Coal Miner's Granddaughter

Both of my grandfathers were coal miners. I spent many summer vacations in the coal region of Pennsylvania. The mines were all pretty much shut down as far as I could remember. But coal mining never leaves an area. It is prevalent in the very air you breathe, and the dust that lives on.

My grandfathers didn't talk too much about the mines. I know they both lost their fathers to mining accidents. In the past few years, I have been researching my dad's family. When my grandfather was four months old, his father was killed in the mines. I never even knew his name. Until my brother found an old newspaper clipping in my grandmother's house. That made me start to search..... Now that there is more information online, it is much easier than going to the LDS Library and squinting through a microfiche viewer.

I was able to find a site that listed mine fatalities in Northumberland County. 1909 Mine Fatalities has my great-grandfather's death listed.

13-Aug Millard, Lot- English, Miner, 25, M, Locust Gap. Killed by fall of slate at face of breast while trying to bar it down.

Just reading that document and the ways that miners died is very heartbreaking. It was a very hard life.

So you can understand why this story from CNN about the lone survivor of the Sago mine accident in West Virgina makes me so very sad.

McCloy said the air behind the curtain grew worse, and he lay as low as possible and tried to take shallow breaths, but became lightheaded.

"Some drifted off into what appeared to be a deep sleep, and one person sitting near me collapsed and fell off his bucket, not moving. It was clear that there was nothing I could do to help him," McCloy wrote. "The last person I remember speaking to was Jackie Weaver, who reassured me that if it was our time to go, then God's will would be fulfilled."

Still a very dangerous way of life for so many.