Vol. 1-Interview-Feisner

AV inter. GF & HF -35- 7/7/72 Tape 24

GF: tool maker

HF: I have a hammer also that they made when we used to go up at the slate banks to pick coal, well the one side you can use to drive a nail with and the other side is pointed that you can dig with I have it up in the garage but thosse pincers I hold on to them because you can't buy a pair like that and they're hand-made

GF: You know up in Buck Mountain is where the water comes from the tunnel now this is a story told by my mother and father you see there was a large body of water imbedded in the mines the mining engineers knew it and they were drilling in to it they had to drain it to get the coal now that tunnel I guess is about 6 ft. high and 12 ft. wide thru the rock it's right above the town now we lived down where the Paminos lived right along the creek and there wasn't any water at that particular time but they knew there was a large body of water in the mines and eventually sooner or later they would tap it and it would break thru and probably cause some flooding so they came to our home at various times and, move out today we are going to tap water, well that never came, weeks went on, months went on it was the old story of the sheep and the wolf, finally it did come without any previous warning so it so happened that I was 3 days old my mother was upstairs in bed with me when this water broke loose and it came down and out a ditch oh much deeper than this room and we had swinging doors on the back porch and every stick of furniture including the stove, downstairs was washed out and it came up next to the last step, upstairs and I understand that dad had a beautiful garden he had some chickens, he had turkeys everything was gone, after the flood subsided, the water subsided, then started the normal flow down he went to the swamp to see what he could resurrect, what he could find, you know the only thing he could find was the high-chair and we kept that and I believe one of my brothers or sisters have it. Now there was a deposit, according to my mother of coal dirt about a foot, downstairs all that the company did was paid

AV inter. GF & HF -36- 7/7/72 Tape 24-2

GF: a woman a weeks wages to come in and clean it, we lost everything, well I have to go [recorder turned off] Mrs. Coxe why she used to love to come over and see old Mrs. Granny Davis, she was a grand woman, she was well versed in the Bible and she could sit there and quote passages after passages and that's what Mrs. Coxe loved but our young Danny Coxe now I saw him come in to attend church the Episcopal for some occasion I don't recall what it was it was in the winter time and he had one of those big fur coats on and he took it and threw it under the seat but I sat right behind him and I was particularly interested to see what he would put in the collection plate and I was a little amazed 20 bucks, 20 dollars to my nickel

AV: You know I wanted to ask one thing about Mrs. Coxe why was it do you think that she did all this stuff, all this charity?

GF: Oh deeply religious woman, in the first place she had the money and it was her religion, she believed it was a Christian duty, you know you read the Bible and it says a rich man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven and so forth they interpret that literally, she was a millionaire and I guess that she believed she didn't earn this money it was the people that actually earned it for her and she had to return it to them but the primary motive was religion, unquestionably

AV: You think so

HF: Well I was still going to [Mrs. Coxe] school when the First World War was on and Belgium was in such a terrible position they were really down and out and she came to school one day and and there was a song, I don't know who composed it but she had us learn it and sing it for peace and she told us the reason why she came down was that at Christmas time she wouldn't be able to give us all the gifts we got we still would get a new dollar bill, an orange and a box of candy but she said in Belgium those children don't have anything and she said you children here are lucky that you aren't in the war and that she wanted to help the Belgium

AV inter. GF & HF -37- 7/7/72 Tape 24-2

HF: children out and I'm sure none of you would mind that and as you grow older you will know what it means, right now you don't know what it means but you will know what it means, it is better to give than to receive.

GF: Well now she endowed a great many universities, Lafayette in particular, have you ever been down, there's a Coxe building and I think she made some donation to Lehigh University those in particular

AV: Which area did she do all this charity in besides Eckley

GF: Buck Mountain, Eckley, Drifton, Beaver Meadows, Coal Rain, Derringer, Mary Dee, Tom Higgins [? Tomhicken]

AV: Jeddo

GF: No Jeddo was under Markle, Jeddo Highland Coal Company, Markle

HF: Oneida was Coxe's too

GF: There was a great many, she spent millions of dollars

AV: And with all her money why was she buried under a simple cross

GF: Her wish

HF: She was laid out very simply I was down

GF: That was her wish, she didn't want an expensive burial, no expensive casket or expensive vault

HF: She never dressed expensively

GF: You know years ago when people were buried they had a casket that was very cheap then they were put in a white pine box, that's just a vault with a lid on, now up here in this cemetery that's what I've been interested in, I've been trying to interest them in trying to do something about it because some of my relatives are buried over there but some of the graves are covered, we went up there, when I was in school I know my grandfather's grave and my heaven's sake it was all grown up scrub bushes and trees oh it was terrible and to get the exact location I knew the area but not the lot so I tell you what I did, I took an iron rod now in those days they didn't go down any deeper than, I'd say about 3 1/2 ft.

AV inter. GF & HF -38- 7/7/72 Tape 24-2

GF: this doesn't sound reasonable but I took this rod and I pushed it down on it once it come thru and I got the whole perimeter of the thing and I cleared out the brush and so forth but that's a dirty shame up there I spent one whole summer there myself cleaning that out and I spoke to our representative in Washington

HF: I heard you down there at the meeting

GF: And I talked down to this fellow at the state and asked him since they're taking over Eckley did that include the cemetery near colliery and he said not, and I tried to get money from living relatives from people buried there and some of them absolutely forgot about it now Mr. Tosh who at one time had been superintendent at the [blank] hospital and I happened to be on the board there for about 5 years, I knew him very well, now his relatives are buried there I called him on the phone and told him what I was doing and asked him if he would care to make a contribution and he said, how much do you want, I said, it's not what I want it's what you care to give, and I told him what we were going to do with it, you know he never sent a nickel I am a little afraid to meet that man because I'm going to tell him where to get off in plain English