Spirit of Springhill
Miners, Wives, Widows, Rescuers & Their Children Tell True Stories of Springhill's Coal Mining Disasters
Description:... Springhill, Nova Scotia, a tiny town with a tremendously courageous spirit. In the 1950s, tragedy struck the mining town of Springhill not once, but three times:The 1956 ExplosionThe 1957 Main Street FireThe 1958 BumpThe Explosion took the lives of 39 miners. The Main Street Fire wiped out many of the family-owned businesses. The Bump, an underground earthquake, took the lives of 75 good men of Springhill. Springhill became known as everything from "The Hard Luck Town" to "Miracle Town." Those miracles are the heart of this book.Springhill is a place with strong resilience, despite the tragedies that tried to take her down. The miracles that happened are nothing short of astounding, to see the hand of God show up and rescue men whom the entire town thought were dead. In Spirit of Springhill, you will experience the town through first-person accounts of what happened back in the 1950s from the point of view of survivors and their wives, from victims' widows and orphans, from children of rescued miners, and miners who risked their lives to be on the rescue teams. Springhill remains an inspiration to all who hear about it. This chronicle from the voices of the people of Springhill will help us preserve their history for generations to come. Their stories should not be forgotten.Author Cheryl McKay has been researching Springhill for over a decade, ever since her Springhill native father, Tom McKay, convinced her that the story of these disasters needed to be a movie. Cheryl's grandfather survived the 1958 Bump. He would have died in the 1956 Explosion had he not traded shifts with a friend. Many years later, accounts of her grandfather's survival instigated Cheryl's quest to unearth this heartrending true story, as shared in this book of interviews and dramatized in its companion novel, Song of Springhill. Cheryl is the screenwriter of The Ultimate Gift and co-author of Never the Bride and Greetings from the Flipside.
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