I was born on March 14, 1931 and came into the miner family of Clarence H. and Gertrude F. Jolly Keck. There were two other children – Letty Maye and Gerald Pete. We lived in a four room company house about 600 feet from the mine. This mine was a large and profitable one that in approximately 1934 had electricity in the mine plus in all of the homes

The mine was owned by Cottingham (not sure about name). The mine had a huge wash house that had hot running water, which was unusual for that time in the country. Life in the mining camp was hard and poor but everyone was poor so we kids didn’t know we were. There was a ball team in Kimberly that the men miners got together and they would play other little towns men like Doanville and Floodwood and places like that and as I recall there were always confrontations after every game and the mothers got us out of the way as quickly as they could.

When I was very young there was a murder close to the mine –cannot remember very much about it except two men murdered the other for money. I suppose there was a trial and things like that but I was too young to remember.

The school was a two room school and the teacher of the first four grades was Mrs. Mary Beckler and she lived in Kimberly, close enough to walk to school so there were no snow days or calamity days except when the older boys put rubber tire tubes in the water container on the coal furnace we had and smoked and smelled the whole school. In the last 4-5 years of my careen there they made the “office” into a kitchen and had a hot lunch and I think they were free. One of the things that stands out in memory of the food is that there were oranges and by the door leading out at recess there was a wooden barrel like a nail keg, full of English walnuts shelled and we could get handfuls of them on our way out at recess. We had ball games at school and evidently I could pitch because that’s the position I played.

The train went between rows of houses up to the mine and carried the coal out. There was a brakeman --do not know his name-- that at Christmas would throw us kids oranges and candy. He must have been a kind man.

Mrs. Beckler and husband Bob always had Christmas at school. Mr. Beckler dressed up like Santa and there was a gift for every child that was in the school.

There was a street that went off Rt. 691 that was called State Row that had a hill and we kids sleigh rode over it and hoped we stopped by the time we got to the “big road”. We always had a bon fire at the top of the hill so we could get warm. By the end of the day, tired and sometimes wet, we would go home to a hot supper and my wonderful mom would warm blankets so we could get warm and dry.

The mine was deep mine, which I know nothing about, and it went many miles underground. At the end of my dad’s career in mining, he was a night watchman and kept fires going in the wash house and the sand house. (The sand house is the only building left on the original mine site.) The sand was for the wheels of motors and bank cars in the mine.

Close to the houses in later years were tipples to put coal in train cars and trucks to be carried away. One time we kids were playing where we were told not to and my best friend Juanita Pyle was bitten by a copperhead snake. My dad had a home remedy that sucked the poison out of the bite. Doctors told Juanita’s family she could have died without the remedy and my dad. He was a medic in the army in WWI.

Mom and Dad had one other daughter after I was born, Virginia, and the doctor came to the house. He was from Nelsonville and his name was Pritchard—drove a coupe and always had his small bulldog with him that came into the house with him always.

Had a small pony to put sand in the sand house and take it to the sand house.

Dad said he worked on his knees all the time—it must have been a low ceiling.

There was a murder by the mine proper, up in the hollow beside it. The man that was murdered was a Mr. Green, a WWI veteran—was killed by a Mr. Litteral for money—also there was was a man killed in the mine, an accident, his name was Ott Nelson and his job was running a motor that was used to take mine cars in and out of the mine. (same as in story earlier and more info).

Mr. Cottingham bought the mine from Essix coal company.