Hard Times in the Great Valley

        On April 18, 1946, 12 men lost their lives in the Great Valley Mine explosion. Among those taken that day was Frank Robert Price age 38, husband, father, and grandfather to all of the many unborn children who would never have the chance to know him. I myself am included in the latter group. To me it’s a sad story from a time long before my birth, but for those left behind by this terrible accident it was devastating. The local paper wrote:

“For twelve miners, a violent death. For sixty-three widows and orphans, grief, despair and hardship. Wrought by a devastating explosion that struck down an entire crew working deep in the McCoy Va. Mine of the Great Valley Anthracite Coal Corporation early April 18."

Picture caption:

”Mrs. Frank Price, center, leaves the Church of God in Parrott, Va., after funeral services for her husband, his brother Paul, and Less Sarver, who died with nine others in an explosion at the nearby Great Valley mine. Mrs. Price was left with four children,  the youngest three years old."

         It was already clear to the author of the breaking news story just how hard it would be for the survivors of those men. The men who were the soul providers for the wives and children left behind. In a time and place where life was hard and families struggled to make it, this now put them in dire straights indeed.
         For the Frank Price family things were no different. For his wife Kate and the four children, Phyllis, Harley, Temple, and Dorothy, an already hard life was about to get unbearable. The oldest daughter Phyllis, known to all as “Sister” was left to shoulder a large part of the burden. She wrote:

“As soon as the boys could leave McCoy, they did. They left at a very early age. They hired almost children back then, they both moved to Blacksburg to work. People took them in. leaving me to take care of the family. We never had any thing to eat except when the men would go gigging, that's spearing fish at night, (against the law) they would put one in momma's rain barrel. We thought we were in heaven. We ate water gravy. That's just flour, lard, water, salt and pepper. I was so skinny, of course we all were. I went to work for a Mrs. Kate Lilly. I worked all day long on my knees cleaning around the floor boards. They had a fancy house with designs and I had to take a cloth on a knife and clean. I got paid a pound of butter and a gallon of milk a week. I would run across the coal dump between the mining camp and fancy homes. We would gather around the table and momma would slice a piece of butter so thin and lay it in our hands and we licked it off. We never had bread.”

      For those of us who grew up in Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” where welfare was born and the notion that someone else should take care of us if we can’t, became the rule. This kind of experience is so unimaginable for us that it is impossible for us to comprehend a life like that. I myself wrote in this very blog how tough my growing up years were. I now feel embarrassed that I thought I had it rough when compared to my father’s family.
      To those of you who are left I salute you. For those who worked in unbearable conditions to provide for their families, to help build this country and died in the process, you truly were the “Greatest Generation” . I am proud to say that the one thing that was passed down to me from both my father and mother’s families is a built in desire to always work hard for the things that are most important, our families, our loved ones and our futures.