Monongah historian Adam Michna, 1980 North Marion graduate, gives us a hospital history lesson:

“Did you know - there were three hospitals in Fairmont at one time. Cook’s Hospital, Miners Hospital and the Fairmont City Hospital (later known as the Tropea Hotel, and then a restaurant called Vincent's). All were on the East Side. Fairmont General was established in 1938 on farmland.”

Miners Hospital was the 3^rd such hospital founded in the state, this one in 1901, by the West Virginia legislature.

Cook’s Hospital, founded by Rivesville resident Dr. John R. Cook in 1901, was the former J. Walter Barnes property on Gaston and Second.

Fairmont General Hospital was built in 1938, and recently was renamed Fairmont Regional Medical Center.

Fairmont City Hospital was opened in 1904 and disbanded in 1911. That’s only one dog’s year.

Adam Michna writes about his father, also Adam Michna:

 “Sister Joseph taught my father when he attended Sts. Peter and Paul School and also taught me in 1st grade. As an adult, she gained his respect and undivided attention through the board of education.

"She mellowed after many years, and was my 1st grade teacher. My father was stunned speechless when he picked me up after school one day: found me sitting on her lap and eating chocolate chip cookies. Life was good for me in the 1st grade.

“My father skipped a grade or two at Saints Peter and Paul and graduated from Fairmont’s Saint Peter's High School in 1938.

“He attended Fairmont State Teachers College and was drafted into the Army during the spring semester of 1943. Upon his return from the service he graduated from Fairmont State College in 1948. My mother graduated from Mannington High School in 1948.

“I attended Monongah High School for 3 years, and graduated from North Marion in 1980.”

As for me, I was born in the home of my grandparents, Mary Peremba Olesky and Martin Olesky, on Walnut Street at the Pike Avenue intersection, second floor. My grandparents let my mom, Lena Futten Olesky, use their larger bedroom for the birthing.

Within a year, my mom and dad, John W. Olesky, Sr., moved to Thomas Street, a Consolidation Coal Company rental house, before we moved across the street to our Church Street home that my parents purchased from Consol, which knew it was shutting down the mine in three years and got a little more money out of the miners and escaped the responsibility of maintaining the homes that formed the town of Monongah.