niedbala@observer-reporter.com
In the early days of the company town, a coal miner could have all of his purchases at the company store deducted directly from his pay.
Some miners, as a result, received nothing on payday.
But that wasn't the case in one company town, Mather, where no matter how much a miner billed at the company store, his pay was at least $1.
"A lot of people overdrew. They overbought and couldn't pay their bill, but we had to leave them $1," said Ruth Duke, 81, who as a teen worked at the Mather company store. That was just the way it was.
Many who still live in the small mining towns, or patches, remember the company stores.
Duke and several others recalled when the company drugstore would get ice cream near the Fourth of July.
Empty ice cream containers were set out back, attracting neighborhood kids who would reach into the containers, "dirty hands and all," just to get a taste.
Those who worked at the company store in Bobtown remember Tuesday being the day the store brought in special clothing from Pittsburgh.
"The clothes were good. They had really good men's and women's suits," said Rose Antonelli, 78, who worked at the Bobtown store in her teens. "A lot of people bought clothes there because they were so good."
Shopping for the necessities of life or for something a bit more extravagant, maybe an extra-warm pair of socks or a nice dress, was much simpler in the days of the company town.
The store in Mather carried "anything you could name," said Orlando "Chick" Virgili, 81, who worked at Mather Collieries and has lived most of his life in Mather.
"They had groceries. They had a hardware department. They had a building outside of the main store that was a feed store. They had gas pumps and sold gas and a furniture department," he said.
In Mather, the company store was run by the Hamilton Supply Co. All stores in town were company-owned. "In fact, another business was not allowed in Mather," Virgili said.
The only independent business he could recall was a beauty shop that was allowed to exist only because it was run by the wife of a mine supervisor.
Company stores were a fixture in many of the small mining towns that popped up in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Built in rural areas isolated by a lack of good roads, the towns had everything the workers needed to live.
"We could have survived fully on the company. They covered everything," said Virgili's wife, Charlotte. "We had a doctor, homes, school, church, food. We had everything right there."
Though miners often had disputes with the company, especially when they began to unionize, that antagonism didn't seem to carry over to the store.
In fact, the company stores often were favored because they offered quality goods, usually at good prices.
"There was no cash exchanged," Virgili said. "You gave your check number - Mine was 301. You would go to the store and just say put it on 301."
At Mather, Ruth Duke said, managers also would allow credit to accrue from one pay to the next. A miner who spent more than his biweekly earnings would get a $1 pay; the store would then deduct so much from subsequent pays until the original bill was paid off, she said.
They also allowed miners to buy on credit when there were strikes. "Even when you were on strike, they never cut you off at the store," Virgili said.
"But they wouldn't allow you to buy anything you wanted," his wife said. "They would control what you bought. Like they would say, 'You don't need lunch meat; that's extravagant.'"
Shopping at the company store was different from today's shopping experience. It was not self-serve. "You went to the clerk and told them what you wanted," Duke said. "People waited on you."
Sales slips were immediately put in a small basket and sent to the office upstairs by means of a pulley system, a method also employed at other company stores.
Duke said she loved working at the store. "We had nice people in Mather," she said.
Many of the people who came to work in the mines in the early days were immigrants. Duke said she remembers waiting on one woman whose accent was so pronounced she couldn't understand her. "I was so embarrassed. I didn't know what she was saying."
Most of the people who lived in the patches didn't mind doing their shopping at the company store.
"We knew no other way, really. That was our way of life. Of course, when we had some money and didn't have to shop there, we wanted to go other places," Charlotte Virgili said.
As people started to buy cars, more of them did their shopping outside town.
The company store in Mather closed when the mine closed in 1964 and is now an apartment building. Across the street is the post office, which once housed the company drugstore, theater and post office.
The company store in Nemacolin also still stands and is now a private residence. It is actually the second company store, the first having burned down in the early 1960s.
Robert Korcheck, 71, who has lived most of his life in the village and who wrote a history of the town, "Nemacolin The Mine - The Community 1917-1950," said the store offered everything miners and their families would need to survive.
Korcheck's father worked at Nemacolin Mine, but his family seldom shopped at the store. Korcheck said he believes the prices were just a little high. "And my father didn't like the idea of having money taken out of his pay."
The store didn't have a monopoly. At the top of the hill, off company property, were several other businesses. In the area known as "Jew Hill" in the early days were Ackerman's and Ruttenberg's, and later Dominic's, Popovich's and Rapchak's.
Though he didn't shop there much, Korcheck said he still remembers the company store.
"Probably one of the earliest memories of the store was when they got a shipment of bananas during the war," he said. There was rationing at the time.
"All the kids lined up down there. This was one of the times I was allowed to charge something. I did, whether I had permission or not," he said.
Bobtown also had a company store to provide goods to the miners who worked at Shannopin Mine.
The store, operated by Pittsburgh Mercantile Co., was the closest place for residents of the community to shop, said Ann Novak, 90, who worked there as a teenager and later was in charge of the drugstore. The only other place to shop was in Point Marion, and a person had to have a car to get there, she said.
"They had good furniture, too," Antonelli said. "Believe me, I still have a bedroom set that I bought, and it's just as good as when it was bought, and that was 58 or 59 years ago."
Helen Kocerka, 75, of Bobtown, worked at the store from 1950 to 1955, when she was married. Shortly after she married, Kocerka was laid off from her job.
It was the store's practice to lay off young women after they married, unless they were department heads, she said. "That was so another young girl could get a job," Kocerka said.
Antonelli said she can recall times when the store cut off people's credit, apparently when they abused it or didn't pay their bills.
The company at one point also paid workers in script, or coupons that could be used only to purchase goods at the company store.
Antonelli and the others who worked at the store all remember it as a good place to work. "It was nice. It was close to home, and I loved it there," she said.
They also believe life in the patch wasn't too bad. "We knew everybody and we had a good time," Antonelli said. "We had a good life here."