52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Lucky

If you read my Amanuensis Monday series back in 2015, then you have read this story before, but I just couldn't think of anything else in my research that fit this topic so well.

Howard Bierly Matthews was my paternal grandfather. When his father, Arthur William Matthews, died in December of 1915 the family was living beyond their means, having been without his income for a few years and, I believe, in some debt. They sold the family home at 13 Nafus Street in Pittston, PA, sold many of their belongings and moved to a nearby town. After Howard's sophomore year in High School, he was told that he would have to contribute to the family income instead of returning to school the following year.

As many men were fighting overseas in 1917, jobs were plentiful. Luzerne County, PA was coal country and the most lucrative jobs were underground, and so he went. I think he tells the story best.

     "Soon it became apparent that what the Super really hired me for was to be the keeper of the Yardage Books.  In these were kept a record of the length and thickness of the rock a miner had to blast down and load in order to get at a thinning vein of coal. He was paid for the coal by the number of loaded cars he and his helpers produced and he was paid additionally for the aforesaid hindering rock.  He was an independent contractor and could hire as many helpers as he wished.  The payment for rock made up for any slowing down in his coal production.

     In every two-week pay period I had to accompany the Assistant Superintendent, Malachi Glennon, on a tour of the entire mine, right up to the “face” of each of the scores of chambers (tunnels) where the actual mining, the blasting and loading of coal was going on.  As we came to each area we were met by its foreman who accompanied us over his “workings”.  His primary responsibility was to push for loaded cars to meet the daily goals set by the Super but he of course knew of the problems encountered by his miners and he guided us in the allowances I entered in the yardage book.

     These journeys were very interesting and I was either too young or too dumb to recognize the dangers although they did expose me to many of the dangers associated with underground mining.  Certainly, as I recognized later, I was safer just being with Malachi Glennon, a wonderful man then in his 50’s, huge but not fat, red-faced, redolent of last night’s liquor, but a kindly family man, father of a young man who was a stationary engineer at the head of one of the slopes I have described.

     Malachi and I together were involved in two of the kind accidents typical of mining,- a gas explosion and a fall-of-rock, otherwise known as a roof cave in.

     Mines are ventilated by a forced air system which brings fresh air from outside, through the long tunnels and then by a series of doors and temporary movable ducts, called brattice-work, right up to where the miners are working at the face of the chambers.  The force of a sudden release of a pocket of gas, ignited either by blasting powder or any source of sparks or flame, reverses the flow of air, blasts open the control doors and scatters particles of coal and rocks. It was the air reversal and flying specks hitting us in the face that told Malachi what was happening. He immediately threw me to the ground and covered me with his own body.  We lay there while the burning gas, rolling along about 2 feet below the ceiling, burned itself out without harm to us.  Had there been enough gas to fill the entire tunnel we would have been burned to a crisp.

    Again in the roof cave-in, because of his many years of experience, Malachi understood the implications of the sounds he heard,- the cracking of roof rock and the groaning of support timbers.  He pushed me ahead and we ran as tons of rock and timbers crashed behind.

     It was some time after these events that Malachi asked me what I intended to do with my life and what were my ambitions.  I replied that I would like a job like his.  Malachi stared at me a while and then said: “Howard, get the hell out of here before you get kilt”. Probably after saving me twice he didn’t want to stretch our luck. Because of his concern and the knowledge that my working underground was worrying my mother sick, I decided to give it up despite the fact that inside jobs paid much better than outside jobs."

He was very lucky indeed; he was lucky to get out and I am lucky to be here and in the debt of Mr. Glennon!

My grandfather looked back on Malachi's advice as "Fortuitous Happening #1" in his life because it forced him to think about what he really wanted. After a few more years working in the mine offices what he wanted turned out to be a good education. His mother, Ada Merritt Hobbs, had died by then, so he had no financial responsibilities, other than his own. He managed to talk himself into a partial scholarship at Wyoming Seminary, a nearby prep school and was on his way to a college education, graduate school and a very interesting and rewarding career.

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of my grandfather as a teenager. I believe the above photo was taken during his time at Wesleyan University where he was a member and leader of it's Glee Club.

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Matthews, Howard B. Undated photograph. Privately held by the author, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Rockville Centre, NY. Photo was found in a binder of photos and ephemera from the subject's time at Wesleyan University 1924-1928 and came into the author's possession after the death of her father, Stephen D. Matthews, the subject's only child, in 2005.

Matthews, Howard and Dagmar, "A STORY [1984]," Privately held by the author [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Rockville Centre, NY.