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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 397
HELEN WEBSTER RECTOR
(Interviewed March 2005 and May 2005)
The Family
Helen Rector was a young girl when her father rented a house on the Parcel shown as A-33, owned by Lillian McDonnell. Helen said that was in about 1937 or 1938 when the mill closed one day, abruptly, after the third shift.
Helen Rector.
The union was coming into Huntsville. The mill workers, who paid 50 cents a week rent for their houses, had to swear they wouldn't
join the union. If they did not sign a pledge that they would not join, they had to move out of mill housing. Her father, Ridley Carr Rector did not like being told what to do and would not sign the pledge, and so it was that they came to rent a tenant house on A-33.
Ridley Rector (born Jan. 29, 1911) came from a family of seven boys and two girls. His father, Calvin Rector (born Nov. 25, 1875), was the Sheriff of Crossville Tennessee until he arrested a bootlegger, and by the time the case came before the judge, his seven sons had drunk all of the evidence. Seeking new employment, Calvin, along with his wife Octavia and his sons and daughters, moved to Huntsville. That was about 1926.
Five of the seven Rector brothers. Back row: Ohmer, Howard, and Ridley. Front Row: Johnny and Alvin Depoe Rector.
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