An Illinois monument to famed labor crusader Mother Jones in the graveyard where she's buried is getting a makeover, thanks to donors from 17 states.
The (Alton) Telegraph reports the restoration of the 22-foot granite obelisk was announced Tuesday in the union-owned Mount Olive cemetery where Mary Harris Jones is buried.
A symbolic check for $61,000 was presented during the ceremony, representing donations ranging in size from $5 to $5,000 from 107 union organizations.
The restoration is to be finished by mid-2015. The 80-ton Minnesota granite monument was dedicated at Harris' grave six years after she died in 1930 at the age of 100.
From the 1870's almost until her death, the white-haired, 5-foot former seamstress was in the thick of some of the nation's most venomous labor disputes.
