News

May 31, 2009

Mining exhibit brings back memories

By Sherry Long slong@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

NANTICOKE – Touring the coal mining exhibit at the Nanticoke Historical Society brought back heartfelt memories for Marilyn Owazany.

As Owazany, a Plymouth native, looked at the miners’ equipment displayed on the table she recalled how her father took great pride in being a miner.

Her father, who set the charges to loosen the coal, wasn’t forced to work in the mines – he liked his job, she said.

She never understood why some people seem to be ashamed of the coal miners in their families.

“I think it is a heritage to be proud of. I was proud that my dad was a miner. My parents worked hard to send us to college,” the 66-year old said.

Her father worked in the mines until the 1959 Knox Disaster destroyed the region’s deep-mining industry.

Her husband, Dan Owazany, recalled how his father would come home from work in the Wanamie coal mines and be “black as coal” after working deep in the mines all day.

Barry Littleford has never worked in the mines, yet he is fascinated by coal miners’ lives. He’s collected safety lights, helmets, lunch pails and other equipment coal miners used on a daily basis.

Miners worked hard for their minimal wages in extremely dangerous conditions for low pay. Miners earned about $5 a day in 1923 and laborers were paid nearly half that for a full day’s work.

They were a proud, hardworking and honest people who would always help their neighbors, Littleford pointed out.

“Back then people just worked hard and appreciated everything they had and they wouldn’t think about taking it off their neighbor because if he had a little bit more than you, he’d share it,” said Littleford, a member of the Nanticoke Historical Society.

As people toured the collection of artifacts, Littleford explained how coal miners used some of the equipment. Miners used safety lights to detect the level of oxygen and determine if methane gas was present in the mines. Methane gas was signaled if the flame grew larger as the light was held up high. If the flame went dim, there was a lack of oxygen underground.

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