Be sure to meet Sue Haley and check out Indianola artifacts in the video at: http://www.alle-kiskitoday.com/webcasts/1504

Karen Sue Haley is a curious lady. Her interest in her own heritage led her to discover for herself the history of the Indianola area near Harmar where she lives. It also led her to France, as well It even brought her to make an effort to preserve historical mining buildings.

At 14, Sue had no idea that her interest in her family lineage would follow her all her life. She only had one thing in mind, and that was learning more about her grandmother's relatives. So, she wrote a letter to her and soon got the information she needed. The inquisitiveness continued as she grew up, throughout her 35-year career as an elementary educator.

1920s Indianola, Rt.910 near Harmarville. Note mine tipple, St. Timothy's Church. Courtesy Sue Haley.

Along the way, Haley became a serious student of her family's genealogy. She found she had several ancestors from France and posted it on the Internet. A distant cousin in France--that she didn't know she had--saw it and called her out of the blue. She has now gone to France twice to see her, and her cousins have come over here.

But her curiosity also centers on the area around her. Sue offered to help someone write a history of Indianola and the Indianola coal mine. But he died before he could write much of it. Putting it together fell into her hands. She dug up more than enough stories and history about the area--enough that years later she put together and typed a second volume of the history. It was all based on the numerous interviews she'd had with miners' families.

Indianola's history really began in 1903 when a man was sinking the shaft for a mine in the vicinity. But work stopped suddenly in early 1904. Interested in learning why, Sue followed up on information about the man's name. It led her to a mine disaster in the nearby Harwick/Cheswick area that killed 179 men around the same time.

Company houses along RT910 in Indianola, 1918. Courtesy Sue Haley.

She found that as soon as the man sinking the new mine heard the news of the tragedy, he'd dropped everything to go and try to help rescue some of the men. In the process, Selwyn Taylor lost his life. His and another rescuers' deaths became the catalyst for a wealthy philanthropist to begin a special award for heroes, called the Carnegie Hero Award, still awarded today. The philanthropist: Andrew Carnegie.

But the mine at what is today Indianola did not open for a while, possibly due to community grieving from the Harwick disaster. 12 years later, the Inland Colliery Company sent. T. G. Fear back to finish the job and build a town around it.

Sue notes that Fear had built other towns in the South, but had a grand dream of building a somewhat-utopian town, which seemed to be a common feat in those days. He laid out the company town before it was built. Fear also saw to it the company-owned homes had running water, indoor toilets and eventually electricity, all of which were uncommon for those days.

Indianola tipple and mine buildings. Courtesy Sue Haley.

Sue Haley, who served as Secretary in the Indiana Township Historical Society, tells the story of the how the people who came to work in the mine had to live in tents outside while the town and homes were being built. The first home went to a husband and his pregnant wife so she would not deliver them outside in the February cold. She had twins.

The mine, which employed more than 1000 people during its operation, closed in the 1950s. Haley remembers seeing the coal tipple knocked over as a little girl. Her teacher told her that she would remember this. She was right. She also may have helped play a part in stirring up Sue Haley's inquisitiveness of local history, an interest that led her to play a strong part in preserving Indiananola's heritage.

Since her contribution to the two volumes of history of the area, Haley has continued to collect information and pieces from the mining community's history. Also a member of Indiana Twp.'s Historical Commission, she helped lead an unsuccessful attempt to save several historical mine buildings.

However, the building for the old company hospital still stands near where the mining operation was, and today is the site of MEDRAD. The company saved some portions of the buildings and some mining artifacts; they now have them on display for future curious generations.

Karen Sue shows us around Indianola and its history in the Our Local Heritage video this month at http://www.alle-kiskitoday.com/webcasts/1504

All photos courtesy of Sue Haley