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| ONLINE VERSION | JUNE 2000 |
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| ONLINE VERSION | JUNE 2000 |
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Workers Memorial Day |
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In Illinois
A beautiful and serene cemetery in the woods of Funk's Grove, Illinois was the setting of a special tribute on April 28 to Irish rail workers who lost their lives in the 1850s and are buried in two mass graves there. In 1852-53 the Alton and Sangamon Railroad (today the Union Pacific/Amtrak) was building from Springfield to Bloomington. Illinois was busy with railroad construction, chiefly using immigrant Irish laborers who were potato famine refugees. Deaths and accidents from poor working and sanitary conditions were common in these construction camps. Cholera was pandemic. Contemporary reports note hundreds of workers dying from work camp epidemics. Although the exact circumstances of the Funk's Grove deaths are unclear, this situation is unique because these workers were buried in a cemetery, and not in forgotten track side graves. Local oral tradition and cemetery records marked their burial, though not the individual names. The cemetery records simply note "Irish workers" over two large plots. Central Illinois Irish-Americans and labor unions, inluding the BMWE, led by the McLean County Historical Society, raised nearly $20,000 to erect a Celtic cross at the grave site. The Society also published a 76-page book entitled Irish Immigrants in McLean County, Illinois which features almost 20 pages about Irish workers on the railroad. More information will be printed in a future edition of the BMWE JOURNAL. Traditional Irish music was played by Irish Piper Kevin Henry as the dedication program began in an old, wonderfully preserved chapel on the property. Speakers included Margaret Blackshere, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO, Terence M. O'Sullivan, general president of the Laborers' International Union, and Hon. Eamon Hickey, Consul General of the Republic of Ireland. Following the speakers, guests formed a procession which was led by bagpipes and flag and banner carriers to the site of the six foot Celtic cross marking the end of the two large plots in the cemetery where over 50 workers are buried. The wide aisle formed by the plots was lined with small Irish and American flags. At 3:30 p.m. the Celtic cross was dedicated by prayers, including a
Native American prayer as it is believed that three Native Americans
are also buried there, consecration of the grounds and the unveiling
of the cross which had been draped by the joining of the Irish and
American flags. At 4:30 p.m. as the monument dedication ended, all Amtrak locomotives in the nation sounded a salute to these Irish railroad workers. Following the dedication, many guests attended the reception and dinner sponsored by the Illinois Labor History Society in the McLean County Museum of History in Bloomington, Illinois. In Pennsylvania
The 12th Annual Workers Memorial Day event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 28 was co-sponsored by the Philadelphia County AFL-CIO, the Southern New Jersey Central Labor Council AFL-CIO and the Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety & Health (PHILAPOSH). After breakfast, during which speakers included U.S. Congressman Ron Klink and Davis Layne, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, a mock funeral procession made its way to the Great Plaza at Penns Landing. After hearing from several more speakers, the most moving part of the memorial began. Accompanied by the playing of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes, the names of those who lost their lives in the tri-state area in 1999 were read as flowers were cast into the Delaware river, symbolizing continuing life flow and reaffirming the struggle to prevent injury, disease and death on the job. We Will Not Forget Robert Creekkiller, UP Kerry Elliott, BNSF K. D. Mallory, NS Paul Monk, CP
Arthur Singletary, CSX David Thompson, CP |
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