More From The Life and Times Of Hibbert Hobbs

Another excerpt from the history about my Dad and his family!

"Ethel had her hands full trying to care for twin babies in a crowded coal camp. They lived in a company built duplex, sharing a common porch and central walls with a colored family next door. Laundry was done on a metal washboard. The gritty coal dust form the colliery, or processing plant, coated everything in the area each day. Monroe would have come home black from head to toe, needing his clothes cleaned and a hot bath in the big metal washtub each evening. Ethel's wood floors had to be scrubbed by hand with lye soap. Water was available at the well and the family's only bathroom was a privy in the yard.
Imagine Ethel's predicament when another new baby was added to the family on February 11, 1921. Reginald Herman Hobbs was born at home just as the twins had been less than a year and a half earlier. She remembers having to wash a huge washtub full of dirty diapers every day for her three young sons. Photos from that time show her as very thin and work worn with such a heavy load."

Monroe Hobbs

Monroe Hobbs was my grandfather. He worked for West Virginia Coal & Coke Corp. in Omar, West Virginia. He worked as a tippleman and later as an assistant foreman. He was b. 1900 and d. 1957 and was married twice, first to my Grandmother Ethel (Emma Jean) Sansom and second to Mae Hall. My Dad, Hibbert, was from the first marriage along with his twin brother Herbert and a younger brother, Herman.
Here is photo of Monroe by an old car: