The Alley Newspaper is Bound for the Future With Your Help!
By Susan Gust and Harvey Winje
The Alley Newspaper is Bound for the Future. Bound into 17 volumes, no less, spanning all of its 33 years! It will be printed on paper much better than the newsprint on which it is printed each month, allowing the many photos, stories and articles to be able to be viewed and used by others well into the future. Once it is reprinted it will be kept in the Special Collections Section of the Main Downtown Minneapolis Library on Hennepin Avenue.
This is great news! No pun intended. What would be even better news would be to raise enough money for a duplicate set of those 17 volumes to be housed at the Franklin Branch Library in the Phillips Community. These volumes would be more readily available to community residents and students. If you or a friend, neighbor, or relative have ever appeared in The Alley or submitted a Letter to the Editor, a photo, or written an article, it will become immortalized”“or least be around a long, long time! Please celebrate this great news, or, better yet, help make it happen by attending
The Alley Annual Meeting and Fundraiser
Friday, October 23, 2009
5-7 pm
At the Cultural Wellness Center in Franklin Bank Building
1527 East Lake St.… Read the rest “The Alley Newspaper is Bound for the Future With Your Help!”
SEARCHING CHAPTER 7: A New Start
By Patrick Cabello Hansel
We can”'t say that Angel didn”'t know where to start this leg of his journey. He”'d been starting his whole life. Fits and starts. False starts. Start and stop, start and stop. Angel”'s problem was finishing. He”'d managed to graduate from Roosevelt””barely””and he vaguely remembered the platitudes the locally famous person of color had shared at the graduation ceremony: Believe in your dreams. Reach for the stars. Stay in touch. Good words, he thought, but he”'d spent the six months since then pretty much wandering through life, without a plan, That morning, in Mother Light”'s house, as he tenderly pulled on his jacket and bent over to tie his shoes, he spotted the webbed ornament in the window.
“That”'s a dream catcher, right?” he said to Ana, who was waiting at the door.
She smiled, nodded yes, then pointed to her eyes, to her heart, to her lips and then to Angel. He shook his head and wondered what manner of answer that was: was this beautiful young woman deaf? Or merely insane? “I wonder if it caught any of my dreams”, he muttered to himself.
Ana handed him his backpack, which felt heavier to his bruised shoulders.… Read the rest “SEARCHING CHAPTER 7: A New Start”
“Bring a shawl and get a baby” from a 1908-09 Baby Farm 3341 Nicollet Avenue
![“The babies [from the Baby Farm on Nicollet Avenue] are buried in unmarked graves at various locations throughout the cemetery.” This heart shaped grave marker is for Emma Bertta who died June 30th 1886, marker of a heart shaped cross and whose family did provide this marker.](https://alleynews.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/004.02-oct-09-tales-photoBabysMarker18861.jpg "004.02 oct 09 tales photoBabysMarker1886")
The babies from the Baby Farm on Nicollet Avenue are buried in unmarked graves
Between June 24, 1908 and September 6, 1909, 27 infants died at the same address–3341 Nicollet Avenue South. These babies (13 girls, 13 boys, and one whose gender was not recorded) were under the care of “Doctor” Hans Oftedal. As the quote marks suggest, Hans Oftedal was not a licensed physician; he was the proprietor of one of several “baby farms” operating in Minneapolis at the time.
Baby farms were essentially unlicensed boarding houses for infants whose parents were too poor to care for them. The parents surrendered their children to baby farm operators and paid a fee for the care that they believed their children would receive. In some cases, the parents intended to come back and reclaim their children, but in other cases they expected their children to be adopted by families who could provide for them. Adoption was unregulated at that time, and Minneapolis had the dubious distinction of being the baby-trafficking capitol of the Upper Midwest. The Minneapolis Tribune described the adoption trade in Minneapolis as one in which people could “Bring a shawl and get a baby.”
In October 1909, “Doctor” Oftedal shut down his baby farm.… Read the rest ““Bring a shawl and get a baby” from a 1908-09 Baby Farm 3341 Nicollet Avenue”
