- Item
- 1931-02
Part of Chapin Bowen Photographs
In February of 1931, elderly Richard Henry "Jimmy" Davis demonstrated how he and the neighborhood boys played marbles outside the frame home of Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Ill. The future President, depending on his mood, would either join the boys in the game or shoo them away, saying that they were making too much noise. Mr. Davis, who in 1931 was well past 80, lived in the Lutheran Compass Mission. He couldn't remember much about how he came to live there. He worked in the mines from the age of 11 and three cave-ins have robbed him of much of his memory. As a young man, he was active in the labor movement and for two years travelled and worked with Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, the "Miners Angel." The pair helped with organizing what would become the United Mine Workers. (TNT 2/11/1931, pg. 1) BGN-284 TPL-9934