It is about Chatham Manufacturing Company and my grandfather George Robert Hall who retired from there. My grandfather had eight brothers and sisters and were farmers in Patrick County Virginia. My grandfather was the eldest of the family and left his home in Patrick County and moved to Draper North Carolina where he met my grandmother Nannie Hopper Hall and he worked in the Draper Mills. Later my grandfather's siblings and his dad John Curtis Hall all left the farm in Patrick County Virginia to work in the mills at Draper North Carolina. All of my grandfather's family and my grandmother's family were textile people and retired from what was called Fieldcrest Cannon. When the depression came my grandfather had moved to the town of Swannanoa North Carolina close to Asheville and worked for Beacon Manufacturing Company. I have been there and the factory has been leveled where it once stood. The Chatham family gave my grandfather the opportunity to come to their factory in Elkin North Carolina in 1934 and placed him over the Weave Room because he had the great ability of fixing looms where he also patented some looms for them and standardized the looms for them. He educated the other men to do the same where they could all work on the looms.
The second World War came and men were enlisting to go fight in the war an act of patriotism that we don't see in this day and time and my Uncle George Curtis Hall enlisted and left home where he too worked at Chatham Manufacturing Company. He was in the 80th General Hospital and never made it to the Philippines where he was to be deployed but died of a kidney disease in California and was transported back home to my grandfather and grandmother and they were devastated. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Elkin and there is a plaque at the Elkin Municipal Park with his name on it along with all the others who died in the War for the Chatham Employees and their families. Chatham Manufacturing did real well during the war effort because they supplied the blankets for the war.
Since 1988 the Company has been sold and has changed ownersip several times currently being owned by a company today called True Textiles and only a small portion of the facility is being used.
Most of the buildings where people spent their livelihood are standing empty compared to the giant it was back before 1988.
Textile
Town (Ghost Cry Out From the Looms)
Eight brothers and sisters grew up on a farm
We worked in the fields each day
Then the mills came and gave us a job
To weave and spin was our way
The Depression came and the mill didn't fall
We new how to live from our past
As farmers before we knew how to plow
How long would this Depression last
Textile
town where have you
gone
The mill that blessed us with food
Greed sent all of our jobs to
a foreign land
And the ghosts cry out from the looms
The Second War came our sons went away
Their mothers grieved their loss
Some never came home but the
blankets were made
The war and their lives was the cost
gone
The mill that blessed us with food
Greed sent all of our jobs to
a foreign land
And the ghosts cry out from the looms
The Second War came our sons went away
Their mothers grieved their loss
Some never came home but the
blankets were made
The war and their lives was the cost
Chorus
One
day I came home and our mill
was sold
Our jobs was sent overseas
Now I drive a hundred miles
to feed my family
was sold
Our jobs was sent overseas
Now I drive a hundred miles
to feed my family
Chorus
© 2016 Keith Hall
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