FAIRMONT, W.Va. – On the 46th anniversary of a mine explosion in Farmington that killed 78 men, the daughter of one of the victims can’t forget the moment she learned of the tragedy.
“I just relive the whole day the whole time,” said Tina Malcomb. “ I was 10 when it happened. My dad never came home from midnight shift.”
James Ray Knicely was still a young man when he was trapped with a group of others deep below the surface of Consolidation Coal’s No. 9 mine.
“My dad was 43. I thought that was old until I got to that age,” reflected Malcomb. “Now I’m passed that age. He was such a young man.”
A lawsuit was filed recently in Marion County Circuit Court on behalf of the families. There were survivors; 21 men escaped the blast.
The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of the families of the 78 miners who died, seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Malcomb said her father quit working at Ida May mine just six months before the explosion at No. 9 mine. He had heard the mine was closing. It does not surprise her that there are allegations decades later that evidence in the case was covered up.
“He would just come home and say, ‘This mine is very gassy. I think I made a mistake.’ ,” said Malcomb. Apparently it wasn’t a secret in her small hometown. “Everybody knew that.”
A memo
rial stands in Farmington in honor of the men who died, those who survived and the 19 whose bodies were never recovered.
Malcomb has never attended the annual memorial service for the miners. On the anniversary of her father’s death, she prefers solitude.
“Every year I have a vacation day for today. It’s hard. It’s like you turn into that child again.”
She has visited the memorial site many times.
Malcomb’s mother held two memorial services for her father. One shortly after the explosion. A second was held when his body was recovered from underground.
Malcomb does not speak often of the tragedy. She keeps her father’s spirit alive through her own mannerisms.
“I act just like him,” she said.
But, there is one important bit of information she has shared with her own daughter over the years.
“When the men on my dad’s section were found, my dad and his fellow co-workers were all sitting in a tight circle as if they had been praying,” she recalled. “The area was untouched by fire and explosions; the methane gas had killed them.”