"Welcome The Traveler Home" by Jim Garland, Edited by Julia S. Ardery

Jim Garland (1905-1978), the author of this book, was born in Bell County Kentucky and grew up, like several others of his family, to become an underground coal miner. He was also a well known labor leader, union organizer, and folk singer who also happened to be the brother of Aunt Molly Jackson and Sarah Ogan Gunning both of whom were also folk singers and active in support of trade unionism and worker's rights. He organized and was a member of both the United Mine Workers of America and the National Miners Union. His organizing work was primarily in Harlan and Bell counties in Kentucky where he had worked at various times in several mines. He wrote this book, or at least, wrote most of the manuscript well before his death in 1978 but never published the book himself. At some point, his wife Hazel seems to have passed the manuscript on to the Kentucky writer Julia S. Ardery (1889-1977) who edite the work but also failed to get it published in her lifetime. Ardery wrote one other major book, " The Temptation: Edgar Tolson and the Genesis of Twentieth-Century Folk Art", which is a masterful biography and work of art criticism which was also not published in her lifetme. I have written about the Tolson biography at this link.When we consider that "Welcome The Traveler Home" was not published in the lifetimes of either the author or editor, it is a miracle that the book was ever published at all. However, Ardery was from a prominent Bourbon County Kentucky political family and the mother of a US Army Major General; a second son who worked for a time in Washington, DC, as a journalist before joining the University of Kentucky which published this book; and a third son who was an accountant who died by suicide four years before his mother's death. It seems likely that one of her sons was instrumental in the effort to have this book by Jim Garland published as well as Julia Ardery's book about Edgar Tolson. Rarely in the world of book publishing do manuscripts survive long enough to published after the death of the author. Yes, I acknowledge that it does sometimes happen, but it is as rare as hen's teeth. Garland's style of writing was exemplary of his lack of education but still strong writing. Ardery said in her Introduction that she had done as little as possible to alter Garland's original work with only minor edits for clarity of meaning, some organizational work since his manuscripts appears to have been less than well organized. But the content of the book is what makes it more than well worth reading. While I do believe it has some significant historical inaccuracies in it, it is still a fine first person discussion of the effort to unionize the Kentucky coalfields in the 1920's and 1930's. It also provides some interesting glimpses into the lived of he two famous folk singing sisters of Garland. But, sadly, it is devoted almost entirely to the time he spent in Eastern Kentucky as a coal miner and union organizer with minimal discussion of his life as a folk singer afer he was forced to leave the coal fields because he believed he had been targeted for death by coal operators. Two absolutely minimal references are made to two other very important figures in the effort to unionize the coalfields, Don West and Sam Reece. in the case of Don West whom Garaland says replaced him in the organizing effort when he was forced to leave Eastern Kentucky, the reference is only one sentence long. In the case of Sam Reece who was the husband of Florence Reece who wrote the classic labor ballad "Which Side Are You On?", Garland uses about three sentences to say that at some point in the union effort, he had borrowed Sam Reece's car to make a trip out of town. Both Don West and Sam Reece were major figures in the effort to organize the coalfields. I knew Don West quite well from about 1974 until his death in 1992 but never heard him mention Jim Garland in any of the many discussions I heard him give of his life as an organizer, miner,labor activist, and educator. I was also able to spend two days in the company of Florence and Sam Reece at Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee, which Don West and Myles Horton founded. I spent roughly a year living at the Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia, which was founded by Don and Connie West. It would have been very educational if I had been able to hear and cross reference all those people's memories of the organizing efforts Harland and Bell counties including their discussions about each other. Such complete knowledge from all of them would have vastly improved my knowledge about Jim Garland and his work. The book is full of references to Appalachian social customs, mores, and history as Jim Garland chose to describe it all. It is a fairly well written book, extremely well edited by Julia S. Ardery, and well worth the time to read by any student of American Labor History, Appalachian Studies, or Kentucky History. It is very minimal in its discussion of folk songs despite the addition of the lyrics of several songs across the length of the text. My particular copy which I bought at a Goodwill Store for $1.59 plus tax is also inscribed by Suzy Roy and Betty Garland Roy, the daughter of Jim and Hazel Garland. A third signature is signed simply "Mrs. Jim Garland". It appears that all three signatures were made with the same red fine point marker. Due to the length of Betty's inscription which refers to Jim Garland as "Daddy" and to Sarah Ogan Gunning as "Aunt Sarah", I believe the signatures are authentic. I have added a scan of the inscription page below. I hope you can find and read your own copy of the book if you are a student of Appalachian Studies, Union Organizing and History, or Kentucky History. It is a fascinating read!

The Music Of Coal

 

Few professions have ever generated the amount of music about their industry which has been generated by coal and coal mining.  The music of coal has been around in the United States nearly as long as coal mining itself.  Several important musical artists have recorded complete albums of coal mining songs in tribute to the industry and the men and women who do the work of coal.  There have also been numerous anthology albums about coal and coal mining with widely varied artists being involved in those productions.  The music of coal has been recorded by singers from nearly every genre of American music.  But the majority of coal mine music has come within the related fields of country and Bluegrass music both of which can arguably say they are the music both  of the Appalachian Region and of the working class.  There are numerous songs from the greater body of coal mining music which are among the most popular songs in all of American music.  Nearly everyone who has ever lived, worked, or been descended from anyone who lived or worked in the coal industry has their own list of favorite coal mining songs.  So do I!  I will begin this blog post with my own top ten list of coal mining songs which does include a couple of those which nearly everyone in America knows and will also include a few of which many of you readers might have never heard.

I cannot clearly state which is my favorite coal mining song of all time but I will begin this list with the songs which mean the most to me as the son, grandson, nephew, and brother of coal miners.  I never worked in the coal industry but I grew up in Knott County Kentucky about three miles from Wayland, Kentucky, a classic company owned coal mining town in Floyd County Kentucky.  I also grew up only fifteen or so miles from Wheelwright, Kentucky, and only ten miles from McDowell, Kentucky, both of which were also classic company owned coal mining towns.  My father and several other family members worked in the Elkhorn Coal Mine at Wayland, Kentucky, and two of my uncles worked for years at Wheelwright and McDowell.  I grew up in a country store and coal miners were our neighbors, customers, and friends.  My oldest half-brother, Hewie Hicks, died in a coal mining accident.  I knew and was mentored by several people who worked as union organizers in the coal industry including Don West, Hosea Hudson, and Florence and Sam Reece.  I was also mentored by William Howard Cohen, one of the first high profile opponents of strip mining, and by Bill Blizzard, whose father led the UMWA miners at the Battle of Blair Mountain.  In addition to growing up in Eastern Kentucky coal country, I also spent a total of about seven years in Raleigh, Logan, and Mingo counties in West Virginia and also worked as a salesman in Boone, Lincoln, Wayne, Wyoming, and McDowell in the West Virginia coal fields.  I know coal, coal people, and the music of coal.  

My Favorite Coal Songs

1) Which Side Are You On? by Florence Reece.  Almost anyone who has ever been around a union coal mining area or known even one United Mine Workers member has heard this song.  It was written by Florence Reece on the back of a calendar page in a Harlan County coal camp during the seminal organizing effort of the Harlan County Coal mines in the 1920's.  I am very proud to say I heard the story of this song directly from the mouths of Florence Reece and her husband Sam. This is arguably the greatest union organizing song ever written and has been adapted by numerous other unions in addition to the UMWA. 

2) Red Wing Blackbird by Kathy Mattea whose two grandfathers were Italian immigrant coal miners in West Virginia. This song comes from Kathy Mattea's incredible album "Coal" which is one of the three best coal mining albums ever recorded.  The song was written by Billy Ed Wheeler who actually wrote at least two of the best coal mining songs ever recorded.  This song fits squarely into a subgenre of coal mining music which I call "Music of Death and Danger In The Mines".  It is a beautiful piece of writing and masterfully sung by Kathy Mattea.  

3) The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore by Kathy Mattea.  This song also comes from that wonderful album by Mattea but was written by Jean Ritchie, the famous American folk singer and writer who grew up in a coal camp in Perry County Kentucky, and was the first graduate of the social work program at the University of Kentucky although she never used her degree in social work to earn a living.  It falls into a sub-category of coal mining music which I call "The Demise Of The Coal Mines".  It has been recorded by numerous musical artists but, in my opinion, no one does it as well as Kathy Mattea who is the granddaughter of two Italian immigrant coal miners in West Virginia.  

4) Last Train From Poor Valley by Norman Blake. This song is probably one of the least known yet best songs in all of coal mining music.  It is also a classic number in that sub-category which I call "The Demise Of The Coal Mines".  Norman Blake did an incredible job of describing and immortalizing the death of a coal mining valley in this song.  And the song also fits into a general category of music about lost love.  "I saw the last train from Poor Valley takin’ brown haired Becky Richmond bound."

5 Dark As A Dungeon by Merle Travis.  This is just one of the great coal mining songs written by Merle Travis, the classic country music singer and native of Muhlenberg County Kentucky, the heart of the Western Kentucky coal fields.  Travis also recorded my other most favorite album of coal music called "Songs Of The Coal Mines".  This song fits squarely into the sub-category "Music of Death And Danger In The Mines". 

6) You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive by Patty Loveless.  Patty Loveless who sings this song on her incredible album "Mountain Soul" grew up in the coal mining country of Pike County Kentucky and is a key artist from that amazing group of people from the Big Sandy River Valley who have changed the face of American music and popular culture with their work.  The song has now been recorded by a large number of other singers and would be singers but nobody can equal the job Patty Loveless does on it.  It is clearly  one of the songs about "Death And Danger In The Mines". 

7) Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Earnie Ford. This is another of the wonderful coal songs written by Merle Travis and is found on his "Songs Of The Coal Mines" album.  But Tennesse Earnie Ford's version of it is the one most people remember and is also my favorite version.  This song falls into a sub-category of coal mining music which I call "The Hard Life Of The Coal Miner".  The line "you load sixteen tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt" personifies the life many coal miners led all across the Appalachian coal fields of the twentieth century.  

8) Black Waters by Kathy Mattea. This song was written by Jean Ritchie, the second of her compositions which I have placed on my list of favorites, and it well deserves to be better known than it is.  This song is not on Mattea's "Coal" album as she says in the narration before the song on this link since she was not aware of it when she was recording that album.  I love Jean Ritchie's writing but I love Kathy Mattea's style a bit better.  If you are into folk music, you might want to listen to Ritchie's version of the song.  These lines from the song place it squarely in the category of "Environmental Protest Music In The Coal Industry" which, in my opinion is the second most important category of coal mining music just behind union organizing music: "Now there's scenes of destruction on every hand And there's only black waters run down through my land Sad scenes of destruction on every hand black waters, black waters, run down through the land."

9) Joe Hill by Joan Baez. Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson wrote this classic union organizing song which actually originated in the Colorado copper mining country.  But it quickly became a favorite of union miners in all types of mining all across the country.  Other than "Which Side Are You On?", this is probably the best union organizing song ever written.  In its own way, it memorializes every man and woman who ever died in an organizing effort whether that effort was in the coal, copper, iron ore, garment, or farming industries.  No one can equal Joan Baez's vocal work on this song.  These lines from "Joe Hill" are one of the strongest statements ever made about the importance of determination and unceasing effort in the union organizing effort: "From San Diego up to Maine, In every mine and mill, Where working-men defend their rights, It's there you'll find Joe Hill."

10) Coal Tattoo by Billy Edd Wheeler.  This is the second Billy Edd Wheeler written song I have put on my favorite list although numerous others have recorded excellent versions of it including Kathy Mattea on that incredible album "Coal".  But I really like Wheeler's version and so will you if you like coal mining songs.  This song fits squarely in that sub-category of coal mining songs called "Music Of Death And Danger In The Mines" and utilizes a very unique approach to the subject matter with a living miner, instead of a dead miner, as the narrator. "Somebody said "That's a strange tattoo You have on the side of your head" I said "That's the blueprint left by the coal A little more and I'd be dead".   

Categories Of Coal Mining Music

There are several sub-categories of coal mining music and I will discuss each of them separately and give a few more musical examples of each. Those sub-categories of coal mining music include 1) Union Organizing Songs; 2) Environmental Protest Songs Of Coal; 3) Death And Danger In The Mines; 4) The Hard Life Of The Coal Miner; 5) The Demise Of The Coal Industry; 6) Songs Which Glorify Coal Mining; and, 7) Songs Supporting Strip Mining.  

Union Organizing Songs

Obviously, the most important, but not always the most popular, of these sub-categories of coal mining music is "Union Organizing Music".  Without coal miners and the United Mine Workers Of America, life for the entire American working class would be very different.  The coal miners and the UMWA played a very important part in gaining many of the most important rights of workers in America.  And without unions, it would not be many years before these basic rights would be gone as has been demonstrated in the worst possible manner by the widespread proliferation of Right To Work laws in many states. In addition to the UMA, in the early days of the coal mine organizing efforts, the National Miners Union and the International Workers of the World, aka the Wobblies, were also important to the orgganizing effort.  Among those rights which coal miners and the UMWA have helped win for American workers are the forty hour work week, company paid health insurance, minimum wage, paid vacations and holidays, sick pay, the entire body of work place safety laws and regulations, collective bargaining, the right to strike, and numerous others including major environmental laws and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.  These rights were gained by the joint activities of many unions both within and outside the coal mining industry and numerous unions played a part in the effort including the Industrial Workers of The World (Wobblies), the National Miners Union, the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters, and the entire AFL-CIO.  

I have already listed a couple of the best union organizing songs in all of American labor and coal mining history: "Which Side Are You On?" by Florence Reece and "Joe Hill" by Joan Baez.  But there are several other very important union organizing songs which arose from the effort to organize the American coal mines, especially the Appalachian coal fields.  Among my favorites of these songs is "The Harlan County Boys" by Merle Travis which is another of the songs on his wonderful album "Coal" and which immortalizes those early union organizing efforts in Harlan County Kentucky in the early twentieth century.  We can always use one more good Harlan County song and one more good coal mining singer.  So I am adding to this list "Harlan County Blues" by George Davis, The Singing Miner, who was not only an Eastern Kentucky coal miner but also a performer, recording artist, and disc jockey at WSGS, 101.1FM, the best radio station in all of the Appalachian coal fields.  Another of the songs of George Davis belongs on this list, "When Kentucky  Had No Union Men", which is a fine example of union organizing music.  Billy Bragg's song, "There Is Power In A Union", also deserves to be on nearly any list of union organizing music.  Woody Guthrie's "Union Burying Ground" also is a fine example of union organizing music and far less well known than it deserves to be.  From the mines of Nova Scotia, we must also include Greg MacPherson's "Company Store" which commemorates the occasion on which union miners burned a company store to the ground in protest.  The lyrics are powerful, unflinching, and brave: "I haven't worked in 40 days  For 23 I've had no pay  In a week I'll have no place to stay  In an hour they'll have to kill me.  Half the town'll die from the mining of the coal  The other half'll leave when the mine decides to close  The people who are left will starve to death at the hands of the company store."  While this listing of coal mine union organizing songs is incomplete, it is a start for any of you readers who are interested in learning about trade unionism in the coal fields and how coal miner's unions have often led the union organizing movement in America.  

Environmental Protest Songs Of Coal

"Black Waters" performed by Kathy Mattea and written by Jean Ritchie is the only environmental protest song of the coal business I included on my personal top ten.  But there are numerous others I love including "Paradise" by John Prine.  "Paradise" is one of the few coal mining environmental protest songs to become widely popular and few people even stop to realize that it is such a song.  But the lyric lines from the chorus leave no doubt about it: "And daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County  Down by the green river where Paradise lay?  Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking  Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away."  If the town has been hauled away and it is too late to go back to Muhlenberg County, the song can only fall into one sub-category, coal mining environmental protest songs.  Mike Morningstar's "The Buffalo Creek Disaster" is a fine example of a coal mining environmental protest song about one of the worst manmade disasters in the nation. These lines from the song cover two different aspects of that disaster which killed more than 130 people.  They confront both strip mining and the disastrous flood which was caused by a combination of factors, all rooted in corporate greed including mismanagement, denial of the damage caused by coal mining, and the avoidance of regulatory intervention.   They strip off all the topsoil and uproot all those trees, They killed those folks in Buffalo Creek, and then shrug the blame with ease.  Don't give a damn for life or land, just roll on like they please." If you are interested in written documentation of the Buffalo Creek Disaster and other negative outcomes of the coal industry, I would suggest that you read this book edited by Wess Harris, "Written In Blood". 

THIS IS A BLOG POST IN PROGRESS! IF YOU LIKE THIS INCOMPLETE VERSION, PLEASE COME BACK IN A FEW DAYS AND I WILL TRY TO HAVE IT COMPLETED. IT IS A LARGE SUBJECT AND JUST KEEPS GETTING LARGER EVERY DAY WITH NEW SONGS APPEARING FROM THE COALFIELDS ALL THE TIME!

"An Appalachian Eulogy" by B. Camp

The author of this book is actually Dr. Dennis Campbell, M. D. who chose to publish under a pen name despite having also chosen, at some point, to make no secret of his real identity. Dr. Campbell and I worked together in both our previous careers. He is a retired psychiatrist and I am a retired mental health and addictions therapist. We worked together for about 3/12 years in a community mental health facility in a small county in Eastern Kentucky. We also grew up in the same equally small county about fifty miles from where we actually met at work. We have remained as friends ever since working together. Dr. Campbell has now written and published somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen fiction books in several different categories and all are available on Amazon under the pen name B. Camp. I have previously written on this blog about two of his other books, "Tales From The Red River Gorge" which he cowrote with his wife who writes under the pen name Maribeth Wagner, and "Aaron Subject Number Seven". "An Appalachian Eulogy" is the most purely Appalachian book of the three in my opinion, although both of the others have settings and some characters who are Appalachian. "An Appalachian Eulogy" begins about 1825 and ends about 1975. It tells a story of a blended family in which the parents Able and Elizabeth Horn who have one biological daughter, Emily. As the book begins, their nephew Zeke is in East Tennessee living with an unrelated family who have taken him in after his parents and only brother have died of a plague. This family has written a letter who the Horns who are the brother and sister-in-law of Zeke's father. Able travels to East Tennessee in the late winter to early spring and brings Zeke back to his home which is a hillside farm on Beaver Creek in Knott County Kentucky which happens to be the creek on which I grew up. While some of the place names in the book are fictitious, most of them are actual place names still in use today in the area of the novel. The place on Beaver Creek where the Horn farm is located is about 3 or 4 miles from where I grew up. On their way to Beaver Creek from East Tennessee, they stop in a town in Tennessee for more supplies for their horseback trip and Zeke is allowed to spend some time alone seeing the sights of the town. He strays into a scene in which a group of boys are harrassing a young homeless orphan girl and rescues her from their attack. Able agrees to take the girl, Emma, along with them to his home if the local authorities agree to it. He finds the Tennessee sheriff who allows him to do just that. The three then complete the trip to Beaver Creek where both Zeke and Emma become members of the Horn family. Emma who can't remember the last name of her parents assumes the Horn name which, as odd as it might sound in today's world, was not an uncommon event in the early 19th century in the Appalachian Mountains. It was fairly common at that time for kindly, or soemetimes unkindly, non-relatives to informally adopt orphans and raise them under the family name. The three children, one biological and two informally adopted, quickly become known simply as a family, the Horn family. They live a lifestyle which was common on hillside farms in Eastern Kentucky in that time frame and learn all the chores and requirements of living a self sufficient life in the mountains. Zeke grows up to be a bright, ambitious young man and attends Alice Lloyds, Caney Creek Community Center until he graduates from high school. He then matriculates to Caney Junior College on the same campus and now known as Alice Lloyd College. Eventually, the adopted daughter Emily leaves home to marry a coal miner and live an itinerant life with her growing family in a number of mountain coal camp towns. She dies young and leaves a letter in a family Bible directing her daughter to keep it unopened until she locates another member of the Horn family from whom she has become lost due to her multiple moves from coal camp to coal camp. I won't spoil the ending. You can find the book on Amazon. If you are a fan of Appalachian fiction, the book is worth reading.

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."

"The Big Sandy" by Carol Crowe-Carraco--Book Review

 This book is a bit dated and only covers the history of the Big Sandy River Basin from about 1675 to 1978, about a year before the publication date in 1979.  The book was one of about two dozen books published by The University Press of Kentucky in order to offer wider documentation of Kentucky history.  The author, Carol Crowe-Carraco, was a distinguished professor of history at Western Kentucky University and has an impressive list of publications in the field of Kentucky History. The book is well reserched and has a very useful six pages of notes which, while they do not comprise a true bibliography, can be utilized as such.  The book also lacks an index which would be very useful to the average reader.  

I read the book as a part of a much more sizeable project in which I am currently involved about the Big Sandy River Basin and its place in American History.  While I am certain this will not prove to be the best or most important book I read as a part of this project, it has been useful and I can recommend it to the average reader who is interested in the history of either the Big Sandy River Basin in particular or Kentucky History in general. For my purposes, the book was particularly informative about the history of the river with regard to navigation, the involvement of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in the history of the river, and the history of early steamboat usage on the river prior to the coming of the railroads.  As a person who grew up in the headwaters of the Big Sandy on Right Beaver Creek in Knott County and walked to and from grade school for 7 years along the railroad of the C & O, it was particularly interesting in its discussion of the building of the railroads.  The book also can be informative for the average reader in the area of the coming of the coal camp towns in the river basin.  But as one who has spent his life living and working in the region and also studied coal camp towns extensively, the book did not offer anything new to me in that area.  For the average student of the coal camp towns, it would be worth reading.  

Professor Crowe-Carraco writes well in a professional matter but her prose is not the kind that leaves a reader awestruck.  It is geared more toward students of history who often prefer more staid, dry fact statements than any form of flowery literature.  That is not a fault in this type of book.  I simply offer it as a way for anyone considering buying and reading the book to determine if they are likely to enjoy it.  The bottom line of the entire impression the book made on me is that, even with its one or two minor faults from my point of view, it is a book worth the time and money to spend on it.  It has legitimately piqued my interest in reading more of the Kentucky Bicentennial Bookshelf publications.  It might do the same for you.    

Esau In The Coal Mines Of Appalachia

 

This post and the practice of Esau in the coal mines is rooted in the story of Esau and Jacob from the King James Version of the Bible.  The Biblical story also has serious implications in the coal fields of Appalachia as reported by several independent scholars and writers and has been corroborated numerous times both by individuals of advanced age who lived and worked in the coal mines of Appalachia and by their offspring, especially the daughters of these coal miners and their wives.  First we will read a key portion of the Biblical story from Genesis 25: 21-34. Then we will discuss how it applies to the history of the Appalachian coal fields.

²¹ And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.  ²² And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord. ²³ And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.  ²⁴ And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.  ²⁵ And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.  ²⁶ And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.  ²⁷ And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.  ²⁸ And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.  ²⁹ And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:  ³⁰ And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. ³¹ And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.  ³² And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?  ³³ And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.  ³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.

 

 When we examine the story from the Bible, we see that Esau and Jacob were intended to become leaders of two different "nations" of people and that Esau was the first born which in Biblical times meant that he was intended to inherit the entire estate of his father Isaac.  But, as the Bible states in the story "the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger". This Biblical mandate that the elder should serve the younger is brought about because Jacob is a mighty hunter and Esau, the elder, is eventually forced to sell his birthright to his younger brother in order to keep from starving.  A question which many people ask about this story is "what is pottage?".  Basically, pottage is either a soup or a stew and the "lentiles (sp)" from which it is made are a relative of beans which are not commonly eaten in America but are available and I actually sat at my kitchen table yesterday and "looked", to use an old Appalachian expression, some lentils for a pot of bean soup, or pottage, if I may say so.  So the upshot of the Biblical story is that Esau was forced to sell everything he stood to inherit in order to eat.  Now, let's move on to how this story came to be played out in Appalachian coal fields, coal camp towns, and coal company stores.  

During times of unemployment, strikes, or in events when miners were injured, sick, or otherwise unable to work, coal companies and the coal company stores would not allow the miners and their wives, who were usually the ones who did the shopping, to continue to receive merchandise or scrip from the company store unless the miner was owed money.  Therefore, no work, no money owed, no scrip, no food for the family.  The coal companies did not do any miner any favors and when the work stopped the pay and the food also stopped.  But a system developed in many, if not most, of the coal company stores which came to be known as Esau in which the wives or daughters of temporarily non-working miners could be issued some scrip or food based on the scrip system which was administered in most cases by coal company employees who were often actually contracted employees of one of the coal security companies such as Baldwin-Felts or Pinkerton.   For those of you who do not know about the scrip system, it was a system by which coal companies created their own form of money, scrip, with which they paid their employees and scrip was only good in the stores owned by the particular company which issued the scrip.  At times, it was possible for employees to sell scrip outside the company at vastly discounted rates much in the same way, in recent years, food stamp recipients have been able to sell food stamps.  

The system which developed in these coal companies and their stores which came to be known as Esau was used at times when miners were either killed, injured, striking, or otherwise unemployed and had no money or scrip with which to feed their families.  Since coal miners usually worked long hours six, or even seven, days a week, their wives or  teenage daughters were usually the people who went to the company stores to buy groceries for the family.  Under ordinary circumstances, the woman wishing to make a purchase would go to the pay window and ask for some amount of scrip for groceries, select her items, and pay for them at the counter with the scrip.  Another slightly different system might have the purchaser simply sign a ticket for the amount of her purchases and the tickets would be recorded in the paymaster's book against the employment record of the minor.  In either case, it was not uncommon for a miner to work weeks, or even months, without ever actually receiving any form of payment in his pay envelope on payday.  It was more common for miners to receive a statement in the pay envelope which showed hours worked or tons of coal loaded, amount of pay earned, amount of scrip issued or purchases made subtracted from the amount earned, and a running total of the amount the miner owed the company hence the line in the famous song "I owe my soul to the company store".  

The Esau system worked in a very different manner and supplies or scrip were only issued to female members of the miner's family and records were kept in a different book, the Esau book.  When the wife or teenage daughter of an unemployed miner needed food or other important purchases, she would go to the company store, ask an employee for what she needed be told there was no scrip available in her husband or father's name, and then be told by the employee who was always male and usually a contract employee of one of the hired "security" companies that there was a way she could get what she needed.  She would then be taken to some isolated section of the company store, forced to have sex with the male employee, and the amount she owed the company would be recorded in the Esau book.  This system has been documented by several coal mine writers and historians over the years including West Virginia Public Broadcasting's Catherine Moore and Michael and Carrie Kine who produced stories of the Esau system as it operated in the Whipple Company Store in Raleigh County, West Virginia.  Catherine Moore documented this story about the Esau system as told to her by Joy Lynn, the owner and tour guide at the Whipple Company Store in the days when it was being operated as a museum: 

"We’ve had multitudes of women and tell us as little girls they remember their mothers coming to the company store and one of the things that a lot of more the lovely ladies had to do was come upstairs.  Some of the young girls had the stories shared by their mothers stating that they would be escorted in the shoe room. There would be a selected guard that would be waiting for them and they would receive a brand new pair of shoes with no accountability other than to perform whatever the service the guard wished to have in lieu of pay.  We had one woman in particular share with us that her mother was a young girl about 25 years old and bought her first pair of shoes here and the women’s entire life those shoes remained in the shoe box on her closet shelf never to be worn and she refused to wear another pair of shoes her entire life.  She made her shoes out of cardboard, newspapers and twine.”  (WV Public Broadcasting, Catherine Moore, October 23, 2013)

Catherine Moore's telling of the story is corroborated in Michael and Carrie Kline's "Esau in the Coalfields: Owing Our Soul to the Company Store" in the book "Written In Blood", edited by Wess Harris.   In that article, the aforementioned Joy Lynne relates the following story: 

"Just off the ballroom on the third floor of the store is a smaller room toward the back of the building.  In early photographs it's the only curtained room.  It served as a fitting room, so it has been frequently told, where women were accompanied by one of the guards from the first floor to try on shoes they had seen displayed in the shoe department.  A woman, of course, seldom had money of her own and barely enough scrip or credit at the company storeto cover the week's groceries and rent.  So when she got up to the shoe room she found it furnished with a cot upon which the guard encouraged her to sit while trying on the shoes.  When the door shut behind her, she found herself alone with the guard...Over the past several years we've had eight or ten women refer to this as the 'rape room'.  After they got their lovely shoes they would have to pay for them in this room."  ("Written In Blood", edited by Wess Harris, pp. 19-20).

On the website Appalachian History.net, Dave Tabler recorded this story from Wes Harris, the editor of the the book mentioned above, "Written In Blood": 

 “Esau was issued only to women, and it was a form of scrip that would enable a women to purchase food for her children during the time that her husband couldn’t work. But it was only good for 30 days, and if her husband went back to work within those 30 days, then the company in their kindness would forgive the debt. And if he did not go back to work at the end of 30 days, then the scrip became a loan that was due and payable in full on day 30. And of the course the women didn’t have jobs or scrip or money, and so they had to pay it back—and it was a collateralized loan—and the women themselves were the collateral. Their physical selves would be used to pay the debt.” (Dave Tabler, "Esau Scrip and The Shoe Room, AppalachianHistory.net November 6, 2013)

The West Virginia singer and songwriter Mary Hott related this story about forced sexual servitude in the coal fields to the website MorganCountyUSA.org about her understanding of Esau and how it caused her to study the system and record an album containing several songs about the practice: 

 

Singer and songwriter Mary Hott of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia was listening to the report. “I heard the radio report on the Whipple Company Store,” Hott told This Week in Morgan County. “People were telling stories – rape, torture by mine guards, to keep control, to keep the miners and their families under control, to keep out unions.” (Mary Hott on The Devil In The Hills of West Virginia" on MorganCountyUSA.org February 28, 2020)

Although some academics have publicly questioned these reports, most of which were originated in the works of Joy Lynn and her husband at the Whipple Company Store during the days in which they operated it as a museum,  the concept of Esau has been corroborated by other legitimate writers and historians including Janet W. Green in an article on the website West Virginia History entitled "Strategies for Survival: Women's Work in the Southern West Virginia Coal Camps"

In interviews with coal miners' wives who lived in housing owned by coal companies during those years, women reported that wages were not stable in the mining life. To meet the challenges of uncertain wages and work shut-downs, women raised gardens on available land, preserved food, and, if necessary, sewed underwear for their children out of flour sacks. Women earned cash by taking in boarders and laundry, selling butter and eggs, and serving as bootleggers and prostitutes.  (Janet W. Green, "Strategies for Survival: Women's Work in he Southern West Virginia Coal Camps" West Virginia History, Volume 49, 1990)

 On her official website, Mary Hott, the singer mentioned above, gives this explanation of her motivation to record her album and makes an attempt to confront historians and writers who doubt the stories arising from Joy Lynn, Michael and Carrie Kline, and Wess Harris. She also provides links to the three academic articles written by Catherine Moore. 

"The idea for this music project was sparked in October 2014 after I heard a rebroadcast of a Halloween week special on WV Public Radio on haunted buildings in the state. The featured haunt that morning was the Whipple Company Store in Fayette County.  The broadcast also introduced the discovery of “Esau Scrip” which was publicly unknown at that point in time. The series of three radio stories by Catherine Moore initiated the ongoing controversy among some historians over the very existence and purpose of Esau scrip and piqued my curiosity." (Mary Hott, "Devil In The Hills: Coal Country Reckoning")

 While it is easy to understand why some historians and writers might question these stories without further empirical evidence to support them, it is also common knowledge that victims of sexual oppression, sexual abuse, and assault are generally very reticent to discuss their victimization and most of the victims are either already dead or elderly.  I have also learned from Wess Harris himself that the Whipple Company store is no longer being operated as a museum, has fallen into decrepitude, and is now owned by an individual who is connected to the West Virginia coal industry and might well have personal reasons for suppressing such stories about the Esau system in the coal fields.  I grew up within three miles of a large coal camp town in Eastern Kentucky and spend several years working in the coal fields of West Virginia and I had never heard of the Esau system until I read "Written In Blood" which is a major source of these stories.  Without a doubt, oral historians in the coal fields of Appalachia should make a concerted effort to learn the whole story of Esau in the coal fields.  How accurate are the extant stories about it?  Was it widespread in the coal fields beyond the Whipple Company Store?  Do the living wives and daughters of Appalachian miners corroborate the stories being told by the aforementioned sources. 

"Exploring The Abandoned Coal Towns of West Virginia The Southeastern Region" by Christina Paster--Book Review

This is a little book published by an entity called "America Through Time" which is an imprint of Arcadia Publishing. On their website, they described "America Through Time" as "a local and regional interest series that showcases the history and heritage of communities around the country. Using modern color photographs juxtaposed with old images, these titles capture a strong sense of the past while demonstrating the force of change through the passage of years". 

Arcadia Publishing is a company which publishes books primarily about communities across the country which are primarily collections of photographs assembled by individuals or groups in those communities who feel the need to preserve some of their local history.  I have read and written about one other book on this blog which that company published, "Images of America Floyd County" by Lisa Perry and the Wheelwright Historical Society.  It is a much better book than this one by Christina Paster.  It is my impression that Arcadia Publishing is essentially a vanity press which specializes in books about specific geographical settings, does little or no editorial work with the individuals and groups producing the books, and is simply in the business of making money from individuals and groups who are incapable of producing high quality work.  But let us get back to the book in question about the abandoned coal towns of West Virginia.  

 

The photographs compose probably 75% to 90% of the content of this book.  The book is broken into brief chapters about each of the eleven towns the author visited and photographed for the book.  There is a generally brief introduction to each chapter which is usually less than a full page with two exceptions, the discussion of Wheeling and Moundsville which I suspect are either the towns closest to the author's home or the towns she knows best.  The text is of very poor quality and shows absolutely no editorial supervision.  It is rife with grammatical errors of every type: incomplete sentences; sentence fragments; run on sentences; misspellings; errors in grammar, syntax, and tense.  It is very poor quality writing.  The photographs are marginally well done, bordering on the low end of professional level.  None of the photographs are particularly striking and a reasonably talented photographer could duplicate or better them with a low cost, hand held digital camera.  There are less than a half dozen mildly historical photographs included in the book with appropriate source crediting.  The author has also appended a brief section of end notes to support the few statements she has used from the work of others.  For those of you who have ties to or interest in one or more of the abandoned coal towns of West Virginia, I am adding a list of the eleven towns portrayed in the book so you can decide if you are interested enough to seek a copy for your inspection and, hopefully, your pleasure.  The town are Pocahontas, Whitesville, Itmann, Thurman, McDowell, Mullens, Alderson, Wheeling, Moundsville, Matoaka, and Nuttallburg.  If you have an interest, I would suggest that you attempt to locate a copy of the book in a library near you, inspect it, and then decide if you want to spend the money to buy a personal copy.  I do not want to induce you to feel you wasted your money on this particular book.  For my own personal and academic interests, the best book I have found about abandoned coal towns in general is "A Guide To Historic Coal Towns of the Big Sandy River Valley" by George D. Torok, which also covers a few of the coal towns of West Virginia despite its primary Eastern Kentucky focus.  It is well worth the money.  I can also recommend "Coal Camp Kids Coming Up Hard And Making It" by Barbara Ford Ritchie and published by Father and Son Publishing which has since been bought up by a larger company which continues to sell some of their titles.  But that book can be difficult to locate except a rare copy on used book websites.  On the Father and Son website it is listed at $75.00 which is a bit much for most people. 

Some Thoughts About The Buffalo Creek Flood, February 26, 1972

Today, February 26, 2020, is the 48th anniversary of the Buffalo Creek Flood on Buffalo Creek in Logan County West Virginia which killed 125 people due to the criminal negligence of Pittston Coal Company.  At the time of the flood, I had never been on Buffalo Creek or even in Logan County.  I did not know anyone on Buffalo Creek at the time of the incident.  But like many other key moments in the history of the country, Buffalo Creek and that flood were seared into my memory.  Just two years later, I was enrolled in the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College in Beckley, West Virginia, and became much better educated about the crimes which caused the Buffalo Creek Flood.  I made my first trip up Buffalo Creek sometime in 1984 as a door to door salesman but that first trip up the creek is seared into my memory just as the day it happened was seared.  I will always remember that as I drove up Buffalo Creek past the coal camps of Saunders, Pardee, Lorado, Craneco, Lundale, Stowe, Crites, Latrobe, Robinette, Amherstdale, Becco, Fanco, Braeholm, Accoville, Crown and Kistler, I could actually still see many signs of the flood.  I had grown up near Wayland, Kentucky, and if you have ever known one coal camp town in Central and Southern Appalachia, you have known all of them in some key ways.  The streets were nearly all laid out along a common pattern.  Nearly all the houses for common miners were built along one or two similar patterns, often in duplexes intended for two families.  As I drove up the creek, one of the first things I noticed was that there was actually a visible high water line along the sides of the hills up the valley where the age of the trees above and below that line were clearly different.  That forty foot high wall of water had ripped down the valley and literally torn the trees and vegetation out of the ground up to the limits of its reach.  You could also see a line, depending on the type of ground a particular coal camp had been built, where there were no houses or only severely damaged houses below it and intact houses and blocks of houses above it.  You could see a few intact stretches of the old, crooked, two lane highway which had survived the flood and long stretches where there was only the much straighter and wider new road which had been built after the disaster.  

But, if you met and talked to many of the surviving residents as I did, you would hear stories if the people trusted you about how and why they had survived the flood, some due purely to blind luck, others who had left the creek because it was apparent for several days that the two sludge dams in the head of the creek would fail in the heavy rains that came that week.  You would also hear heart rending stories of the dead who had died purely because state and federal regulators in West Virginia had ignored many warning signs before the flood, had refused to force Pittston to properly repair and reinforce the aging and overloaded dams.  You would hear stories from local residents who had survived the flood and spent days without basic services as they helped search for the missing and dead.  You would hear mothers and fathers grieving for dead children, surviving children mourning parents who would never see those children grown or see their grandchildren, you could meet the undertaker who buried many of the dead and refused to discuss the disaster, and you could also meet the people who had been forever damaged in heart and soul by the flood and its multiple aftermaths and could not and would not ever discuss it because they had no words to tell their losses and grief.  

Every year, when this day comes, I remember Buffalo Creek where I have spent many days, met many survivors, and learned a great deal about just how corrupt American corporations and politicians had shirked their moral, ethical, and legal responsibilities on Buffalo Creek.  I remember that many good, decent, hard working men and women, numerous potentially successful children, and a lot of older citizens were cheated out of a decent end to decent lives because Pittston was not held responsible for their crimes on Buffalo Creek both before and after the flood.  May all the dead rest in peace! 

"Under The Juniper Tree" by Emily Steiner--Book Review

Steiner, Emily. Under The Juniper Tree (Haines Printing, Northeast, PA, 2019)

My friend Emily Steiner has just completed and released her fourth novel and the third in her "Lilly Of Appalachia" series about a coal mining family in Harlan County Kentucky.  I have previously reviewed the first two books in the series and apparently played a productive role in the second, "Under Fire", for which Emily provided me the head swelling mention on the acknowledgements page of this book as having been "..a bottomless well of research material".  I must admit that I am flattered since I respect and like Emily a great deal.  All three of the books are directly available from Emily at her home address of Emily Steiner, 155 Memorial Gardens Road, West Liberty, KY 41472.  You can actually call Emily at 606-495-8090 and she will actually answer her own telephone and talk to you immediately or return your calls if she is busy.  The full set of books are available or each may be ordered individually.  This is what Emily says about pricing: "I charge 10.99 plus 2.75 for shipping for a single copy of the new book. (If it’s to someone in KY, there’s also sales tax.) The others are still 9.95, and will be until I reprint them in a few months. Then they’ll all be 10.99. I know this is sort of confusing... If you want to tell your people, I also offer a special in the whole set—28.00 plus shipping."  Since this is a self-published series of books, please allow me to say this about Emily and her professionalism.  Emily is the daughter of the manager of the editorial department at Rod and Staff Publishers, Crockett, KY, one of the two largest Mennonite publishing companies in the country, and she takes her writing and all aspects of publishing seriously.  Rod and Staff are not the publishers or printers of this book although they did publish another of her books which is more directly about life in a Mennonite family.  This book was printed by Haines Printing in Northeast, PA, a small Mennonite owned printer, and I have never seen more professional work from a small printer or publisher.  Based on having seen Emily's three novels, all of which were printed by Haines, I am willing to recommend them without reservations.  They do high quality, fully professional, crisp, tight, slick books which are comparable to the work being done by any publisher in America.  

But let's talk about this novel particularly.  It is the third, and Emily says the final, novel in the series about a poor Appalachian coal mining family from Harlan County Kentucky although most of this novel is set in a fictitious West Virginia called Three Springs.  The protagonist, Lilly Sherman and her husband, coal miner and strongly non-violent preacher Everette Sherman have left Harlan County because Everette's non-violence and refusal to participate in union activity have made him a target of violence during a strike which is detailed in the second novel, "Under Fire".  For those of you who, like me, strongly support trade unionism, let me say that Emily's discussions of and beliefs about trade unionism are strongly based in her Mennonite religion.  It is genuine, a basic part of core beliefs about life, morals, and religion and I respect her for it.  She and I disagree about this aspect of our lives but we disagree amicably and respectfully.  I value her friendship and respect a great deal and I believe that feeling is mutual.  Despite that difference of opinion, this is a book and a series of books that is worth reading for the Appalachian reader or the reader in coal country.  

Emily Steiner--Photo by the Steiner Family

This novel does not directly address the union movement at length and unionism and strikes are not a major part of this book.  Coal mining and life in a coal camp is a major part of the plot of this book.  The key characters of the novel are members of two extended families who live in the two sides of a typical coal camp duplex.  They are realistically drawn, believable, living and breathing humans who are working together to make the most of terrible lifestyle.  Coal camp life is realistically portrayed and I can assure you that Emily has done her research for all three books.  This book is filled with unemployment, coal mine disasters, and untimely death.  My most serious concern about the plot and the eventual resolution of the conflict in the book lies in the fact that the ending is, in my opinion, somewhat unrealistic.  But I am still pleased with the book as I have always been with the work of the author.  Her work is more mature from the first book to this one.  She is growing into the strong, young, female novelist I knew she would become based on the first book.  She is well worth reading and appreciating.  Use the contact information above and order at least one of these books.  Do yourself a real favor and order all three.  You can have the set for just a little more than the price of a hardback bestseller from a major publisher.  You will enjoy this book and it will give you a better understanding of coal camp life shortly after the turn of the twentieth century.  

Kentucky Coal Museum--Benham, KY, July 25, 2019

As I mentioned in my previous blog post about our long road trip to Harlan County and beyond, my wife Candice and I toured the Kentucky Coal Museum in Benham, Kentucky, on July 25, 2019.  I am involved in a large research project about a particular coal camp town right now and I am deeply immersed in as much coal camp information as I can gather which has been reflected in many of my recent blog posts.  Even though it is a bit far flung from my main research interest, Candice and I both wanted to go to Harlan to the museum and thought the trip was worth while.  It really was worth while.  I have been fascinated and greatly pleased that a little over two  years ago the museum converted to solar power but I did not discuss it with the employee on duty since most of the early questions I asked her seemed to be a bit over her head.  That was the only negative aspect of the entire experience in my mind.  I would have loved to meet a docent who actually knew a lot about the museum, the industry, and life in the area as far back as 125 years ago.  The other biggest knock on the place is that, like most museums, art galleries, and zoos, you enter the place directly into the store area where they are hawking everything from soup to nuts.  

But the museum is located in an old store or office building has has four levels with displays.  There is the ground level, a mezzanine above that, a second story above that, and a basement which is primarily filled with coal mining tools and a facsimile mine.  I took as many photos as I could and they allow you to take photos freely which is great.  The collection is diverse, reasonably well curated, and organized into logical sections according to subject matter.  There are several photos and other material from Drift, KY, in Floyd County which was a surprise since that mine was near where I grew up.  There is also a fairly large display of Loretta Lynn material which has some logical connection because of her "Coal Miner's Daughter" record and book and the fact that she grew up in Van Lear, KY, a coal camp in Johnson County.  There is also a small museum in Van Lear which is not nearly as complete, well curated, or diverse.  I am going to add as many photographs to this post as I can logically and will, from this point on,  and will make only short explanatory notes where necessary.  I hope my readers will enjoy this blog post, tour the Coal Museum on your own, and read the other posts which I have provided links to in this piece.  

The mezzanine level, which we visited first has a large collection of memorabilia from the several local schools which existed in Harlan County before consolidation.  These are the schools which the children of coal miners attended until the mergers began.  This is a sports letter sweater from Lynch High School which no longer exists.   

ALL PHOTOS ARE BY ROGER D. HICKS AND ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED UNDER US COPYRIGHT LAW.  DO NOT USE ANY PHOTOS FROM THIS BLOG WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM ROGER D. HICKS. 

Lynch High School Letterman's Sweater--Photo by Roger D. Hicks

This is obviously a Lynch High School cheerleader's uniform which was worn by a girl named Joyce. 

Lynch High School cheerleader's uniform--Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Car Decorator Plate from Benham, KY, the home of the museum--Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Below we have a pre-employment warning sign which would have been posted near the entrance to the coal company employment office and harks back to signs which used to appear in New York City which said things like "No Irish Need To Apply".  In the early era of coal mining in Appalachia, companies could get away with all sorts of discrimination and maltreatment which would be crimes today. 

Pre-employment Warning Sign from Benham--Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Life Sized Carved Wood Bust of a Coal Miner--Photo by Roger D. Hicks

I assume this sign, hand written with a finger in coal dust is authentic although I did not ask.  If you read it carefully, it says, "42 men alive in Left Mar 4, 1915 at 4:30pm

This is the coal camp church display in the museum.  Notice that the museum staff worked diligently to make the church racially integrated with an African American minister.  But most companies owned the buildings in which the churches were held or built racially segregated churches for both races and strictly controlled who could preach in them, what they could preach, and who they could preach it to.  For instance, read about the churches in the book I reviewed recently, "Coal People Life In Southern Colorado's Company Towns".  Also, some mention of this subject takes place in George D. Torok's book, "A Guide To Historic Coal Towns Of The Big Sandy River Valley" which is reviewed at this link.  While all the same practices were not followed from state to state or company to company, the companies universally used every device at their disposal in order to control every aspect of coal camp life.  Interestingly, in Eastern Kentucky and parts of Southern West Virginia and Western Virginia, the Old Regular Baptist Church was a big influence on the people of coal camps and always owned their own churches which were also always outside the city limits such asd the Steele's Creek ORB Church at Wayland where the moderator, E. Hawk Moore,  was also a miner and served as the funeral committeeman for the UMWA for many years.  But it is also necessary to note that the ORB church did not usually meddle much in coal company matters and their churches only held services on site one weekend each month which was throwback to the days of the circuit riding preachers in Appalachia. 

Here is a photo of a wonderful coal and wood burning cook stove on the floor of the museum which houses most of the items related to Loretta Lynn.  However, please note that nothing in the section particularly seems to be labeled as having been owned by Loretta Lynn or her family. 

Here is a wonderful Singer treadle sewing machine from the bedroom of that same section of the museum.  The bedroom suite of which the chest of drawers is partially visible appears to be from the late 1950's or early 1960's based on the type of drawer pulls it has.

The section of the museum which represents stores, both country stores and company stores takes me back to my childhood growing up in a country store.  They have a great collection of period appropriate items in the shelves along with a good scale from about the 1950's. 

I hope you have enjoyed this insight into the collections at the museum.  But please do not allow these photographs to prevent you from actually taking a trip to Benham, KY, to tour the museum.  If you have any interest in or connection to coal camp towns and coal mining, you will appreciate their collections. 

ALL PHOTOS ARE BY ROGER D. HICKS AND ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED UNDER US COPYRIGHT LAW.  DO NOT USE ANY PHOTOS FROM THIS BLOG WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERSMISSION FROM ROGER D. HICKS.