'It Was the Only Job He Knew'

Steve Parker loved the Lord so much that he used to whistle gospel music on the factory floor.

"He was a deacon in his church," his daughter, Alicia Kammler, said, "but people turned to him like he was a minister. He refused to see the bad in a person. If somebody did something bad, he'd say, 'There has to be an explanation for it.' If someone was mean to him at the plant, he'd pray for them."

Parker worked at the auto parts plant that Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company operated in Jackson, Ohio, for nearly four decades. When Goodyear pulled out in the mid-1990s, life in this region of Appalachia began to wither. The factory changed hands, closed at least once, and then reopened as Meridian Automotive Systems.

In 2006, labor contract negotiations stalled over health care. That April, Meridian locked out nearly 350 union members and replaced them with nonunion workers.

Just like that, the 51-year-old Parker was without a job.

"It was like Dad lost his whole family," Kammler said. "These guys started right out of high school. He'd been there 30 years. It was the only job he knew."

Parker was the sole breadwinner for his family. For months, he hunted for a job that would pay the bills. He worked the night shift at a Wal-Mart distribution center, but it taxed his soul.

"I'm a grown man," he told his daughter. "I can't stand there and do the chants they make us do."

"Dad," she said, "a job does not define you." He smiled and winked at her. That was his way.

Parker grew more withdrawn. He couldn't sleep and couldn't talk about the reasons.

"It wasn't his way to talk about his problems," Kammler said. "He always thought it was his job to make others happy."

On Sunday morning, July 15, 2007, Kammler was getting ready for church, when her mother called in a panic.

"You have to get here right now," she said. "Right away. Something's wrong with Dad."

Kammler, the first college graduate in the family, is a nurse practitioner.

"He was catatonic," she said. "He was delusional from sleep deprivation and depression."

He curled into a fetal position in the back seat of the car and recited a paraphrase from the Bible all the way to the hospital:

"A man who does not provide for his family is no better than an infidel. A man who does not provide for his family is no better than an infidel. …"

After two days of drugs and doctors, Parker went home. His family removed the guns from the house, but they forgot about the handgun at his mother's home just down the road, where he visited every single day.

Parker saw his mother that morning and then said he was going for a walk.

It took two days and more than 100 volunteers to find his body in the woods.

A month later, Meridian closed the factory for good.

Parker's death sucked the air out of Jackson. And when Meridian left, "It took out a part of our heart," Mayor Randy Heath said.

"A lot of the people who worked at Meridian were community leaders. That plant touched every walk of life."

The empty factory now looms like a tomb over 250,000 square feet in the center of town.

"A building is a building," Heath said. "Just because they build here doesn't mean they're tied here."

Heath knows there are towns like his all across America. He also knows that they don't make for the kind of flashy headlines coming out of Wall Street.

"Some don't understand what life is like in places like Jackson," he said. "It's an everyday challenge for people here. We tell ourselves: 'I've got to succeed every day so that my family has what it needs. I can't afford a single failure.'"

Kammler said townspeople still stop her to share stories about her dad. It helps, but only a little.

"I cling to my faith," she said.

Some nights, when the pain is too great, she falls to the floor and recites the shortest of prayers:

"God, I'm broken."

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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