Gitterle history

We did some research on my father's family and turns out his great grandfather played an important role in Union history.

The Union Miners Cemetery is linked to an episode in the strike known as "The Virden Riot," in which four Mt. Olive men (and still others from nearby towns) were killed in a shoot out with mine guards on October 10, 1898, as a train carrying 180 black strike-breakers recruited from the south, attempted to pass through a band of armed strikers, and reach safety within a fortified stockade at Virden. Joseph Gitterle was massacred in the riot.

http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/minecem.htm

“Joseph Gitterle: ‘Life to him was sweet and fair as the autumn sky, but duty called and bravely he answered, Aye.’

My parent's visited the cemetery over the summer.