Teen twist on Mollies

Scranton Times-Tribune
March 8, 2009

Teen twist on Mollies
Author puts young spin on local history
by Caleb Sheaffer

More than a decade of genealogical research went into Dallas resident Mary Garrity Slaby’s new book, "Call Me Kate: Meeting the Molly Maguires." But it is not a standard history book full of facts and figures.

Rather Slaby, under her pen name Molly Roe, wrote "Call Me Kate" as a novel for young adults to pique their interest in the rich history of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Ms. Slaby will conduct a book signing at the Lackawanna County Historical Society on April 5 at 2 p.m.

Slaby knows her audience well because of her day job. She teaches seventh- and eighth-grade language arts at Lake-Lehman Junior-Senior High School.

At Lake-Lehman, Slaby often has her students bring in three artifacts related to their family’s past. But usually the exercise doesn’t go over very well.

"I often find out they don’t know too much about their heritage," Slaby said.

Pique their interest

This experience encouraged her to figure out a way to intrigue junior high students with stories about coal mining and immigration. These tales made the areas from Pottsville to Scranton valuable to the country’s history.

Slaby was born in Philadelphia, but grew up in Coaldale, about 30 miles south of Hazleton. She started to research her family history later in life. Her research in area historical societies culminated in 2002 when 18 family members accompanied her to Donegal, the county in Ireland where her mother’s family originally lived.

Through her genealogical research, she discovered that her mother’s grandfather, Peter Bonner, may have been involved in the controversial Irish group, the Molly Maguires.

The main character of Slaby’s novel, Kate, is based on her grandmother, Katherine, who worked as a servant for the Pardee family outside Hazleton. In the book she befriends Con, a young man, who learns of the Molly Maguires.

To this day, the Molly Maguires remains an elusive group in the area’s history, and its members have been accused of killing individuals and committing various crimes from election-rigging to rioting. No hard proof exists for these past actions, and Slaby contends that the Molly Maguires may not have actually existed as people think they did.

"I think the name was put on them, and the conspiracy grew from there," Slaby said.

Describing hardships

The book also gives an unflinching look at the hardships of Northeastern Pennsylvania in the early industrial era. The book begins with Kate’s father receiving a paralyzing injury while working in the coal mines. Throughout the book, Slaby does her best to describe the early coal mining towns in the late 1800s. The setting almost becomes a character in the novel.

Slaby and her husband, John, have two grown children, Melissa and John, who did the illustration for the cover of his mother’s book. Slaby is on sabbatical from teaching, and it will give her some extra time to promote her new novel. Slaby also published a story in "Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk High School."

Slaby is writing two more books in the series — one about Kate’s sister Sarah and her adventures in Centralia and another about her sister Mamie. Slaby knows that her books may be a non-traditional look at history, but if teenagers read them, she hopes they’ll learn to have pride in growing up in such a fascinating historical area.

"I always find that I become more interested in something when I had a personal connection," Slaby said. "This area was the Wild West of its day."

ABOVE: A teacher at Lake-Lehman Junior-Senior High School, Mary Garrity Slaby wrote "Call Me Kate" to pique the interest of seventh- and eighth-graders in local history.