As I mentioned earlier, I'll occassionally use this space to chronicle some of my reflections and writings on my family history, particulary the stories that my grandpa Coleman passed down to us. Here's proof that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree- my Grandfather's recollection of his father, Nathan Coleman.One evening in July of 1950, we were all asleep and it was very late. A man by the name of Haven Stevens came to the door and knocked and knocked. Well, we were asleep so soundly that we did not hear him, and he came around to the bedroom window and knocked to wake us up. He had come to say that my dad, Nathan Coleman, had died.
Now Nathan was a man that did not believe any work was beneath a man if it was honest. He was a ramrod straight, honest as the day is long, Republican. When he was without work, he did not go to the poor house, or wait until the government could bail him out. No, he took a job as the street sweeper for the city. Now the job paid only what each merchant gave to the sweeper each week for doing the job each day. You can guess that dad got “ripped off” by many of them. It still makes me mad when I get to thinking about it!
Well, Colonial Shirley Donnelly spoke at the funeral. He had spoken at my sister Decima’s funeral as well and was a very dear family friend. He had written a newspaper column about Nate; it is a real treasure. What a heritage! Incidentally, Cheryl was only 3 and a half years old at the time of his death, but she clearly remembers sitting on her Grandpa Wilson’s lap (Lorene’s father) at the Brethren Church there in Oak Hill, for the funeral. That church is still used today.
Family Photo: James Nathan Coleman. Date Unknown
The following is a tribute to my great grandfather, Nathan Coleman, written by Shirley Donnelly, a well known journalist and historian in southern West Virginia. This article originally appeared in the Post Herald of Beckley in September of 1940, and was reprinted on October 20, 1949 following Nathan’s retirement.
“There are some who fill a pretty good sized niche in the life of a place and others who loom larger than you imagine they do. I am thinking here of Nathan Coleman up here in Oak Hill. Everybody calls him Nate, and has a good word for him. He is the man who keeps our city clean. He sweeps the city’s main thoroughfare and occasionally gives some side street a lick and a promise. For the past week, Mr. Coleman has been taking an enforced rest in the hospital where he underwent an operation for an old annoyance. This is the first time I’ve known him to take time out and rest in many a moon. His period of recuperation is a veritable time of lying down in green pastures.
Nate Coleman is a type of vanishing American this country can ill afford to lose. Nate’s crowning virtue is his humility. He knows the people of Oak Hill from the mayor down to vassals like me and is on familiar terms with them. He is interested in the government of the nation, state, county, and city. Nate is a rock-ribbed, iron-clad, copper-lined, triple-ply, double-distilled, acid-test, old-time Republican of the 24-karat variety. When old line Republicans flopped to the New Deal band wagon and sought to nourish themselves at the breasts of the nation in a financial way, Nate Coleman held fast to his long-cherished principals of giving real value in labor, time, or money for what he received. He scorned public relief and despised the dole. He put his family on the budget basis and balanced that budget as regular as clockwork.
Down in Lewis Town, a section of Oak Hill, Nate Coleman owns a little home. It is free of debt and was bought by hard-earned money that Nate Coleman made in labor in the bowels of the earth as a coal miner. There he has raised an honorable family– sons who are gentlemen and girls who are beyond reproach. His two sons are soldiers in the National Guard of the Army of the United States. I’ve soldiered with both of them and they are as straight as a gun barrel and clean as a hound’s tooth. All Nate’s children have been educated in high school here. Years ago, a favorite daughter of Nate Coleman was in training to become a nurse. One day she met with an accident and was killed instantly. The family asked me to conduct her funeral and it was the hardest assignment I ever had. For years on Sunday, I watched her father pass the parsonage where I then lived, with a little handful of flowers on his way to God’s Acre where this favorite daughter is sleeping the long sleep. I've known this family a long time and know that Nate Coleman enjoys the fullest confidence and love of his wife and children. And that’s something, I submit.
As I think of this good citizen to whom I am paying the tribute of my heart in this column, there comes to mind some lines I learned long ago. He is the embodiment of them. Here they are:
Be not afraid!
Work, work, my boy,
Look labor bodily in the face!
Take up the hammer or the spade;
And blus not for your humble place.
Nate holds there is no disgrace in honest toil and in that he is eminently right. One should remember that a little job never makes a big man little, but that a big man makes a little job big. Nate Coleman has glorified the job of street sweeper in Oak Hill.
Nate spins a homely philosophy that refreshes the soul of one who believes that honest debts must be paid and that a man’s word ought to be as good as his bond. He says, ‘If a man pays as he goes, he won’t owe anything when he dies.’ No matter where I see Nate Coleman he takes time to speak, shake hands and otherwise be friendly. Nate never tries to get out of work and is honest as the day is long. He is impartial, too. One day my cow got out of the field and went over to see the bright lights in Oak Hill. Nate found her in the heart of the city and took her to the city pound, and I had to pay like the rest of the working class to get my cow out of jail. Nate believes that law that can be fixed is no law at all. I like that.
To live within one’s income is another old fashioned belief that Nate Coleman claims. He has to deny himself and family some of the things he might occasionally want in order to do this. He has learned to live sacrificially, and it has become a cult without him. As a result, he like Longfellow’s Village Blacksmith, ‘looks the whole world in the face, for he owes not any man.’ There is no more comfortable feeling than that. Long live Nate Coleman– honest man, good citizen, humble toiler, and Christian gentleman. May his tribe increase!"
Labels: Coleman History
