Mike Dolan fulfilled a dream last fall when the final bronze statue in his sculpture park was installed. The five sorrowful mysteries of the rosary are now complete, having begun in 2016 when Dolan commissioned a 34-foot-tall crucifix. Thousands of people from across the country have visited what is known as Reflection Sculpture Park of Vesta, a tiny town about two hours west of Minneapolis where the Dolan family has deep roots.
He hopes the biblical scenes invite travelers of all creeds to pull over and reflect. “There’s a need for more quiet in our lives, and we don’t take that time very often,” said Dolan, 75, a longtime member of St. Patrick in Edina.
Q) Tell me about your family.
A) My father was one of 13, and I’m one of 13. We had all sorts of cattle, pigs and chickens. Back in the day, you could disappear in the morning and come back at nightfall.
Q) Your faith was woven into the fabric of your life.
A) Being Catholic was a lifelong commitment that was instilled in me by my parents, my grandparents and my great grandparents. We used to go to church on Wednesday night for devotions, we’d show up on Saturday night for a devotion of some kind, and we’d take our eggs into town and our cream from the cows to sell to the grocery. Then Sundays was always church. Sunday morning was always church, Sunday afternoon was always baseball. That’s the life that was instilled in me. It became who I am.
They instilled in us the value of taking time out to reflect on our lives and what’s important. It’s not your words, it’s your actions.
Q) You’ve studied your Irish heritage and even scoped out the Irish countryside — asking around, finding baptismal records, scanning church gravesites, searching town by town. You’re one part genealogist, one part detective.
A) I’m afflicted with curiosity. I took my dad to Ireland a couple years after my mom had passed. He was kind of out of sorts. We traced the place where we thought we came from, and we golfed every day and spent some time at a local pub visiting with the Irishmen every night. It was great fun.
We went to one town at 5 o’clock on a Friday night — and I’ll never forget it, my dad would talk to anybody, a typical Irishman — we went into the church and there was a line of about 25 people waiting to go to confession, and Dad walked up to the last two ladies in line and tapped them on the shoulders and asked about our family. They just loved it. They peeled off and started talking to Dad. They said there was nobody there named Dolan, but there was a young lady up the lane whose name is Dolan and who is married to a Dolan.
Q) And that was the right connection — the third town you had tried.
A) She tells us, “You’re very close! You have seven more miles to do to Aghyaran.” The next day, we travel out to St. Patrick’s church out in the countryside of Aghyaran in County Tyrone, and it’s loaded with Dolans in the cemetery.
Later we got an older uncle to take a DNA test, and sure enough, he matched the young lady, Anita Dolan.
Q) Eureka!
A) I felt really satisfied. Now we know exactly where we come from. I’ve written four books on it. My grandfather Jim Dolan lived to be 99 and loved to tell stories. They weren’t fabrications. They were family histories.
The first book is nothing more than a print version of the 24 hours of taped conversations that my cousin Joe Dolan had the foresight to record. The newest one includes a whole section on Dolan members who pursued religious life: nuns, priests, deacons, an African missionary, a bishop out in Prince Edward Island.
Now I’ve got 13,000 or 14,000 Dolan relatives entered into Ancestry.com and about 5,000 pictures online so that, when I’m long done and gone, someone can carry it on.
Q) What keeps you young at heart?
A) What drives me crazy about retirement is it lacks intellectual stimulation, so I’m constantly looking for things to do. I love history. I always have a book or two in motion. And this Palestinian thing has got me intrigued. I’m on my third book on that. I’m reading about Palestine’s history from the Ottoman Empire up to today. I’m old-fashioned, I have to have a book in my hand.
I’m a morning person, so I’m up at 5 in the morning, I have my breakfast, I say the rosary every day and after that, if my wife is still sleeping, I’ll read for 20 minutes or an hour.
Q) Reflection Sculpture Park was inspired by your grandparents, who installed a monument to Mary on the site of the first Catholic church in the area, Our Lady of Victory in Lucan.
A) Yes. And I knew of other people who put up shrines or statues, and I was inspired by what they did. I had bought some farmland, and then I added some more, and I got a nice piece there — almost 460 acres in that corner, where Highway 19 intersects with County Road 5 southwest of Vesta. One day we were driving by Gretna, Nebraska, just outside Omaha, and my wife said, “Look, look! That’s the one you should put up!”
Q) You found a sculptor, Michael Montag, whose work you admire, and before long, you’d commissioned him to make the giant bronze sculpture.
A) I didn’t know I was going to do anything other than a crucifix, but a few years passed, and I asked Michael if we could do one of Jesus carrying the cross. I had a personal rule: I’m not going to tell the artist what to do — as long as Jesus is recognizable from one sculpture to the next. I entirely left it up to him.
Q) You funded the entire project. Now it’s a family affair. Your older brother Kenny is a dutiful caretaker of the grounds, which includes benches and a registry book.
A) We’re already on our third full book (of visitors to the sculpture park)— (more than) 1,500 people who signed it. Some just put their name and address down. Other people write something. You can tell they’re distressed by something or they’re reflecting on something, and they’ll actually write half a page, a whole page and it’s very touching. One guy sort of spilled his life story, in terms of his emotions and less-than-stellar behavior and how this reflection park has changed his life. A year later, he comes back and writes a conclusion, how that made him reflect and he’s done some very different things now.
That’s the dream (to spark such reflections).
Q)What do you know for sure?
A)Nothing for sure! I know I’m not going to sink the next golf putt. I may not be here, for sure, tomorrow. I want to live each day, each hour of each day as: “What can I learn from the experience that I see right in front of me?”
