Foundation makes sure we remember our mining roots COMMENTARY Bill O’Boyle

MOST OF us have vivid memories of our childhoods. Many of them are happy, and we typically look forward to reunions with family and friends to recall those stories, laugh about them and find comfort in reliving them with the people to whom we are closest.

One of my most vivid memories is that of a man walking every day on Reynolds Street in Plymouth, carrying a lunch bucket and wearing a helmet with a light. The man would walk down the street early each morning before most of us were awake to go to work. He would return late in the day – usually well after sundown – and he would be black as the coal that he worked with for the past 10-plus hours.

His name was Anthony Balita. His son, Christopher, was a childhood friend of mine. Mr. Balita, as we always referred to him, was a quiet man with a purpose – to work and earn money to support his wife and three boys.

At the end of each day, Mr. Balita would scrub himself of all of the black coal dust and his natural skin tone would again be seen. Only to have him repeat the process the next day. Never did I hear him complain. He went about his daily business with determination and pride.

This was the type of man whom anthracite historian and Wyoming Valley native Jim Burke talked about last week at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre during the first gathering of the Anthracite Heritage Foundation. The program not only provided great entertainment value, but also was full of information that we all should know and, more important, appreciate.

Burke, head of the foundation’s board, is a passionate man and he wears that enthusiasm for preserving our region’s rich, coal mining history on his sleeve. He wants to ensure that we, and future generations, never forget our roots – beginnings that for the most part grew from the patch towns of the anthracite coal industry.

Watching the slide presentation while listening to Burke’s compelling words was extremely moving. It brought back memories of Mr. Balita and his daily walks to and from the mines.

When coal was king, Burke said, more than 500,000 miners toiled in the coal patches of Pennsylvania. They came to those coal towns from dozens of nations, seeking a better life. As Luzerne County became the epicenter of the anthracite industry, more than 35,000 miners died in mining accidents, thousands more were injured or maimed, and still thousands more would die later in life of black lung disease.

Burke asked us to imagine ourselves as one of our ancestors – to imagine a life in which for five months every year, November to March, we never would see daylight, except on Sundays.

Burke’s words: “Up each morning before dawn, down into the black pit, up 10 weary hours later, again, into the dark. Young sons in the breaker working 10 hours, fingers bleeding, breathing coal dust, beaten by the stickman. Such were the lives of our ancestors in the coal patches of Pennsylvania.”

Burke, with the passion of a true Irishman and a seasoned defense attorney, barked out the facts of what coal mining meant to this region. How our ancestors’ nickels and dimes built our churches and synagogues, hospitals, bridges, roads and schools.

“Their enviable courage, faith, work ethic and perseverance have since defined this community’s character – its very DNA,” Burke said.

Burke pointed to the city’s lone historical marker in East End that commemorates Father John Curran – known as the “labor priest.” A former breaker boy, Father Curran championed “the workers’ cause.”

Burke notes that the breakers are all gone, the Coal Exchange Building is gone and the statue of Ellen Webster Palmer and the breaker boys is at least temporarily gone from sight.

On Thanksgiving Day, the Anthracite Heritage Foundation will launch its website and blog. In the future there also will be coal mining programs at King’s College and area schools will offer programs on our rich heritage. People will be able to access the website, enter their coal-mining ancestors’ names and all known information and even post photographs. Anyone will be able to read the stories and learn the history.

We all need to possess this “attitude of gratitude” to our coal mining history, said Burke, to ensure our ancestors’ legacies are passed on to future generations, while at the same time earn a deserved appreciation for what they did for us.

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