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Julia Rhodes

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She was still too young to work when she met John and they decided to get married. She was 15 years old and he was 20. John worked in the mill. Julia's first baby was born when she was 16. After that a new one came every year or two. Now Julia is 35 and she and John have eight children, six boys and two girls.

Their home is on Peachtree Avenue in Avondale Mill Village. It is a dingy brown little four-room cottage on a hillside and it is surrounded by a grove of trees, most of them pines. Other similar cottages are dotted here and there on the hill-side Julia likes this place "right well" because the children can play in the back yard among the trees.

Julia is proud of her children, every one of them, and wants them to get "some schoolin'". But her John finds it difficult to provide for eight children with only one of them old enough to work in the mill. He is a weaver and "makes a right good salary — that is, when he can get regular work." But, even so, their income is very inadequate.

Herbert, their oldest child, is 19. He plays football and is able to work in the mill mornings and attend school in the afternoon. His mother said Herbert used to have a terrible cough "from smokin' cigarettes". He could not sleep at night. Five months ago he gave up tobacco and now he can sleep almost all night without coughing, Julia explained. "Smokin' was sure bad for him," she remarked earnestly.

I found the second child, Myrtle, a bright, and intelligent girl and one who would be considered good looking in any walk of life. She had to give up school to look after her younger brothers and baby sister, so that her mother ocould work in the

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