From Sadie's great-granddaughter:

12-30-07: I am the great-granddaughter of Sadie Barton. I've been pouring over the information in your website about the Lewis Hine Project and have enjoyed learning about an aspect of my family history that I knew little about. I knew little about my great-grandmother except her very long name and a few stories told by my father. I've actually never seen a picture of her. It's been quite spooky looking at the photo, as it looks exactly like my Papa Jim (her only son who survived childhood) and a bit like my father, myself, and my youngest daughter Nora (we all have the same eyes).

I've always found the hold that the textile industry had on the South very interesting. I grew up in Lancaster, where numerous members of both my mother's and father's families worked for Springs Industries. I always said that I would leave South Carolina as fast as I could! After graduate school my husband and I moved to Washington, DC, where we lived for eight years. After two children however, we were in need of family and free babysitters, and we moved back this year.

We live about half an hour from Lancaster, in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. We found a beautiful "traditional neighborhood development" that we love (see: http://www.villageofbaxter.com/). We then discovered that our development is owned by Clear Springs Development, the real estate division of Springs Industries. They owned a good bit of land in the area and have worked to create "responsible" developments. We now live on Mills Lane (oh the irony!).

So the company that put my nine-year-old grandmother to work now caters to my five and two-year-old daughters as they walk for an ice cream cone or ride in their little wagon to art class in the cute town center designed by Clear Springs (all in the style of the traditional southern towns, of course). What a difference a hundred years makes…right?

-Shelley Howard-Robinson