Coal Miner's Daughter

“I was born in southwest Virginia. My dad was a coal miner.”

Picture it: 1940's, rural area in the Appalachian mountains of southwest Virginia. This is where my friend Julia Young spent her childhood. She was the youngest of five children, and her father worked in the coal mines to support their family. Her story gives credence to the truth that having a lot of money is not a requirement for enjoying life.

When I think of Julia, I see a great big smile! Julia has lots of smiles to share and lots of hugs to give. Now in her early 70's, she is a working woman pulling 40-hour weeks and going home every evening to her life partner Kathy and their "son" Beau, a cute and energetic little Westie puppydog. I met Julia at the church we both attend, and ours is one of my most valued friendships.

A "game night" at church... Julia on the far left, Kathy on the far right.

Julia began telling me about her growing-up years. She told me her family didn’t live in a town but in a “place” where 25 other families lived. Blackwood is an unincorporated area in Wise County, VA. Blackwood was a coal town near the farthest southwest corner of the state of Virginia.

"There was a store, and a post office, together."

"And that was it?" I asked.

"That was it. But yeah, that’s where I grew up and it just really cool. And… we moved there when I was… almost 5. We moved there in the summer that I was 4, and that’s where I remember most of my CHILD-hood childhood.

Julia told me about being the little sister to four older siblings: "My oldest brother joined the Navy when he was 17 and I was 4. And he used to come home and ride me around on his 'soldiers' - pick me up on his shoulders," she smiled.

"My other brother Ron is seven years older than I am. I was in the 6th grade when he graduated High School. He was like, back a year or something. I was telling Kathy last night, I don’t even know wh… oh, we were watching a football game! And I said, 'I wore his football suit!' And she goes, 'Football suit?' How ‘bout uniform?' And I went, 'Oh, yeah, that!'"

Julia and Beau

Julia continued, "But he, that brother, was closest to me, the one that’s… I only have one sister and one brother living. I have one sister and one brother who died."

Her living brother, she told me, is in North Carolina. Her sister lives in Jacksonville, FL.

Julia resumed telling me about her years growing up in Virginia. "You know. Christmas was because of United Mine Workers, which was a union that the coal miners belonged to. And they would give a bag of candy and fruit and nuts, about this big, for each dependent that my dad had. And my brother was 'too old.' You know. 'Can’t have that. You girls have that. I’m too old; I’m a teenager,'" Julia laughed. "But, yeah. We had a lot of fun, though."

"We, um, everything that we played we just about made, you know? I remember playing baseball. I was the only girl on the team, and we, our bat was a piece of wood that my dad had whittled a handle on."

"And we played with that, and we had a softball, my softball, that was so cheap that if you, if you hit it with a bat - *WHAPO* - you’d get it out of shape!" Julia chuckled at that story, still vivid in her memory.

While Julia talked, I could imagine snapshots of the experiences she described. Five kids and maybe some of their friends, getting together and laughing as they ran, played and got sweaty while throwing, hitting and catching a lopsided softball. Those sound like good, fun memories to me!

"Um, we used to go up in the woods," she told me. "I loved that, used to go up in the woods and we’d pick flowers, wildflowers for our mom. There was a stream that ran from the reservoir and… violets, BEAUTIFUL violets and if you’d… um, my brother taught us, well, if you’d follow the stem of a flower as far as you can, then it would be long and then it would fit in the vase… not the vase; the… jelly jar," Julia laughed.

"...Fit in the jelly jar better; it would be a long stem. And he taught us… he taught us all kind of things, taught me a lot of things." Julia's love and admiration for her brother glowed in her smile and warmed her voice as she spoke.

"But yeah… and then, he and I used to go up in the woods in the summertime and look for trees that were already down – felled – for, that were still good that we could cut up for…"

"To dry out for winter?" I asked with a smile.

"To dry out for winter," Julia affirmed. "And then we would haul them down to the house. We didn’t have a saw or anything."

"Well what’d you do?" I asked.

"Axe," Julia answered matter-of-factly.

"Axe… oh!! That’s work!" I laughed, impressed.

"Then," Julia added, "we would get two tons of coal that cost twenty-six dollars. I remember that so well, my dad sayin that! 'I got… 2 ton of coal cost $26!'" In Julia's voice, I could hear the echo of her father's pride.

She went on, "And my brother built a basketball goal for us. We put it in the ground and had a basketball goal to play basketball. My sister played basketball; Peggy. She was taller than me and… all the time taller than me. And I’d jump and jump and jump and try to block her shots and she’d go step back one step and go, 'PLOOP!'" I gathered from that, despite all Julia's efforts, Peggy would usually make her shot.

I shared with Julia how the sight of Lena and me playing basketball is something akin to watching an episode of The Three Stooges. We laughed awhile and settled back down into our conversation.

When Julia was 13 years old, her family moved to Washington, D.C. "We moved to D.C. because the mines had shut down. There was no more operating. There’s coal there, but there was no more... I don’t know exactly for sure... I’m thinking there was no more operating money or something."

"The thing that I find fascinating about my life," Julia later added in an email to me, "is the integration of schools the year after we moved to Washington D C. It was scary and interesting at the same time. We went to junior high that year, thank God we were in the same school because we stuck together out of fear. There were white and black kids both inside and outside the school... screaming slurs to each other... threatening close to death if you go inside...". Julia went on, "Police men there controlling kids and finally getting everyone inside and it continues inside also. We were terrified!"

I can only imagine what it was like to be a kid in school when all that took place. As people, we all grow comfortable in our accepted social norms. When major changes take place, we are shaken. We are "put out." We are sometimes afraid. Two races, previously divided, encountering one another in a mixed setting for the first time... yeah, I bet that was hard for both sides to adjust to.

But both sides DID adjust. And, while things are still not and will never be perfect, integration has become our "normal." Interacting with people of different races every day is something we are used to; something we are comfortable with. Adapting to changes is something we have the ability to do. Still, it is our CHOICE. We can stay stuck in old, rigid mindsets, or we can grow and change with the world around us.

Julia told me that, even though she and her sister grew up in a the "racially-segregated south," she is proud of the interracial friendships she has formed and has come to greatly value.

So Julia from southwest Virginia, an Appalachian girl who grew up in the woods and around the coal mines, found herself up north in Washington, D.C., teased about her southern accent but learning and growing up. Since then, life has taken her many other places... but I'm glad she's here now, in Baton Rouge. I told her once she's the big sister I never had. She told me I am the little sister she never had.

And that is just fine with me. :)

Julia and Kathy with Cindy Williams from "Laverne and Shirley" at a theater in Florida