ArtFire

This matched pair of antique hardwood bobbins with steel ends each stand 9" tall.

They come from a typical New England Spinning Factory, much like Dana Warp Mills in Westbrook Maine, the mill that my maternal Grandmother "Dolly" worked in for most of her life.

These lovely old worn tools remind me of her and the labors of thousands of women and children who worked those New England mills and who's callused hands touched these tools 8 hour a day, 5 days a week for decades on end.

Many people use these bobbins as rustic candle sticks or place them on a wooden base and fashion them into table lamps.
I like them displayed as-is, as a tangible reminder of the lives and labors of those dear souls who are gone.
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Millworker Song

Now my grandfather was a sailor
He blew in off the water
My father was a farmer
And I, his only daughter.
Took up with a no good millworking man
From Massachusetts
Who dies from too much wh!skey
And leaves me these three faces to feed.

Millwork ain't easy
Millwork ain't hard
Millwork it ain't nothing
But an awful boring job.
I'm waiting for a daydream
To take me through the morning
And put me in my coffee break
Where I can have a sandwich
And remember.

Then it's me and my machine
For the rest of the morning
For the rest of the afternoon
And the rest of my life.

Now my mind begins to wander
To the days back on the farm
I can see my father smiling at me
Swinging on his arm.
I can hear my Granddad's stories
Of the storms out on Lake Erie
Where vessels and cargoes and fortunes
And sailors' lives were lost.

Yes, but it's my life that's been wasted
And I have been the fool
To let this manufacturer
Use my body for a tool.
I can ride home in the evening
Staring at my hands
Swearing by my sorrow that a young girl
Ought to stand a better chance.

So may I work the mills just as long as I am able
And never meet the man whose name is on the label.

It be me and my machine
For the rest of the morning
And the rest of the afternoon
Gone for the rest of my life.

1982 Jennifer Warnes

wood, maple, boxwood, steel