Newspaper Article

This is a newspaper article that appeared in the Scranton Times.
A local newspaper.

06/18/2007
A TOWN HONORS ITS PAST
BY JODY ROSELLESTAFF WRITER




About 100 people gather for the dedication of the coal miners memorial Sunday at the levee near the Lackawanna Avenue bridge in Olyphant. After three years and nearly $50,000, the memorial was dedicated to the anthracite workers and their families. -by FARMER

OLYPHANT — A short, muscular man stands clutching his pickax while he looks out across the borough, as if paused in a moment of dignified reflection. He represents the hard work and determination that this Midvalley town was built upon.The Olyphant Coal Miners Memorial Association unveiled the coal miners memorial Sunday at the Lackawanna Avenue bridge. About 100 people attended the afternoon ceremony.

Three years, more than 500 donors and nearly $50,000 went into the bronzed statue representing the hundreds of miners, laborers and breaker boys who helped to found the borough and worked in the anthracite mines.

“This town was built on the miners,” said Gene Turko, association chairman, before the afternoon ceremony began. “When most of the immigrants came here from Europe in the 1800s and settled, the only jobs available to them were in the mines.”The man in the monument could be any miner, even the sculptor’s father.

“My father was a coal miner,” said Father Walter Wysochansky, 71, of Ambridge, brother of the late sculptor Frank “Wyso” Wysochansky, who died in 1994. The Wysochansky family donated the sculpture design to the association.Father Wysochansky, canon of SS. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church, Ambridge, was the youngest of 12 children and not yet born when his father died in the mines.

The family lived in Peckville, Centralia and Monesson while the children were growing up, and Wyso, the late sculptor’s professional name, made his home in Blakely.“I never worked in the mines,” Father Wysochansky said. “I hated the thought of it. There was no way I would go in there.”He said he was “deeply moved” to see the larger version of his brother’s work.“It was a dream of my brother, the artist, for many years to have a sculpture like this from the area,” Father Wysochansky said.

The memorial has special significance for Stephen Klem Sr.“I worked in the mines for 17 years,” said Mr. Klem, memorial association vice chairman. “I always had the memorial in mind. The mines were here for so long and nothing was done.”The ceremony drew former miners, family, friends and history buffs on the sweltering afternoon.

“My grandfather was a breaker boy and he had black lung,” said Dana Pazzaglia, 32, of Olyphant. Breaker boys, who were sometimes as young as 8, sat astride breaker chutes and separated coal from debris.Ms. Pazzaglia’s grandfather, Joe Petrone, died in 1983. “I think the monument is long overdue,” she said.

Jim Griggs, 55, of Peckville, brought his fiancee, Anita Gonzalez, 46, of Throop, to the ceremony. His father, Willard, grandfather Thomas and uncle Thomas Jr. worked in the mines when he was a child.“I remember seeing the miners’ hats hanging,” Mr. Griggs said. “It’s really a good thing to have the miners recognized. “It was a dangerous job. It was an unhealthy job.”

Contact the writer: jroselle@timesshamrock.com