Click here to watch family members remembering the disaster.

 See the front page of The Charleston Gazette from the day after.

 Click here to read the MSHA report and expert analysis by Paul J. Nyden.

FAIRMONT - John Toothman of Monongah tears up remembering his childhood and losing his father. So does Joe Megna, who lives in Worthington.

Both men spent their own lives in the mines, just like their dads, whose lives were cut short before dawn on a cold morning 40 years ago today.

Last week, turning pages in an album of photographs taken the day she married John Gouzd on April 23, 1949, Jenni Samargo had a hard time talking about her first morning hours as a widow with three young children.

So did her nephew Joe, then a student at West Virginia University, who rushed back home after hearing his Uncle John and 77 other men were trapped underground.

Joe was already mourning a tragic fire, nine days earlier, that engulfed a section of Farmington, taking the lives of four workers trapped inside Manchin's Furniture and Grocery Store, his family business.

Last week, Joe talked about his memories, sitting in his current home - the Governor's Mansion.

"Uncle John would have been off at 7. He worked the midnight, the cat-eye, shift from 11 to 7," Manchin said.

Uncle John had worked in the mines for just six and a half months before he died that day.

Megna, disabled with back injuries from the mines, said, "My dad took me up to my friend Danny Blair's house the night before. Dad was talking about opening up a gas station. I was 16. Danny, who was 17, was going to run it."

Megna told his dad not to go to work.

"It was dad's last shift. I said, 'Why don't you take it off? Don't work it and we will go trout fishing.'

"The next morning, Danny's mother was talking on the phone to her husband who worked at Four States, another Consol mine. She told me No. 9 blew up. I took off running down the hill," Megna said.

His father, Emilio Dominick Megna, had worked underground for 31 years when he died at 47.

Explosion at No. 9

About 5:30 that Wednesday morning, shortly after dinner on the cat-eye, a tremendous blast rocked Farmington No. 9, a mine as big as the island of Manhattan.

Eighteen men near the surface, about seven or eight miles away from the explosion, escaped. By 10 o'clock that morning, another three miners were rescued in a mine bucket.

But by 10 o'clock that evening, after a third major explosion sent flames shooting into the night sky, most relatives and friends had little hope of ever seeing the 78 men still trapped 600 feet below the surface.

Fourteen years earlier, on Nov. 13, 1954, another explosion had killed 16 miners at No. 9.

Just half a dozen miles away, a Dec. 6, 1907, explosion killed 362 miners in Monongah, making it the worst coal disaster in American history. Recent research, however, puts the number killed at about 550, including sons of miners who were not listed as employees.

When Consolidation Coal Co. and UMW officials visited Farmington, they provided little solace to grieving families.

Consol spokesman John Roberts told relatives gathered near the Llewellyn Portal, "This is something we have to live with." He compared mine safety problems to "safety deficiencies frequently found in family automobiles upon state inspection."

Standing in front of the still-smoking portal, United Mine Workers President Tony Boyle said, "I share the grief .... But as long as we mine coal, there is always this inherent danger of explosion."

Toothman said, "When you talk about it, it is like it happened last night. I can still see dad's face. I can still see the shafts with the smoke billowing out.

"I saw them bring three miners out in the bucket. I knew it was the last bucket," Toothman said.

Carlo Tarley, who lives in Monongah, lost his brother that day.

Tarley also worked in the mines. He became president of the United Mine Workers local at Robinson Run from 1984 to 1989, a District 31 officer from 1989 to 1995, and international secretary-treasurer from 1995 until he retired in 2004.

"I was at Fort Knox that day, putting lights on a sycamore tree. I had just been drafted. Someone told me one of my brothers was in the mine.

"It took me 18 hours to get home. They took me to the mine immediately. I stayed there nine or 10 days. After four months, I got out of the military, because of the hardship on my family. In 1971, I went into the mines myself.

 Click here to watch family members remembering the disaster.

 See the front page of The Charleston Gazette from the day after.

 Click here to read the MSHA report and expert analysis by Paul J. Nyden.

FAIRMONT - John Toothman of Monongah tears up remembering his childhood and losing his father. So does Joe Megna, who lives in Worthington.

Both men spent their own lives in the mines, just like their dads, whose lives were cut short before dawn on a cold morning 40 years ago today.

Last week, turning pages in an album of photographs taken the day she married John Gouzd on April 23, 1949, Jenni Samargo had a hard time talking about her first morning hours as a widow with three young children.

So did her nephew Joe, then a student at West Virginia University, who rushed back home after hearing his Uncle John and 77 other men were trapped underground.

Joe was already mourning a tragic fire, nine days earlier, that engulfed a section of Farmington, taking the lives of four workers trapped inside Manchin's Furniture and Grocery Store, his family business.

Last week, Joe talked about his memories, sitting in his current home - the Governor's Mansion.

"Uncle John would have been off at 7. He worked the midnight, the cat-eye, shift from 11 to 7," Manchin said.

Uncle John had worked in the mines for just six and a half months before he died that day.

Megna, disabled with back injuries from the mines, said, "My dad took me up to my friend Danny Blair's house the night before. Dad was talking about opening up a gas station. I was 16. Danny, who was 17, was going to run it."

Megna told his dad not to go to work.

"It was dad's last shift. I said, 'Why don't you take it off? Don't work it and we will go trout fishing.'

"The next morning, Danny's mother was talking on the phone to her husband who worked at Four States, another Consol mine. She told me No. 9 blew up. I took off running down the hill," Megna said.

His father, Emilio Dominick Megna, had worked underground for 31 years when he died at 47.

Explosion at No. 9

About 5:30 that Wednesday morning, shortly after dinner on the cat-eye, a tremendous blast rocked Farmington No. 9, a mine as big as the island of Manhattan.

Eighteen men near the surface, about seven or eight miles away from the explosion, escaped. By 10 o'clock that morning, another three miners were rescued in a mine bucket.

But by 10 o'clock that evening, after a third major explosion sent flames shooting into the night sky, most relatives and friends had little hope of ever seeing the 78 men still trapped 600 feet below the surface.

Fourteen years earlier, on Nov. 13, 1954, another explosion had killed 16 miners at No. 9.

Just half a dozen miles away, a Dec. 6, 1907, explosion killed 362 miners in Monongah, making it the worst coal disaster in American history. Recent research, however, puts the number killed at about 550, including sons of miners who were not listed as employees.

When Consolidation Coal Co. and UMW officials visited Farmington, they provided little solace to grieving families.

Consol spokesman John Roberts told relatives gathered near the Llewellyn Portal, "This is something we have to live with." He compared mine safety problems to "safety deficiencies frequently found in family automobiles upon state inspection."

Standing in front of the still-smoking portal, United Mine Workers President Tony Boyle said, "I share the grief .... But as long as we mine coal, there is always this inherent danger of explosion."

Toothman said, "When you talk about it, it is like it happened last night. I can still see dad's face. I can still see the shafts with the smoke billowing out.

"I saw them bring three miners out in the bucket. I knew it was the last bucket," Toothman said.

Carlo Tarley, who lives in Monongah, lost his brother that day.

Tarley also worked in the mines. He became president of the United Mine Workers local at Robinson Run from 1984 to 1989, a District 31 officer from 1989 to 1995, and international secretary-treasurer from 1995 until he retired in 2004.

"I was at Fort Knox that day, putting lights on a sycamore tree. I had just been drafted. Someone told me one of my brothers was in the mine.

"It took me 18 hours to get home. They took me to the mine immediately. I stayed there nine or 10 days. After four months, I got out of the military, because of the hardship on my family. In 1971, I went into the mines myself.

"Dad died in 1950, leaving mom with 10 kids, between 2 and 16. I was the youngest. When I got a job in the coal mines in 1971, I thought I died and went to heaven."

The tragedy of that day remained with everyone, Tarley said. "Years later, when you got married, your dad, or your brother, is just not there."

As part of their mining careers, Toothman, Megna and Tarley all became mine rescue workers.

Manchin was taking flying lessons in Morgantown when he started college shortly before the Farmington tragedy.

"I asked my instructor to take me flying over the Llewellyn Portal. I saw smoke billowing out the shaft," Manchin said. "Then he brought me back to Morgantown and I drove immediately to Farmington."

Manchin remembers the night they sealed the mine. "Everyone held hands and said the Lord's Prayer. They knew it was a tomb.

"Uncle John [Gouzd] was right in the face of the explosion. He has been working in the grocery store with papa, but he had children and the demands of a family. The mines started hiring in the late 1960s and he had just recently made a decision to go back."

'I want a daddy'

Uncle John, 42, worked the midnight shift.

"He had been working in a liquor store and had been cutting meat with papa," Manchin said. "There were no benefits at the various little jobs around town. The mine [was] the only one that had benefits."

When Uncle John took a job with Consol, Bethlehem Steel had promised him a job, but said he would have to wait, in part because the company's policy of making every 10th hire a black worker.

"For nine days, people were out there at the company store," Manchin said. Then Consol sealed the mine on Nov. 29, Aunt Jenny's birthday.

"It was nine or 10 o'clock [that morning] before we found out what happened," said Jenni Samargo, whose three children were John Frank, Susan Ann and Vincent Carl.

"Vince was still little. He went to school and would come home crying. 'All the other children are making stuff for their daddies and I don't have one,' he said. 'I want a daddy.' "

Samargo held little hope after the first day.

"In 24 hours, I figured they were all gone. And the company never did us widows right. Later they gave $6,000 to each widow and about $2,000 to each child."

Susie Alasky, her daughter, said, "I was a freshman in high school at the time. I was a cheerleader. Dad did the dishes every night."

Jenni stayed upstairs in her bedroom, alone, for three days after the explosion.

Ironically, John had already come out of the mine that morning.

"Daddy's shift was already over," Susie said.

"But they asked him to bring a cleaning compound back down to the bottom of the shaft," Samargo said. "When he got on the elevator, it blew up."

Sealing the mine

The Rev. Richard Bowyer, a campus minister for the Wesley Foundation at Fairmont State College, stayed with families and friends of the trapped miners during their nine-day vigil.

"There were a lot of families who hung out the whole time at a little church down over the hill, the James Fork United Methodist Church. The Salvation Army brought meals to feed the families and miners on the recovery team.

"The day before Thanksgiving," Bowyer said, "mine officials told me, 'There is no hope of survival, so we'll close the mine. But we will not do it tomorrow.'

"Then, on the evening of the 29th, people gathered at the church and the Rev. John Barnes offered an opening prayer. A company spokesman gave a report about the decision. The place was packed. Bishop Joseph Hodges from the Wheeling Diocese, offered a final prayer. Then there was a mad scramble," Bowyer said.

"I was one of the last people to stay around. As I was leaving, I saw a whole caravan of dump trucks loaded with limestone and concrete coming to close the mine up. It was eerie."

Toothman was at the James Fork Church that day. "My mother and I came in. They said they were going to seal the mine."

Megna said, "That was it. That put the dagger in your heart. We had always hoped."

"Your dad was your hero," Toothman said. "Time makes it easier. But it never goes away."

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 348-5164.