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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
