Was there only one coal mine operator in the entire US? Or even in WV?
The company stores kept a running ledger of the debt that the miner could never get out from under. The miner could not leave his job while he still "owed his soul to the company store."
The miner could always walk away and declare bankruptcy. Or just run away and to hell with the debt. It's not like there were databases in those days, tracking everyone by social security number.
The debt of the fathers was not binding on the children, who could leave, or be sent off to relatives elsewhere.
The debt of the fathers was not binding on the children, who could leave, or be sent off to relatives elsewhere.
In the 1930's a miner with a 3rd grade education and 10 or 12 children wasn't going to to have the wherewithal to do what you suggest. Honorable men do not shirk their debt. And children honored their father and mother as The Ten Commandments ordered them to do. During the Great Depression few relatives had the ability to take in other family members. You need to stop attempting to ascribe your 2018 values to 1918 rural God fearing Christians. I believe I have better insight than most because my father was the youngest son of my Victorian Grandfather.
January 25, 1870 is the date my paternal grandfather was born. General Grant had been President for less than a year. Queen Victoria had over thirty years still to reign. I never knew anything about my paternal grandfather because he died of old age many years before I was born. My Dad was unvaryingly parochial and dogmatic, which is quite understandable when you realize he was raised by a true Victorian father, born less than five years after the Civil War.I was raised to know that all debts must be paid and personal bankruptcy was an act of an unscrupulous cheat.
You may have missed my earlier post where I emphatically indicated that all trade unions are the scourge of man. I still can recognize that one hundred years ago they seemed like a solution for many hopeless souls.