Ken Fritz

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Ken Fritz, Retired Store Owner; Damascus, Virginia:

"I grew up in Damascus, Virginia and graduated Emory and Henry College in 1974. Damascus is a great town to live in. It’s a clean town, not much crime. Most folks don’t even lock their doors at night. The people are so friendly. You don’t have to go through a bunch of red lights to get anywhere; great place for kids to grow up. I have a 13-year-old son. 

People here really support the schools and our churches are really strong.

One of the great things about the mountains is all the greenery in the spring, the beauty. The mountains are filled with ramps (a wild onion). People love picking them to put in their brown beans among other things. Wild Lady Slipper flowers growing all over. In the fall I go pick blueberries, wild huckleberries we call them. 

Appalachian people are down to earth. Just a pot of brown beans will make us happy… And some fried potatoes. The camaraderie here also makes us special. If someone passes away, everyone in town brings food to the family in memory of the person who died. You just wouldn’t see that in the big city. 

The media portrays us to be dumb and ignorant. It’s not true. I have a college degree. My brother has a college degree. My brother was, at one time the regional director of the State of Virginia’s social services, which comprises one third of the state. His wife is a graduate of Radford University. I think the media just wants the attention; it’s whatever they can do to make a story. The stories make them money. "

Terina Widner

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[NOTE: The Scotia Mine Disaster in Eolia, Kentucky is one of the worst mine disasters in U.S. history. Faulty equipment ignited methane and coal dust due to lack of proper ventilation. On March 9 and 11, 1976, twin explosions took the lives of 26 coal miners and federal mine inspectors in the Scotia mines located nearby. This disaster led to the passage of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. On this Father’s Day, offer up appreciation to the man who who taught you so many valuable life lessons. If he is here in body, reach out and thank him. If he is with you in spirit, honor his memory with a life well-lived. And take a moment to remember the more than two dozen fathers, sons and brothers who didn’t come home to their children that ill-fated day in March 1976 simply because they were trying to provide for their families. While 26 lives were lost, hundreds more were impacted and changed forever. What follows is just one of those stories.]

Terina Widner, Bank Officer and mother; Danville, Indiana (From Cumberland, Kentucky):

"It was a foggy, rainy day that March. I remember walking to my bus stop in my rust-colored, faux fur coat. I was in the first grade. A few hours later into our school day, a lady came to our classroom door and whispered something to my teacher. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes looked straight at me and she told me to gather my things, I was going home early. 

I had no idea why "the Scotia kids" were leaving school early. On my way out the door, she knelt and hugged me and I could feel her crying as she said, "It's going to be okay." 

When I arrived home there were cars parked all over our driveway and over into the neighbors’. All of my aunts, uncles and my parents’ friends were at our house…sitting on the porch and in every corner of the house. My mother was crying, as her sisters hugged her. I still had no idea what was going on. 

My uncles had maps laid out on the kitchen table, and I remember one of them saying, "He works here in this section." At seven years old, you don't understand the way you lose a loved one, you are trying to understand "why?" "Why are these people crying? Why isn't my Daddy home from work yet? Why are all these people hugging me and saying they're sorry?" 

The days that followed were so dark and solemn in our home, and our town. Everyone you saw had tears in their eyes. The next thing I remember is walking into our lil’ church, my father’s closed casket in the front and dozens of flowers from wall to wall. 

He was a U.S. Army Vietnam Veteran, and lots of his flowers were in red, white and blue. My mother was so strong, and she held my hand so tight as we walked into that chapel. 

I didn't understand what was going on or why. I just wanted my Daddy! 

Since that horrible day in 1976, there have been a million other "whys" run through my head and my heart about that day. Why did he leave his job in the Indy auto industry to go back to those mountains to be a coal miner? Why didn't he stay home with me that day and play with me, go fishing or build something together? Why, why, why...? 

My faith says, God allows all things for a purpose in His great plan of our lives. My heart will always question that faith. What I do know is my Daddy's life was a sacrifice that day. 

The mistakes that had been made in that mine to set off that explosion will never be made again. Their blood wrote legislation to protect miners as they work, and send millions of daddies home to their little girls every day. They are forever heroes. 

My beautiful mother became my hero that day! She was suddenly a single mom of two lil’ girls. She never let us go without a single thing in our lives. She has always worked so hard to make sure "her girls" knew they were loved. She is the epitome of the strength that can only be found in mountain women. 

Her experience taught us how to always be strong and take care of ourselves and our children, with or without a spouse, because, sometimes you don't lose your husband by his or your choice. Sometimes, he just doesn’t come home, but you have go on living. 

After I graduated high school, I worked on the Scotia College Crew as a warehouse clerk. The mine superintendent was a lifelong friend of my parents, and I babysat his son. One day, I mustered up the nerve to talk to him and to tell him I wanted to go underground. I wanted to see what my daddy did that was so important for him to do to provide for our family. 

He agreed and sent me to the company Safety Trainer for my certification to go under. A few days later, he escorted me to Franks Creek, and as we stepped into the elevator to go some 400' straight down, under tons of soil and rock, my heart was almost beating out of my chest with fear and anxiousness. 

I was determined to make this trip! No amount of fear was going to stop me! 

The superintendent took me to a working section of a traditional miner and to the long wall. I got to walk the shear on one pass. It was amazing to watch these men work in complete synchronicity on these big machines, miles under the earth, harvesting that black gold. I was in awe! 

I have the utmost admiration for an industry some believe I should hate. Crazy, huh? Before we left to go back outside, we made one last stop at the section where my daddy died. We couldn't get exactly onsite, but I could see enough to know where he was, and could envision what he looked like working there that day so many years before. It was so scary to think of what he endured during the blast. Did he suffer? Did he know what was happening? Could he feel his skin being ripped from his bones? What were his last words or thoughts there in that darkness? 

When I left that spot I felt even more proud of him and somewhat relieved in knowing some of the questions I'd always wondered about. It was a very spiritual and emotional moment in my life. One I draw from often. I am a firm believer there is no greater man, than one who sacrificed his life for those he loves. Coal miners are proof of this love. 

It has often been said, these mountains are full of contradictions. You can't get far enough away from them, yet they are always beckoning you to come home. They hold some of my fondest memories and my greatest heartaches and pains. All my life I just wanted to leave them. I wanted to be somewhere that didn't hold a painful memory around every bend. Even since I was a kid, when we would travel and as we approached the mountains on our return drive, the peaks and valleys appear as strong muscular arms outstretched welcoming me home. But once I'm there, I feel like they hold me so tight it's almost smothering. 

My family is still there (Cumberland, Kentucky) and so is a piece of my heart. I will always be a mountain girl and a Coal Miner's Daughter, no matter where I am in this world. The trials and fire of life there gave me the strength, knowledge and power to do anything I want in this world. I pray I make my heritage proud everywhere I go."

Alaina Mclendon

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Alaina Mclendon, Age 12, Student; Harlan, Kentucky:

"I have seven brothers and sisters. I like living in the mountains. I really don’t like go hunting or nothing but it feels different when I go to my dad’s house (Columbus, Ohio), It just feels different. It feels different because there is no mountains… It just feels weird, feels really weird. 

Here there are no tornados, no hurricanes. 

I love to play basketball, come to the Harlan Boys and Girls Club, play games on my iPod and watch TV. Having seven brothers and sisters, it’s crazy. They are always fighting… Where’s my game? Where’s this? Where’s that? 

I really like the Boys and Girls Club. It’s fun. They come up with all these fun games and plan trips for us like the one we are going on tomorrow. We are going to Sky Zone in Johnson City. It’s like a trampoline park. They also do homework programs. Power Hour is when you do your homework. You have to do something educational. If you don’t have anything (from school) to do they will create something educational for you to do. It really helps me in school. It helps my grades. I like school and I miss school (in the summer). But I also like summer.

Some of the fun times I have living in the mountains is going four-wheeling, going mudding. Mudding is when you put on old clothes, you don’t want to get your good ones all muddy and dirty, and go four wheeling on a wet day. You go where all the mud holes are. It is really fun because you get mud all over you riding the four-wheeler up in the mountains. Seen deer up there but no bears. 

One of the saddest times in my life was when my step-dad died. I guess he got too old. He just got sick. I was ten years old. I miss him a lot. We used to go to the lake, four-wheeling, ride bikes, and stuff. My mom probably misses him the worst".

Susan Sanders

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Susan Sanders, Retired; Big Stone Gap, Virginia and Destin, Florida:

“Big Stone Gap was the greatest place in the world to grow up, to be honest with you. We had all our schools right here in the middle of town. They don’t exist anymore; they’ve all been torn down. We walked home every day for lunch because the school didn’t have a cafeteria big enough to feed us. We had 50 minutes for lunch, and there was a Safety Patrol that helped us cross the street, and if you lived within a mile and a half of school, you had to walk home and eat. 

It’s been a very, very active community. I grew up with great people, and a town that raised you. As a matter of fact, I’ve gotten in trouble with lots of my friends parents a long time before I got home. 

A lot of our food was grown out in our yards. We had a kind of Farmer’s Market at the time, but you cooked fresh food almost all of the time. I guess one of the distinctive things I tell people is that there were always beans on the stove. In the summer time, it was salad peas or green beans, and in the winter, it was either Great Northerns or pintos. But we always had beans. My father was a car dealer, and there were people a whole lot worse off than we were at the time I was growing up, but I can’t remember eating meat during the week. We had meat on Sundays. We ate vegetables. 

I cook all the time. I cook soup beans, meat loaf; you know…just plain old food. I don’t fix a lot of exotic food.

Many of us have come back. I’ve been gone twice. They say you can’t come home again, but I’ve done it twice. I actually came back and raised my children here. The first time I left is when I went to college, went off on my own and got married. Came back, probably 20 years later and bought a business here that was a food business…a grocery store, but I didn’t make it, to be honest with you. I was here for eleven years then moved to Florida with a freshman, a sophomore and a senior in high school. 

This region has changed drastically. First of all, a lot of the things we have in this area were paid for by coal severance tax that we don’t have anymore. So, the schools are having to downsize, schools are getting rid of the arts because they don’t have money for it anymore. Lots and lots and lots of people are leaving. I would say this is probably a bedroom community. I don’t know so many people who can live here who have to make a living. Unless you’re in healthcare or education, it’s very difficult to make a living here. Fortunately, we still have schools, and we still have hospitals.

Makes me feel sad that it’s that way. But it depends on what stage you are in life. I’m glad my children are in Bristol, instead of here. My daughter lived here with her children for three years. She remarried and moved to Bristol. But the opportunities they have over there are so much greater than what they have here. And I’m glad they’re getting that opportunity.”