Well, no anglers, but we have miners in every section of the family tree for this week’s Sepia Saturday. The majority of my family lived in or around, at one point or another, central Pennsylvania, well known for its coal mining industry. There are SO many photos I can add in here, so I’ve picked out a few of the best, including a link and update to an old post. This is going to be a huge post, so bear with me.
Fairly recently, I was going back through the scans of great grandma’s photo album when a pretty faded photo caught my eye. I’ve done a little bit of photo magic to increase the contrast, but it’s a really fantastic photo. The boy on the mining cart is Earl Powis Jr, son of Earl William Powis. You can see rails in the background and even what looks like a donkey about dead center above the cart. It’s neat to see the other side of what appears to be a similar car to the one at the top of this post with all the controls and whatnot. This one probably dates to 1927-1930.
My grandfather, Leon Kitko (Olga’s son), ever the joker, wrote a few notes in his mining log book for the Ebensburg Coal Company. If you can’t read that, after the last printed line, it says, “and all the other ways in which you could kill yourself without even trying.” It was undoubtedly not the safest of work environments even if you followed all the safety precautions in the booklet. He grew up fascinated with coal mining and the machinery that went along with it, leaving behind a scrapbook full of photos of the machinery including photos of him as a child playing with replica toy coal shovels he built himself.
Finally, the Bituminous Miner’s Certificate for my other grandpa, John Rachocki dated 31 October 1939. This is just a great document because it shows his birth date and place as well as the position he held (Mine Foreman). Grandpa John died when I was four, so I don’t remember him that well, so having paperwork like this is really precious to show who he was and what he did throughout life.
And that’s it! Just a few pieces of history for the mining industry in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.
Some great pictures here. But I love your grandfather’s humorous note in the mining book. Probably a good thing he had such a sense of humor. Humor can get you through a lot of difficult times!
Very true! All through his life he was quite the practical joker and there are loads of stories about all of his hijinks. When we went through the book, I wasn’t expecting anything exciting other than his log information, but I’ll admit to having had a good laugh when I found that!
Great source of interesting information in your post, thanks so much! That first photo just tells it all doesn’t it?!
Great photos! My husband’s Clearfield County relatives were farmers more than miners I believe, not that I have any photos of them really.
Neat to see someone else with ancestors in Clearfield County! There were lots of farms out that way too (sadly, most are gone or now taken over by fracking operations). We’re really fortunate to have all those photos from this particular branch of the family – they saved EVERYTHING and I’m very happy they did.
Wow! These photos are just solid gold aren’t they? How fantastic that your great-grandfather thought to take photos of his work environment at the time. Lucky you and lucky us that you shared them with us.
No photos of the miners in my family in their work environment, so I really enjoyed seeing yours and the other documents!
One of my great grandfather’s worked in a mine in Birmingham AL. Unfortuantaely, I have no photo of him at all, much less in a mine.a
Such interesting information. I have some distant relatives who worked in the coal mines of West Virginia, not PA, but maybe some of the rules and procedures were similar.
The photos are very interesting. It’s good that the state and mines were concerned with safety and competency.
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