By Matt Siegfried

Charles Elmer Gears, my grandfather, passed away after complications from heart surgery in December of 2002.  He was 82. A child of the depression he was raised in a staunchly union coal mining family of immigrants in the hills of southeast Ohio.  His father was a miner and trade union organizer for the United Mine Workers of America during some of the bloodiest confrontations in American labour history.  As a child and young man my grandfather was going to miners funerals nearly every week and vividly recalled seeing the dead lying on the side of the road after a battle between the National Guard and the striking "rednecks".

While never a revolutionary or socialist he retained a militant trade unionism that was sometimes at odds with his otherwise pacifist nature. This was a man who was physically incapable of raising his voice. He was a living refutation of the violence that poverty inflicts on people.  For all that knew him he was a refuge of peace and comfort.

He loved his role as grandfather and having no sons of his own lavished attention and little lessons on his grandsons.  Especially in the woods where he felt most at home hunting, fishing, walking and often just sitting taking in the "awe of it all".

He and his partner of 59 years, Helen, volunteered up until he died usually at the Lancaster Food Pantry where he helped collect food for the poor or building houses with Habitat for Humanity, even as they were living on Social Security and their scant savings.  He felt powerfully against injustice, especially that done to working people.  I remember well his anger at Henry Ford who "gave a man 5 dollars a day and then murdered him" on the factory floor.

He was also resolutely opposed to the coming war on Iraq.  His was a small link in the chain of working class America.  Those who sang union hymns as lullabies to their children and grandchildren who grew up to be radicals, activists and trade unionists.  Who will sing union songs to their children and grandchildren?  He will be greatly missed by all who benefited from knowing him.  That we struggle to build a society worthy of what is best in us his legacy.