This Thursday, the Ottawa Visitors Center will mark the tenth anniversary of the Radium Girl statue’s dedication in downtown Ottawa. Administrative Assistant Donna Reynolds says it’ll start at 11:30am at the plaza where the statue is just south of Home Hardware.
At 6pm that day, the Carole Langer documentary Radium City will be shown at Reddick Library. That program got Ottawa the attention it needed to get the radioactive sites left over from Radium Dial and Luminous Processes on a federal Environmental Protection Agency priority list for cleanup. Radium Girl represents the women who suffered radiation poisoning while working in the glow-in-the-dark paint factories while their bosses told them their health problems were in their heads.
Madeline Piller of Mendota was a college student when she completed her work on the statue. It had been her dream since eighth grade to commemorate the women who worked at Radium Dial and Luminous Processes.
WCMY photo of Madeline Piller at the Radium Girl statue dedication in 2011