ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512260072
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-11 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
TYPE: CHRISTMAS MEMORIES
SOURCE: FREIDA CLEVINGER
The day was Dec. 15, 1917. It was my birthday. I was 7 years old. I awakened to a cold, gray sky, and the coal-town houses seemed even more shabby than yesterday.
My mother, who was expecting, and my two sisters were there with me. My father was already at work in the mines.
We had not wanted to come here, but times were hard in Virginia, and this place offered work. We were hill farmers. What did we know of coal towns and mines? But you can't feed your family on nothing, so we came.
Mom hated the coal dust. She would say, "I can take the cold, the damp, and the dreariness, but this black dust will kill me. It is always here. It seeps into everything. Nothing is ever clean. Of all the things I miss about home, I miss being clean, my white wash. It seems like the dust reaches down to my soul."
Daddy worked at mine No. 10. There, they didn't ask questions about what you knew; they didn't want to know. They only wanted you to have a strong back. Regular miners wouldn't work it. They said it was unsafe. Daddy didn't have a choice. He had all of us, and it put food on the table.
To this day I can still hear the whistle blow, smell the smell of what Mom was cooking, see the dress she had on. The whistle never blew except at noon and quitting time.
When it blew early morning like this, everyone knew what it meant. Always in the town it meant death in the mines; we just didn't know whose.
Momma looked at me and said, "Hattie, you watch the children; I'll go." She left me to look out that back dusty window and to wonder what Fate had as a gift for me on this, my seventh birthday.
She returned alone at dark, and I knew Daddy would never come, that we would be alone without him. Daddy had come to the West Virginia hills just because he could do no better, and now he would never leave them.
Of all the memories I have of my life, the one which is the clearest is seeing the coffins of my daddy and 17 other miners pulled one behind the other on flat coal cars across the bridge that spanned the river between the town and the mine. The memory is always vivid on Dec. 15, for on that day Fate gave me the most cruel gift of all.
Freida Clevinger lives in Pulaski. Her older sister, Lutitia Tallant of Blacksburg sent the story in and wrote, "The story is about my great mother, Violet Cox. Out of her 85 years, she has lived in Hiwassee except for the year or so she lived in West Virginia. She is the sweetest mother anyone would ever want."
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB