May 19, 1902
That morning, 216 men and boys walked into the Fraterville mine. At about 7:20 a.m., an explosion tore through the workings. Most died where they stood.
26 men survived the blast and barricaded themselves in a side passage, walling out the gas with canvas and loose rock. They had no way out. Some lived as long as seven hours as the air gave out.
Among them was Jacob Leinart Vowell, a husband and father. Beside him in the dark was his son Harvey Elbert, fourteen years old, who had come to work with his father that morning.
At home was Jacob’s wife, Sarah Ellen, born a Webb, and the rest of their seven children — Lillie, Jimmie, Minnie, and Horace. One son, little Eddie, had already died in early childhood; his grave waited in the cemetery up the valley.
That day — May 19 — was Ellen’s thirty-fourth birthday.
Jacob had a pencil and a notebook in his pocket.
He spent the hours that remained writing to Ellen.
To My Wife
We are up at the head of the entry with a little air; but the bad air is closing in on us fast.
Dear Ellen, I have to leave you in bad condition.
Now, dear wife, put your trust in the Lord to help you raise my little children.
Ellen, take care of my darling little Lillie.
Ellen, little Elbert said that he trusts in the Lord.
If we should never get out we are not hurt, only perished.
There are but a few of us here and I don’t know where the other men are.
Elbert said for you to meet him in Heaven.
Tell all the children to meet with us both there.
The hours passed in the dark. The air grew worse. Jacob took up the pencil again, and again.
Ellen, darling, goodbye for us both. Elbert said the Lord has saved him.
Do the best you can with the children. We are all praying for air to support us, but it is getting so bad without any air.
Horace, Elbert said for you to wear his shoes and clothing.
Powell Harmon’s watch is now in Andy Wood’s hand.
Ellen, I want you to live right and come to heaven. Raise the children the best you can.
Oh, how I wish to be with you. Goodbye to all of you, goodbye.
Bury me and Elbert in the same grave by little Eddy.
Goodbye Ellen. Goodbye Lillie. Goodbye Jimmie. Goodbye Minnie. Goodbye Horace.
We are together.
There is a few of us alive yet.
Goodbye — Jake and Elbert
Oh God, for one more breath.
Ellen, remember me as long as you live.
Goodbye darling.
Jacob Leinart Vowell
died May 19, 1902, with his son Harvey Elbert, age 14
In a single morning, on her birthday, Sarah Ellen Vowell lost her husband, her son Elbert, and two of her brothers.
She was one of more than a hundred women widowed that day. All but three of Fraterville’s adult men were gone; the valley was left to its women and children, with no compensation law yet written and no one ever held to account.
Ellen did what the letter asked. She raised the children. A surviving photograph shows her with Lillie and Jimmie at her side, and her father, James R. Webb, standing with them — the Webb family closing around its own.
Jacob and Elbert were buried together in one grave, as he had wanted, among the eighty-nine miners laid in a circle around a single monument at Leach Cemetery.
Ellen lived another thirty-one years. She died on December 6, 1933, and rests at Longfield Cemetery in Rocky Top, a short distance up the valley from the circle where her husband and son lie together.
The children she raised had children of their own. More than a century on, their descendants are still discovering the letter — in 2023, a great-granddaughter of Jacob’s, researching her family history, came upon his name and read his words for the first time.
“Ellen, remember me as long as you live.”
She did.