No Tears for Ernest Creech

       In November of 1965 an article was written by Mr. Ted Humes for the “HUMAN EVENTS” magazine out of Washington D.C...  It was titled “NO TEARS FOR ERNEST CREECH” With a sub-heading, “The ‘great society’ claims to be helping the people of Appalachia, but it does nothing to protect the individual working man from union violence.”

      In this article he wrote, “On that grey morning as Creech’s pickup truck approached the entrance to Leatherwood No.1, a piece of slate thrown at his truck broke the rear window, just missing him and sending slivers of glass throughout the cab.  As one raised in an atmosphere of roving pickets and minefield violence, Creech continued on to work and put in a full day down in the shaft.  At noontime he purchased a rifle, fearing the worst.  As he left the mine site at 4 p.m. he was met by a small army of parked cars near the entrance, gun barrels sticking out of many of them.  He drove on, carrying with him fellow workers Carl and Bentley Boggs until they were blocked ahead by another car.  Creech got out of his truck and tried to talk his way through.  Whether or not he succeeded will never be known, because the moment he returned to his truck and sat down. A 30.6 slug ripped through and pierced his heart through the left shoulder blade. Ernest Creech, 38 years old, was dead almost instantly; Gladys Creech became a widow and nine children lost a father; three weeks later a 10^th child was born, Ernest Jr.”

      I have often wondered how Mr. Humes got so much information from the short visit he made to our house in late September of 1965.    He came walking up Crawford road, over the bridge into our yard and up the steps to our front porch just about the time us children were getting home from school.   He had been well shaven, dressed in a handsome black suit and his crow black hair had been combed back slick and well placed.  At the time we felt he was just another “city slicker” who had come to our house to get our sad story.  We had seen a lot of these people since daddy’s death; people from the United Mine Workers, the Southern Labor Union and strangers from newspapers.

       Mr. Humes sat down in one of our hard bottomed chairs on the front porch, took out his thick black book, his shiny silver pen and started writing, asking mommy questions about daddy.   Mr. Humes described mommy in his article the day he came to visit.

      “She was ironing on the front porch of her frame and concrete block home situated along a dry creek about five miles from Hazard.  The wooden rail was large enough to hold the pile of finished ironing.  At the moment her prime concern was a leaking roof and she had been trying for two weeks to find somebody to fix it.  The dampness had given her children sore throats and they had been missing school.  Finally Charlie Campbell, a retired miner, now working on a county road improvement project, came over and started nailing tar paper over the kitchen.”

        I was sitting on the top of the steps, arms locked around my knees, listening to their every word.   Mr. Humes quoted the words very well that came out of Mommy’s mouth that day   “He just lived for his family, she said, fighting to hold back the tears.  The last time he went out on strike we all but starved to death--he cried and told me he couldn’t hold up with the union unless they fed his kids.  He was good to his kids, and took the boys with him everywhere he went. When Ernest wasn’t working at the mines, he would take his truck and go out hunting junk to make an extra dollar-he did a little hunting and fishing.  He had an old outboard motor, but usually rented a boat down at buckhorn dam....he wanted nothing more than to take care of his family.”