Slice: Still putting herself on the line

On the big day, the 91-year-old woman sets her alarm clock for just after dawn.

She pulls on a blouse and two sweaters to protect against the autumn chill. She eats a banana and drinks a glass of orange juice to guard against the fatigue that sneaks up on her before noon.

And then she sits at her kitchen table, her red, white and blue cane resting by her side.

Peg Gallagher sits, and she prepares herself for the day to come. A car ride downtown. An anti-war protest in the lobby of the Qwest Center Omaha to disrupt a military conference.

Maybe she'll be handcuffed. Maybe the anti-war protests will land her in jail for the sixth time in her long and winding life.

She does not know what will happen. She does know how she'll react when the police ask her to leave.

“I don't hope that I will be arrested,” she says. “But I will refuse to leave until our protest is complete.”

Once upon a time, the great-grandmother sitting at her kitchen table was a mother who wouldn't have dreamed of picketing anything. She was the proud wife of Eugene Fitzgerald, the Douglas County attorney in the 1950s. She helped organize his political campaigns and raised three boys.

Then, when Gene was only 46, he complained of throat pains. By the time doctors realized it was cancer, it was too late. He died at 48.

Soon enough Peg's eldest son was in Vietnam. Her middle son, Terry, was a Stanford University student going on a hunger strike to protest the war.

And Peg, remarried to Joe Gallagher, felt herself changing. She felt herself wondering if Terry was right — if maybe she should do something about the opinions buzzing in her brain.

So she volunteered in prisons, advocated against the death penalty, wrote hundreds of letters to The World-Herald about protecting public access television and reducing mercury levels and improving the sewers in north Omaha.

On the eve of the first Persian Gulf War, she did something that still makes her smile today.

Peg Gallagher, a Catholic who attends Mass every Saturday night, gathered the religious leaders of a dozen denominations. She organized an all-faiths service where priests, ministers, rabbis and imams took the microphone, one after another, and called for peace.

The first time she got arrested was in front of the White House. Another time, police arrested her in front of Offutt Air Force Base.

She handed out leaflets about peace in front of the Pentagon. She barely avoided being sentenced to an extended prison stay, getting community service instead, when she wouldn't pay a fine for refusing to leave a protest.

Peg lives alone now. Her back aches and her knees creak, and she gets frustrated when she forgets names and dates and details.

Joe Gallagher has passed away, as have many of Peg's friends.

Not long ago, one of her sons — Peg won't say which one — gently suggested that maybe it was time to retire as a protester.

“He said I have already done enough,” she says. “I usually agree with my sons, but not about this.”

So she pulls on her coat and picks up her American flag and leaves the apartment.

She catches a ride to the Qwest Center and uses her cane to navigate a giant parking lot. She joins a motley crew of 30 protesters — old priests, anti-war veterans from Des Moines, a handful of Creighton University students, a man dressed as the Grim Reaper — milling around on a sidewalk across from the arena.

Inside the conference center, leaders of the Space Foundation and the U.S. Strategic Command are holding a symposium to discuss the military's role in outer space.

To many observers, this conference would seem mundane: an hourlong speech on Stratcom's space-related budget. A two-hour panel discussion on the use of tracking satellites.

To the protesters, the conference is immoral. They think no one should use any sort of weapon in space. They have organized a “die-in” to protest.

Seven protesters lie on the ground in front of the arena, with the rest of the group standing behind them. They read a statement condemning space weapons.

Peg is in the center, lying on a sleeping bag that a friend has lent her to cushion the hard ground.

With the help of another protester, she gets up slowly and leads the group inside the Qwest Center. She lies just inside the front door, maybe a foot from a line of Omaha police officers assembled to stop the group from going farther.

Doug Parrott, the center's spokesman, asks the protesters to leave. Peg looks up at him as he speaks. She doesn't move.

Then an Omaha police lieutenant asks those lying on the ground to leave. If they don't get up, she says, they will be arrested.

Most of the protesters, the ones not lying on the ground, listen to the officer and leave.

This would be an oh-so-easy time for Peg to get up as well. Her back hurts. Her knees hurt. She is tired, and she doesn't want to spend a couple of hours in jail.

Still, she doesn't budge.

One by one, officers begin to handcuff the seven protesters lying on the floor and lead them to a white police van idling outside.

A polite officer helps Peg to her feet, leads her to his squad car and begins to take down her personal information.

He huddles briefly with some other officers, and they come to a decision: They will write Peg the proper misdemeanor ticket, fingerprint her now and spare her an afternoon in jail.

Soon the van has pulled away, and the rest of the protesters are crowding around Peg. They hug her and pat her on the back and ask her how she feels.

Peg accepts the hugs and jokes with her longtime protester friends and is excited to see her great-granddaughter, Alice Smith, who has stopped by to see her great-grandma.

And it is clear now why Peg Gallagher still does this. She does it because she believes in it, like anyone else who passionately believes in something.

But she also still does this because now her cheeks are flushed, and she is beaming widely, and she looks and feels very much alive.

“See you at next year's protest!” one of the protesters yells at Peg.

She smiles and nods. “See you next year,” she says.

Contact the writer:

444-1064, matthew.hansen@owh.com

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