Coal miners are seen in Wanamie, Newport Township, at one of the last underground coal mines operating in the Wyoming Valley in the 1970s. Joseph Gimble is leading the effort to raise money to purchase a new granite monument to Larksville’s miners, across the river,	that would be placed at the Larksville Borough Building on State Street. 
                                 File photo

Coal miners are seen in Wanamie, Newport Township, at one of the last underground coal mines operating in the Wyoming Valley in the 1970s. Joseph Gimble is leading the effort to raise money to purchase a new granite monument to Larksville’s miners, across the river, that would be placed at the Larksville Borough Building on State Street.

File photo

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LARKSVILLE — Joseph Gimble’s father worked in the Larksville coal mines. So did his grandfathers and most of his uncles.

Gimble knows how hard they worked to not only feed their families, but to build the town.

Honoring all those miners who toiled in the deep, dark coal mines is something that Gimble, 89, is determined to do.

Gimble is leading the effort to raise money to purchase a new granite monument that would be placed at the Larksville Borough Building on State Street. There has been a display there for many years, but Gimble said a newer monument is needed.

It’s an important mission for Gimble. It’s a project he believes in with all his heart because he knows where he came from and he knows how important it is to make sure those hard working coal miners are never forgotten.

When I was growing up in Plymouth, the neighborhood was filled with great people who had many things in common. They loved their families, their friends, their homes, their heritage, their faith. Each house was a home filled with the smells of good cooking, the sounds of children, the loyalty of patriotism and the promise of the future — especially for the children.

I have many good memories of my childhood and they are forever embedded in my mind. I always say that I am lucky to have grown up when and where I did and those years and those memories are with me daily.

Like Anthony Balita — Mr. Balita to me — walking down Reynolds Street every morning before sunrise to work his shift in the coal mines, and then walking home at dusk or later, covered in coal dust. His daily trek was a constant reminder of the work ethic of so many back then. It’s an image I will never forget.

Mr. Balita lived up the street from me. He would walk down each morning carrying his lunch pail and his helmet as he headed to the mine. He would be gone all day, finally returning after dark wearing the black coal dust that he had to scrub off each night before sitting down to dinner. And then off to bed to rest before the next day arrived.

Mr. Gimble knows how hard they worked. He knows that they built this region.

Mr. Balita was a quiet man with a purpose — to work and earn money to support his wife and three boys.

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, the late Jim Burke, talked about during a program about 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’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 told how our ancestors’ nickels and dimes built our churches and synagogues, hospitals, bridges, roads and schools.

And that’s why Mr. Gimble wants to place that new monument in his town where many coal miners worked many years to make a better life.

Mr. Gimble asks for people to drop off donations at the secretary’s office at the borough building.

Mr. Gimble is determined to get this project done.

Help him see this project through.

Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.