Marching ever onward

CAPALDO — The first Amazon Army March started on Dec. 12 from the Franklin Miners Hall and included about 3,000 women.

The second march, held Friday near Capaldo, was a little smaller, with maybe 30 or so women and two men."

Also, the 1921 marchers wouldn’t have dreamed that their actions and words could be recorded for viewing by thousands, maybe even millions.  The women Friday knew that they were being followed on camera for future broadcast on the  PBS TV series “Sunflower Journeys.”

“Any exposure you can give to historical events is good,” noted Hugh Campbell, one of the two men in the reenactment.

Linda Knoll, local educator and authority on the march, worked with Jim Kelly, segment producer for “Sunflower Journeys,” to film the march.  She also has a very personal interest in the march because her grandmother, Maggie Bellezza Onelio, was one of the marchers.

Lydia Rohner, one of the reneactors, was wearing a blue and white polka dot dress that had belonged to Onelio.

“It was kind of sentimental when I was putting it on,” Rohner said. “I took it home last night and it was, should I wash it, should I not wash it?”

Eva Gartner 91, was present at the original march, but as an infant held in the arms of her mother, Blanche Pommier Richard. To commemorate that  occasion, Gartner depicted her mother and carried a stuffed toy wrapped in a blanket.

Also taped on Thursday were some scenes from a dramatic piece that Knoll wrote about the march, and some of those who performed in them also came out Friday to reenact the march.

“I was Mother Jones Thursday, but today I’m just one of the marchers, so I don’t have to wear that wool get-up,” said Faith Paoni.

The women were wives, sweethearts, sisters and daughters of miners who were in the middle of a bitter strike over wages and working conditions, and Paoni noted that their actions had far-reaching consequences for the entire nation.

“Because of what happened right hear, we now have an eight-hour work day,” she said.

The Friday march started with Linda Foxwell, as Mary Skubitz, speaking to the women before they embarked on their mission of visiting area coal mines and talking to the mine bosses and the “scab” miners who were working in place of their striking menfolks.

Campbell portrayed the local sheriff, who was shocked to see so many women  in the crowd and tried to get them to go home.

“I get to be mean,” he said.

After the opening scene, marchers drove to a nearby country road and spent over an hour marching with flags unfurled.

Campbell warned them to stay on the road because there was a lot of poison ivy growing along the sides of the road.

“We’ll just knock the scabs into the poison ivy,” said Vonnie Corsini.

After the filming, Kelly said that he would have to edit the footage to fit into the format of the program.

“We have three segments per program, and each segment runs 7 1/2 to eight minutes,” he said. “There’s no way we can use it all, but we will provide links on our web site where people can go to get additional information about the Amazon Army March.”

No date has been set yet for the broadcast of the segment.

“Our new series doesn’t start until September and there will be 13 shows in the series,” Kelly said. “The Amazon Army March should be around the middle of that, but I really can’t say just when yet. I will let people know in advance when it is decided.”

He said that “Sunflower Journeys” tries to cover all parts of Kansas equally.

“I personally have done a number of segments in southeast Kansas,” Kelly said. “This area has such a rich history and a lot of Kansans don’t know about it. Part of our job is to tell stories about Kansas to Kansans.”