Frank and George Marojevech

TOGETHER IN LIFE, AND TOGETHER IN DEATH.

On June 21, 1907, Felemir “Frank” Marojevech was working the night shift at the Tonopah Belmont Mine when his brother George, who worked the day shift, made his way up the hill to pay him a visit at about 10 p.m. Neither man knew that fate had come along as George’s uninvited, ghostly companion.

After arriving at the mine, George called out to his brother, and the two engaged in a brief conversation. Frank, who was loading ore cars with Steve Cerevitch, was standing on a car when it suddenly began to move down the grade. He sprang to the brake wheel at the front of the car and attempted to stop it. Frank had in his possession a shovel handle, which he used as a brake stick, but as he tightened the brake the handle broke. He fell directly into the path of the moving car, which passed completely over his body, death coming instantly.

At the same moment, seeing that his brother had missed the side steps, George rushed to his rescue. But the runaway car had gained such momentum that before he could drag Frank from the track, George too was struck. He was knocked to the ground, and the car rolled over both of his legs just above the ankles.

While lying on the ground after the accident, George—knowing that his brother was dead and that both of his feet were mangled beyond hope—attempted to choke himself and begged those around him to kill him. He would later get his wish for death.

George was rushed to the Miners’ Union Hospital, where surgeons found it necessary to amputate both legs above the ankles. During the operation, Drs. Richards and Mapes discovered that his left arm was fractured above the wrist and that his right arm had been badly strained. Little hope of recovery was given, and George died shortly thereafter.

Coroner Brissell arrived at the scene soon after the accident, and the following morning a seven-man coroner’s jury was convened. The jurors viewed the site of the accident and examined the remains of the unfortunate victims. After hours of deliberation, arguments both for and against the mining company were raised. Some jurors held that the company should be censured, while others contended that Frank himself had been careless.

The jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict regarding Frank’s death, and two reports were submitted. One concluded that Frank had come to his death through his own carelessness. The other stated: “That deceased came to his death by a brash and brittle shovel handle as a brake stick, and that we censure the employer for allowing its employees to use such a poor stick, and we further censure the employer for employing any but competent switchmen to handle cars on high and dangerous grades.”

In the matter of George’s death, the jury was unanimous in finding that it was accidental.

The brothers—united in life as well as in death—were buried under the auspices of the Miners’ Union. Frank was twenty-eight years old; George, just twenty-two. Both were members of Tonopah’s close-knit Montenegrin community, and their deaths were mourned not as isolated tragedies, but as a single, shared calamity—one more reminder of the thin line separating labor from loss in the mines of early Tonopah.