Meandering
Yesterday I found myself headed to see Charlie.
Only I wasn't headed to his place by way of my normal path - down the highway, through town, almost directly to his little shop.
Instead, I remembered when I was almost to TR and took one of the lesser traveled meanderings through the mill communities - almost from one end to the other of the mill villages in Greenville. Basically, I started in San Souci and wound up in Dunean. Charlie's shop is at the very edge of Dunean.
The mill communities are what brought my family to Greenville in the early part of the 20th century. More aptly, my grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides.
They came from the mountains of Western NC and the farming communities in Northern GA to work in the cotton mills. It was hard to make a living in the remote areas, but the cotton mills had plenty of work. Greer, Anderson, Laurens, and Greenville are all places various members of my family ended up, but mostly in Greenville.
My great-grandfather played mill league baseball with the infamous Shoeless Joe Jackson and worked in a barber shop after he left the mill. My grandmother worked in the mills until the late '70's/early 80's. My Dad worked in several mills across the Upstate until the mid-70's. Another great-grandfather was still working in a mill in Laurens on an "as needed" basis into the early '80's. Those mills pretty much supported my immediate and extended family for four generations.
It's a good thing knowing your own history.
Names like Judson, Dunean, Monaghan, San Souci, Brandon, City View and a few others ring deep within me due to my family's association with them over the last 100 years or so. I spent a lot of time as a kid riding down streets like 3rd Avenue in Judson, bouncing high enough to hit my head on the roof of my uncle's pickup truck at every intersection; walking to People's Pharmacy with my grandfather, which meant crossing Pendleton from their little asbestos-sided mill house; visiting my other grandparents and their nice vegetable garden and a fisherman's haven, of sorts - my Grandpa's shed where he kept lures and rods and reels and even a worm & cricket farm; and generally exploring the poorest areas of Greenville (where many members my family lived) not knowing or caring about poverty.
So yesterday I meandered through several of those places again - down Old Buncombe through San Souci. Cut across to Monaghan then through City View to Woodside. Past what used to be Tucker's to Brandon jaunt over to Judson and then finally into, and almost out of, Dunean until I ended up @ Charlie's @ the end of Smythe Avenue (not Smythe St - that's in Monaghan). I went by the first house I owned in Monaghan; past the house where my favorite great-great aunt lived, and where I developed my love of figs, in City View; by the old Parker High School which is being turned into a Charter School (and here I thought I was going to somehow manage an incursion into it when it was vacant for a resplendent photographic adventure); down Woodside Avenue where my uncle used to get ticketed for going 2mph over the speed limit (about once a month for nearly a year); past where the pharmacy used to be and by my grandparents' old house on Kitson; by the old Boy Scouts log cabin; across Easley Bridge Rd and down 3rd Avenue (this time in my truck, but I was buckled up and my head wouldn't have hit the roof at the speed I was traveling); by the house on Goodrich where my Mom was born (literally, born in the house itself, not in a hospital); across Anderson Rd and into Dunean - which gives any of the mill communities a good run for their money when it comes to being the nicest mill community in Greenville, at least in terms of aesthetics - to Smythe Avenue, the avenue where the old mill supervisor's homes have been lovingly remodeled and restored to a splendor probably far beyond their heydays.
Old textile mills across the area are vacant and decrepit now. Paint is peeling from walls. Ceilings are falling in. The parking lots are overgrown, some beyond recognition; but several of the mills have been "re-purposed" over the years since they ceased production. Mills Mill was once a shopping mall and has now become condominiums; Monaghan Mill has become apartments; Brandon Mill and many of the others were turned into warehousing locations with a smattering of other small businesses thrown into the dark recesses; Poe Mill and U.S. Finishing (Old Buncombe, on the edge of San Souci) burned while Victor Mill in Greer was dismantled and beams and bricks were sold for salvage for a while. Who knows what will happen to the rest of them over the years?
Me, after I left Charlie's, I actually backtracked just to see those familiar places again. But I slowed down on my trip back through Dunean and Judson and Brandon and Woodside and Monaghan and City View and San Souci. I looked closely at the houses, the streets, and the people. I went far out of my way just to remember where it is I've been. To truly see the places that birthed me, sustained me, and motivated me on to other things in life.
I know I'll continue to travel through those communities so I can see the continued change, for better or for worse, as long as I'm able.
One thing's for certain, I'd love to gain access to some of those old mills and other structures so I could document that continued change.
Only I wasn't headed to his place by way of my normal path - down the highway, through town, almost directly to his little shop.
Instead, I remembered when I was almost to TR and took one of the lesser traveled meanderings through the mill communities - almost from one end to the other of the mill villages in Greenville. Basically, I started in San Souci and wound up in Dunean. Charlie's shop is at the very edge of Dunean.
The mill communities are what brought my family to Greenville in the early part of the 20th century. More aptly, my grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides.
They came from the mountains of Western NC and the farming communities in Northern GA to work in the cotton mills. It was hard to make a living in the remote areas, but the cotton mills had plenty of work. Greer, Anderson, Laurens, and Greenville are all places various members of my family ended up, but mostly in Greenville.
My great-grandfather played mill league baseball with the infamous Shoeless Joe Jackson and worked in a barber shop after he left the mill. My grandmother worked in the mills until the late '70's/early 80's. My Dad worked in several mills across the Upstate until the mid-70's. Another great-grandfather was still working in a mill in Laurens on an "as needed" basis into the early '80's. Those mills pretty much supported my immediate and extended family for four generations.
It's a good thing knowing your own history.
Names like Judson, Dunean, Monaghan, San Souci, Brandon, City View and a few others ring deep within me due to my family's association with them over the last 100 years or so. I spent a lot of time as a kid riding down streets like 3rd Avenue in Judson, bouncing high enough to hit my head on the roof of my uncle's pickup truck at every intersection; walking to People's Pharmacy with my grandfather, which meant crossing Pendleton from their little asbestos-sided mill house; visiting my other grandparents and their nice vegetable garden and a fisherman's haven, of sorts - my Grandpa's shed where he kept lures and rods and reels and even a worm & cricket farm; and generally exploring the poorest areas of Greenville (where many members my family lived) not knowing or caring about poverty.
So yesterday I meandered through several of those places again - down Old Buncombe through San Souci. Cut across to Monaghan then through City View to Woodside. Past what used to be Tucker's to Brandon jaunt over to Judson and then finally into, and almost out of, Dunean until I ended up @ Charlie's @ the end of Smythe Avenue (not Smythe St - that's in Monaghan). I went by the first house I owned in Monaghan; past the house where my favorite great-great aunt lived, and where I developed my love of figs, in City View; by the old Parker High School which is being turned into a Charter School (and here I thought I was going to somehow manage an incursion into it when it was vacant for a resplendent photographic adventure); down Woodside Avenue where my uncle used to get ticketed for going 2mph over the speed limit (about once a month for nearly a year); past where the pharmacy used to be and by my grandparents' old house on Kitson; by the old Boy Scouts log cabin; across Easley Bridge Rd and down 3rd Avenue (this time in my truck, but I was buckled up and my head wouldn't have hit the roof at the speed I was traveling); by the house on Goodrich where my Mom was born (literally, born in the house itself, not in a hospital); across Anderson Rd and into Dunean - which gives any of the mill communities a good run for their money when it comes to being the nicest mill community in Greenville, at least in terms of aesthetics - to Smythe Avenue, the avenue where the old mill supervisor's homes have been lovingly remodeled and restored to a splendor probably far beyond their heydays.
Old textile mills across the area are vacant and decrepit now. Paint is peeling from walls. Ceilings are falling in. The parking lots are overgrown, some beyond recognition; but several of the mills have been "re-purposed" over the years since they ceased production. Mills Mill was once a shopping mall and has now become condominiums; Monaghan Mill has become apartments; Brandon Mill and many of the others were turned into warehousing locations with a smattering of other small businesses thrown into the dark recesses; Poe Mill and U.S. Finishing (Old Buncombe, on the edge of San Souci) burned while Victor Mill in Greer was dismantled and beams and bricks were sold for salvage for a while. Who knows what will happen to the rest of them over the years?
Me, after I left Charlie's, I actually backtracked just to see those familiar places again. But I slowed down on my trip back through Dunean and Judson and Brandon and Woodside and Monaghan and City View and San Souci. I looked closely at the houses, the streets, and the people. I went far out of my way just to remember where it is I've been. To truly see the places that birthed me, sustained me, and motivated me on to other things in life.
I know I'll continue to travel through those communities so I can see the continued change, for better or for worse, as long as I'm able.
One thing's for certain, I'd love to gain access to some of those old mills and other structures so I could document that continued change.
posted by Raymond at Friday, August 27, 2010
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