News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Sunday December 21st 2025
Pat Welna’s Life Story
Written by VIRGINIA (WELNA) MAGNER Edited by SUE WELNA
Born in Minneapolis, MN, in 1929, Pat Welna was raised as an only child. When she was seven, her parents divorced, although her father visited frequently. The family would go on outings to the MN State Fair, to the fireworks at Powderhorn Park and to family gravesites on Memorial Day. On the Fourth of July, Pat would have her one annual ice cream cone. During two Minneapolis Aquatennials, a teenaged Pat danced in a chorus line at the Orpheum Theater wearing long beautiful dresses and big fancy hats.
During the Depression, times were tough. Pat’s mother turned their small home into a boarding house with ten roomers. Pat slept on a ¾ cot in the living room with a female boarder and her mother slept nearby. The hook behind the dining room door was Pat’s clothes closet. Her mother also ran a wedding catering business out of their home.
Pat attended St Margaret’s High School. As a high school senior at her best friend’s party, she saw the man who would later become her husband, saying to herself,” I will marry that man or no man.”… Read the rest “Pat Welna’s Life Story”
Remembering David Norris
By QUATREFOIL LIBRARY
We are devastated by the news that David Philip Norris died Thursday, January 12th, 2023. David was a long-time volunteer and dear friend to many. His calling was that of a librarian and cataloger. At Quatrefoil Library, much of David’s work was behind the scenes, cataloging new items in our collection and enhancing metadata for existing items. David was passionate about making library resources easier to find, and in doing so helped countless others. He worked tirelessly to ensure that bibliographic records were up-to-date, and strived to combat racism in classification systems, always working towards more equitable library practices. For more on that work, you can read his blog: https://secularlibrarian.com/
David was close to many of our volunteers, board members, and library patrons. His legacy will live on whenever our catalog is searched and in the processes he left behind.
We are actively discussing ways that we can memorialize David. If you have a story, photo, or memory of David that you would like to share, please send it to president@quatrefoil.org and post on the memorial site: https://www.mykeeper.com/profile/DavidNorris/ If you would like to be in community with others who knew David, we encourage you to participate in one of our Friday night board game nights, where he was a frequent participant.… Read the rest “Remembering David Norris”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
Something I Said: Terry Bellamy – A Singular Presence
By DWIGHT HOBBES
Terry Bellamy, who passed in January, was, to say the least, a singular presence. I met him in 1993 at the Playwrights Center for some sort of town hall meeting. He got up and raised three different kinds of hell, calling the organization out for being whites only. We chatted afterward but for the life of me I can’t remember a word either of us said. I do recall within weeks the Center had a black playwrights workshop led by the regrettably late actor Byrd Wilkins (Doctor Who, Running Scared). I joined.
Next time I saw Bellamy was in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running at Penumbra Theatre Company. It wasn’t the last as that presence fueled several powerhouse performances at the Twin Cities answer to NYC’s fabled Negro Ensemble Company. The man was, hands down, an amazing actor who appeared all over America in productions at prestigious venues.
He was not, however, like many actors, in the profession for the sake of ego, and helped local performance artist David Daniels develop Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh. It had well received runs at Cedar Cultural Center, Minnesota Fringe Festival, Colorado State University in Denver at the Bug Theater.
He was committed to black culture and odds are he wanted Penumbra to use its mainstream success to empower a nationalist bent that harked to the Black Arts Movement that thrived from 1965 to 1975.… Read the rest “Something I Said: Terry Bellamy – A Singular Presence”