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.
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..
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