Betty Esper (BE): Businesses never closed till nine, ten o'clock at night because there was always something going on. And the avenue was full of two things, bars and churches. I always laugh when I tell people, I don't know if we drank and prayed or prayed and drank.

Mark Fallon (MF): So you started working in the mill in 1951. How did you get your job?

BE: I started out as the messenger. Started out at the bottom and you know, worked my way up. It was my only job. You know, it was such a busy place all my life. Watching men coming in and out and knew the guards at the gate. You spend more time in the mill than you spend at home. It was like my family.

MF: How many years did you end up working at the mill.

BE: Thirty-six.

MF: So your last year would have been when the mills closed.

BE: Exactly. And, ah, it was a funny feeling. I drove out of the mill my last day, and when I drove out of the mill there wasn't one soul at the gate. And I said, my god, thirty-six years and I don't have nobody to even say goodbye to.

BE: When the mills did shut down it affected people's lives to an extent that's almost unfathomable.

BE: Yeah, it affected a lot of people. And they were loyal people, loyal to the core. And what the hell did it get'em. I mean, if you're a man forty years old and you're gonna lose your job, you gotta get your kid out of college, you got to get rid of a car and you've lost your mortgage probably on your house. I knew acquaintances that became alcoholics. I knew guys that their marriages went on the blink because of it, ah...suicides. It was a tough time.

MF: I've always heard stories that people felt the mills would come back. Did you have that feeling or...?

BE: You know, it's just like saying your father and mother would never split up and you would never imagine that that could happen. It's just hard to know that something that was so big and great is not coming back.