Primitive Christianity Revived, Again
Dear Friends,
Yesterday, I received the obituary of a Friend from Roanoke, Virginia. I didn't know Jeremy Mott, but today I noticed that I had corresponded with him on QuakerQuaker about the history of Friends in Ohio. I am sorry we have lost him.
Here is the obituary.
~Blessings, Paula
Jeremy Hardin Mott, a leader in the Vietnam-era draft resistance movement,
died September 2, 2012 at the Raleigh Court Rehabilitation Center in Roanoke,
VA. He was 66. His daughter, Mary Hannah Mott, confirmed his death.
Jeremy Mott was born December 3, 1945 in New York City and grew up in
Ridgewood, NJ and Rochester, NY. He was the eldest of four children. Mott
graduated from Sandy Spring Friends School (MD) and attended Harvard
University for two years. He took a break from Harvard to follow his life-long
love of railroads, working for a year for the Erie Railroad. When drafted, he
initially obtained conscientious objector status and worked as a hospital
volunteer for the Brethren Volunteer Service in Chicago. To make his protest
against the Vietnam War and the draft more meaningful and visible, he
resigned from alternative service and burned his draft card in Central Park
during the 1966 Mobilization Against the War. Together with others, he formed
the Chicago Area Draft Resisters, CADRE. He was one of the first in the
country to go to trial for resisting the draft and was given the maximum prison
sentence, five years (reduced on appeal to four).
Upon his release from prison in 1969, he worked for more than three years for
the Midwest Committee for Draft Counseling, the Chicago office of the Central
Committee for Conscientious Objectors. Mott wrote and published a
newsletter about draft law sent to 5,000 counselors nationwide who helped
draftees consider alternatives to military service.
He married Judith Franks in 1970, had a daughter in 1974, and obtained his BA
from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 1975. He and his family moved to NJ
in 1976, living in Hoboken, Ridgewood, and then Hackensack. He worked for
Amtrak, as a dispatcher, until his retirement.
Mott moved with his family to Roanoke in 2009. He faced serious health
challenges during his final years. Besides his wife Judith and daughter Mary,
he is survived by his mother, Kathryn Hardin Mott, three sisters, Margaret,
Jessica, and Bethany and their families, and Mary’s partner, Jacob Wise.
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