The Kitchen Musician ~ July 2008
Hello Friends!
Welcome to the July 2008 issue of The Kitchen Musician, my monthly folk music newsletter, featuring Swallowed by the Hole, a song I wrote in honor of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Knox Mine Disaster which took place near my home in 1959.
Recent News
I recently learned that Country Joe McDonald included my “Talking Post-Trauma Blues” on his Veteran’s Links. Perhaps you recall Country Joe as the leader of the famous “Give me an F!” cheer at Woodstock in 1969. I was tickled that he sent me an e-mail requesting the lyrics to my song. (How about a gig at one of your shows, Joe? -wink- )
My daughter Mally and I have been booked to open a show by Edie Carey in the new year. Edie is a remarkable talent. It is a great opportunity for Mally and me to make a rare duo appearance.
This Month’s Song:
Swallowed by the Hole
© 2008 Tom Smith
My friend Dan Cloutier hosts an open mike at the Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham, MA. Dan is a terrific singer and songwriter, and his guitar accompaniment is “spot on”. I recommend his shows. Last month he challenged the musicians at his open mike to write disaster songs. “Swallowed by the Hole” is my answer to his friendly challenge. Thanks Dan!
If you are a regular reader of The Kitchen Musician, you will notice that this month my video recording “studio” has moved from the busy kitchen to the opposite side of the house. Perhaps a future newsletter will give you a peak at my growing household.
On January 22, 1959 the Susquehanna River broke through the Knox Coal Mine in Port Griffith, Pennsylvania, near Pittston. I was nine years old and living about twenty five miles from the scene of this accident. The memories and emotions of that time came back to me as I read Voices of the Knox Mine Disaster, and The Knox Mine Disaster, both by Robert Wolensky, Kenneth Wolensky and Nicole Wolensky. This song is primarily based upon the facts and interviews in these books.
UPDATE: Here is this song as heard on my 2011 CD “Journey Home”
I performed this song at the 50th anniversary of disaster in January 2009.
In spite of warnings that mine operators were digging dangerously close to the Susquehanna River, they continued to remove coal from the River Slope, a tunnel that extended under the river. There were reports that some miners refused to work in the River Slope because it was so wet from the “black rain” seeping from the ceiling.
Miners used a technique called the “room-and-pillar” method, in which they would remove coal in an area, leaving some coal to act as pillars. These coal pillars supported the tunnel ceiling. When all of the coal was removed from an area, miners would remove the coal pillars, a process known as “robbing the pillars”. This of course left the area dangerously unsupported.
On January 22, 1959, eighty one miners reported for the first shift. At about 11:30 a.m., the roof gave way in the River Slope, and according to foreman Jack Williams (who survived the event) “It sounded like thunder. Water poured down like Niagra Falls.” Mine superintendant Robert Groves received word of the break and called down to all miners to get out. Fearing panic, he withheld the reason for the evacuation which may have caused some miners to take their time, possibly sealing their fate.
At the surface, horrified observers saw a huge whirlpool in the Susquehanna, which at its peak, streamed 2.7 million gallons of water per minute into the mine. Water filled the River Slope tunnel and the adjoining mines. In an effort to plug the hole and stop the flow of water into the mine, desperate mine employees rolled hundreds of railroad gondolas and coal cars into the whirlpool, along with many dump trucks of dirt and bolders.
Down below, some miners made it to the elevator, or “cage” and were pulled up to safety. Many others attempted to go out through the tunnels, but the river rushed in, blocking all exits and carrying with it huge blocks of river ice and timber props, the wooden pillars that supported the ceiling. Joe Stella, a mine surveyor, was one of these men. Without his map, and knowledge of the long abandoned Eagle Air Shaft, thirty three miners would have surely perished. When it was all over, twelve men lost their lives but remarkably sixty-nine made it to safety.
In 1959, anthracite mining in northeastern Pennsylvania was in its decline. However, the events of January 22 sealed the fate of anthracite mining with an exclamation point. Because the river filled many adjoining mines, the industry never recovered. Thousands of mining jobs were lost and the economy of the entire region was decimated.
I was nine years old at the time of the Knox Mine Disaster. Shortly after the event, my father was laid off as a truck driver. He and many of my relatives and neighbors lost their jobs.
The mines were eventually drained of most of the water that entered that day. Unfortunately, the raging water flushed out many of the props that supported the ceiling, and with no water to provide pressure in the tunnels, they collapsed. This caused huge sink holes at the surface.
My father was called back to work to help move the houses that could be saved, but the mines swallowed entire city blocks. Northeastern Pennsylvania was known as a “depressed area”, both figuratively and literally. With collapsed mines, huge burning culm dumps (piles of waste coal that caught fire by spontaneous combustion) and burning underground coal seams that seeped acrid smoke to the surface, the area where I grew up provided a sad backdrop to my teenage years. We all lived with the understanding that it wasn’t just those twelve unfortunate miners who were swallowed by that hole in the Susquehanna.
In my song I use the phrase “dead work”, exploratory work or investigative mining in which earth and rocks are removed, but little or no coal. The irony of the phrase was too hard to keep from adding to the song.
Seeking The Light: Joe Stella & The Knox Mine Disaster
A short documentary (9 minutes)
by Luis E. Cruz & Victor G. Ledesma
Thank you for reading my newsletter. Please feel free to comment online, and say “hello” if you come to one of my shows.
Peace and Music,
-Tom
Photo credits: Whirlpool photo by Bill Lukasik. Joe Stella rescue photo by Steve Lukasik.
Upcoming Shows
July 15, Tuesday, 8:30 pm. I am featuring at the Twice Told Tales open mike at the Harvey Wheeler Community Center in West Concord, MA. Hosted by John Ferullo and Betsi Mandrioli.
July 20, Sunday, 10:00 a.m. I am performing a number of songs as part of the lay service at the First Parish Unitarian of Sudbury.
Sept. 6, Saturday, 8:00 pm. Opening for Bill Staines. I am a long-time admirer of Bill’s music. It is an honor to share the stage at the Amazing Things Arts Center.
Tom
July 7, 2008Here are the lyrics.
Swallowed by the Hole
© 2008 Tom Smith
In January fifty nine
I kissed my Marianna
Rode down the throat of the Knox coal mine
To a place that never saw sun nor shine
Under the Susquehanna
The boss sent me to the river vein
No arguments, no sobbing
Its not for dead work, don’t complain
Ignore the wet, the coal black rain
The pillars you will be robbing.
Robert Groves called down on the company line
Get out, get out, all miners
No reason given, take your time
We don’t want panic in the mine
Go home and have your dinner.
But the water rushed above my waist
My mind, my body shivered.
Dodging props and ice, no hiding place
My thoughts of Mary’s last embrace
No exit through the river
I saw Joe Stella called on higher ground
With five others on the landing
To the Eagle Air Shaft they were bound
My choice, that shaft or to be drowned
Though the shaft was long abandoned
Eighty one souls in the mine that day
To navigate the hazard.
Eighty one prayers in the dark were prayed,
Sixty nine prayers were heard that day
Twelve prayers left unanswered
Twelve mining men at Knox were lost
Twelve thousand jobs did follow
All lie buried, who paid the cost?
Our lives, our jobs, our hope were tossed
By the hole they all were swallowed.
By the hole we all were swallowed.
Barbara
July 7, 2008Awesome commemorative Tom. Beautifully done.
David
July 8, 2008Thanks, Tom, for your email, and for your haunting song about the Knox Mine Disaster. You’ve taken another thread of your life and consequently the lives of those miners, and given it to your audience. I feel lucky to share this story through you.
My mom’s family came from Cape Breton (Sydney Mines), Nova Scotia, and I remember hearing that my Grandpa Oliver once worked at the mines. My son and I took a canoeing trip some years ago up to Isle Royale on Lake Superior. On our return trip, we stopped at a mine that was opened to the public and allowed us to travel down fairly deep into the mine. It was eerie, powerful, and somewhat unsettling to have a chance to experience some of the emotions that a place like that can evoke, along with imagining my grandfather’s time in the mines. Lastly, your song connects me back to last summer’s Crandall Canyon Mine disaster and the subsequent loss of the three rescue workers who bravely tried to save some lives.
All in all, it’s a pretty potent reminder not only of the ‘answered’ and ‘unanswered’ prayers that we send in times of desperate need, but of the incredible ground of love that supports all of us and that we too often take for granted.
Thanks again, Tom, for your song and thanks to you.
Nichole
November 9, 2008Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I thought that song was wonderful. While I am too young to remember that happening (approximately 25 years before my existance), I can fully appreciate the events that took place. My husband is very into local history and I am planning some lessons on local coal mining. Your song and lyrics were just what I was looking for! The song was just great and is so interesting =)
John M Pientka 2
December 25, 2008My grandfather was one of the lucky survivors.The song is very good.Thank you.
Sue
May 25, 2009Thank you Tom for this song and the history behind it; as a pit miner for 20 years I still can’t imagine what it would be like to be underground knowing this kind of thing can happen – what a sad thing for everyone in the area.
I like the sound of your guitar on the video; would you mind sharing what strings you are using? Thanks, Sue.
Tom
May 25, 2009Hello Sue,
Thank you for the comment. I like to use Elixer Nano Medium gauge strings. Many people prefer to use light gauge, but I find that flat-picking is better served by the heavier medium gauge.
Harry
May 1, 2012Hi Tom! I heard you on Carol Courneen’s radio (WOMR-FM) this morning and was touched by your “Swallowed by the Hole” regarding the 1959 Knox Mine disaster. Like you and Carol, I’m from Northeastern PA (Kingston) and, even though 13 at the time, I remember it well. Your song is an eloquent and evocative account of that terribly sad day. I did have the opportunity to go down the Glen Alden mine in Ashley in October,1960, and again at Glen Alden’s Huber Colliery in 1962, with a friend whose father was mine superintendent. In retrospect, as it was so soon after Knox, I can’t imagine that my parents signed a waiver of liability allowing me to do it! Ashley and Huber were two deep mine operations that survived the Knox flooding. However, they, too, would succumb to the overall collapse of the industry. I now live in Buffalo, NY, but still call Wyoming Valley home. I am so glad that I listen to Carol every Tuesday so as to have heard you and get to know your music.
(Reply from Tom)
Hello Harry,
It is a pleasure to e-meet you. 🙂
Thank you for your very kind comments about my song “Swallowed by the Hole”. Yes, those of us who lived through it, even if not a first-hand participant, will think of it as an important milestone. It certainly colored all of our lives, for several generations afterward.
Also pleased that you have connected to my web site. I hope you will sign up for my mailing list so you get each month’s issue of “The Kitchen Musician” as they are posted.
Wishing you well.
~ Tom
Bill Lukasik
April 29, 2014Tom, please properly credit the whirlpool photo to Bill Lukasim and the Joe Stella rescue photo to Steve Lukasik.
Thank you in advance.
(Reply from Tom) Thank you for this information. I have edited the page to give proper credit.