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| My paternal grandfather, Cyrill Kristin and his grandchildren. My brother Mike is directly to his right in back, I am last in line in front of him. |
One Summer's day during the McCarthy Red Scare era, an agent from the FBI visited my grandfather's farm in Saginaw County, MI. The agent wanted to know why grandfather subscribed to a Slovak language newspaper. "Because I am Slovak" replied my grandfather. FBI agent: "you know that Czechoslovakia is a Communist country." "Get the hell off my farm" my grandfather answered and the agent left.
No doubt that somewhere in the Federal bureaucracy, my grandfather's name was added to a growing list.
During the same time period, my mother was taking classes at MSU. One of her professors was officially accused of being an enemy of the State and he later committed suicide. It's not a stretch to wonder if her name was added to a list, along with her classmates, as people potentially contaminated by the Red Menace.
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