You know that familiar song lyric, "Well, I'm proud to be a Coal Miner's daughter"...well, I'm not singing it because I'm not a Coal Miner's daughter but might have been, had my father followed the footsteps of his Italian uncles who found themselves living and working the Coal Mines in Winding Gulf, WV. 

Anthony Cumbo brought his entire family over from Palermo, Italy seeking a better life.  Anthony and wife, Nellie were Grociers in Italy and set a grocery store in their new homeland so the miners could spend their hard earned paychecks on the basic necessities needed for meals and supplies.

James Edward Cumbo, one their eldest sons, was my Grandfather and a worker bee of the family.  He was a handsome man with large, round brown eyes and had a long face with a strong square jaw line.  His olive skin had a shiney cast over the day old beard he always seemed to wear.  He was a sensitive man that was often misunderstood and covered it all up by nipping the bottle.  Working the mines at the age of 17 was not what he wanted for his life.  He missed his homeland and the familiar surroundings of Palmero. 
So to ease his pain, he found himself stopping by the local diner to see a sight for his sore eyes...she was strawberry blonde and green-eyed Nell Clarke.

Nell and "Jake", as they called him, spent more time together when they weren't working their jobs to help provide for their families.  And somewhere in this coal dust filled mining town, where the shacks and shanty's lined the dusty dirt road called Main Street, my father was conceived.  I'd like to think it happened in a beautiful meadow filled with wildflowers as the sun was setting over the Appalachian Mountain range, nonetheless, little Tony Edward Cumbo was conceived in the coal dust and born on an early September morn in 1930 in Winding Gulf, West Virginia.