Judith Chiri-Mulkey
As the author of ROCKVALEPAGES.COM, this is a little history of how and why this web site came to be.
Bob Wood, publisher of The Florence Citizen, wrote in the September 25, 2003 issue “Rockvale native Judi Chiri-Mulkey has obviously spent hours upon hours researching and writing about her roots in Rockvale. The site is a treasure for history buffs, for she recounts many details of the town’s development.”
Rockvale is not an Italian, Austrian, Polish, or Irish originated town. Rockvale had and still has many different cultural groups from all over the world. Because America itself is made up of all different lifestyles, Rockvale is an all-American town.
I am a native of Rockvale and lived in a home next to the Rockvale School until I went to college. So I grew up in Rockvale as did my father and his siblings—all immigrants from Italy.
I have had some good journalism training–as a teenager I wrote a column for The Citizen and was journalism major in college. The website is obviously a project I love for I have written pages and pages about Rockvale, its history, and its people. In addition to Rockvale history, there are sections devoted to the Rockvale fire, the Rockvale school and Rockvale churches. The pages are lavishly illustrated with photos some historical and some from the present. Music accompanies each page, and I have added pages for all of us to add our special memories of growing up in this special small community of Rockvale.
I have always been fascinated with Rockvale history and the history of the coal camps. My father worked in coal mines, as did his father and his brothers. Frank one of my father’s brothers, was killed in a mining accident at the Cedar Canyon Coal Mine. I became more interested in putting this site together after obtaining a copy of Rockvale Remembered—1986-2000 –a calendar the Rockvale Historical Club put together. I gained information for Rockvale pages through research and from the sources listed on the home page of this site. I am a retired business education/computer technology teacher. I have co authored numerous computer-related textbooks and written and published articles about computers, business education, and computer technology. My intention is to add information about Williamsburg. I have already included information about the coal mining towns of Chandler, Radiant, and Coal Creek.