Tom Camp

The following anecdote is not about Cliffside, but could be. It is about our friend Tom Camp’s youth in a very similar mill village, Lily Mill in Shelby, NC. We had to share it with you.

We had one of those company-owned four-room houses with beds everywhere but the kitchen. The bathroom was located on the back porch, like a utility room. No heat out there. In the winter Dad used to get up early, heat a piece of iron that looked like the weight from a window sash, by ramming it into the hot coals of the coal heater. Then, with tongs, he would carry the red-hot iron piece out to the bathroom, and stick it in the commode to melt the ice so we could use and flush the darn thing. (If the bathroom had had a tub we likely would have kept it full of coal.) We had [tin] tubs for washing clothes and ourselves when we felt the need.