![]() ![]() ![]() This song became an instant hit among all their neighbors and Dorcey began to compose in earnest, developing a pattern he would follow for the rest of his life. With these same lyrics from Dorcey’s poem his mother and brother Howard set them to the tune of “Life’s Highway to Heaven”. One of his poems was about a disastrous school fire in 1923 that had taken the lives of so many children in Cleveland S.C. He liked to write about past events that had really stood out in his memory. Somehow Dorcey found the time to write poems and play music, things he found he was good at. When the mills were at full production there was little time for personal interest or hobbies. Then it wasn’t very long before Dorcey and Beatrice followed him. So, it was with Howard Dixon, who left Entwistle Mill and went to Hanna Pickett Mill just down the road. Through the years they had four boys: Dorcey Jr., William, Thomas and Roger.īack in those days, a dime or quarter an hour difference in pay could make a mill hand go to work at a different mill. Why it won’t long before his brother Howard, sister, Nancy, and their parents moved up from Lancaster and joined Dorcey working at Entwistle Mills in Rockingham, N.C.Īlso in 1927, Dorcey met the love of his life and married a fellow worker by the name of Beatrice Lucele Moody. ![]() In 1927, he got a better paying job in the cloth-room at Entwistle #1 Mill in East Rockingham, N.C. In 1919 they lost their jobs along with thousands of other folks who were employed at the local mills.īeing a hard- working man, Dorcey managed to land a job as a mill hand in Lancaster, S.C. While World War 1 was going on, the Dixon brothers got themselves a job as signalmen for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad which ran though Darlington. Dorcey and Howard learned to sing and play at a young age. Back then folks did what they had to do to survive.ĭuring slack times at the mill and on Sundays the Dixon family and their friends made their own entertainment by singing and playing whatever instrument was available. Most families had given up farming and moved to the mill villages to find steady work at the local cotton mill. Even though some children couldn’t even reach the machinery they were provided a stool or bench to work from, sometimes ten and twelve hour shifts.Īs you can see, the Dixons were not the only family who put their children to work in the mills at such an early age. Child labor laws were very slack and were mostly non-existent in our country during this time. Their brother Howard soon followed them into the cotton mill at age ten.Ĭhildren working in the mills were very common in the early 1900’s. His sister, Nancy, began working as a spinner at the same mill at age eight and earned half-a dollar a week. They were just two of seven children from the Dixon family who at the time lived in Darlington, S.C.ĭorcey was a small boy who at age twelve left school and went to work along with his father at the local cotton mill. or around the southeastern section of our great country.ĭorcey Dixon was born on Oct. Such was the case of the Dixon brothers who wrote and sang songs of actual events that happened right here in Richmond Co. Seems when we hear someone sing or tell a story it means more if these people have actually experienced the events. ![]()
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