Lewis of Lucas: 1880-1969

Each time I pass the place where he was born, to myself I say, I'd like to see a statue of him placed there, just above the basin of long flat water, below the rolling hills. I build, with my thoughts, an anthracite- black base to stand on. Chunks of coal to support his body; feet, legs placed wide apart, controlling the fierce spirit of the fuel within the mines; bold shoulders and hard arms prepared to work with it and hold the head he had, with so much mind in it! His brows, black and bushy as that miner's should be, would jut out at passers-by like words from his oratory, eloquently agitating, decided as the pickaxe and the shovel at his feet. So I would place John Lewis who understood, and defended, the worth of labor.

The miners' huts, the threadbare hummocks of Lucas, the sedimentary courage would explain him to us.