Monongah. The official number of fatalities is listed at 361, but the actual number is likely well over 500. Of all the first/only-in-the-nation facts we learned in 4th & 8th grade WV history classes, the deadliest coal mining disaster in US history wasn’t one of them.

Most of the dead were immigrants. And among those, most were Italians.

Three years ago, I went to the ceremony marking the 110th anniversary. It was a pretty small affair, but a good number of those in attendance had come from Italy. They brought soil from these miners’ villages and sprinkled it over the cemetery.

At that ceremony, commemorative messages were relayed from Italian mayors, provincial governors, even the president. From our own state or federal leadership, there was a young staffer in attendance from Manchin’s office in Fairmont.

We’ve largely forgotten Monongah here, but it’s still a significant moment in Italian labor history. Here’s an interesting thing I learned: whereas we might call an epic disaster a tragedy of “Titanic proportions”, “Monongahn” characterizes grave tragedies in some parts of Italy.

In the town of Monongah there are statues, plaques, and this bell beside city hall which rings each year at the time of the explosion, at around this time, just after 10 am. These things were mostly funded/gifted by Italians, so that we might remember what they never forgot.

I should also point out, the awareness of Monongah wasn't always quite as widespread in Italy. A lot of the credit for recognition outside the villages from which perished miners hailed goes to Assunta "Suzie" Leonardis. I met her at the ceremony in 2017.

Suzie is from Naples, but she moved to the US and worked as a nurse in a hospital in New Jersey with an Italian American doctor from Monongah in the 1960s. When she heard his stories, she nudged Italian journalists and those working for Italian-language papers in the U.S.

I was just looking back through some notes I'd taken about the stark contrast in observation among political leadership. Whew. Maybe I'll write about it someday.