Bio: Deutschlander, John (Pa. Trip - 1963)

Contact stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Deutschlander

----Source: THORP COURIER (Thorp, Clark County, Wis.) 10/31/1963

Deutschlander, John (Pa. Trip - OCT 1963)

John Deutschlander, 90 years of age, recently made a visit to Pennsylvania and to his former home at Shamokin, after an absence of 70 years, where he worked as a miner for five years, and then came to Thorp (Clark Co., Wis.) at the age of twenty years with his parents and the rest of the Deutschlander family. Mr. Deutschlander is located on a farm four miles north of Thorp in the Township of Thorp, where he resides today.

The following account appeared in the “Shamokin Citizen,” after an interview with Mr. Deutschlander, who located some of his relatives there.

“When I left here in 1893, Independence Street had been a creek that they moved over to improve the town.”

This is the 70-year-old recollection of Shamokin made by John Deutschlander, now a 90-year-old resident of Thorp, Wis. Sharp and alert for his age, Mr. Deutschlander came back to Shamokin last week with his son, Emil, his daughter, Louise, and his son’s wife. The visit was a spur of the moment decision made while on a trip to Pennsylvania. But a 90-year-old man wanted to see relatives he knew he had in Shamokin, and so the search began.

Mrs. Russell Nairns -- The former Bertha Wanke -- and her brother, Charles E. Wanke, 618 West Pine Street, were more than surprised when their cousin and his children arrived at the Nairns home. They had never met before, but no lengthy introductions were necessary.

“All they knew was that my husband was a plumber, that his last name began with an “N” and that we lived somewhere in Shamokin,” Mrs. Nairns reported. Armed with only this information, the group made inquiries at the Silver Dollar Bar. There, a bar tender offered, much to their delight, to take them directly to the Nairns-Wanke residence.

Relaxing in the comfort of the Nairns homestead, Mr. Deutschlander reflected on his youthful years in Shamokin more than half a century ago. The only building he could quickly recognize was St. Edward’s Church on Shamokin St., built before he left here for Wisconsin. “These big banks, Shamokin Realty and the C.K. Eagle Building are all new,” he observed, though these same structures are pretty old as far as most area residents are concerned.

Changed, too, was the Springfield section of Coal Township, where the 90-year-old man had lived in “one lonely house in the woods.” He was in his teens then, and he hadn’t learned how to speak English, his parents having come to America from Germany.

“When I was 16 I earned 75 cents a day picking slate at the mines. Later, I worked down in the mines for a dollar a day, and our boss for two dollars a day. The main trouble was that we were inexperienced men and too many got killed in the mines.”

It was this constant presence of mine accidents and mine death that spurred the German immigrants’ desire to move from the coal regions to the farm lands of Wisconsin. The way we could tell if they were doing well was if the buildings were kept up nice. But about the time we had saved up enough money to leave, the miners went on strike. We had to live off the money we had saved, and it took us two years to save up enough money again.

By the time the family had saved enough money again, John Deutschlander was 20 years old. They had scrimped together 800 to buy a farm and move to Wisconsin. The farm was purchased through an agent and with the guidance of a book they had purchased from a mail order firm.

Leaving from the Shamokin station, the family traveled by train to Wisconsin. The family included six brothers and a sister, and John and his parents. The trip took three days.

However, it took six weeks before the family furniture arrived at its Wisconsin destination. Nor did it arrive in exactly A-1 condition, some of it broken to pieces in the frequent rough handling it received as it was shifted from one railroad boxcar to another.

That was all the way back in 1893. Now, 70 years later, John Deutschlander took a long look back at his brief five years in Shamokin, recalling how he used to cross the creek in the middle of town to go to his job at the old Nelson Colliery, now just another ghost of the past.

“My father and my brothers and I wanted to get out of here. I only lived her five years, and we’d always wanted to do farming. We looked at pictures of the farms in Wisconsin

“Shamokin was a big town with lots of People,” he recalled. “I remember they had lots of company houses for the miners to live in. The people paid about four dollars a month for rent. Later on, the coal companies left the people buy the houses. Of course, we had the company store too.”

(Smull’s Legislative Handbook of 1900 lists the population of Shamokin in 1890 as 14, 403 and that of Coal Township at 8,616, including the villages of Scotch Hill and Silver Hill).

Recalling that he had one job in which he had to walk about six miles underground before getting to his working place, the former miner remembered still the thunderous roar of one cave-in and the horror of watching the pillars give way as the ceiling collapse. “There were about 20 of us working on the mine crew and we managed to crawl out, keeping our eyes open for cracks of light.”

There were other mine tragedies he experienced and still remembers, the most harrowing occurring in the old Buck Ridge mine around 1892. About 200 miners were employed at the operation in that year, and they had to enter the mine down a one-half mile steep slope on a cable wagon. The wagon only held ten men at a time.
According to Mr. Deutschlander, the supply of coal under the company’s land had almost bee exhausted, except for 220 feet at the far end of the one-mile mine.

“This was where the danger came in,” he explained. “The bosses wanted to get the last bit of coal out in their property, but just beyond, and a little above the line, was another oc the company’s abandoned mines, which was full of water and gas.” Mr. Deutschlander shuddered as he thought of it. “Well, they decided to give her one last powder blast and get out whatever coal we could. But the blast broke on through to the other mine, and the water and gas came pouring down on us.”

As the German, Italian, Polish, Irish and Russian men made the wild, terrified dash together back toward the bacle wagon, one bizarre torment added to the water that already licked at their chests. They had to run in total darkness. If anyone had ignited his oil lamp, the place would have turned into an inferno.

Running, praying, feeling their way, the mob of terrified men came at last to the slope. There stood the bosses with revolvers, shouting, “Only 10 at a time, shortest men first!”

Up till then, Mr. Deutschlander’s short stature had seemed to be his curse, as the water reached his chin and tried to his lips. But now he hopped onto the wagon gratefully. Miraculously, everyone was saved, although the mules were lost.

Not lost, however, are the memories of the past which this 90-year-old man recalls with sharpness and precision.

A part of those memories concerns the family homestead in Springfield, rented to another family when the Deutschlanders left for Wisconsin. Receiving no rent payments, the family sent John back to Shamokin to investigate. He found a destitute family whose breadwinner had been hospitalized by a mining accident, the smaller children running about naked in the house.

“Right then and there I decided to sell the house, “john said,” and I found a buyer in Frank Cheslock. He offered me $800 and I took it.

Just a few days age when his cousins from Shamokin told him they would drive him to the site of his old homestead, 90-year-old John Deutschlander spryly answered: “Okay! I’ll show you the way.”