Gregory Dolezal

I just ordered Tim Egan's book. This strikes home very strongly. My grandmother, Mary Dolezal, was the Post-Mistress, teacher in the one room school, and worked in the family general store while her husband worked at the state prison in Michigan City. Their home was in San Pierre, Indiana. Grandma was also Irish-Catholic. When the Klan showed up, they lit a cross on the lawn and started their threats. Grandma came out on the porch and laid down the law, calling each out by name. They didn't think about the fact that she had sold each of them their shoes. In the end, they removed their hoods, cleaned up the mess and came up on the porch and apologized. Over 50 years later, my dad, a doctor, was making his rounds at one of the hospitals. He was paged and asked to talk a patient not his. When he introduced himself, the patient, very ill with cancer, seemed scared. He asked if he was related to Grandma, dad told him that he was. The man then told dad his part in that night and how it had haunted him all his life. That night, the Klan disbanded in that community. The was now about to face his maker, and he wanted to make peace with our family. Dad gave him his peace, and he died a couple of days later. There were many heroes in the fight with the Klan, I'm proud our family helped in that fight.