Embarking on this adventure to RV around america I knew that there would be some self reflection and discovery, however I had no idea that this journey would not only allow me to find me but also where I came from. Being out here on the road takes me to places that I never knew existed but even more enlightening was finding my history and the circumstances that made my grandparents who they were. Our ancestors have an impact in shaping who we become even though we have never met. Surprisingly this history has not only touched the lives of our family members but also helped to shape the country that we live in today.

Looking for Yesterday

Having planned to move north in the spring we opted instead to spend it in the state of Colorado. About 3 weeks into Colorado it dawned upon me that my maternal grandfather was born here. The story I had remembered was that his parents had come to Colorado and that his father was a coal miner. Somewhere around the age of 5 they moved back to the old country of Slovania, at that time Yugoslavia, where they stayed until my grandfather was of age to return to America and work to bring the rest of the family back once again.

I messaged my mom for the information and she emailed a link to her fathers birth place. Delagua, Colorado now a ghost town that no longer existed. Intrigued we set out to hopefully find some remnants of the past and some clues as to why they left America. I do some research hoping to find more information on the towns location and am surprised at how little I can find, but google seems to know the way so we set out to find Delagua.

Traveling to the south east corner of Colorado the gps leads us to where the prairies meet the foothills. The hills are green from the spring rains and we are directed down a dirt road nestled between the rolling grass hills topped with Juniper and Pine. At first we see nothing but a few homes dotted within the valley and on hillsides. The gps takes us up to a mountain top with beautiful views but no evidence of anything, at all. We opt to drive further up the valley and suddenly a new vision of an old world begins to come to life.

A broken old building with “Office” painted over the door, an old foundation of what looked to be a large building that included a chute to the basement, a coal chute perhaps? We begin to envision that maybe this was once the town. Piles of coal remnants can be seen about the hillsides, there looks to be some old homes and barns among the trees. This had to be it, but there was nothing to show for it. Not a plaque or an old sign. The town was bust.

So we make our way out the dirt road while I’m still searching the internet for more clues. I find that there were two explosions at the Delagua mine in 1910. My grandfather was born in 1912. Were my great grandparents here at the time of the explosions? Then I spot a marker on the side of the road. It looks like a headstone in the middle of nowhere. We hop out of the car to take a closer look.

In honor of the 121 men who lost their lives to the Hastings mine explosion. A look further up the hill shows evidence of old structures and across the way a number of half domes. Now I have more questions than answers. This explosion occurred in 1917, when my grandfather was 5. Could this have been what sent them back to Yugoslavia?

We continue out the way we came and decide to stop at a fenced up monument to see if this could provide more clues as to what had happened. A statue of a man, woman, and child stand in front of the memorial for the Ludlow Massacre. Now more details are coming to light. In 1914 a massacre occurred near this sight where 4 men, 2 women, and 11 children were killed all because the miners had gone on strike for better working and living conditions.

The story begins to unfold

Coal mining was hard and dirty work so in order to find men who would work the long hard hours with little complaint coal companies sent recruiters to different countries including Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Turkey. The idea being that the language barriers would prevent the men from teaming up and protesting the harsh working conditions.

Brought to America with the promise of work was appealing to these impoverished areas of the world and my great grandfather Victor Slavec came with high hopes for the future. Only the men like my great grandfather were made into indentured servants when the powerful coal companies paid them only in company script. The miners were to pay their rent with script to the Rockefeller owned company. Housing, food, and supplies were bought at the company store. With no cash, there was no way out.

Miners were to provide their own tools and were paid according to the amount of coal they produced. If there was rock in their coal, they were not paid. The men were not paid for their time of “dead work” either, like shoring up roofs or securing entrances. So safety issues were up to the men who were working the mines and trying to protect their own lives. It was dangerous work that killed 104 men in 1913 alone.

Miners could face eviction from their homes for speaking against the company. Curfews were instated and company guards kept miners from leaving or strangers from entering. While unionized mines around the country had 40% less accidents, Colorado miners were being intimidated by company thugs and undermined by strike breakers hired from other countries like Mexico to further the communication gap.
Secretly, however, the union was infiltrating southern Colorado mines and when demands for safer working conditions were rejected a strike ensued in September of 1913. Strikers were evicted from their homes and placed in tent cities by the union that had been strategically placed at the canyon mouths to coal camps to ensnare strike breakers.

Agents hired by coal companies attempted to intimidate miners and their families by randomly shooting into the tent cities killing or mamming people. This forced miners to dig pits underneath their tents to better protect their families. As the violence increased the Colorado National Guard was called in, but they sympathized with the coal companies and helped to break the strike by bringing in non union workers. When the money ran out, the guards were called back except for one troop made of mostly hired mine and camp guards.

On April 20, 1914 a gun battle broke out between militia on the ridge and the miners in town. When dynamite exploded the miners and their families ran for cover, some to the pits under their tents. Gun fire ensued all day until a train stopped on the tracks in front of the militia machine guns and allowed for the miners to escape to the hills. The militia then came in and looted the tent town before setting it ablaze killing the people who had hid in the pits beneath their tents. Interestingly The Times did not report on the find of bodies in the pits below the tents in Ludlow, instead they reported the American invasion in Vera Cruz, Mexico that killed hundreds of Mexicans all because they refused to apologize with a 21 gun salute after capturing some American sailors. Keeping the working class of America ignorant to the miners plight. In Colorado however this event led to a rise in arms and The Colorado Coalfield War that ensued for 10 days as unions hit mine after mine in retaliation. The result of these peoples fight were child labor laws and better working conditions for all Americans.

Victor and Anna

While we can’t be one hundred percent sure where my great grand father Victor and great grandmother were during this time we do know that my grandfather was born in the coal mining town of Delagua just 5 miles up the canyon from the site Ludlow. With the help of my Colorado cousins, fellow descendants of Victor and Anna Slavec, we could piece just a few bits together.

Anna Glazar was born in Austria and came to America with her parents as a child. They ran a boarding home in the town of Morley, Colorado and this is where my great grandfather Victor Slavec had come to stay. The story goes that after the two mine explosions in Delagua where Anna’s mother had lost a brother she could no longer take the coal mining lifestyle in America and wanted to return to the old country. Anna now a young woman wanted to stay and it was Victor who raised his hand to marry her.

So they married in January of 1911 in Trinidad, Colorado and they stayed, for a short bit. While we know that Victor and Anna were in Delagua at one time, most of the stories that Anna told were of Morley, another coal mining town that no longer exists, and owned by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company . The couple gave it a go but after the birth of her son, my grandpa Albino, Anna began to miss her parents and asked Vic to return to Slovania.

More to the Story

After hearing of the mistreatment of the miners, the accidents, and the massacre I could only imagine that these events had an impact on Victor and Anna’s decision to return to Yugoslavia. To return to the small town of Knezak, Slovania which is right on the border with Austria and Italy. Yes, life in the coal fields had to have been horrible as their timing to return to Slovania happened right in the middle of WWI and life as they knew it was about to get even harder.

We will pick up here next week as the Slavecs find life in the old country even more difficult than the coal mines of Colorado and will once again immigrate to America. The struggles they faced in trying to make a better life are still relevant today. The sacrifice, however is felt for generations, whether we know it or not.

Ludlow Massacre: April 20, 1914

https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ludlow-massacre

https://www.pbs.org/video/colorado-experience-ludlow-massacre/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre