A Story My Father Told Me!

“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Wednesday October 22, 2014

Sunny 83F/28C/ in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 

Buongiorno,

                This week, I found another treasure in the collection of family photos and papers that I brought with me when I moved back from Northern California in January.

I’ve been carrying the family memorabilia with me since my father died in 1965. And, now that I’m retired and have the time, I’m going through the collection and trying to collate it to pass on to my children and grandchildren. In the process of sorting this week I came across a yellowed, eight page essay written by my father for his sociology class at the University of Pittsburgh, probably around 1929 or ‘30. This typewritten document opened a window on his world for me. As I read this story, I realized that I had heard it before.

Charles Botula, Jr.

My father had often talked about his family in the “Olden Days,” usually in family conversations over Sunday dinners after church when my brother Packy and I were growing up. Now, with his hand typed memoir from so long ago in my possession, I can share his first-hand account with you as Charles Botula told it himself so long ago.

               

Johana and Karel Botula

My grandparents had come to the United States in 1903 from what is now the Czech Republic. Back then, it was part of the Austrian Empire, and they were part of a massive migration from Eastern Europe. There were hundreds of thousands of people fleeing poverty, persecution and war who were looking for a better life in America. The Botula family started its upward climb to the middle class from the very lowest rung on the ladder. Actually, it wasn’t even the ground floor. It was more like subterranean. My grandfather Botula started his new life in America as a coal miner.

Karel Botula “got off the boat” in Philadelphia in 1903 and started work in Cokeburg, Pennsylvania, a small coal mining town near Pittsburgh. My grandmother, Johana, arrived with her three children, Karola, Maximilian, and Frantiska at Ellis Island a short time later and joined him in Cokeburg.

                My grandfather Botula worked for the James W. Ellsworth Coal Company.    Karel Botula was one of the thousands who answered the call. He was a young man, married with three young children. In the Europe of that era, his family faced a bleak future. America, in his mind, offered the future he wanted for his family. So, in 1903 he booked passage to the United States, arriving in Philadelphia and traveling on to a small mining town in western Pennsylvania. His wife, Johana and the couple’s three children followed him a few months later, arriving at Ellis Island in New York harbor.

                Dad picks up the story from there. “It took a lot of researching on my part to get a complete picture of the turn of the century migration that brought my family to America in the first place and I still have a lot to learn about my family’s early life in Europe, but this much I have learned.”

                Cokeburg, Pennsylvania was a “company town,” built and maintained by the Ellsworth Coal Mining Company. The company owned the land and built the homes the miners and their families lived in; operated the company store where they bought their groceries and other necessities; built the church where they worshipped; built the school and hired its teachers, and it provided medical care to the miners and their families. The town’s entire purpose was to mine the bituminous coal deep underground and from this raw material bake it in massive ovens turning it into coke, a hot burning, gray, ash-like product used in the manufacture of steel. The coke ovens dotted the countryside around the mineshafts, and, as the coal was distilled into coke, the ovens gave off thick clouds of black sulfurous smoke. Karel Botula’s job was not only dangerous from the necessity of digging for the coal deep underground, but the work was carried out under environmentally dangerous conditions. I can remember as a small boy seeing the smoke from the ovens and the downwind hillsides near them that were devoid of all living trees and brush. In the center of the village was a huge slag heap, where the mine tailings, and waste from the coke ovens were piled high. Today, the slag heap has been reclaimed as a park, but then it was a raw wasteland where the immigrant children would play. 

Coal Tipple at Cokeburg, PA 1939

According to the official history of the Borough of Cokeburg, the town was founded in 1900 by James W. Ellsworth, a Chicago businessman who had purchased 238 acres of land to build a coal mining development called Shaft Four in Bethlehem Township. Shaft Four was the original name of the village. The name was later changed to Cokeburg in 1902. My grandfather arrived the following year and moved his family into one of the company-owned houses.

During the first 15 years of their lives in America, “the Company” was the face of American government. In the 1950s my grandfather’s life was immortalized by “Tennessee Ernie” Ford

in his song “16 Tons.”

“You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store.”

Company store, company house, company school, company church. The miners were even paid in company “scrip” rather than U.S. currency. The whole town of Cokeburg was owned lock, stock and barrel by “the company.” For a family of eleven like my grandparents’, living in a company house was a tight squeeze. Dad’s story continues……

I couldn't help but compare that to the small two-story home that I grew up in. It was a two story house and my only sibling, my brother Packy and I each had our own room upstairs, while our parents had their own bedroom on the ground floor. Most of those miners’ homes in Cokeburg are still there. All modernized, of course, and not an outhouse to be found. 

Old Miners' Homes in Cokeburg. Coke Ovens Below the Houses.

Here’s what they looked like some years later. The old coke ovens were no longer being used.

The companies controlled everything. They advertised all

over Europe to attract workers with promises of money and

opportunity in America. They owned the ships that brought them to the U.S. from “The Old Country.” They controlled the railroads that carried them to their new homes. They owned the towns where they would work and the and the houses they lived in, the schools their children went to, and the churches where they worshiped.

The Old Company Store

The company store sold them the food and other necessities they needed. The currency that paid for everything was company “scrip.” It was phony money printed by the company. It was acceptable only at Cokeburg’s company store. The miners and their families could not go shopping at the next town over. And the people who lived in the company town nearby could not buy anything in Cokeburg, because their company “scrip” was no good in Cokeburg.

Karel and Johana’s children attended Cokeburg’s one-room school. Two of the girls eventually went on to nursing school, another graduated from a business college, still another graduated from high school, but the youngest stayed home to help my grandmother. Two of the boys followed their father into the mines when they finished school. All of the boys might have followed their father and brothers along that career path, and my life could have been very, very different if my dad had gone into the family business. My grandfather, as it turned out had other plans. My dad’s story continues….

Twenty three years after the Botula family came to the United States and settled in Western Pennsylvania, they made another move, but not as far as the original transatlantic journey in 1903. Once a family of five—Karel and Johana along with their three children, Karola, Frantiska and Maximilian, they were eleven strong when they arrived in Pittsburgh, the biggest city in Pennsylvania, little more than 30 miles from Cokeburg.

Botula Home 3316 Ward Street

They bought a three story home at 3316 Ward Street in the Oakland area, just off the Boulevard of the Allies, not far from the University of Pittsburgh, where Charles Botula would become the first member of his immigrant family to graduate from college. The 1930 U.S. Census lists Karel and Johana, and their children: Karola, Frances, Maximilian, Mary, Julia, Hannah, Adolf, my father Charles and Theodore. This became the family home until the last child, Julia died in 1991. Over the years as the children grew, married and started their own families they left, but all came back frequently for family celebrations. My dad met my mom and they moved to New York where I grew up, but the rest stayed around Pittsburgh. Adolf died in 1947. Karel died in 1948 and Johana died in 1952. Julia remained to tend the flame until she passed away in 1991. 

Right up until the old homestead was sold, after my aunt died, the telephone listing still read Karel Botula, 3316 Ward Street, MUseum 2-4072. 

Here they are, the Botula Clan.

One of my prize possessions. The Botula Family Portrait. In the front is my Grandmother, Johana, Theodore, Karel, and Charles (my father) on the right. Behind them in the back row are Julia, Mary, Karola, Adolf (behind Theodore), Maximilian, Frances and Hannah. Every person in this photograph is now deceased. In January 2015, I will be my grandfather’s age when he died - 74.

Ciao!

Mike Botula