Stay Out Of My Way

My Dad; his older brother, Hugh Platt Stith Sr.; and their father, Paul Jones Stith, all owned coal mines at one time or another. I don’t know about my grandfather but Dad and his brother, who was called “Bud,” did not like unions.  On several occasions when I was growing up I heard Dad rail against John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960.

Loading coal at Dad's strip mine in Altoona, AL.
Loading coal at Dad’s strip mine in Altoona, AL.

When I was a young boy, in the early 1950s, Dad had a strip mine and an underground mine near Altoona, AL. He told me about a time when a union organizer came to see him, and threatened him. If he didn’t allow the union to organize the miners who worked for him, anything could happen — why, his dragline might fall off the mountain some dark night. 

Dad said he asked the organizer to give him a day to think about it, which gave him time to buy what he call “sabotage” insurance. Next day, Dad said, he told the organizer to get off his property and stay off.  There was never any sabotage.

* * *

Hugh Platt "Bud" Stith Sr: Stay out of my way.
Hugh Platt “Bud” Stith Sr: Stay out of my way.

In the early 1900’s Dad mined coal for his brother, Bud, who was almost five years older.  When miners struck his brother, Dad said, Uncle Bud strapped on a .45 caliber pistol and the two of them kept loading coal.

He said Uncle Bud told strikers, words to this effect: “If you want to load coal, come back to work. If you don’t, stay out of my way. If you try to stop us I’m going to shoot you.”

In a day or two, Dad said, the strike was over.

NOTE: I have no doubt that miners who worked for my Dad and my Uncle needed a union to fight for better working conditions and better pay, no doubt at all.

Coming Monday: “Yes It Is. No It Isn’t. Yes It is!”

The Epitaphs

My grandfather, Paul Jones Stith, shot himself to death in 1906 and left his wife with six children and a seventh on the way.  My Grandmother, Annie Belle Stein, lived another 43 years and died in 1949.  They are buried side by side in Oakhill Cemetery in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Birmingham Age-Herald reported his suicide in a page 1 story, on April 14, 1906:

Paul Jones Stith
Paul Jones Stith

“Paul Jones Stith, age 48, well known in this section as a mining expert, died yesterday morning at 11:30 by his own hand at his home, 1617 Seventh Avenue, in Birmingham.  He shot himself through the heart with a 38-calibre revolver, in his bedroom.”

“Hugh Stith, the oldest son, hearing the report of the revolver, ran up to the bedroom on the second floor…and found his father dressed in his street clothes laying full length on the bed. The pistol with which Mr. Stith had fired the death-giving shot was lying on the bed near his right hand.”

Why did he kill himself?

The newspaper said that, according to “the family,” my grandfather was despondent because he had been unable to secure a right of way from Stith Coal and Iron Co. mines, in nearby Walker County, to a railroad.

grandfather's tomb (2)“Without this right of way, the operation of the mines of the Stith company would have been impracticable the family said, and all his capital and labor for the past year had been expended in developing the property,” the story said.

grandmothertomb (2)When the going got tough, my Grandfather shot himself to death.  His tombstone says, “HOW DESOLATE OUR HOME BEREFT OF THEE.”

My Grandmother stayed the course and raised their seven children alone.  Her tombstone says, “HER CHILDREN ARISE UP AND CALL HER BLESSED.”

Annie Belle Stein Stith
Annie Belle Stein Stith

NOTE1: Grandmother’s epitaph is taken from Proverbs 31:27-29: “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.  Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her: ‘Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.'”

NOTE2: Grandmother’s middle name, “Belle,”  was misspelled on her tombstone.  And the year of my Grandfather’s birth was wrong, too.  He was born in 1858.

Coming Friday: Growing Up Country