‘Keep fighting! Stay in the game!’ Stories of life from Wilma Miracle, who turned 99 in March

One would be hard pressed to find a single person in Knox County who didn’t have some family history in the coal mines surrounding Harlan, Kentucky.  However, you may not know that one Barbourville resident was the granddaughter of Harrison Steele, who was the first superintendent of the Black Star Coal Mine.  Not only that, her father, William “Bill Ed” Baker, was the mine foreman. She remarked, “They called them a camp, but there’s nothing about them that’s a camp. They are little towns. I guess the name comes from when the explorers were looking for coal seams and stayed at the camp area temporarily while they looked.” 

Wilma Inez Baker was born in the Black Star Mining Camp on March 13, 1926. She explained that most children were born at home, but assisted by a good doctor. Furthermore, she recalled that the camp had a giant commissary which was as big as the Barbourville Walmart on the ground floor, only it had two additional stories.  

Wilma explained that they had a large fresh meat department with sprayers for the vegetables like stores do now to keep the fruit and vegetables fresh. The second floor was a post office and also a grocery store with drygoods and the top floor sold furniture. “You could get about anything you wanted there, which was good because it was a long way to anywhere else.” Wilma said there was a large restaurant across the street from the store.  They served hotdogs and hamburgers. “That’s where I ate my first hotdog with chili,” she chuckled. 

The mining camp had a high school which was similar to the old Barbourville High School with its red brick. The camp also had a red brick Baptist church. They had their own carpentry shop where a Mr. Yeager from Knox County was the carpenter. The shop built the houses and other buildings in the area. Each coal camp had their own Scrip that was used to pay for the items the miner’s families chose to buy. However, the workers were paid with cash and could request so much Scrip which was much like how credit cards are used today. 

At Christmas time, the second floor of the commissary was decorated and full of toys, but they were behind the showcase counter, on the walls and shelves.  You couldn’t handle the toys, but you could look at them.  Wilma said, “You could hang around and watch the little ones pick out what they wanted for Christmas if you wanted to.”  The roof of the commissary was flat and around Christmas, they would shoot off fireworks up into the air for all the surrounding areas to view. Back at home, Christmas meant hanging up her Christmas stocking with her two brothers, a decorated Christmas tree, and always getting nice presents. 

Then, at Easter, the egg hunting was carried out at school. Wilma remembers when she was ten years old that the school gym was used for movies on Friday nights. She said that she didn’t have chores. She was allowed to do what she wanted to with her free time. 

She chose to read magazines and books that were checked out from the school library. When Wilma read the magazine articles about activities of the Girl Scouts, she decided that it would be fun to be a Girl Scout and go camping. So, at the age of 12, she rounded up a couple friends, acquired a sponsor, and sold cookies to go to Girl Scout Camp for two consecutive years. All the coal mines had their own elementary school.  Then, when the students were high school age, they were sent to one of three high schools.  Wilma’s family moved to High Splint when she was a teenager and she attended Evarts High School. In the 1944 school year, Wilma had 4 different teachers because they kept having to leave to go to war.  She recalled, “The school taught Latin at the time. The Latin teacher told her class, “I’m going to teach you one Latin phrase you’ll never forget: Amo Te. It means I love you.” The teacher was right as Wilma still remembers that phrase. She had a friend, Katherine Stout, who had an oboe and Wilma fooled around with it some. 

When she went to school, the band teacher was in need of an oboe player.  Wilma blurted, “I can play the oboe!”  She now laughs, “I really hadn’t played it. I had just played with it! But, I had played the saxophone and it had the same fingering on it.” The band ended up winning at the district and state level.  That meant they would compete at the National Level in Nashville, Tennessee. Wilma ended up placing third with her solo on the oboe and received a medal which she is still very proud of to this day.  Then, with only six weeks left of  high school, Wilma’s family moved to Kay Jay, Kentucky. However, while at Knox Central, Wilma and her classmates were visited by an education professor from Union College. 

Miss Moore came to Knox Central to talk to the graduating seniors because the county needed teachers. Many local teachers had moved north. In fact, there were only around 40 graduating seniors (mostly girls) because their families had moved north for jobs. Wilma, along with several other students, decided they would accept her offer.  They went to Union College for a six weeks course on how to teach school and were required to renew their temporary certificate each year by taking summer classes at EKU. Additionally, Wilma went to observe at a couple of schools; she recalls one of the schools was Bailey Switch.  

All of the students that were interested got teaching jobs. Wilma began teaching at Lower Little Brush Creek School.  She rode the school bus to work from Kay Jay because she didn’t have a vehicle. Her first job was teaching 25 students of all grades in a one room school house. She laughed, “I had never been in an all grade school! All I knew was what I had read in story books. So, that was an experience! But, they were good kids. I didn’t have any problems.” 

She recalled a funny story from that time period.  “It was up in the middle of the year when a little girl came in.  She had been going to another school. So, I had her read aloud to see what group to put her in. She read a little book…every word in it and she was so proud of herself. I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got a good student here!’ She closed the book and asked, ‘Now, you want me to read with the book closed?’ I said, ‘Yes, read with the book closed.’ She had memorized every word of the book, but she didn’t know how to read a word!”  Wilma ended up teaching for 5 years.  She taught at Lower Little Brush Creek School for 2 years and 3 years at Kay Jay.  

During her first year at Kay Jay, she and another teacher had to divide 90 first grade students. One of the teachers she taught with at Kay Jay was Jewell Syme. Jewell thought her brother, Herman William Jr., who had just come back from the Marines, and Wilma would make a good couple.  Jewell threw a birthday party for her sister, invited Wilma, and sent her brother to pick her up.  Meanwhile, Wilma’s father set the clock up an hour to trick her into thinking that Herman wasn’t going to show up. That was in September of 1947. The couple were married on June 26th of 1948.  

Wilma believes they were the first couple to be married in the newly built Swan Pond Baptist Church officiated by Rev. Charles Patterson. Her fiancé had worked in the mines for a year and all the miners got the same week off work in June for vacation.  That’s how the date was chosen.  They chose Swan Pond because that’s where they could find a preacher.  

One day Herman came home to find that Wilma needed a tooth worked on. He took her to Pineville to the dentist. The dentist allowed Herman to watch as he put a bridge in for an eye tooth. When they returned home, Herman remarked, “I think I could do that!” Next, he enrolled in Union College and then at the Dental School in Lousiville, Kentucky. Both were paid for by the G.I. Bill. 

While her husband went to dental school, Wilma worked in the office of the Naval Ordinace Station.  When Dr. Herman Miracle graduated dental school in 1956, the couple returned to Barbourville where he opened a dental office which was located above the old Rexall Drugstore that was next to Hobbs. Wilma worked with him a few months until their first son, William Herman Miracle, Jr. was born in December. The couple had lived with her mother for a while because she was by herself after the death of Wilma’s father.  Eventually, the couple moved into a large old fashioned white house which was located in the area of the parking lot that is next to the Old Barbourville Hospital and Dr. Clifton’s Office. 

During this time, if her husband needed an extra set of hands, Wilma helped out at his office. Next, the couple moved to the small house beside what is now Uneeda’s Florist on Cumberland Avenue, just down from the bus station. Her son Will was once saved by a taxi driver there after he had choked on a Red Hot candy ball.  He was 4 or 5 when the taxi driver picked her son up by the heels and shook him until the Red Hot was dislodged. Jewell Syme, Herman’s sister, bought a two story house in the location where Randlene Teague now lives on School Street. She allowed Herman and Wilma to live there while they built their own house at the corner of North Main and School Street. In 1960, the couple moved into their new house which Wilma had designed on paper. John E. Hammons put it to scale so that it could be used as a blueprint by the builders.  

Wilma was adamant that the house have a flat top. There wasn’t a house like it in town.  The entire house was made of California Redwood.  In 1962, Herman and Wilma found out they were expecting another child. 

Wilma said, “I weighed 175 lbs and I was 5’ 2”. So, I ‘knew’ I was having twins. Plus, my father had twin sisters and triplet brothers.” Robert Britt was born first and was the smallest. Wilma said that Dr. Clifton said, “Take her back to her room and we’ll get the other one tomorrow.”  The nurse protested, “No, you won’t! She’s already in here!” Malcolm Baker was born 44 minutes after his twin brother. Wilma’s mother, Beatrice, stayed with her that winter and helped her care for the children.  

Finally, when Wilma and her sons were able to be out and about, she placed them in a stroller with a rumble seat and walked up town to go shopping.  At the time, she had the option of visiting Goldies, Tye’s, Clara’s, Handy Hardware, Corner Drug Store, Lumpkins Barber Shop (Alma Lumpkins was a close friend), Miller and Yancy (where she bought the couch in which she still uses today - 60 years later), Western Auto, Knox County Supply, and A&P which was located where the current Barbourville Library sits.  Once the boys were 12, Wilma worked with her husband in the dentist office until he retired in the 90’s. In the meantime, Wilma was also a member of the Younger Woman’s Club. 

She received a 50 year pin and stayed in the club for 5 more years.  She chuckled, “I was the oldest young woman there!”  Additionally, Wilma was a member of the Barbourville Hospital Auxiliary, where she worked at the old hospital and the new one until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She worked along with Jackie Moran who was a year younger. Wilma, along with JoAllen Broughton, through the Younger Woman’s Club, helped to get a stained glass window placed above the door of the new hospital chapel.  

Proving that time doesn’t have to be an obstacle, Wilma learned to swim at the age of 48. Then, in her early 70’s she learned to paint in a class at Union College. She has painted dozens of pictures and given most of them away. Wilma and Herman sold their house to the city school for the school’s new addition before he passed away.  

Wilma currently lives in the house on School Street where Mrs. Main had once allowed Wilma and her husband to use her land in order to plant a garden together. 

This has been a brief history of the life of Wilma Miracle who turned 99 years young in March of this year. How does she feel having lived nearly a century? Wilma says, “So far, this is the oldest I’ve ever been!” She has a bit of advice to give to the younger generation. She quoted UK’s Coach Pope: “Keep fighting! Stay in the game!”