Thirty years of marching

COEUR d'ALENE - Evelyn Montreuil knows what she wants to see at this weekend's Right to Life March and Rally.

"For it to be a success, there would be thousands," she said.

Montreuil will keep working at her cause until thousands do come, she said. And until they garner the result she has been pursuing for three decades.

Seeing Roe v. Wade overturned.

"To put an end to this, the voice of the people has to come forth," the Dalton Gardens woman said.

Montreuil, 85, still remembers creating the first Coeur d'Alene chapter of North Idaho Pro-Life, later to become Right to Life of Coeur d'Alene.

The 1980 effort, like many across the country at the time, was in response to Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion in 1973.

"Those of us in the first meeting realized we had to make a public expression to (achieve) the end of abortions," she said.

The handful of members did just that.

Wanting to make a difference in the national law they passionately opposed, Montreuil and her group organized Coeur d'Alene's first March for Life in 1981. They urged local churches to spread the word.

"We were aware of the marches going on in Washington, D.C.," Montreuil remembered. "We knew we had to make our own public appearance."

Two hundred turned out for the January march along Sherman Avenue. It was the largest pro-life march in the state at the time, according to a Press article covering the event.

Montreuil, a delivery room nurse before her retirement, said the sign-toting crowd was gratifying to see.

"I have a very compelling interest in babies," Montreuil said. "We must continue to make our voices heard for the unborn who cannot speak for themselves."

Montreuil's group organized education events, too, she said, like a debate at North Idaho College between pro-life and pro-choice advocates in 1982.

"The focus of the national, state and Coeur d'Alene Right to Life is educational and political," she said.

It still shoots for that today.

The march Montreuil first organized, now called the Coeur d'Alene Right to Life Commemorative March and Rally, has continued ever year.

Montreuil has attended them all, sometimes accompanied by her six children and her husband, John, who passed away this August.

"This year, they want me to stay at the (St. Thomas) Center to hold it open for the rally," Montreuil said with a smile. "I think they're doing me a favor because I'm 85."

She has stayed active with the pro-life organization year-round, she added. She holds signs by U.S. 95 at the group's annual pro-life protest, and she makes appearances at the North Idaho Fair to distribute Little Feet pins.

She pointed to the pin on her shirt that showed two feet a few inches long.

"This is what they look like 10 weeks after conception," she said.

Mary Newman, current chair of Coeur d'Alene Right to Life, said Montreuil has endless energy when it comes to battling on this issue.

"She has been a driving force and a continuing inspiration through all these years," said Newman, a group member since 1983.

Roughly 200 attended the march last year, Newman added.

Folks who walk with the crowd and raise their signs feel like they're making a difference, she explained.

"I think it gives people a sense of freedom, and also being able to voice their opinions in a quiet manner," she said.

This year's 30th annual Right to Life March and Rally will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 22, at Independence Point in Coeur d'Alene. The march will end at St. Thomas Center at 406 N. 10th St.

A rally will follow at the center at 10:30 a.m., where pharmacist Jodi Wagner will discuss abortifacients.

Montreuil expects the march to bring change someday, she said.

"Hopefully it's going to get bigger, and bigger and bigger," she said.