Coal Miners Are My Heroes

By Dodie (Smith) Browning

A twenty nine year old male cousin recently contacted me, hungry for information about his ancestors. He had grown up as the son of an oil field worker who had moved his young family “out west” when coal-mining jobs in West Virginia became more and more automated and earning a living was no longer an option for the majority of Logan County coal miners.

It just happened that this young man was the great-great grandson of my maternal grandfather.  His great grandfather was my mother’s brother. It was the first time I fully realized how old I really am!  I had never shared all of the chapters of my book, Whirlwind In Appalachia with anyone but after our first conversation, I felt that I owed him, and all other coal miners a debt of such gratitude that there was nothing I could do that would be enough to repay him.

Coal miners are my heroes, because without them we would not have electricity to heat our homes and have all the modern conveniences our society demands.  This young man was the nephew of another cousin, Don Bryant, who had fought so hard to get Black Lung legislation passed. Apparently coal mining is in his blood.

The young man told me that he went back to West Virginia and first began work in the coal mines at age 18.  He still works in the coalmines in the northern part of the state of West Virginia. He is an underground coal miner.   He has worked with and personally knew some of the miners that were killed in two of the more recent mining disasters in West Virginia.

We discussed our ancestors and Logan County.  While we were talking, I could hear a tiny voice calling him “Daddy” in the background. He told me it was his two-year old daughter.  We have talked numerous times since then and I am very proud to call him “family”.  He ended our first conversation by telling me that he was leaving for work shortly, working the afternoon shift.

When I turned on the first lamp when it was getting dark that evening, I thought of this young man that I had never seen and never knew existed until recently, working in the deep dark bowels of the earth to make a living for his family and to provide electricity for the rest of us to enjoy our televisions, computers and all our other modern conveniences while he was working underground. I could picture him wearing his miner’s helmet with a “headlight” attached, as well as the “glow in the dark” stripes on his clothes, so that the other miners could see him from a distance.

That night as I was getting into bed, and reached for the switch to turn off the bedside lamp, I felt a lump in my throat and my eyes began to burn with tears, thinking of this brave young man and all the other coal miners working that night.  I said a special prayer that night for my newly found cousin and all the other coal miners working that night.  I thought of them and how they just like the military were working to keep me and my loved ones safe that night.   I thought of coal miners not being able to tell if it was daylight or dark, because they were working deep inside the mountains, mining coal to earn a living and risking their lives for you and me while I was sleeping.  As I turned off the light, I could still hear that sweet little voice in my memory; The voice of his precious two year old baby as she was leaving to go somewhere with her mommy, while her daddy was on the telephone with me, telling him goodbye and saying, “I love you, Daddy.”