News

August 18, 2008

10 miners receive a special thank you

At Nanticoke festival, the men are saluted with polka Mass and check presentations.

By Sheena Delazio sdelazio@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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NANTICOKE – They’ve seen friends die in the mines, feared for their own lives and worked 16-hour days.

And, on Sunday, 10 local former miners were recognized at the annual Coal Miner’s Heritage Day Festival in Nanticoke, for their dozens of years of hard work.

A special polka Mass, featuring music by Eddie Derwin’s Polka Naturals, and organized by Alma Berlot of Nanticoke, was held for the miners, followed by a check presentation for each of the miners in recognition of their labors.

“I don’t do it for me. I do it for them, and all they’ve done for us,” Berlot said Sunday afternoon. Berlot’s father, Edward “Sam Salvatore” Salvadore, died in 1955 after attempting to rescue three fellow coal miners.

“He saved one, and he went back for the second and third, but then the mines collapsed, and the three of them died,” Berlot said of her beloved father, whom she says never complained about working long, hard hours. Berlot was just out of high school when her father died, leaving her mother to raise five children.

“He was the best father in the whole wide world. That’s why I do this,” Berlot said.

John Vengien of Plymouth worked just five years in the Dorrance Colliery in Plymouth before a traumatic experience made him leave the industry.

“A rock fell when we were down in the mines on two of my best friends,” said Vengien, 90. “I tried to save the one guy, but he died. That’s when I quit.”

But despite spending just a few years in the mines, Vengien can tell hundreds of stories of the “dangerous holes” he had worked in, such as when the laborers had to use a hand-crank type of jackhammer to get coal out, and when miners told laborers that six carloads of coal wasn’t enough.

“It wasn’t easy in those days,” Vengien said.

For 20 years, Vengien had worked with local legislators to have the U.S. Postal Service bring out a coal miners stamp.

“We got a letter back that said the stamp isn’t a national interest, is regional and is a profession,” Vengien said. “So I gave up.”

But that didn’t stop Vengien from writing a song, which gained a U.S. patent, titled “Coal Miner’s Song,” which tells of the hardships miners faced on a daily basis, including cave-ins, poor pay and toxic fumes.

Ninety-four-year-old John Oshirak, dubbed the area’s “oldest coal miner” Sunday, remembers a lot about the mines, but one story stands out in the West Nanticoke resident’s mind the most.

“There was a roof cave-in … and my boss got killed. It was terrible,” said Oshirak, who worked for 35 years in dozens of local mines.

Unlike Vengien and Oshirak, who started out as laborers, who were responsible for removing coal from veins, John Marcinkevicz, 85, of Nanticoke, got his assistant foreman papers in 1957 and was responsible for laborers.

For 21 years, Marcinkevicz worked in local mines until they closed. Then he went to work at Allen Industries, but he can never forget the hard work.

“We’d use four boxes of dynamite, that’s 60 pounds, a day. We’d have 21 (dynamite) holes for one cut (coal vein),” Marcinkevicz said. “Then we’d use air hammers and water hammers to get it out. In all my years in the mines, I never had a man hurt.”

Joseph Russin, 75, of Hanover Township, said he started working in the mines at age 17 and couldn’t complain.

“There was no jobs; that’s what we had to do,” Russin said. “I had a lot of close calls, but I liked it.”

Other miners honored Sunday were Joseph Sunara, 92; Russell Halchak, 92; Joseph Luczak, 84; Durwood Smith, 85; John Shoshirak, 94; and Alvin Danielowicz, 85.

A tent on display Sunday showcased books, artifacts and coal sculptures, and a petition list to encourage the U.S. Postal Service to issue a coal miners stamp.

As of Sunday, Berlot said she had accumulated upwards of 2,000 signatures.

“My work comes from the heart,” Berlot said. “Hopefully, we can do it again next year.”

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