Interview with Mima Sheppard

Audio recording and transcript of Mima Sheppard's 1979 interview with Bernard McNicholl for the Coal Tyee History Project. Sheppard shares her memories of living in the coal mining community of Cumberland. She talks about her childhood and gives her impressions of the community's ethnic groups. She explains how her brother was killed in 1923 in an explosion in the mine when he was just a teenager and she reflects on the life he might have had if he'd lived longer. Sheppard's father died when she was only a week old and she speaks about what it was like for her mother to raise a large family on her own. She shares memories about Cumberland's church life and social activities, and conditions during the Depression. Sheppard tells the story of how her uncle took her into the coal mine when she was a young girl, and she also speaks about what it was like to be married to a coal miner.