Last Saturday I saw my grandfather’s tombstone for the first time. Jacob Tremba died in 1922 at the age of 53, leaving a wife and 10 children behind. My father, Michael, was 9 years old.
Jacob emigrated to America from Austria. He settled in Morrell, a small enclave of immigrants outside Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He took a job in the coal mines.
The circumstances of his death were murky. My father knew only that Jacob had died of “complications” from a mining accident.
But my cousin John, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, doesn’t like murky. He figured out how our grandfather died. He was murdered.
Last weekend I drove to Connellsville with Paula and our daughter, Amanda. My cousin gave us a tour of the old coalfields and company towns. We saw former company houses, company churches, and company stores.
He told us of the plight of mining families—free housing, yes, but with strings attached. Eviction without recourse. Pay in scrip, not dollars. And scrip was good only at the company store.
You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go; I owe my soul to the company store.
Jacob refused to be paid in scrip. He’d take only dollars. He refused to live in a company house. He built his own. He refused to tolerate unsafe conditions and unfair wages. He unionized.
One day a shaft roof collapsed on him, fracturing his pelvis. He was carried home on a stretcher. A year later he returned to work to cheers from his fellow miners.
A few days later he fell gravely sick in the mine and soon thereafter died at home. My father remembered that part.
Mine officials, including the company doctor, said he had drunk noxious, standing water. Yet no experienced miner would do such a stupid thing. Like every other miner, he carried water in his lunchpail.
As it turns out, company goons poisoned his water. No charges were brought.
At great personal sacrifice, coalminers provided light, heat, and energy to this country. Coal fueled industry and many modern conveniences. We owe them.
But the era of coal is over. There’s no going back.
Let’s raise a monument to coalminers in our nation’s capital and then dig in to make unions stronger, workplaces safe, wages fair, and our country greener.
* * *
HEADS UP: In order to prevent an increasing number of “bot-spams” I have added a filtering device before you submit a comment. I’m sorry for the inconvenience but I hope you will continue to make comments anyway. I appreciate each and every one of them.
_______________________
See Paula’s photo (“Humbolt Redwoods”) on the home page. Posted October 31.
Learning the truths about our history, individual and collective, is like a lite shining in the darkness. Whatever beauty, injustice or lessons are revealed help us to find our path forward. A family robbed of their hero, their provider, their comforter… generational traumas exist in various forms for so many of us. As we re-member, the puzzle pieces fall into place. Who we are and how we move forward are part of a vast river of experience that shape our views and our choices. Your story is one of strength & resilience – in the face of unspeakable cruelty & greed. Blessed Be the Coal Miners families… and all the families of injustice & cruelty… who find hope & comfort to keep a goin’, and find beauty & laughter along the way. Thank you🙏🏼
Beautiful, Ardyth. Thank you.
Hell of a discovery and heck of a story. Now we know where you got your rebel nature.
Interesting history! And what a sad, terrible end. He was a hero indeed- a shining example of independence and strength. “No charges were brought”. Justice escaped so many who built this country. Thank you as always for your insight.
I am heartened that you have learned more about your grandfather. Sad about the circumstances of his passing. I have been able to piece some family story together but with all the earlier generations gone it is difficult especially with those who were more “recent” immigrants. But we do what we can.
Thanks so much for reminding us what unions have meant and still mean. Workers’ rights to organize, bargain collectively, and act collectively for the betterment of all are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Unions created the American middle class and the American Dream.
Thank you for this poignant story regarding your grandfather, a man of integrity and courage. May his memory be a blessing and inspiration in your life. Martin Luther King said, “Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere”. That includes coal mines.
I grew up in Johnstown which was surrounded by small mining towns like Morrell. In fact, one whole section of Johnstown is called Morrellville, I believe named after the same man. I would have loved to take that tour with your cousin to see what has happened to those coal towns.
Thank you. What you have learned about your grandfather is not only personally and historically interesting but essential to “Justice forward” activism. As a painful reminder of the need for it, the US is the second largest producer and consumer of coal in the world, and WV the second highest producer in the U.S. WV supplies over 12% of national need, over 300 million short tons of coal mined annually.
The inference, of course, is that we likely have a hundred or more “Jacobs” working today to support their families, their nation, and employee justice and safe working environments. In endeavor that must come to an end. They deserve our support as they advocate for job protections, and our activism as they begin the challenging work of transforming their job skills toward production of greener energy sources or whatever alternative work satisfies their need to earn a living and support their loved ones.
Thank you. I am glad that you traveled up to Pennsylvania with your family and your cousin to visit your grandfather’s grave and to unravel his history and the circumstances of his death. Every one of these stories that gets shared with others provides another piece of the puzzle of what it means to live and work tied to the string of a powerful, controlling puppeteer. Living in a company home, being paid by coupons or ‘scrip’ that are only redeemable at the company owned store, not being allowed to associate and share grievances with other workers, form groups or unions to represent you and your working comrades…all this is told in the film, “Matewan”, which I did see years ago. It is shocking. Americans would never believe these things happened and still happen in this country if so many people, you included, weren’t sharing their family’s experiences.
Many of us who grew up in the hills and hollers of Pennsylvania have similar stories that have been handed down, murky yes, and light on detail. Our stories revolved around steel mills and railroads, brickmaking, and working at state prisons. All dangerous jobs which were murderous in their own ways. In addition, the pandemic of 1918 took the lives of both of our grandfathers who were in their early twenties, leaving numerous children to be raised by single mothers.
Judy and Carl
Your grandfather was a hero, and his activism did not go in vain! I can’t even imagine the courage it took to be an activist in those days – he, like other heroes since, would have known it might cost him his life. It seems to me that today, social activism is the ONLY thing standing between greed and industrial avarice on a GLOBAL scale, and the very survival of our human race within the lifetimes of OUR grandchildren. Thank God for your Grandfather and the other Saints of social justice, without whose courage and willing sacrifice in days past, this sorry planet likely would not have survived even until now. THAT is what gives me hope, even yet!
Thanks for telling this story, Randy. I hope that everyone who sees the injustice in it is also able to see the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice through the sacrifices of your grandfather and countless others like him.
My father used to sing this song to me as a lullaby:
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you or me
Says I, “But Joe, you’re ten years dead,”
“I never died,” says he
“I never died,” says he
Justice takes time, but it never dies.
Not only a great read but important. Like others here, the intergenerational aspects catch my curiosity. As I know you will continue to observe the layers of impact of your discovery and opening it to daylight, i look forward to learning more of what you learn. Seems important for all of us.