Unearthed

For over a year now, I have been working on a memoir of my childhood, which was admittedly a long time ago and quite a number of years before the internet. Even so, you can find some really long-ago facts on this internet thing. And even more long-ago untruths.

So, I decided to search for “Centenary, Indiana,” the town I lived in until I was four. From the results, I learned that Centenary was established in 1910 because of its proximity to coal mines. Most of the miners were Italian, much like the population of nearby Clinton.

Many of the homes in Centenary were small frame one-story cottages that were built by the coal companies. We lived in one of those houses in the early 1960s.

Another result in the search was a link leading to an essay someone named John Harris had written for a class at Indiana State University (ISU). The essay was written in 1987 and is part of the ISU Folklore Archives.

The author claimed to have interviewed someone named David Clark about an urban legend monster called the White Thing near the town of Centenary, Indiana.

Even though I grew up in the area AND I went to college at ISU, I had never heard of this legend.

In his essay, John Harris stated that in the 1920s, a coal mine had caved in and that “about sixty-five to seventy miners were buried alive… and were never to be seen again.” The story goes on to say that about two years after that tragedy, something began vandalizing the surrounding neighborhoods, leaving weird footprints. There were several sightings of the White Thing, which was reported to be 8-12 feet tall and snow white.

The short story detailed encounters that friends of friends had with the White Thing, which seemed to resemble other urban legends I’ve heard about. You know, “they found claw prints on the car the next morning” kind of stories. They all seemed far-fetched for sure.

Far-fetched, but my interest was piqued, and I wanted to find out more.  So, I went back to the internet, this time via social media.

When in Doubt, Ask Facebook

I belong to a Facebook group called "If you grew up in Clinton, Indiana, then you remember." I posted the link to this story in the group, asking the members if they had heard of this monster legend and/or the 1920s mine disaster.

Several members commented that the legend of the monster was one they had heard. One member posted an article printed in 1961 from the Daily Clintonian (yes, that’s a real newspaper, rather, it was). The article was poking fun at the legend. He said he had come upon the article while researching his first book on Indiana Cryptids. And in case you’re wondering, there are four books to date, but I only ordered and now own that first one that includes the White Thing of Centenary legend.

My cousin Mike, who is a decade older than me, said he knew of the creature, adding, “As a teenager, searching for the white monster was a good excuse to hang out in the woods and drink beer.”

Unlike the White Thing legend, the mine disaster was quickly debunked because the group also included someone who had done extensive research on all mining accidents in the area. What are the odds that both of these experts were online and in the group when I was looking for answers?

This mine disaster expert, who I later learned is the son of my eighth-grade History teacher, said there had actually been an incident in 1938.

This prompted yet another group member to attach a picture of a yellowed newspaper article about the mine disaster near Centenary that occurred on New Year’s Eve, 1938.

The article from the Indianapolis Sunday Star was published on January 1, 1939, and the headline read: Clinton Mine Fire Traps 20. The article listed the 20 men believed trapped as of the publication date. And there, seventh from the top, was my paternal grandfather’s name: Clarence Carty.

I was dumbfounded.

Had I heard this story before and just forgotten about it?

I texted my six siblings, and none of them recalled the story either.   

Just below the names of the men who were trapped in the mine was a short sidebar story telling the readers that 1,794 lives had been lost in past mine disasters in the State of Indiana. Mind you, the men were still trapped when this story was printed. They stopped short of saying what the tally would be if the rescuers were unsuccessful.

The main article also shared that, along with the entombed men, there were three mules. The telephone line in the shaft was too damaged to carry voices, so the rescuers tapped out a message in Morse code telling the trapped men to dispose of the mules to conserve the dwindling oxygen supply. The men did not reply as to whether that suggestion had been carried out.   

According to other newspaper articles published the day after the accident, my grandfather and the others had spent New Year’s Eve imprisoned for 14 nerve-shattering hours 168 feet underground and a mile and a half from the mine’s main shaft, which was engulfed in flames. More than 100 rescue workers worked nonstop to save them.

Those brave men worked tirelessly to reach the trapped miners by going through another shaft that had been sealed up for over 20 years. They encountered several falls of coal (which, a quick Google search tells me, is “a sudden collapse of coal from the side walls”), likely why that shaft had been sealed up. They also had to go through about 300 feet of hip-deep water as they worked toward the men who had been signaling by tapping Morse code over the damaged telephone line.   

“All is O.K.”  

“The air is good.”

“We are all safe.”

The rescuers responded. “Kill the mules.”

But the tapping had stopped about an hour before the rescuers reached the men, which had to have been disheartening.

John Vearo, one of the imprisoned men, had dictated a will to his foreman, Frank Stewart, stating the amounts that were to be paid to his debtors. His debts included $14 to Secondino Bros. Grocery and 40 cents for four bottles of beer to someone named Turchi.

Stewart, the 53-year-old section boss, knew it was his job to keep the spirits of the men up, so he wrote all this down in his notebook.  He was the only man among them who had been in a similar situation before. He instructed them to conserve their energy and lie down with only one light on. They called roll every 10 minutes. One man passed out, and they reportedly worked on him for over four hours to revive him.

The miners worked to cheer each other up with jokes and pats on their backs, but that stopped as they lost strength. They fought to stay awake because they knew sleep could mean death.

Jess Hayes, a 35-year-old father of three, was trying to smoke a cigarette, and with very little air left, the smoke wasn’t moving. He told a 55-year-old coworker that his time had come and wandered off.

The Rescue 

After 14 hours, when the rescuers reached them, the men were exhausted but howled with joy. Some cried, and some fainted. As they were pulled out one by one from the shaft to the awaiting crowd of around 4,000, each man’s name was called out, and the family of the miner rushed forward. My grandma, my dad (11), his brother (8), and his sister (5) must have been among them, but no one is still alive to confirm it. 

The oldest survivor was 71-year-old Harve Newport, who had been a miner his entire life. When he was pulled out, he asked for a cigarette and boasted, “The mules are gone, but I’m not! I’m a little rooster.”  That was the only mention of the mules, which were apparently killed as suggested.

Survivor Roy Tyler was interviewed and explained that Jess Hayes, the miner who had died, had been extremely anxious. The men had been taking turns making trips to where the smoke had initially blocked their escape route. Each made trips to the edge of the smoke and made marks on the rail. If the next man couldn’t see the marks, they would know the smoke was coming closer.

Jess Hayes had taken his turn and had not returned. His body was found 400 feet closer to the fire.  A second man had fallen half that distance, and he was revived by the fresh air that came in along with the rescuers.

The nineteen survivors were all taken to the hospital to be checked out by doctors.

One newspaper story quoted survivor Roy Tyler saying that after he was released from the hospital, he had gone back to the mine to get his clothes and his car. When he reached the mine, a man started telling him of the disaster. Roy said he listened for a while and then said, “No one knows this better than me because I was down there.” In just a few seconds, he was surrounded by 50 or 60 people to listen to his tale. “That was the only funny thing that happened to me,” he had added.

Reading these newspaper accounts of the story and the interviews with the survivors was surreal. The thought that my grandpa had lived through such a tragic event, and, as far as my siblings and I can recall, the story was never retold to us by him or our dad.  

Once a Miner, Always a Miner?

We knew my grandpa had been a coal miner, of course. Because he was the eldest of his five siblings, he started working in the mines at the age of 13 to help feed the family. 

Recently, we found letters he had written to our grandma and his baby, Raymond (our dad), in 1929. Grandpa was 25 years old and working in a mine in Illinois at the time. In the letters, he told them he missed them and promised to send money home as soon as he was paid.

Ten years after those letters, my grandfather was 35 with three children when the disaster happened, and he never returned to the mines, according to my older cousin, Mike. (The same cousin who knew of the White Thing legend.)

Mike also said that because of his near-death experience, Grandpa had forbidden his sons (Mike’s father and mine) to work in the mines. Mike said Grandpa had told his sons, “If you set foot in a mine, I will break your legs!”

Other survivors went back to the mines to work to provide for their families. The newspaper article quoted one survivor saying, “If I could find another job paying $10 a week, I would take it.”  In 1938, daily wages for a standard 7-hour workday in the mine typically ranged from $5.60 to $6.80 (about $0.80 to $0.97 per hour), far exceeding the newly enacted federal minimum wage of $0.25 per hour.

This was during the Great Depression, and miners earned a high, above-average working-class income in 1938, but only if they could secure steady, full-time work… and have the courage to go underground.

After the tragedy, my grandpa lost that courage and worked his huge garden and did odd jobs for the remainder of his life. He was later diagnosed with black lung and received some sort of monetary benefit for that.

Grandpa apparently drank a lot and was abusive to my grandmother to the point that they separated, and she got a job working in a sewing factory. She was listed as his wife on his death certificate when he died, but they hadn’t lived as husband and wife for years. That designation qualified her to receive his black lung benefits.

The Red Balloon

I have very few memories of my grandpa, because he died when I was six. I remember I was about five and saw his black-and-white Chevy pulling into the driveway at Grandma’s house. As he pulled into the driveway, he sounded the horn to announce his arrival. He was probably stopping in for a visit because he knew we were there.

I was standing there holding the string of a beautiful red helium balloon, which was my souvenir from a small circus we had attended that day. We were poor. Such treasures were few and far between in my childhood. I had never before had a helium balloon.

I had picked the balloon over other souvenir toys like the dancing monkey on a stick that my brother Alan had selected. Grandpa stepped out of the truck, and in my excitement to show it to him, I dropped the string, and my beautiful red balloon floated up and away… into the clouds above.

We stood there watching it become a tiny red dot as I bawled like a baby. I should’ve gotten the dang monkey on a stick like Alan had. At least that lasted a few days before it broke.  I remember Grandpa trying to calm me, patting my head, and saying he would be heading that way soon, and he would look for my balloon. Kinda dark if you think about it.

You could say that he did head that way a year or so later when he died at the age of 63 from a coronary embolism following a stomach surgery. I’d love to be able to ask my grandpa about that New Year’s Eve spent trapped in the mine. The night he almost died, but lived to not tell about it.

So weird that I stumbled upon the story while researching an urban legend monster story. You never really know what you’ll unearth if you do enough digging.