Things In Kentucky Politics Which Make Me Puke!

 1) In Kentucky, registered Repugnicans now outnumber Democrats.  

2) All statewide elected officials in Kentucky other than the governor and lieutenant governor are Right Wing Radical Repugnicans. 

3) In Kentucky, we simultaneously have the best governor in America and one of the 3 or 4 worst state legislatures in America. 

4) In the past 8 to 10 years in Kentucky, we have seen more repressive, regressive, and repulsive laws passed than we had in the previous 231 years of our statehood.

5) In the last 6 presidential elections in Kentucky, the state has voted for the Right Wing Radical Repugnican in each of those elections.  In 13 of the last 15 presidential elections, Kentucky has voted for the Right Wing Radical Repugnican.  Bill Clinton is the last Democratic presidential candidate who won Kentucky.   

6) In Kentucky, 5 of our 6 congress members are Right Wing Radical Repugnicans and so are both of our US Senators.  

7) The Right Wing Radical Repugnican state legislature has been allowed to gerrymander congressional districts to the point that no reasonable, well qualified Democrat can be expected to win over even the worst Right Wing Radical Repugnican such as Thomas Massie.  The maps of the congressional districts in Kentucky make districts 1 and 4 appear as if they were laid out by a drunk. 

8) In Kentucky, most elections have voter turnouts of less than 50% of registered voters year after year.  

9) The current Secretary of State in Kentucky has promoted numerous laws intended to bring about extensive voter suppression with little or no public opposition from most of the groups the suppression is intended to harm such as minorities, the poor, the poorly educated, the elderly, the young, the medically fragile, and other at risk groups. 

Tyranny by Snyder: Chapter 1

 Tyranny by Snyder

"Professing" and "Practicing": Two Very Different Words

 

In American politics today and over the last 8 to 12 years, one of the most influential groups has been those who describe themselves as "Christians" or "Conservative Christians".  Yet, very rarely do any of these people describe themselves as "Practicing Christians".  And therein lies a very serious problem of religious, moral, ethical, and political dichotomy, or more bluntly, political hypocrisy.  The problem is rooted in the very basic moral, ethical, religious, and political difference between the two words "Practicing" and "Professing" as they are or can be applied to religion, theology, politics, morals, and ethics.  The Oxford Language website defines "Practicing" in this manner: "actively pursuing or engaged in a particular profession, occupation, or way of life". Their second definition of the word is this: observing the teaching and rules of a particular religion. The same Oxford Languages website defines "Professing" in this manner: claim that one has (a quality or feeling), especially when this is not the case.  Their second definition of the word "Practicing" is this:

affirm one's faith in or allegiance to (a religion or set of beliefs)".  The difference between those two definitions is at the heart of the many societal problems which are being created in America today by those self-described "Christians" or "Conservative Christians" and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican politicians they have assisted in rising to power at all levels of elected offices in America.  Most of them, if not all, are simply "Professing Christians", if they profess any beliefs at all other than their belief in the abolition of most individual constitutional rights, and they are not remotely "Practicing Christians".  Anyone, anytime, anywhere can profess to be or support anything without any attempt to practice the core tenets of whatever it is they profess.  I have written in the past on this blog about these people and the core differences between what they claim to be compared to what they actually are based on their daily efforts to destroy the US Constitution and the country which is based on that constitution.  

These people under discussion are working on a daily basis to create laws which force the government to intervene in citizens lives in areas which have clearly been forbidden to the government by the Bill of Rights and hundreds of previously approved laws based on that Bill of Rights.  They support book banning, voter suppression, governmental control of the medical decisions of citizens which have clearly been forbidden to the government for more than 200 years.  And, what they never would admit, is that based on their egregious invasions into personal rights, they are indirectly, and sometimes directly, supporting the total destruction of representative democracy in America.  They are simply using the Bible and the churches of the nation, (or at least those churches which allow them to) to abolish the concept enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  They are more than willing to completely and falsely deny the fact that no citizen can be happy, at liberty, or free to live a live based on individual rights when these people are daily working to destroy, abolish, and forever eliminate the right of those citizens to make their own decisions in their daily lives. They are brazenly denying the basic constitutional concept of Separation of Church and State.  They are literally willing to steal and abrogate anyone's freedoms whose beliefs do not support their own totalitarian beliefs.  They are the greatest danger to the perpetuation of democracy in America today. 

"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century" by Timothy Snyder--Reflections On A Book And Current Events

This little masterpiece is a book every American should read as soon as possible and take everything it says seriously to heart.  Timothy Snyder is one of the best non-fiction authors, researchers, and history professors working in America today.  He is the Levin Professor of History at Yale University, one of the most prolific authors of non-fiction in the country, and, arguably, the most important expert on the Holocaust alive today.  I have previously written about Snyder's masterpiece "Black Earth: The Holocaust As History and Warning" which I consider to be the best book I have ever read about the Holocaust.  I had read the book in discussion today several months ago and never got around to writing about it on this blog when I have actually always intended to try to write about each of the twenty chapters.  Each of those chapters is a lesson which every American should strive to learn and to live by.  

Although this book never mentions the TRAITOR Donald Trump by name, he and his many crimes are the primary motivation for the book.  The fact that it doesn't mention him by name is my primary beef with the book.   I believe we should always call a spade a spade, a shovel a shovel, and a TRAITOR just that, a TRAITOR.  And that is what brings us to current events. As I said in a brief post last night, I firmly believe that history will prove that March 30, 2023, will come to be remembered as one of the most important days in American History, the day when the process began to hold TRAITOR Trump legally responsible for his many crimes against the people and the government of the United States.  The New York indictments are only the beginning of that legal process.  The New York case and each of the other state and federal indictments into the the crimes of TRAITOR Trump must be carried out to their full logical and legal culminations and those culminations must result in his conviction, sentencing, and imprisonment for the many crimes he has committed at least since June 16, 2015, the day he made the asinine assumption  that he was fit to be the leader of the free world.  

This little book by Timothy Snyder provides a perfectly rational and logical blueprint for the country and each of its citizens to work diligently for all time to prevent the possibility that such a criminal and TRAITOR can ever again manage to be placed in a TREASONOUSLY obtained position of power in this country.  Chapter One, entitled "Do Not Obey In Advance" carries a warning rooted both in the Holocaust and rise of the Nazi party in Germany and in the proliferation of TRAITOR TRUMP and his cult.  The two movements are nearly identical in their lust for undeserved power and their willingness to destroy the countries in which they arose. The willingness of his cult of followers to "obey in advance" led to the insurrection and domestic terrorism of January 6th. The opening sentence in the book states that "Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given."  That sentence is absolutely true and also absolutely true of how Adolph Hitler rose to power and was nearly able to destroy the world. It is also true in a slightly less universal way of how the TRAITOR  Trump rose to power. His cult of followers freely followed him and his lies.  The US justice system initially ignored the many obvious signs that foreign meddling in the 2016 election led to the razor thin leads the votes showed in Michigan, Illinois, and Pennsylvania and that system freely allowed him to be installed in the White House despite those signs of vast criminal activity in the electoral process.  The Right Wing Radical Repugnicans nationwide freely allowed him to escape not one but two clearly justified impeachments.  And for eight years, a majority of the people of the United States have freely allowed him to escape criminal prosecution.  Those times ended on the day TRAITOR Trump was indicted in New York. Further indictments will come in the other cases. No longer must the people of the United States "freely" allow this TRAITOR to escape punishment. However, in America a majority of those who voted in both the 2016 and 2020 elections knew him for what he was, voted against him, fought him and his TREASONOUS ambitions diligently and tirelessly during the entire time he was able to live illegally in the White House based on his TREASON with Russia and Vladimir Putin's ability to steal an American election in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.  Without that diligent and tireless resistance, this country would have become another example of just how easy it is for a would be despot to seize power, overcome a resistant populace, and destroy a country.  

Timothy Snyder's little masterpiece of a book contains 19 other statements on which each chapter is based which are just as accurate about the rise of tyranny in susceptible populaces and destroy the nations in which they arise.  Buy "On Tyranny..." by Timothy Snyder!  Read and memorize all of its 126 incredibly important pages!  Live by the truths contained in those pages!  Do not stop fighting tirelessly to demand and ensure that TRAITOR Trump is held responsible for all his crimes against this country and its people!  Do not relax about the danger he presents until he dies in the federal prison cell which he has so richly deserved for his entire adult life!  

 

March 30, 2023, A Great Day In American History--A TRAITOR Has His First Indictment-More To Come

Today, March 30, 2023, will go down in history as one of the greatest days in the history of the USA.  The worst TRAITOR in the history of the world has been indicted, finally.  Yes, this is a relatively minor indictment for one of the lesser of his many crimes.  No, this first indictment is not for his TREASON which should have been the first, last, and only indictment which ever had to be brought against TRAITOR Trump.  But the legal process has begun to prove once and for all that no one is above the law in the United States of America, especially if that person is a TRAITOR and an enemy of the state.  And what is truly sad is that this day was ever necessary.  This career criminal, sex offender, pathological liar, domestic and international terrorist, and ultimately a TRAITOR should have been indicted, convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned as much as fifty years ago for his thousands of business based crimes, or his sex crimes and the country would never have had to suffer all we have and will continue to suffer because the TRAITOR was allowed to live illegally in the White House for four years after committing TREASON with Russia.  Today, is a great day in America and will come to be known as one of the greatest days in the entire history of the country.  

Walter Tevis, The "Kentucky Writer" Who Didn't Like Appalachians

 

I had known indirectly about the writing of Walter Tevis for many years but had never really read his work until recently after my wife and I had watched a documentary about his life on KET.  Tevis was the author of two books which were made into two of the most well known movies starring Paul Newman, "The Hustler" and "The Color Of Money".  I  had always loved both movies primarily because of Newman's acting.  He was nominated for Best Actor Oscars for both movies and won for "The Color Of Money".  But, somehow, I had never read the books on which those two movies were based and had also never read Tevis' science fiction despite having been a regular reader of the genre for most of my teens and twenties.  Two of Tevis' books are considered among the best science fiction ever written and deservedly so.  I had also not heard Tevis's name mentioned, except perhaps in passing, despite  the fact that we both lived in Lexington, Kentucky, for several years at the same time.  Tevis was inducted into the Carnegie Center Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame in 2018.

After my wife and I watched the documentary, she wanted us to read his works and she was especially fascinated by his novel "The Queen's Gambit" which has been turned into a Netflix miniseries which has been widely acclaimed.  My wife has now read the book and loved it.  I have still not read that book, but probably will get around to it sooner or later I suspect.  I did read his science fiction classic, "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and loved it to the degree that it prompted me to order most of his published works the remainder of which still lie on my always large "To Be Read" shelf.  Tevis's work on "The Man Who Fell to Earth" is as good as any science fiction I have ever read.  It is one of those rare works of science fiction which also falls solidly within the larger and more important body of what we know as "Great Literature".  It is a masterpiece and deserves every accolade it has ever received.  As a largely productive genre of literature, science fiction can boast only a few such masterpieces with other examples being Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and "Stranger In A Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein which can be said to be somewhat similar to "The Man Who Fell To Earth" since both main characters are truly unique creatures from other planets who find themselves on earth. 

But after reading the book and watching the documentary, I became much more interested in Tevis, his life, and his other works.  That led me to the official Walter Tevis website which his agent, The Susan Schulman Literary Agency operates.   The website states in their biography of Tevis that "Walter traveled across the country alone by train at the age of eleven to rejoin his family and felt the shock of entering the Appalachian culture when he enrolled in the local school."  Tevis actually attended high school in Lexington which is not now, nor was it ever, an example of the Appalachian Culture.  The dominant culture in Lexington is vastly different from the Appalachian Culture.  The Appalachian Culture is seen in hundreds, perhaps several thousand residents of Lexington but is vastly different from the Central Kentucky Culture which is rooted in the earlier history of Lexington, Fayette County, and Central Kentucky as an agriculturally based economy which was deeply affected by the pre-Civil War slave holding plantation system while the Appalachian Culture is rooted in an area which was first settled by anti-slavery settlers from the British Isles, many of whom had actually come to North America as indentured servants large numbers of which settled the Appalachian regions of Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and the Western Carolinas.  The predominant culture of Central Kentucky is  rooted in settlers who were often recipients of large land grants due to a combination of justifications ranging from simple political connections to the political kings and king makers in early America to legitimate service in the American Revolution.  Most of the early landowners in the Eastern and South Eastern areas of Kentucky which constitute the Appalachian area of the state were simple homesteaders who traveled to the mountains where they could stake claims to small holdings of land which were never productive of the Thoroughbred horses, Bourbon, and tobacco which characterize early life in Central Kentucky.  While Tevis did use the "hillbilly" ethnic slur in his writings and his literary agency seems to see that as a point of pride, Tevis never lived in the truly Appalachian area of the state.  Whatever contact he had with Appalachian people took place in Lexington where they were just as out  of place and uncomfortable as the somewhat odd genius Tevis who actually was an immigrant from California.  

Tevis was a truly unique and apparently deeply damaged person well before he came to Kentucky to join his family of origin after having spent more than a year alone as an adolescent patient in the Stanford Children's Convalescent Home in San Francisco due to his having been diagnosed with a rheumatic heart condition. His parents placed him in the home and effectively abandoned him to return to their native Central Kentucky until he was released from the convalescent home and required him, at age 11, to travel alone by train across the continent to a place he had never lived to be reunited with a family whose only contact with him had been periodic letters and telephone calls.  Very few children at that delicate age of development would have survived that type of treatment without having been deeply damaged.  Tevis became a chronic alcoholic and was always known as a unique individual at best and a truly odd human at worst.  An argument can also be made that his advanced level of intelligence might well have made his ability to cope with the abandonment even more fragile.  But regardless of how deeply his abandonment affected his later life, it must also be conceded that Tevis was a genius, a tremendous novelist and short story author, and a man deserving of a great deal of respect for his literary output.  In all, he wrote six novels and one collection of short stories all of which are well respected work.  He also spent most of his life as a teacher and college professor at Ohio University where it said that he was a popular professor.  But, I am not convinced that he was ever truly a "Kentucky Writer" or that he ever viewed himself as such.  Yes, his works do have settings in Kentucky  and he does, from time to time, express his written opinions of the state.  But in many ways, he must be viewed somewhat as "a man without a country".  He was deeply traumatized by his last year living in his native California and never truly adjusted to Central Kentucky where he spent his late adolescence and was educated at the University of Kentucky.  He also taught at UK, Northern Kentucky University, and Southern Connecticut University.  He seems to have drifted across a great deal of American geography, spent his last years in New York City where he died, but was buried in Richmond, Kentucky, at the edge of Central Kentucky.  He was a deeply damaged human being who managed to turn his personal history into a productive life as a writer of excellent literature but seems to have been unable to attach himself in a meaningful way to any particular environment either in Kentucky, Connecticut, Ohio, or New York.  

But, he was a genius and he deserves to have his writing survive as long as humans read great literature. 

Coal Mine Disaster-July 7, 1935-Van Lear, KY-Consolidation Coal Number 155

Throughout the history of coal  mining in America, there has been a long history of coal mining disasters from a multitude of causes including roof falls, explosions, dam failures, electrical causes, and asphyxiation by lethal gases. For many years in the early days of coal mining, lethal cases killed so many men that canaries were actually used as early warning devices of high gas levels in coal mines, hence the expression "a canary in the coal mine" as a descriptor of an early warning device. While the number of deaths due to coal mine disasters has gradually declined over the last several decades, that decline has been more due to automation and increased strip mining in all its forms having decreased the number of working miners than to widespread improvements in the working conditions in the coal mines.  Total fatalities were generally more than 1,000 per year from 1900, when the US began to keep well organized statistics about fatalities, to about 1948 when only 999 miners were killed and the number finally dropped below 1,000 for good.  At least 40 states have had miners killed although there have been several types of other minerals involved in the mining in the states outside the typical coal mining areas of Appalachia and the Western United States.  But, just as the most tonnage of coal has usually been mined in those two areas, the most miners have also been killed year after year in those Appalachian and Western states.  I have never written on this blog about coal mining disasters although I have lived most of my life in coal country and came from a coal mining family with my father, one grandfather, and several uncles all being coal miners.  I also had one brother, Hewie Hicks, killed in a coal mine in a single fatality accident.  

The photo above is of the death certificate of  Virgil Clay in the Van Lear explosion.

Over the course of the next several months, when I have time, I will write about some of the worst coal mine disasters in Central and Southern Appalachia, the area I know best and the area on which the majority of this blog is focused.  I have decided to begin by writing about a disaster at the Consolidation Coal Company Number 155 Mine at Van Lear, Kentucky, in Johnson County which occurred on July 17, 1935, and killed 9 men.  This disaster is covered in both the Floyd County Times newspaper archives in the Floyd County Library local history collection and on the website known as "US Mine Disasters" which I have used for my own reading and research for several years and which is the website to which I have provided several link earlier in this blog post.  I will also refer from time to time to the websites of the official state and federal agencies which supervise and regulate mining in America.  When I can find local news coverage of these disasters available online, I will also use some of that coverage.  But, sadly, the Floyd County Times archives cited earlier are the best and best organized of all the newspapers in Eastern Kentucky.  Many of those newspaper archives have been completely lost.

The photo above is of the tombstone of Virgil Clay.  

The July 19, 1935, edition of the Floyd County Times in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, covered the Number 155 disaster in neighboring Johnson County with a front page story which carried a banner headline and three subheads.  The opening paragraph of the story began 

"Thursday morning saw nine men, all dead, removed from Number 5 Mine of Consolidation Coal Company, Van Lear, in which they were trapped by an explosion at 9o'clock Wednesday morning. 

I will note here that the Floyd County Times refers to the mine as "Number 5" instead of Number 155 which is the designation used by the US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines in their official report on the disaster which is undated  and authored by John F. Davies, District Engineer.  I will accept and use the designation of the mine as "Number 155" since that is the designation used in the official federal report.  

 The photo above is of the Roy Murray tombstone. 

The Floyd County Times listed the victims of the disaster as "William Kretzer, 42; and, Charles Kretzer, 50, brothers; James Vaughn, 42; Frank Tutzy, 45; Hantez Gould, 60; Deerwood Litz, 28; Roy Murray, 38; Virgil Clay, 23; and, Shirley  Hereford, 35."   The official report from the Bureau of Mines does not list the men by name at all.  According to the Floyd County Times, two other men inside the mine escaped and "...company officials immediately began a relentless drive to rescue the men."  The newspaper also reported that rescue squads were brought in from as far away as Jenkins in Letcher County where Consolidation Coal Company also operated mines.  But according to the newspaper story, " tons of rock formed an impenetrable barrier to freedom for the imprisoned men, and this barrier was negotiated, foot by foot, by would be rescuers equipped with oxygen tanks.  As early as Wednesday afternoon, it was conceded that little less than a miracle could save the men."   I will note that I have located burial sites for several, but not all, of the men on the excellent website Find A Grave and have still not located the burial sites of the rest.  But I will continue to search for them since one of the memorials I located does contain a screen shot from an unknown newspaper which lists rough locations for where all nine were buried.  However, that screen shot does not identify the newspaper from which the screen shot was taken.  

 The photo above is of the Charles Kretzer tombstone. 

The July 19, 1935, story in the Floyd County Times goes on to describe the disaster as "the worst disaster in the history of Eastern Kentucky Coal Mining."  However, that statement by the newspaper is not accurate since just three years before on December 9, 1932, at Yancey, Kentucky, in Harlan County an explosion had killed 23 men.  Another disaster in 1925 in Harlan County had killed 17 men.  The newspaper lists the two men who escaped as Anse Wilson, water pumper, and Fire Boss Stanley Crane.  Wilson apparently gave an interview after the explosion and stated 

"I realized what had happened and I ducked behind a pile of rails.  Slate and rock hailed about me.  Then, when it was all over, I started for the outside.  I crawled about 300 feet through smoke and dust till I reached good air.  Mr. Crane was on ahead of me, that is, nearer the opening.  Is it good to be alive?  You don't know how good it is.  I only wish the others were here--they'd say the same." 

The following week on July 26, 1935, the Floyd County Times carried a front page story under the headline "Daniel Charged With Six Deaths", and with the subhead "Warrant Sworn Out by Miner Accuses Department Chief in Disaster".  John F. Daniel was the Department Chief of  the State Department of Mines and Minerals.  The warrant was signed by John B. Mollette, the secretary of the Van Lear local of the United Mine Workers of America.  Mollette accused Daniel of failure to enforce state mining regulations, failure to order the company to furnish sufficient fire bosses to inspect the workings, and that state regulations required at least five such fire bosses and at the time of the explosion only one was on duty.  It appears that the single fire boss on duty was Stanley Crane who survived due to having been quite some distance from the work area in which the men were killed.  The newspaper article quotes Mollette as stating that the warrant was turned over to the local constable, Brown Wells, who would serve it as soon as John F. Daniel returned to Johnson County.  "We have made charges that Daniel is responsible for nine lives in the explosion and we expect to prove them."  The news story about the warrant is continued from the front page of the paper to page six where it is found in the extreme right hand column of the page and that area of the page used to create the digital record of the paper in the Floyd County History Collection has some damage which makes it difficult to read.  But the gist of it is that John F. Daniel and attorneys for the coal company both disputed the claims contained in the warrant.  But the local Judge B. F. Conley stated in the paper that he had issued the warrant and had turned it over to Mollette.  The county Sheriff Fred Adams is also quoted as saying that the warrant could be served by any peace officer in the county.  A search of the Floyd County Times for the ensuing month after the warrant was issued for John F. Daniel does not contain any further news about the disaster or the service of the warrant or of any failure to do so by the Johnson County law enforcement community.  

The photo above is of the William Kretzer tombstone. 
 

The Find A Grave memorial for Virgil Clay and those memorials of at least one of the other victims contains a screen shot of a short news story about the disaster and the burials of the nine victims from some unnamed newspaper under the headline "27 Orphaned By Disaster At Johnson County Mine".  Since the headline uses the words "Johnson County Mine", it seems likely that the paper must have been published in an adjoining county but I have not been able to verify which paper carried the story.  The story states that Deerwood Litz was buried at East Point in Johnson County. I also note for the record that the name of Litz is spelled "Derwood Litz" at times and that is  most likely the correct spelling.  This news story states that the Kretzer brothers were buried at Hitchens in Carter County.  The cemetery in which the Kretzer brothers are buried is listed on Find A Grave as The Kretzer Graveyard but the address is now listed as Reedville.  James Vaughn and Shirley Hereford are both listed in the news story as having been buried at Ashland in Boyd County but I have been unable to verify the locations of their burials.  Roy Murray is listed as having been buried on George's Creek in Lawrence County.  Hantes Gould is listed as having been buried at Van Lear.  Frank Tuzey is listed as having been buried at Paintsville.  I note for the record that Tutzy, Gould, and Murray have also had differences in the spellings of their names in the various records which makes it more difficult to locate accurate burial information.  But it is somewhat simplified by the common date of death for all nine men and I will pursue their burial sites further by searching a variety of phonetic spellings of the names.  The last paragraph of this little news story states 

"Tuzey, last of the men to be taken from the mine, was caught beneath tons of slate.  His body and that of Gould were the last to be recovered, and were not reached until Friday.  Some of the bodies were badly burned, it was said."  (Unknown News Source Taken From Screen Shot On Virgil Clay's Find A Grave Memorial)

Virgil Clay's death certificate which is signed by Leon Spencer, presumably the Johnson County Coroner, listed the cause of death as "Traumatic External Violence Mine Explosion".  I have located the Find A Grave Memorials for the Kretzer Brothers both of which also contain the screen shot of the news story and photos of their tombstones as does that of Virgil Clay.   Roy Murray's memorial on Find A Grave shows that he was buried in the Murray-Young Cemetery at Lowmansville in Lawrence County and also contains a photo of his tombstone and the same screen shot of the news story.  I cannot locate a memorial or a definite burial site for Frank Tutzy under any phonetic spelling of the last name which is presumably Italian.  If Frank Tutzy was actually one of the many immigrant miners working in Eastern Kentucky at that time, it is possible that he was still single and may well be buried in an unmarked grave.  

On February 24, 2023, I received the following additional information from a person named Jon Bellomy who is related to the Kretzer brothers through his mother and also related to Virgil Clay through his paternal great-grandmother. 

"William and Charles Kretzer were brothers of my maternal grandfather (Ernest August Kretzer). They were so badly burned that their caskets had to be placed in front of the Kretzer farm cabin for the wake. Wax representations of their faces were placed upon them; as they were already in an advanced state of decomposition—because it took awhile to get to them. Granddad Kretzer had lost another brother — Louis Kretzer — four years prior in yet another mine: he was crushed when the roof caved in on him. Virgil Clay was a kinsman of mine through my paternal great grandmother Clarinda née White Bellomy (her mother was Julia Ann Clay, and her father was John White ((Shawnee lineage all the way back to Pekowi Shawnee Chief Meaurroway Straight Tail White Opessa — and many generations beyond him; all the way to a Mohawk Turtle Clan Chieftain who married into the Pekowi line)). My mother, Kathleen Evelyn Kretzer Bellomy, dearly loved her Uncle Bill and Uncle Charlie. She was a couple-three weeks shy of eleven years old when the tragedy hit. She spoke of them often up to the day she died at age 91; a few days short of 92. Her mom lived to be 94. Good genes."