Catholics Offer Help to Homeless From Klan Orphanage Fire

Posted By Norman Gasbarro on October 4, 2018

Previously on this blog, the following was reported:

On 21 November 1926, a major fire ripped through Klan Haven, an orphanage established by the Ku Klux Klan near Paxtang, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Forty-six children were led to safety by the quick action of home attendants and fire fighters. According to reports at the time, the cause of the fire was suspicious, and the home’s matron blamed it on “the work of the devil.” Fortunately, no lives were lost and no one was seriously injured.

See: The Ku Klux Klan Orphanage Fire and the Fund Raising Scam of 1926.

As a result of the fire, the 46 children who resided at Klan Haven, were left homeless.

A surprising reaction came from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, who took into consideration the plight of the children, despite the hostility of the Klan to anything or anyone “Catholic.”

From the Pottsville Republican and Herald, 23 November 1926:

Catholics Offer to Help Klan.

(By United Press)

Harrisburg, 23 November [1926] — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg today offered the use of its Sylvan Heights Orphanage to the Ku Klux Klan, in an effort to care for the twenty-five girls made homeless when the Klan orphanage was destroyed by fire Sunday. The forty-six children who were housed at the Klan orphanage when the fire broke out are now at the Harrisburg Children’s Home. Klan officials are considering the offer from the Catholic Diocese.

It is not known whether the Klan actually accepted the offer from the Catholic Church.

This post is a continuation of the reporting on hate groups that were active in the Lykens Valley area in the years following the Civil War. It was a widely known fact that the third iteration of the Ku Klux Klan had a significant presence in the Lykens Valley and adjacent valleys during the early years of the 20th Century. This iteration of the Klan was strongly white supremacist and was opposed to equal rights for African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and immigrants.

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