10/19/2023
A vintage photo of and Laurel Krause taken in 1965 ... probably took this photo of us. ☮
The Allison Center for Peace and the Kent State Truth Tribunal
Remembering Arthur Krause, My Dad by Laurel Krause
On this day, the 19th of October 2014, I am writing about and remembering my father Arthur S. Krause who crossed over 26 years ago on October 19, 1988.
Arthur Krause was born January 11, 1924 and lived for 64 years. He was raised in Pennsylvania and Ohio, fought in WWII and married my mother Doris Krause in his early twenties as he returned from war. They settled in Chicago where he attended the Illinois Institute of Technology and went to work at Westinghouse Electric Corporation for his entire work life. My parents had two children, Allison and me, Laurel.
Just before Allison's birth in 1951 our family relocated to Cleveland, Ohio. When I came along in 1955, we were making our home in Cleveland Heights and leading a traditional, middle-class, Jewish family life.
On Sundays our family took drives in the country surrounding Cleveland with Dad driving. We'd often end up for dinner at the Robin Hood Restaurant in Kent, Ohio. As far back as I can remember Allison had decided to go to college at Kent State University. She thought the campus was beautiful, especially the lilacs in Spring and my folks were pleased with her choice in a state school, also close to home with lower tuition costs.
The Krause family moved to Pittsburgh in 1962 when Dad transferred to Westinghouse headquarters. In 1963 I remember President John F. Kennedy's assassination and how that event traumatized everyone. Everywhere it felt like we lost a member of our family when President Kennedy was killed. It was the beginning of the change.
Westinghouse needed my Dad's help at a plant near Baltimore so our family moved to Wheaton, Maryland. Mom and Dad chose our home in a newly-built development in the suburbs with great schools.
Allison and I entered progressive, 'experimental' public schools with more freedom and innovations in teaching. There were classes with different grades mixed in, dress codes were relaxed and the arts were central to education in these public schools.
It was in Maryland when Allison began to question the US government's role in the Vietnam War. Allison and I were against the war but Dad and Mom supported President Johnson and his war in Vietnam.
Then Nixon made it to the White House and my parents despised him, at that time mostly because he was a republican. We had no idea how much President Nixon's decisions would affect our family.
Allison attended John F. Kennedy high school and blossomed. She made art, read voraciously and she volunteered at St. Elizabeth's an institution for challenged and disabled youth ... Allison wanted to contribute and make a difference.
In America, there was a social and political crisis brewing. It was the deep chasm between the older generations and the younger generation. It was the generation gap. A touchy battle ensued against the young, brought to a head by the US conscription system aka the draft lottery ... where young American men were forced to fight in the Vietnam War that they did not support. And with the voting age at 21, a war they weren't even permitted to vote on.
Allison was against the Vietnam War and Dad for all-systems-go for war, mostly because his generation had been taught to never question authority especially the activities of the US government. Like many Americans, he fought the war to end all wars ... believing war saved the American way of life.
Our generation watched and witnessed as the US government and military told lies to mislead us to support more war in Vietnam. We saw air pollution raising havoc as the nuclear crisis lingered over our desks. We weren't fooled but we saw how the older generation (those in power) bought it all and enforced the status quo.
At the Krause family dinner table there were battles over Vietnam, about how my sister and I were dressing, about our opposition to nuclear weapons, especially as it related to my Dad's work at Westinghouse, about saving the environment and the widening gap between the social and political values of the Generation Gap. Dinner table battles all over America were the norm.
By the time I reached my early teens, the Washington, D.C. area was igniting in response to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. King's assassination in particular stimulated political unrest in black ghettos across America. There were headlines of the emerging racial dissent with TV news blasting daily carnage and death tolls from the Vietnam War.
The antiwar movement picked up steam and in her senior year at high school Allison became an American protestor against the war. Allison disagreed deeply with the actions of the American government and she stood for PEACE.
But Allison did not broadcast her protest activities to our folks. She knew they would curtail her freedom. Allison was 17 and the times were a groovin'.
Music was everywhere as it brought us all together. We knew that music was going to bring the change, at the center of the cyclone for the Baby Boomers.
The American counter-culture was taking form, made up of young Americans like Allison and me. We felt we were part of it and took pride in our new vision of PEACE for the world.
Dad and Mom wanted nothing of it. They didn't like our clothes or two braless daughters. They wanted their docile, children that obeyed back ... but it wasn't to be.
In the Summer of 1969 Dad's eldest, Allison graduated from JFK high school and was going to Kent State University, in the honors program the coming fall.
When I feel my way back to those times it has an indescribeable richness to it; an energy not present in our world today. It seems like the colors were brighter and that the music was strumming my soul in ways not possible now. Could be because I was young then or it could be that human reality actually was more rich in that era. The times were fueled by the art, the humanities and the activities of my generation. We actually SAW a new world on the horizon that we were determined to build in our lifetime. There was hope. That's how it felt to me as a 14 year old back then.
Dad was called to help another Westinghouse plant, this time near Greensburg, PA so my parents hoped to move back to the old neighborhood in Pittsburgh. That Summer as Mom and Dad traveled out of town to hunt for our next home, Allison and I enjoyed our freedom. I was going to Junior High in Pittsburgh and Allison was starting at Kent State in the fall so in the summer of '69 we said goodbye to our family of friends in Wheaton.
It was also Woodstock Summer and by then Dad and Mom were packing up the house to move before school started. Allison was forbidden from going to Woodstock; she was 18 and it was not so distant a drive. Even though Allison's peeps were holding their summit at Woodstock, my Dad and Mom made it clear she was not allowed to attend. Allison relented and to this day I feel sad she was forced to miss Woodstock.
In my view, Woodstock remains an unrequited yet notable milestone in the war between the generations in America. It signaled to the Nixon administration and cohorts running American war that more than half a million kids had at least massive power in numbers. A force to reckon with. The military-industrial complex, with the FBI to expedite, starting making their inhumane plans and projects targeting the 'New Left', antiwar protesters and college-age Americans ... to STOP them before they got more powerful. Woodstock is what shook them in their boots and made them take action.
November 15, 1969 was the March on Washington against the Vietnam War. Hundreds of thousands of protesters came together in solidarity in Washington, D.C. It was reported that President Nixon was watching football at the time. Actual 1969 March on Washington footage. http://bit.ly/gU41PX and http://bit.ly/XMUJKu
May 4, 1970 was the Day that Changed America. US military personnel fired live ammunition at unarmed Kent State University students changing classes and attending an antiwar rally against the Vietnam War. Four students and protestors were killed, nine were seriously injured.
Allison, my sister, was one of the four that died that day. She was protesting for peace and died for peace.
When Allison was assassinated, Dad took it all so personally. Dad and Allison had a troubled relationship which was never resolved. Dad was galvanized into a fighter for Allison in the courts and against the war. Even though I never knew it, friends shared Dad publicly spoke out against the war at antiwar rallies at the University of Pittsburgh after Allison crossed over.
Allison's murder forever changed Dad and his views toward the Vietnam War, Cambodian Invasion. On May 4, 1970, my father became a relentless, fierce and determined crusader for the protection of the first amendment American right to protest and dissent without being killed by the US government. Until his dying day, Dad stood for Allison's American right to protest war.
In the ensuing Kent State battles for justice in the courts by those harmed at Kent State, my father shared the lead with the Rev. John Adams and Kent State author, Peter Davies. Dad took Kent State all the way to the US Supreme Court, where he won the right to sue Ohio. Dad took Kent State to the courts to show how the system could work so that young people might have renewed faith in America.
After more than eight years of dogged civil litigation, a Kent State settlement was reached with the State of Ohio paying a negotiated amount, Ohio National Guard and their Commanders responsible for firing on Blanket Hill were required (by my Dad) to sign a Statement of Regret and our family including all those harmed at Kent State issued their formal settlement and concluding remarks. http://bit.ly/1qd9tTO
For the killing of American protestor Allison Beth Krause, we received $15,000 from the State of Ohio in civil settlement. American leadership continues to refuse to even consider the directives in the Kent State settlement statement from those harmed at Kent State.
Please READ the historic 1979 Kent State Civil Settlement Statement ~ http://bit.ly/1qd9tTO
