On photographing the Knox mine disaster

I wouldn't say fortunate -- but I was able to, in my time, I was able to cover three of them, to photograph three of them. I guess the first was up at the Knox mine disaster, up at Pittston, when twelve were killed, when the Susquehanna River broke through. The miners just got a little bit too close. The roof got a little bit close to the Susquehanna River, and the river broke through and it was in January of 1959. I heard about it on the radio, and it was another one of those things, I don't know why you go to them, but you're part of the region. And in '59, it was just about four or five years, about four years after the mines closed here. They were still working up at Wilkes-Barre. Deep mining was still operating up there. But after the river went through, that was the end of deep mining in the Wyoming Valley. I don't have too many pictures of that, because by the time I got up there, I don't have any pictures of any of the men being brought out. But I do have a few photographs showing the town and the people, waiting, to see what's going to happen. I have numerous pictures of people dropping in huge railroad gondolas to try to breach this hole in the Susquehanna. That was kind of an eerie scene with the ice flowing down the river, and then this river just swallowing up these huge mine gondolas.