Proud To Be a Coal Miner's Daughter



Coal Miner's Granddaughter

A running joke in Julie's family is that her grandfather Nick must have been misguided when he left the Greek Isles to work in the coal mines of Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Miner's Memorial

Proof of his wisdom, of course, lies in his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who have found prosperous lives beyond his wildest dreams in America.

Aside from the whole Back to the Future space-time rift that would stop him from meeting their Scottish grandmother Ellenor in America, which led to their exact DNA combinations, it certainly is possible that they could have been happy on sunny Crete.  We've had the privilege to meet distant cousins who prove that to be so, but America was and remains a land of opportunity for immigrants as well as those fortunate to have been born on its soil.




Megas Family Home

The Megas family home in Rock Springs still seems to be in great condition, and assuming it's the original structure, I'd guess it was a far more comfortable place to raise his three children than the primitive dwelling in remote Madaro, Crete, where he was one of eleven children (click one of the hotlinks above for photos) raised in a two room rock house with neither plumbing nor electricity.

The Railroad Put Rock Springs on the Map

Julie in front of Kenpo Karate



Remember Montgomery Ward?




As Julie's aunt, author Myrtle Cordon, could tell you, Rock Springs has an interesting and frequently off-color history, and when I first heard about the mining town when I was stationed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, it still had a tarnished image, but our recent visit revealed a charming downtown area with old buildings fronted by famous names from the past among its working class community that also includes suburban sprawl and seedy areas.

The Broadway

I won't say it seems to be a boomtown destined to lure Millennial hipsters searching for flashback perfection, but it's not nearly as bad as its reputation.

The Wrong Side of the Tracks?

Julie's Aunt Myrtle, who retired as Director of 15 public libraries in San Luis Obispo, gave us a "guided tour" by email (see below), and last summer we spent an afternoon looking at photos and listening to stories by Myrt and her brother, Uncle George, about growing up in Rock Springs, so we had a pretty good idea of what we were seeing.

The Park Hotel

Julie's Grandpa Nick worked in the blackness of the coal mines and had cried when he saw his son John, in the summer after his senior year in high school, come home with his face black with coal dust from a day in those very same mines.  Julie's dad John was the son whose academic efforts made him the natural choice to send to college with the family's limited savings, and the thought that he  might begin a life in the mines was unquestionably heartbreaking.



JJ Newberry 5 and Dime

Fortunately, that was just a summer job for John, and he started college as planned, though college was interrupted by his World War II tour as a paramedic, including the liberation of a terrible holocaust death camp, from which the painful memory of the dead and emaciated victims along with the stench in the air could never be completely be erased.  Hearing neo-fascists deny the reality of the extermination of Jews by Nazis disgusts me, so I can't imagine how tormenting that would have been for John, if he was still alive.

World War II Memorial


Uncle George was more of an entrepreneur.  He talked himself into a job, convincing a tire shop owner to let him retread tires during graveyard hours when his boss's shop had formerly been closed.  The machines ran while George slept in the shop.

George parlayed that self-created job into a recycled yard sale, trading those recapped tires that would have never been produced without his initiative to townspeople who would have never had the money to buy the tires if he hadn't accepted barter as an alternative to cash.

 Often, the goods he received were broken and in need of cleaning.  George repaired and polished the broken household goods and sold in front of the tire store in a sort of small parking lot swap meet.  At 18 years old, George made more money with this scheme than his dad earned that same year as a seasoned union coal miner with decades of experience. 



Inscribed With Names of WWII Heroes

That enterprise, however, got George in a bit of heat with his boss, who initially missed how this win-win situation had boosted tire sales by making Depression-era townspeople without cash into barter buyers whose repaired castoffs sold for enough cash to pay for the tires plus an extra profit for George.  His boss fired young George in haste, but when the store's business dropped precipitously, he re-hired the clever "rainmaker."

George also went to war, and both brothers are heroes recognized on the Rock Springs WWII Memorial. 

After returning from World War II with the GI Bill of Rights, which presumably saved his father from footing the rest of the bill for his college, John finished up his engineering degree.  One of his first post-college jobs was the Hungry Horse Dam project in Montana, another site we visited recently.

Later in the 1950s, John and George (not Lennon and Harrison) both moved to Los Angeles.  George started dating a statuesque blonde named Edna, who eventually decided she liked his brother better.  Edna ended up being Grandma Edde to our children.

Traveling with Julie as she tenaciously follows her father's roots over the years is not that different from following a novel wherever it leads.  Recently, I read the first two installments of Ken Follett's excellent Century Trilogy, the third volume of which should be coming out within days.  One of the viewpoint families for Follett's take on the twentieth century happens to be the ancestors of a coal miner from Wales, whose ancestors rise above the far more rigid class system of Europe to become war heroes and members of Parliament.  It's the same theme I find in my family history, with my wonderful parents rising from poverty to make a better life for their children, whose own parents made sacrifices for them.  Isn't it exciting to know this is possible for every free person who takes the initiative to follow dreams of a better life? 

God bless America, and the concept of American freedom that has bled into the rest of the world, which throughout most of history has been stratified to the point of stagnation, as Follett's Century Trilogy reveals in its complex storyline fabric.

Below is a quick take by Aunt Myrtle on Rock Springs, and keep in mind this is not intended as a professional writing sample but simply exuberantly sharing with her niece a bit of information about the mining town where she grew up.

Ho-- I'd love to be a tour guide for you --though I'm not sure what still be there. Dave and I were there in 1989 and George and I were there in 1996-- a long time ago! I printed out a few pictures of Front Street for you below-- the biggest memory was of the Grand Theater (movies 11 cents a pop -- Saturday matinees with Hopalong Cassidy and Dick Tracy serials -- there was always a serial to lure you back next Saturday..) And in that same block was Tom Thumb's and the Pitsitos Barber shop and the Mike Kostakis' Shoe Shine Parlor --- when we were last there it was some kind of computer store. So if you go along Front Street at the end you will see the Park Hotel (George once worked there) and you turn onto Elk St. On Elk is the WW II memorial and the names of both John Megas and George Megas are on there as Rock Springs soldiers. I took pictures of it long ago, but I can't find them now.

And 413 Soulsby -- yep and next to that is Aunt Ellen Webster's house-- We were the poor relatives so we did not interact with Aunt Ellen very often.

Bitter Creek Micro-Brewery

So if you stand in front of the Soulsby house and look to your right you should see a small footbridge crossing over Bitter Creek --which was most often called --get ready -- Shit Crick-- since raw sewage went into it. We never waded in it (!) but in winter John, and George and I went ice skating on it. The Number 3 Mine was there so the area beyond the bridge was called #3. (If you really want some vital and ugly history of R.S. google the Chinese massacre in R.S. The Knights of Labor used that bridge to murder and beat the Chinese who had built the railroad and then Union Pacific hired them for the mines--cheap labor...) And if you go back to the end of Soulsby and turn left, you will go past Pilot Butte Camp on your right -- On your left is the Slovenski Dome --We didn't go near there at night cause those people were big drinkers and very rowdy-- Further along on the left was the Catholic Church and a grave stone maker-- on the turn to your left was a fire station (still there??? Who knows?) and your Grandfather's favorite meat market on the right a ways past M Street -- (That's not likely to still be there.) On the corner of N St. is The Greek Church where I was baptized. (John and George were dunked in a galvanized tub out in Reliance. ) Across from the Greek Church was the Union Mercantile store and just before the drive-across bridge to #3 was the Miner's Union Hall where the miner's gathered and us little kids were treated to Xmas and Easter and such parties.

If you have time to go to the other side of the tracks (over the over pass by the WWII monument) the depot has a wondrous statue honoring the old time miners-- AND up the hill at the top is the now defunct Miners Hospital (if it is still there?) where I once looked for my daddy among the black-faced, coal-covered miners lying in cots along the halls when the accident I think you know about had so many injured.. Behind the hospital is the cemetery. I think they have someone to tell you where graves are located-- the Margaret Paterson Hodge stone is there --in a far corner-- with the Webster's and the Kellogs and the Hills (John once had the family tree the Kellogs worked up -- did it disappear with Julia??) There was a small wooden marker (maybe for sure gone now) that we thought might be Ellenor's and Nick's first born, Little Nick. (Did you know that Mom sold the R.S. grave plots after they moved to Turlock and sent it to Crete so Sofia and the Birakis family could buy the acres of grapes they wanted?)

Enough - though one day you must visit Reliance and Winton and go way up to Superior and Premier Camp --- I'll think of you tomorrow while yu are trekking about.... later much love xoxox Aunt Myrt