Looking back -- Uncle Bill

My Uncle Bill passed away when I was only three years old and I don't have many memories of him. In packing up our mother's house for her move to assisted living, my sister came across a box with memorbilia on our Uncle Bill.  I knew he was a staunch union man, but reading newspaper articles and his obituary, I've come to learn so much more about him, and better understand my father's strong support of the Unions.  I am also questioning his death, thinking his death may have not have been natural, but more on that later.

William Martin Thornton, "the unionist who made a national name for himself by covering more than 100 Iowa cities and towns on the O'Sullivan boycott." 

The O'Sullivan boycott ended up in the Court of Appeals and involved the O'Sullivan Rubber Corporation and 250 strikers who walked out against the nation's "No. 1 heel" manufacturer and had been on strike for 18 months.