Part IV
By HARVEY WINJE
Prelude
I wrote my first Gallery of Loss article in 2010 which was printed in two parts.
In November 2025 it was decided to reprint the 2010 Gallery of Loss articles to display some of what the alley has published over its 50 years.
I used that opportunity to add more anecdotes and history to enrich the story, encourage readers to tell their stories, and increase neighborhood story narratives.
The length increased into more Parts. This issue has Part IV.
Parts I, II, and III were published in 2025.
Part IV was ready last year when the federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deployment started in Minnesota. Now in January 2026, I read it one more time before the February due date to make final edits.
Context of the times matters
January 2026, the number of ICE troops increased to over 2,000, announced ahead of arrival to instill fear and attract responses. If enforcement of immigration and customs were the only goal, the element of surprise usually used would be more civil and successful. Instead the goal is to create chaos and has catapulted into increased tragedy for thousands of people. The death of Renee Nicole Macklin Good the morning of January 7th, 2026 caused heightened fear and activism.
I am not equating my losses nor the losses of the Phillips Community in this article with the inhumane and unconstitutional treatment of citizens by intimidation, fear, physical harm, and killing by federal agencies.
I am acknowledging that these horrendous attacks on democracy and civility do affect us all to varying degrees. It has also affected the final changes of this series.
Loss Emits Light
The continued writing of this Series has been an opportunity to reconsider the circumstances, relationships, and my previous conclusions. The result has been cathartic, personally, and led me to new insights of why the various stories within it matter beyond my personal memoir. I continually asked myself, “So what?” I found answers for myself and a couple I will suggest for the benefit of the community. That is why I have now added “Light” to the title: The Gallery of Loss and Light. The anecdotes and facts of these stories of loss reflect off one another when mixed like in a kaleidoscope when it is twisted. Once in a while a bright light is emitted.
This Gallery of Loss is focused on loss of trust and buildings that held history. This chapter focuses on “who was in the room” when decisions were made that created those buildings and later decided to demolish.
Darkness and Chaos, “Ring the Bells”
I have changed the beginning of Part IV by adding the lyrics to “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen. Cohen would often begin singing this song saying, “We are so privileged to be able to gather in moments like this when so much of the world is plunged in darkness and chaos. So ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there’s a crack in every thing, that’s how the light gets in.”
Cohen’s reference to darkness and chaos may not have included the United States when he said it, but would, if he were still alive and performing today. Many of the verses are very descriptive today, right here in Minnesota.
Cohen says “don’t dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be”.
I understand that is not contradictory to James Baldwin or Maya Angelou saying: “History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we are literally criminals. “People who imagine that history flatters them..are impaled on their history like a butterfly on a pin.”…..Baldwin
“History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage need not be lived again.” …..Angelou
Cohen said don’t dwell on it. He did not say don’t learn history, and did not say forget lessons of the past
Influences and Lessons for me on Block 5
Decisions made by organizations result from influence of one leader, a group in leadership roles, or inclusion of the entire group. This is true for churches, too. Here are pertinent stories of the 118 year old Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church Congregation, MELCC since 1953.
Rev. Dr. Leonard Kendall, 1928-1956
In 1954, Reverend Dr. Leonard Kendall, Messiah Church Pastor from 1928-1956, strictly taught us when I was “a young and callow fellow” “in catechism class or in the Sanctuary, facing the leader who is at the front of the room, do not glance back or worry about noise or activity behind you because you trust the leader will not allow harm to come to you.” It is as likely that his advice was from his U.S. Marine boot camp as from Bible camp. If he taught us the counterpoint that that leader has to earn that trust and not assume superiority because of position, I missed it; but, know it now. Now, I also realize that Kendall’s modest charisma and role was as a servant leader.
We students sat in the first pew, directly beneath the pulpit, to minimize distractions, as we wrote the required, verbatim notes of the sermon to be submitted in class the next week. Due to research as a 85 year old instead of relying on my memories when I was 13, I know that requirement was traditional from when Messiah began as the second Mpls. church to use English instead of Swedish. The first was Grace Church at Seven Corners, Mpls. Grace University Lutheran Church built a new sanctuary at 324 SE Harvard St. in 1915-17 to be closer to university students. More about the connection to Messiah in the last chapter of this series. The assignment was probably used to teach English more than theology.
Rev. Kendall was a formal person teaching religion by rote; or so it seemed. Nonetheless he had discreet ways to make certain we students knew the Catechism answers he would quiz us with publicly so we wouldn’t be embarrassed before the whole congregation. It seemed he was always behind a pulpit, lectern, altar, communion rail,office desk, and even the stool-side of the lunch counter the day I was pleased to serve him a warmed can of Campbell’s soup and a hamburger one Saturday at the Chicago Av. Eat Shop across the alley from the church. He was kind, pleasant, and impressive to me. His handwriting was meticulous in a calligraphy style. There is evidence that he studied Greek history when in the U.S. Marines stationed in Washington, D.C.
Part of the Messiah Congregation’s history is about their sanctuary for worship. The first was at 13th Avenue and 10th Street until it burned. Then it was temporarily at the new Franklin Avenue Carnegie Library, 1314 E. Franklin Ave. until the new church was built on 25th Street between Chicago and Columbus Avenues.
During Kendall’s tenure, the Messiah congregation purchased the one-half city block across Columbus Ave. from the church at 2505 Park Ave. with the mansion and carriage house built by railroad contractor Alonzo Linton. It had been sold to Herschell V. Jones, a young newspaper reporter at the Minneapolis Journal, bought the Journal in 1908 becoming its publisher until his death in 1928, and founded the Commercial West financial and grain weekly newspaper. He was even more well known for his book collections, as a director of the Associated Press, and a trusted confidant and advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt. The large property was approximately half landscaped as a Victorian walking garden with sculpted plantings, stone beaches, and flowered walkways. It was purchased from the widow of Herschel Jones for $4,000.00.
Messiah Church history archives have references to various congregation members who held influential roles in decisions.
The buildings were demolished ten years later to build the parish center on the rear of the large parcel; obviously, leaving the very large open space west with frontage on Park Ave., presumably, to move the 1916 Messiah building or build a new church with a more prestigious place on Minneapolis’s “Golden Mile of Mansions” — the stretch of Park Avenue (roughly 18th to 28th Street), once home to 35 opulent mansions for the city’s elite business tycoons, featuring Richardsonian Romanesque and other grand styles, though most were demolished for commercial development, leaving only a few survivors like the Turnblad (also a newspaper publisher) Mansion, now the American Swedish Institute.
Messiah Church histories have many references to people who had influential leadership roles in the congregation including worship protocols and property. Recalling a few of those people “who were in the room” when decisions were made prompts the likelihood that “the sum is greater than the parts,” meaning that when individual elements combine, the resulting whole has more value, power, or qualities than the sum of its separate components.
…continued in March…
