News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Wednesday May 15th 2024
Lawrence Wenell, a superior soldier and civilian, remembered.
By SUE HUNTER WEIR
Lawrence Wenell had an elementary-school education. He loved baseball, and according to his mother, he was very good at it.
Lawrence was born on July 5, 1893, the oldest of August and Laura Wenell”™s fourteen children. He attended Irving School, which has since been demolished, but which was located on the corner of 17th Avenue and 28th Street. By the time that he was 17 years old he was working as a “shirt cutter,” for the Wyman-Partridge Company. In June 1917, he enlisted in the Army. He was assigned to the Battery C 151st Field Artillery, also known as the Gopher Gunners, part of the Rainbow Division. His unit sailed from New York on October 18, 1917, aboard the President Lincoln.
Less than five months later, on March 9, 1918, his parents received a telegram from the War Department notifying them that their son had been seriously wounded. By the time that the telegram reached them Lawrence had already died. He suffered a skull fracture and broken neck when a shell near him exploded. He was the first young man from Minneapolis to die from injuries received during World War I.… Read the rest “Lawrence Wenell, a superior soldier and civilian, remembered.”
Back to the Swale
RETURNING CHAPTER 13
By PATRICK CABELLO HANSEL
Luz, Angel and little Angelito followed the garishly dressed woman through the door in the basement of the senior center. It led to a passageway that got narrower and lower as they walked. As they were about to step into near complete darkness, Angel turned and looked at Agnes, the kind elderly woman who had found them, fed them and given them hope. She seemed to shrink as they departed, and her face contorted in tears. I”™m sorry. I”™m so sorry: that is what Angel heard. But whether those words came from Agnes, or from the walls closing in on him, he could not say.
Their journey continued for several minutes, with no light and only the raspy words of Cindy Keefe to follow. Luz knew her from the worst part of her past; a past that would not let her be; Angel had just met her, and knew that she could not be trusted. But what else could they do but follow?
They emerged in the middle of an alleyway, behind a tall, wooden garage that must have once been used to keep a horse and wagon. Angel instinctively knew where they were: in the middle of the swale.… Read the rest “Back to the Swale”
Ebenezer Land
By DWIGHT HOBBES
“Affordable housing…is a misnomer of sorts: affordability implies the ability to pay for something given your budget”, think tank Cato Institute noted in a 2016 blog. Anyone of modest means looking for someplace to live who has run into what”™s being marketed as “affordable” can tell you just what a misnomer that is. It begs the cynical retort, affordable to whom? On top of which, rents and income have gone in opposite directions for some time and the contagion certainly didn”™t help, putting people out of work left and right.
Enter Ebenezer Park Apts., which doesn”™t solve that problem for everyone, but does give the elderly and disabled, including deaf tenants, a sorely needed break. Starting with the wallet, but, importantly, not ending there. Paramount, it goes without saying, is the difference between dispiritedly perusing ads for places priced out of your range and being asked one-third of your income ”“ whatever that happens to be. Plus, there”™s no application fee. It defies reason as how companies and organizations, whose selling card is affordability, charge at least $35, non-refundable, with a straight face just to fill out an application. Claiming it”™s to cover the background check is just so much bilge water.… Read the rest “Ebenezer Land”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
