liv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



ease, an accomplishment which was to prove of marked as- 

 sistance to him in his next step in Ufe. 



This was his appointment as assistant manager of the coal 

 mines of W. P. Rend & Co. in Hocking- Valley, Ohio, which 

 came in the third year after his graduation. Of this period of 

 his life there are no records. His letters have unfortunately 

 been destroyed. This appointment lifted him out of the dul- 

 ness and routine of a country editorship, but the work at the 

 mines was also ill suited to a man of Shipman's type of mind. 

 Nevertheless his experience at the coal mines was valuable 

 in more ways than one and became practically the determin- 



(ing factor in awakening and directing his large and fruitful 

 interest — so manifest in later years in the Slavic peoples of 

 the United States. I once asked him how he happened to 

 become so interested in this work; he told me it was through 

 his contact with the miners of Slavic nationality when he was 

 with W. P. Rend & Co. in Ohio. He had some acquaintance 

 with the Czech tongue through Stefan Melzer. This he found 

 useful in his work among the miners of Hocking Valley. But 

 it by no means sufficed. The Slavic miners of Hocking Val- 

 ley spoke various dialects. The assistant manager with char- 

 acteristic determination proceeded to learn them all. This 

 established him in the confidence of the men, and his knowl- 

 edge of their languages enabled him, when differences arose 

 between employer and employees, to act as interpreter and 

 intermediary. In one instance he settled a strike, which was 

 the result of a misunderstanding of tongues, and when official 

 interpreters were taking advantage of both parties for their 

 own ends. 



It was not however simply Shipman's interest in the Slavic 

 languages or his official relations as assistant manager or 

 afterwards as superintendent with the miners that led him 

 so far and so profoundly in his special pursuit of the history, 

 rites and customs of these people. His sympathy was wider 

 and deeper. He found an alien people in a strange land, be- 

 /wildered and perplexed in their new surroundings, often im- 

 posed upon, isolated by their own ignorance, clinging tena- 

 ciously to unwise prejudices brought from the old world, 

 naturally suspicious and aloof, yet very human and with all 

 those substantial virtues that make for good citizenship. Ship- 

 man's was a wide outlook. He saw clearly that the sole 



