This inspired me to ask the question of why folks settle in Minneapolis and why they flee. We are a nation of nomads, our population growing by a hundredfold in the last couple centuries. We didn't grow so by being efficent reproducers. In fact, were it not for immigration our population would not be growing at all. We haven't stopped migrating yet either, with most of our population having migrated far from our family's ports of entry. So why would a family settle here in Minneapolis, make it home for the better part of a century, then flee?
My family moved here in the 1910s and I am the last family member left in Minneapolis- why? My mother's family were farmers, and by the early 20th century 40 acres wouldn't support a half dozen kids. They came to Minneapolis when we were at our best- a city with jobs, excellent transportation, and housing... which brings us back to that DIY basement. During the depression grandma and grandpa Shaub got a bargain deal on a little shack in the Camden. During the 1930s they added a basement, central heat, kitchen, upstairs dormers, bathroom, and a heated garage to that humble abode. My Dad's family were inn keepers who followed the Great Northern Railroad across North Dakota and Montana. By the 1920s the boom was over and influenza and the dustbowl drove them to the Minneapolis After losing a couple houses in the depression grandma Sluyter bought my home on contract for deed and received said deed in 1952.
As the 50s closed all my grandparent's kids and grandkids had moved to the 'burbs, and only one has returned. Uncle Woodrow and Grandpa Shaub, the master carpenter, sheet metal worker, and who knows how many other trades passed on in the 1980s. Aunt Riki and Grandma Sluyter passed on in the 1990s. About the same time Grandma Shaub fled to a senior co-op in Robbinsdale, just ahead of the gangs and building inspectors.
Why would a family that for most of a century occupied the better part of a page in the city directory be all but gone at the close of that century? The first round of escapes was in the 1950s, largely neccessitated by the lack of land to build homes here to meet the postwar baby boom's demand. One of my aunt's families did manage to grab one of the last new homes built in Shingle Creek neighborhood though, one that barely missed demolition in the current gentrification there. She's since fled to Blaine.
In the early 1990s armed robbers knocked down grandma Sluyter's front door and robbed her and uncle Ricki of a few bucks and any sense of security they had left. Then a body was found in a car parked next door, and that house was soon torched by an arsonist. Then the house on the other side was torched. Grandma Sluyter moved to a nursing home, Uncle Ricki passed away, and Grandma Shaub noting the gunfire getting closer and the house in need of paint wisely retreated to Robbinsdale.
So I am today the last Sluyter in Minneapolis after nearly a century of residence here. The RV show is at the convention center this weekend and it'll be packed with people looking to escape. For less than cost of rehabbing my house to Minneapolis' standards or the down payment on an overpriced new home you can buy a pretty decent RV. As far as I know I'm still a fugitive from (in)justice within the Minneapolis' limits so it might be time to do some serious shopping instead of "just looking"...
Unless I hear some good arguments for staying here.
hangin' loose in Hawthorne,
Dyna Sluyter
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