My sister-in-law Jane and brother Lanny found this artifact from Iowa history on the Iowa state history bus exhibit - it's my grandfather's mining hat. When he immigrated, he moved to Iowa because he was a coal miner - who knew that there was coal in Iowa, too? Notice that the top of the hat is worn through. The little lamp on the front was filled with kerosene.
He mined coal in Scotland after he left Italy, and so it was lucky that when joining family already in Iowa, he had a trade. He died when I was a few months old, in 1946.
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| small coal mine near Ottumwa, Iowa |
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| Keystone Coal Mine |
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