We're off on another great field trip....this time were in Beckley, West Virginia visiting a coal mine community from the 1890s to 1910s.
This museum had an eclectic air to it...a mix of many different things and time period were shown. The first exhibit showed what life was like during the 1850's.
Although we've seen many examples of these lately with previous trips, we still come away with an appreciation that we didn't have to live at such a hard time, and the blessing of all the conveniences that we have...like a washing machine or store bought soap and clothing! Oh the list could go on and on.....
To the right, up on the hill, are the church and a lavish coal miner's home from the 1900s.
This building was the general store...or the Walmart of the time, as the tour guide liked to call it. It was here all the shopping (food stuff, clothing, nails ect.), appointments with the doctor, catching up on the news shile playing a game of checkers, and such were conducted.
This is a 1/4 scale model of the home of the founder of Beckely, WV. It always amazes me how many people lived in such small homes. If I remember right, this home housed 17 family members.....so just imagine these 8 children each had a double and they were all shrunk to 1/4 of their original size and there you have it!! That's quite close quarters.At least they had a lot of body heat to help keep warm on those cold cold winter nights.
We learned that the men of the time came up with the rhyme Pop Goes the Weasel while trying to calculate how many times the spinning wheel had to rotate to complete the spinning job at hand.
Below, the kids enjoyed looking at the school room and the quill pens that were used for writing.
The next exhibit was a hands on type children's museum that showed what life is like for many modern day children from different part of the world. Delaney very cautiously got into a hammock--this is what a girl from Malaysia sleeps in.
Liam and Amber giving us a puppet show...and below they are dressed in clothing a child wears in Mongolia. Each exhibit show what a typical day was like, their favorite activities and favorites foods they eat.
These two are dressing in a sari ..but they sure didn't get it quite right. We also got to see a planetarium show. This museum is famed to have the smallest planetarium in the US. It was fun to see the light show of the constellations that are seen in our autumn skies.
Connor refused to come with us, but I think he would have enjoyed this, as the Androminous galaxy is visible now, but I don't think I'll ever be able to find it for him.
Enjoying lunch on the front lawn
An eclectic museum needs an eclectic art piece....I think this fits the bill!
After lunch our next stop was at the Coal Miner's museum. Delaney, Liam and I have been rowing through a book call
The Rag Coat about a girl who's family lives in a coal mining town. So it was fun to imagine where Minna (the girl) might have lived, played and worked while here.
We boarded a train and went underground to see an actual mine. I had plenty of people tell me I was crazy to go....that they would never go to such a dangerous place "Don't you know that coal mines cave in?", but I was sure this was just fine. We never went any further underground than we did with the cavern trip.
They kids had fun chatting and singing while on the "train".
Here you can see the layer of coal. I thought we wouldn't actually see coal, that it would be to far underground for us to go, but I was wrong. There are many grades of coal and this is one of the highest quality coal available.
One miner would work alone with a shovel, pick and ax to fill this wagon with coal in one day. It was astonishingly back breaking, hard, hard, hard work. Here we could stand up, but on average the coal mines were only 27" tall so the miners had to crawl around to do their work.
Having a canary and rats were actually wanted underground. Canaries--because when they died then it was time for the miners to get out, the oxygen levels were two low. And the rats because they could be followed for the best route out of the caves.
The above 'machine' took over for the pick ax. It would pound and break up the coal making it easier for the miners to shovel and dig it out.
Here the tour guide is showing how the miner would use various hand tools to dislodge the coal from the ground. The sign to the right of him was from the "Fire Boss" A fire boss would go into the mines before the others and light fires to burn off the noxious gases that accumulate. This sometimes meant that a large explosion would occur. It was a very dangerous job, but the guide said there was always someone willing to do it for everyone greatly needed the work.
These are more revolutionary tools that helped the miner work considerably.
Back to the outside. Minna's father loved the colors of day, as he was always underground.
In Winter, Papa carries me to church in a burlap feed sack because I didn't have a coat. Mama, Papa, Clemmie and me--we'd all hitch a ride on Jeremy Miller's hay wagon and huddle under Mama's big quilt. I know Papa loved that quilt, because he said it had all the nice, bright colors of the day init, and the day was something he hardly ever saw. He worked down in the black coal mines and didn't come up till the sun was gone.
We could definitely feel the difference too.
This home represented the home of a typical miner....however, the guides were quick to say that it was really quite lavish for the typical home. Just like this home, these home only had three rooms...a living room, kitchen and one bedroom. If the family was large the living room would become a bedroom too.
This is a bachelor's shanty--table, small cooking stove and one bed all in one small building the size of a small bedroom according to our standards.
Quiet little church goers.
On our way to the overseers's home. This was a fellow miner that has worked his way up the ranks. They did live quite lavish compared to the others.
A typical doctor's office.
The school building was quite fun to explore for our home school group....so where to do these cuties love most to be while here? At the desk reading!!
The school library
The front of the overseers home.
We had an enjoyable day and once again were humbled to the hard and harsh realities of what life was like. I was grumbling about having to eat muffins again for breakfast before we left for this trip....after wards, I was grateful for all my "manyful" blessings. (to quote Delaney).
