Carpatho- Rusyn Fraternal Organization of New Alexandria St. Mary's Carpatho-Rusyn Greek Orthodox Church, Shieldsburg / Salemville, PA

Carpatho-Rusyn Miners Fraternal Organization meeting ca.1908, held at The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, Shieldsburg / Salemville, (New Alexandria) PA.

The Organization had various periods of prosperity and demise among the Ukranian Miners during the coal mining years at Salemville Patch. It was a social organization that helped the new immigrate Ukranian miners, that did not speak English, assimilate into their new community and country.

The society provided a meeting place, classes in English and a social outlet for these miners, who in most cases had come to this new country alone, without the benefit of family members and few friends.  Most of these new miners lived as borders with other families in town, sharing a bed with another miner who worked a different shift and spent most of their waking hours underground, working 12 hour days digging coal by hand, sometimes seven days a week, with little time to interact with members of the community. The miners went to work underground in the morning before the sun came up, and came out after the sun had set, seeing daylight only on Sundays, and sometimes not even then.

The society also provided a small death benefit for those with families and a Head Stone for the grave of any member killed in the mines, since the coal companies provided nothing for the family of a miner that was killed and most of the miners families were too poor to provide for these things. The families of miners killed in the mines were usually evicted, along with their belongings out on the street, from their coal company owned house and moved out of the coal patch, to fend for themselves, shortly after the miners death so that a productive miner could replace the one killed. The coal company was only interested in coal production and a widow with children could not dig coal. This despicable coal company practice forced many desperate widows to remarry shortly after the death of her husband, just to have a place to live and someone to provide for them.

The Sash pictured on this page belongs to Peter E. Starry, Jr., and was worn at special meetings of the New Alexandria Lodge of the Carpatho-Rusyn Miners Fraternal Organization.

Reference Sources: Reference Sources used in the History of Salemville, Salem Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania can be found here.
Copyright 1999, All rights reserved, by Ryan P. Washlaski, Raymond A. Washlaski & The 20th Century Society of Western Pennsylvania.

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