Minnesota-nice Mamma

Love of city. Love of neighbor. Not afraid of a little ice.

My maternal grandmother, Margaret Macgowan, was born, raised and breathed her last in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At 5040 Thomas Avenue S, to be exact. A few short blocks from Lake Harriet, and not far from the downtown which has erupted in protest. I well remember riding along those cracked sidewalks on a bike she had borrowed for me to ride. I always loved pedaling the crowded paths that circled the lake past the bandstand where my grandparents met, the water fountains you hand-pumped for pressure, the stand that sold taffy and popcorn, and, in the winter, past ice skaters, hockey games, and vehicles driven out on the lake to their ice-fishing holes. I just loved mixing in with the native Minnesotans for whom the lake provided year-round recreation.

“Be careful crossing 50th,” I can still hear her calling after me.

Everyone in town, it seemed, knew my grandmother, and she knew everyone, I would later learn. This in large part because she had a practice of boldly introducing herself to each person she met. “Hi, I’m Margaret Macgowan,” she’d declare, thrusting her hand out so she could shake yours. This, not because she wanted to impress you but because she wanted to get to know you. And she did. Everything you told her, she remembered and asked you about later. No matter how long from then later was.

“I’m interested in people,” she told me.

This interested-ness made her a good friend to have and an even better neighbor. She knew everyone on her block and paid attention in case you needed something. The young couple across the street who were new parents and needed someone to watch their child so they could go out for a bit. The elderly man three doors down who could use help with some groceries. The mail carrier who hand-delivered the mail and always appreciated a cold drink.

“This,” she said with obvious pride, “is Minnesota-nice.”

This is what sits on my heart as I watch the “train-wreck” unfold in Minneapolis. (Train-wreck is the word my cousin, who still lives there, used to describe what she is seeing in her hometown.¹) These Minnesota-nice-ians are being descended upon by forces who know nothing about nice but a whole lot about force and are operating without proper training² and, it appears, little self-restraint.

I wonder what Margaret Macgown would have done in the face of the ICE brigade. Because nice doesn’t mean provincial or backward and it certainly doesn’t mean weak.

You see, Mamma was quite forward” in her thinking, a “hip grandma,” she quite-rightly called herself. She was always up on the news, mailing clippings to me and my brother while we were at college. She kept up with the latest musical trends. She followed the local sports teams, never missing a Twins or Vikings game on T.V. And she didn’t back off from the hard questions God needed asking.

“We’re a reconciling church,” she said of her beloved Hennepin Methodist Church who welcomed the LGBTQ+ community before we were calling it that.

“It says, ‘God breathed life into Adam,’ so that’s when life begins,” she had decided, in responding to the abortion question.

What happens to the soul of a person who takes their own life?… “In their mind it was the most loving thing they could think to do for their family,” she learned from her friend, the pastor.

She always applied these three: 1. Consciousness. 2. Conscience. 3. Conscientiousness.

She asked. Made space to listen. Then applied herself. That’s why I’m pretty sure today she’d march to the scene where any poor soul needed help and see to it they got what they needed. If prevented, I am just as sure, she would have given them a piece of her mind. Yep, I’m thinking my 90-year-old grandma might have been handcuffed and jailed for “obstructing the law.”

Because she lived by a higher law: love your neighbor. Minnesota-nice was how they did it where she came from. Where my folks hailed from. Where my brother was born. Where I was all but raised.

Mamma died in 1999, so I returned to Minneapolis to celebrate her life. Being asked to speak at her funeral allowed me wonderful moments to recall what she had meant to me over her 92 years. Funny, one of the things that especially stood out was her predilection for being ready early whenever we were to go somewhere together or as a family. She’d arrive in the foyer, fully dressed and ready to go, and then offer her extra time to you in case you might be running a bit late.³

It always felt like a deep inhale for me.

Today, I needed a big inhale. So, I pulled on the t-shirt I got at the Twin Cities airport gift shop back in 1999. Nothing fancy. I just wanted a memento and thought I might not get back there again now that Mamma was gone.

Now it’s such a welcome reminder of my Minnesota Mamma who I’m not sure very many people would call “nice” exactly. No, she was more of a go-getter. An organizer. In today’s parlance, an activist. Someone who gets things done and doesn’t mind doing them.

So, if Mamma were here, what would she do in Minneapolis today?

Honestly, I can see her walking right up to one of those ICE agents and sticking out her gloved hand. “Hi, I’m Margaret Macgown.” And the ICE-man melting right there in his boots. Because pretty much no one could resist my grandmother.

1. She had more to say, but we’ll leave it here for now.

2. This assessment is courtesy of my Minnesota-nice cousin who gives absolutely everyone the benefit of the doubt.

3. You who know me well have permission to chortle now. Yes, I have been this way my whole life.