Happy Labor Day Weekend

I wish everyone a very happy and safe labor day weekend. I'm sharing these photos from Pinterest.  I'd like to dedicate this post to all of the generations before us. Those who worked with their hands and their hearts to plant the roots of growth deeply in the soil of our our existence so that America would thrive and life would become easier for those of us that would follow.  

 Tobacco farming was thriving during the early days of my life. My family had began life as farmers and had moved into the city but through extended family I spend many blessed hours on their family farm. The fields were still by tended by mule and plow and the days were long and hard. For many years into the late 50's and early 60's young children would work at the tobacco barns to earn extra money for school clothes. It was hard work but it was welcomed work to many a child and many families that depended on the harvest to survive another year.
                                                                                                                                                           
   

Every region of this land and every person lifted their hearts and hands to hard labor to survive and were daily grateful for the freedom and right to work and make do with Gods blessings and the blessings of the good earth.

I grew up near a cotton mill, one of the oldest in the state and knew many wonderful people that worked in the mill. My step fathers mother had worked in the mill for 50 years. In the early years of the 20th century a child could start work at nine years old. Small boys and girls working long hours at a hard job that many adults would refuse to do in today's world.

My aunts worked in factories making clothing. Production work with a very low rate of base pay but if you worked hard and produced more than the requirement for your position you could earn more money. Needless to say everyone worked as  hard as they possibly could.

In the 50's there was still the stay at home moms. Laundry and cooking and cleaning was hard labor and long hours. I just want to express my unending gratitude to the people that blessed my life. To the hard work and life lessons that made life easier for me and built a country from soil and sweat so that we can celebrate today.

                                              Blessings to you all past and present.