The coal mines that once operated beneath Ray County have long since closed, but the stories of the men who worked underground and the families who built their lives around the industry remain.

Brothers Robert and Charlie Williams shared their firsthand memories of Ray County’s coal-mining era during a recent presentation at the Ray County Museum. The pair recounted their experiences growing up in a mining family and the decades their father, Richard Vernon Williams, spent working underground.

According to the brothers, their father worked in coal mines for about 40 years, beginning in the Camden area before eventually working in Richmond for Hubbell & Hamilton Coal Company.

Growing up, Robert and Charlie saw firsthand the work their father and other miners performed beneath the surface. Robert recalled their father taking the boys hundreds of feet underground on the mine cage when they were children.

“He wouldn’t take our two sisters down because he said it was bad luck, so they didn’…