Chair, Rotork plc
Voices of Arthurdale-Dorothy Mayor Thompson
Dorothy Mayor Thompson, master weaver, lived in Arthurdale from 1934 to 1939. During her time in the homestead community she received a formalized education on weaving. In a 1990 interview with Augusta Heritage she shared her family history, her time living in Arthurdale, and her experience being an weaving apprentice.
Transcript (34 segments)
I
Interviewer0:22
Today is April 20th, 1990, and I'm in Canadian Valley talking to Dorothy Thompson. I just want to get some background information about your experience for the apprenticeship program. Let's start with how long you've been weaving.
D
Dorothy Thompson0:48
I guess my mother would weave carpet when I was about ten or more, and that's when I fell in love with weaving. We would string a warp up in the backyard, and for a loom we had a rigid heddle frame and my father made it. We've carpeted right as I was a child. And then of course we moved to Arthurdale, and they started vocational education when I was in my sophomore year, but I didn't take the class until junior year. So I've been weaving since '35, '36.
I
Interviewer1:45
Let's go a little further back then. Your parents were involved with weaving?
D
Dorothy Thompson1:49
Yeah, because I have some pieces of weaving that were done by my aunt in Europe.
I
Interviewer1:58
Is that right? Was it your mother's people, your father's people came from Europe?
D
Dorothy Thompson2:07
My mother's people. My father's the only one in his family that came over to this country.
I
Interviewer2:11
Okay, and you didn't know where they came from exactly?
D
Dorothy Thompson2:20
Not exactly. Somebody knows in the family and we just haven't done any work on getting a record of it. My father was a Slovak, so he lived someplace around the Tisza River, which is in Czechoslovakia. My mother was a Czech.
I
Interviewer2:53
So they were both immigrants, your mother and father?
D
Dorothy Thompson2:55
Oh yes. My mother was born in this country. Her father came over in the late 1890s, and she was born here, and they took her back as a child. He came over long enough to make some money to go back and buy some land. But then when my mother was 17, she came back in this country.
I
Interviewer3:42
Eventually you ended up in Arthurdale. What caused your parents to move there?
D
Dorothy Thompson3:56
The Friends Society started a woodworking shop around Morgantown, and then the next one they had was — they opened a branch on Bertha Hill, and it was in the basement of the boarding house. And that was when the Depression was on, and my father worked in that woodworking factory at Bertha Hill.
I
Interviewer4:28
You know where Bertha Hill is?
D
Dorothy Thompson4:29
It's a community right at the beginning of Scotch Run. You come down the river — the big bridge — anyhow you came down the river from Granville. There was a ferry across the river then, the Star City. From this side, anyhow, up on this hill was Bertha Hill, and up on that hill was Trope Hill, and then you went up Scottsdale — it was Osage and something else — until you got to Cassville. That's where we lived. He mined in that area, so he worked in the mines, but he also did woodworking at home.
I
Interviewer5:16
And you say the Society of Friends — let me just try to put a date on this. So you've been weaving since Arthurdale, which was about what year?
D
Dorothy Thompson5:35
In high school was '37, I took it in high school. But I was weaving since '36, even late maybe late '35, because that's at the community center, not in school. At the community center. I think Arthurdale — I know it was the first vocational school up in Preston County, I'm sure of that. And of course they taught the boys woodworking and building trades, and the girls took weaving and garment making. Our teacher was a Swedish girl who came over here to teach weaving.
I
Interviewer6:30
So you've been weaving 55 years, maybe?
D
Dorothy Thompson6:34
Yeah.
I
Interviewer6:38
Formally weaving 55 years?
D
Dorothy Thompson6:42
I was an apprentice. After I graduated, Eleanor Roosevelt set up a scholarship and I went to Louisville, Kentucky, to weave under a weaver there — L-O-U-T-A-T-E. That was a woman. She was Louise Tate Balzman, that was her name.
I
Interviewer7:12
Now I'm going to put some of this down on your tape so I can have a copy of that.
D
Dorothy Thompson7:25
It was a private home. The lady that Eleanor Roosevelt knew — she did a lot of research on the weavers weaving around Kentucky. She was a college graduate, a ballet dancer. She set her home up as a weaving center. And I bought it there. I had to weave a lot for my board, and I had to get a luncheon, get a meal or so, and do the dishes. I didn't have to do the housework except keep my room clean.
I
Interviewer8:17
How long did that last?
D
Dorothy Thompson8:19
Year and a half. It was a two-year scholarship, but I ran into some trouble. I wasn't getting any money, and my folks couldn't send me any. War was coming, and I got a job and I made enough money to get myself a ticket home, because I didn't want to be stuck down there without any money.
I think that type of apprenticeship — are you recording this? I don't know. I don't think that type of apprenticeship — see, they've asked me if I wanted an apprentice before this, and I said no, because she would have to live here. And I've had that experience and I didn't want to have that again. The living was just too close.
I
Interviewer9:27
Just let me ask you this — when you were doing that and you finished work, who did the work belong to?
D
Dorothy Thompson9:35
It belongs — she didn't pay me anything. I must have been getting a little something because I could travel around there. My folks were saying they might have sent me a little money. She must have been paying me something. But the work — she sold the work. Well, I guess she paid me for weaving it. That's something that's slipping my mind.
I
Interviewer10:03
And how old were you then?
D
Dorothy Thompson10:07
19. I went down in the fall of '39, and '40 and '41, because I did 18 months of it.
I
Interviewer10:31
So this apprenticeship — Eleanor Roosevelt set that up?
D
Dorothy Thompson10:35
Yes.
I
Interviewer10:36
Did you get to meet her?
D
Dorothy Thompson10:38
Oh yes! She was at our graduation. She did give the talk at our graduation. In fact, I think after the war really started, she didn't come back anymore to do that type of thing because she had other — she was already on other projects. She did a lot of traveling to the war zones for the president. Oh yes, I have a picture of her shaking my hand when I graduated. She was quite a lady.
Well, I'm getting ready to quit this foolishness. A friend of mine tells me — I've been saying that. She met me 13 years ago and she said I said it then. And that's what I've been kind of ready to quit it, until I see that I can't find anything else that I like better.