Welcome!
My name is Katie and I was raised in the tiny town of Monongah located in the hills of West Virginia. I started this page as a way to simply organize my thoughts and some of my research pertaining to the Monongah Mine Disaster of 1907. I am working on a personal project about Monongah and decided to create a space to share some of my research and reflections on what I have found.
Monongah has a very rich history and very few realize the critical role it played in creating some of the major cities and lifestyles of the average American today.
Though this blog is about research into an important event in American history, it is not intended to be formal. My posts could vary in length and there may be a time or two where I simply journal on some ideas and the views expressed in them will be entirely personal. I will do my best to cite any information or direct readers to places where they can find more information on the topic.
I’m still rather new to this whole blog thing so, I appreciate your patience with any beginner’s mistakes I make (it will happen) and apologize in advance if I left out any important information or posted something wrong.
That being said….let’s roll!
I spent the first five years or so of my life in a large house at the end of a ‘rural road’, now called Pine Oak Lane, on top of a large hill, now called Shenasky Hill. Though this area is generally considered to be part of west side Monongah, it’s actually located just past town line in an area known as Thoburn.
I attended Monongah Elementary, Monongah Middle, then graduated from North Marion High School in 2002.
I was on one of the local T-Ball teams.
I participated in Little Miss Monongahfest pageants.
I was raised Roman Catholic and was baptized and received First Communion at St. Peter’s in Fairmont. We switched to Holy Spirit in Monongah once it got a new priest.
I briefly took dance lessons at Movements in Dance in Fairmont.
I attended the Governor’s Academy in Middle School.
I was a North Marion “Noteable” for a few years.
And though prom wasn’t my bag, I still love my dress.
I attended Marshall University in Huntington, WV for my freshman year of undergrad. But, money was just too tight for me to continue school so far from home so, I moved back home, took a few years off of school and got a job delivering pizza around Fairmont.
I eventually went back to college and attended Fairmont State College while it was in its transitional period to University status. It was an epic mess but, while I was there I was required to take a nationwide standardized argumentative essay test and, even though I went into that test with every intention of failing, my brain kicked into that mode (like it does) and I ended up scoring better than 98% of the rest of the country. This earned me a grant to attend any college of my choosing in WV and the state would pay 75% or so of the tuition.
Enter: my Alma Mater, Bethany College in Bethany, WV.
I studied Visual Art and was very active in the college Theatre department.
So active, that professional theatre was my first employment right out of college.
I graduated from there in 2009 but, I had to leave my graduation early so we could hop in a car and drive the 2 hours back to Fairmont to see my brother graduate from Fairmont State on the same day. At the end of the summer, which was actually quite eventful, I moved to Detroit. I did my internship with the Jewish Ensemble Theater and from there I did the typical TD/Designer freelance thing for several years.
Now I reside in Indianapolis with my fiance, Chris. At one point, as it tends to happen for some people, I got a bit of a “calling” into Death Care and have shifted my focus from professional entertainment scenic design and construction to end-of-life and death care.
I can promise you this much: this place may be my home and my bias is firmly rooted in it and its people but I don’t love it enough to glorify it nor do I hate it enough to demonize it; it is what it is. And what it is…is just fucking weird, dude. — Katie Orwig (KtO)
The Monongah Disaster 