Digging Coal

It’s a wonder of coal mining artifacts and memorabilia, from miners check tags to the Mather mine whistle that blew on that fateful day in 1928. If it’s related to coal mining in any way, there’s a chance that Brice Rush might have it.

Brice’s collection of coal mining memorabilia started small – with some hardhat decals and an old safety lamp – and grew into one of the largest local collections in the area. It’s grown so extensive, that it’s even got its own building.

“This cabin is from Ceylon,” Brice says as we walk towards the rebuilt log house that sits to one side of his property. “As soon as I saw it for sale, I knew exactly what house it was. It used to belong to my high school math teacher, Evelyn Hartley. It had been covered in siding and once they tore it all off, they discovered the log home.”

The Rushes made an offer on the house and brought it to their property where it was rebuilt and fashioned into a beautiful home for Brice’s coal collection, full of memories and history. The walnut and cherry lumber used inside were from Brice’s family farm, cut in the 1930s and stored in the barn. The poplar came from a small sawmill in Blacksville, WV. The handrails for the steps were once trolley poles. Some of the displays came from Gideon’s in Carmichaels (now Pam Snyder’s office).

The collection started off in the Rush home before it outgrew the space and was partially moved to the log cabin. “I wanted to see it. I didn’t just want the stuff siting in boxes where it couldn’t be looked at,” Brice says.

And there is much to see, with glass display cases full of many interesting items. Pit belts line the rafters and miner’s buckets and baskets hang down. Outside, the underside of the porch roof is filled with metal mine signs and future plans for a railing made of mine related metal items are in the works.

Brice grew up in Khedive and used to attend auctions with his mother in the 50s. “I liked wooden items, Waynesburg pottery, stuff like that… I met Linda and married into a coal mining family. I eventually went to work at Frosty Run and after a few years became a member of the King Coal Association.”

Brice started by collecting hardhat decals like many coal miners but it was a safety lamp that really kicked off the collection. “My uncle had a junkyard and inside one of the old cars he found a safety lamp. He gave it to me and after that…”

“It was insanity,” Linda finishes with a laugh.

Brice showed me one of his irreplaceable items – a nearly full set of the Consolidated Coal Company Mutual Monthly Magazine, bound into hardback books. The bound copies cover the years from 1918 to 1928. The magazine featured lives of miners that worked for the company, as well as information about each mine division. These magazines are a genealogical researcher’s dream, with detailed captions for every picture.

“Once I loaned one of them to a friend who lived in Somerset. While going through it he found a picture of three little girls on a sled. It was his mother and her two sisters,” Brice says. “Another time I loaned one out to a friend from Arlington and he found a news story inside about his grandfather being killed by a horse and wagon.”

“We have thousands of pictures. There’s a lot of documents and history,” Linda says of the collection, after producing a photo album of pictures of Nemacolin’s Buckeye Mine during construction – a particular interest of mine.

Many items in the collection have personal meaning to Brice and Linda. There are pay envelopes and a fire boss book belonging to Linda’s grandfather. Pit belts, helmets, and more from people Brice has worked in the mines with over the years are there. Even Brice’s first fire boss book is part of their collection.

One of the most meaningful pieces is a wooden miner, hand carved by George Gomez for Porter Duke Remington, a foreman at Gateway and Brice’s friend. Brice would often travel with Remington and his family to collect decals. The miner sat in a china cupboard at Remington’s house for years and always caught Brice’s eye when he would visit. After Duke’s death, his wife gave it to Brice and it’s been a treasured part of the collection ever since.

“When I’m here, I get to see all my friends, neighbors, relatives. I look at the items and remember,” Brice shares. “I’ve talked to so many people and gotten so many stories. All of the old guys had so many stories…stories that are lost when they’re gone.” Brice has provided oral histories to students at Penn State and has encouraged others to do so as well.

There are items in the collection that date back to the 1800s. Framed and on display, a document about the sale of a coal bank in Waynesburg is probably the oldest, from 1857. Other pre-1900s items include mine lights that date back to the 1870s, birdcages from the 1800s, and more documents.

How do they find all these wonderful items for their collection? Auctions, flea markets, word of mouth, and gifts are the usual. “Sometimes we’ll come home and find items sitting on the porch. We don’t know where they come from,” Linda says.

One year at the Coal Show, a young man approached the couple and said he had pay envelopes. Brice told him to bring them in and the next year he returned with a brown bag full of pay envelopes from a pay period in 1944. Hidden inside were pay envelopes for Brice’s uncle and Linda’s uncle and both of her grandfathers.

“What we’re supposed to have, we get,” Linda explains. “People know that if they give us their treasures and come back 5 years later, we’ll still have it. We keep the items we get.”

“A lot of the stuff is treasure only to us. We find boxes of someone’s life. We clean it up, we organize it and it might not be a lot of value to anyone else. But we value them because of what they are and the meaning they had. We were given this job.”

Their collection has even been featured in the media. In 1987, Brice did a spot on KD Country with Dave Crawley, taking him underground at Dilworth and to his family farm. It was part of the Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania documentary filmed in 2003. The documentary brought Rick Sebak’s notice to the collection. Sebak was filming Underground Pittsburgh, a show that showcased things that were underground related in southwestern Pennsylvania, and spotlighted the collection. An article written after filming features a picture of Linda with the hand carved coal miner.

When asked if they had any guidance to those looking to start collections of their own, they had a few pieces of advice. “Narrow it down and pick a rare thing instead of a broad category,” Linda says.

“Start organizing from the start. Display the items so that you can look at them,” Brice adds.

The Rushes dedication to preserving and honoring history is a wonderful thing. Their collection continues to grow and shows no signs of stopping. Brice shares a story about his daughter asking him if he would ever finish collecting. “I told her I’ll die a happy man if I bought something that day.”

Published GreeneScene Community Magazine, August 2018.