Tiny Feet, Big Message

Many of us have worn them — displaying them proudly at marches and rallies or pinning them to a lapel in silent support. The pins of two tiny gold or silver feet have become an eloquent pro-life symbol internationally.

But not everybody who wears the Precious Feet knows the backstory — or the effect it has had on families around the world. Take one family in particular.

Moment of inspiration

While Virginia Evers was preparing for a pro-life march in San Diego, on the first anniversary of Roe v. Wade, she saw an ad that a pro-life group had placed in the local paper. It pictured the feet of a 10-week-old fetus, photographed by Dr. Russell Sacco. A pathologist with whom Dr. Sacco worked had preserved the fetus in formaldehyde, and the sight of those tiny but developed feet had a powerful effect on the doctor.

They had the same influence on Virginia. She told her husband, Ellis, “These precious little feet should be the pro-life movement’s official symbol.”

Over the next few years, Virginia pondered using the feet for the pro-life movement. Pro-life leaders liked it and encouraged her to go ahead. She finally designed the Precious Feet lapel pin and had it manufactured in 1978. Virginia and Ellis’ efforts turned into a business when an order for 1,000 pins came in.

Within a year, the Precious Feet were designated the “International Pro-Life Symbol” at a worldwide symposium in Dublin, Ireland.

Heritage of helping

Virginia’s daughter Dinah Monahan was in her 20s at the time and already following her parents’ legacy of saving lives, a legacy that continues with the Everses’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“When my parents saw a wrong, they would act to right it,” Dinah says. “We were raised to take action.”

Dinah recalls her mother loading up the car with supplies to take to poor families or visiting an unwed and pregnant relative whom no one else in the family would go see.

Among the many people they helped were the preborn. Even before Roe v. Wade, abortion was already legal in California, where the Everses lived. She has fond memories of the pro-life bumper stickers that festooned her father’s car because he “believed in making a statement for the unborn regardless of where he went.”

In the 1980s Dinah and her husband, Mike, began taking young women with crisis pregnancies into their home. The money from the Precious Feet pins went to support the women and their babies.

Today, Dinah runs Hope House Maternity Home and three Living Hope Women’s Centers in Arizona. Dinah and Mike also sell the Precious Feet pins through Heritage House, the company that her parents started years ago, now run by their grandchildren. They have expanded their pro-life movement to include messages and resources for traditional family values, including chastity and abstinence.

One of Dinah’s favorite stories involves former abortion clinic owner Carol Everett. Now a leader in the pro-life movement, Everett has written about her reaction when she saw a girl at the grocery store wearing one of the Precious Feet pins. “That just drove me crazy because, of course, she was shining the truth on me.”

Remembered for life

Ellis Evers died in 1994, and one of his daughters placed a pro-life bumper sticker on his casket. Virginia Evers is now in her 80s but still talks about the sanctity of human life to anyone who will listen. Two years ago when Dinah was scheduled to give a speech near Tucson, Ariz., she was held up by a storm. So she asked her mother to step in for her. “She was so tickled,” Dinah chuckles. “They would love her more, and she would do much better than I!”

The pin designed by Virginia Evers has come to represent not just a movement but a heritage of helping others. “That’s the legacy I grew up with,” Dinah says, “and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”