ABSAROKEE - It's now been one month since Toby Whalen and hundreds of other miners were laid off by the Stillwater Mining Company. On Saturday, Whalen and his family of left Absarokee for good.

"We don't want to go," Whalen said. "We like this place." They headed back to Butte, to be with family. "You know there's family there," he said. "That's the only reason we're going back."

When they get there, they won't be under one roof. To save money they'll have to stay with family members and no one had room for the family of four. Toby and one son will be with his mother and his wife and other son will be with her mom.

Trinkets bearing the name of Toby's former employer are still scattered in their belongings. And he knows he's not the only one to lose his job. "A lot of employees who've been there a lot of years longer than I have lost their jobs too," Whalen said.

Some kept their jobs and Whalen gets emotional when he remembers what a few of them did for him. "There are a couple of miners," he said choking back tears. "They know who they are, and they are appreciated."

Whalen said a group of miners delivered a card with what he considered to be a rather large sum of money to his home. Couple that with food stamps and unemployment and Toby says they can make it through.

"It'll be enough to survive on," he said. "We'll make it work." Toby's wife has been hired as a bartender in Butte and Toby will continue to look for a job, though he said if the Stillwater mine offers him a job again he would take it without thinking twice.