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Andrew (Andy) Martin Mischick, the second son of Michael and Susan (Safko) Mischick, was born January 13, 1884 in Hubosovce (near Presov), Saris, Slovakia. He had one brother, John, who was two years older and a sister, who died in infancy. John and Andy’s father died in 1893, when Andy was nine years old. After fulfilling the country’s mandatory military enlistment and in order to escape further military service, Andy came to the United States in January 1909 and joined his brother John in Mammoth (Westmoreland County), Pa (near Mt. Pleasant, Pa). Both brothers worked in the Mammoth Mines. In Westmoreland County the largest concentration of Slovaks at the turn of the century was in the Mt. Pleasant area and most of those Slovaks came from Eastern Slovakia, which is defined as anything east of the Tatra Mountains. There was work in the Westmoreland County area. In 1880 there were about 7,000 coke ovens in Westmoreland County but by 1900 there were more than 20,000 coke ovens. It was common for representatives of companies to go to New York and recruit immigrants coming through Ellis Island. When he first came, Andy boarded or “hot-bunked” with Michael John and Mary (Tomko) Urda, the parents of Mike Urda, who later married Mary Mischick, Andy’s oldest child. The term “hot-bunk” refers to the fact that a bed in a residence was used by two boarders—after a 12-hour shift in the mine or bee-hive coke oven, a boarder would come home and use the bed; when he awoke to go to work, another boarder would be coming off a shift and take over the bed, which was still warm from the previous occupant—thus the term “hot-bunk”. Andy worked as a blacksmith, shoeing the donkeys that pulled the carts at the coal mines in Mammoth.
Pauline Margaret Kocis was born
June 5, 1984 in Mt. Pleasant (Westmoreland
County), Pa, the oldest daughter and second oldest of eleven surviving children
of Jacob and Kathryn (Puskar)
Kocis.
Pauline’s siblings included Anna and Steve, who died in infancy, and John
(b. August 9, 1892, d. January 9, 1981), Mary (Matuzek) (b. March 28,
1896, d. March 1966), Anna (Safko) (b. July 21, 1898, d. March 1953),
Veronica (Stefanek) (b. December 12, 1900, d. April 7, 1969), Jacob (b.
August 6, 1903, d. January 26, 1985), Kathryn (Frazier) (b. March 23,
1906, d. February 9, 1988), Elizabeth (Mook) (b. August 4, 1908), Andy (b.
November 7, 1911, d. December 2, 1992), Edward (b. August 14, 1914, d.
June 1967) and George (b. May 4, 1918). Andy and Pauline’s first two children, Mary and Joseph, were born in Mammoth, Pa. Andy continued to work in the coal mines until the strike of 1910-1911. This strike, which was known as the “Slovak strike” became an important event in the history of American labor. It started in March 1910 and went on for 16 months. Sixty-five mines were closed and 22,000 miners, one third of whom were Slovaks, went out on strike. Andy and Pauline and their children relocated to Farrell (Mercer County), Pa so that Andy could find work. Andy worked as a sand blaster in Farrell. There, he and Pauline built a house on Emerson Avenue. Their children Frankie (who died at age five months) and Frances were born there. On May 14, 1920, Andy and Pauline relocated to Greenville (Mercer County, West Salem Township), Pa. They relocated because Andy was told by a doctor that his health would not last and permanent damage would be done to his lungs if he continued to work as a sand blaster. Andy and Pauline bought a 125 acre farm in West Salem Township for $7,500. Andy found work at the Chicago and Bridge Iron Works in Greenville. On the farm their remaining children were born: Helen, David, Margaret, and Robert. Although not a farmer by profession, Andy worked the land, had a herd of milk cows and sold the milk and was able to use his blacksmithing skills. Pauline ran the house, worked on the farm, raised the children, and worked outside the home as a cleaning lady. For some ten years the Urda and Mischick families both lived a few miles outside of Greenville, Pa and went to St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church but they were unaware of the other family they had known in Mammoth. Pauline Mischick read in the local newspaper, the Record Argus that George Urda had graduated from Fredonia High School. Pauline sent a letter in the blind to the Urdas asking if they were the same family from the Mt. Pleasant, Westmoreland County, area. When they responded that the were the same family, Pauline invited some of the Urda boys over for Sunday dinner and to meet her oldest unmarried daughter, and thus the courtship and later marriage of Mike Urda and Mary Mischick began. Andy died January 15, 1965 and was buried on January 18, 1965 at St. Michael’s Cemetery in Greenville, Pa. Pauline died on January 1, 1980 and was buried on January 4, 1980 also at St. Michael’s Cemetery. (contributed by Helen Mischick Bayuk and Mary Ellen Bayuk) Web site contact:
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