An illustration of a picket line in Taylorville, 1932. From the Women's Auxiliary P.M. of A., 1st Annual Report. Courtesy of Archives/Special Collections, Brookens Library, University of Illinois at Springfield.

Here’s a forlorn account of the funeral of mine war martyr, Emma Cumerlato, published in The Progressive Miner.  Although the PMA was typically held responsible for mine war violence, this story affirms the remarkable resilience and restraint of these mourning workers:

Once again in the shadows of a Peabody mine tipple, a gigantic funeral procession of striking miners and their wives move through the “war zone” of Christian county coal fields last week. This time the miners were burying a woman martyr, Mrs. Emma Cumerlato, miner’s wife and mother of three children. Shot through the heart when she opened the door of their home to save her husband from the terrific gunfire of Lewis-Peabody thugs and Sheriff Wieneke’s deputies attacking pickets to the nearby Kincaid mine, Mrs. Cumerlato was the fourth victim of a strike now entering in the tenth month.

Failing in their attempt to prevent this tremendous demonstration of love and solidarity at the funeral services, the forces responsible for this woman’s death deliberately attempted to incite the community to bloodshed at the very hour of the funeral.

The wife of a U.M.W. strikebreaker was stationed beside the door of the stricken Cumerlatto home, brazenly facing every mourning man and woman who entered there. Surrounding the house were troops of Illinois National Guardsmen, despised by these people whom they have teargassed and bayoneted. And just when the Rev. Dundas was conducting the funeral services, U.S. bombing planes swooped down with a terrific roar, circling directly above the funeral scene. Again and again these engines of war zoomed and roared over the multitude of people who could not find shelter within the small home. So low they flew, their numbers were easily discerned and their roar was deafening. During this outrageous disturbance a disciple of Christ was reading from the Scriptures to comfort these mourning miner folk, citizens of a county named Christian.

Out of respect for the dead, the aroused people steeled themselves to submit to this outrage. On all sides was expressed the conviction that the government, federal as well as state, was being used against a starving people, either to terrorize them into slavery or to incite them into an outbreak that would mean their annihilation.

The Progressive Miner
January 13, 1933

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