A Coal Town Christmas
Adapted from Saving Shallmar: Christmas Spirit in a Coal Town Betty Mae Maule was one of 60 students who attended the two-classroom Shallmar School in November 1949. When teaching principal J. Paul Andrick asked Betty Mae to write a problem at the board one day, the 10-year-old girl stood up at her desk and promptly fainted. Betty Mae and her siblings hadn’t eaten anything all day. Their last meal had been the night before when the eight people in the family shared a couple apples. This is how bad things had gotten in the little coal town on the North Branch Potomac River. What had once been the jewel of Western Maryland coal towns was dying. Operating only 36 days in 1948, the Wolf Den Coal Corporation, which owned Shallmar, came into 1949 struggling in vain to stay open. The Read more…
Get this Amazon.com bestseller
Thanks for your support with the launch of Strike the Fuse, Book 2 of the Black Fire Trilogy. The reviews look good, and it reached no. 81 on the Amazon.com free books list. This means the book outsold tens of thousands of other books that were also being offered for free at the time. It has also reached no. 1 in six different categories. The first book in the trilogy, Smoldering Betrayal, was released in 2018. The story follows Matt Ansaro, a WWI veteran who is a now a Pinkerton detective. He returns to his hometown of Eckhart in 1922 after being away for five years. His family doesn’t know his current profession or that he has been sent to Eckhart to spy out union activity for the Consolidation Coal Company. Matt also has his own mission, which is to Read more…
An undercover detective risks exposure to help his family during a coal strike
One of the more violent coal strikes in Western Maryland occurred in 1922 as the union made an all-out attempt to unionize the coal mines in the area. Because the union didn’t want to give up Maryland, the strike lasted months longer here than in other areas of the country. Strike the Fuse, a new novel by James Rada, Jr., captures this tumultuous period in the county’s history. Strike the Fuse is the second book in the Black Fire Trilogy. The first book, Smoldering Betrayal, was released in 2018. The story follows Matt Ansaro, a WWI veteran who is a now a Pinkerton detective. He returns to his hometown of Eckhart in 1922 after being away for five years. His family doesn’t know his current profession or that he has been sent to Eckhart to spy out union activity for Read more…
Get Smoldering Betrayal for $1.99 for a limited time.
Catch up on The Black Fire Trilogy before the second book hits the stands later this month! Strike the Fuse, the second book in the Black Fire Trilogy, will be out later this month. If you aren’t up to speed with the series, you can now get the Kindle edition of the first book in the trilogy, Smoldering Betrayal, for just $1.99. In Smoldering Betrayal, Matt Ansaro returns to his hometown of Eckhart Mines in the Western Maryland coal fields. It has been five years since Matt was here, and he swore when he left in 1917 that he would never return. Although Matt’s parents are dead, the rest of his family welcomes him home with open arms. Joseph McCord, the superintendent of the Consolidation Coal Mines and a classmate of Matt’s, is not so happy to see Matt return. He Read more…
COMING SOON: Strike the Fuse (The Black Fire Triology, Book 2)
My new historical novel, Strike the Fuse, will release later this month. It is the second book in the Black Fire Trilogy set in Western Maryland during the 1922 coal strike. The cover is still being finalized, but I will post about that when it is complete. You can also expect some special promotions with the first book, Smoldering Betrayal, as the release date for the new book approaches. Until then, here’s a synopsis of the new book. As coal strike violence escalates, Matt Ansaro’s undercover identity is thrown into jeopardy. Having survived a mine cave-in, undercover Pinkerton detective Matt Ansaro is recovering from a broken leg. However, the union has called a coal strike and Matt needs to be at his best. The 1922 national coal strike is even more violent in the Western Maryland coal fields as the Read more…
LOOKING BACK 1917: The champion coal miner of the world
When Lawrence B. Finzel trudged home from the coal mines each day, he knew he had done a good day’s work. In fact, he knew he’d done a good two or three days’ work. In 1917, Finzel was called the champion coal miner of the world “who just before the recent wage increase became effective earned $347.92 in one month mining coal,” according to The Republican. He accomplished this by mining an average of 12 tons of coal daily at a time when a good day’s work at the region’s mine was five tons of coal. “He leaves his home with his fellow miners and returns with them and does as much work as two or three ordinary miners with apparent ease,” the Cumberland Evening Times. Though he accomplished this great feat in Hooversville, Pa., Finzel was born in Garrett Read more…
Pennsylvania’s Ghost Towns
Susan Tassin was hiking with her husband one day along a Pennsylvania trail when they came across stacked cut stones in a large rectangle. Tassin recognized what she was seeing as the foundation of a house. The home was long gone, and the stones were all that remained to mark that someone had once called that out-of-the-way place home. “I was excited,” Tassin said. “We saw some other hikers and told them what we had found.” The other hikers didn’t understand the Tassins’ excitement. The hikers pointed out a historical marker that told readers the site had once been more than a place for a single home. An entire home had been located there. It was all gone, though. All that was left was a ghost town. When most people think of ghost towns, they picture dusty streets flanked by Read more…
A coal town collapse, part 3
Help had arrived at Shallmar, Md. Trucks began arriving daily, braving the steep, narrow roads to reach the isolated coal town. A Baltimore meat packing company sent a load of fresh beef. The Maryland Jewish War Veterans collected toys. The Amici Corporation in Baltimore sent $50 to the Oakland Chamber of Commerce to purchase candy for the children of Shallmar. Plus, Amici employees raised another $1,000 for the town in general. The Baltimore American Legion collected so much food and clothing that it filled a room at the War Memorial Building. Among the donated items was 300 pounds of bacon, 250 loaves of bread, 200 quarts of milk, cases upon cases of canned goods and groceries, 100 pairs of shoes, 20 men’s overcoats, 12 women’s fur coats and blankets, not to mention toys for the children. From New York City, Read more…
A coal town collapse, part 2
On December 8, 1949, residents picked up The Republican to read: “Shallmar Residents Are Near Starvation, Urgent Appeal Made For Food, Clothing and Cash.” It was a front page story under the masthead of the newspaper. Mine closings and poverty were nothing new to the region, but the fact that it was so bad that children were fainting from lack of food and others not able to attend school because they didn’t have warm clothing was more than anyone with a conscience could handle. Charles Briner, the Garrett County director of employment security for Maryland, was inundated with telephone calls that spanned the gamut from pleas for him to do something to help Shallmar to accusations that he was killing the miners. The Oakland American Legion Auxiliary was quick to announce that it was starting a collection of clothes and Read more…
A coal town collapse, part 1
Betty Mae Maule was one of 60 students who attended the two-classroom Shallmar School in November 1949. When teaching principal J. Paul Andrick asked Betty Mae to write a problem at the board one day, the 10-year-old girl stood up at her desk and promptly fainted. Betty Mae and her siblings hadn’t eaten anything all day. Their last meal had been the night before when the eight people in the family shared a couple apples. This is how bad things had gotten in the little coal town on the North Branch Potomac River. What had once been the jewel of Western Maryland coal towns was dying. Operating only 36 days in 1948, the Wolf Den Coal Corporation, which owned Shallmar, came into 1949 struggling in vain to stay open. The mine shut down in March, having operating only 12 days Read more…
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