Mining for Hope

From the health of coal miners to the dreams of children, a Wheeling

Jesuit University program puts its focus on pain and joy in Appalachia

By John Gever
Photography by Earl Dotter

     In the summer of 2004, Dave Crawford had the rest of his life mapped out. He was an underground coal miner, the iconic job in West Virginia. Then 47 years old, he figured he could take retirement in just eight more years. By then he'd have put enough time in unionized jobs to be eligible for a full pension and comprehensive health benefits under the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) contract. He figured he'd play some golf and do some traveling.

      Crawford was working in the Cannelton mine (owned by Horizon Natural Resources) outside Smithers, West Virginia, about 30 miles east of Charleston, the state's capital and largest city. He'd worked in the region's mines for more than 25 years and felt secure.

      He wasn't.

      That summer, Horizon closed the mine, selling it and other mines in the region to Massey Energy, a major coal operator that is primarily non-union. Massey reopened the mine, but Crawford and other former employees who were card-carrying UMWA members were not among those hired.

     After the mine closed, "there was a six-month period where I lost my job, I lost my health care, I lost my apartment, I lost my car," Crawford said. He had no family in the area: both parents were dead, and his wife had been killed in a car wreck in 2000. He stayed with friends, none for very long as he tried not to wear out his welcome. When no one could put him up, he slept on a cot in the Cannelton UMWA hall.

      "I had it planned out," he remembered. "With one stroke of the pen, all that was wiped out."

      When he lost the Cannelton job, Crawford wasn't worried at first. He'd been laid off before, always getting called back or finding another mine job without much trouble. This time, though, there was no callback.

      "It was frustrating," he said. "I thought about leaving the state, I thought about a lot of things." But he also felt he was too old to start over in a new place or new career. So he stayed in Smithers, hoping for a break.

      It didn't seem as if things could get worse for Crawford, but they did. Losing the job also meant losing his health benefits. He put off going to the doctor until he heard about a low-income clinic in Clay County, about 30 winding, backroad miles from Smithers. His blood pressure clocked in at 190 over 132, his triglyceride level at 580 -- both way, way above normal. He was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as well. Crawford said the doctor told him, "Son, you're just a walking stroke. I cannot let you leave this office" without agreeing to be treated. Crawford's life had not only fallen apart metaphorically; now he was looking at death.

      What happened to Crawford has, in some fashion, happened to hundreds of thousands of people in the region of the eastern United States known as Appalachia. Companies make decisions in far-off boardrooms, leaving men, women and families with dashed expectations and no certain prospects for the future. With poverty comes social and health problems. Drug use in many Appalachian communities is as rampant as in any large inner city. In rankings of disease prevalence, West Virginia is at or near the top for high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and infant mortality and low birth weight.

      Wheeling Jesuit University (WJU), located in West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, has a program whose mission is to explore and raise awareness about the problems of Appalachia. It's called the Clifford M. Lewis, SJ, Appalachian Institute, named after the first Jesuit to be stationed in Wheeling, who was instrumental in the university's founding in 1954.

      The Appalachian Institute aims to raise awareness about the poverty, lack of health care, and economic struggles that infiltrate the region; network with other organizations also battling these issues; and not least of all, work with community residents to sow seeds of hope.

      Hope is why Dave Crawford came to be associated with a Jesuit-sponsored project and why his story appears in this magazine.

      The Appalachian Institute derives its inspiration from a 1975 pastoral letter called "This Land is Home to Me," issued jointly by the Catholic bishops of the Appalachian region. Subtitled "Powerlessness in Appalachia," the letter condemned the economic and social forces that have conspired to make Appalachia a seemingly permanent island of poverty in the world's richest nation. The letter also contained a message of hope that the people of the region could and would fight back.

      Founded in 2002, the Appalachian Institute's director is Jill Kriesky, PhD(left), a dynamic woman with a vision for change in West Virginia. In her first days on the job, Kriesky recalled, "We had a meeting of everyone who at that point was involved [with the institute]," including Fr. Joseph Hacala, SJ, then-president of WJU; and Davitt McAteer, WJU's vice president of sponsored programs.

      The group decided to focus the energies of the institute on four broad areas: health, education, jobs and economic development, and hope. The institute would sponsor specific projects within each area, and healthcare was the first on the list. McAteer, who had headed the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration, mentioned a landmark 1946 government report on coal miners' health led by Rear Adm. Joel T. Boone. Heavily illustrated with photographs, the Boone Report was seminal because it highlighted miners' complaints about inadequate healthcare conditions and it led to creation of a UMWA fund that gave health benefits to miners and their dependents.

      The idea of a 60th-anniversary Boone Report follow-up quickly emerged, but Kriesky knew the institute didn't have the staff to research and publish a whole new report. However, "we knew what we could do is gather existing information," she said. The institute could also hire a photographer, using money from a Rockefeller Foundation grant, who would go to the coalfields to capture modern-day conditions and health issues faced by miners. The new photos could be juxtaposed with images from the Boone Report.

      The photographer would be Earl Dotter, who had worked for UMWA's in-house magazine and later won awards for his photos of occupational subjects. Because of his stint with the union, Dotter was already intimately familiar with the coalfields and also with the Boone report. He seemed like an ideal choice for what Kriesky had in mind - a compelling photo exhibit that would raise awareness about the many health and economic challenges faced by those living in Appalachia.

      So it was that in July 2005, when Dave Crawford visited the Clay County medical clinic and later lay homeless in a makeshift bed at the Cannelton UMWA hall, Dotter was there to record it.

      Just a few weeks later, Crawford's life finally began to turn around. The day after his car was repossessed, he heard of an opening at a non-union mine called Selah in Campbell's Creek, just east of Charleston. He applied and pleaded with the manager to hire him. Crawford started work at Selah in August 2005.

      His health improved as well. Crawford turned out to be the kind of patient doctors adore. He takes the medications doctors at the Clay County clinic suggested, and now his diabetes is under control and his blood pressure and triglycerides are back in the normal range. He also follows the dietary advice the clinic gave him. Previously, he had lived primarily on fast food and other fatty, sugary snacks. (He said his typical miner's lunch had consisted of candy bars and Ding Dongs.) Now he eats multiple small meals and while he still eats pizza, it's an occasional treat instead of a staple. He's lost 29 pounds and says he may even try to give up cigarettes at some point.

      Being photographed by Dotter for the Appalachian Institute exhibit didn't contribute directly to Crawford's return to a normal, happy life. Rather, his participation has helped advance the institute's mission to lay the groundwork for a different type of society, in which what happened to Crawford is no longer the norm for people in Appalachia.

      The eventual product was a free-standing photo exhibit called "Coal Miner Health in Appalachia," including 68 images by Dotter and another 38 from the Boone Report, as well as 10 pages of supporting text. In one poignant photo, four miners with black lung disease sit in a clinic waiting to see the doctor. Another shows a homeless Dave Crawford preparing to go to sleep in the union hall. The exhibit debuted in January 2006 in downtown Wheeling's Artisan Center, which celebrates the city's industrial heritage. It later traveled to the AFL-CIO's national headquarters in Washington, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Cultural Center in Charleston, and other venues in Appalachia.

      "In the region, it's really been organic," Kriesky said. "People see it in one location and they've been able to have it shown in another."

      Kriesky has been able to incorporate portions of it into the other Appalachian Institute programs that address education, jobs and economic development, and hope.

      That word again, hope. Kriesky said it made the list in large part due to a conversation she once had with a West Virginia University extension agent in one of the state's most poverty-stricken southern counties. She was trying to place students in community-based service projects, and suggested it might be a good idea to include students from the agent's own county. She recalled his reply: "No, don't send me any students from here to do these projects. They can't see the world here as ever being any different than it is." In other words, he was telling her, the region's youth had lost hope.

      Moreover, Kriesky said, she felt the institute should do more than focus on practical problems such as education and jobs: "As a Jesuit institution, there should be a spiritual issue attached to the institute. Hope is a spiritual issue."

      The institute's primary project in the hope area has been another photo exhibit. Kriesky said they asked themselves, "What if we did a series of interviews with activists in the community to help us understand how they remain hopeful?"

      Kriesky got together with Ric MacDowell, an extension agent and professional photographer in Lincoln County, southwest of Charleston, and Rick Wilson of the American Friends Service Committee's West Virginia Economic Justice Program. Both had seen the loss of hope in Appalachia first-hand, yet maintained seemingly endless reserves of their own.

      MacDowell pointed out that while hope is not sufficient in itself, it's a necessary starting point for a grassroots movement. "If you can't create the capacity [for change] in the people who live up in the hollow, I don't see how the issue can be solved." Engendering hope, he added, "moves toward activism."

      They settled on a photo-text exhibit as the best format. The plan was to combine quotes from the activist interviews with photographs, most of which were taken by MacDowell. They would be displayed on 19 large panels, making the exhibit portable. Wilson wrote a booklet with additional material; it supplements the exhibit and can also stand on its own. This exhibit, called "How Hope Inspires," includes images of the stunning landscape of West Virginia, and photos of people working together and of children playing together and laughing.

      "My thought was [exhibit showings] would be followed up with a town hall meeting" or similar discussion, Kriesky said, where people could discuss how to create and support hope in their own communities.

      The hope exhibit has now been shown and discussed at numerous venues around West Virginia. In November, for example, it was incorporated into a statewide meeting of Partners in Prevention, a child abuse prevention program involving city- and county-level social service agencies.

      As with the coal miners' health exhibit, one showing often leads to another. In the case of Partners in Prevention, its state coordinator, Julie Pratt, said she had seen the exhibit's debut in Charleston at a major volunteerism conference and thought it would be ideal for her group.

      Kriesky said demand for both exhibits has been strong, exceeding her expectations. Her time is often the limiting factor on showings, she said. (In addition to directing the institute, Kriesky also heads WJU's Service for Social Action Center, which places the university's students in community service projects.)

      A third photo project, a follow-up to the coal miners' health exhibit, is now coming together. The first exhibit's focus was primarily rural, reflecting the geography of coal mining. In 2006, the institute commissioned a second set of photographs from Dotter, this one centering on two southern West Virginia cities, Welch and Logan. Both have seen major losses in business and population with the decline in coal mining employment. Coal mining may be the iconic job of Appalachia, but the industry now employs fewer than 20,000 people in West Virginia, with a working population of 820,000.

      The exhibit will be completed in 2007. Fr. Brian O'Donnell, SJ, research director at the Appalachia Institute, said it should function similarly to the hope project. "It isn't just an exhibit, it should be a springboard to discussion," he said. He and Kriesky hope it will play a role in helping the two cities develop new plans for a revitalized future.

      Kriesky doesn't buy into the notion that the region's problems are intractable. True, some of them stem from such factors as "a challenging geography," the rugged landscape that makes physical and even electronic access to the rest of the country difficult. "It's harder to bring in the outside world," she conceded.

      But many of the old problems of Appalachia have dwindled, to be replaced by new ones. Hunger was a major issue 50 years ago; now, obesity is a bigger concern. Last year's mine fatalities notwithstanding, coal mining is now much safer, although new mining technologies have created their own problems for water quality and road safety.

      Kriesky understands the institute can't solve all the problems in Appalachia. "We're looking at how to partner with other organizations," she said, and to educate people to help them work on problems for themselves.

      One of its most effective partners to date has been the Catholic Church. For example, Kriesky and her colleague O'Donnell were instrumental in helping Bishop Michael Bransfield of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese draft a pastoral letter on health, issued last October. Working with the diocese's director of pastoral services, Kriesky helped organize a series of focus groups around the state that highlighted the health issues of greatest concern to West Virginians. This effort also included surveys of low- and no-cost health clinics and local parish staff to get their perspectives. The bishop's letter, "A Church that Heals," drew national attention along with strong local praise. The letter calls for the Catholic Church in West Virginia to have a health mission that includes an expanded vision of health, compassion that is combined with a strong sense of justice, and respect for others.

      In addition to working with the Catholic Church and with other non-profit organizations in West Virginia, the institute is also beginning to join forces with the many Jesuit high schools and colleges that perform service-learning work in Appalachia. One of Kriesky's goals is to organize more of those Jesuit-run efforts.

      Kriesky deliberately takes an unconventional, non-academic approach to all of these projects. For example, "I just couldn't figure who would read a report on hope," she said. The photo exhibit on hope, however, attracted a great deal of attention. Although she thinks eventually the problems of Appalachia will require government action, she says it wouldn't be effective for the institute to work for that directly. "We also want people at the grassroots to advocate for themselves."

      Back at the Selah mine, Dave Crawford is getting ready to report to work at 2:30 p.m. He has worked there now for about a year and a half. He clutches his lunchbox which contains the food he will take with him into the mine: a handful of granola bars, a ham sandwich, peanuts in the shell. He'll go to the mine and change out of his T-shirt and sweatpants into heavy hard-toe boots and a navy blue jumpsuit with reflective orange stripes.

      Getting from the mine mouth to the wall where he and his crew will be working takes about 45 minutes. This is the kind of mine that burrows more or less horizontally into a mountainside, following a coal seam until either it or the mountain gives out. It's a four-mile ride on a "mantrip," a squat car that rides on the same rails on which the roughly 1,500 tons of coal mined on Crawford's shift will exit. His main job is to operate a shuttle car that moves coal and equipment around in the mine.

      Having the Selah job just may be saving Crawford's life. It includes a health plan with a prescription drug benefit. Crawford said he now pays $17.50 for medications that would otherwise cost more than $650. In addition to adequate healthcare, the job also allows Crawford to live in a comfortable two-bedroom apartment, where he often spends free time with his girlfriend and her two-year-old son.

      Midnight is quitting time for Dave Crawford. He'll leave the mine and head for home. There's no bathhouse at Selah, so he'll wash off the coal dust when he gets home, and then prepare to slip beneath the sheets of his very own bed.

Related Links

How Hope Inspires

Other Projects of the Appalachian Institute

Wheeling Jesuit University

Appalachian Institute

Diocese of Wheeling - Charleston

United Mine Workers of America

John Gever is a freelance writer living in Wheeling, WV