This photo, which was provideed to me by Mrs. Sally Fish, a descendant of my greatgrandfather's second wife, shows the kids at the Carbondale Elementary School, probably during the 1920's . Mrs. Fish says one of the kids in this photo was my uncle Charles M."Toots" Hudson. AS you can see, folks in the Carbondale-Cannelton area were very poor. Matter of fact, during that time the coal companies were oppressing the miners, paying them only starvation wages and using everything from blacklists, gun thugs, and "bought" police forces and courts to keep the unions out of the area. So, thse kids show the results of the unchecked, predatory capitalism that was the rule in America at that time. |