52 Ancestors- Week 6 - Earning a Living

WEEK 6 - Earning a Living

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

My Dad called his grandfather on his mother's side "Bumpy". Charles Wesley Thomas was born on 12 September 1882 in a place called Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. It was in the heart of coal country. He was one of six children and by the 1900 census[1], his father had already passed away and he was living in a multi-generational household with his widowed mother, three siblings, five nieces and nephews and his elderly grandmother. Their ages ranged from 71 down to 1-year-old. Charles was 17 at this time and listed with the occupation of "coal miner". His own father had been a coal miner, as had his grandfather.

Because we have no 1890 federal census, we have no clues to what was going on when he was 7. But family lore says that by the age of nine he was already working in the coal mines as a “trapper boy” who hooked to the coal cars together. By the 1910 census[2], Bumpy was married and starting his own little family with my grandmother Sarah showing up as a two-year-old. He was still a coal miner, 27 years old and had 2 boarders, also coal miners, probably to help make ends meet.

They were all definitely “working for a living.” Coal mining has never been viewed as an easy life. He continued to work the mines until the 1950 census[3] shows him as occupation “other” and not working or seeking work. He was 67 years old. He died two years later. An obituary in the local newspaper under the heading of Grim Reaper[4] said he died suddenly of a heart attack. He was a retired coal miner and member of the UMWA Local No. 7750. It also said he had been a well-known sandlot baseball player.

It makes me happy to know he did something he enjoyed in addition to doing what he had to do to feed his family. I can only imagine all the days and maybe nights spent down in the mines, covered with coal dust, breathing impurities, and dealing with the aches and pains that growing old brings with it. The work ethic of all those generations of coal miners makes me very proud of him. My paternal grandfather and my own father also worked in the mines, making me a “true” coal miner’s daughter.

 

---

[1] 1900 U.S. Census, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, East Huntingdon, ED093, p.16 (penned), dwelling 257, family 289, Nancy J. Thomas; digital image, (http://ancestry.com: accessed 15 February 2024); citing National Archives microfilm T623, roll 1497.

[2] 1910 U.S. Census, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, Luzerne, ED045, p.11B (penned), dwelling 184, family 187, Charles Thomas; digital image, (http://ancestry.com: accessed 20 August 2023); citing National Archives microfilm T625, roll 1344.

[3] 1950 U.S. census, Westmoreland Co., PA, Scottdale, ED 65-321, sheet 17, household 187, lines 8-10 (Charles W. Thomas family); U.S. National Archives, _1950 Census_ (https://1950census.archives.gov/search/)

[4] Obituary, Charles W. “Bumpy” Thomas, The Daily Courier, Connellsville, Pennsylvania, 10 Apr 1952, p. 2.