Laying a Riddle to rest

Ora Riddle was working the night shift on the tipple when he died at 11:05 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15th 1936. He had been a miner at the Big Stick mine for 10 years and had worked his way up to an aerial tram operator but on this night he was serving as a tipple repairman.

He was killed while replacing and installing a screen used to sift the dirt and rock from the coal once it came from the mine. That fateful night C.J. Arnett, the foreman and two helpers, Sam Weaver and Ora Riddle were working on a shaker, replacing the washer screen that had been removed to permit the installation of a smaller screen underneath.

According to the "Inspector's Fatal Accident Report" from the West Virginia Department of Mine obtained from the State Archives, his death was instant. According to the form, the report had to be filed in triplicate within 24 hours of after any injury occurs.

Mr. Arnett, the foreman was under the shaker, inserting bolts through the screen and Sam Weaver was tightening the bolts from above and on the screen, while Riddle was kneeling in a cramped position engaged in driving a bolt through the top side of the screen and into a wood frame, with a small hammer, using his right hand.

Mr. Arnett, the foreman was under the shaker, inserting bolts through the screen and Sam Weaver was tightening the bolts from above and on the screen, while Riddle was kneeling in a cramped position engaged in driving a bolt through the top side of the screen and into a wood frame, with a small hammer, using his right hand.

A two inch pipeline extends across the shaker, six inches above the sides and eighteen inches above the screen. Weaver and Riddle were using an extension cord with a light bulb attached for illumination while the worked. The globe was lying on the screen beside them as they worked to get the bolt through the screen.

It was a cramped position to work in and Riddle had braced his back and shoulder against the pipe, kneeling while he hammered at the bolt home when the light bulb burst, possibly from the vibration, and the filament came into contact with the screen.

Death was violent as the current passed through Ora's body causing a convulsive reaction. The convulsion being so strong that the autopsy says that it broke his neck. Mr. Arnett received a less server shock because the majority of the current had passed through Ora's grounded body. Foreman Weaver observed the incident from below and was unharmed.

It was recommended afterwards, from the mining report filed, that guards be installed around all light bulbs and a system be formulated to ground the shaker, screens and the tipple proper during performance of work on them.

My grandfather was 41 years old when he died. He was making $4.34 a day. His widow, my grandmother Isabelle was given two months salary for his death, $984.49, by the Pemberton Coal & Coke Company, for his life and to lend in the support of their three children, less the wages deducted for the services of Dr. F.J. Moore who pronounced him dead.

I have traveled 674 miles to find the facts about my grandfathers death. Facts that until this time had been lost to history and a story that could not be retold to generations to come.

I searched in the archives but was unable to find any newspaper account of the accident. The lady at the archives said that "sometimes the family just up and moves, there is nothing to keep them there anymore". My mother said that my father or his mother never spoke of his death. Isabelle went on to become a nurse in Beckley and my mother, Mary Lou met my father, Roy, and married when she was 19 and he had returned from World War II.

From that union I was born and my two sons now carry forth the name. They and future generations will now know of Ora Riddle and his legacy wrapped in the coal mines of West Virginia and I hope that his story will now be remembered a be part of the legends of the families that dig the black gold and pay the price for their labors and add to the history of this country.

I hope I have done justice to finding out the facts and now lay the facts I have found and can lay OraRiddle to rest in my own mind. There are more Riddles to find and solve and more roads untraveled riding on my Hog, Mary Belle..

"I Owe My Soul To The Company Store"

"I dug sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store".  a line from an old song by Tennessee Ernie Ford, who in the song "Sixteen Tons" wrote the ballad about the hard work and hard life of the coal miner.

Today, I visited the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine http://www.beckleymine.com/becm/coal_overview.cfm . It was a journey into the earth and into the past. After visiting the museum there, I joined a group and rode a tram into the old Phillips mine, which was shut down in 1910 but restored by the state to visitors so that they may glimpse the life of a miner. Our guide, a retired miner named Marvin supplied the explanation of what we were seeing. All I know is that it was very tight, if you were much over six feet you would have difficulty standing upright, it was very damp with water seeping into places and dripping on you as you rode through, and dark with scantily placed bulbs throwing shadows along the mine which had a width of less than ten feet.

Marvin showed us the coal vein, no more that 36 inches high running along the bottom of the tunnel. He described the early conditions, prior to 1920 the actual Phillips miners dug in this mine, when it was much more confining,  they had to work on their knees digging into the vein.

Marvin said "Imagine getting beneath your dining room table and working there for 8 to 12 hours a day. Day after day, week after week, year after year. Your knees would give out, your back would fail and your lungs would rot as you dug, sometimes lying, kneeling or lying on your side chipping at the vein of coal for 20 cents a ton". Miners still work in extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances and profit is the motive for the owners of the mines today as it was in the past.

After the tour I struck up a conversation with Marvin about my grandfather and my quest to find out what had  caused his death at the tipple.

Marvin introduced me a a man called Leroy, another retired miner, who was familiar with the workings of a tipple.  Leroy explained the a tipple was used to clean the coal after it had been mined and brought to the surface.  The coal was tipped from the smaller mine cars and onto screens called "shakers" and using a rocking motion and water, the dirt and rock was removed and then the coal was dumped onto the large railroad cars below.

I asked Leroy if he knew where the old Big Stick mine had been.  He said no, but there was a retired school teacher in the school exhibit who might. He said his name was Buford Hartsog and he was in his 80's and I might see if he did.

Buford saw me and recognized my Harley t-shirt and we stuck up a conversation. It seems Buford had rode a 1938 Harley and he showed me a picture of him in his youth, in leather knee boots, sitting on the bike. Buford said "At first I thought the ladies really like me but later I figured out that they all liked my motorcycle". Guess it don't matter what kind of bait you use as long as you catch the fish".

Buford said he knew where the Big Stick mine used to be and that he had taught school a few miles from there. If I went to the town of Sophia turned right there was a road on the left, if it was still there that would take me up the mountain to where the old mine was.

What a great bunch of men, they all took an interest and encouraged me to continue my pursuit.  I mounted up on Mary Belle and rode off toward Sophia, a few miles away.  As I came into the small town and turned right, as Buford had instructed, I could not recognize which road I was to take. I parked in a lot across the street when two young men walked up to admire my motorcycle. I asked if they knew the road I was trying to find and they did not but one of the men called his dad on his cell phone and told him what I was trying to do. His dad knew of the road and the boys pointed it out and I was up and over the mountain along a winding trail.

I came down the other side and at the bottom a man and woman were sitting on the front porch of their trailer with their dog. I stopped and told them I was looking for the old Big Stick mine and could they help me. The woman said, "You see that house on the top of the hill, go back up to it and across from it is a road leading down toward the old mine". I thanked them and turned around and went back up the mountain.

It short order, I saw the road and commenced slowly down it on the bike. Motorcyclists don't like gravel roads, it's like riding on ball bearings slipping under you two tires. The road was part asphalt and part gravel and at the bottom I crossed a pair of railroad tracks to see an old bridge crossing a creek. I parked the bike and walked across the bridge.

The gravel road had turned color from gray to black, from gravel to coal chunks and coal dust. Along the side of the mountain you could see remnants of what used to be buildings, steps,  and collapsed foundations and smaller roads leading up along the sides of the mountain.

I stood at the base of the mountain in front of steps that had once been part of the mining camp. At the foot of the steps I saw a lump of coal, I picked it up and wrapped it in paper to keep. I had found the Big Stick mine the site of my grandfathers death some 74 years ago.  I bowed my head and said a prayer for Ora and all the miners that had worked these mines and wished them a restful peace.

I started up the bike and worked my way back over the mountain to head for Charleston.  Tomorrow I will visit the State Archives and see what records I can find that tells of Ora's fatal accident at Big Stick mine.

Coal Country

The kick stand was up the and I, astride "Mary Belle" stated our trip for West Virginia and what lay ahead. It is a crisp morning, with bright blue skies and good day for riding.

Heading up through Martinsville, Virginia, we dipped down into the the Catawba Valley at time running parallel to the Catawba River. It was breathtaking at times, the red bud trees are blooming everywhere and lush green grass fills the rolling farmland where horses and cattle graze in abundance. The Scotch-Irish settled here in the 1700's, my ancestors. Independent, strong-willed and quick to temper, yep I got all those genes.

This path is part of the Great Wagon Road that served as the settlers' highway. Starting in Pennsylvania turning south, following the Great Shenandoah Valley through Maryland and Virginia (West Virginia succeeded in the Civil War, separating from her mother) into the piedmont of North Carolina then southeastward to the Moravian settlements at Wahovia and their settlements of Winston and Salem, then the road ran southeast to South Carolina.

Climbing up the mountains of the Jefferson National Forest along Highway 42 are some great switchbacks for motorcycle skills testing, carving the turns and getting into the rhythm of taking the sharp curves "inside out, outside in" is the mantra. At times a steep climb, we cross over the "Great Eastern Continental Divide", this part is the Appalachian mountains and combined they separate the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico funneling the waters that run down into one or the other.

Drifting down the roads and seeing the land open up beyond was another uplifting experience, wildflowers along the sides and butterflies flitting across the road, along with a whole lot of squirrels and some flat ones that didn't make it.

I started coming into very small towns that whispered my grandmothers voice as she described them to me as a child, "White Sulphur Springs", "Jumping Branch" "Hinton". Places where she had lived and visited long passed relatives and friends. I have many of those old photographs posted on Ancestry.com. Others have found them and we write sharing and piecing together history and memories for our future generations.

I have arrived in Beckley and logged 260 miles today. Tired and exhilarated I check into the EconoLodge and posted on the glass door is the notice of a memorial service at the school tonight for the miners that died in the Upper Big Branch mine, at total of 29 now confirmed.

Looking for a place to eat I pick the Pizza Hut across the street. As I talk to the waitress, I mention the purpose of my journey, she speaks softly and says "That big group of people over there are with the wife of the miner that was going to retire in 5 weeks. How sad".

Here, in these town where coal mining is generational,  it is personal and all to familiar, all the towns are affected when events like these happen. Some of the streets are lined with yellow miner helmets in memory of those lost souls. 

West Virginia, Mountain Highways

Well, my bags are packed and I'm ready to go (an old Peter, Paul & Mary, song line). The Hog is gassed up and tire pressure checked, windows cleaned, RainX applied and a Garmin GPS, route programed,  attached to the handlebars .  The weather appears to be good, except for a 30% chance of rain on Monday. I'll be in Charleston at the archives then and off the country roads.

Riding a motorcycle truly is a Zen-like experience.  For me it is a form of meditation.  Your focus is so concentrated on the moment, of what's in front of you and around you, always in the zone.  It is relaxing and alertness at the same time.

In the encapsulated world of the auto you can diverge and listen to the radio, talk on the cell phone, fiddle with cd's. Not on a bike, it's me and "Mary Belle" together as one, man balanced astride a 750 pound iron horse. Ask any biker it is the feel of freedom and exhilaration, of being on the edge of the moment. Of going down the valleys and smelling the moisture of a creek, climbing the hill and seeing the horse run along the fence beside the road that you are on, catching the scent of mowed hay, and manure. Carving the switchbacks of an unknown road an finding breath taking natural beauty as a butterfly drifts across your windscreen.

I am looking forward to leaving in the morning of leaving familiar roads and towns behind and taking a new road. Lord knows I need one after the events of the past year. I will leave those behind as well, new roads, new days, new experiences are waiting somewhere out there on the road to find Ora Riddle.

Finding the Big Stick Mine

I continue to search online for what I can find about the death of my grandfather, Ora Riddle in a mining accident. Online I found the West Virginia Mine Health Safety & Training website and called the Regional office closest to Big Stick, the mine that Ora died at.

A very nice woman gave me the name of a Mr. Dave Kessler at the Charleston, WVa, Miners Safety Office.  Dave answered the phone and I told him I was doing a genealogical search about the death of my grandfather. Dave said that mining records dating back that far, 1936, would be kept in the Historical Archives in Charleston.

He gave me the name of Debra Basham, who Dave said did a very good job of keeping up with those old records. Dave said, "more than likely, that there might be a report of the accident but it probably wouldn't be more that a page or two". I said that was alright, it would be more than I currently had.  I asked Dave if he thought it might be possible to visit the old mine and he said "depends on who owns the land now".

I called the Historical Archives and asked for Debra and got her voice mail. I left a message saying what I was attempting to find out, hopefully she will get back to me and I can arrange some time to visit the archives and get copies of what is available.

Continuing to hunt and peck on the search engines on my computer I found a listing of all the mines in West Virginia and where they were located.  It is quite a long list and West Virginia seems to practically rest on veins of coal. It says that 4% of the worlds total coal reserves are there and is found in 53 of 55 counties. Taxes paid by the coal industry and utility companies account for over 60% of business taxes paid to the state. Coal truly is King.

There are literally hundreds of mines listed. Raleigh County, is where the Big Stick mine was located.  The list is quite detailed saying the Big Stick is listed as being in the Crab Orchard Quadrangle and was call the "Big Stick & Affinity Mines", an underground mine owned by the Lilllybrook Coal Company resting on the Pocahontas No 4 coal seam.

Another mystery to unravel ?

I've planned the route to West Virginia. I'll be leaving Saturday morning April 10th riding along backroads to Beckley.

I plan on spending the night and visiting the Coal Miners Museum.  They have an underground mine that you can visit as well as buildings that have been restored from the era when coal was king. I think it will put me in the frame of mind for understanding the type of hard living that miners and their families have endured for generations.

I'm having a lot of memories come back with conversations that I remember from my grandmother, Leona, speaking of places where she grew up. Beckley was the central point and Sophia, Crab Orchard, Jumping Branch all where friends and family were located.

I have pictures hanging on the walls that Leona drew when she was much older, in her 70's.  Sketches of the living room of her grandparents house, the old school house where she went to school, the old mill that was nearby. She painted the walls of one bedroom of her home, pouring out memories onto the walls trying to preserve rememberances or to leave them behind.

After Beckley I will ride to Charleston to visit Debra at the State Archives.  I hope I get to meet and thank her for placing the documents about Ora in reserve for me.

Another enigma about Ora, his WWI draft registration from 1918. It show he was 22 years old and married. His occupation is given as "farmer", this must have been before he went into the coal mines.  He had blue eyes and light colored hair and of medium height and build.  Under disabilities it says, "Left eye out and shot in stomach and left bullet in middle"!  No one ever talked about this. Where and when did this occur?  Another Riddle wrapped in a mystery.

Archives and Answers

Debra Basham returned my call. She has found the mining records from the accident that killed Ora. She said there may also be newspaper records as well. Debra said that the records state that Ora died of a broken neck following electrocution.

Debra said she will copy the records and leave them for me at the archives. I will plan on riding up on Monday, April 12th to pick up the records and see what else I can find.

Today April 6th, the television is filled with news of a mining accident in Naoma, West Virginia. Over 20 miners were killed and some are still missing.

Coal mining is a way of life up there and digging in the devils backyard deep in the earth has written parts of the history of many families from the past to the present day.

Many of my ancestors are buried up here, on the top of windswept hills with mounds of mica covering their graves, glittering in the sun during the day and reflecting the moonlight at night.