The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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June 7, 2009

Andra Bryan Stefanoni: New book documents lives of coal miners

PITTSBURG, Kan. — The numbers are impressive: At 344 pages, it weighs in at 2 pounds, 14 ounces. Between the covers are 900 names.

But for Pittsburg resident Debby Ossana Close, who spent Saturday morning and evening at Frontenac Homecoming festivities publicizing her new book, “Coal Mining Days,” it was a project about much more than numbers.

Close battled winds and heat at a small, unassuming but attractive booth on McKay Street to spread the word about what the book represents: heritage.

She didn’t get many buyers at the event, which draws hundreds of people to an annual parade, carnival and street dances. But her goal wasn’t to write a best seller.

Close, a retired teacher, has a passion for history. For the past six years, she has worked on compiling information she gleaned from interviews and newspaper clippings into a comprehensive record of the miners who settled in the area once known as the Weir-Pittsburg Coal Field.

“We found such valuable information, we can’t let it get lost,” she said.

By “we,” she is referring to her uncle, Louis Casaletto, who married Louise Casaletto, Close’s father’s sister.

Louise and Joe Ossana were grandchildren of Johann “John” Christian Ott, a German immigrant who settled in Chicopee and later Arma, and worked as a coal miner in the deep shaft mines.

“He’s my great-grandpa, and he was the inspiration for the bronze statue of the miner at Immigrant Park,” Close said. “Now, posthumously, he’s getting recognized along with all the other miners.”

Louis Casaletto was instrumental in developing Immigrant Park, 106 W. Second St., where walls of granite inscribed with 1,015 local miners’ names pay homage to their contributions and sacrifice.

She immersed herself in their histories, and those miners have become like family to Close, she said.

“After the last edit, you’d think I’d be sick and tired of it, but I still love them,” she said. “I love their stories of struggle and then success.”

Among her favorites are the poignant ones, such as the story of a miner who worked at Mine No. 7, and one day decided to smoke a cigarette before boarding the cage that would take him down into the deep shaft mine. Another man got in the cage in his place, and on the way down, the cage cable broke. All six miners on board died.

In another story of reverse fortune, a miner left his pipe in the mine and returned below to retrieve it. He lost his life when a rock fell on him.

“Reading about those life-changing yet everyday simple choices they made was sobering,” Close said.

She recalled a lighter story as another favorite: One miner had a dog named Nero, a Saint Bernard, and every day the miner’s wife put his lunch in a bucket, hung it in Nero’s mouth and sent him to the mine to deliver it to his master.

“The people who submitted information to the book were in their 80s, 90s, even a few who were 100, and many of them have since passed away,” Close said. “That’s scary, because they would have taken this information to their grave. But I got it.”

She credits her husband, Terry Close, with the cover design; colleagues Judy Tilley and Mike Gullett, for design assistance; and Pitt Craft Printing, for assistance in preparing it for printing.

She ordered 1,000 of the books, due to be delivered this week, and she is buoyed by the orders she’s received in her post office box and by phone. All proceeds will go toward upkeep of the Miners Memorial at Immigrant Park.

Far from being tired of keeping history, Close continues to stay involved in it even now that the book is done. She is looking forward to assisting with the Arma Centennial Celebration in August.

Saturday evening on McKay Street in Frontenac, she gestured to the passers-by.

“I watch these people down here tonight,” she said. “I think they need to be taking photographs, they need to be documenting occasions in their lives. Someday, this will be history to look back upon.”

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