Maurice Ruddick

Maurice A Ruddick (1912–1988) was an Afro-Canadian miner and a survivor of the 1958 Springhill Mining Disaster, an underground earthquake, or "bump" as the miners call it, in the Springhill mine in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. "If it wasn't for Maurice, they'd all have been dead."

The Governor of the State of Georgia, Marvin Griffin, invited nineteen of the survivors to vacation at one of his state's luxurious resorts, Jekyll Island, usually reserved for millionaires. When he discovered that one of the miners was black, Griffin said that Ruddick would have to be segregated from the others. When the miners heard this, they were reluctant to accept the offer, but Ruddick agreed to go on the Governor's terms, knowing how much the others really wanted the vacation. Ruddick, his wife, and the four of his twelve children who accompanied him on the trip all stayed in a separate area of the island, in trailers built by Griffin especially for the occasion, and attended separate ceremonies from the white miners.[1]

Maurice Ruddick died in 1988. He is buried in Hillside Cemetery.[2]

His daughter, folk singer Val MacDonald, later recorded a song that he composed in the mine, "The Springhill Mine Disaster Song."[3]

He was featured in a Canadian Heritage Minute.[4]

Maurice's wife, said in an interview in the early 2000s that the day of the 1958 bump, was Maurice's birthday, or had been the day before. That day as Maurice left to work in the mines, she packed him a piece of cake, which he later shared amongst the other trapped miners. This makes the date of his birth October 22nd or 23rd, 1912.


References

  1. ↑ "Springhill survivors on segregated spree". LIFE Magazine 45 (23): 49. December 1958.
  2. ↑ "Maurice A "The Singing Miner" Ruddick (1912 - 1988)". Find a Grave. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
  3. ↑ Swanson, Diane (2003). "Survival at Springhill". Tunnels!. True Stories from the Edge. Annick Press. p. 35. ISBN 1-55037-780-9.
  4. ↑ "Maurice Ruddick". Historica. Retrieved 8 September 2011.

External links

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