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| Joe and Mamie Beafore. Photo provided by family. |
Joe (some records say Joseph) Beafore was born in Watson, West Virginia, on February 10, 1898. Watson is in Marion
County, and is actually a village in Fairmont. His parents were Tony (probably Antonio) and Katherine (Lopez) Beafore, who
married about 1890, and came to the US from Italy in about 1897. I could not find them in the 1900 census, or in immigration
records. In the 1910 census, the family is
listed as living in Grant District, which is actually the name of the voting district in Watson. Mr. and Mrs. Beafore had
eight children living with them; five others had died. Tony was a coal tipple, a worker who pushed carts of coal to an unloading
area and "tipped" them over to dump out the coal. His two oldest children (19 and 17) also worked in the mine, and
Joe still worked at the glass factory. In the 1920 census, Joe is listed as living with his wife, Mamie, still in Watson.
They lived next door (and likely rented from) his parents, who owned their house. Both Joe and his father Tony worked at the
coal mine. He and Mamie (Lucas) married on December 4, 1919. In the 1930 census, they were still living in Grant and already
had six children. Joe's father died five years later, his mother not until 1949.
I tracked down a grandson, Anthony Beafore, simply by calling
numerous Beafore households listed in the Fairmont phone directory. Mr. Beafore was surprised about the photo and pleased
that I mailed him a copy. But he remembered nothing much about him, having been only four years old when Joe passed away.
But he did send me a picture of Joe. I also
found Javonne Clayton, one of Joe's nieces. She told me that he served in WWI. "He was shot in the foot and lost some of his toes. He was pretty disabled by it, but he still worked. He walked
with a limp. When he would get a new pair of shoes, my dad, who was one of Joe's younger brothers, would wear them for a while
to break them in for Uncle Joe."
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| Joe Beafore, during WWI. Photo provided by family. |
Finally I found another grandson, Angelo Hall, who was
born in 1947. He was raised by Joe and Mamie, who were his mother's parents. "I was only two weeks old when he took me in. I was born premature. I only weighed about a pound. My mom couldn't
take care of me. After that, he didn't want to give me up, so I stayed with him. It was okay with my mom. She lived just a
couple of houses away. I saw her all the time. I was only 10 years old when Joe died. From then on, my grandmother raised
me. I was the only child in the home. All of their kids were already grown and out on their own. My grandmother did housework
for other people so she could pay the bills and take care of me."
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| Joe and Mamie Beafore. Photo provided by family. |
Less than a year before the Hine photo was taken, there was a series of explosions
at a coal mine in the nearby town of Monongah. According to one newspaper report: "The explosions ripped through the
mines, causing the earth to shake as far as eight miles away, shattering buildings and pavement, hurling people and horses
violently to the ground, and knocking streetcars off their rails."
The explosions killed 362 men and boys. It remains the worst mine disaster in the history of the United States.  In 1916, an explosion at a mine owned by the Bethlehem Mines Corporation, in Barrackville (near Fairmont), killed 10 workers.
And in 1925, another accident in the same mine killed 33 workers. That is the mine where Joe was working when he died on February
11, 1958, at the age of 60. He had a heart attack while on the job. His wife Mamie died in 1985.
More photos, and conclusion of story
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