"Goodbye Wifes and Daughters"

By Susan Kushner Resnick

University of Nebraska Press. 262 pages. $24.95.

***

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Like any great tragedy, West Virginia's explosion and deaths at Upper Big Branch mine captured the attention of the nation. But after the last funerals, investigations by safety experts and legislative hearings are done, it will likely fade from the national memory into a cold statistic occasionally found in official and historical documents.

This consideration makes Susan Kushner Resnick's new book, "Goodbye Wifes and Daughters," all the more poignant and timely. The disaster she chronicles is eerily similar to the one West Virginia just witnessed.

On Feb. 27, 1943, a total of 77 coal miners were working deep underground in Smith Mine #3 near Bearcreek, Mont. The mine was known to be gassy, and an explosion ripped through it, igniting a fire.

Nearly half the miners of the shift are believed to have died instantly in the blast. Valiant rescue efforts stretched out for nine days. In the end there were only three survivors -- the rest died of injuries and suffocation. Two of those dying miners signed a farewell note saying:

"Goodbye wifes and daughters. We died an easy death. Love from us both. Be good."

Coal production was vital to a nation at war, and safety concerns were continually trumped by appeals to war necessity, despite the sustained efforts of the United Mine Workers to improve working conditions.

What makes Resnick's book significant, however, is her account of the people of Bearcreek, the miners and their families. Her treatment of the actions of surviving women, and their relentless determination to get answers and justice, not only humanizes our understanding of the tragedy and its aftermath, it vividly illustrates the strength and courage of ordinary people living and working in a coal mining community.

Few accounts have ever done justice to the women, families and communities of coal towns, or depicted their character with such clarity as this book does. The heartrending and yet, in the end, inspiring portraits of actual people willing to battle against a callous industry are skillfully rendered.

So much of this story will be sadly recognizable to many West Virginians. Montana Coal and Iron knew of the availability of rock dusting techniques and other safety measures to mitigate the conditions that led to the horrific explosion, yet resisted implementing them even in the wake of the disaster.

The company also stonewalled an inspector's finding that the unsafe conditions went unaddressed, obstinately refusing its responsibility for what had been a preventable deadly occurrence. The Bureau of Mines, however, refused to close the mine, despite clear signs that the dangers persisted.

Reading Resnick's admirable book after Upper Big Branch, the old adage about the fate of those who fail to learn from history is difficult to dismiss.

Simmons is state organizer for the Public Employees Union and is president of the West Virginia Labor History Association.