They had about 10 children, five who died very young or at birth. Oscar, as he was called, passed away on September 10, 1973, at the age of 79. Savannah passed away on February 8, 1975, at the age 77.

Edited interview with Beatrice Gross (BG), daughter of Savannah Ballard. Interview conducted by Joe Manning (JM) on August 27, 2008.

JM: What did you think of the photo of your mother, and did you know she worked in a cotton mill at that age?

BG: The picture was beautiful. I didn't recognize her at first, but my daughter did, and that's strange. She said to me, "Mother, she looks just like you." I never knew she worked in a cotton mill at that age.

JM: It appears she was photographed in front of her home, probably a mill house near the Loray Mill.

BG: I don't remember that house.

JM: What was her mother's name?

BG: I don't know her real first name, but they called her Koot.

JM: My records indicate that her name was Meter Moss, and her father's name was Edward F. Ballard. Your mother's birth date is given as April 26, 1897. So she was 11 years old in the picture. When I talked to Jim Jarvis, your late sister's son, the first thing he said about the picture was, "I remember my grandmother Savannah always having her head cocked to the right, just like in the picture."

BG: That's true.

JM: When were you born?

BG: 1926.

JM: Where was your family living at that time?

BG: I don't remember living anywhere except in the country, in Iredell County, North Carolina, until we moved to the city, to Statesville, North Carolina.

JM: When you lived in the country, were you living on a farm?

BG: Yes. We were sharecroppers.

JM: How old were you when you moved to Statesville?

BG: We moved there when I was in the fourth grade, about 1935.

JM: Do you remember working on the farm?

BG: Yes, I remember picking cotton. My whole family did. We were cotton farmers. I used to ride with my father to the gin. I got to ride back home on the cotton seed.

JM: Did you like doing that?

BG: Oh, yea. I got a penny when I went with him.

JM: Why did you move to Statesville?

BG: My father couldn't make it on the farm. He got a job in the Bloomfield cotton mill (officially called Bloomfield Manufacturing Co.). My mother worked there sometimes when she filled in for someone else.

JM: How many children did your parents have?

BG: I think she had ten altogether, but only five of them lived, four girls and one boy. I was the fourth child.

JM: Did you work as a child?

BG: Oh, no. I went to school, but I quit in the seventh grade. None of us finished. My daddy let me quit, so I helped my mother in the house. My father kept working at the mill, and my parents never moved out of Statesville.

JM: When your mother died, was she still living at the same house you grew up in?

BG: No. When we first moved to Statesville, we lived on what they called the Bloomfield Mill Hill. Then we moved a little ways from that, but Daddy still worked at the mill. Then we moved back to the first house again. When my mother died, she was living in the house that we liked the most, up on another mill hill.

JM: Was it a bigger house?

BG: It was just five rooms, but all of the children were married and gone by then.

JM: On the death certificate, it gives her last address as 916 Knox Avenue.

BG: That's right; that's the one.

JM: You live in Florida now. When was the last time you were in Statesville?

BG: It's been some time ago.

JM: Do you know if the house is still there?

BG: No, I don't, but I'd like to go back and find out. Nobody ever goes up that way anymore. The last I heard, the family that lived there had cut down the two beautiful trees we had in the front yard.

JM: What was your mother like?

BG: My mother was the sweetest woman that walked. She never got mad or said bad things. She always treated us children alike. She didn't have any special ones. She was always there when she was needed, and you could always depend on her. And I loved her with all my heart. She was a good Christian woman. The Baptist church she went to, my father helped to build. As far as I know, my Aunt Lacy was a good woman, too. She was married and had one child, a boy.

JM: Did Lacy and your mother remain close?

BG: Well, she and her husband lived in Gastonia. We never did visit very much, but we wrote each other and kept in contact. We didn't have any way of travelling, except by wagon.

JM: How do feel about your mother working at a cotton mill at that young age?

BG: I feel kind of bad, but I guess that if they had to do it, they had to do it. I had to work when I was living on the farm. I guess I figure that all children did that back then.