No Skyward Window
Raised on farms outside present-day Gastonia and Mount Holly, James Lee "Lee" Love (1860-1954) became a successful college administrator and instructor, and member of a great North Carolina textile family. His father, R.C.G. Love, was one of Gaston County's cotton-manufacturing pioneers. His son, J. Spencer Love, founded and directed Burlington Industries. No Skyward Window is Lee Love's account of his boyhood. His narrative captures an agrarian way of life that the southern textile revolution overwhelmed. His story also documents his family's involvement in the birth of the local textile industry. This is the best surviving history of rural Gaston County after the Civil War and, in particular, the Woodlawn community near present-day Mount Holly. Love describes this world with first-hand knowledge and great richness and detail, preserving much local history that would otherwise be lost. No Skyward Window is also the poignant memoir of an introspective, intellectually curious boy struggling to be himself in a practical, puritanical family. The book will be interesting to all students of Gaston County history and to anyone who appreciates the aspirations of an imaginative, scholarly young man living in a conventional home whose members valued home economy, industry, and church.