By Thomas Dailey
Cavalier Corner
East Hills MS
1st Place
Division MS, News Writing
Human Interest Feature
Winston Churchill is undoubtedly one of the most influential men who ever walked the face of this Earth, living in two different centuries to the ripe age of 90. Churchill affected the past, present, and future, as well as thousands of individuals whom he met, talked to, and knew, including my great-great-grandfather, John McHenry.
In the year of 1899, during the height of the Boer War in Africa, Winston Churchill was captured by the Boers. After being taken to a prison camp, he was able to escape and fled into the wilderness. After a trek that lasted days, he came across a town called Witbank. Deciding that he needed help, he knocked on the door of the first house he came to. Out of luck, it happened to be the manager of a local mine, who was also British.
The manager of the mine agreed to hide Winston Churchill in one of the abandoned sections of the mine, so he could hide from the Boers. When the regular miners went down to continue mining the other parts of the mine, they would pass food and water to Churchill. One of those miners was my great-great-grandfather, John McHenry.
”The miners were very excited. They were scared and thrilled at the same time to be part of something for someone so prominent,” Bernadette Donohue says, grandniece of John McHenry.
Eventually, Churchill recovered from his dehydration. Feeling that he was in a good condition, the miners smuggled him out on a supply train traveling towards British lines. But Winston Churchill never forgot the favors these miners had done for him. When he finally got back to Britain, he wrote stories of his experiences in South Africa, and especially about his rescuers, the miners of Witbank.
Years later, when Churchill was in a better place, he began to search for every individual miner. Once he found them, he personally have them a gold pocket watch. Each pocket watches was engraved with the words Deep Appreciation and Gratitude, Winston Churchill.
Donohue says, “Every one of those miners received one of these pocket watches with their name on it. He (John McHenry) was very proud of it, and the entire family was very proud of it. The pocket watch eventually became a family heirloom, which was cherished by every member of the family.”
Winston Churchill went on to do great things, leading his country through times of war and peace. But wherever he went, he always remembered the people that had saved him in the year of 1899 in the Transvaal of South Africa, the miners Witbank, including my great-great-grandfather, John McHenry.