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H.S. Boys Lacrosse: Crestwood’s Caporuscio, Prep’s Johnson get top all-star honors

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Ordinance approved, sale of parkade to Wilkes-Barre Parking Authority next

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Mary Claire Voveris clutched a sepia-toned photo slipped in the clear cover of a small book. Mary Parry held a folder full of clippings from research into her family history. Katie Lavery stood with her head barely above the front of the podium, her soft voice nearly disappearing in the shroud of traffic noise from Spring Street.</p><p>They all shared one strand of history, stretching back 100 years exactly Wednesday morning, when ancestors &#8212; Voveris&#8217; grandfather and his brother, Parry&#8217;s grandfather, and Lavery&#8217;s two uncles &#8212; took their last breath of air above the earth and descended into the Baltimore Mine Tunnel with 156 other men in 16 train cars. Black powder in two of the cars ignited.</p><p>&#8220;After the explosion, a fast moving fire came up the tunnel, pulled by the mine&#8217;s ventilation system,&#8221; King&#8217;s College Assistant History Professor Thomas Mackaman recounted to a crowd of about 50 gathered near the historic monument marking the disaster. &#8220;That was followed by a miasma of toxic gas.&#8221;</p><p>When the somber reentry finally occurred, 92 had died, 60 were injured, and only seven men survived unscathed. That was just the immediate impact, Mackaman said. More than 200 children were suddenly fatherless, their mothers widows.</p><p>The picture Voveris held was her grandfather Michael Harris, who was 25 when he died in the mine, and his brother Victor, 22. But inside the book she had another photograph: it was her grandmother sitting with three children &#8212; one of them her mother, who was only 2 at the time.</p><p>She was living in a company home with everything rented when she became a widow, and &#8220;they came and took all her furniture. They rolled up the linoleum. She had to go live with her mother-in-law.&#8221;</p><p>For Parry, who traveled two hours from New Jersey after learning of the event online, the emotion of the day mixed with her quest to unearth her family&#8217;s past. Beyond his death in the mines, she said, her grandfather&#8217;s history is mired in the lack of clear records from his eastern European origin, in changes in the spelling of his name as he migrated to the United States, and in uncertainty of his birth, believed to be 1882.</p><p>&#8220;But parish priests would change the date so young boys could join the military,&#8221; she said.</p><p>Mackaman touched on the lack of publicity the <strong>explosion</strong> got over the last 100 years, noting a search found only a handful of newspaper reports after the initial disaster. By comparison, the Avondale disaster of 1869 appeared in articles more than 600 times and the Knox Mine disaster of 1959 several hundred more than that.</p><p>The sparsity of publicity was one reason King&#8217;s College spearheaded an effort to get the historic marker placed along Spring Street several years ago, an accomplishment Katie Lavery said her mother had &#8220;fought for years&#8221; to make happen. Lavery was the first in a line of people who took turns reading the names of the victims.</p><p>The commemoration unfolded as construction vehicles worked the land on Mundy Street, where the mine entrance stood. Mackaman noted those construction crews had excavated some concrete believed to be from a bridge over a rail line that entered the mine. In photographs on display as part of the event, one abutment of the bridge &#8212; perhaps ironically &#8212; had the message &#8220;Safety first, Avoid accidents.&#8221; The photo shows family members waiting for news of their loved ones following the explosion</p><p>King&#8217;s History Professor Dan Clasby, who helped put together the commemoration, likened the loss of details about the disaster to his own experience with having children too late in life to get to know his late grandfather, who grew up on an Illinois farm, had to live in an attic &#8220;with critters, as he called them&#8221; when the family grew, and served on bombers in the Pacific theater during World War II.</p><p>&#8220;I tell my children those stories because he can&#8217;t tell them,&#8221; Clasby said. &#8220;This is similar.&#8221; He urged those present to give the miners who died in the disaster &#8220;a thought, for their humanity. Many were very, very young.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The list of miners who died in the Baltimore Mine Tunnel explosion in 1919. Katie Lavery, who lost two uncles, was the first of several people who took turns reading the names during a commemoration Wednesday morning. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619mine3-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>The list of miners who died in the Baltimore Mine Tunnel explosion in 1919. Katie Lavery, who lost two uncles, was the first of several people who took turns reading the names during a commemoration Wednesday morning. </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619mine4-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Dan Clasby, Kings College Department of History, talks to a group attending the Baltimore Mine Disaster ceremony on Wednesday morning. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619mine4-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Dan Clasby, Kings College Department of History, talks to a group attending the Baltimore Mine Disaster ceremony on Wednesday morning. </caption1><photoCredit1>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619mine1-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Mary Claire Voveris holds a photo of her grandfather, Michael, and uncle Victor Harris. Both died in the Baltimore Mine Disaster in Wilkes-Barre that happened in 1919 when black powder exploded, killing 92 miners. A ceremony for the 100-year anniversary was held at the site on Wednesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619mine1-1.jpg</photo2><caption2>Mary Claire Voveris holds a photo of her grandfather, Michael, and uncle Victor Harris. Both died in the Baltimore Mine Disaster in Wilkes-Barre that happened in 1919 when black powder exploded, killing 92 miners. A ceremony for the 100-year anniversary was held at the site on Wednesday. </caption2><photoCredit2>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619mine2-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Katie Lavery reads from a list of 92 miners who perished in the Baltimore Mine explosion in 1919, including two of her uncles. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_TTL060619mine2-1.jpg</photo3><caption3>Katie Lavery reads from a list of 92 miners who perished in the Baltimore Mine explosion in 1919, including two of her uncles. </caption3><photoCredit3>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

A photo, scraps of historic papers: Descendants join memorial for lost miners