Dave, The "disclaimer" was for folks like you, who take comments too personally because anger flairs before brain cells kick in. Had you read my post entirely, you'd have noticed... My Grandfather, grand uncle & Father were all COMMON mine workers, not mine owners (who got rich off the backs of these COMMON folks & not "higher ups" in a mine company either who didn't get dirty while they made enough to support their families well). My father Raymond was sent into the mines at 10 YEARS OLD to work. His father Frank & uncle Earl already breaking their backs in the filth & grime. The Uncle got the "Miners Lung" for his hard work & devotion to the mines, and for the rest of his life was bedridden in a 3 room shack that didn't even have indoor plumbing. (Think the mine owner offered to at least put a toliet or water in the house for his faithful employee?? NOT) AS enlightened as some people are they fail to realize that their relation being a "mine worker" only compounds the issue of "where'd they go" when they up and moved. NONE of men who worked in these terrible conditions were COMMON. Each was a beaut! iful human being with talents each their own, and 2 above left records other than the mine work, they just happened to be common mine workers also. My father would also go along the tracks picking up coal that fell from the rail cars, to have heat & when the mines started playing out, he would do just about anything (His father Frank had died by then... wanna guess what from?? Lung disease) to keep his mother & siblings fed, odd jobs, in season pick strawberries... All to help his mother provide for their POOR family. And trying to find any documented proof of their time in the mines is next to impossible! Please read some of the old newspaper articles about the conditions in which these men & boys worked. I'm sure NONE of them would have chose to work in the mines,,, it was work that was abundantly available and usually if you were breathing there was a job for you. The poor human trash of the times is what these boys and men were in the mine owners eyes they were usable & ! discardable . I'm sorry if that offends you. Unless they were killed or maimed or did some outstanding thing, they didn't make "mining news". The mining boss' were morelike overseers. To his dying day, my father still carried the scars on his back from being beaten by the boss while he was working in the mines. Remember hearing of the miners strike about 100 years or so ago (PA or VA) & the mining companies used deadly force on the miners, killing quite a few? I researched for a gentleman who is writing a book on what happened to the mining companys' hench men who did the killing. 1 was sent as a "boss" to a mine in Webb City MO & who spent the rest of his days there. So next time you go through a fastfood restuarant, sit on a clean toliet at work, urinate in a clean urinal, pickup a frozen chicken for dinner or visit a nursing home & notice that "aunty M' isn't laying in her own urine or fecal matter, or a dozen other "lowly" jobs that are done by the "commonly invisible" people of today REMEMBER THANK THE PEOPLE WHO DO THE "COMMON" JOBS in 2002!! (I chose these jobs as an example, since I have either worked at them or have outstanding friends who still do) ----- Original Message ----- From: DLB32838@aol.com To: genealogyfairy@mcmsys.com Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 3:51 PM Subject: Re: [MOJASPER] Mining & Lead Brenda, your comments were indeed offensive. If you viewed them as such as shown by your "disclaimer", they were best left unsaid. I am the grandson of one of those "common mine workers" and I assure you, there was nothing "common" about my grandfather, and he definitly was not "poor human trash". He was a man working to support his family, as many did. Dave -B