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A Look Back: Century Christmas In The 1930’s
December 25, 2017
Here’s a look back at Christmas past for the Alger-Sullivan Lumber Company and what is now Century.
In the top photo, Mr. James H. Jones is seen giving out presents to Alger-Sullivan Lumber Co. employee children in the 1930’s. By the 1940’s, this practice had been discontinued, but Mr. Hauss always sent some families a tin of dates from California. The company always seemed to be interested in keeping families together and satisfied, although when it came to the job, it was hard-nosed about making sure the workers gave a day’s work for a day’s pay.
The picture below depicts a scene in December 1936 from one of the logging camps in the woods where races were mixed on the job, despite the attitude towards segregation. Here you see two of the bosses, Fred Gilmore and Mr. Luke Earl (with glasses), a somewhat beloved woods foreman, and a group of workers and children observing Santa Claus as he holds a little boy at their Christmas gathering. Several of the children are clutching their little bags of goodies, probably candy and some trinkets, that Santa had passed out earlier. It’s not know what purpose the wash pot, if any, played in the festivities.
Photos courtesy the Alger-Sullivan Historical Society (top) and Photo by Fischer (bottom) for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Comments
3 Responses to “A Look Back: Century Christmas In The 1930’s”
I can remember Grand Ma Jones washing clothes in a pot just
like that in Century when I was a young boy. Had a fire pit it
sat in to get water boiling and then in with the clothes, stir them
with a rod or big stick.
Billy, we used a buried 55 gallon metal drum in a fire pit for hogs because the pots were not large enough. LOL family of nine with only one girl. Feeding growing teen boys was quite the job. Always had three large deep freezer full. One for the beef or pork two full of veggies. To say the lease we worked all summer to keep food for the winters.
As I was growing up it was common to use a washpot to dip the chicken in making it to remove the feathers. We slso Used it to dip the hog in to scrap the hair when butchering it for food. Of course it would be used for washing clothes.
It would be used to cook large amounts of food by boiling it. You might say it was essential to feed a large number of people living at the camp in this caae.