History of the McKettas and the Gelets In a tiny town of Koroschenko (means "pretty little village") in the western edge of the Ukraine, there were several families, unrelated, with the name of Mukema (in Cyrillic alphabet). The pronunciation is Me k eta since "u" is long e "k" is "kh'", "e" = e and "m" = t in Cyrillic. One of these families consisted of Wassail I (Wassail means Charles) Mukema. Wassail I and his wife had five children. The oldest was Ubah (evan, which means John, since u = e, b = v, and h = n) who was born in 1828. (He shall be called "John the Original" for identification purposes.) When "John the Original" was 16 he joined Franz Joseph's Army. His section of the army was captured and "John the Original" was imprisoned for seven years. His betrothed (Catherine Melnyk, our great grandmother) remained unwed during these seven years. She had received no word from any source that he was even alive. Finally she decided that she would marry another. On the eve of her marriage, "John the Original" appeared. This was in 1851. He was greatly changed and after proving his identity he was believed and accepted. The wedding was canceled and ultimately "John the Original" and his original betrothed, Catherine Melnyk (born 1832) were married. "John the Original" received 100 acres of land from the country of Ukraine for his Army services. He and Great Grandmother Catherine had only one child, Wassail II (Charles), born in 1854. Apparently he was quite spoiled. He gambled, drank heavily, and partied a lot. When his father, "John the Original", died in 1908, Wassail II inherited the 100 acres of land. He sold pieces of the land to pay for his partying, drinking and chasing around and ended up with 10 acres. In 1886, WassailII married Anna Machnyk (born 1864). They had three sons, John (born 1889), Frank (born 1891), and Steve (born 1894). When Wassail II's wife, Anna, died in 1905 he remarried a very young girl and they subsequently had two daughters, Katherine and Bertha.
The three boys, John, Frank, and Steve, shepherded the sheep, cattle, pigs, and chickens on their remaining 10 acres of land (they also used 30-SO acres of government land). None of the boys or girls ever went to school of any kind since there were no elementary schools in this part of Ukraine in the early 1900s.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s the owners of the American steel mills were having a great deal of trouble hiring a sufficient number of coal miners to supply fuel and coke for their operations. Most of the companies sent representatives into Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe and offered a job along with free passage and $25 cash (equivalent to $2,500 in 1980 U.S. dollars) to any male over 16 years of age. These males (some were married and had families) were met at the port of entry, (either in New York or in Baltimore) by a representative of one of the steel companies who provided further railroad passage to southwestern Pennsylvania (to the bituminous mines) and also to central and eastern Pennsylvania (to the anthracite mines).
In 1903, when John Mukema was 14 years old, (Frank was 12 and Steve was 9), he heard of the offer from the steel companies. Even though he was only 14 years old (but large in stature) he applied (stating he was 16 years old) to be one of the fortunate ones to be invited to America. He was accepted and began his journey toward the United States in January of 1904. He received a train ticket for a ride from Ukraine to Brest, France where he then boarded a ship for passage to Baltimore, Maryland. He also received $25 cash. He gave $20 to his father who was a very poor farmer and he kept $5 in his pocket (in 1904 the $5 would be the equivalent of more than $500 in 1980 dollars.) The train trip across France lasted three days during which time this strong, young 14 year old boy did not eat since he did not want to spend any of his money. On the evening of the third day he boarded the ship at Brest and about midnight young John went down to the ship's kitchen and confided to one of the cooks (who was Polish and understood Ukrainian) that John would like to buy some food since he had not eaten for 3 days. The cook then advised this young man that the food was free and was included in the train and ship fares. Thereupon young John spent the rest of the night eating in the ship's kitchen.
The ship docked in Baltimore. When John passed the immigration desk he was asked his name. John had never been to school, did not know how to spell his name, and in fact, the name was Mukema in Cyrillic which has no spelling but is only phonetic. So John said his name was Me k eta, whereupon the immigration officer gave John the spelling of "McKetta" on his entrance papers. This remained John's name the rest of his life. He was met by a representative of the Youngstown and Ohio Steel Company (Y&O) who had a coal mine in a small town called Wyano, Pennsylvania. The representative sent John (by train) from Baltimore to Wyano which was a distance of another 200 miles. He was met in Wyano, taken to a boarding house, and assigned a job in the Wyano Coal Mine. He started digging coal the next day. There were six working days per week with free Sundays.
Four years later (1908) John saved enough money to send for brother Frank and then after an additional two years (in 1910) John and his brother Frank, saved enough money to bring brother Steve over to the United States.
It is interesting that when brother Frank came to Baltimore his name was spelled by the U.S. Immigration Officer as "McKita" and two years later brother Steve's name was spelled "Meketa". Later, because John was the oldest brother, all three brother's names were spelled the same as John's -McKetta.
After the three brothers (John, Frank, and Steve) came to America they contributed heavily to their father's support. Later in the early twenties, when Uncle Frank McKetta and Uncle Charles Gelet went to Europe for a visit they found that Granddad McKetta and family were living "high on the hog" because they were getting money from their three sons in America. At the same time Wassail II continued to sell parts of what was left of the 100 acres. Needless to say, the three sons discontinued the contributions.
