Saint Paul By Bike

Merriam Park, Lexington-Hamline, North End, Payne-Phalen, East Side (Hayden Heights), Summit-University

July 25, 2024

31.5 Miles

Community gardens have sprung up all across Saint Paul. The St. Anthony Park Community Garden, wedged between Robbin Street and the BNSF railroad tracks, is the first I recall visiting on a bike ride. Since then, I’ve come across gardens in many neighborhoods. In a couple, including Battle Creek, I’ve spent time looking around and talking to gardeners. Merriam Station Community Garden is one that I’ve frequently passed but not paid a lot of attention to, until this ride.

What caught my attention amongst the colorful, bursting flowers was a small, low-lying plaque partly obscured by flowers and leaves. It is a memorial to 8-year old Adam Geisenkoetter Jr. who was killed in 2018 after he was hit by a snowmobile on Chisago Lake. The plaque and memorial garden are the work of Adam’s grandmother, Marybeth Lonnee, and other volunteers at Merriam Station.

Lexington-Hamline

Most of the street lights around town were converted to LED bulbs by the mid-2010s. LEDs last longer and draw less energy than incandescent, mercury vapor and high pressure sodium bulbs that previously lit our streets. LEDs in Saint Paul caused few problems until 2016, when lamps in the Lexington-Hamline neighborhood were converted to LEDs. Whether it was the LED bulbs themselves, the street lamp fixtures they went in or a combination of both, enough neighbors found them distracting for the city to pause the lamp conversion.

LED bulb test sites were created in three neighborhoods of the city and officials sought to solve the lighting problems.

North End

Abell Street is one of an abundance of sparingly traveled residential byways around Saint Paul that is known only to people who live on it and frequent visitors. This North End street stretches for four blocks between Jessamine Avenue (a block north of Oakland Cemetery) to Hawthorne Avenue. Immediately north of Hawthorne, Abell becomes the driveway into a small industrial park.

Oddly, all three of the warehouses have Maryland Avenue address despite being on (or just off) Abell Street.

Payne-Phalen

Chickens have been legal to keep in Saint Paul since the 1990s. As their popularity has grown, it’s more common to spot coops in yards around town. The coup behind 689 Ivy Avenue East is the largest I’ve seen and it’s been given its own address.

East Side

From Payne-Phalen, I continued east about three miles to another section of Hawthorne Avenue. This part of Hawthorne, in the Hayden Heights area of the East Side, is blocks from the northeast corner of Saint Paul. That’s where I caught up with Joan Ballanger, who’s lived at 2024 Hawthorne Avenue East with her husband Gary since 1977.

Her tenure on the East Side exceeds her residency on Hawthorne Avenue by more than 20 years. An exceptional storyteller, Joan has plenty to share, many of which are punctuated with her laughter.

Joan was born in 1953 at St. John’s Hospital, which was on Dayton’s Bluff on Maria Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets East. (St. John’s Hospital moved to Maplewood in 1983 and the buildings made way for Metropolitan State University in 1987.) Other than living for about nine months in Lonsdale, Minn. where she taught, and in an apartment for some eight months on Grand Avenue, Joan’s always resided on her beloved East Side.

One of 15 children (one of whom died as a child), Joan grew up at 1562 North Hazel Street, about a mile from her current home. She was the 11th born to her parents, Emily and George (Jim) Wilhelmy.

As Joan recollects, there was a time when their home was stuffed with 12 of the 14 family members—10 children and their parents.

Sections of the East Side, including the part of Hayden Heights neighborhood in which they lived, were still rural and nearly undeveloped in the 1940s and into the ‘50s. Small subsistence or hobby farms were common on Hazel Street between Idaho and Larpenteur Avenues.

Residents, as Joan explained, including her family, frequently bought, sold and traded crops and animals. “ One man had cows and my family would barter with him and we would get milk and cream and they would go to his house and we got stuff back and forth that way. But that stopped pretty soon once they started putting all the streets in.“

Joan’s family kept farm animals into the mid-’50s. “When I was first born, they (her parents) raised chickens and geese and they sold the chickens and geese around the neighborhood. They went door to door and even though there weren’t that many houses, there were people who would order and they would have the chickens ready and bring them to them.”

Vegetables were also a staple of the Wilhelmys’ homestead/farm. “ We had tomatoes and cucumbers, beets and spinach and radishes and just a regular garden.”

Raising crops and animals and trading and bartering with neighbors helped Joan’s 16 member family to more comfortably live on just their father’s salary.

Development of their neighborhood from farms to residential in the mid-1950s began with the addition of more streets. “ There was no Hoyt Street. They put that in and they put in Darlene Street. And when they did that, of course that took away the property that we had for our farming.”

 Another section of the family’s land — now part of Hayden Heights Rec. Center playground — was the land that they planted crops on.

Joan, her siblings and many other neighborhood children spent much of their free time at Hayden Heights playground, just steps east of their home.

In the winter ice skating was popular. “ My brothers would make me be the goalie ’cause I’m not good at skating. My balance has never been wonderful. So they made me the goalie. I said it was ’cause they wanted to throw things at me, but. I don’t know how true that is.”

The city regularly hosted programming at the playground building including a preschool which Joan attended.

Activities for teens were extremely popular too. “They used to have dances for teenagers on Friday nights. And they would go from like seven to 10 and that’s how a lot of people in our neighborhood met their girlfriend, boyfriend, One of my older brothers actually married somebody they met as teenagers back at the playgrounds at a dance.”

Former Congressman Bruce Vento grew up about a block away. “ He hung around with my older brothers. Once he became a congressman, the Vento people were at our house all the time.”

Joan’s dad, George, landed a coveted job at NSP on Rice Street in about 1950 and worked there until 1976. “He was foreman at the transformer shop then with a 10th grade education. And he taught at Dunwoody—electrical engineering with his 10th grade education. That’s all he got. And that was after skipping two grades. So he actually was outta school by the time he was 14.”

Her dad, Joan said, was very well-read and that love of reading and learning was shared with his children. “We had every encyclopedia known to humankind, and we never had to worry too much about the library unless we want something newer, And so we grew up with a lot of books surrounding us and education was highly valued in my home. Highly valued.” To that end, eleven of the 14 children, including Joan, earned college degrees.

Experiencing Civic Involvement

Civic engagement was also passed from Joan’s dad to her and her siblings. George’s involvement began with union activism during the 1920s and ‘30s. He spent more than 50 years in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Engineers (IBEW) Local 23. He also became active in local issues. Joan said he shared that involvement with his children. “ Dad would truck with us to downtown St. Paul and we’d sit and wait until whoever he wanted to talk to was done with whatever. And then he’d drag us in with him to talk to these people. So we talked with the mayor, we talked to the city council, whomever dad thought we needed to talk to.”

As George Wilhelmy’s local stature grew, politicians including Hubert Humphrey (who hadn’t been elected to office yet), and others stopped at the house to see him. One time, said Joan, a very nicely dressed gentleman knocked on the door. “He wanted to talk to Mr. Wilhelmy so of course we went and got dad. And dad says, ‘Who the hell?’ So we said, ‘We don’t know.’ ‘Well ask him who he is.’ So I did, and he said his name was Warren Burger. I didn’t know who that was. I had no clue who that was, so it was before he became the (U.S. Supreme Court) judge, when he was still local.”

Once Joan told her dad who was at the door, his demeanor changed. “ ‘Mom, get some coffee going. You got some desserts going on,’ just like it was anybody else coming to our house. And dad would talk to him and tell him what was happening and what he thought about stuff.”

The Paper Route

The oldest children in Joan’s family, compelled by their dad, took on a paper route to help cover expenses. “ The oldest couple kids started the delivering the first newspapers in 1947. We had that paper route until 1974. We delivered papers everywhere. I gotta tell you, on Sundays at the height of delivering it, we delivered 527 Sunday papers.”

Joan mentioned the paper route was not optional. “ The rule was at our house that if you didn’t have a job that helped to pay towards the house, you had to deliver newspapers.” College was not a good enough reason to get out of the paper route. “So I am a junior in college at St. Kate’s full time, and I’m getting up three mornings a week, plus Sundays to deliver papers at four o’clock in the morning.”

A two-tone light green/dark green 1953 Chevrolet station wagon was the vehicle they used for the paper route during Joan’s time (above.) The most efficient way to deliver papers was for dad to drive and two or three kids to sit on the folded-down tailgate and toss papers onto subscribers’ front steps as they slowly drove past. That arrangement led to hijinks. “ I remember one time coming up Van Dyke Street onto Larpenteur, and they always thought it was funny to see who they could pop off the (tailgate) and it was always me. I was the lucky soul.”
Joan continued, “So we were coming around that corner and they did that. And the lady living on the corner house was out. And she yelled, ‘You boys shouldn’t be doing that to those little girls. Stop that right now!’” All the kids had a hearty laugh at the time and Joan did so again as she told the story to me.

Anyone who’s had a paper route will attest that the worst part of the job was collecting payment. One family, (a mom, dad and a young boy about five) as Joan recounted, actively dodged paying. Joan went to their home to collect on multiple occasions, but the woman always explained that her husband, who was working, would pay her. However, even when Joan made evening visits she was told the husband wasn’t home.

One day, Joan, in her words, “kind of stalked” the family and saw the dad return from work. “So I waited a little bit. I thought I’d give him a little bit of time to say hi and all that. And I went to the door and I knocked on the door and the little boy comes to the door and I said, ‘Jim, (are) your parents home?’ His response, Joan said, was, ’My dad says to tell you he is not here!’”

In 1974, 27 years after they began delivering newspapers, most of the Wilhelmy children had grown up and moved on to “adult” employment, so they finally retired from the paper route. That led to a story in the Saint Paul Dispatch. “ We were in the Oliver Towne column. Because of delivering the paper so long he came to our house, but he only interviewed my oldest sister. We all wanted to be part of it. We were old enough, but because she had the history way back in ’47, that’s why. But we thought it wasn’t fair.”

Joan cited the extensive size of their paper route. After her family retired, she said the route was split into four smaller routes.

Joan’s civic involvement

Community involvement may not be in Joan’s genes, but thanks to her dad, it at least comes naturally. It started accidentally and innocently—by walking around her Hawthorne Avenue neighborhood and greeting people.

“ I just think it’s important to know who your neighbors are. That’s my opinion. Even today. I’m not saying I need to know everything about ’em. I wanna know who lives there. People say, ‘you’re a busy body.’ No, I’m not trying to find out all that information. I just wanna know who belongs.”

On those walks, she’d frequently bump into Chao Lee, a neighborhood acquaintance and they’d talk. Her engagement on the East Side became formalized on one of those walks “One day he says to me, ‘What are you doing on Wednesday night?’ ‘And I said, nothing that I can think of.’” Chao was vague about where they were going, but she agreed anyway. It happened to be the District 2 Community Council meeting when they were electing new people.

It turns out Chao Lee was (and still is) one of Congresswoman Betty McCollum’s aides. He told Joan, “’I think you’d be great on it. You know, people, you walk around, you know what’s happening.’ So he recommended me.”

Joan got the nod for and has been on the Greater East Side (previously known as the District 2) Community Council since 1999, with a few short breaks interspersed.

The Greater East Side Community Council has dealt with ideas and concerns, small and large, all of which effect the quality of life for residents.

Notable projects during Joan’s time include pushing City officials to fund improvements to the walking and biking path along Furness Parkway, an former streetcar route. (It took several years!) The council worked with apartment residents to motivate a poor owner to sell. Most recently, The Heights development has taken center stage.

From Hillcrest Golf Course to the Heights

Every one of Joan’s seven brothers caddied at Hillcrest Golf Course, about half a mile east of the house in which they grew up. Partially because of that, Joan got deeply involved in The Heights, the large redevelopment of the former golf course, expected to bring 1,000 new housing units and 1,000 manufacturing jobs to the northeast corner of Saint Paul. “ I signed up for every committee. ’cause I know this neighborhood, I really believe that the Greater East Side is my community. It’s my place. This is our responsibility.”

Among the committees she joined was the one charged with selecting the name of the development. “ We finally agreed to The Heights because first of all, we have Hayden Heights. We have Prosperity Heights (park), we have these places that already fit that.” Furthermore, explained Joan, the highest point in the city is within The Heights.

Developers have pledged to include public art at The Heights. Joan feels strongly that it should include history of the area. “ We should put in there the Native Americans that were here first. We should put in the agriculture ‘cause this was all farmland. We should show all the blue collar workers, ’cause on the other side of the railroad tracks, pretty much all of that was built because of 3M.”

Immigration and the East Side

Immigrants who have moved to the East Side in the past few decades come from different places than those who settled 100 years ago but Joan believes that’s the only difference. “The East Side has always been where immigrants came. Always, always. If you look historically, that’s why it was Swede Hollow. That’s why we have what now they call Railroad Island. That’s why we have these communities. If you look at the churches, why do we have so many churches so close? They all spoke different languages.”

 ”It gives a different feel to the whole place because you get to see culturally how different we are, yet alike. I love it!”

joan ballanger

Joan used her block of Hawthorne to illustrate the point. “ I always tell people this, I live on the United Nations.” Gesturing at nearby homes, she continued, “People across the street are El Salvador. That house up there is Puerto Rican. The house on this side is, Hmong. The house on that side is Hmong. The house up there is Egyptian. The house up there is Somali.”

Hazel and Hoyt

My next stop—the neighborhood in which Joan grew up. It’s a mile north of her Hawthorne Avenue home, at Hazel Street and Hoyt Avenue. The exterior of the 2,000 square foot bungalow her parents moved into in 1944 remains nearly unchanged after eight decades.

The lot is dramatically smaller than years back, gobbled up by the expansion of the Hayden Heights Rec Center property and construction of Darlene Street in the 1950s.

Across Hoyt Avenue, a prolific hopscotch design decorated the sidewalk in front of several homes.

Hayden Heights Rec Center is on the north side of Hoyt and less than a block east.

The Greater East Side encompasses a half-dozen smaller neighborhoods. As you may have guessed, one is Hayden Heights. The Hayden Heights Library, at White Bear and Arlington Avenues, lies two-thirds of a mile from the similarly named rec center. The library proved to be a convenient place to replenish my water bottles.

From there, a quick stop at 1251 Birmingham Street where two carousel horses inexplicably rested against a fence.

Payne-Phalen

After a few hours rambling around the East Side I paused at 1069 Frank Street North. It wasn’t the tidy house and groomed yard that grabbed me. Rather, the unique structure above the garage, featuring 17 windows.

Summit-University

Holcombe Circle Park, or just Holcombe Circle, could be Saint Paul’s smallest city-owned park. It sits in the middle of the intersection of Laurel Street and St. Albans Street North in Summit-University. Originally dedicated as a “market square” in 1857, according to Don Empson’s “The Street Where You Live,” it was converted to a circle sometime in the 1960s or ‘70s.

Finally, this dump truck spotted in the 2100 block of Lincoln Avenue in Mac-Groveland, with a slogan pulled directly from the rock group AC/DC’s 1981 album and title track of the same name.