Physician. Historian.
Today is an important holiday. On this day in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Texas finally learned they were free. West Virginia broke away from the state of Virginia during the Civil War in a show of loyalty to the Union. However, many West Virginians (including numerous members of my family)…
On this day in 1969, 2000 miners marched on the West Virginia State Capitol to demand recognition of black lung disease. Eight days before, on February 18th, the mines in the southern West Virginia coalfields emptied as miners walked off the job. This “wildcat” strike was not authorized or endorsed by the miners’ union, the…
It’s October and time for ghost stories. Some of these are well known, some well-known but the details often glossed over, and some are not known to those beyond their small towns. Today we’re starting with the story of the Greenbrier Ghost. In November 1896, Erasmus Shue married Zona Heaster, making her his third wife.…
This post is picking up from part one. Please go back and read it if you haven’t already. Things were not better at the end of World War II. Funding for schools, like funding for roads, remained a serious problem. West Virginia could not maintain competitive teacher salaries. Teachers began to leave the state in…
West Virginia teachers have went on strike twice in the past two years. The strike of 2018 set off a wave of teacher protests around the country. The strike of 2019 was brief. The state legislature apparently learned its lesson: don’t threaten public education. Currently, the Senate is at it again. On June 3rd it…
West Virginia is not only about coal. Our history cannot be simplified down to our relationship with only one industry. We have had many industries come and go over the years, for better or worse. Our identities do not come down to our relationship with this industry. However, to understand West Virginia today, it’s vitally…