what doesn’t kill you
Article Source: @timesargus Times Argus 3/2/2009 by Paul Wood.
Sculptor pics 1-3 Chris Miller, pic 4 unknown, pic 5 Chris Miller and Ryan Mays
“Some granite workers wrote home looking for a wife who later came to Barre to wed, knowing her future husband only through letters. However, some did return to Italy after retirement in many cases an early retirement forced by the "American disease" silicosis. This disease was unknown in the Italian granite industry since the climate was milder and stone workers labored in sheds with open sides which allowed most of the dust to escape. Italian workers were disproportionately affected by silicosis since as stonecutters and carvers worked close to the dust produced by pneumatic tools. Louis Brusa, a Barre stonecutter, died in 1937 at age 50 from silicosis. His monument is one of the most unusual (and disturbing) in Hope Cemetery. Brusa is shown exhausted and slumped backward with his wife Mary comforting him. His chest is merged into the granite base symbolic of his lungs filled with granite dust. In 1920, the average life expectancy of Barre granite workers was 16 years less than the national average for men. Silicosis-induced tuberculosis killed large numbers of Barre's skilled granite workers. Some granite workers, on their deathbed, made their wives promise that their sons would never enter the granite industry. After World War II, many returning sons, seeing a wider world of opportunities, decided to go into other careers such as medicine, law, education, and politics.”
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