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Big Man Shattered By Grief

Big Man Shattered By Grief image
Parent Issue
Day
11
Month
June
Year
1969
Copyright
Copyright Protected
Rights Held By
Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

JOE KALOM Big Man Shattered By Grief By William B. Treml (News Police Reporter) The big, bespectacled :man with the white hair walks like he’s been on his feet most _of his life. r Last night his heavy, meas- ured _gait carried him on the most crushing journey any hu- man being is ever called upon' to make. Joe Kalom had come 100 miles through the warm June night to claim his daughter’s battered, violated body. He and his wife, Dorothy, walked slowly down the long hallway leading to the Univer- sity Hospital morgue with Sher- iff Douglas J. Harvey. Joe Ka-_ lom is used to being around hospitals. He works in one as a pharmacist-Borgess in Kala- mazoo. But this hospital, this hallway, this night was so dif- ferent. Just before he entered the morgue door he said, “It’s been the longest night. I didn’t want to get here. I don’t want to see her.” c . As the door opened Joe Ka- lom, a» man whose world was breaking apart, rattled change in his pocket furiously, frantical- ly. Then the heavy metal door closed behind him. Moments later newsmen wait- ing outside heard shouting, an outcry. ~ “She gave them enough. I’ve given them enough,” Kalom’s 'shout could be heard. “I don’t want herd body. I want her alive.” The voice was cracking in grief. More shouting. Then the door opened and the Kaloms, cling- ing to each other, seemed to stumble out of the door. ' Harvey, a tough cop, was wet- eyed. U The three got into a car and Went to the County J ail~ where they were closeted in the sher- iff’s office. Mrs. Kalom was first out of the office, a small woman wear- ing _a patterned summer dress, staring numbly downward' as she walked. Joe Kalom came out a mo- ment later. He paused in the cramped County Jail lobby and stared into the glare of a television camera light. 1 Then it poured out of him. All the bitterness. All the grief. All the heartbreak. _` “I didn’t come here for her body,” he shouted at the score of waiting newsmen. “I’m not going to claim her body. I’m go- ing to tell them (people) not to send them to this university- it’s too big. They don’t give a damn about anything but money and politics. I’m not going to bury her. Let them bury her on the president’s lawn.” He stood there, a man who had no tears to soften the frustration, the rage. He glared at a news- paper reporter. “I’ve worked to damn hard to raise her, to send her here,” he said. “I d-on’t want her dead.” Then he turned and ,walked out of the County Jail, out into the warm, dark night, a big man with a broken heart.