Any Coal Miners' Kin Here On The Forum?

My grandfather came from Finland as a glass blower, but when work slowed down, he went to work in Monclo, WV, near Logan, in an underground mine. He died in 1957 of black lung. I have gone to the mine and have a bag of real coal from the mine that I will use on my layout. My Uncle worked for the C & O and the L & N railroads that hauled the coal out of the mines. My other grandfather was a lumber jack thus my motif is lumber and coal.

My grandfather went to work in the mines at 13 or 14.  His first job was tending the mules, this was done inside below ground level not sure how deep.  According to him most were blind as they never saw the light of day in a lifetime.  This first mine was in the Lincoln, Pa and Keffers, Pa area.

Father,Grandfather WV Coal Mines, Harewood and Cannelton

A couple of my 3rd great grandfathers were coal miners in Schuylkill and Luzerne Counties, Pennsylvania in the mid-to-late 1800's.

Andy

My father worked in a mine until around 1983 in a small town of Coffeen Il. he worked for consolidated coal company until DuPont bought them out.

http://hinton-gen.com/montco/coal_hillsboro_ccc.html

in talking to my father after posting this. he was telling me about a incedent that happened in the mine. the gentleman Schweppe that died was in his section. dad rode up with the guy he asked my father to take care of his wife and kids . I was 10 at the time so I never heard about it until today.  in the story about him it states the scoop operator (my father)

Jhainer,

There are some things that are better off unsaid at the time. Now that you're older some are easier to share and understand.

yep still on phone with him Now he's telling about everything memories being made.

My wife's grandfather was pinned by a mine car, and died at home as a result of his injuries. This was at the Huber Colliery in Ashley Pa.

Don

Good evening everyone,

My father worked for the same Surface Coal Company for 50 years.

I worked for the same Coal Company for 8 years after I got out of high school in 1980.

I left the Surface Mining profession but still work with Coal Companies here in PA almost everyday. The company I work for, manufacture Blasthole Drilling Rigs that are working in the Bituminous and the Anthracite Coal fields here in PA and other mining operations all over the world.

Yes, I am a Friend Of Coal !!!!

Mark Strittmatter

TCA # 14-69917

Indiana PA.

My Grandfather (a WW1 vet) worked at a mine in Virginia, I don't know where off the top of my head. But at some point he decided to move to Eastern TN. My Uncle, Dad's oldest brother who passed away in the 90s, once told me about being a kid there and seeing the N&W articulateds (first time I ever heard the word, "Mallet" in the French pronouciation to describe them) working coal trains. If grandad hadn't moved to the mountains, I guess my Dad would probably be long dead (I think the mines contributed to his father's passing in his 60s) and my brother and I might be in those mines right now... Then again, my brother and I always had a desire to get out and see the world, which we each did with the military, but I'd be willing to accept that would have been really tough to do from mining country.

    As far as I know no one in my family worked in coal mining (steel plants yes). I hauled coal in my dump truck different times in my truck driving career. Choo Choo Kenny  

My Grandfather worked the zinc mines in Franklin,  New Jersey. He died of lung cancer at an early age. 

Both of my grandfathers worked in the coal mines.  I think that one of my uncles also worked in the coal mines.

Norm

My dad was a cage operator for the d&h coal co, eddy creek colliery, Olyphant pa. For you young folks this was an elevator that lowered the miners and the cars in the ground. He started as a breaker boy in the 5th grade. Eddy creek closed about 1953. I got to ride the lokie as young boy. I love coal and have close to 100 hopper cars. Guess I am addicted.

my maternal grandmothers father and all 7 of here brothers were coal miners around Amsterdam,Ohio, and all her sisters also married coal miners. my grandmother was the only one who married outside of the coal miners she married a auto mechanic who is the man who got me my first train set 7 months before i was born. still have the set as well as his diploma from the Youngstown school of auto mechanics dated Jan 15,1915.

Never worked in the coal mines, but my father worked for UMWA in western PA. till his death in 1970. I was told many stories of John L. Lewis & the trials & tribulations of the coal miners. When I reached the age of 16 and could drive my dad to the union meetings he would have me park right at the front door, wait in the car, in case there was any trouble at the meeting, for a fast getaway. It never happened, thankfully. He never told me that was the reason for staying in the car but I figured it out after a few trips. So many,many stories from my Dad. The coal miners were a very tough bunch of guys. I really respect any man who was or is a coal miner. They certainly deserve it. Tom

Yup my grandfather on my Moms side was a long time coal miner in the Sonman mine in Portage Pennsylvania.

My wife's family mined coal there. Her Grandfather died in the mines and her grandmother got a job as the school custodian. Unheard of in those days.  Her father had to "find" coal as a boy to keep the house warm.  He would climb onto the Reading Coal Drags as the crept up the hill out of town.  He would kick the coal between the cars onto the tracks.  He would then get off and collect the coal... until they caught him on the train!  But that's another story.

My Grandfather worked in the mines in southern Illinois, died at relatively young age.  My Father started in the same mine on his 16th birthday.  Worked on weekends and school holidays.  Received news of a collage scholarship while a the coal face.  After graduating from collage, his first job was teaching at the University of Colorado during the Depression.  He and friend also leased a gold mine and worked it for several years.

ChipR

My Grandfather was a coal miner. Immigrating from Lithuania to Forest City, PA. He got part of his right foot cut off by a D&H train heading downgrade to Carbondale while going to work in the mine early one morning in the fog. He died from black lung disease in 1945 at age 57. I never met him. My three other Uncles worked the Forest City area mines too.  

My Grandfather (mother's side) was born on a Howard County farm (MD) in 1888.  When he was about 20, he went out to West Virginia to work in the coal mines.  After one year, he came back, and swore that he would never again work for another man.  So he bought a farm, and farmed it until he died.  The work could not have been much less hard-- I shared it for 3 summers before and during part of high school, and swore I would never become a farmer.  It was easy to see he'd been a miner, from the way he could toss hay bales up off the wagon, to be caught and stacked in an immense barn.  At least, when he died at 68 it wasn't from any of the coal miners' diseases.

He was one of 9 children, born in a tall stone farmhouse that still stands in view west of Route 29 (pro shop of Columbia golf course now).  His own farm was on the southeast, in sight of that stone house.  Really interesting is that he had a sister named Edith Clarke (just google that name), born 1883.  She was the first woman ever to get a degree in electrical engineering from MIT, by way of persuading her employer, General Electric, to promote her into the then all-male position of electrical engineer (vs "computer," the place for women at that time).  She devised practical methods to analyze the instabilities in long-distance 3-phase high-voltage power lines.  One of those just happened to be the long-distance electrification of the Pennsylvania railroad, begun in the 1920's and completed in the 1930's.

One of the issues was the short circuit currents that could flow.  The rails were the return path, and on a 4-track railroad capacitance between the rails affected the extent to which parallel tracks would become part of this path, not to mention the effect on signals.  Her book, "Circuit Analysis of A-C Power Systems," has a couple of pages in its appendix about this.  (That also saps the strength of the DCS signal... so there's an application to model railroads as well.)

Even so, I was astonished to read last week that Howard County is apparently becoming the Silicon Valley of the East.  Still, Williams and MTH are (or were) there, years before.  

--Frank

Both my grandparents were coal miners in Western PA. In researching my family genealogy for 1910 US Census, my paternal grandparents had 18 people living in their home with a double hole outhouse. Almost all were miners from Croatia. Redonion was the nickname of the town where they lived and where I was raised. Perhaps the best website for Western PA coal mine info is at http://patheoldminer.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

My Grandfather Ira Edward Tice worked at High Shaft Cole Company Steubenville Ohio.

Born Feb.14,1897died Aug.9,1948 at Edwin Shaw Sanatorium, Lakemore Ohio.

 I never met my Grandpa because I was born in 1949,but my Dad William Edward Tice told me he worked in a cole mine.

He only lived 52 years and passed away with TB.

His picture can be found on find a grave.com. I cannot imagine how it was to work in a cole mine. Along with all the other miners in our country and Industrial workers ,These miners helped build our country with the energy produced. Thank You .

          David Edward Tice  Tallmadge Ohio

Dad hauled coal for close to 30 years from the pits around Steubenville and Amsterdam,ohio.

I work on the other end.  I work at coal fired power plants.   One of my first coal related jobs was to do a structural inspectionof an unloading pit. (I was cleaning off the corrosion and put a chipping hammer right through a steel beam -inspection over!) Watching the cars get unloaded is something to see. Once positioned,  a bottom dump car can fully discharge 110 tons in about 14 seconds.  Rotary dumps are neat but I haven't got to watch one up close. 

For the past 6 yrs I have been directing repairs and tuning coal pulverizers all over the country.  I am most definitely a friend of coal - its the basis of my livelihood! 

If you search "coal mining" on You Tube, you'll find a lot of film clips. There's a good modern one of Bailey Mine longwalling, as well as some neat old Bureau of Mines footage of mining in different eras.

No two regions mine in exactly the same way, so look for your area. There are different traditions, different equipment, even different superstitions. Also, no two seams are exactly alike, even in bituminous regions. The Pittsburgh #8 is almost six feet thick in most minable spots, while some seams are four feet or less and the ones down in the Billion Dollar Coalfield in southern WV are really thick and tall (and hard to manage.)