A Look at ‘The Day The Whistle Blew’ by Marilyn Nesbit Wood

Article Written

by

R.G.B. Robb

Authors note:

This article is the first-part in a two-part series that ties over 70 years of Sweetwater County history. Beginning in the 1940’s and ending in the current day (including ties to this very news outlet), the series starts with an article about a book that not only looks into the past of the area, but it also includes glimpses of events that would lead directly to Rock Springs, 2015.

Marilyn Nesbit Wood will be speaking at Western Wyoming Community College on Thursday, April 23rd at 7 p.m., as well. I recommend you stop in and listen to this wonderful author, and please check out the book. — R.G.B. Robb

The Day The Whistle Blew by Marilyn Nesbit Wood is not only a delightful memoir that reflects on the life of a girl being raised in the southwestern Wyoming coal mines located in a small town called Stansbury (an area that rested between Reliance and Winton, Wyoming), but it is also a look back into a simpler place and time to which many of us, tired of the frenetic pace and relentless attention to time management in our modern world, wish we could return.

With much passion and forethought into bringing the reader a much needed respite, Marilyn never portrays the ideas and lives of her vivid characters as hokey or quaint. She tells the tales of hard-working men who dedicated their lives to the coal mines. When asked why she had dedicated 15 years to writing the book, and why it was important to her to keep the stories of these people alive, she said, “I just couldn’t let that wonderful little town, with all those wonderful people be forgotten. I just kept getting back to it, and then finally I stuck with it.”

The story begins when Marilyn visits the small town she grew up in, which has long-since been abandoned— a large portion of the homes once making up the small, but thriving, community having been strewn all over Sweetwater County, since– and razed to the ground. Immediately the reader is drawn into a wistfulness that provokes them to seek what causes such deep emotional connections to what was, essentially, a pile of dirt and rock. Maintaining these emotional connections and keeping a good pace, Marilyn then continues to guide her reader from her birth, to (spoiler alert) the death of her father, and through to the modern day. Marilyn Nesbit Wood’s piece never feels like you’re being dragged along.

One particularly enjoyable aspect of this book is reading about the places and their functions at the time, like the Slovinski Dom. Many inhabitants of Rock Springs have seen local bands play there, or have been to auctions or a number of other activities there. In her book Marilyn recalls fondly the dances she would attend at the Dom while growing up, such as “The Grape Festival.” “The Grape Festival” was filled with dancing, merriment, and a giant mesh that hung from the ceiling of the Dom, bursting with apples, grapes, and an assortment of fresh fruit. These details come not only from Marilyn but from her community. She recounts, “I had to get everything just exactly correct as I could get it, and I called on a lot of old timers from Rock Springs to verify some of the things I put in my book. Because I knew if I had something in there incorrect, those Rock Springs people will let me know about it REAL QUICK.”

Another thing Marilyn Nesbit Wood’s book does is illustrate just how important the family unit and community can be when facing tough times. Before his death, Marilyn promised her father she would do well in school and get a scholarship to attend the University of Wyoming. However, due to a series of circumstances that fell her way, after two years she had to stop attending. Yet this did not prevent her from keeping the most important promise she ever made—to make him proud. Another example of family and community bond happens when her grandfather would often help many of his neighbors with a multitude of tasks, for little or no payment. “He never asked [neighbors] for money when we would do [those tasks], even though he was not a very wealthy man himself. But he’d take the time to do that, and they would bring him over, if they had chickens they’d bring him eggs. Or if they had a vegetable garden they’d bring over produce from the garden.” She continues, “[People] paid their bills, and their handshake was good, and their word was good.”

So if you are interested in reading a first-hand account about an often-forgotten time in the history of not only Wyoming, but in the lives of coal miners in the west (coupled with a well-written narrative full of nostalgia that not only brings the reader into the past, but allows us insight into the beginnings of certain people and places known to many in modern-day Rock Springs due to the moving of the homes into the area), then I recommend you check out The Day The Whistle Blew by Marilyn Nesbit Wood.