Mother explained ‘Daddy never said good-bye because he was afraid of a fatal mining accident. He thought if he never said good-bye, there’d never be one’

Background: Tim Russert’s Wisdom of Our Fathers has hundreds of stories men and women tell about their fathers. It’s a remarkable book–to learn more, see my co-authored column America’s Father Hunger (World Net Daily, 10/13/06). 

This story is “He loved his family too much to say good-bye,” from Carole Harris Barton of Burke, VA, about her father, coal miner Samuel Sterling Harris (1911-1983).

“Daddy never said good-bye. I first noticed it the year I turned five, when he used to drive Mother, my brother John, and me from our shanty at the coal mine into Madisonville, the heart of the West Kentucky coalfields. ‘Be good babies,’ he would say to John and me before he left us to wait with Mother in the car when he went inside to night school, where he was earning a certificate in mining safety that would entitle him to a raise.

“He had gone to work in the mine when he was fourteen, three years after his father died and left the family destitute. When the foreman learned that Daddy was underage, he sent him home; Daddy waited two years and went back to the mine. He had been there ever since. He didn’t complain about his lot, but he was determined that his children would have more education than he did. He worked days and studied nights to get a better job, so he could save enough money to move us away from the mine, where there was no high school, into town, where there was.

“He never said good-bye when he left for work. ‘Be a good baby,’ he would say, throwing me a wave. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Other kids had dads who said good-bye. Why wouldn’t mine?

“Finally, Mother explained. Daddy never said good-bye because he was afraid of a fatal mining accident. He thought if he never said good-bye, there’d never be one. (more…)