Hi All, My mother was a part of this Mingo County War or " The Miners' Strike of 1921" as she calls it..Her mother, Ida Hensley Patrick, had passed away in May of 1920, leaving behind William and his 5 children...my mom was 10 years old and in the 3rd. grade at the time and had to quit school to take care of her Father and siblings..one still in diapers..they lived in a nice house on the Tug River.. and things got very bad then.."scabs" were brought in to try and help break up the strike and that's when alot of the shootings began...Mom's brother, Claude and her Uncle were standing in the two doorways that were in the front part of the house...someone shot at them from across the river..one of the bullets missed her Uncle..missed her brother and went through the bestpost and imbedded in the wall...William and a neighbor tried their best to make a dugout out of sandbags out behind the house..so when the shooting got to rough they could take the kids and run..but things got even worse..and at the time the government was handing out tents to the miners and their families...William was alloted two tents because of the size of his family and he took the children and went back farther into the "Holler" away from the riverfront and placed the tents in a friend's garden....he did his best to make the tents as much like a home as he could..he got a friend to help him build a "grate" (fireplace and chimney) in the middle of one tent..that was the kitchen area..the other tent was for sleeping... It had wooden floors and wooden walls about 3 or 4 feet high all around and that's what he attatched the tents too..this kept out "critters" and snakes..Mom said she had to be very careful with the fire so she didn't burn a whole in the roof... Others in the area didn't fair quite as well as William and his family..at some of the tent sites farther down the river women were being attacked and their breasts were cut off and they were left for dead....Another women named Grandma Jones, had a husband and son who were all for setting up the Union.. and some of those that opposed the Union killed her husband and son and decapitated them and hung their heads outside her house on the fencepost..(I have a photo of Grandma Jones with other Union men seated in front of the Union headquarters).....there's alot more to tell about this awful time period and it's hard to believe some of the barbaric things that were done..alot of lives were never the same after it was over.. I've tried my best to get a copy of the movie "Matewan" because my folks are from there..but haven't been able to locate it.. Pam Researching the following surnames: BURKE, CARTER, PATRICK, WINGO, McGRADY, WIMBERLEY, WITT/WHITT, HENSLEY, ROBERTSON. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Crabtree [SMTP:crabtree@speedlink.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 1999 12:00 PM To: SW_VA-L@rootsweb.com Subject: RE: COAL MINES OF W VA The film October Sky was filmed in TN for weather reasons but the story is based on actual fact about 5 high school boys interested in Rocketry in McDowell County. They were inspired by Russia's sputnik in the 50s. I understand it is a good representation of growing up in a coal mining community. Matewun is a wonderful movie, It is about the organization of coal miners during the hard times in the 20s which led up to what is known as the Mingo County War. ==== SW_VA Mailing List ==== #2 A large database of SURNAMES and the researcher's email address can be found at http://www.fortunecity.com/millennium/quarrybank/194/swabc.htm You may have your SURNAMES included by posting them and your address to the LIST and NOT to the sysop/owner.