The Miner's Daughter

Gretchen Moran Laskas's The Miner's Daughter is a haunting story of poverty set in a Depression-era mining town in West Virginia. Willa Lowell and her large, loving family are trapped in a mining ghost town with no chance for work, meaning no food other than meager rations of soup beans and thin cornbread. Willa's mother has just completed a difficult, dangerous pregnancy, and as the eldest daughter, Willa is responsible for household chores and for watching the other children while her mother recovers. The other mining families are just as hard-hit by the Depression, especially those who are foreign-born like the Olivettis, immigrants from Italy. Willa is sensitive and intelligent, and loves to read, so when a missionary comes offering a large library of pristine books, Willa devours them in-between chores, beginning with classics such as Little Women and working her way into more difficult poetry by Poe and Whitman. When Willa's father and half-brother Ves leave to search for work at Hawk's Nest, Willa is left to hold down the precarious fort. As her mother's too weak to work, and the next-oldest is only ten years old, Willa must masquerade as a boy in order to pick in the fields; otherwise, the family would starve. She meets Johnny Settle, a boy around her own age who is smitten by her intelligence and courage, and the two begin a bashful courtship. The remainder of the novel chronicles Roosevelt's projects as part of the New Deal, including a personal visit to the Riley Mines by Mrs. Roosevelt that has a huge impact on the Lowells' lives. The author includes brief notes as to actual New Deal settlements created by the Roosevelts, as well as several websites that give further information about real places and events in the story. Miner's Daughter is written with great sensitivity towards the harsh realities of poverty, including poignant contrasts between the haves and the have-nots in a nearby town. This is a book that is just as pertinent today in a time of recession, inflation, and rising unemployment, and a book that speaks volumes on the warmth and love of family and the need for all of us to realize our dreams.

Pour yourself a cup of tea and spend an evening viewing a Depression-era mining camp through sixteen-year-old Willa Lowell's eyes. When the story opens, Willia worries about the health of her ailing, pregnant mother while dealing with the difficult task of feeding and caring for her family. A difficult childbirth threatens Mama's life, but Willa's strength and hard work helps this close-knit family pull through a hard winter. An African-American midwife, Granny Maylie, is the only person who comes to Mama's aid when the company doctor turns his back. When the mine closes, Daddy and older brother Ves go south to look for work while Willa helps Mama care for three younger siblings. The arrival of Miss Grace, a missionary, opens Willa's eyes to the beauty of books and education. Willa, along with her Italian-American friend Roselia, visit Miss Grace's home in a larger town. For the first time, Willa realizes not every family lives in poverty. Conversations with her older brother, Ves, add to her confusion as he opens her eyes to politics and the unions. Willa disguises herself as a boy to pick vegetables as a farm worker. Her budding romance with her brother's friend, Johnny, is overshadowed when her father returns home, sick with a lung infection. Miss Grace brings a visitor, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, to visit the Lowells. This visit results in an offer for the family to move to one of Roosevelt's New Deal towns, Arthurdale. Willa must choose between marrying Johnny, or staying with her family. Offers of education and opportunity make her choice even more difficult. The quiet strength of this book lies in its vivid and detailed descriptions of life in the mining camp, and in its deftly-characterized picture of an affectionate and tightly-knit family. The relationship between Mama and Daddy is particularly noteworthy. Their real, but nondemonstrative, love for each other has a positive impact on each of their children. As Willa faces choices related to her own romance and future life, she draws on the lessons she has learned from watching her parents. Willa's younger sister, Seraphina, draws reader sympathy with her awkward and clumsy energy. I couldn't help hoping that there would be more books about this family, especially about Seraphina. If this book were a photograph, it would focus tightly on one family, while letting the larger political and social picture blur slightly into the background. It's true that the novel delves only briefly into issues such as racial and ethnic prejudice, labor relations, union organization, and politics. But by focusing so tightly on one family, the reader learns much about the gritty day-to-day reality of life in a mining camp. It piques reader curiosity, and leaves you wanting to explore more about the larger issues raised in the story. A brief author's note at the end of the novel links readers to sources for further investigation. Altogether, a quiet jewel in the world of historic

i thought this was an absolutley great book.historically accurate. i met Gretchen in person and thought that she was a very nice person, and she is thinging of doing a sequel to miners daughter.

Willa Lowell is a 16-year-old girl living the harsh realities of a Depression-era mining camp. She has always lived a hardscrabble existence with only one dress to wear, little food to eat, and a house so poorly insulated that the family stuffs their mattresses with newspaper to help keep warm in the winter. But things become more difficult when the mines shut down and her father and brother must look for work elsewhere, leaving Willa behind to care for a sickly mother and three younger siblings. THE MINER'S DAUGHTER is a testament to the ordinary lives people build despite impossible circumstances. Most of the book deals with the emotional ties Willa has with her family and various members of her community, whether it's her best friend Roselia, an Italian immigrant, or Miss Grace, the missionary who introduces Willa to poetry. These relationships are somewhat idealized, the author only occasionally referring to the impact poverty has on human relationships. There is subtle discussion of families breaking up in search of work or under the pressure of too many mouths to feed. There is mention of the competitiveness and jealousy between neighbors all fighting to find work, but these conflicts don't enter much into the plot. Instead, Willa and her family are lifted out of their poverty by Roosevelt's New Deal when they are chosen as one of the families for Arthurdale, an experimental community designed to alleviate rural poverty by forming planned communities based around skilled laborers. Willa's family qualifies because they are white, non-immigrant Protestants, and Willa's father has experience woodworking. This causes some tension in the mining camp, most of which is alleviated when one of Willa's letters is published in a newspaper drawing attention to the arbitrary standards by which her family is chosen: Willa writes: "I worry about my friend Roselia, who couldn't come to Arthurdale because her mama and daddy were born in Italy. The government tells too many people 'no.' Washington D.C. demands too much from the people they are supposed to serve.... They judge and find wanting those like Granny Maylie, who cared for my mama when no company doctor would, only because of the color of her skin." The book ends with Willa's family safely provided for and Willa looking to a bright future where she will use the power of words to make the world a better place. It adheres strictly to the middle-class values of hard work, education, virtue and cleanliness, leading to a miraculous transformation of impoverished lives. Little is said about the controversy surrounding the New Deal, or about the Mine Wars that occurred previously in West Virginia in an attempt to better the conditions of workers prior to winning the right to organize unions in 1933. The strengths of THE MINER'S DAUGHTER lie in the specificity of its details. Readers unfamiliar with rural poverty may be surprised at the conditions in which Willa and her family live. Gretchen Moran Las

In this tenderly crafted novel, Willa is a struggling sixteen-year-old girl living during the hard times of The Great Depression. All of her life, Willa has lived in a mining camp where her father and older brother work as coal miners. As economic conditions worsen and the coal mine shuts down, Willa's father and brother leave home to find a new job. This leaves Willa responsible to take care of her younger siblings, her weakened mother, and the numerous household chores. When Miss Grace, a missionary, arrives in town, Willa is about to experience some exciting new changes. With her best friend, Roselia, they read through Miss Grace's vast collection of books and fantasize about life. But when Willa's father becomes extremely ill and Willa has a rare chance to escape the mining camp, there are some big decisions Willa has to make. This novel was purely amazing and I read it in one sitting. Willa is one of the strongest fictional female characters I know. She never gives up and shines with strength throughout the story to the very last page. With her, THE MINER'S DAUGHTER is a perfect combination of family, friendship, and romance all set during the harshness of The Great Depression. I would recommend this book to all girls going through tough times...it inspired me thoroughly. Reviewed by: Safia Abdul