Mom related the following story to me in 1992, long after Daddy’s death. She and I sitting in the living room of her modest home in Elgin, Oregon, the smell of dinner cooking in the oven. Mom was 83, I was 50.
“Della have I ever told you about the time Billy Ball came to our house in the middle of the night in Diamondville, Wyoming?”
“No Mom, I’ve never heard that story. I know you’ve talked about him and know that you and Daddy both had a great deal of respect for him. But why would he come in the middle of the night?”
She began talking about her and Daddy’s early life, how he had been injured in the coal mine and how the company “dragged its feet” giving him a settlement. Her voice sounded far away and I sensed that she was back in a time, long before I was born.
“In the middle of the night before your dad was to have a meeting with company officials, we heard someone knocking on our bedroom window” “Daddy got up and saw Billy Ball, a company official motioning to let him in. Daddy quickly went to unlock the back door and asked him to come inside. We sat, in our nightclothes in the living room, with only a dim light, and listened to Billy.
She paused for a moment, remembering. “Billy talked in a hushed voice,” Mom told me. “He looked at your father and said, ‘Joe, you must tell no one about my being here tonight or neither of us will have a job. Tomorrow at the meeting, the company officials will ask you to sign papers so they can proceed with your claim, but if you sign, you will get nothing from the company. The papers are worded in such a way that you will sign away all rights to a settlement. Also, he continued, ‘they will try to get you to take a job, raking and picking up around the mine and they will insist that you start now, giving you a rake and watching what you can do. Do not touch the rake, simply refuse to do any of the things they ask.’ Then Billy looked at both your Dad and I and said, ‘Do you understand?’
“So what did you and Daddy do?” I asked.
“Your Dad wasn’t sure at first. He looked at Billy. ‘Yes, I hear you,’ he told him. ‘But how do I know that you are telling me the truth? Why would the company try to cheat me out of a settlement that I have every right too? I can’t work, we will be out on the street and my family will starve.’ Billy shifted in his seat and tried to persuade your father. ‘Joe, you must believe me,’ he said. ‘I have risked my own job by coming here tonight. Why do you think I came here under the cover of darkness? Please believe what I am telling you or you will have nothing.’
“Then your Dad looked right at me and said, ‘Blanche, what do you think?”
I sat forward, now on the edge of my chair, waiting to hear what my mother said. To be continued...Hugs To All...OWAV:)
* I don't have photos for the next few years, I will use the following one of Mon and Daddy, holding Mona when she was about 2 years old...They had 3 other children, George was 7, Barbara 9, and Loraine 11...Approximately...For the next 3 years, Daddy was disabled, receiving a small disability check and Mom was keeping the family together, with the help of friends and relatives.
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