Your Family History

by **Acdog** Sat Apr 23, 2011 7:11 pm

Everyone has a story. Everyone came from somewhere. Your family had to go to that place...to get to this one.

Post things about your family history in this thread along with videos and stuff.

This is my story.

One side of my family is German. Both of my great great grandparents on that side immigrated through Ellis Island to America. My grandfather came first and worked for a few years until he saved up enough money for my grandma Elizabeth to come too. I never met either of them.

On the other side, my great great grandparents were 100% full blood Cherokee indians. They lived in a small coal town in Kentucky. I visit their graves once a year and clean up the all-but-forgotten hillside cemetary. My grandfather Marvin worked in the coal mines down in that town, until he developed black lung. His wife and him had 5 children, one being my great grandmother. She also ended up working for the Consolidated Coal Company in an office in that town. She married a miner from West Virgina who ended up relocating to that town. He worked in those mines many years before one fateful day there was a knock on my great grandmother's door from her father; Marvin.

"Junior's gone, Mary."

An accidental mine explosion took her husband's life that day.

Later on, Consilidated Coal Company abandoned its mines in that town. My grandmother moved north out of state to work and retire from General Motors.

Today, that small town is stricken by poverty as there are no mining jobs to sustain the population. However, the people and nature are among the most beautiful I've ever known. Country music star Loretta Lynn also grew up in this town as a "Coal Miner's Daughter". My great grandmother knew her and her parents aswell.

Every year, we visit this Appalachian town in May and clean the cemetary of my great great grandparents, (which is located on the side of an Appalachian foothill), missing them and appreciating the hard work and determination they put into making a better future for us.

Here is a video of actual mining pictures from that town:

Thank You for reading and listening. I'd love to hear about your family history.