A day in the Life of a Old Coal Miner during the 1930 s. A Miners Story of a day underground

This is a story of an old coal miner during the Depression years, trying to provide for his family, trying to survive these old coal mines day in and day out, and provide a better life for his children. And this is his story. You know, after 10 years of this, I really don't need a clock. I automatically wake up before it goes off. But I'm just laying here thanking the good Lord for what I have, keeping me safe, thanking for my family to keep me safe another day. Well, I'm up putting my old raggedy work clothes on for another day. I see Ma's already up cooking some breakfast, firing the stove up, getting my lunch ready. She's been a good woman, good mother. I check on the kids before I leave out in the morning. Usually one or two of them's already up looking at me. I try hard to make a better life for them. I'm one of the lucky few. I own four acres here just a haul or two over from the mines. It was handed down to me by my father. And I'm able to have a little garden around here. I head out towards the mines. It's not far, half a mile walk. I pass through the company mining camps where all my buddies live. I'm glad I don't live in this. Passing here up to the mines now. I see we got a lot of coal needs to be shipped out. Check the tag board here, see what's new going on. Tag myself in, see if there's work available. A few days ago, we didn't have no work. Had so much coal on the ground, they wasn't hauling it off, didn't need none. So they called off work today. That was a good thing, but it don't pay well. I hear I'm waiting to go inside here, check on my buddies, see how they're doing, what's going on this morning. Shoot the bull. Waiting on old George in there. He goes in there and does the fire bossing, see if everything's okay for us to go in. He's got a dangerous job. Now here's the crew here at this old mines on this shift. Good old bunch of guys, buddy. We all depend on each other. My dad, he started in the mines when he was probably 12, 13 years old, and a lot of other dad's guys did too. Well, it's time to get into the mines here. I let all these young guys go in before me. They're in better shape than I am, and my workings is not too far in. Here's my buddy, William. We get in our workplace here, trying to inspect it a little bit and scale it down. We've been shot the night before when we start loading. Here's the haul crew. They're waiting on us to load a car. They start hooking up these ponies and horses, and we just load them as hard as we can load. Back breaking work, but you get used to it. Here in the other places, we're working on other places in the face here, drilling, getting ready to shoot it, and we're just working behind them loading a loose coat. Here's shot fires loading the places after they drill it. Some guys has already got their cars loaded, and they're heading them out of the face out to the main line. They're hooking up these mules, horses, backing these cars into the places where we can load them in these places that's been shot. Old George here, he's been working on the track here. If the track gets out of gauge, you can't haul nothing on these cars. You got a wreck, got a mess. He does a good job keeping this main line straightened out where these haul these cars out with this heavy coat. We keep loading these cars. Usually takes us an hour or so to load one, but it's time for a break. It is back breaking work. Sit there and take a breather, thinking about what's happening at home. Ma's washing clothes for the week. She does a good job. She works hard trying to keep this family together. I wished I could get her some modern machinery though. She puts out a lot of wash, and I try to think about what I need to do in this garden I got around the house here. That sure saves us on the company store. It really helps us going. We're back to loading again. Breaks over. Old shot fire over there. He's about got another place loaded, and when he does, he'll let everybody know around the immediate area, and he'll get ready to shoot it off. He'll say, fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole, and while the smoke's clearing, we'll all take us a lunch break. It's about lunchtime anyway. Wait till the smoke settles down. We all get together there, eat a little bite, and talk about each other's families, what's going on, just trying to catch up. These younger guys, they just getting started. Anyway, we're talking about, well, I'm trying to get some extra money around the house. I'm raising some hogs on a little piece of land that I got. It really helps out. I'm able to buy shoes and extra stuff by trading these hogs. Some old guys, for their extra money, they've been setting up and been doing a little moonshining, but that's way too risky. I just wouldn't risk my family's security for that because I want to be a good example. I try to take the family to church every chance I can, try to live right, serve the Lord as best I can, thank him so much for taking care of me and these old mines and watching over my family. There's nothing better to see your kids saved and baptized. I'm so proud of them. I wish them a better life than these old coal mines. And schooling's the way to go. I try to instill in them, learn as best as you can and go as learn as much as you can. Reading and writing and arithmetic. I can write my name and read a little bit, but that's about it. I'm back to work. Back to this, loading this old coal in these cars. Back breaking work and it does take its toll on the time. Now some places in the mines, those guys just don't want to work. You can see just the top setting down and it's just too dangerous, too dangerous. We've got a crew comes in in the afternoon in the evening shift and they usually timber up at night, so make it safe as they can for us. We really appreciate it. Now I had an old buddy of mine about a month back. He got covered up by a ribbed car and I rocked off. Just the coal rolled down on the rib on him and covered him up before we could get to him. I've had a lot of good friends die in these mines. You never know when it's your turn. It's up to the good Lord. He left a wife and three children. So sad. And I try to talk to my little boy as much as I could that this is not a life for him, but that's what my dad told me too. But here I am, an old man in these coal mines. And these younger boys, they just don't understand. They take a risk. It only takes one time, not much of a rock at all to cripple you or just kill you. It's not worth taking that risk. We're still loading these cars. This makes about the fourth car we've loaded today. Some of these old places is hard to get into or they've had to scale it down and rocks fail in it trying to get in there back in them places. Some of them are tight. These are not pretty places. And here's what you got to watch out for. These old kettle bottoms. They're just old petrified tree stumps that was formed when the coal was falling today. They'll just fall out at any time. You won't even know they're there. We try to put tea timbers under them like this and mark these spots, but sometimes we miss them. Here's break time again. Man, some of these days are long, but they're not too long. If you stay busy, it goes pretty quick. And I'm thinking about this weekend, if I don't have to work, if I can get out of these old mines, take my boy squirrel hunting. I love to squirrel hunt and I want to teach him all about these mountains. It's our heritage and our way of life. Back to loading the coal. Man, some of these days just seem like they never end. Well, it's quitting time. Me and old William, we're heading out of the mines here for a hard day's work. Well, it's Friday and it's payday. Good time to collect our pay for what we've been killing ourselves for all week. I need to head by the company store here and pay owner bill. All I get is script here. It's only good at the company store. And I'm so glad I'm not indebted to them like my buddies are. And it don't matter what color you are in the company store. We all look the same when we come out of that mine. We all brothers. Everybody works hard for what they got. Oh, I'm gonna head on home. My order be getting ready to start some dinner here. This garden really helps me out here. You see all the canning stuff. It really helps the family. She's starting up the old dinner. I'm kind of hungry. I know these kids are. She does such a good dinner. I really appreciate her. I love her so much. And these kids, they don't understand. They eat good. Thank the good Lord that I'm able to provide for these old mines. They're about a thing of the past. I know that. But this is the way my father and grandfathers worked their whole life. But it sure beats living in the city, living on the street in a cardboard box, in a soup line every day, in a depression. These mountains can't provide a living. But I'd like to dedicate this one to my father and grandfather that worked their whole life in this mine. And these old mountains and these mines are a hard way of life. I wouldn't trade it for nothing. I would trade my health though. So I thank y'all for watching. Hope you enjoyed this story. And I'll see you next time.