Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 1, 1994 TAG: 9402010128
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Robert Freis
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As a topic, Montgomery County's not-so-long-gone coal mining era is a rich vein for any writer or historian to tap.
I would like to tell more about the men who worked underground and the families who resided in coal towns such as Merrimac and McCoy.
Or about coal mining in Pulaski County, at Parrot, just across the New River from McCoy. About the small mining camp in Coal Bank Hollow, just north of Blacksburg.
I'd like to acknowledge the local folks who want to keep this essential episode of Montgomery County history alive - Oakley Lilly, Kenneth McCoy, June McCoy, Doug Breeden, Jimmy Lee Price, H. Lee Linkous, Elizabeth Albert. All were helpful and encouraging as I conducted my research.
They want to pay tribute to the men and women who struggled to get by on miner's wages, who raised children and lived in company towns where folks shared what little they had.
That's their family history and the genealogy of many people who live hereabouts - and a proud heritage it is.
Heck, I could write a book. And maybe I will.
I'm personally and professionally indebted to everyone who's helped me learn more about the subject.
Knowing more about this aspect of Montgomery County's history has given me a deeper understanding of the present.
For example, I have a new insight about why divisions sometimes exist between the "old" and "new" residents of the county.
And why someone whose family grew up in a mining town might not share the attitudes of a university professor.
Montgomery County has changed so much during the past 30 years. The college communities affiliated with Virginia Tech and Radford University have grown while the manufacturing jobs held by many of the people who once were farmers or miners have declined.
Balancing the old and the new is - for my money - the biggest ongoing challenge this community faces.
I know we all have to look ahead as we travel this road. But you should know where you came from, too, if you want to stay on course.
Back in the mid-1960s, when the Appalachian Regional Commission was formed, Montgomery County refused to join.
Community leaders shunned the ARC because they didn't want to be associated with Appalachia, a region stigmatized by poverty.
Looking back, this seems foolish - particularly in a county where so many people fed their families by digging coal.
Now Montgomery County has asked Congress to include it in the ARC because contemporary leaders recognize the economic benefits of joining. The bill is slowly working its way through Congress.
Let's hope this indicates one way to reconcile the past and the future.
I'd like to suggest another. The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, which contains men whose relatives and friends were coal miners, could declare April 18, 1994 - and all April 18ths to come - as "Montgomery County Coal Miners Day." That is the anniversary of an explosion that killed 12 miners at McCoy in 1946.
The idea is not to commemorate a disaster but to acknowledge a debt. We should recognize the efforts of these miners and their families and celebrate their legacy.
The Appalachian Studies programs at Tech and Radford could participate. Invite the media.
Once everybody gets to know one another, perhaps a teacher or professor will invite an ex-coal miner to speak to his class.
In return, the old miner may offer to take the students on a tour of McCoy or the site of an abandoned mine.
Maybe, one day, the old miner and the professor will find themselves on opposite sides of a hot issue.
Let's say the old miner wants the names "Christmas" and "Easter" restored to the public school calendar, while the professor advocates secular names such as "winter" and "spring" break.
At an emotional public hearing, the old miner and the professor spot one another in the crowd, smile and shake hands.
I'd call that a healing thing.
by CNB