Rosemary Ogle, Rose Marie Ketner, Evelyn Ring and Rose Marie Kenney stand with one of the Right to Life banners on the lawn of St. Mary Parish in Paris. PARIS — Thanks to the dedication of people like Evelyn Ring and Rose Marie Ketner, folks around the town of Paris are being made aware that life is precious. Ring and Ketner, who are president and treasurer of Edgar County Right to Life, are both long-time parishioners of St. Mary Parish. Ring started the group in 1975 and Ketner joined her 21 years ago.
Over the years Edgar County Right to Life has taken various actions to draw attention to the importance of respecting life, including a Walk for Life held in conjunction with several other Paris churches. This year that walk was held on Sunday, Oct. 7 around the Cornerstone Baptist Church. As a new fund-raiser this year, the group is selling “God is Pro-Life” car magnets.
“We’ve done a lot of different things over the years,” Ring says. “We’ve held youth rallies. We write our senators. We’ve had telephone trees. We’ve recently begun supporting a University of Illinois Students for Life group.”
“We are a small group, but we always put up banners in the church yard during October drawing attention to the unborn, handicapped and aged. We are getting another new banner this year,” Ketner says. “Each year we place crosses with roses on the church lawn for a month starting Jan. 22 (the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade) in memory of the unborn babies lost to abortion.
“My husband Charles always puts the crosses out during January,” she says. “We also purchase a full-page ad in our local newspaper and collected over 450 names for it.
“Every year (in the spring) we hold a two-day garage-type sale at the Knights of Columbus Hall to meet our commitments to the local Crisis Pregnancy Center, the NRTL (National Right to Life) and IFRL (Illinois Federation for Right to Life). We also have a booth at the Honeybee Festival in the fall,” says Ketner. “All of this wouldn’t happen without the dedication and leadership of Evelyn Ring.”
Recently the Right to Life group has donated a hardback copy of a book called In the Womb which was produced through National Geographic to the Paris public library. They have also distributed a copy to the public high school and junior high school in Paris, says Ring. She adds that she has heard from at least two mothers who chose not to have abortions, thanks in part to what they have learned through Edgar County Right to Life.
As a mother of five (including Father Joseph Ring of the Springfield diocese), grandmother of 16 and great-grandmother of one, Ring is rightfully proud of her family. “They are all pro-life,” she says. Thanks to her sons-in-law, Ring knows how to use a computer, which helps her to communicate with other pro-life advocates. She also writes the Right to Life newsletter she sends out every other month.
At 80 years old, Ring is determined to keep her pro-life stance known around the area. “We think somewhere along the line we’re going to change things,” she says. “Hopefully, we’ll get some younger people to step up, but we’ll hang in there as long as we have a breath of life in us.”