For today's Throwback Thursday post, I am reproducing a newspaper article I just discovered from the 5 Dec 1900 edition of the Scranton Times. The article tells about a mine accident that could have been catastrophic for the miners trapped inside, if they had not been safely rescued. It was still unclear at press time, but it seems that the only casualties were four mules.
The reason this article is of personal interest is that one of the trapped miners may have been my great-grandfather. I wish I could say for sure, but that is going to take more research. The problem is that my grandfather's name has so many variations in so many records. He spelled it Giovanni DeRiggi, but he went by John after moving from Italy to the United States. His surname has also been listed in various places as De Riggi, DeRicci, De Ricci, Riggi, Ricci, Rigge, DeRige, and even Duigi, among others. Some are transcription errors, some are the result of family members' lack of literacy skills, and some are mistakes by English-speaking officials and census takers who had no understanding of Italian names.
In this article, the name of one of the miners is listed as John DeRig. My grandfather would have been 22 years old at the time.
This cave-in took place before he had permanently relocated from Italy. For several years, he traveled back and forth across the ocean, working as a laborer in Pennsylvania to save up money until he could afford to bring his wife Rosalina and their children from Italy to the U.S. for good, in 1908 or 1909. I don't know for sure if he worked in a mine during this time, but it is likely; most of my male ancestors did in the U.S., at least for a while. I know he eventually got a job laying rails for one of the railroad companies, and I believe he may also have worked for Bethlehem Steel at one point.
(I have adjusted the layout of the article a bit to fit in a more compact space.)
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