Kotula, Stanley
(Mar. 9, 1903 - Mar. 1966)
Fraternal leaderUnlike other families who come and go, Joseph Kotula, who came from Austria, where he was born in December 1866 in a Polish family, and his wife, Katherine, whom he married just after he got off the boat, went together with the mining village of Dupont like peanut butter and jelly. They raised seven sons and two daughters, and as soon as they were twelve years old the first boys in the family became slate pickers in a coal breaker and then, in their late teens, drivers of mules in the coal mines. By the time Stanley Kotula was of age, everything was changed because of the United Mine Workers of America and he remained in school until he graduated from Dupont High School in 1922. From then on he worked in the coal mines until he lost his left arm at Colliery No. 14 in Plains. After that he was a school janitor.
In 1916, during the religious turmoil in Lackawanna County between Bishop Hodur and the Catholic bishops of the Scranton diocese, the Kotula family quit the Sacred Heart Catholic Church and joined the Hodur church in Dupont. In 1935, Stanley Kotula was elected secretary of a branch of the Polish National Union and for eight years he served with the Polish National Union in various capacities. Then he was elected vice president and served until the president of the fraternal union, the Rev. Walter Kochan, died. Kotula succeeded him in February 1953.
From: Edward Pinkowski (2009)
Kotula, Stanislaus
Fraternal official. Director of Polish National Union, a fraternal organization with headquarters in Scranton, Pa. Member of Polish National Catholic Church. Married. Active in Polish community life. Member of several Polish societies and clubs. Address: 1002 Pittston Avenue, Scranton, Pa.From: "Who's Who in Polish America" by Rev. Francis Bolek, Editor-in-Chief; Harbinger House, New York, 1943