Memories of Highland Mill Village, by "Pixie" Cox

I loved growing up in Highland. We moved there from Thomasville when I was about six years old.

My first memories there, are of the dirt road we lived on, being paved. One twenty four Fowler Street is where we lived.

A little girl running across there playing was to become one of my many friends. Ronda Cross and the family lived only one house below ours, so we soon came to know each other.

On down from us, on the same street was another close friend, Lisa Comer. I suppose these two were the ones I spent most of my time with while in Elementary school.

I guess it was a time of fixing up. The dirt road was paved, houses were underpinned, some had asbestos siding put over the wood frames, and the biggest to me was plumbing put in for inside bathrooms.

Lots of people in the past had

outside toilets, but our outside toilets flushed!

I started first grade that year at Cloverdale Elemantary, and we all walked with our own little group to school.

I don't think our mothers worried, as it was such a safer time.

I enjoyed our walks to school. Sometimes stopping in at Claude Lewis' cafe to spend part of my lunch money, or passing by a house to get a huge pear from the tree in that yard. Those pears were so cold and crisp on a fall morning.

We had everything we needed as a community. Most worked at the mill in Highland, but some like my dad, worked at the Pickett Cotton mill.

We had our two stores. One owned by Charlie Sizemore and the other owned by John Brogan. We shopped for our groceries, caught the school buses and met with our friends from these stores. You can't find

those feelings in our big stores today!

We also had our churches. The Baptist, the Methodist, and across the way a little bit, my church, the Holiness church.

I love the memories of the whistle blowing and the workers walking home, thier hair filled with cotton and staying up on summer nights until mama came home from the mill at 11:00

We played all over the "Hill" and were safe. Everyone knew everyone, and we were family.

As an end note, Everyone loved Charlie Brown, the meat cutter that worked at Charlie Sizemore's store across from the mill.

I never had met any of his family as I was growing up, but after I married and had children of my own, my oldest son is married to his grand daughter!

I am so thankful for my years in Highland!

Maud Smith (Pixie Cox)