Thanks to 248 donors from 42 states plus Puerto Rico, including 26 who sent $1,000 and whose name will be credited on the new base along with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, FFRF has raised more than $30,000 to restore the 1911 statue of Robert Green Ingersoll in Glen Oak Park in Peoria, Ill.
Ingersoll, a Civil War colonel and famed 19th-century “infidel” orator and author, built his early career as an attorney in Peoria, where he met his wife, Eva. He served as Illinois’ attorney general from 1867 to 1869.
Peoria Secular Humanist Society Board member Ken Hofbauer was instrumental in setting the project in motion by contacting the Peoria Parks Department. The statue, sculpted by Fritz Treibel, and the base will be restored this summer.
