Thank you for your affirmation, Gerald. Both directors met with local residents at the Laurens Public Library the afternoon that the film began its two weeks' showing in the Pocahontas Rialto Theater and this question did not come up. I'll pass your query on to Michael, the author of the screenplay (also the co-director).
Retired and living in Ankeny. I followed Bill Mauer at The Sun, then moved here to work for (then) Iowa Power in public and community relations. Thank you for all you do to keep good writing alive (also sound thinking).
Hi, Helen. I found your essay very interesting, especially as I had just finished reading Timothy Egan's "A Fever In The Heartland", the account of one brave woman who took down the KKK. I think you will find it enlightening (and very disturbing). David Weiss, former editor The Laurens Sun. I knew Don Beneke Sr.
I have a memory from childhood--late 40s perhaps--that there was a KKK rally outside Emmetsburg (my hometown), at which a cross was burned. My memory is that it was at the airport. I was never sure if it was real or my imagination that the Klan was there. We were told the Klan was attacking "Koons, Kikes and Katholics", so, being a Catholic, from a very young age I identified with Jews and Blacks. Reading the article about Pocahontas (20 some miles to the south), I wonder if the story I was told was based on a rally there, not in Emmetsburg, where we had a very strong Catholic community (much of it Irish).
Thanks for your response, John. Pocahontas County also had a strong Catholic presence also. In fact, when I moved to Poky in 1975, there were three Catholic elementary schools, two of those had high schools connected with them until the late '60s.
I serve a small-town church as pastor. Word on the street in the next town over is that the congregation was founded by the KKK. I always deny that with the caveat that there may have been some overlap in membership. Now that I am reminded that the KKK was anti-Catholic, this makes sense. The only church in town at the time was a Catholic church.
I was very surprised some years ago to learn that my late kind and smiling uncle had been a member of the Klan and anti-Catholic. When our son was engaged to a Jewish refugee I wondered how my Lutheran mother would react. I would never have guessed. She said, "Well, at least she's not Catholic." When she asked about my fiancée's religion I said Methodist and she showed some liberal tendency by saying, "Well, Methodists go to heaven too, you know."
The example of my mother was one I used to use in my presentations regarding civil rights to show the lack of logic in prejudice. I grew up in a small town in Northwest Iowa and there was a kind of casual bigotry comfortably shared. I think I was about twelve when I went to by some of my favorite nuts and realized the name everyone around me used for them couldn't be the real name. Rather than ask by the name I was used to, I hunted for them and found the Brazil nuts. I didn't use the term "nigger toes" again. In 1963 at Iowa State I ran into a friend from my high school who told me he had a good roommate at the dorm, "a really nice nigger." He had no idea that was a slur. One advantage to more television news of a national nature is the realization that such views are inappropriate, but I think with it comes the feeling of shame and resentment for having that shame; and perhaps the support of Trump who makes them feel it is okay to be like themselves and their parents.
I have often felt the reason the KKK spread throuout Iowa has a lot to do with the make up of the local area. German Lutherans were still telling stories about people being disowned from their families simply for marrying a Catholic. I grew up with this long after the KKK vanished from the scene in my rural community. I often suspected that strong Lutheran ministers would not hesitate to push for this type of opposition to Catholic and jew alike.
I grew up with that strong Lutheran, anti-Catholic ethos. Fortunately, my parents "outgrew" that point of view and even stood up with a young Hispanic couple at their wedding in a Catholic church.
After two years in Vietnam and afterwards traveling abroad coming in contact with a much broader view of how the rest of the world, or at least a good share of it works, I learned from that experience. Now, trying to bring that experience back to where I started from is my challenge! To try and make people who are scared of their own shadow learn to accept people of color, people who don't speak english, people from different religious backgrounds are still very similar to them, more so than they really feared. It is a tough challenge for a non-relgious, guy in his 70's, but if I succeed, I will count it as my greatest challenge that I actually managed to accomplish! If not, I will have laid enough ground work someone else can pick it up from where I left off and have an even better chance at success than I did when I first started!
What I love about the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, and the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat, is we are amplifying voices throughout the state. Helen Beneke is a great example of talent, and compassionate leadership we have in Iowa.
That story took my breath away. I couldn't understand what I was reading. I had to read it again. On Catholics lawns? In Hutchinson, Mn. 60 mi. east of Mpls., my Mom said people would cross the street when Catholics (her family) walked down. This would have been in 30's, 40's.
In the 60s some of the same existed in my small town in NW Iowa near the South Dakota/Minnesota border. As a kid I didn’t understand why I could never go to my friends’s house though we were buddies during the day.
A volunteer group in Des Moines is writing a book about some of the people buried at Woodland Cemetery here. One was a streetcar man who died in 1924. 100 robed clansmen attended his funeral. There was a large population of clan members here in Des Moines.
I was doing some freelance work in western and northwest Iowa early last year. I visited Bancroft, which has a magnificent Catholic church; also had a parish school and a convent that has been converted into a bed-and-breakfast called "Sisters Inn."
Then I went to Sac City. Great old town with good bones, cool old houses and the Chatauqua Park HIstoric District. But I found one Catholic church that looked like it was about 1950s vintage.
I asked, because I'd just been to Bancroft, why was there no old Catholic Church. A city council member and local historian said, "Well, I don't know if you know this, but the Ku Klux Klan was active in Sac County." I guess during the Depression, when farms were failing, people banded together at farm sales to make sure they didn't go to Catholic buyers.
Also I recall when I was in sixth grade, our Catholic parish and school in Waterloo was celebrating the "golden jubilee," or 50th anniiversary of the ordination, of our pastor, Monsignor E.J. O'Hagan. This was in 1968; he was ordained in 1918. He told us that at the first parish he was assigned to at Worthington near Dubuque, "the Klan was burning." And at a recent exhibit we had at the Grout Museum in Waterloo called "Temperance and Turmoil," It was noted that some elements of the temperance movement were anti-Catholic - and that some of the bootleggers were Catholic.
I'm reminded of this when some present-day Catholics ally with fundamentalist evangelicals on social issues -- or when folks from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas picketed my parish and others of various denominations in 2005. If you think we're all of like mind, it ain't necessarily so.
I worked with the Catholic community in Spirit Lake in the 1990's and one of elders I frequently visited had grown up a member of the Catholic community in Milford. Among his many wonderful stories was one about Catholics being very cautious to avoid being on the streets of Milford later in the evening because of the KKK attacks on Catholics in the area.
I discovered an elder I knew had been briefly in the KKK in Minnesota early 20th century. The issue was Catholicism. Yes, the Midwest had this problem.
Very interesting. Well written. I’m wondering if filmmaker was harassed during the filming. There is no KKK, of course but plenty of prejudice.
Thank you for your affirmation, Gerald. Both directors met with local residents at the Laurens Public Library the afternoon that the film began its two weeks' showing in the Pocahontas Rialto Theater and this question did not come up. I'll pass your query on to Michael, the author of the screenplay (also the co-director).
Retired and living in Ankeny. I followed Bill Mauer at The Sun, then moved here to work for (then) Iowa Power in public and community relations. Thank you for all you do to keep good writing alive (also sound thinking).
Thank you for your post, David. It's an intriguing story, isn't it!
Hi, Helen. I found your essay very interesting, especially as I had just finished reading Timothy Egan's "A Fever In The Heartland", the account of one brave woman who took down the KKK. I think you will find it enlightening (and very disturbing). David Weiss, former editor The Laurens Sun. I knew Don Beneke Sr.
Where are you now, David?
I have a memory from childhood--late 40s perhaps--that there was a KKK rally outside Emmetsburg (my hometown), at which a cross was burned. My memory is that it was at the airport. I was never sure if it was real or my imagination that the Klan was there. We were told the Klan was attacking "Koons, Kikes and Katholics", so, being a Catholic, from a very young age I identified with Jews and Blacks. Reading the article about Pocahontas (20 some miles to the south), I wonder if the story I was told was based on a rally there, not in Emmetsburg, where we had a very strong Catholic community (much of it Irish).
Thanks for your response, John. Pocahontas County also had a strong Catholic presence also. In fact, when I moved to Poky in 1975, there were three Catholic elementary schools, two of those had high schools connected with them until the late '60s.
I serve a small-town church as pastor. Word on the street in the next town over is that the congregation was founded by the KKK. I always deny that with the caveat that there may have been some overlap in membership. Now that I am reminded that the KKK was anti-Catholic, this makes sense. The only church in town at the time was a Catholic church.
I was very surprised some years ago to learn that my late kind and smiling uncle had been a member of the Klan and anti-Catholic. When our son was engaged to a Jewish refugee I wondered how my Lutheran mother would react. I would never have guessed. She said, "Well, at least she's not Catholic." When she asked about my fiancée's religion I said Methodist and she showed some liberal tendency by saying, "Well, Methodists go to heaven too, you know."
Wow. This will be hard for a lot of folks to comprehend!
The example of my mother was one I used to use in my presentations regarding civil rights to show the lack of logic in prejudice. I grew up in a small town in Northwest Iowa and there was a kind of casual bigotry comfortably shared. I think I was about twelve when I went to by some of my favorite nuts and realized the name everyone around me used for them couldn't be the real name. Rather than ask by the name I was used to, I hunted for them and found the Brazil nuts. I didn't use the term "nigger toes" again. In 1963 at Iowa State I ran into a friend from my high school who told me he had a good roommate at the dorm, "a really nice nigger." He had no idea that was a slur. One advantage to more television news of a national nature is the realization that such views are inappropriate, but I think with it comes the feeling of shame and resentment for having that shame; and perhaps the support of Trump who makes them feel it is okay to be like themselves and their parents.
I have often felt the reason the KKK spread throuout Iowa has a lot to do with the make up of the local area. German Lutherans were still telling stories about people being disowned from their families simply for marrying a Catholic. I grew up with this long after the KKK vanished from the scene in my rural community. I often suspected that strong Lutheran ministers would not hesitate to push for this type of opposition to Catholic and jew alike.
I grew up with that strong Lutheran, anti-Catholic ethos. Fortunately, my parents "outgrew" that point of view and even stood up with a young Hispanic couple at their wedding in a Catholic church.
After two years in Vietnam and afterwards traveling abroad coming in contact with a much broader view of how the rest of the world, or at least a good share of it works, I learned from that experience. Now, trying to bring that experience back to where I started from is my challenge! To try and make people who are scared of their own shadow learn to accept people of color, people who don't speak english, people from different religious backgrounds are still very similar to them, more so than they really feared. It is a tough challenge for a non-relgious, guy in his 70's, but if I succeed, I will count it as my greatest challenge that I actually managed to accomplish! If not, I will have laid enough ground work someone else can pick it up from where I left off and have an even better chance at success than I did when I first started!
I would like to talk to Don Beneke sometime since we knew each other at the University of Iowa.
Randall MaharryMD
Thanks, Randall.
What I love about the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, and the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat, is we are amplifying voices throughout the state. Helen Beneke is a great example of talent, and compassionate leadership we have in Iowa.
That story took my breath away. I couldn't understand what I was reading. I had to read it again. On Catholics lawns? In Hutchinson, Mn. 60 mi. east of Mpls., my Mom said people would cross the street when Catholics (her family) walked down. This would have been in 30's, 40's.
In the 60s some of the same existed in my small town in NW Iowa near the South Dakota/Minnesota border. As a kid I didn’t understand why I could never go to my friends’s house though we were buddies during the day.
Guess they were lucky that is all that happened...
A volunteer group in Des Moines is writing a book about some of the people buried at Woodland Cemetery here. One was a streetcar man who died in 1924. 100 robed clansmen attended his funeral. There was a large population of clan members here in Des Moines.
Interesting!
I was doing some freelance work in western and northwest Iowa early last year. I visited Bancroft, which has a magnificent Catholic church; also had a parish school and a convent that has been converted into a bed-and-breakfast called "Sisters Inn."
Then I went to Sac City. Great old town with good bones, cool old houses and the Chatauqua Park HIstoric District. But I found one Catholic church that looked like it was about 1950s vintage.
I asked, because I'd just been to Bancroft, why was there no old Catholic Church. A city council member and local historian said, "Well, I don't know if you know this, but the Ku Klux Klan was active in Sac County." I guess during the Depression, when farms were failing, people banded together at farm sales to make sure they didn't go to Catholic buyers.
Also I recall when I was in sixth grade, our Catholic parish and school in Waterloo was celebrating the "golden jubilee," or 50th anniiversary of the ordination, of our pastor, Monsignor E.J. O'Hagan. This was in 1968; he was ordained in 1918. He told us that at the first parish he was assigned to at Worthington near Dubuque, "the Klan was burning." And at a recent exhibit we had at the Grout Museum in Waterloo called "Temperance and Turmoil," It was noted that some elements of the temperance movement were anti-Catholic - and that some of the bootleggers were Catholic.
I'm reminded of this when some present-day Catholics ally with fundamentalist evangelicals on social issues -- or when folks from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas picketed my parish and others of various denominations in 2005. If you think we're all of like mind, it ain't necessarily so.
Thanks for this, Pat!
I worked with the Catholic community in Spirit Lake in the 1990's and one of elders I frequently visited had grown up a member of the Catholic community in Milford. Among his many wonderful stories was one about Catholics being very cautious to avoid being on the streets of Milford later in the evening because of the KKK attacks on Catholics in the area.
I discovered an elder I knew had been briefly in the KKK in Minnesota early 20th century. The issue was Catholicism. Yes, the Midwest had this problem.