By Lee Elby, Tribune-Review Staff Writer

(This account of Monarch, Fayette Co., PA and the life of Helen Szabo Linko was first published in the Tribune-Review, Greensburg, PA, Aug. 14, 1994.)

Helen Szabo Linko will turn 78 years old Aug. 30, 1994 and all of those years have been spent in the same house in the tiny hamlet of Monarch in Fayette County.

Monarch is the "patch" for the Leisenring No. 3 works of H.C. Frick Coal and Coke Company and sits about midway between the sister towns of Bute (Leisenring No. 2 in Dunbar Township and North Union Township) and Leisenring No. 1 in Dunbar Township.

"I was born and raised in this house," Linko said. "I was the youngest of 15 children."

"My dad and mother came here from Hungary. On the way over, they had one child. He got sick and died on the ship. They had to throw him overboard. What else could they do? They couldn't keep him on the ship."

Helen Linko recalls her Hungarian background being misunderstood by school officials. "They didn't know what that "z" was for in our name. So, they spelled it S-A-B-O-E.

Helen Linko's father, Michael Szabo, spent his early life in several patches. "All they had was chairs and benches. They'd just throw them on the wagon and go someplace else to work."

Hucksters were shunned in the early days of the patch towns, Linko said.

"The company wanted you to buy from the company store. If hucksters came to town, they'd throw them out. If you bought off of someone else, they would fire you and throw you out of the house.

"I remember in 1922 when they were trying to organize the union, there were a lot of people put out of the houses.

"They brought those black people up from the South to work. They paid them, but they didn't do the work. They weren't in the union and that's what the company wanted," she said.

Helen Linko went to Monarch School for eight years and one year at Dunbar Township High School.

"My mother took me out," she said. "`You're not going to marry the president's son, so it doesn't matter if you go to school,' she told me."

The next five or six years were spent at home helping her mother. "I used to scrub the floors with lye soap until they were white. We used canvas for our floor rugs and we scrubbed them white, too. We got a wringer washer and boy, we thought we were big shots then.

"My mother and dad took in boarders to help make ends meet," she said. "The company told them they had to keep boarders or they would put them out of the house. We were crammed in here."

Early patch dwellers counted on their own resources to survive, Linko noted. She said her family raised chickens, pigs and cattle.

"We butchered our own pigs," she said. "We used to leave the bacon hanging outside in the winter.

"One time my mother and dad were away, they told me not to open the door to anyone. I heard a noise outside. I peeked out and saw a bum taking a big slice off the bacon. `Go ahead, take the bacon,' I said to myself. `Just leave me alone.'"

In addition to food, the early miners also made their own drink.

"Everyone used to make their own whiskey," she said. "My mother was a big woman. One time the cops came and was hunting for whiskey at our house. There was a little offset, just off the kitchen where they put it. She just put her long dress over the jugs and stood there. She told them to go ahead and hunt for the whiskey if they wanted. They never found any.

"My dad raised his own tobacco. We used to cure it with molasses and dry it. He rolled them into cigars and chopped it to smoke in his pipe. The big leaves were really beautiful when they were hanging there drying.

"I used to have to carry coal in sacks off the slate pile when times got tough. The coal and iron police would chase us away, but we would go back. We needed the coal," she said.

Her husband, Michael Linko, was the victim of one of the dangers of the mine, the roof fall. His leg was severely broken in an accident in the Leisenring No. 3 mine in 1943, she said.

"I was in Connellsville Hospital having our son and he was in Uniontown Hospital with that broken leg. They wouldn't let him leave. So he said `I'll throw cups and make noise and they'll let me see that boy.' They did."

Her husband was in and out of hospitals for five years with leg problems.

"I made rugs, doilies and anything else I could do to make ends meet," she recalled.

Later, she worked at area garment factories and for 16 years at Pechin Markets in Monarch and Pechin.

"My husband used to haul meat from Pechin down to the stores in Ronco and Collier. The Collier store burned down."

Her husband died about 10 years ago.

Death was a terrible thing in the patches, she said.

"They used to bring those men killed in the mine right to the houses. They'd just put them on the floor. We had to wash them and get them ready for the undertaker. The bodies would be shown at home. I remember the women hiding when they saw them coming with a body, hoping it wasn't their man.

"The houses were horrible. There were roaches everywhere. I burned them and sealed the wainscoting with soap and shellac so they couldn't get out" (and into the house)," she said.

The houses were sold to the miners around 1952. That was just a year after they got indoor plumbing, Linko said.

"We might not have had much, but we did with what we had," she said. "I worked hard. It's no wonder I felt good then. I sure never had any trouble getting to sleep at night."

(Article courtesy of the Tribune-Review, Greensburg, PA)

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