Child of the Sit-Downs_ The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger - Carlton Jackson [51]
Contract negotiations were pending with Briggs, and though Genora no longer had steady employment with the company, she still conducted speaking classes to union people, encouraging them to refuse Briggs’ offers because she thought they were not generous enough in the post–World War II economic boom. Usually Sol came to Detroit every weekend, arriving late on Friday and returning to Flint on Sunday. On one particular weekend in October 1945, he called to say that he would have to come on Sunday and go back the next day. Thus he was at home with Genora on Gladwin Street during the early morning hours of Monday, October 15. At about 5 A.M. two men—who obviously did not know that Sol was at home—broke into the house through the backdoor, which opened onto an alley. Genora heard them, thinking it was either Denny or Jody returning home. The men maneuvered in the darkness straight to the bedroom without knocking over any chairs or furniture (causing later speculations that they knew their way around the house),58 and began to beat Genora on her head and body with lead pipes. Sol awoke and threw himself across Genora to stave off the blows. “If he hadn’t put his arm over my head,” Genora reported later, “I think I would have been injured . . . beyond help. He tried to climb over me, and they clubbed him on his legs so bad that when he tried to stand up against them, he collapsed.”59 When they were finished, the two men walked calmly out of the house and disappeared into the darkness.
Sol was finally able to call an ambulance and then get in touch with Ernie Mazey in Grosse Pointe, informing him of the attack and demanding a thorough investigation. Genora had a fractured collar bone, and blood from gashes in her forehead poured down into her eyes. Her right side was paralyzed by a brain concussion, and she suffered nerve damage on her face. The couple was taken to Detroit’s Grace Receiving Hospital, “a cockroach infested place.”60 Genora, in a plaster cast from rib cage to shoulder blades, remained in the hospital several weeks to recuperate from her wounds. A photo of her in one of Detroit’s widely circulated newspapers caused consternation among friends and acquaintances. Elaine Roseland wrote, “What a terrifying experience it must have been! How desperate the bosses must be to commit such terroristic acts.”61 Another woman wrote that she was frightened when she saw Genora “all taped up. Whoever did it [the beating] must have been a gangster to beat up a woman.” Another wrote that Genora knew “the grim feeling of hate we have for the rats that pulled such an act.” After seeing her photo in the papers, a woman named Henrietta wrote to Genora that “we know they couldn’t batter down your spirit but they did a hell of a job on your body.” Another friend penned, “I guess this is a sample of what we must be prepared for when the bosses become really desperate at the crescendo of militancy the workers will exhibit in the current and coming struggles.” Blanche Straub wanted the “hours to be short” and the “days few” until thirty-two-year-old Genora was totally restored to health. And Mildred Oreson said that Genora had “plenty of courage and pluck.”62
On her release from the hospital, Genora faced several weeks of rehabilitation. Her sister Beatrice, who lived in Detroit, watched after her when Sol returned to Flint. Some years after the attack, Genora told