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Dorsey was a little boy who at the age of twelve left school and went to work along with his father in the local cotton mill. His sister, Nancy, began working as a spinner on the same mill at the age of eight, earning half a dollar a week. His brother Howard soon followed them to the cotton mill at the age of ten.

Children working in the mills were very common at the beginning of the 20th century. Child labor laws were very lax and mostly non-existent in our country during this time. Although some children could not even reach the machinery, they were provided with a stool or bench to work on, sometimes in 10- and 12-hour shifts.

As you can see, the Dixons weren’t the only family to put their sons to work in the mills at such a young age. Most of the families had given up farming and moved to the factory villages to find steady work at the local cotton mill. So people did what they had to do to survive.

During idle times at the mill and on Sundays, the Dixon family and their friends amused themselves by singing and playing any available instrument. Dorsey and Howard learned to sing and play at a young age.

While World War I was going on, the Dixon brothers got a job as signalmen for the Atlantic Coast Line Railway that ran through Darlington. In 1919 they lost their jobs along with thousands of other people who worked in the local factories.

Being a very hard-working man, Dorsey managed to get a job as a miller in Lancaster, South Carolina. In 1927, he got a better paying job in the cloth room of Entwistle #1 Mill in East Rockingham, North Carolina. long before his brother Howard, sister Nancy, and his parents moved from Lancaster and joined Dorsey to work at Entwistle Mills in Rockingham, NC

Also in 1927, Dorsey met the love of his life and married a co-worker named Beatrice Lucele Moody. Over the years they had four sons: Dorsey Jr., William, Thomas, and Roger.

In those days, a difference of ten cents or a quarter of an hour in pay could cause a mill worker to go to work in a different mill. So, it was with Howard Dixon who left Entwistle Mill and went to Hanna Pickett Mill down the road. Then it wasn’t long before Dorsey and Beatrice followed him.

When the mills were in full production, there was little time for personal interests or hobbies. Somehow, Dorsey found time to write poems and play music, things he discovered he was good at. He liked to write about past events that really stood out in his memory. One of his poems was about a disastrous school fire in 1923 that had claimed the lives of so many children in Cleveland SC. To these same lyrics from Dorsey’s poem, his mother and his brother Howard set them to the tune of “Life’s Highway to Heaven.” This song became an instant hit with all of his neighbors and Dorsey began writing in earnest, developing a pattern that he would follow for the rest of his life. Using his religious background and his knowledge of mill work as the backdrop for many of his original songs, things took off for him when he and his brother formed a musical duo. With Beatrice’s help, Dorsey and Howard were now playing many gigs in Rockingham and beyond.

In the 1930s, two events played a significant role in shaping Dixon’s musical career. It was a time of great unrest in the Carolina textile mills. The violent 1929 union strike in Gastonia, in which people were injured and even killed, fueled riots in Rockingham, where workers went on strike in 1931. In retaliation, William Cole, the ornery owner, closed two of his factories. , among which was Hanna Pickett. Why the strike also included Entwistle Mill, East Rockingham’s third factory. The town became embroiled in a bitter dispute between the mill owners and the workers. While picketing and supporting the union, Dorsey and Howard began writing and singing professional songs like “Weaver’s Life,” “Spinning Room Blues,” and one of their favorites, “Weave Room Blues.” The first verse of this song went like this: “Working in a weaving workshop fighting for my life, trying to make a living for my children and my wife, some need clothes, some need shoes, but I get nothing but the weave. -sad room. These songs and others expressed the discontent of the people who traded in the plow for looms to make their fortunes for the great textile giants. All these songs were being savored by the strikers at a time of great change for the textile industry. The mill strike continued for days and only thanks to the intervention of the governor of North Carolina was it resolved by both parties.

Next week I’ll tell you more about the Dixon brothers and how watching a horrible accident on a local highway inspired Dorsey to write one of country music’s favorite songs of his day.