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PITTSBURG —
Eva Richard Gartner, 91, was the only person in the recreation of the Amazon Army March Friday who was in the actual march in December of 1921.
“i don’t remember a thing, though,” she said. “I was only a baby, 10 1/2 months old. My mother, Blanche Pommier Richard, wrapped me in a blanket because it was so cold and took me along.”
In Friday’s recreated march, Gartner portrayed her mother and carried a stuffed toy in a blanket to represent herself as a baby.
Her father, Jules Richard, was one of the miners out on strike in a bitter labor dispute in 1921. Alexander Howat, president of Union District 14, called the work stoppage in dispute over wages and unsafe working conditions. Wives, sisters, daughters and sweethearts of miners worked to support their menfolks.
“My father worked in a deep shaft mine between Cockerill and Ginardi’s Corner,” Gartner said. “He was a motor man, and drove a motor that pulled the cars.”
Kansas Gov. Henry Allen called out the state militia against the marching women.
“My mother said that one of the militia men came over, lifted the blanket and looked at me, and said, ‘Isn’t she a little bit young to be marching?’,” Gartner said.
While she doesn’t remember the march itself, she remembers her mother working very hard to wash the clothes her father wore in the mines. She also remembers all the other relatives who worked in those mines.
“My mother’s brother, Emil Pommier, worked in the same mine that my father did, and one day a rock fell and caught him in the leg,” Gartner said. “The doctor wanted to cut my uncle’s foot off, but my father persuaded him not to. My uncle kept his foot, but he limped for the rest of his life.”
She was born a quarter mile east of Ginardi’s Corner and grew up in Franklin.
“About a quarter mile south of our house was a mine,” Gartner said. “It used to explode because of the gases and set the prairie around it on fire. I was always afraid that the fire would jump the road and set our house on fire, but it never did.”
The march Friday was taped by Jim Kelly, segment producer for the PBS program “Sunflower Journeys,” and the marchers frequently had to repeat scenes and march up and down a country road in Capaldo. Gartner took it all in stride.
“That’s the way it is when you’re in the movies,” she said.
Gartner said that her mother really didn’t talk very much about the Amazon Army March.
“I didn’t think to ask questions,” she said. “I didn’t know this was going to be such a big thing.”
Eva Richard Gartner, 91, was the only person in the recreation of the Amazon Army March Friday who was in the actual march in December of 1921.
“i don’t remember a thing, though,” she said. “I was only a baby, 10 1/2 months old. My mother, Blanche Pommier Richard, wrapped me in a blanket because it was so cold and took me along.”
In Friday’s recreated march, Gartner portrayed her mother and carried a stuffed toy in a blanket to represent herself as a baby.
Her father, Jules Richard, was one of the miners out on strike in a bitter labor dispute in 1921. Alexander Howat, president of Union District 14, called the work stoppage in dispute over wages and unsafe working conditions. Wives, sisters, daughters and sweethearts of miners worked to support their menfolks.
“My father worked in a deep shaft mine between Cockerill and Ginardi’s Corner,” Gartner said. “He was a motor man, and drove a motor that pulled the cars.”
Kansas Gov. Henry Allen called out the state militia against the marching women.
“My mother said that one of the militia men came over, lifted the blanket and looked at me, and said, ‘Isn’t she a little bit young to be marching?’,” Gartner said.
While she doesn’t remember the march itself, she remembers her mother working very hard to wash the clothes her father wore in the mines. She also remembers all the other relatives who worked in those mines.
“My mother’s brother, Emil Pommier, worked in the same mine that my father did, and one day a rock fell and caught him in the leg,” Gartner said. “The doctor wanted to cut my uncle’s foot off, but my father persuaded him not to. My uncle kept his foot, but he limped for the rest of his life.”
She was born a quarter mile east of Ginardi’s Corner and grew up in Franklin.
“About a quarter mile south of our house was a mine,” Gartner said. “It used to explode because of the gases and set the prairie around it on fire. I was always afraid that the fire would jump the road and set our house on fire, but it never did.”
The march Friday was taped by Jim Kelly, segment producer for the PBS program “Sunflower Journeys,” and the marchers frequently had to repeat scenes and march up and down a country road in Capaldo. Gartner took it all in stride.
“That’s the way it is when you’re in the movies,” she said.
Gartner said that her mother really didn’t talk very much about the Amazon Army March.
“I didn’t think to ask questions,” she said. “I didn’t know this was going to be such a big thing.”
