For needy children of hardworking miners, Christmas wasn’t red and green, it was orange.

That’s because kindhearted Sophia Georgianna Coxe routinely gave youngsters a gift of something they’d not otherwise see — citrus fruit.Coxe was the wife of coal baron Eckley Coxe, and was known for being caring and compassionate, earning her the nickname “Angel of the Anthracite.”She knew that miners lived a meager existence. Life was difficult for mining families, including young children, and Christmas could be a difficult time.Coxe was so devoted to helping others she spent her life giving away 90 percent of her income, living on the remaining 10 percent.One of her more meaningful gestures was giving youngsters fresh fruit at the holidays.“All children were given an orange,” said Eckley Miners Village re-enactor Diane Blakeslee of Wilkes-Barre.The gesture was significant because citrus fruit wasn’t available locally and had to be imported.“Fresh fruit was expensive. Oranges were scarce. They’d bring the fruit by train,” Blakeslee said.But Coxe also knew that children needed to stay warm as well.“She’d open up her house in Drifton and give each child one practical gift, maybe mittens or clothing,” said Blakeslee. “Then there’d be maybe a cutout doll for girls and maybe a top or jacks for boys.”She hosted an annual Christmas party and also gave fabric as a gift in order to encourage children to learn to sew.But one nutritional, beneficial gift most remembered was an orange rich in vitamin C.CompassionCoxe was married to a successful engineer who operated the family coal mining business and was holder of over a hundred engineering mining patents.A savvy woman, she understood the gaps created by America’s industrialization. For instance, social legislation had failed to keep pace with progress. Coxe recognized the need created by such gaps.Coxe coordinated her philanthropy from her Drifton house, a grand Victorian dwelling situated on 13 acres. The place had been given to her as a wedding gift from husband Eckley in 1869.The couple was known for generosity.For instance, when a miner husband died, the Coxes refused to eject the widow from the house, contrary to a common practice in many patch towns in those days.When her husband died of pneumonia in 1895, Coxe devoted herself to helping others, a trend that continued for the rest of her life.According to a Dec. 13, 1913, publication, “Coal Age,” Coxe presented clothes, toys and sweets to 3,000 children of miners every Christmas Eve for decades.The Coxes provided funding for creation of the Mining & Mechanical Institute, now Freeland MMI Preparatory School, to educate miners.They also built St. James Church in the Drifton section of Hazle Township, a wing at Hazleton General Hospital and the Drifton Hospital.It’s said the hospital was a godsend to local mining families who often couldn’t travel to the closest hospital in Hazleton for treatment.Coxe also started a school for girls where cooking, sewing and domestic skills were taught.Coxe died in 1926, creating a trust fund and noting in her last will and testament that her house be used as a free rest for women of “good character.”Coxe’s life was honored earlier this month at a special event, “Christmas at Eckley.”At the historic mining village near Weatherly, Blakeslee portrayed Coxe and handed out to young visitors dozens of large oranges donated by Carone’s ShurSave Supermarket in Mountaintop.As for the Coxe house, it’s an ongoing restoration project on Route 940. The house opened for tour this year and is now known as the Sophia Coxe Memorial Foundation and Education Center.It’s expected to open on a regular basis for educational tours and classes, an adaptive reuse of which Coxe undoubtedly would approve.