Two Generations Prosper by Descending Into Darkness

It takes two generations of the Beaver family about an hour, maybe a little more, to get to their jobs mining coal.

Interstates don’t run to where they earn their living. And because mines keep closing and jobs keep disappearing, they have to travel farther to get to work. Some mines have been as close as 30 minutes’ drive, others as far away as Lisbon, a two-hour commute.

Getting there isn’t easy. The roads wrap around the hills and plunge down in the valleys of southeast Ohio. After dodging the occasional deer and navigating hairpin turns, the Beaver men pick up their lunch buckets, put on their helmets and board an express elevator for what can turn out to be a 1,000-foot descent into the coal.

Rick Beaver and two of his adult sons, Charlie and Matt, are part of a diminishing profession in Ohio.

For years, Ohio’s coal industry boomed, bringing high-paying jobs to areas that needed them most. In 1970, the state turned out more than 55 million tons of coal and the industry employed about 8,500 people. Last year, the industry produced about 25 million tons of coal and employed 2,720 people.

The passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970 means that Ohio’s high-sulfur coal has to be cleaned to ensure it conforms to federal standards for sulfur dioxide emissions from burning coal. That requirement has caused demand for Ohio’s coal to decrease, said Doug Crowell of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

“From a marketability standpoint, nearly all of our coal is labeled as high-sulfur,” Crowell said. “When you wash our coal, it seems as ... though the best sulfur-reduction you’re going to achieve is 50%,” which still results in illegal sulfur-dioxide levels.

Rick, 56, has been mining coal for almost 33 years, Charlie 13 and Matt five. When Rick started, families weren’t that common in mines. Many of his co-workers today, however, represent a couple generations working the mines.

“It used to be, if you was a company man, they wouldn’t let your sons or your daughters come in,” he said. “But it’s all changed now.”

Of the five Beaver children -- four boys, one girl -- only Charlie and Matt followed their father into the mines.

In an area where good jobs are hard to find, the Beavers say they have carved out a good living for themselves by descending into darkness and bringing out the light. Underground coal miners earn, on average, about $54,000 a year.

On a cold November morning, Matt, 23 and the youngest,is seated on a couch in the living room of his modest house just east of Cambridge. Lights are on, “SportsCenter” plays on the TV, it’s comfortable inside.

He can thank the mines.

“I come home and my house is warm,” said Matt, who began working in the mines two days after he turned 18. “If I want to turn a light on, I can. Coal’s a big reason for that.”

About 90% of the state’s high-sulfur coal is burned to provide electricity.

Rick, whose gray hair is slowly taking over his red goatee, is enthusiastic when he talks about going into the mine.

“It’s just like walking in my house,” he said. “There’s no difference to me, it don’t bother me, I’ve been doing it so long.”

He started out as a mine worker and became a supervisor in 1974.

“I got tired of the strikes,” he said with a smile. “Never did draw a full paycheck when I was in the union, seemed like. So I got my state papers and became a boss.”

He runs his own crew now and says he plans to stick with mining until he retires -- not for another six years, at least.

“I wouldn’t want to do anything else,” he said. “I’ve made a good living coal mining. I’ve raised five kids with it. My wife’s never had to go to work.”

The other three Beaver children have good jobs outside the mining industry: Kathy, 29, is a registered nurse who’s taking time off to rear her family; P.J., 27, is a hotel manager in Atlanta; and 25-year-old Mike works at a dialysis center.

Rick’s wife of 34 years, Judy, knows mining well. Her father, uncle and grandfather were miners. “I used to worry,” she said. Then one day it occurred to her: “What’s the use of worrying? Everything’s dangerous.”

Rick has lost two co-workers -- one killed in a supply-car accident, the other crushed between two cars used to transport workers underground.

They almost lost Charlie.

He and another miner were bolting, or shoring up the roof of the shaft, at a mine in Lisbon when the roof started to drop chunks of coal behind them -- a sign of a possible impending collapse. The two were called out of the mine by their boss.

“Right after they got out, the whole intersection came in,” Rick said. “He’d have been buried in there.”

Since then, Charlie hasn’t had any close calls, but he did miss work for two months this fall because of knee surgery for stress fractures, which he says were probably caused by years of kneeling in the mine.

He never planned a career in coal mining. He studied history at Ohio Wesleyan for two years, planning to be a teacher and coach, when he made his first trip into the mine in 1989.

“I said, ‘Charlie, I don’t want you working in the mines,’ ” his father recalls. “He said, ‘Just for the summer, dad.’ ”

It has been a 13-year summer.

“At first, he kept reminding me, ‘Hey, don’t forget, you’ll have to check into finishing your schooling,’ ” Charlie said. “I said I might as well do one or the other.”

Coal mining won; the money was good.

He has some regrets about not finishing college, but he has made a good life for his wife, Stephanie, and son, 7-year-old C.J.

“You know, since I’ve been off with my knee for the last month-and-a-half, I finally get to see what the real world’s like after 13 years,” he said. “I call it being stuck in a cave for 13 years. I pray every day that the good Lord somehow, some way, gets me out of it.”

He wants to be around when C.J. starts playing ball. But if his son decides to become a miner, Charlie already knows what his answer will be.

“No chance,” he said. “Absolutely no chance of me letting him do that. That’s the truth. My dad, he swayed me from it, but there was no ‘You’re absolutely not going to do this. I’m not going to let you.’ ”

He has other plans for his son.