Author Archive
Momentary absence.Flames prevail. Mother burned, and grieving
By Sue Hunter Weir In the early years of the last century the Minneapolis Tribune”'s coverage tended toward the sensational, especially when it came to covering tragedies involving children. But every now and then a reporter captured the sense of loss and grief, like in this excerpt from a story written by an unidentified Tribune reporter on January 14, 1911: A white hearse wound its way between snow-covered mounds and marble shafts at Layman”'s cemetery yesterday and stopped at the door of the vault room. From the three carriages that followed it a little group of people stepped and moved silently toward the vault. A man in a black cassock led. Following close came two old men, each looking straight ahead, their eyes dim with something besides age. Last came a little figure in deepest mourning, toil worn hand clutching the sleeve of the man who walked beside her. The door of the hearse opened and a square white coffin was borne out and carried into the vault [...]
Searching ”“ A Serial Novelle Chapter 23: “Turning Darker”
By Patrick Cabello Hansel We can”'t control what is coming. We can”'t foresee it. Angel and Luz, upon leaving the Mercado Central were as in love as two can be. Together, come what may. What came was not a stab from Angel”'s past, but from Luz”'. As they walked west on Lake Street, they didn”'t notice the man standing at the corner a block and a half down. They didn”'t see that he had seen them, and was waiting with eyes like radar. As they got closer, Angel could tell the kind of man he was: the kind you nod at as you pass, but don”'t engage in conversation. The kind whose business takes all. They intended to go around him, and continue to Luz”' aunt”'s house. She wanted to talk with her about all that had happened. But as they approached the corner, the man stepped into their path and laughed, a laugh swarming with deceit. “Well look who”'s here””little old Luz. Lucy Goosey, alive in Minneapolis. How [...]
THIS IS GOOD OR I”'LL EAT MY CHRISTMAS TREE
By Jane Thomson My first recipe is from 97 ORCHARD , an Edible History of Five Immigrant Families, by Jane Ziegelman. This book interests me because my father grew up in a New York tenement (the word just meant “rental building” at the time; I don”'t know how shabby his family”'s apartment was, but I suspect it was not spacious). The building at 97 Orchard is on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and is now the Tenement Museum. It was built about 1860 and was abandoned after 1935. It has been preserved and restored. The first time I visited the building about 20 years ago, it was left just as it had been found. The tour started in the narrow dark front hall with a dingy frieze painted on the wall, a tin ceiling and rickety stairs going up to the next of several stories. We were then taken to an apartment composed of two small rooms with one window between them and one window to the outside. There were layers of old wallpaper peeling, and numbers on the wall [...]
