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Tony Kombol’s Fateful Day

Anton Kombol, upper left , pouring a beer from a bottle with a group of Croatian friends.

Growing up in the extended Kombol clan meant at least four family gatherings each year – Easter, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and Christmas Eve.  Occasionally, there was a wedding, an anniversary, or a Sunday assemblage added to the mix.  Grandma (Lulu) and Papa (Tony) had five children.  For me, that meant four sets of aunts and uncles, a total of eleven grandchildren, seven of them cousins.  Only Frank and Dana Zaputil were childless, but they always brought their good friend, Art, and the de facto twelfth grandchild, Pierre, a full-size French poodle, fully accepted into the family.  Pierre was probably the favorite.

Tony & Lulu’s 50th Anniversary party, Aug. 2, 196. L-R: Nadine, Tony, Nola, Lulu, Dana, Jack, Bernell.

Like most family parties, talk often turned to events of the second generation’s youth.  My parents, aunts, and uncles all grew up in the 1920s and 1930s in Kangley, Black Diamond, or Enumclaw.  Anytime one of the Kombols told a story, there was sure to be a dispute about the facts or the event.  There were often two or three different versions of what happened, to whom, and how.  There was even uncertainty regarding the date of my father, Laverne Shercliffe Kombol’s birth in 1921.  He was born at home in the small coal mining town of Hiawatha.   Some said July 17, others July 18, while July 21 was offered as the birthdate, according to his grandmother, Jennie.

And as to when Jack contracted polio and missed several years of school, no one could agree. Though it was some time after Tony’s fateful day.  As to that tragic event, no one remembered the month or year, but all agreed it happened in a Kangley mine.  But which one?

Maybe this is why I started researching and writing history, especially about the coal industry.  It’s no doubt helped having two grandfathers who were coal miners and two grandmothers who were school teachers.

Papa Kombol spoke in a thick Croatian accent.  Back then, the term Yugoslavian was still in use, or Austrian, as Austria ruled both.  His face and hands were speckled with purple freckles owing to a coal mining accident in the 1920s.  He wore thick, I mean thick, glasses and typically read his Croatian periodicals, mailed from the old country, held close to his face.  He had a hearty laugh, and when we were young, he always invited us to sit on his lap.

Anton Kombol was born January 6, 1885, in Fuzine, Croatia, to Anton Kombol (1849-1911) and Franciska Mihaljevic (1857-?).  Croatia had been a part of the Austrian Empire since the 1815 Congress of Vienna.  The first Kombols emigrated from France during the Napoleonic era, and successive generations of Kombol men married Croatian women.  The local industries were woodworking and furniture-making, which attracted the original French immigrants.  According to Leo Gregorich, Anton grew up in a place called Vrata, which means “gate” in Croatia.  It’s within walking distance of Fuzine.

As Anton approached adulthood, woodworking was in his future, if the Austrian army didn’t call first.   At age 17, Anton obtained an Austrian passport, issued on November 12, 1902.  He made the 20-mile journey to Fiume, then part of Italy (now known as Rijeka, Croatia), and sailed December 8 on a ship bound for Southampton, England, by way of Le Havre, France.  Anton arrived in New York on December 22, was processed through Ellis Island, then boarded a train on December 23, arriving in Roslyn, Washington, five days later.  It was nine days before his 18th birthday.

Two older brothers, John (Ivan) and Matt Kombol, both living in Roslyn, welcomed him.   Within days, he began work at the Northwestern Improvement Company’s coal mines that supplied fuel to power the locomotives of its corporate parent, Northern Pacific Railway.  Anton soon changed his name to the Americanized moniker, Tony.  For the next six years, Tony Kombol worked underground and saved his money.  He later moved to Cle Elum.

L-R: Matt Kombol, John Kombol, Anton Kombol, early 1900s, Roslyn.

In May 4, 1908, Anton Kombol filed his Declaration of Intention to become an American citizen.  He described himself as 5 feet, 6 inches, weighing 165 pounds, with brown hair, grey eyes, and a mustache.  That September, a 23-year-old woman named Lulu Shircliffe accepted a teaching position in Ravensdale as her pay in Centralia “was not sufficient to our tastes.”  She and a friend “landed in the hinterlands in Ravensdale, where the pay was tops, a coal mining town not far from Seattle.”

Sometime over the next two years, Tony Kombol moved to Ravensdale, whose mines were also operated by the Northwestern Improvement Co (NWI).  Tony found room and board with William and Hanna Joseph, while Lulu lived at the home of Stephen and Lottie Weston, and their son, William.  Stephen Weston was the hoisting engineer at the Ravensdale mine.

Tony Kombol, second from top with Croatian friends, likely near Ravensdale, circa early 1910s.

On November 11, 1911, Tony Kombol filed his Petition for Naturalization.  Matt Starkovich, a fellow Croatian and Deputy Sheriff for King County, and Frank Ludwig, a Ravensdale liquor dealer signed as witnesses stating, Tony “is a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and is in every way qualified to be admitted as a citizen of the United States.”  Tony declared his Oath of Allegiance on June 27, 1912, and received his Certificate of Naturalization on July 16, 1912.  After ten years in the U.S., Tony became a citizen.

Lulu frequently returned to Chehalis to visit and stay with friends.  It isn’t clear how or when they met, but at the time Ravensdale’s population was just over 700, so it would be natural for two eligible adults to know each other.  In her job as a schoolteacher, Lulu was well-known and highly respected.  And in a town with 230 coal miners, many of them single, she would have been one of the best catches around.

Lulu Shircliffe with her class of Ravensdale students, 1913. She would marry Tony Kombol the following year and retire from teaching . . . until circumstances dictated a return.

On June 18, 1914, John and Marguerite Carnero agreed to sell a 7,250 square foot lot to Tony Kombol for $160, due on or before December 31, 1914.  Tony went to work building a house.  Tony and Lulu were married in Seattle on August 4, 1914, and enjoyed a ten-day honeymoon before returning to their new Ravensdale home.  As was the custom for young schoolteachers of the day, Lulu quit her job and went to work making their house a home.

Tony Kombol stands in front of the home he had built for his fiancée, Lulu Shircliffe, 1914.

On Tuesday, November 16, 1915, a blown fuse knocked out the hoisting machinery at Ravensdale No. 1.  One hundred miners were sent home until the problem was fixed.  Tony Kombol was one of them.  Hours later, 31 men were killed by an explosion that destroyed the mine.  It was the third-worst coal mining disaster in Washington state history.  Many of the deceased miners were buried in the Ravensdale Cemetery, while others were sent back to the homes of their youth. The tragedy hit Ravensdale hard, and the townsfolk suffered.  Merchants closed shops and miners left town seeking greener pastures.  It isn’t clear what Tony and Lulu did with their home; they probably sold it cheaply.  It survived and still stands at 27521 S.E. 271st Street in Ravensdale. The Kombols’ next two years would be hectic.

Shortly after the Nov. 16, 1915, explosion that claimed the lives of 31 coal miners and ended mining in Ravensdale for the next several years.

At the time of the tragedy, Lulu was three months pregnant with their first child.  In late December 1915, Tony traveled to Ray, Arizona, with a fellow miner, Charley Canonica, where they found work in a copper mine.  Several Ravensdale miners and their families followed.  Lulu shipped their belongings a couple of months later.  Bernell Kombol was born there on June 3, 1916.

After leaving Arizona, Tony found work in an Aberdeen, Washington, sawmill, while Lulu moved to Billings and joined her mother.  That’s where their second child, Dana, was born.  After rejoining the family in Montana, where he spent time working at the copper mine, Tony set off for Alaska, where business was booming.  He was determined to make a small fortune or return.  On his way north, Tony stopped off at Ravensdale to see William Reese, the Superintendent of the Northwestern Improvement Co.’s mines.  A new mine, called Hiawatha, located halfway between Durham and Kangley, opened in 1917.  Experienced coal miners were needed.  Tony accepted the offer, and Lulu returned to Washington and found lodging in Durham, where their third child, Nola, was born.

Tony Kombol and his first son, Bernell, circa 1918.

As Tony labored building the new Hiawatha mine, NWI built cottages west of Kangley-Kanaskat Road to house their workforce.  Some homes were transported by rail from Ravensdale, which hadn’t yet recovered from the disaster.  Superintendent Reese was fond of the Kombol family and offered them one of the choicest homes, next door to him.  Jack Kombol was born in that Hiawatha home, which still stands at 27723 Kanaskat-Kangley Road S.E.

The company needed that house back, so their fifth and final child, Nadine, was born in new quarters.  Sometime later, William Reese made it possible for the Kombol family to return to the nicer home and secured a 100-year lease for them.  They lived in that home until Tony died. Lulu remained several more years before moving in with Nola for her final season of life.  There, she wrote a striking autobiography, a testament to her writing skills and a treasure for her family.

In the forests above Tony & Lulu’s longtime home on the Kanaskat-Kangley Road, their grandson, Bill Kombol, explores the artifacts and surface structures around the old Hiawatha mine, Nov. 28, 2023

NWI’s Hiawatha mine proved to be a colossal failure.  The coal seam was subject to faulting, so production was frequently interrupted.  Plus, higher wages being paid at the nearby Durham mine caused Hiawatha’s miners to hold out for wages of $15 – $20 per day, compared to the $8 daily rate paid at NWI’s mine in Roslyn.  The Hiawatha mine temporarily shut down on November 1, 1920, then opened and closed on and off until its permanent closure in 1924.

For the measly amount of coal produced, Hiawatha had one of the worst records in the state, as measured by deaths per ton mined.  Joseph Ripoli, an Italian, age 43, was instantly killed by a gas explosion on the evening of July 7, 1918.  Ripoli left a widow and four children.  Then on May 12, 1923, a Greek miner named John Panotos, age 42 and single, perished in the mine after a slab of coal fell from the chute, striking his head, and causing instant death.

While we don’t have Tony Kombol’s work records, he probably kept working through closures owing to his close relationship with Superintendent Reese.   Even an inactive mine needs someone to run pumps to prevent flooding and start fans for ventilation.  William R. Reese was appointed State Coal Mine Inspector in 1923 and left NWI.  So did Tony Kombol.

In 1922, George Parkin and associates reopened the Kangley mine. A year earlier, they started mining in nearby Elk Coal.  The new Kangley portal was on the Alta seam, but no shipments were made that first year.  It isn’t known when Tony started work at the Parkin Kangley Coal Company.  It was located less than a mile from his home.  At the time, automobiles were a luxury, so most laborers lived within walking distance of work.

Life trundled along for the Kombols.  Lulu stayed busy raising five children, all under the age of ten, while Tony labored underground.  After more than a year of development work, the Parkin Kangley mine began shipping coal, just over 20,000 tons, in 1924.  They employed 32 underground miners, while another four processed and sorted coal in the top works.  The following year, production tripled to 64,000 tons, with 56 underground miners and twelve on the surface.  The addition of so many new miners, many of whom spoke different languages, coupled with a push for higher yields, may have weakened safety protocols.  We will never know.

The morning of Sunday, August 7, 1925, began like any other.  Most mines operated seven days a week, so Sunday work wasn’t unexpected.  It was a pleasant day with an expected high of 77°. Rain hadn’t fallen in over a month.  I still haven’t found the accident report that documents exactly what happened and how.  I did, however, by chance review an old envelope in Lulu’s collection of memorabilia, where I discovered the accident date, the coal company name, and the Washington Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) claim number 329482.

The Labor & Industries letter I discovered in an old envelope from Lulu’s collection of memorabilia.

But my attempts to find further evidence and information have thus far been stymied by arcane Department rules, communicated to me in a terse email dated June 20, 2024:

RE:      Anton Kombol
Records Request ID 154566

We have received your request for workers’ compensation claim records.  However, Washington State law prohibits us from releasing confidential claim records to anyone who is without express written authorization from the injured worker or the employer of injury.  At this time, the Department has to deny the request.

With Anton Kombol dead and the Parkin Kangley Coal Company closed over 98 years ago, I’m not exactly sure from whom I must seek written authorization.  Right now, L & I have blocked me from seeing the file until I figure out an angle, or a kindly bureaucrat bends the rules.  The search continues.

The only detailed description of the accident came during a September 2008 interview I conducted with Leo Gregorich, a close family friend and fellow Croatian.  At the time, Leo was 96 years old, but sharp as a knife with a keen storytelling ability.  My interview was fortuitous, as Leo Doran Gregorich Jr. died the following May.

Here’s how Leo described Tony’s Kombol debilitating accident:

“Tony told me about the accident.  He was in the hospital for 30 days, but he was always confident that he would get his eyesight back.  The accident happened when he was working in a coal mine.  He was working in a ‘room’ of a ‘room and pillar’ mine.  They were mining a ‘room’ in a pitched coal seam, in the crosscut.  They were using dynamite.  Tony has set some dynamite shots by lighting the fuses.  The lit fuse burned at a set time per inch and would ignite a cap that caused the sticks of dynamite to explode.

When Tony set his shots, there were miners working in the next room, and they were shooting their dynamite shots at the same time.  Tony set three shots to go off.  He thought he heard his three shots go off and then returned to his working area (room) and was met by his last shot, which exploded near his face.  Apparently, one of the three shots that he’d heard explode came from the miners in the next room.”

The explosion blinded Tony and permeated his face and hand with tiny specks of coal that in time became purple-colored blots.  After several years, Dr. J. Thomas Dowling, an associate in the Virginia Mason Clinic, performed an operation that restored Tony’s eyesight so he could read and perform chores around the house.  He was 40 years old.  His second act lasted 41 years.  As a side note, the clinic’s founder, James Tate Mason, was formerly Black Diamond’s company doctor.  As King County Coroner, Mason also led the investigation into the 1915 Ravensdale explosion.  Mason’s daughter was named Virginia, and that’s how the organization was named.

Ten months after the accident, Anton Kombol’s L & I claim was approved, and he was awarded a $40 monthly pension.  The three older children, Bernell, Dana, and Nola, were each awarded $5 per month.  Jack, at age 5, was given $7.50, and Nadine, age 3, received $12.50 per month, totaling $75 per month for the family of seven. The Kombols also received an immediate payment of $3,955 for Tony’s lost vision and partial hearing loss.

The Dept of Labor & Industries accident report and calculation of benefits under Claim No. 329482, for Anton Kombol, his wife, Lulu, and their five children, Bernell, Dana, Nola, Laverne (Jack), and Nadine.

The Kombol family’s troubles were not yet over.  Two years after the accident, likely in 1927, when polio saw its worst outbreak since 1916, their second son, Jack, contracted the devastating disease.  It landed him in bed for more than a year and kept him from attending school.  At home, Tony cared for him, as Lulu taught during the school year.

Then, their second daughter, Nola, became a very nervous, tense, and active child.  So much so that she developed fevers, which would last a week, and was bedridden.  Lulu took her to a child specialist who advised, “Keep her away from other children as she wears herself out keeping up with them or excelling them.”  A decision was made to send Nola to live with William Reese and his wife in the Mount Baker area of Seattle.  Nola lived with the childless Reeses until about 1930, when Mr. Reese, still the State Coal Mine Inspector, died.

The first year after the accident, Lulu was hired as a teacher in Cumberland through the influence of a friend.  It had been twelve years since teaching in Ravensdale.  Lulu started teaching 3rd and 4th grade on September 3, 1926.  She was paid $100 per month, or $1,200 for the school term.  Lulu Kombol continued teaching full-time for another 40 years until 1965, the year she turned 80. She remained a substitute teacher several years thereafter.

In 1937, Mrs. Lulu Kombol was teaching grades 1 & 2 in Selleck.

Tony never again found gainful employment. He played an early version of a house husband, taking care of the animals and performing household chores.  From my second to fifth birthdays, our family lived in Elk Coal, one-half mile from Grandma and Papa.  Sometimes I’d be dropped off with Papa for babysitting.  I remember following him during chores, napping in their bedroom, and Papa making me tomato soup for lunch.

Tony lived to the ripe old age of 82, spending the final weeks of his life with Jack and Pauline and their four children, to be closer to medical services in Enumclaw.  Lulu survived him by ten years, passing away in January 1977, at age 91.  They are buried together at the Enumclaw Cemetery near three of their children.

So, on this, the one hundredth anniversary of that fateful day, we salute brave Anton Kombol with a solemn adieu, farewell Papa, adieu.

Tony Kombol at a family party, circa 1965.

 

 

 

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My Living Theater

A collage of nine of my favorite plays.

April 1975 – the final quarter of college and the end of 17 years of schooling. My afternoon job at Rogers No. 3 coal mine conveniently came to an end.  Six months of 17-hour days driving from Enumclaw to Seattle, attending classes at U.W., studying, then on to Ravensdale for eight hours of grimy work, showering in the washhouse, with a half-hour drive back home, to bed by midnight, only to repeat the process six or seven hours later.  It wore me down.  I wanted to retire.  Spring break was my last week, thankfully on the day shift.

That quarter provided a fresh beginning. Though only one college credit shy of graduating, I took a full schedule of 14 credits, including two finance classes to round out my Economics degree. Expanding my interests, I chose a two-credit Home Ec class in nutrition, one credit for tennis, plus a three-credit class called The Living Theater.

Growing up I had zero interest in theater and never even went to a school play during high school.  I did attend one musical my senior year – the Who’s Tommy, presented at the Moore Theater, with a little-known, Bette Midler as the Acid Queen.  In May of my freshman year, I saw a touring company’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Program cover from the Who’s Tommy presented at the Moore Theater, 1971.

My true interest in theater grew one Sunday afternoon during the summer of 1973 while reading Rex Reed’s movie reviews in the Seattle P-I.  Reed highlighted a just-announced collection of filmed plays to be presented in movie theaters, on a limited basis, and only by subscription.  The American Film Theatre, produced by Eli Landau filmed eight stagings of top theatrical works all featuring notable actors.  Each film would be shown just four times, and exclusively at 500 select movie theaters across the nation.

I convinced Mom to subscribe and Dad joined, as well as Aunt Betty and Uncle Charlie Falk.  The local showings were at the Crossroads Theater, east of Bellevue.  I was a junior at the U.W. and each month drove my 1967 Renault across the I-90 floating bridge to meet the folks with an occasional dinner beforehand.  In the “don’t trust anyone over 30” atmosphere of the early 1970s, a sentiment, I roundly rejected, it was a thrill to hang with my parents, aunt, and uncle, all comfortably in their late 40s and early 50s.  I took pride in having launched this event to see the best of Broadway.  The ushers even handed out real playbills!

Among the plays we saw: The Homecoming, A Delicate Balance, Butley, Rhinoceros, and Three Sisters.  But, the greatest theatrical event in my estimation was The Iceman Cometh starring Lee Marvin as Hickey, a traveling salesman in an all-star cast of Robert Ryan, Frederick March, Bradford Dillman, and a young Jeff Bridges.  The Iceman Cometh was four hours long, three acts, and two intermissions.  It showcased Eugene O’Neill’s story of dead-enders with delusional pipe dreams who stayed drunk in Harry Hopes’ last chance saloon and boarding house to avoid facing the world.

That introduction to serious drama couldn’t have come at a better time.  We subscribed for the second season that featured Galileo, In Celebration, and The Man in the Glass Booth.  Unfortunately, the major Hollywood studios pressured local theaters to cancel American Film Theater screenings and the enterprise thereafter collapsed.

But I was now hooked on stage productions.  The Living Theater class, in the engineering department of all places, was my new ticket to more serious drama.  In addition to learning about the structure of plays and the various venues where they’re presented, students were required to attend seven live plays at the three theaters on campus, including the revered Showboat, a floating auditorium moored in Portage Bay.  In addition, I saw three off-campus productions including Death of a Salesman at Tacoma’s U.P.S. and a pair of Tom Stoppard offerings at Seattle’s Second Stage.

Theater of the Absurd – Which performance?

The Living Theater class really sharpened my prose as we were required to write reviews of the required plays.  One performance wasn’t on the syllabus but really piqued my imagination.  It was a double-feature of two short plays by Tom Stoppard, After Magritte and The Real Inspector Hound at the Second Stage theatre. The Second Stage was affiliated with the Seattle Repertory Theatre and typically presented more experimental shows.

The Second Stage theatre program for Tom Stoppard’s, “After Magritte” and “The Real Inspector Hound” – April 28, 1975

Both Stoppard offerings were from a dramatic style called the Theatre of the Absurd – plays that reject traditional storytelling by focusing on what happens when narrative communication breaks down.  In late April, I took Mom to see the double feature and wrote the following review, trying to capture the surreal and absurd nature of what we saw, both on stage and off.

“Reality”

We come on the sloop John B
my dear mother and me.

We entered the Second Stage arena well before show time, found two second-row seats, and proceeded to experience the sights and sounds of the theater.

I pointed out all the Seattle luminaries listed as Second Stage supporters. Behind us, a woman in her middle fifties, whom we were going to encounter frequently as the night progressed, made the same observation. Our eavesdropping skills were in top form so my mother and I proceeded to monitor this woman’s conversations the rest of the night.

“Oh, look here, Christopher Bailey is on the list of supporters. I wonder what night he comes?”

Accompanied by two other women (from their conversations, I assumed the talkative one to be a grandmother with her daughter, and a friend), Mrs. Chatterbox, which my mother appropriately christened her, spoke, “There’s Lori.”

Lori was one of three girls of high school age who were ushers. Lori, it turned out, was also the garrulous grandmother’s granddaughter.

“Now why doesn’t she seat those people over there, plenty of good seats right there. I was shopping today and . . . oh, look, who is that?  Isn’t that Jean Enersen?”

The daughter replied, “Yes, that girl on Seattle Today. No, that isn’t Jean Enersen, it’s that Shirley, yes Shirley.”

“Isn’t that Jean Enersen, the blonde one on King Newservice,” the loquacious grandmother butted in.

“It’s Shirley, that girl on Seattle Today.”

“Now where is Lori going to seat her?  Look, Lori is putting that Jean Enersen in those good seats. I wonder why SHE gets those seats. Just because she’s on TV.”

“That isn’t Jean Enersen. It’s that Shirley.”

“Well, whoever it is, there’s seats over there, Lori,” the grandmother commands as if she’s talking to her granddaughter who must be fifty feet away.

The play begins. After Magritte is a delightfully surrealistic, satirical takeoff on something resembling a mystery or Sherlock Holmes type of script.

At intermission, the fun continues. Lori, the usher comes over to visit with her mother and grandmother. Mrs. Chatterbox asks, “Wasn’t that Jean Enersen you seated, Lori? Why did she get such good seats?”

The mother responds, “That’s Shirley, the girl on Seattle Today, not Jean Enersen.”

Lori tells her tale of what the ‘snobby’ Jean Enersen or Shirley said. In a mock voice, she repeats, “We don’t want THESE seats, I would prefer being seated there.”

“Who does she think she is?” the grandmother retorts.  Lori and her two usher friends giggle and tell of their other experiences as ushers.

Mrs. Chatterbox again, “Look now, that Jean Enersen is leaving, what, doesn’t she like the play? I can’t stand her anyway.  Did you see her show yesterday when they had that psychologist who talked about symbols? I absolutely detest that show.”

“That’s not Jean Enersen. It’s that Shirley on Seattle Today.”

“Well whatever, look, she’s not coming back. After getting those good seats, she goes and leaves in the middle of the play.  I can’t stand her show. That psychologist explained what it means if you like . . . uh, I mean, uh . . . relate to a circle, a square, a triangle, or a Z.  I draw circles and that means . . .” as she proceeded to give a lengthy pop-Freudian interpretation to drawing circles.

The Real Inspector Hound was another trip into the fantasy world of the absurd. Eventually, the critics attending the supposed play were involved in the fun, murder, and intrigue as critics became players and the players became critics.

Leaving the theater at the end of the plays, I turned to my mother and asked, “Well, what did you think of those shows?  Rather unreal, huh?”

She replied, “Which performance?”

By William Kombol
April 28, 1975
HSS 451, Jack Leahy, Assoc. Professor

Professor Leahy gave me an ‘A’ for the class, writing, “

Great!  You ought to be a playwright.  This is a funny paper.  I don’t quite know why, but the Repertory seems to attract these kinds of audiences – try opening night at a regular Rep presentation – it’s downright awesome, but very much a part of theater.  The Elizabethans were the same. And that’s what makes it fun.  Very much enjoyed reading this paper.”

The first page of my review, titled “Reality” with the professor’s handwritten comments.
My interest in theater grew.

My interest in theater grew with each new play I saw.  I kept programs and playbills from most performances and usually stapled the ticket stub to the cover.  While writing this essay I made a quick count of the collection which totals over 300, though some were lost.  In the early years, I primarily saw were dramas.  Back then only the biggest musicals yielded touring companies. But any musical with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s name attached found me attending.

Through all of them, Tom Stoppard remained my favorite playwright.  And with each new play of his I saw, so did my admiration.  Stoppard’s plays are first produced in the United Kingdom, and only his most successful make it to the U.S.  Still, I’ve been able to see most of his best including the breakout hit, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Thing, Arcadia, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Leopoldstadt, his most recent.  With the advent of audio plays, I’ve listened to the lion’s share of the rest, including the mesmerizing Darkside, inspired by Pink Floyd’s 1973 album.  Stoppard is generally considered the greatest living English language playwright.  His most popular film adaptation is Shakespeare in Love.

In addition to seeing live performances, these days I’m more often listening to the likes of L.A. Theater Works or other recordings found on Libby and Audible.  It may not be for everyone, but when you’re hooked on live drama, an audio play will do quite nicely.

Below are some of my favorite audio plays:

Broadway Bound – In my estimation, Neil Simon’s concluding comedic drama of an autobiographical trilogy, may be one of the finest works of the 20th century.  It mixes humor with pathos and when you’re not laughing you might just find yourself shedding a tear.  The L.A. Theater Works audio production is superb.

Copenhagen – This weighty play explores the ethics and morality of developing the atomic bomb. Michael Frayn, one of England’s leading playwrights explores the real-life 1941 meeting between Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist, and Werner Heisenberg, Germany’s leading nuclear scientist. There are two audio versions – pick the one starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Heisenberg.

The Real Thing is generally considered Tom Stoppard’s best.  Its focus is broken marriages, adultery, and the nature of love, more specifically the real thing, interspersed with two plays within the play we’re seeing.

Arcadia, another Stoppard favorite explores the relationship between past and present, order and disorder, certainty and uncertainty, plus the nature of evidence and truth in history, mathematics, and physics.  It’s a complex play that requires several listening’s to fully understand. 

Darkside is probably Stoppard’s most approachable audio play, as it was written as such to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.  It’s 45 minutes long with philosophical dialogue interspersed with music from the album. It’s a play you can listen to time and time again and still hear something fresh.

Post script: Ian Hunter’s 1981 song, “Theater of the Absurd” doesn’t really rise to what playwrights of that style are trying to achieve. Still it’s an amusing song and Hunter, former lead singer in Mott the Hoople is one of my favorites, so here’s a video link with lyrics:

https://youtu.be/OFdfm77R9is?si=Orj8d3nlt0md5tlo

 

 

 

 

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History

Jack and Tony Kombol – Coal Miners

Jack Kombol stands beside the Koehring 405 dragline that he operated for Palmer Coking Coal Co. at their McKay Section 18 surface coal mine, 1977.

In this 1977 photo on Franklin Hill, east of Black Diamond, Jack Kombol stands beside the dragline he operated for Palmer Coking Coal (Palmer) at the McKay-Section 18 surface coal mine.  The Koehring 405 had an excavating shovel bucket to move overburden and extract coal.  The light-colored rock in the background was the sandstone bedrock laying above and below the McKay coal seam that tilted at about 45 degrees to the surface.  This photo comes courtesy of Lou Corsaletti, who authored several articles about the coal industry in southeast King County.

After closing the last underground coal mine in Washington, Palmer began surface mining this seam to supply Washington State with fuel to heat institutions like the Shelton Correction Center, and Monroe Reformatory.

Jack Kombol was born at his family’s rental home in the tiny and short-lived town of Hiawatha.  The homes were provided by Northwest Improvement Company (NWI) to house workers at their Hiawatha coal mine located midway between Kanaskat and Kangley.  The mine was designed to replace the Ravensdale Mine, whose Nov. 16, 1915 explosion claimed the lives of 31 miners.  Jack’s father, Tony Kombol, worked at the Ravensdale mine but was sent home early that dreadful Tuesday.  Like many unemployed coal miners, Tony Kombol left Ravensdale and found work in Arizona and Montana copper mines.  Jack’s mother, Lulu (Shircliff) Kombol, was a Ravensdale school teacher who similarly lost her job.

The growing Kombol family returned to Washington in early 1919, when Tony rejoined NWI at their new Hiawatha mine.  However, the mine was riddled with problems and dangers.  Two miners, Joseph Ripoli, Italian, and John Panotas, Greek, suffered fatal accidents during the mine’s brief five-year history that produced meager amounts of coal.  Tony Kombol, who at age 17 emigrated to the U.S. from Croatia in 1902, soon found work at the nearby Parkin Kangley Coal Company mine.  It was located less than a mile north of the Hiawatha home that the family of seven continued to rent from NWI.

On August 7, 1925, Tony Kombol was severely disabled when an errant dynamite explosion blinded him at the Parkin Kangley mine.  He spent 30 days in the hospital but couldn’t return to work due to a full disability for which he received a $40 monthly pension plus a $35 monthly stipend for five children, all under the age of 10.  Lulu Kombol returned to work as a school teacher in Selleck and Cumberland to support the family.

A year or so later his second son, and fourth child, Jack contracted polio at age six or seven forcing an absence from school that lasted nearly two years.  After recovering, one of Jack’s legs was shorter than the other.  He attended Selleck school through the 8th grade then went to Enumclaw High School.  Being two years older than fellow students and not particularly academic, he dropped out during his junior year.

Because of a polio-shortened leg, Jack was unfit for service during World War II and moved to Seattle where he drove garbage, tanker, and tow trucks.  After the war, he primarily worked in the woods where he drove log trucks and operated equipment for his brother’s logging company, Bernell Kombol & D.L. Holcomb, and at his cousin-in-law’s firm, Woodrow Gauthier of Gauthier Brothers Lumber and Logging.

Kombol found a new logging job in Northern California and relocated there in early 1950.  Pauline Morris, an Enumclaw girl whose father and uncles owned Palmer Coking Coal, soon followed.  The couple married in Crescent City later that year.  Jack joined Palmer in 1952 and worked for the company until his death in April 1979 at age 57.

Jack and Pauline’s son, Bill Kombol began writing “When Coal Was King” in May 2007.  The position evolved after his youngest son’s Cub Scout troop visited the Maple Valley newspaper, Voice of the Valley.  There, Bill learned that the publisher had recently lost a columnist and volunteered for the job.

And the rest, as they say, is History.

This story originally appeared in the July 17, 2023 issue, Voice of the Valley, which would have been Jack Kombol’s 103rd birthday.

 

 

Categories
History

Tony and Lulu’s Story

Tony Kombol and Lulu Shircliff, sometime before their 1914 wedding.

Their stories began in 1885.  That January, a baby boy was born in Fuzine, Croatia.  His name was Anton Kombol, the same as his father. When baby Anton was born, Croatia was a provincial kingdom within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Fuzine is a village in the Primorje-Gorski-Kotar region about six miles from the coast, but 2,400 feet above sea level, and 30 miles from the largest regional city of Rijeka.

Little is known of Anton’s early life in Fuzine.  Though he was Croatian by birth, the Kombol family surname derived from French immigrants who first settled in the region during the Napoleonic era.  The earliest recorded birth of a Kombol in Croatia was Ivan born to Martin and Ana Kombol about 1810 in the village of Bribir, around 20 miles southeast of Fuzine and near the coast.  Ivan married Matejka Grenko, while his son, Anton married Franciska Mihaljevic, baby Anton’s mother.

A 1968 postcard photo of Fuzine, Croatia.

Through actions at the 1815 Congress of Vienna after the fall of Napoleon, this area of Croatia was absorbed into the Austrian Empire and later the combined empire jointly administered with Hungary. The primary local industries were woodworking and furniture-making.  As Anton grew towards adulthood that would be his likely future if the Austrian army didn’t call first.

Over 5,000 miles west, baby Lulu’s prospects seemed bright.  The Brown family was well respected and her mother, Jennie Brown at age 17, was noted as “one of our most attractive young ladies.”  Walla Walla, with a population of 3,500 was the largest city in Washington Territory.  Lulu’s father, William Shircliff had recently returned from expeditionary explorations in Alaska, then secured the respected paymaster position at the nearby Army fort.

The couple married on a Thursday evening in early June at the home of Jennie’s parents, Horace and Sarah Brown.  The wedding announcement in the Walla Walla Journal noted that “the groom is clerk to Major D. R. Larned, paymaster, U.S.A., and is one of the finest and most promising young men in existence.”  Mr. and Mrs. Shircliff began housekeeping two days later in a house at the corner of Birch and Seventh Streets.  Shocking for the time, just 10 weeks later a baby girl was born and christened Lulu Mildred Shircliff.

Jennie Brown and William Shircliff, well before their wedding day when she was nearly seven months pregnant.

William Shircliff left Walla Walla the following March, seven months after his daughter’s birth.  He traveled to San Francisco where he was stationed at the army garrison, with promises to soon send for his wife and baby girl – a pledge he never kept.  Jennie pleaded with her husband for money so she and Lulu could move south and join him.  Shircliff ignored her entreaties, so she filed divorce proceedings upon which he was ordered to pay child support.  There’s no record of whether Shircliff paid or not, but within two years he moved to Washington D.C.  As far as we know, Lulu never again saw her father.

Lulu Shircliff as a baby in Walla Walla, 1886.

Three years later Lulu’s mother, Jennie remarried and moved onto Ransom Holcomb’s farm on the Cowlitz River south of Toledo, Washington.  Lulu remained in Walla Walla with her grandmother until age 11, when she joined her new family and two baby brothers, Ransom and Wyman, 10 and 13 years her junior.  Far from the active world of the small town she’d known in Walla Walla, on the farm Lulu experienced an old-fashioned life in a remote but exciting place – a farm filled with cows, pigs, ducks, goats, and chickens.  The farm produced eggs, cream, cheese, milk, and hay, all of which were used to sustain the family and farmhands with excess sold to Portland merchants downstream.

Farm life was busy with Lulu assisting her mother in making hearty breakfasts for her stepfather, uncle, and hired men.  After breakfast, animals were fed and chores began.  Milk was skimmed and the thick cream churned to butter.  Crocks and milk pails were meticulously washed in hot soapy water and then placed on slotted shelves to dry.  The remaining hours were spent baking bread, making cheese, and doing typical chores like ironing, sewing, and cleaning.

The farm was self-sufficient except for staples such as green-bean coffee which they hand roasted.  Most foodstuffs were grown on the farm: potatoes, carrots, turnips, pumpkins, oats, and wheat.  The family’s orchards supplied fresh produce in season, with the majority canned to provide fruit for the rest of the year.  Bee hives pollinated spring blossoms and provided honey for the family. Evening hours were short and illuminated by oil lamps.  Early to bed was only occasionally delayed by card games, reading books, or singing as her mother played guitar.

During the school year, Lulu walked about a mile each way.  There in a one-room schoolhouse, 15 or so students of all ages were taught.  Later when attending Chehalis High School, Lulu moved away from the farm because the commuting distance was too far.  She boarded with different families the first year, then rented an apartment with another farm girl her junior and senior years.  The Chehalis Superintendent, Mr. Thompson encouraged her to pursue a teaching career and allowed Lulu to miss classes anytime a substitute was needed.

Lulu Shirclifff sporting a large white bow, 2nd row, 2nd from right with her 1904 graduating class.

After graduation, Lulu’s future brightened.  A vacancy in grade school landed her a series of full-time jobs, albeit with limited credentials.  In 1906, her stepfather traveled to Alaska where he suddenly died.  Ransom Holcomb was always interested in Lulu’s education and had left her money for that purpose.  The following September, Lulu enrolled at the Teacher’s College in Bellingham where she earned a teacher’s certificate.

Meanwhile, back in Croatia, Anton was anxious about life.  The following year he’d turn 18 and risked being drafted into the Austrian army.  Two older brothers, John and Matt had emigrated to Roslyn and found work in coal mines with good wages.  So Anton decided to leave his family and village behind to join his brothers in America.

Anton traveled to the port city of Rijeka embarking on a steamer to Le Havre, France.  He crossed the English Channel to Southampton where he boarded the St. Louis on a nine-day voyage across the Atlantic that landed him on New York’s Ellis Island.  The next day, this 17-year-old boy who spoke no English, boarded a train for a five-day trip across the country.  On Christmas Day 1902, Anton rode that train carrying a loaf of bread and a promise of what his future might hold.  Within a month, he turned 18 and was working in a coal mine.

Matt, John, and Anton Kombol in the early 1900s, likely in Rosyln.
Both Tony and Lulu move to Ravensdale

Their worlds grew closer in 1908 – a pivotal year for both.  After laboring six years in Roslyn’s coal mines Tony, as he came to be known moved to greener pastures in Ravensdale.  There he worked for the same company as in Roslyn, the Northwest Improvement Company (NWI).  It was owned by the Northern Pacific Railway whose locomotives burned millions of tons of black diamonds every year.  That year, Tony also submitted his declaration to become a U.S. citizen.

Deciding a teacher’s pay in Centralia was not sufficient to her tastes, Lulu chose a job in Ravensdale where the best wages were paid.  This was probably because it was an unruly mining town, lacking middle-class families and culture, so coal companies needed to pay top wages to attract the young women who increasingly filled the ranks.  There she boarded at reduced rates with families who valued the literacy a teacher brought into their homes.  Convenient rail access also provided Lulu with opportunities to attend top plays and musicals in Tacoma or Seattle, where she traveled on weekend excursions and stayed with friends.

Lulu Shircliff, with her class of Ravensdale school children, 1913.
Tony Kombol, upper right with the Northwest Improvement Company bunker crew, 1913.

How Tony and Lulu met is lost to time.  But it wouldn’t be difficult in a town of 725, according to 1913 census figures.  In June 1914, Tony purchased a plot of land just north of Kent-Kangley Road and built a home for his soon-to-be bride.  They exchanged wedding vows on August 4th.  The newlyweds were 29 years of age, gainfully employed, and seemingly settled into a good life.

Tony Kombol in front of the home he built, 1914. The home still stands at 27521 S.E. 271st St., Ravensdale, WA 98051.

A few days before their nuptials, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.  Then France and Germany declared war against each other setting in motion the start of World War I.  Had Tony still lived in Croatia, he would have been drafted as Austria mobilized.  By the war’s end, 20 million lay dead with another 21 million wounded.  The 1919 Treaty of Versailles created a new country called Yugoslavia, meaning South Slavs, formed from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro.

Fifteen months later, on November 16, 1915, their happy home was shattered by a mine explosion that claimed 31 miners’ lives.  The Ravendale tragedy was the third worst coal mine disaster in Washington state history. The mine was utterly destroyed by the deadly blast, and the company had little interest in reopening.  Tony might have been lost as well if a blown fuse hadn’t crippled the hoisting machinery that brought coal to the surface, sending 100 miners home that morning.

Ravensdale mine explosion that killed 37 miners, Nov. 16, 1915.

Miners left Ravensdale in droves.  With the abrupt termination of over 230 mining jobs, there was little value in the new home Tony had built for his bride.  By 1920, Ravensdale’s population fell 75% to 187 residents.  Most left town in search of new jobs.

To Arizona and Montana, then back to Washington

Tony left for Arizona the next month and Lulu followed a few months later, probably at the end of the school year, though enrollment had no doubt fallen precipitously.  In Ray Arizona, Tony found work in the copper mines.  The couple also saw the birth of their first child in June 1916, a baby boy they named Bernell.  A year later Montana beckoned with yet another copper mining job and yet another baby this time a girl named Dana born in March 1918.

Looking for new opportunities Tony left for Alaska but stopped in Washington to see William Reese, the Northwest Improvement mine superintendent with whom he was friendly.  NWI was the company Tony had worked for since coming to America.  It was opening a new mine to be called Hiawatha, located about five miles east of Ravensdale.  Tony agreed to join the effort.  Since NWI had not yet moved homes to Hiawatha to house their employees, Tony took up residency in Durham.  Lulu soon arrived and the following year so did their third child, Nola born in Aug. 1919.

As miners dug the tunnels and built the surface facilities to mine coal, NWI moved or built about 20 company houses in Hiawatha.  Tony and Lulu’s fourth and fifth children, Jack and Nadine were born at home in July 1921 and August 1923.  One of those Hiawatha dwellings became the family’s home for the next 50 years.

In a strange twist of fate, the Morris Brothers Coal Mining Company incorporated in Dec. 1921 and shortly thereafter purchased the entire town of Durham – the mines, bunkers, houses, and hotels.  All of the large and extended Morris family who had lived and mined coal in the Pierce County town of Wilkeson since 1894 moved to Durham.  With Durham less than a mile south of Hiawatha, it was inevitable that Morris and Kombol children would attend the same Selleck and Enumclaw schools and romp through the same neighborhoods.

A map of Durham with each Morris family home and the homes of miners identified.  Some of the miners followed the Morris family from Wilkeson.

The Kombol family glided along smoothly on Tony’s wages from mining coal while Lulu, who had quit teaching after the Ravensdale disaster tended to five small children.  But, 1925 threw the Kombol family a nasty curve ball.  An errant dynamite shot exploded in Tony’s face blinding him completely and speckling his skin with tiny bits of coal.  Though an operation partially restored his sight, he could no longer work in the coal mines but only perform chores around home.  Tony became Mr. Mom to five children under the age of 10, while Lulu went back to work as a school teacher.

Times were tough but the Kombols soldiered on

Their Hiawatha home was small and located on land owned by Northern Pacific Railroad under a 99-year lease.  The main floor measured just over 1,000 square feet with two bedrooms and a sleeping porch upstairs accessed through the back bedroom.  There was a basement underneath with a barn in a field out back.

The seven family members shared rooms as the children grew to adulthood.  They even welcomed relatives, like Rose Kombol who left Roundup, Montana, a small mining community where Tony’s brothers, John and Matt had relocated.  Rose moved west at age 16 and worked at the nearby Durham Hotel, managed by Jonas and Maggie Morris, whose only son, George was a year older than Bernell Kombol.  Rose later married Woodrow Gauthier, a logger and sawmill operator, whose partnership with his brother, Joe Gauthier employed Jack Kombol on numerous occasions during the 1940s and early 1950s.

Jack Kombol and Rose Kombol, planting a tree, 1939.

Times were tough as both the local coal mines and sawmills were subject to economic downturns when commodity prices fell.  The 1929 stock market crash precipitated a Great Depression that persisted through most of the 1930s.  Then in 1939, the Pacific States Lumber Company which owned the town of Selleck was unable to meet its financial obligations and saw all of its land, buildings, lumber, and railroad lines seized by the IRS for nonpayment of taxes.

The following year, former mill employees, Lloyd Qually Sr. and Gust Coukas bought the company out of bankruptcy for just $3,000, when no other bids were submitted.  Qually and Coukas dismantled the mill buildings and salvaged the equipment.  Later Lloyd Qually and his wife, Lucille, who taught school with Lulu, fixed up Selleck’s old company homes and rented them out.  One of those Selleck dwellings became Jack and Pauline’s first home soon after their son, Barry was born.

Four of the five Kombol children graduated from high school, except Jack who quit during his junior year.  In chronological order, Nola married Chester Fontana, Bernell married Helmie Sandberg, Dana married Frank Zapitul, Nadine married Joe Silversti, and Jack married Pauline Morris.

From which 11 grandchildren were born, all of whom were present when Tony and Lulu celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in early August 1964.  Lulu, who went back to teaching after Tony’s mine accident, taught school for 44 years and didn’t retire until 1965, the year she turned 80.  Tony passed away on Sept. 21, 1967, the end of a 53-year marriage.  Collectively, the six Kombol couples logged 290 years of marriage.

Their 50th wedding anniversary. Seated: Dana, Tony, Lulu. Standing: Jack, Bernell. Kneeling: Nola, Nadine. Sunday, Aug. 2, 1964.

Less than a year after Tony’s death, Jack and Pauline Kombol with Barry, Bill, Jeanmarie, and Danica in tow, traveled to Europe for six weeks, including a six-day stop in Yugoslavia.  The Kombols visited Jack’s relatives in Rijeka, Fuzine, and Pula, Croatia.  A few weeks later, they traveled to see Pauline’s relatives in Chepstow, Abertillary, and Nant-y-moel, Wales.

Jack Kombol with his cousin, Stefica Roksandic in Pula, June 10, 1968.

Lulu survived Tony by nearly a decade.  She moved out of the family home in early 1974, living her remaining years with daughter, Nola whose husband Chester Fontana died in April 1971.  Barry and Cathy Kombol moved into that Hiawatha home in May 1975 with their recently born daughter, Meaghan.

To My Family

After moving to the Lake City home where Nola had lived since 1940, Lulu began writing her autobiography.  “To My Family” was published on Aug. 27, 1974, her 89th birthday.  Lulu passed away on January 19, 1977, at the age of 91.

Thirty-four years later in 2011, her grandson, Bill Kombol obtained the original transcript of the memoir from Nadine.  On passages written about her father, Lulu scribbled out everything she’d written after receiving an official government document that William Shircliff completed where he failed to list her as his child.

Bill’s extended version was nearly twice as long as the original.  It also included 61 detailed footnotes and 26 photos of Lulu.  A nearly identical version (without photos) of Lulu Kombol’s “To My Family – Extended Version” appears on the Washington state history site, HistoryLink.org.

The Kombol family assemble in Renton for Bill & Jennifer’s wedding reception. Front row kneeling, L-R: Angie Beck, Brendan Kombol, Nolan Kombol, Cara Kombol.  2nd row seated: Eric Brough holding Kyle Brough, Jeanene Brough, Pauline Kombol holding Miranda Lewis, Nadine Silvestri, Dan Silvestri, Corre Kombol, Joe Silvestri holding Lindsey Brough.  3rd row standing: Nola Fontana, Meaghan Kombol, Bernell Kombol, Helmie Kombol, Todd Kombol, Karrin Kombol, Bill Kombol, Jennifer Kombol, Darlene Fontana, Jeff Kombol, David Lewis, Danica Kombol in front of Gerry Beck, Cheryl Beck, July 28, 1990.

Tony & Lulu’s Story was adapted from the eulogy I read at Aunt Nadine’s funeral in October 2019. – Bill Kombol, Sept 21, 2023

 

Categories
History

Working at a Coal Mine

The last coal miners of Rogers #3 mine
LR156b- The morning and afternoon shifts of coal miners in the front of the washhouse of the last underground coal mine in the State of Washington: the Rogers #3 Mine located at 26222 S.E. Kent-Kangley Road in Ravensdale. Front Row (L to R): Joe Ozbolt (kneeling), James Bo Williams, John Costanich (kneeling), Tony Basselli, Bill McLoughry. Back Row: Bob Morris, Bill Kombol, Barry Kombol, George Savicke, Bud Simmons, Roy Darby, John Streepy. Photo by Bob Morris, 1975.

My senior year of college was as different as night and day.  It wasn’t my original plan. By day, I inhabited the rarified air of life at a university where young men and women, often preening boys and girls, proffered great thoughts fueled by a steady diet of pot and booze.  At night, I worked in a coal mine with gray-haired men at jobs they’d performed their entire lives.

I was bemused by the attitudes and mindsets of the two cultures.  For me, it was the best and worst of times – the most wonderful and dreadful of any span of my then young life.  I was fully exhilarated and completely exhausted – a caterpillar in search of a butterfly to escape a cocoon of his own making.  For years I’ve struggled to reconcile the feelings and emotions within those discordant worlds I simultaneously ingested.

I’d grown increasingly bored with college phonies fretting over which grad school to attend.  I was steadily drawn to the stoic lives of coal miners.  My fellow undergrads bemoaned petty stresses of their own making.  Each day the miners completed the tasks set before them.  The grad school gang imagined chic careers with grand salaries.  The coal miners were content with life and their position in it.

In early September 1974, I prepared to return for my last year of college.  Over three summers past, I worked for Palmer Coking Coal, a family-owned company.  My jobs were common laboring at the Black Diamond yard and Rogers #3 mine.  That mine was a succession of Rogers #1 and #2, started in 1958 and 1959 respectively.  Located in Ravensdale, Rogers #3 was slated to close in less than a year.  It would be the last underground coal mine in the State of Washington.

End of the shift
That’s me at shift’s end and covered with coal dust on one of my rare day shifts. The Rogers #3 hoist room and mine tipple are up the hill behind me.  Photo by Barry Kombol, April 1975

My uncle, Jack Morris was President of Palmer.  He was navigating the company’s exit from the coal business, as gracefully as possible.  It was a tough time for the firm.  Jack was drinking heavily, and Palmer’s fortunes were not promising.  There were sharp disagreements between three uncles, Jack, Evan Morris, and Charlie Falk, who collectively led the firm.  I was thankfully unaware of building tensions and unresolved rivalries. I just turned 21.  Little did I know that leadership of this company would one day fall to me.

Evan Morris, Sr. on the platform beside the portal entrance into the Rogers #3 mine.  The sloped tunnel descended 800 feet underground.  December 1974.

Federal coal inspectors were bearing down on small mines like Palmer’s.  Our operation didn’t fit the template for a subsurface coal mine.  The Rogers coal seam stood nearly vertical, while most coal mines operate on horizontal planes, the way sedimentary formations containing coal seams are naturally deposited.  The plate tectonic which uplifted the Cascade Mountains altered the local Ravensdale geology to a rare condition – a vein of coal tilted to more than 80º.  Underground mine regulations hadn’t been written for that kind of operation.

Coal seams in this area of Ravensdale stood nearly vertical as seen in this geologic cross section. – Golder Associates.

Most men who worked at Rogers #3 were lifelong coal miners.  All were in their late 50s and early 60s, except for a cousin, Bob Morris; my brother, Barry Kombol, and me.  Two dozen miners had retired over the previous eight years, but enough experienced men remained allowing Palmer to finish its underground mine while honoring contracts supplying coal to State prisons.  Palmer’s management was mindful of the decades those miners had worked in the industry and sensitive to union pensions that hung in the balance.  A few more years would strengthen each miner’s retirement payout.

One day in early September, Jack pulled me aside and asked if I’d work the afternoon shift while attending college.  It was my senior year where an easy slide towards graduation was a natural expectation.  Jack explained I’d earn the wage rate under the United Mine Workers contract to which Palmer was bound.  A Grade 2, Tipple Attendant made $45.93 per day.  That UMW day rate was the equivalent of $32 per hour in today’s currency.  To a money-hungry lad like me, that sounded awfully enticing.  I talked it over with my folks and a decision was made.

Surface facilities at Rogers #3. The tipple to the left and load out bunkers to the right.  Photo by Don Mason, early 1970s.

The afternoon shift was from 3 – 11 pm, so it made sense to live at home.  My first three years of college were spent at Pi Kappa Phi, where I enjoyed the camaraderie of fraternity brothers plus the assorted characters who boarded in spare rooms.  Ours was a frat house with a classical facade, good cooks, and two hot meals a day.  Staying at home would make me a “townie,” so I’d only pay fraternity dues plus the meal rate for lunch, a significant saving over full room and board.  I drove my parent’s 1968 Renault, an unusual car in those days – basically a Volkswagen Bug for cheapskates.  The no-frills Renault got good mileage, had a stick shift on the floor, with an A.M. radio.  What else could I possibly need?

My schedule was grueling.  Monday through Friday, I was up at 6 am, fixing breakfast while Mom packed my evening dinner in a metal lunch bucket.  I loved yogurt and back then little was sold in stores, so Mom cultured her own which I ate from a squat thermos.  She, Pauline (Morris) Kombol was herself, a coal miner’s daughter.

I left Enumclaw every morning at 7 am.  Traffic was light with far less congestion than today’s clogged freeways.  Interstate 5 was a breeze with only occasionally slowdowns.  I arrived at the University of Washington campus about 8 am, parked at the fraternity, then walked to my 8:30 class.  My first break came at 9:30, so for an hour I studied at the Husky Union Building, and then sped off to my 10:30 and 11:30 classes.  By 12:30 pm, I rambled back to the fraternity for lunch, studied for an hour, and left Seattle at 1:45 arriving at the Ravensdale mine by 2:45 pm.

Joe Ozbolt, left and James ‘Bo’ Williams, right inside the Rogers #3 washhouse. Photo by Charlie Falk, February 1975.

In the washhouse, I joined other miners where we changed from street clothes to working gear.  There were only six miners per shift, but I was exclusively night shift so worked with alternating crews each week. We walked up a slight hill to the hoist room and met the day crew coming from the mine.  Our counterparts were greeted and a light banter exchanged.  The afternoon shift started at 3 pm, lasting eight hours including a dinner break.  My job involved standing at a waist-high metal platform, where coal was separated from rock.  It was called the picking table and I was its operator.  The picking table was located in the belly of a triangular wooden structure called the tipple.

A loaded coal car is being dumped from the top of tipple into the chute below. The picking table was behind the silver-colored sheet metal above the dumptruck where waste material was collected before being hauled to the rock dump.  Photo by Bill Kombol, April 1975.

The job was simple – push coal to the right and rock to the left.  There was one primary goal: don’t let rocks smash your fingers, lest you wind up with a throbbing fingernail rapidly turning purple.  Still, it happened, and no matter how long you sucked that pulsing finger, the pain lingered.  Sometimes it hurt so much, you had to heat a sewing needle red hot then drill down through the nail to release the pounding pressure caused when blood rushed to repair the wound.

The picking table was six feet wide and about two feet deep.  The left third featured a hinged trap-door balanced by a pulley and weight.  When 100 pounds or more of rock accumulated on that side, a trap door released the waste material that fell into a dump truck below.  The large chunks of coal which landed on the table were pushed right into a crusher and broken into small pieces.

Barry Kombol, ready at the picking table – notice how clean he is at the start of a shift.  Photo by Bill Kombol, April 1975.  
A Moulden & Sons dump truck filling up with coal to be hauled to Palmer’s Mine #11 yard in Black Diamond for further processing.  Photo by Bill Kombol, April 1975.

Above me was a chute regularly filled with coal and rock brought from the mine and dumped from the tipple above.  A slanted door of thick steel, opened and closed by an electric motor, regulated how much coal came through that chute.  After falling down, the coal mix vibrated over a sloped screen with square openings.  The smaller-sized pieces (less than 4” in diameter) dropped onto a conveyor belt and were carried to the loadout bunker.

The slanted door on the chute had to be set to just the right level.  Opened too much and excessive coal crashed down, blinding the screen, and left the picking table a cluttered mess.  If the avalanche was too large you couldn’t separate the rock from coal fast enough and both ended up discarded.  But when not opened enough, the screening process slowed, and the next coal car to dump was stalled, disrupting the entire operation.  Getting it right was fairly easy when coal was uniform, and rocks were small.  But sometimes, large chunks of sharp-angled sandstone and sedimentary rock jammed between the chute door and vibrating screen.  The rocks wedged together at such awkward angles that none could break through the hatchway.  The bind got so nasty that rocks were stuck even with a fully opened door.

When that happened, I rushed to the hoist room and told the operator to stop pulling cars from the mine.  The hoist-man operated a large spool, six feet across upon which was wound 1,000 feet of 1” thick steel cable.  It resembled a gigantic fishing reel.  The cable spun through a bull-wheel atop the tipple providing leverage needed for pulling five-ton coal cars up from the bottom of the mine.  After the car was dumped, the hoist operator braked against gravity, allowing the car to free-wheel down rails tracks along the 48º slope, through a mine opening called the portal.

A closeup of Bill McLoughry operating the hoist. The drum and steel cable are in the background.  Photo by Barry Kombol, April 1974.

With coal cars stopped, I ran back to the picking table and turned off the vibrating screen.  I climbed up and with a long metal pry bar tried dislodging rocks to coax them through the door.  If that didn’t work, I’d pound repeatedly with a sledgehammer to break the burly rocks into smaller pieces that could fit through.  Sometimes the clog was so bad, the hoist man joined me as we tried to get things moving.  Some nights the work was so grueling my body was drained in sweat.

Hoist operators: Roy Darby, top left; Frank Manowski, top right; and Bob Morris, below.

Other nights the coal was so perfectly sized that 95% of the mix cruised through the screen.  The few melon-sized chunks which dropped to the picking table were easy to handle and my job was a breeze.  After screening five tons, I had plenty of idle time awaiting the next coal car’s arrival at the top of the tipple.

A bucket seat salvaged from an old sports car had been set up in the picking table chamber.  Trips arrived every six to eight minutes, and I usually screened a carload in two to three minutes giving me several minutes between loads.  In between, I read my textbooks perhaps a page or two, until the next car arrived.  Its approach was signaled by the pitch of the whirring cable and sway of the tipple.  When coal and rock crashed into the hopper above, that meant another five tons to screen.

The rail tracks leading to the portal opening, seen mid-photo as the darkest area. This photo of the portal opening into the mine was taken from atop the tipple looking down.  Photo by Bill Kombol, April 1975.

From time to time, I emptied the dump truck parked below.  After 10 to 12 tons of rock dropped through the trap door to the waiting dump box, I scurried down, jumped in the truck, drove to the rock dump, and emptied the load.  The truck was dumped five or six times a night depending on the percentage of rock to coal.  I needed to be fast, as coal cars kept emerging from the mine.

On nights when coal wasn’t hoisted, I rode a coal car 800 feet underground to work with the miners.  There I performed laboring tasks – sometimes drilling coal and loading dynamite.  Other nights I helped set timber props that held up the roof of the mine.  Or cleaned coal spilled on rail tracks.

Bill Kombol handing John Costanich a stick of dynamite ready for loading into a drill hole.  Photo by Barry Kombol, April 1974.
With a long plastic pole Bill Kombol helps John Costanich (on platform above) push the dynamite to the top of the drill hole.  Dummy bags were put in last to plug the hole and ensure a successful blast.  Photo by Barry Kombol, April 1974.

The most mindless job was filling dummy bags with loose clay used for stemming plugs.  After loading a drill hole with a dozen sticks of dynamite, the sausage-sized, clay-filled, paper bags were punched into the end of the hole.  This focused the energy of the explosive force to blast intact coal into thousands of smaller pieces.   Otherwise, the explosion would blow out the bottom of the drill hole, like a firecracker dud.  Dummy bags were in constant use during mining, so I spent hours bagging up a week’s supply or more.

Bill Kombol filling dummy bags and placing the finished sausage-sized bags into an empty dynamite box.  A “dummy bag” was a paper sack filled with clay or shale and used to stem drill holes. The dummy bag was about the same size as a dynamite stick.  After the drill hole was filled with dynamite, several dummy bags were tamped tightly as stemming, so that the dynamite blast would break and loosen the coal rather than simply blow out the end of the hole. “Stemming” means to tamp, plug, or make tight, to ensure a successful shot.  Photo by Barry Kombol, April 1974.

One shift, bored and alone in the crosscut, I turned off my miner’s lamp to see if my eyes could fully adjust to the dark.  It was an experiment.  After 10 minutes, I slowly drew my hand towards my eyes guessing ambient light would illuminate the outline of the appendage, but there was nothing – complete and total darkness.  There was no sound beyond my breathing.  The lack of sight and sound that far below the earth’s surface conjured feelings I’ve never forgotten.

People often asked what it was like working underground.  The best part was a constant temperature somewhere around 50º. There was little air movement except for a slight breeze from fans that ventilated the mine.  We didn’t have to worry about rain, as it was dry except for a stream of underground water that accumulated in a ditch next to the hanging wall.  It flowed to a sump and was pumped outside.  The mine tunnels were supported by a three-piece timber set, consisting of two uprights supporting a cross beam log all tied together by an overhead roof of rugged boards, called lagging.  It was a comfortable working environment, save for the fact everything you touched was black.

At 7 pm, work stopped for our dinner break.  I moseyed down to the hoist room where a pot-bellied coal stove kept the tin shack warm.  On rare occasions, the miners came up from below to warm themselves and join us.  But most nights it was just me and the hoist man, either Roy Darby, Bill McLoughry, my cousin, Bob Morris, or sometimes Frank Manowski.  Pee Wee, the dirty black mine dog hung out in the hoist room.

George Savicke, right eats his lunch while Tony Basselli toasts his sandwich on the pot-bellied coal stove in the hoist room. That night the two miners came out from below for their dinner break.  November 1974.

Dinner break was a time to relax, chat, and eat the meal Mom prepared 12 hours earlier.  Sometimes she packed homemade soup in a thermos, but more often a meat and cheese sandwich, which I toasted atop the hot stove.  I was talkative and conversations with the old coal miners took curious turns.  Almost to a man, they told me to get an education and stay out of the mines.

Following our half-hour pause, it was back to work until 11 pm when our shift ended.  Then I dragged my tired body, covered with sweat and coal dust, down to the wash house where we showered on concrete floors, under three side-by-side spigots.  It was like traveling back to a shoddy version of a junior high locker room.  The hot showers felt good, as did donning clean clothes you’d changed from eight hours earlier.

Pee Wee, the hoist room mine dog carrying a miner’s lunch box ,then seeking attention and perhaps a snack from the miners. Photo by Barry Kombol, April 1974.

Each night, your work clothes were hung from hooks on a wire basket, with gloves and hard hat placed inside.  A chain and pulley hauled the gear to the eve of the wash house where heat naturally accumulated.  If your clothes were wet, they’d be warm and toasty by the following day.  Each Friday, I brought my dirty garments home for Mom to wash.

I was in my car by 11:20 pm for the 20-minute drive back to Enumclaw.  I brushed my teeth and plopped into the same bed I’d slept in since sixth grade.  Falling to sleep each night was the easiest part of my day.  Six hours later, it started all over again – up for breakfast, in my car, and driving to the U.W.

On weekends, I’d sleep till 11 or noon.  I had no life outside of school and work.  All my friends were away so largely I kept to myself.  Some Saturday nights, I walked to the Chalet Theater to see a movie.  But mostly I studied, typed papers, and prepared to face Monday.

After two college quarters and more than seven months of this routine, I was burned out.  Fortunately, the underground coal mine was preparing to shut down.  My night-shift job on the picking table phased out shortly after the start of the spring quarter.  I completed my senior year living in Enumclaw but no longer working at the mine.

When the Rogers #3 mine finally closed, a retirement party was held featuring a cake with all Palmer personnel, who were part of the last underground coal mine in Washington State written in the frosting. 1975.

In addition to my regular Econ classes, I took a one-credit P.E. in tennis and a two-credit course on nutrition.  But my favorite class spring quarter was a three-credit course entitled the Living Theater.  We studied drama, went to plays, and wrote reviews of those we saw.  It was my favorite college class and fittingly my last.

During those days of school and nights of work, my dreams were filled with fears – of papers not completed and exams I didn’t understand.  Remarkably, I scored all A’s, and only one B that year.  Slowly my life recovered as I took pride in a fat bank account.  It’s easy saving money when living at home with no time to spend it.

For more than a year prior, I’d suffered an emotionally embarrassing case of facial acne.  I felt ugly.  But nothing Dr. Homer Harris, a noted dermatologist prescribed seemed to work.  I stopped getting haircuts and grew my hair out.  To hide my pimpled face, I quit shaving.  Perhaps it was the release from stress or maybe shaving irritated my skin.  But the acne lessened and within a few months disappeared.  I began to feel human again.

I graduated that June, with a B.A. in Economics.  I was tired of college. My attachment to fraternity brothers dwindled and I abandoned the academic scene.  I had no interest in attending commencement.  My sister graduated from high school that same year, so the folks wanted to throw a party for the both of us.  I declined their offer and also pointedly skipped graduation ceremonies.  My diploma arrived in the mail four months later.

Four years of study and 195 college credits produced this Bachelor of Arts in Economics, mailed to me several months later, as I had no interest in attending graduation ceremonies.

A few relatives and two high school teachers sent congratulatory cards. My Grandma Kombol, a school teacher for 44 years gave me Webster’s Third International, a 13-pound dictionary I still cherish.  I loafed all summer.  I bought a motorcycle in August and moved to Lincoln City that fall.  There I collected unemployment checks, read books, and walked on the beach.

Working at a coal mine my senior year of college was an experience I’ll never forget.  It was a lonely existence within a beehive of perpetual motion.  My life was a rolling slog in squirrel-cage.  That choice shaped my life, unlike anything before or since.  Perhaps the Stoic philosopher, Seneca said it best, “Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.”

The mine and the old miners are now all gone.  All that remains of Rogers #3 is the weather-beaten washhouse.  Still to these memories I remain eternally grateful – the miners with whom I worked, the hours spent driving to and fro, the classes attended, and college papers written.  Textbook pages studied, the picking table, cement-floor showers, and the sense of freedom that spring when released from the whirlwind into a world of plays and theater.

Of those days long-ago, this memory I shall never forget – dinnertime in the hoist room, standing beside a hot coal stove, and tasting the melted cheese on the sandwich Mom lovingly packed for me.

I kept my hard hat and lunch bucket and recently photographed them atop a pile of stoker coal.

* * *

After loafing all summer, bumming that fall in Lincoln City and cashing unemployment checks, seven months later, I came back to work for Palmer. My uncle Charlie Falk took this photo of me in January 1976, where I was working in Enumclaw helping PCC relocate the Stergeon cement  bins to Black Diamond for use at the coal mine wash plant there.