Joseph Puma, Page Two

At the close of the day. Waiting for the cage to go up. The cage is entirely open on two sides and not very well protected on other two, and is usually crowded like this. Small boy in front is Jo Pume, a Nipper, 163 Pine Street. Shaft #6, Pennsylvania Coal Co. Location: South Pittston, Pennsylvania, January 1911, Lewis Hine.

Resting with the load at the head of the slope. Shaft #6 Pennsylvania Coal Co., Small boy is Jo Puma, a Nipper, 163 Pine Street. Jo's mother showed me the passport which shows Jo to be 14 years old, but he has no school certificate, although working inside the mine. Location: Pittston, Pennsylvania, January 1911, Lewis Hine.

I found one of Joe's daughters in the oddest of ways. After finding Joe in the census and the Social Security Death Index, I searched for him in the newspaper archives in Ancestry.com. His name came up in a short article published in the Gettysburg Times on September 9, 1952. It said in part, "Announcement is made of the marriage of Miss Angeline G. Puma, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Puma, Geneva, NY, who became the bride of Robert J. Deardorff..." It didn't take long at find Angeline, who currently lives in Pennsylvania. She was stunned, but pleased when she received the photograph of her father. It's the only one she has of her father as a boy. My interview with her follows on next page.

Joseph Puma was born in Italy on January 29, 1896 (some records say 1897), to Alessandro and Josephine Puma, who were married in Italy in about 1895 and came to the US in 1906. So Hine's statement in the caption that he was 14 years old is about right. In the 1910 census, Joseph's occupation is listed as "door tender." He was the second oldest child in the home; his older brother Charles was a wagon driver in the mine. Joseph married Angeline Capazzi about 1922. In the 1930 census, they were listed as living with his parents in Pittston, and Joe was a truck driver.