Clear, Very hot. I went to the garden early. Then Wendi & I went for milk. We took her home and got car tags and was up in court house and Mr. Wampler's office about Millard's black lung. Stopped at Edith's a while allso at Mrs. Stipes Millard's cousin.
Footnote by Pat: Wendi is her granddaughter. Mr. Wampler, I think, was a Congressman at that time. His office was probably helping them with the paperwork for the Black Lung Pension that was available to coal miners. Edith is her sister who lives in Big Stone Gap, Va. I have never heard of a Mrs. Stipes. Must have been a relative of Millard, her husband.
When we moved to Cincinnati in 1968, I did some volunteer work for the Urban Appalachian Council. I set up a program to help the displaced coal miners who had moved to Cincinnati for work back in the 50's when coal mining was not so good. By the early 70's they were beginning to show signs of black lung disease caused by years of work in the coal mines underground with poor venilation. The goverment established a program to compensate the miners with a monthly payment - not much but it helped some with all the medical bills. The paperwork was very complicated and because some of the miners had dropped out of school early, they were having trouble completing the application. Plus the goverment wanted a birth certificate which many of the miners never had. So my job was to help them get the paperwork together. We were successful most of the time. There is a lot more to this story about Black Lung disease that I was involved with, but I will save that for another time.
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