The widow of a miner killed at the Atlas Coal Mine, after 50 years finally has closure with the unveiling of the Miners' Memorial.
On a shivery Saturday afternoon in Drumheller, government representatives MP Kevin Sorenson, and Mayor Terry Yemen helped Bob Moffatt, representing miners and Randall Myers, representing families who lost loved ones, unveil the memorial in downtown Drumheller.
For Olga Skrlik, the event was especially meaningful and it put to rest five decades of wishing to honour her late husband. She describes it as a dream come true.
“It was pretty passionate for me to want this to happen,” she told The Mail.
Olga’s husband John Myers was killed along with his brother in one of the most haunting accidents in Drumheller mining history. In 1962, John and brothers Robert (Babe) and Don were finishing up a shift 400 feet below the surface in Atlas #4. John and Babe got in the elevator cage to exit the mine. The elevator malfunctioned and the brakes did not hold. The 12-ton counterweight hurled to the ground and the cage smashed into the hoist structure instantly killing the two brothers.
The tragedy left a mourning family with two young sons in its wake. They were with their mother at the Memorial unveiling. Olga was motivated from early on to make a monument to her husband and brother-in-law.
“It wasn’t right off because I still hadn’t found my footing, but I got thinking and I felt ‘those boys deserve something for the horrible way they were killed,’ but I didn’t know where to start,” said Olga.
She began her quest trying to get in touch with someone who could help, but over the years she did not make any progress. That was until about four years ago when she had a conversation with Linda Digby at the Atlas.
She told Linda that before she dies she would like to see a memorial to those two. The more they talked the project grew to building a monument to all miners who died in the mines.
Ernest Hlady had identified about 140 miners who had died in Drumheller mines. Volunteer researchers came up with more than 200 in all to be included on the memorial. It was from this research that after 50 years Olga could finally put to rest this tragedy.
“I had still not gotten over what had happened. It wasn’t until we did some research. We went to the archives in Edmonton and went through all the books and whatever we could find. I was amazed at how many miners were killed and how they met their deaths,” she said.
While many men lost their lives in terrible ways, to her, not many were as horrible as how her husband met his demise. She never saw her husband after he died.
“For me there was no closure,” she said. “I wanted especially to do this for my boys because they never knew their father and this way they can tell their grandchildren and can say ‘this is your grandfather’s name’… this is what I was striving for, something for the boys,” she said.
