Learning about Davis Day: Cape Breton students taught coal mining songs, history of 1925 deadly protests

GLACE BAY, N.S. — Principal Shauna White cries when requested why listening to college students at John Bernard Croak V.C. Memorial College sing coal mining songs they have been studying for a month.

A coal miner’s daughter, White additionally has uncles who labored within the mines as did her daughter’s paternal grandfather Sonny George Simmons, who died two months in the past. 

When White’s 13-year-old daughter Jessica Simmons was within the early years of elementary faculty, she’d go to Sonny’s house after faculty. White remembers choosing Jessica up, coated in coal mud as she and Papa had been amassing coal for his furnace at his firm house on Fort Avenue in Glace Bay. 

“She knew her Papa was a coal miner and she or he was so pleased with that,” mentioned White, who has been at John Bernard Croak faculty for 17 years, the final two as principal. 

Many college students at John Bernard Croak V.C. Memorial College are associated to coal miners and it is one of many causes White feels Davis Day schooling is essential. 

“That is their historical past. It’s their ancestors,” mentioned White. “It teaches them about what the coal miners did, the struggles they went by means of and the way they persevered. It teaches them essential life expertise.”

DAVIS DAY HISTORY

Over the previous month, college students on the faculty have been studying coal mining songs, which had been recorded on Friday for the college’s YouTube channel. They’ve additionally been studying concerning the historical past of Davis Day and who William Davis was.

“Ask any of them what number of kids William Davis had,” she mentioned. “They’re going to say eight and one on the best way.” 

White did the category shows to the scholars within the pre-primary to Grade 5 faculty, adapting each to the grade stage she was talking to. 

William Davis, from New Waterford, was one of many coal miners protesting deplorable circumstances at a Cape Breton coal mine close to Waterford Lake in 1925.

The protest began in March. Shortly after it began, the British Empire Metal Company, who owned the mine Davis and fellow miners labored at, lower off their credit score on the firm retailer. The protesting miners lived off of donations from supporters who lived as far-off as Boston and Winnipeg. 

On June 11, the protest turned violent. As many as 2,000 coal miners marched in protest towards Waterford Lake and British Empire Metal Company police began taking pictures at them. 

William Davis, 38, was shot and killed. It was the sixth and final time coal mining firm police opened hearth on protestors. 

Grade 5 pupil Sadie Peterson mentioned she discovered quite a bit about what circumstances coal miners labored in by means of the month-long particular mission. 

“They breathed within the coal mud. That is not good to your lungs,” mentioned Peterson. “They had been down with the rats and a bunch of different bizarre stuff.”

Charlotte MacNeil, who’s in Grade Major, mentioned she favored studying the coal mining songs as a result of it made her really feel good. 

“As soon as my mother advised me that anyone that I do know was one,” mentioned the five-year-old. “My favorite half is the entire music (Working Man).” 

COAL MINING SONGS

Music trainer Jane MacArthur-Summerell was enlisted to show the coal mining songs and she or he picked three; Rita MacNeil’s Working Man, Loretta Lynn’s Coal Miner’s Daughter and Allister MacGillivray’s Coal By The Sea.

When the final coal mine in Cape Breton closed (earlier than the re-opening of Donkin Mine in 2017), MacArthur-Summerell was working at Mt. Carmel College in New Waterford. The daughter of coal miner Billy MacArthur (who glided by Billy Right here), MacArthur-Summerell organized a tribute live performance with the Mt. Carmel college students and she or he referred to their music record to decide on the titles for the John Bernard Croak particular mission. 

“I picked these ones particularly as a result of they’re very easy to be taught rapidly. There’s plenty of repetition and other people would have heard the Males of the Deeps and Rita MacNeil sing them.” 

Grade 1 pupil Becky MacLellan’s grandfather, “Massive” Jim MacLellan, is within the Males of the Deeps. She mentioned she favored studying the songs for him as a result of he was a coal miner. 

Grade 4 pupil Paige Kelloway mentioned she was nervous at first to report the 2 songs she discovered however overcame it and loved the expertise. Each of her grandfathers had been coal miners and she or he thinks different college students would take pleasure in studying coal mining songs for Davis Day, which is often known as Miners’ Memorial Day and is well known throughout Nova Scotia. 

“The miners labored laborious on plenty of stuff,” Kelloway mentioned. 

– Nicole Sullivan is a multimedia journalist with the Cape Breton Put up. Comply with her on Twitter @CBPostNSullivan.