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Bill Mistick never forgot the day his father, Andy, came home from the mill and unfolded a large sheet of paper after the supper table was cleared. It was a drawing of something, but nothing that anyone recognized. Andy paused while the kids puzzled over it.

Decades before, Andy had been recruited in his village in Slovakia by Henry Clay Frick’s men. They needed strong backs and willing workers for the mills in America. Andy made it to Braddock and immediately started working at the E.T., the Edgar Thompson Works.

In time, his wife, Elizabeth, and their first-born son left Slovakia, crossed Europe and the Atlantic Ocean and joined him. They settled a block from the mill gate into a worker’s rowhouse that was a half-lot wide, two rooms deep and two stories high with an outhouse in the bricked courtyard out back. Bill was the youngest of 10 kids born there.

Frick considered labor to be just another raw material that went into making steel, and the workers eventually pushed back against long hours, low wages and dangerous working conditions. But every time the workers went on strike, management demanded they return to work or lose their jobs.

Most went back, but Andy stayed out one time, and he was fired. Banished from all U.S. Steel Corp. mills and with mouths at home, he was fortunate to get a job with Bethlehem Steel. And that’s where he got the drawing that he shared with the family on that day that Bill never forgot.

As Bill retold it, his father quieted everyone and explained it.

“That is a drawing of a piece of steel that we are making for the new Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Calif. We are part of it, helping to build the greatest bridge ever.”

The Golden Gate Bridge was a marvel, an “only in America” kind of thing and a rare bright spot in the gloom of the Great Depression. Andy was amazed at his good fortune.

Bill repeated the story of that day in the kitchen many times throughout his life. He remembered the pride in his father’s voice and the pride the family felt knowing that their father and they were even a tiny part of something so grand. Bill also remembered what he told his father that day.

“Pap, someday I will go to California and see that bridge,” he said. His father replied, “I know that you will, Billy. Someday.”

So it was that Bill, in his mid-70s, had the thought one day that he better keep his promise before time ran out. He headed for the Pittsburgh airport and caught the first plane to San Francisco.

When he landed, he took a taxi directly to the Golden Gate Bridge and made his way to the bronze plaque on the first tower. Bill stood against the wind on the bridge deck and said, “I’m here, Pap.”

Then, he placed the palm of his hand where it says, “Structural Steel-Main Span-Bethlehem Steel Company Incorporated.”

Bill remembered his father’s love and devotion, the guts it took to leave the old country, the back-breaking work in the mills, his pride in his family and America.

He shed a few tears. He had kept his promise.

Joseph Sabino Mistick is a Pittsburgh lawyer. Reach him at misticklaw@gmail.com.

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