Please say a prayer

for our WV coal miners, their families, and our rescue workers. For those who have contacted me thank you for the wonderful thoughts, my dad is safe. He is no longer working in the mines but that is a different story

This is a little poem that is hanging in my parent's home:

Bright white lamps illume their way,
So far removed from light of day.
One hundred tests they face each week,
Down in the mines the coal to seek.

Trained to live beneath the soil,
In dark and damp they had to toil.
To wrest the minerals from the land,
By strength of mind and back of hand.

Courage is a must they say,
To work as miners day by day.
So far removed from child and wife;
And face the rigors of a miners life.

Now high above in the light of sun.
A child at play enjoys his fun.
Fun at times concealing fear,
That the mines will claim his dad so dear.

And as they work beneath the clay,
With heads bowed down these miners pray,
That God will hear them up above
And send them safely to the ones they love.

Now if this cannot come to pass,
And he must pay the price at last.
The miner leaves his last demand
Keep my child safe above the land.

Composed by John & Millie Quann, Glace Bay, NS,1967