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From black dust … a diamond
Still union after all these years

In Drums, Pa., there sits a 100-year-old man in a nursing home. He is one of the oldest UAW members in the world. Though partially blind and paralyzed, his mind is still alert. His greatest joys are visits from his daughter with her reading Solidarity magazine to him.

Andrew Lechman is an exceptional man, created out of the black dust of his meager beginnings.
Lechman was 12 years old in 1914 when the coal miners carried his father’s body home to lay it out on the kitchen floor. The harsh and perilous environment of the dark, black mine had taken his life. With few safety measures and little concern from the mine supervisors, families were left devastated and forced to fight for survival.

With the beginning of the Great Depression, 16-year old Andrew was forced to leave school and go to work in the coal mines as his father had done before him. But he was injured on the job and found himself unable to return to the only thing he knew. He picked up whatever work he could find. Lechman dug graves, hauled trash and delivered coal in a dump truck. It became clear to him that he needed to learn a skill.

His brother-in-law taught him how to run a lathe machine, which enabled him to get hired at Glenn L. Martin (later to become Martin Marietta) in Baltimore, Md., in 1941 as a tool and die maker. UAW Local 738 had been chartered just months before.

As World War II raged, Local 738 members were fighting their own battle to obtain bargaining rights with the company, a fight that lasted until 1946 when the company finally relented to enter into contract negotiations. Molded by his past, Lechman became a firm supporter of the union and its fight for working men and women.

His wife Susan also worked in the Baltimore plant. Having previously been a seamstress in a shirt factory, she had her own strong feelings for the union. Andrew raised pheasants, and Susan canned her own vegetables. Together they taught their daughter, why unions are so important.

Andrew Lechman turned 100-years old on Oct. 26, 2002. He and his beloved wife spent the last few of their 76 years of marriage together in the nursing home before Susan passed away two years ago.
“My father is on a limited income, but it is important to him that he keeps supporting the UAW,” says Andrew’s 77-year-old daughter. Helene Jones mails in her Dad’s $5 V-CAP donation faithfully.
“My father remembers what it was like before there was anyone protecting the workers,” she says. “He has never forgotten where he came from and what the union did for him.”

Daughter Helene with Andrew.