My Grandfather Thomas Berry lived in Morrisdale and was a coal miner until he had an accident. Two coal cars came together on his leg and crushed it. He spent more than a year in the hospital in recovering from this, and never walked without a severe limp and a cane from that day on. Fortunately, Robert Bailey (the Bailey's were a very wealthy family that lived across the street - the "street" being Route 53) gave my Grandfather a night watchman's job at his garage about 200 yards up the street that intersected with Route 53 almost directly in front of my Grandfather's house. The house literally sits so that the front porch is just 2 or 3 inches from Route 53. They had their front porch torn off several times over the years when large coal trucks on Route 53 got too close. My Grandfather had a heart attack when he was 76. He was in the Phillipsburg Hospital for a week, and was doing well. One morning the nurse came in and was opening the curtains and he looked up at her and said "Well, I'm going now." and died. To my dying day I will wonder what it was that he saw or felt that he knew his time had come. He was a fantastic person! Grant In a message dated 7/14/2007 9:46:16 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, ljwaring@aol.com writes: After the TMI accident there were a lot of people that were demanding that we go back to using coal.? I ran unto one such person on a soap box in a Hills store.?(At the time of the TMI accident I lived within the five mile limit from TMI). ?I asked her if she had done any research into what happened to the men that worked in the coal dust. I myself?grew up?in the coal region in Clearfield county.?? I seen the men that were maimed from accidents.? The men that had a hard time breathing from the Black Lung, (coal dust that was inhaled and coated the lungs to the place that the person couldn't breathe). The clothing that couldn't be washed clean due to the coal dust in the air.? At one time I lived down a valley from a coal cleaning plant.? The air was always full of coal dust that would settle on your laundry and even make it's way into the cracks of your house to settle on your funiture, bedding and even food. Has anyone thought about the watersheds that were torn up just so ! the coal could be striped.? At one time this was a great necessity to heat ones homes and cook with.? Thank God that we have found other ways for heating and cooking. Leah -----Original Message----- From: Jeann8lte@aol.com To: paclearf@rootsweb.com Sent: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 9:46 pm Subject: Re: [PACLEARF] Ginter, Pa. It would help if you put in the date of your family's involvement in coal mining. I was raised in Clearfield County in the west central part, Penn, Pike, and Bloom Twps are the ones I know best. In the early 1900s there was a lot of deep mines, especially in the south and eastern sections of the county. A lot like the West Virginia mines, the company owned the town, the houses and the stores. There was not a lot of safety. Blasting accidents were common. As I child, our next door neighbor was a widow, her husband being killed in a mining accident. A cousin of my father was blinded in a mining accident. In elementary school in the 1950s we were taught not to swim in strip mine ponds, not to touch blasting caps and not to wander into old mine shafts which had not been sealed. Once or twice a year a child or two in the county would die in one of these accidents. In the 1950s on strip mining came in as a major industry. In general this was safer for the men, but tore up the land pretty much. It was not uncommon for land to be deep mined, later stripped for good coal, later for lessor coal and finally for clay for one of the many brick yards in the county. There were also large stone quarries in the Curwensville and Anderson Creek Hill areas active over time in the 1800s and early 1900s. A lot of Italians were brought in to work in these. Recently a company has started stone quarring again in the area of Bloom's Quarry on Anderson Creek Hill. There is still strip mining along I-80 in Clearfield County and in scattered sites around the county. The recent book by Hughes on Clearfiled County in the 1900s has a lot of names and places listed for mining. ************************************** Get a sneak peak of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PACLEARF-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message .........Grant Berry Charles Lamb (1775-1834) English essayist and poet Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get. SURGE OUR TROOPS HOME !!! ************************************** Get a sneak peak of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour