My Instead: I visited Mother Jones Monument in Mount Olive, Illinois.
My great nephew Archer
was getting baptized on Sunday morning in Springfield, Illinois. I was not
going to miss it because this was my way of giving thanks to God for blessing Archer
with good health. The circumstances surrounding his birth and several days following
were scary. Many prayers traveled from Belleville to Springfield in mid-June.
It was a Saturday night
and my girlfriend Annette and I decided to spend the night in Springfield. It
was our first getaway and this little scheme of ours would get us to
the church on time for Archer’s baptism the next morning. We were driving on
Highway 55 when I said that we had to find an “instead” to do on the way to Springfield.
We both were “keeping our eyes peeled” for an opportunity to experience and enjoy
out there on the plains of Illinois. After a half hour had passed, I noticed a
brown sign that read Mother Jones Monument. We were both curious to see what
this was about, so we took the next exit to Mount Olive and followed the signs
to a cemetery where the large monument was standing in memory of Mother Jones. We
read all the verbiage etched in stone and gathered that she was a union leader
for the mine workers in the area. We read that there was a massacre in Virden,
Illinois on October 12, 1898 which piqued our interest, as well as, created an
eeriness around the edifice.
As we walked away to
continue our drive to Springfield, I immediately got my phone out to Google Mother
Jones and the Virden Massacre. Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones) was an amazingly strong woman
who suffered unbelievable hardships, losing her husband and children from an
outbreak of yellow fever in 1861 and then in 1871 she lost her home in the great
Chicago fire. Later she became known as the miner's angel and was an active
campaigner for the United Mine Workers Union. The Virden Massacre was a bloody
battle at the train depot in Virden, Illinois which occurred because striking
mineworkers were trying to stop strikebreakers from entering the mine stockade.
The strikebreakers happened to be black, so the incident was also racial in
nature. Lives were lost and “victory” ensued for the UMWA.
The visit to this monument was quite moving for both me and
Annette. We wondered about other historic moments that have happened which have
molded our world to be what it is today and at what cost.
I thought about the moments in my life that have molded me to
be what I am today...and at what cost. And what will I be tomorrow because of what was today? And what won't I be?
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