Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994 TAG: 9404220188
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It will be festive: old men and women and their children and grandchildren, gathering to remember a long-gone chapter of New River Valley history.
But there also will be a more somber purpose: honoring the dead.
The highlight will be the unveiling of a monument to 41 men and a boy who died in mine-related accidents, including the April 18, 1946, explosion that killed 12 deep inside the Great Valley Anthracite Mine near McCoy.
"We want it to be very sacred and a solemn tribute, really focused on the contributions of our fathers and grandfathers," Jimmie Lee Price, co-chairman, along with Kenneth McCoy, said of Coal Miners' Day.
The event, which runs from noon to 4 at the ballpark in McCoy, is open to all. The McCoy Ruritans will serve a benefit meal, featuring beef tips and homemade pie, at noon. There will be speakers aplenty - including preachers, politicians and professors - and a ceremony during which the nearest relative or descendant of each fallen miner will place a flower in a wreath.
Though usually associated with far Southwest Virginia, coal mining was the major industry in Montgomery County for decades and was crucial to communities such as Merrimac, McCoy, Wake Forest and Coal Bank Hollow.
The last major anthracite mine closed more than 40 years ago, surpassed in economic importance by the Radford Army Ammunition Plant and Virginia Tech.
Price and about a dozen other men began organizing the tribute just two months ago, following a series of articles about the old mines published in January in the Roanoke Times & World-News. Their ranks have grown to more than 60.
Price said the articles ignited an interest in holding a miners' reunion that had been smouldering for some time as the old miners age. "We're losing a visible part of our mining heritage," he said.
Ira Long, a veteran Montgomery County supervisor and a miner in his youth, said he has never seen anything like it. The event has linked communities and people across the county. "This thing has sort of snowballed," he said.
The point is to honor the surviving miners - organizers expect 75 to 100 to show up, some of whom will put their old tools and gear on display - and let their descendants learn about the role of mining in the region's history.
That excites supervisors' Chairman Larry Linkous, 40, who comes from a long line of miners. "The younger generation doesn't know about it," he said. "My relatives ... worked in the mines. Even that close, my generation doesn't know about it. This is something that brought to light a real important part of Montgomery County history that's been forgotten."
The monument has been a labor of love. Organizers have spent $5,500 so far on building it, most of that raised in $5, $10 and $20 donations, Price said. They hope to raise about $3,000 more this weekend through the benefit lunch and the sales of T-shirts and ball caps. That will pay for the capstones to finish it.
The fieldstone structure - shaped to symbolize a mine opening - is 15 feet long and tops out at 8 feet high, with three black granite slabs inlaid that list the names of the dead, including Alford Shepard, a boy killed in a steam boiler explosion in the 1930s as he stopped by a mine to drop off his father's lunch.
W.C. Saville, a former miner, Virginia Tech retiree and rock-work expert, laid the stone with Ira Smith Jr., who works for Tech, Price said.
They donated their time, as did many others, including brothers Ronald and Thomas Eaves from the black mining community of Wake Forest. They lost their father, Isaac, in a 1953 mine rock fall.
There will be a tent, so the event will go on, rain or shine. The Sheriff's Office will direct traffic to auxiliary parking areas. To get there, head west from Blacksburg on Prices Fork Road, then turn right on Virginia 652, McCoy Road.
"It has really brought the two communities of Merrimac and McCoy together," Linkous said. "This is not something that government decided to do or people are being paid to do. This is something that citizens decided to do by themselves."
by CNB