Kindness Pays

I am writing about scenes that happened at East Norwegian.  My age when I first went to work, was about 8 years.  In the year 1861, I picked slate a few months in Breaker; then underground as a fan boy; then I helped my step-father to mine coal.  This mine was driven down on Slope Way; very gasious [sic]; no open lights allowed; lights used were Old Davy safety lamps.

One Sunday evening I stood about 200 feet from the mouth of the Slope.  Suddenly I heard a heavy rumbling and the ground shook under my feet.  I looked toward the mine and saw heavy timbers being hurled into the air from the entrance of the mine.  It being Sunday there was no one in the mine.  The mine was wrecked inside.  No one could give any explanation as to what caused the explosion.  The name of the mine was Old Boreas Slope.

In the year 1862, a change took place in my life.  We moved from East Delaware, sometimes called Norwegian.  One day my step-father said to me to get ready and go with him and my half-brother Tom who was about five years old, to Pottsville, a distance less than two miles away.  After arriving there we met Mrs. GRIFFITHS, a widow.  She had three sons with her.  Their names were Griff, Edward, and Joseph GRIFFITHS, all under ten years of age.  Mrs. GRIFFITHS and my step-father talked in Welsh language.  I understood that I was going to a new home and also that I now had a step-mother.

We all left Pottsville and walked up another valley, less than two miles from Pottsville.  We stopped at a small house alongside of the road.  It was a story and a half high, had three rooms, a frame building.  This, I understood was to be my new home.  It looked better to me than where I had lived.  It was on the side of a gently sloping hill with about one acre of ground around it.  Here Mrs. GRIFFITHS lived with her three sons.

The house has been burned down.  The site is now covered with coal and dirt from the Wadesville Shaft which was near by.  Wade, as it is now called, is a small village.  In the early sixties, four anthracite mines were in operation.  At present, September 15, 1936, none are in operation.

Conditions were much better for me in my new home than they were in my old home as I had no one to discipline me or guide me in my former home.  I was naturally wild and getting into trouble by fighting and throwing stones; being left-handed, it was easy for me to throw stones.

The three sons of Mrs. GRIFFITHS, now Mrs. David JAMES, were very good boys.  They regularly attended Sunday School and church.  I can not remember any of them ever getting into trouble.  Their quiet behavior surprised me.  At my former home I resented all attacks from the boys.  I thought it would be the same wherever I went, although the surrounding towns and villages were strange to me.  My age at this time was about nine years.

As there have 74 years elapsed since I left my former home to come to Wadesville, many changes have taken place.  All the GRIFFITHS boys married.  Their children and grandchildren are living in Wadesville, and nearby towns.  Griff, the oldest, was killed in the mines by falling slate and coal.  Edward moved to another county.  He took sick and died.  Joseph, the youngest, died a few years ago of heart trouble.  My step-father and step-mother have passed away many years ago.  My step-father met a horrible death at a coal mine by being drawn into coal crushing rollers and died almost instantly.