Education Imperative

My grandfather was the son of a 10th generation Belgian coal miner. Ten that we know of, it could be 15 or 20 as men have been mining in the low country of Belgium since coal was discovered there at the end of the 12th century. The graphic below reflects the Belgian tradition that the …

Mining Intuition

In 1885,  22 year-old Louis Bouchez, my great grandfather, immigrated to America,  leaving his family in Paturages, Belgium and the mines of the Pays Noir region of France, never to return. He went to live in Pana, a coal town in central Illinois, and gained employment as a laborer at the Penwell Coal Mining Company. In my …