Fred Dankowske was a 12-year-old boy living in Chicago when he first heard of the Mormons: the newsboys calling the headlines one day in 1877 announced that Brigham Young, the Mormon king, was dead.

The news meant little to the Polish immigrant then, nor ten years later when he began working his way across the west, seeking adventure and looking for his place in the world. In 1890, his ramblings took him to Salt Lake City, where he went to a Mormon service for the first time.

What I heard at that service was not only a pleasing revelation to me, but convinced me beyond all question that all the anti-Mormon propaganda I had read and heard in the past was warped and false. This conviction reversed my views on Mormonism. Its edifying principles drew my profoundest admiration for the church and its people.

He did not join the church then, nor for many decades thereafter, Continue reading Frederick Vincent Dankowske: A Pilgrim, But Not a Stranger →