Storming Heaven In 1883, the first load of coal was hauled from Tazewell County, Virginia, on the Norfolk and Western Railway. The railroad opened a door to the pristine coal fields of West Virginia. Cities were created as the region was transformed from an agricultural to an industrial economy. (West Virginia Mine Wars) The lure of good wages and housing made coal mining attractive to West Virginians, but all good things come with a price. In the novel Storming Heaven, Denise Giardina gives us an inside look at what really happened to the small town of Annedel, West Virginia. Whether the four characters telling the story are fictional or based in part on real events hits home considering where we live. The story is based on four different perspectives of four citizens struggling to survive under the reign of a powerful coal company. I'm sure everyone from this area has had family or knows someone who worked in the mines. If you sit and talk to these older people who worked in the mines, they all tell compelling stories of events that have been passed down from generation to generation. While each character offers their own powerful and moving tale, I would like to focus on one individual and their struggle to organize the miners. Rondal Lloyd struggled most of his life, he knew the coal mines first hand when he had to leave school to help his father work in the mines to pay off the debt to the company shop. Unfortunately, this was common in the times this story is based on. In West Virginia as early as 1901 there are archives that tried to establish some sort of standard for child labor, but we must remember that these children grew up hard and fast. (West Virginia Mine War... half of the document ......g to have a baby, and despite his situation Rondal eventually becomes at peace with his life. He eventually dies, but will rest on the mountainside where Carrie “passes the cemetery where Rondal would finally have a place of his own” (Giardina 290) This reminds me of a story I read “How much land does a man need in the end” or else Rondal will leave a legacy and it will not be how much he possessed but how much he loved and how much he gave of himself to others. References Giardina, Storming Heaven New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 1988. Print .Norris, Ed. Personal interview 20 March 2014. "Division of culture and West Virginia History, January 1, 2014. Web 2014..