Mary Bergman

Cone Mills Employee, Spinning Room

Initially I worked in the spinning department, then transferred to the stock room. In the spinning department, I was a spinning frame operator, it ran continuously. If the department was running the machines were going. Each shift had a person to relieve the other. Each employee was responsible for maintaining their machines, sometimes it was as many as 20 machines. Depending on the thread being created, the machines ran at different speeds, your day was determined by how fast your machines were running.

I was in the stock room for about 12 years. While there, I helped employees complete orders for repairs and re-stocking. I was responsible for inventory, receiving, stocking, and helping to locate and create special orders. I met employees from all departments.

First shift employees arrived at 7:00am and stayed until 3:00pm, the days were long and the work was hard. Lunches were when you could grab it and if you were caught up. Many times you missed a meal.

Special memories, were when the company first installed air conditioning in the spinning department. Suddenly you could see all the way across the department. The lint was gone!

I met and worked with many wonderful people that to this day I think of. We were like a family. Taking my daughter to the cloth store. Picking up fabric that you had a part in making, I was so proud in 1981, my daughter was awarded the Cone Mills Merit scholarship.

To this day, I can remember the heat. Air conditioning was a rare item at the mill. Finding out that the mill was closing was tough on us all.

Most of my family worked in one of the plants in Greensboro at some time in their life. My father retired from White Oak, my husband worked at Proximity and Revolution, my son worked there long enough to know he wanted to join the Coast Guard. The mills were a vital part of our lives growing up. According to my mother, I was born at Textile dairy, which was owned by Cone Mills. This dairy supplied food supplies to the employees of the mills. Prior to his working at White Oak, my father milked cows at the dairy. He was provided a house for him and his “growing” family. I also had an infant brother that died at birth and was buried by my father at the grave yard on Phillips Avenue. This grave yard was owned by Cone Mills and made available to the employees.