My full name is Mary Harris Jones...

My full name is Mary Harris Jones, but I'd prefer it if you'd call me, Mother - everyone else does. I was born in Cork, Ireland in 1837. My people were poor. For generations we’d fought for Ireland's freedom. My Da bought us passage to America in 1845. After findin’ work on a railway construction crew, Da became an American citizen. Of our U.S. citizenship we were taught to be forever proud. In school, I studied to become a teacher. Dress makin’ too, I learned proficiently.

(a soft, tender smile grows)

But in 1861… I was workin’ as a teacher in Memphis, Tennessee. That spring I met George Jones. He was an iron molder. He embodied everything handsome about that profession. In my earliest memory of George I see him workin’ in a mist-filled room, plumes of steam coming from a vent just beside him.

(dreamily)

His physical strength, next to the gentleness of a talented craftsman, made him terribly attractive, and… ah… there was the steam.

(they embrace, she’s beaming)

We married that fall… and in the coming years had four perfect wee little chislers. Da and Ma helped rear ‘em while I taught school.

Street noises of people and wagons are heard, a wet cough rattles nearby. Her smile fades.

In 1867 a yellow fever epidemic swept Memphis. The victims were mainly among the poor. The rich went to doctors, or fled the city. We could afford neither. Schools and churches closed.

(they pantomime caring for their children)

One by one, our four wee ones grew pale, blistering with the fever, their skin turnin’ a jaundiced yellow. One by one, we dressed them for burial.

(touching George’s face gently)

My George, bein’ a man… He did not die so quickly.

George turns aways and separates from her. LIGHTS DIM on him slowly. Grating wheels turn.

Night after night I shut out the sounds of sufferin’. But the one sound I couldn’t stop was the gratin’ wheels of the death cart. When it left my house for the last time, I followed it to the union burial grounds.

(wiping emotions away)

For the rest of the epidemic I worked as a nurse, tryin’ to ease the sufferin’. It wasn't until later that I questioned why… why I had not been touched. I don't consider myself a zealot or a savior, but from that moment on… I've known why I'm here. And I've met frightfully few people who can say the same.

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