Living Picture (The Story of the Mather Mine)

In the Pennsylvania hills
Below the beehives in the fields
Lies a blacker blackness only miner’s know
It gave much wealth, but made more widows and woes

Rain drizzled through the trees
As one father soon to be
Went to the shaft in pit clothes and a smile
Just thinking about his wife an unborn child
And he thought …

CHORUS
Make him a living picture of his daddy
With a crooked smile and kind green eyes
That are a mirror to his soul
Make him a living picture of his daddy
Just keep that boy away from mining coal

They all stepped into the cage
At 4 o’clock that day
They rang the bell and slowly dropped from view
Seven minutes more until all hell broke loose

Husbands and sons
Brothers, fathers, everyone
Felt the blast as black smoke filled their lungs
The top was talking, the squeeze was soon to come
He thought ….

REPEAT CHORUS

That was the 19th day of May
Nineteen twenty-eight
When the Mather Mine lured them to their doom
195 lost in a cold, wet tomb

CHORUS
God made him a living picture of his daddy
With a crooked smile and kind green eyes
That are a mirror to his soul
Now he’s a living picture of his daddy
Can’t keep that boy away from mining coal
Can’t keep that boy away from mining coal