Basil Ridenour

Bail was a coal miner because his father was. His father was paid by how much coal he got out, and since his dad was sick, Basil began to work in the mines "for his father," that is, to make up for his infirm father. People at that mine figured out that he was 15 and kicked him out. There weren't too many options there.

He grew up and started a family in the small, coal company town of Powellton, West Virginia, built by the Koppers Coal Company. There was only one community church; the Methodists supplied the ministers, meaning the church was Methodist, and, as a consequence, the people as well. Everyone’s life there was difficult. Koppers owned the town store, the doctors, everything. The companies were so cruel to their laborers, and those working at the coal mines went from the difficulties of the Great Depression to the long required labor of World War II.

Basil's oldest sister Elizabeth went off to college but Basil couldn’t. She studied education and became a teacher. He had to give his pay checks to his mother, even as an adult.

Basil and Fay decide that they would never get their pay checks unless they got married and moved out. Basil kept putting the wedding off because he didn’t have any $, though. It was catch 22.

During the depression, Basil could only work between 1 and 3 days a week. He lived in a company house, made purchases in the company store. He didn't draw out money because he owed it to the company store, but at least he and his family had food to eat and a place to live. Donna says it didn't seem like anyone had a full week's work during the Great Depression.

For Basil, it was hard to have a happy life. He went from work as a child, to work as an adult in the coal mines, to a whole lot of work in the coal mines during World War II. Basil was generally not a well man, and it was hard to be, having worked so long in the coal mines.

During World War II, Basil rarely saw daylight. The coal miners were drafted by the military, meaning that they were frozen to the their jobs in the mines and had to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Basil was a very quiet person and not particularly affectionate, although, like his son-in-law Wayne he was very handy, very hardworking, and very dedicated.

When Basil had to work at night, he had to try to sleep at home during the day. Everyone else in the house was miserable trying to keep quiet because he was sick and couldn't sleep well, making things very chaotic.

Kids were not allowed to talk at the dinner table; Basil liked to eat in silence, and the children had to eat what Fay fixed. Basil's daughter Joy would scare her sister Donna to death; if she didn’t like something at the table, like peas, she would say, “you know I don’t like peas" right to her parents. Donna was always scared that Joy would get whipped, but Basil never did whip her. Basil’s other daughter Nancy didn’t dare say a thing at the table (she was a quiet little girl).

Basil generally didn't like a lot of talk, and adults didn't usually visit. When everyone went of to Sunday dinner at Ernest Ridenour's (Basil's father's) house, though, there was a lot of talking, especially among the daughters-in-law.

Basil had a radio and the children didn’t play it. Fay bought a phonograph and they had all the newest records. Saturday night they had the hit parade (a book, with Lucky Strike tobacco adds) with lyrics to top songs and music on the radio Saturday night. And Fay then bought the music, usually Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. They mostly listened to it when Basil was at work so it wouldn’t bother him.

Finally in 1947, he was feeling so bad, he had to stop working in the mines and move to Kentucky, where he worked some for his father-in-law, Aaron Addis, but did not pull a regular pay check.

In 1950 Basil and his family moved to Hilliard, Ohio where he got a job working in a grain elevator. He had asthma and his lungs and sinus were a problem, as the result of coal dust.

He got a job at Standard Oil as a maintenance man. He worked there until he was unable to work at the age of 58. He bought stock in Standard Oil and with that money he was able to buy two houses in Vero Beach; he later asked his daughter Donna and her husband Wayne to buy one of the houses the year after Joy and Harry were killed in the car accident. Donna and Wayne had adopted their neices and nephews and the grandparents Basil and Fay hoped they could be nearby.

For a time he lived with his daughter Donna until he built a house next to her on Walcutt Road. He put in a beautiful row garden and built a greenhouse next to the garage. After Fay had an automobile accident, that wasn't her fault, he became a fanatic about her car, and he spent a lot of time keeping things up. He got a job at standard oil as a maintenance man until he became unable to work at the age of 58, when he and his wife, Fay, moved to Florida.

Florida were the happiest years of his life. He pulled disability because of his black lung from working in the coal mines. He enjoyed Florida, bought a boat and went fishing a lot; he and Fay really enjoyed it. They also fished with Fay's sister Katie who had moved to Florida and was free during the day while her husband worked. Basil and Fay built moved into a house next to their daughter Donna, who had also moved down to Florida. He planted a whole bunch of fruit trees in the yard, and he loved them.

Basil was crazy about his grandaughter Letitia; she was his pal. Donna had told Letitia to safe money for a vacation they were going to take and Basil would give Letitia change.

He got lung cancer and died before 65, never able to draw social security (though he did draw disability). Basil died memorial day weekend and he would have been 65 in June.