PORT HENRY -- In what little spare time was left at the end of a miner's day, they played baseball and danced.

They slept in shifts, worked deep in the earth hauling iron ore out to build cities.

They came from places like Poland, Italy and Ireland.

And towns grew up around them.

The miners of Port Henry, Mineville and Witherbee came to life recently through their grandchildren and schoolmates in true tales, acted out across the village green.

With schoolbooks closed for the year, Kathy Ploufe's fifth grade celebrated legacy in theater, recalling old days of Witherbee-Sherman & Co., Republic Steel, baseball and union rallies.

"The Miner's Son," written by Lindsay Pontius through the Adirondack History Center Museum's North Country Heritage Program, brought fresh drafts to mines closed 30 years ago.

"Remember and tell the story," the children chanted.

Hayden Fernandez, a fifth-grader at Moriah Central School, played Cheever miner Daniel Murphy coming home from work on a summer eve looking for a baseball game.

"C'mon," Hayden yelled, "play ball!" while his classmates gathered around.

Fifth-graders Sarah Burbank and Shelby MacDougal portrayed miner's wives Molly Hughes and Anna Salerno.

With classmates Courtney Burch and Madison Stahl as Isabel Fernandez and Eva Kolsalski, the girls swept the floor and washed laundry, waiting for husbands to come home.

Some never did.

One life was lost in the mines every two months, they told the audience.

"It was difficult on the women and children."