Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [35]
The move started when Doo had troubles at the mine. He never really liked mining that much, but he figured he should give it a try since his Daddy was a boss for so long. But it was bad work—underground, dangerous, not a great future. Doo was the boss of a five-man crew for Consolidated. He’d supervise them mining the coal, then he’d drive the coal over to the tipple, where it would be weighed. They were rough days in mining; if the guy at the tipple didn’t like you, he could really hurt you.
One day the man wrote up a slip that said Doo had dirty coal. Doo got out of the cab and argued that the coal didn’t have no slate, no dirt, no red dog. But the man must have had it in for Doo, because they went around on it for a while. Doo didn’t want to drive around trying to sell the coal somewhere else, so he got back into the cab and dumped the coal on the loading platform. Then he drove off, with the guy cussing him.
It didn’t end there. They sent the sheriff after Doo and put him in the county jail for a few hours until it got straightened out. But Doo knew he was done at the tipple and done as a boss. He didn’t care much anyway. Coal was going downhill; the union was telling miners their medical cards were no good, ruining everything they had worked for all their lives. Doo could see it was getting worse and worse. He wasn’t middle-aged like my Daddy; he had seen other parts of the country and knew he could make a living at something else. So he talked my oldest brother, Junior, into hitching out to Washington State with him, and the next thing I knew, I was back living with my family again, with that little baby kicking inside of me.
It was only a month before I got word from Doo. He had gotten hired by these two farmers, Bob and Clyde Green, and they gave him enough money for me to ride the train all the way to Washington. I had never been outside the mountains before, never rode a train. Daddy didn’t want me to go. He tried to scare me, telling me how sometimes those trains crash. But we bought the ticket because I wanted to be with Doo. I was still only fourteen, but I was a married woman and my place was with my husband.
Mommy fixed me up a basket of food, a big brown paper sack of chicken, moon pies, biscuits, and hog meat. I didn’t know they had a dining room on the train, but I couldn’t afford it anyway. And besides, I was too bashful to go in there, even if I could. Fortunately, Junior’s wife, Bonnie, was making the trip with me.
We went down the next day to meet the train, with Daddy crying. It was at the old Van Lear Junction that ain’t there anymore. But back in those days you’d have a passenger train stopping at least once a day. It was a real swinging time for the railroads. I remember me and Daddy weighing ourselves on the scale in the depot—me seven months’ pregnant, but both of us weighing the same, 117 pounds.
I was scared to death. Mommy wrote a note to the conductor in her beautiful handwriting, asking him to take care of me. She was afraid I’d get sick and have the baby right on the train. I wish I knew the name of that conductor because he was one of the finest men I have met in my life. I was so bashful, I didn’t want anybody to know I was pregnant, so I sat by the bathroom with my raincoat wrapped around me. But this conductor would give me a pillow every night, and he would turn the coach seat around and let me lie down. Then he would get me fresh food from the dining car—cold milk and fresh fruit and stuff—and never made me pay.
That man sat and talked to me for three days, knowing I was nervous about getting to Washington. After two days I heard him yell “WASHINGTON!” the way conductors yell. I got all excited and started jumping up and down, and he said, “Honey, you’re still a long way from Custer—Washington’s a big state.” He said it was another day on the train before Bellingham, which is up near