Pickens Mill Girl

By Sherry Axler and Leah Ballard

Pickens Mill Girl is a vivid and heartfelt memoir with an invite to walk through my childhood from the bygone era in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. With a strong mother and quiet but supportive father they navigated their way through many life changes and hardships in a Cotton Mill Village in South Carolina. Having three sons before the age of twenty, my mother often said she grew up with them. My father, an intelligent man, had begun working in the mill at age 11 to help out his family. He was only eighteen and my mother thirteen when they were married. Nothing was more difficult than all three sons joining the Navy in World War II (the oldest returning a war hero) but with my untimely arrival when my mother was thirty-eight a new challenge began. The journey to learn what came before me and the impact on us all became a mission at an early age. My mother with her ambition and creativity pushed us all to excel. They were not a typical Mill Village couple but they were appreciative of their humble surroundings and the spirit of the people who lived there. This is a tribute to strength and love of family, how we coped and the role a small village played in our lives for two generations.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GZJB5JY9
• ISBN13: 9798274803755
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 66 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"