It doesn't look like much at first - a wrinkled piece of paper and a faded picture - the kind of stuff you find in your grandparents photo albums. But the story behind the photo is nothing short of captivating.

Let's start with Joe Yourglich - the non-uniformed guy on the top row on the left. The handwritten script identifies him as the team secretary in 1934, but in 1923 he was recruited as the coach for the newly formed Roslyn Yippers - a semi pro team in the days when rural Bush Leagues offered an alternative to watching a major league game.

Joe was a miner from Issaquah who was well known in Roslyn for his athletic prowess. When the Roslyn Athletic Association formed in 1923 with the intent of creating a team, Joe was their first choice as the coach. The only problem was miners were on strike and Joe had gone home to live with his parents in Issaquah. Fortunately the strike ended in time for Joe to come back and put together a competitive team that took first place in the Yakima Valley League.

In 1923, Louis Bruno (3rd from the left top row) and Mike Radonovich standing next to Louis were making a name for themselves in high school baseball. Louis left after graduation for college, but came home during the summer to play Roslyn ball. By the 1930s he was teaching school, a profession that led to running for Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1961 - a position he held for 12 years.

His team mate - "Iron" Mike Radonovich, was a Roslyn baseball icon with an impressive arm that was legend on both sides of the Cascades during his day. He played alongside his brother George. The team was a family affair - brothers Frank and Tony Popovich, and Floyd, Tony and Joe Chapetta were all part of the line-up.
(Information for this blog came from 1923 Miner Echoes and news clippings donated to the museum by Millie Radonovich).

It was fitting that Joseph and Joe Cusworth share the same headstone following their death during the May 10, 1892 mine disaster. The father and son team had worked side-by-side in the dangerous No. I mine.

That they were working that day was an indication of their mining experience and family needs. Work had been scarce for several months, according to an article in the Tacoma-Tribune. The Panic of 1893 was gathering steam and coal demand was dropping while Roslyn's mine operating costs were high. "People here during the winter burned wood instead of coal," claimed the Ellensburg Localizer.

Miners had only worked one or two days a week for quite some time, so the crew selected for the May 10, 1892 shift reflected the best qualified and most needy miners. Among them were George Forsythe, the superintendent of the No. 3 mine that had been closed in March and the brother of the mine superintendent, Alexander Ronald.

Tales of wrenching loss filled papers across the nation. Frances Cusworth, according to the Seattle Press-Times, "ran like a mad woman from her home of poverty to the mine," after hearing of the disaster. She wept inconsolably for an half hour or so before apparently going into shock. She suddenly exclaimed that her husband was not dead and ran home to fix supper for him and their six children. By 8:00 p.m., that night when neither husband or son had returned, she was forced to face the awful reality.
(Thanks to Paul Fridlund article in the August 18, 1989 Daily Record for some of the information in this posting)

John Harold Sides, born April 22, 1904, started first grade with Olive Stoneburg in 1910. Olive, who will turn 106 in September, remembers Harold had a crush on her and was one of the smart kids at school.

Four years later, Sides started sixth grade in Roslyn's grammar building that was located on the education block between second and third streets and Idaho and Utah Avenues. According to district records, Sides was one of the youngest students in the class populated by 10 to 15-year-olds.

It wasn't unusual during this time, however, to have a have a wide age span in a single classroom.  Older students in a classroom often reflected family obligations that conflicted with regular school attendance.

Sides, however, graduated a year early from high school, attended University of Washington a year, graduated with a BA from the Naval Academy and a MS from the University of Michigan - remarkable achievements for a boy raised in a mining town.

Although we don't know the identities of the three women in the above photo, we do know quite a bit about Ethel Williams-Craven born in Roslyn in 1906. Ethel became the mother of 13 children, one of them the first black mayor in Roslyn and the state of Washington.

Her husband, Sam Craven came to Roslyn in the early 1920s and became a well-respected miner credited with saving the lives of many men below ground. Ethel was a force to be reckoned with in her home and the community. One of her daughters, Linda Lee Cornelius, remembered her mother's influence following Ethel's death in 1993. 

"We were always taught to be proud of being black. Mother stressed to us that we should continue the story of the first black settlers onto our children and our grandchildren. If we don't carry on the history of our heritage, our pride, it will be lost like most black history."
Yakima Herald-Republic, Aug. 22 1993

One foresighted Roslynite used a piece of paneling for a makeshift chalkboard and started a record of first snowfalls in Roslyn in the late 1920s through the 1950s. Twenty years later he started keeping track again through the mid 1980s and later donated his work to the Roslyn Museum.

According to his records - 1933 was a record year with snow falling on the 21st of September. Although first snow in November was most common, October came in a close second with December a distant third.

Heavy snowfall was a common thread in personal histories written by early Roslynites with two to three feet of snow on the ground a common occurrence.

In some ways, Roslyn in its early days was a world unto itself. Transportation in and out of town was limited to passenger rail service until the late 1920s.  During wet winter, spring and fall months,  the unpaved road between Roslyn and Cle Elum turned into an unpassable muddy quagmire. One early Roslynite claimed Cle Elum might as well as be New York City since both were just as inaccessible to average citizens who worked, shopped and played within city limits.

Their relative isolation, however, did not keep citizens from having fun. Various organizations regularly sponsored social events and rarely a weekend went by without a dance somewhere in town. The above photo was probably taken in the the Old Knights of Pythias Hall which was in the old Rose Theatre building on 2nd and Dakota.

We can only imagine Christmas windows in Roslyn during the 1920s. It was the last decade of the coal mining boom and businesses up and down Pennsylvania Ave, and First and Second Street bustled with activity during the Christmas rush. The above sketch by former Roslynite, Kenneth Miller, idealized his favorite childhood memories during the Christmas season. 


The view shows a young version of himself in the early 1920s wistfully staring at the Flexible Flyer in the N.W.I. Company Store window. It was filled with other treasures as well - doll carriages, tea sets, and toy sewing machines for girls. For boys there were erector sets, trains and ice skates for skating frog pond in the park behind the school.


Those days are long gone and the same store front today features furniture in the old company store building now divided into smaller businesses. Before he passed away in the late 1980s, however, Miller preserved Christmas memories that many of us can only imagine.