John was born on 18 JUL 1885 in Rikov (Pekob), the son of Johan Mehalechko and Mary Zabutsky.
He died on 22 JUN 1962 in Mount Carmel.
His wife was Mary Timpko, who he married on 15 NOV 1912 in Mount Carmel. Their thirteen known children were Michael (1913-?), Alex (1914-1916), Anna (1916-1916), Mary (1918-?), Sylvia (1920-?), Charles (?-?), Helen (1924-1984), John (?-?), Joseph (1928-1928), Mae (?-?), Dimitri (1932-1932), Edward (1933-1933) and Thomas (1936-1944).
| Event | Date | Details | Source | Multimedia | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birth | 18 JUL 1885 |
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| Death | 22 JUN 1962 |
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Note 1
Date of residence: 1908
Place of residence: Centralia, PA
Date of residence: 1907
Place of residence: Irvona, PA
Address: 247 Park Street
Centralia
PA
USA
John was born in the Province of Galacia which was part of the Austro-
Hungarian empire in 1907 when he immigrated to the United States. His
immediate family, except for a brother, Dimtri, died and he was left
an orphan. He was brought up by the brothers in a local church OR
monastary. Before he came to the US, his occupation was lumberjack.
At some point, he purchased a bell for the church that he attended in
the old country. (See letters in Mehalechko binder). His application
for naturalization states that he was traveling with Matt Chesavage
when he immigrated to the United States.
One of the most interesting areas of speculation about John is why he
immigrated to the United States in the first place. In the book The
Mines of Windber by Mildred Allen Beik, the author cites a
combination of economic events including concentrated land ownership
and high population density in the area that lead to emigration from
Galacia. By 1900 some 80 percent of all plots in the province
{Galicia} were small (less than 12.5 acres), and 50 percent consisted
of 5 acres or less, when 5 acres were considered the minumum
necessary for suvival. Later, on the same page, she discusses the
population and infers that the population doubled between 1860 and
1900. Furthermore, no industry of any importance existed there
because of a lack of incentives and discriminatory policies by the
government. Migration for work was a well-established tradition for
many of the peoples who inhabited central and eastern Europe.
Migration for work to the United States actually began in the 1870's
and 1880's. (There is eveidence that a relative of Johns migrated in
the 1880's. There is a record of military service during the Spanish-
American war for a Mike Mehalechko who lived in New York state and
was born in Austria-Hungary.) Another interesting point that Mildre
Beik makes is that many immigrants initally expected to be in America
only temporarily. She estimates actual return rates at between 25%
and 60%. John's daughter, Mary Mehalechko, indicates that it was her
mother's belief that they would always return to Galacia once they
have saved enough money to buy a farm. It wasn't until after his
wife's death in 1938 that John became a naturalized citizen (1944).
John actually did quite well as a contract coal miner. During the
depression, he was able to help out other families because he had a
small farm where he grew his own vegetables and had goats and a cow.
John's wife, Mary, was able to preserve many fruits and vegetables
and she knew which mushrooms were eatable.
As a contract coal miner, John was also able to work his own
bootleg coal holes when he wasn't employed by the mines. Bootleg
coal holes were common in the antracite region of upstate
Pennsylvania. Basically, bootleg coal was illegally mined by the
unemployed in the mining towns from company-owned lands, for the most
part in open daylight, by the most primitive methods imaginable, in
successful defiance of company police, and, in most places, with the
full approval of the constituted authorities and of the overwhelming
majority of the other inhabitants of the community, according to
Louis Adamic in his book, The Great Bootleg Coal Industry. Adamic
continues with a description of the economic problems that led to the
bootleg holes. In the town of Centralia, where nearly all legitimate
coal production had ceased even in 1929, the number of illegal miners
at least trebled. In the winter of 1930-31, when growing numbers of
people appeared before township and county poor boards with requests
for fuel, the board in not a few cases told them to get there own
fuel. Where? How? The town board members shrugged their shoulders OR
suggested that the nearby hills were full of coal. That winter coal
bootlegging again doubled or trebled in most towns. In Centralia it
became the main industry. It kept the stores open, the people from
moving out. The bootleggers, as they actually called themselves,
started to work their holes and haul down their loot in the daytime.
When the coal companies had some of them arrested, the poor boards
promptly effected their release if they proved they had dug the coal
for their own use; and in most cases the bootlegger's say-so was
sufficient proof to satisfy the poor-board members, most of whom were
ordinary townspeople and, for reasons of their own, more or less anti-
company. Then, too, the local courts were strongly disinclined to
sentence these offenders; and when they sent them to jail, the
wardens soon turned them loose. Here and there the companies blew up
the bootleggers' holes, but, as the depression continued, for every
hole they blew up three or four new ones immediately appeared. Also,
town and county officials cautioned the representatives of the
various companies that unless they allowed the jobless to operate
their holes, taxes would have to be increased to pay for more relief,
and some of these higher taxes would be levied on the coal mines.
Thus the companies were forced or induced to tolerate the
bootleggers, and bootlegging-not only digging, but selling as well-
came into the full light of day (as in Centralia a year before) in
Shamokin, Mount Carmel, Ashland, Treverton, Kulpmont, Shenandoah,
Girardville, Mahonoy City, Tamaqua, Lansford, Coaldale, Pottsville,
Lykens, Tower City, Reinerton, Valley View, Hegins, Donaldson,
Tremont, Branchdale, Minersville, Heckscherville, Brackville,
Gilberton, Middleport, Port Carbon, Williamstown, William Penn, Big
Mine Run, Lost Creek, and other towns and villages in the southern
section of the region.
Adamic discusses the moral implications of taking coal from company-
owned lands and he sought the perspective of the parish priests. The
bootleg towns are preponderantly Catholic; so, feigning concern for
the Eighth Commandment, I approached several parish priests, some of
whom, I had heard, were accepting church dues in the form of bootleg
coal and were using it to heat their churches, parochial schools, and
parish houses. All declared that the Eighth Commandment had no
bearing on coal bootlegging. The so-called bootleggers, they said,
had as much right to the coal they were digging as the companies.
Besides, most of the bootleg holes were in places where the companies
would never have bothered to take the coal out anyhow-which is true.
Father Weaver, the rector of a parish in Mount Carmel, said that
should the companies employ armed force to clear their lands of
illegal miners, and should the men in such a case decide to fight, he
would be unable to restrain himself from getting into the battle on
their side. Some of them, he went on, are my parishioners; honest,
upstanding working people. I'm proud to be their priest. It is
absolutely untrue that this bootleg coal situation is having a bad
effect on the bootleggers' characters or that, as the companies say,
there have developed in this town 'other rackets' in connection with,
or as a result of, bootleg coal. Coal bootlegging has no bad moral
effect on the people. It keeps them from starving and turning into
criminals.... Let the companies give the men work in the collieries
and illegal mining will cease at once. The men are not bootlegging
because they like it. They risk their lives every minute they work in
those holes, and deserve everyone's respect and admiration. They have
mine.
Finally, Adamic discusses what was like to mine bootleg coal. In
fact, after I saw them work in and around their holes, my respect for
the human race in general went up several notches. The sheer guts
and stamina necessary to sink and work a bootleg coal hole is all but
incredible. Imagine a hole in the ground, barely wide enough for a
man to let himself down in, usually vertical, sometimes cut into
living rock, anywhere from twenty to a hundred feet deep, with just
sufficient room at the bottom for the miner to sit or kneel and work
his pick and shovel and sticks of dynamite. Personally, I would
rather do anything than start and operate such a hole; but then, of
course, I am not a miner in extreme economic circumstances, nor a
miner's son with mining in his blood and no chance of regular
employment. It takes two, three, or four men from two weeks to two
months to sink a hole and reach the outcrop, after which they usually
strike coal. Working mainly on hunches, they very often find no coal,
and all the terrific labor is in vain. When they find it, two, three,
or four men produce about as many tons a day, hoisting the stuff to
the top of the hole with rope and buckets, then breaking it, often
with hammers by hand or chunk against chunk, and cleaning and sorting
it also by hand, unless they have a primitive breaker and shaker
either at the hole or behind their houses in town. The work is back-
breaking and extremely hazardous. Most holes are inadequately
timbered and cave-ins are frequent, trapping or crushing the men
below. Sometimes the ground at the bottom of the hole, where the man
is knocking or blasting out the coal, sinks away from under him and
he tumbles into the flooded cavern of some worked-out mine, and that,
of course, is the last of him. Everybody who knows anything about the
conditions under which bootleg coal is produced respects and admires
the bootleggers, and often considers them heroes; and this- together
with the fact that the whole thing is so typical of this resourceful,
highly individualistic, anarchic, and fantastic America of ours-
operates to create public sentiment strongly in favor of the illegal
miners, quite apart from the economic benefits that this curious
industry brings to the communities. Even a company official said to
me: Those fellows take such gosh-awful chances that in a way they're
entitled to that coal.