Emily Briggs
Navigator
What's a book that means a lot to you?
I chose this book because it taught me something about myself and where I came from.
Robert Millward (retired IUP professor) recommended this book to me about 10 years ago. We’d run into each other in the Zink Fitness Center and got to chatting about our western ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø roots.
I mentioned during one conversation that my dad and grandfathers were miners and that my great-grandfather, a Polish immigrant, mined at Banning #2 in Whitsett, Fayette County, in the early 1900s. The next day, he handed me a copy of Cloud by Day. It reads like an elegy and speaks of the very same towns and coal patches I have known since childhood. There are recollections of extreme poverty, back-breaking labor, and violent oppression. The activities of the Coal and Iron Police were brutal.
I recommend this book, because it details everyday life in the coal patch. It’s like a window into my past. I hope anyone with roots in this area will learn from it as much as I did.
After playing basketball in college, Emily Briggs came to IUP as an assistant coach in 2009. After two seasons, she moved into the Athletics Facilities director role, and then became a navigator in 2023.
Cloud by Day
Muriel Earley Sheppard
The University of North Carolina Press, 2017