In the earliest decades of the 20th Century, more than 28 million men and women—black and white—began “The Great Migration” from the Deep South and Appalachia lured by higher wages and the chance to make a better life for themselves and their families.
Of these millions, hundreds of thousands of “hillbillies” came to work in the rubber factories of Ohio forever changing its culture, history, and politics. Who were they? Astonishingly enough, historians have had little idea. They tell us that no memoirs, no photographs, no letters home exist during this defining period of northeast Ohio’s history.
That is no longer the case.
The winner of awards of excellence in publishing from both the Kentucky Historical Society and the Ohio Local History Alliance, On A Burning Deck finally tells their story.
Based on dozens of hours of previously unpublished oral histories and a wealth of rare photos, On A Burning Deck is available in a one-volume hardback, two-volume paperback set or Kindle format. In whatever format you choose, On A Burning Deck offers the only complete portrait available of one family’s origins in rural Kentucky, migration to Akron, Ohio, in 1917, and work in the rubber factories.
Following their arrival in Akron, their story continues as the head of the family struggles through recession, Depression and strike to eventually take his place in local government. There, he establishes a modern police department and shepherds his community’s growth in the boom years following World War II.
After 100 years, the hillbillies who built modern industrial Ohio, forever changing its culture, history, and politics, now have a voice.
And that, perhaps, is the best hillbilly elegy of all.
His mother a former teacher, his father a Magistrate and his grandfather a jailer and acting chief-of-police, Haskell grew up in dirt-poor poverty knowing about everyone and everything of any importance that was going on in the county. When his father died, leaving him the head of his family of eight, he made the decision to travel north to work in the rubber factories of Akron, Ohio.
In time, he, too, would become a chief of police, city councilman and run for mayor. In doing so, he would effect permanent changes to his community that are still being enjoyed by its residents today. Blessed with a phenomenal memory and a sharp attention to detail, he had hundreds of stories to tell.
A teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, Florence met Haskell while teaching his younger brothers and sisters. After courting each other through the mail, she would eventually marry Haskell and join him in Akron while he worked to support the family. Once the recession of 1921 hit, however, it was Florence’s teaching skills that would provide the income for them all to survive. And, once the Depression hit, it would be her abilities in the home and garden that would once again aid her struggling family.
Haskell Jones’ father was a former school trustee, magistrate and candidate for county judge. Because of his near constant involvement in area politics and recent success in uncovering corruption within the local sheriff’s office, he was a local politician who left an overwhelmingly positive image behind in the public’s mind upon his passing. On the other hand, his wife, Willie Jones, was left a widow with eight children and precious little else. Eight months after his death the family farm would be sold for $10—the exact same amount of money that his burial plot had cost.
A former schoolteacher, Haskell’s mother met and married E. A Jones when he served as a school trustee for Graves County, Kentucky. Raising their family of eight in a 2-room house, she worked to provide for all—canning, cooking, sewing and scrimping under the harshest conditions imaginable. Upon her husband’s death and the loss of the family farm, she would pack up all of her children still remaining at home and follow Haskell and Florence to Akron.
Given a slave as a wedding present in 1860 by her in-laws and married to a man who could afford to buy himself out of military service during the Civil War, Haskell’s grandmother, Sarah Ellen Jones, quickly produced 6 children to help run the family farm. A little more than 10 years later, however, with slavery over and her husband dead, she was left alone to provide for the family. She would outlive all of her children except one.
A Confederate veteran of the Civil War, Florence’s grandfather Simeon was wounded, captured and held as a Union prisoner-of-war at Rock Island, Illinois. Refusing to wear blue for the rest of his life (or have a Union mini-ball removed from his hip), he also saved Florence’s life when her dress caught on fire.
