Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994 TAG: 9404240152
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MCCOY LENGTH: Medium
Ethel Sheppard, 91, was there Saturday to remember her son on Montgomery County's first Coal Miners' Day.
From Walnut Cove, N.C., Sheppard was one of hundreds drawn to a sunny day of reunion, fellowship and sorrow near several of Montgomery County's long-closed anthracite coal mines. Her 12-year-old son died in a 1932 boiler explosion at the Dunlap Coal Mine on Price Mountain. He was delivering lunch to his father.
"I think it's wonderful, just wonderful how this turned out," Sheppard said.
"It's real touching for all of us," said Sumler, of Prices Fork.
It was a day of food, reunion photographs, speeches and formal proclamations, prayers and the unveiling of a volunteer-built monument beside McCoy Road to fallen coal miners.
Perhaps the most touching moments of the long afternoon came as a steady stream of wives, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and friends placed white carnations into the wreath, one for each of the 41 men and one boy who died in mine-related accidents between 1905 and 1957, the peak years of mining in the county.
Bob Graham of Longshop, who works as a painter at Virginia Tech, was one of 12 people who placed carnations in connection with the county's most costly mine disaster, the April 1946 explosion at the Great Valley Anthracite Mine in McCoy.
His father, David Lee Graham, died in the explosion. The remembrance, Graham said, meant a lot. "I think it's a good thing. I wish it could have been a little sooner," he said. His mother, Mabel K. Graham, died just eight months ago.
Beyond the sadness, there was a chance to pass along tales of the old, hard way of life in the mines to the younger generations. Tales of the dirt and danger, the long hours and low pay, of how the county's mines - worked from after the Revolutionary War until just a few decades ago - fueled the industrial revolution in Virginia and were the major powers of the local economy up until World War II.
Though centered at McCoy in northwestern Montgomery, Coal Miners' Day celebrated former miners and their families from all across the county: from Merrimac, Coal Bank Hollow, Wake Forest, Brush Mountain, Sunnyside and Toms Creek.
Minor Vaught, 77, of the Longshop-McCoy area, stood talking in the midday sun with his nephew and namesake, 64-year-old Minor Vaught of Bedford, and his great-nephew, 33-year-old Mike Vaught of Roanoke.
"I wanted to learn about my family," said Mike Vaught, who hadn't seen his great-uncle in 29 years.
Minor Vaught, known as "Big Minor" (and not to be confused with his nephew, "Little Minor"), recalled the 26 years he spent in the mines. He started at 18, was working at Great Valley at the time of the 1946 explosion and finished out his mining career at the Big Vein Mine. He later worked for the town of Blacksburg for 21 years after the mines closed.
"It was hard work, but I liked it," Vaught said. "You earned what you made."
He recalled being paid about $1.90 per carload of coal. Two men working with hand augers, pick and shovel could fill about 10 cars a day. Miners also earned "travel pay" for the time they spent going deep into the earth, he said.
Heartsease M. Eaves, her four grown children and three of her six grandchildren were able to pay their respects at the grave of her husband, Isaac T. Eaves, who died in a rock fall in the Big Vein mine on Feb. 6, 1953, seven years after his discharge from military service in the South Pacific and Japan during World War II. He was the only black miner killed in the county's coal mines, Eaves said.
Her husband's grave faces the back of the coal miners' monument, which was built with donations raised in just the past two months. Organizers hoped to raise enough Saturday to pay for capstones to finish it.
"It kind of pushes me back in time, really," Eaves said. Her son Ronald turned 4 the day after his father died at age 31; his brother Thomas was 6. Both pitched in labor to help build the memorial.
Heartsease Eaves, who retired from Hercules Inc. in 1989 with 25 years of service, recalled that all the mining families made do with earnings that would be considered slim today.
"Everybody was in the same boat," she said. "It was a way of life."
by CNB