SAFE, secure shelter for women in crisis
Minnesota ministry adds wing for those who are on their own
ST. CLOUD, Minn. — The last time they were counted — Oct. 22, 2015 — women made up about half of Minnesota’s homeless population. And of those, 47 percent did not have a child with them.
Across the state and particularly in central Minnesota, there has been a push to reduce the number of homeless kids.
“People have put their focus on families,” said the Rev. Carol Smith, director of Place of Hope Ministries. “That’s how women and single men get left behind.”
She said they seem to get less empathy than families experiencing homelessness. “People don’t realize there may be a lot of barriers other people may have not faced,”
Smith said.
Women on their own can be vulnerable to situations such as sex trafficking. A place to stay can quickly become a dangerous situation.
Local nonprofit organizations have noticed. In early 2016, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud opened Emily’s Place, transitional housing for single women.
Last fall, Place of Hope opened a wing for single women. Smith and others recently celebrated the dedication of Mary Anne’s Wing. It can house up to 12 women at a time for up to about three months, depending on needs.
‘They can feel secure’
The floor quickly filled.
“Having these ladies here (has) just been so enjoyable, to watch them come in and being nervous and being scared on the streets,” Smith said. “They get here and it’s a safe place to be. … They can just feel secure and be able to put their energies toward moving forward. … They start to flourish.”
The women are young and older, newly homeless or people who have been homeless a long time, women with physical disabilities and mental health problems, and women who work but don’t make enough money for stable housing.
In the past, many of these women might rely on Church of the Week, which provides overflow shelter when sites such as Place of Hope and the Salvation Army are out of room. Area churches take turns hosting. It’s a safe, warm place, but it’s still only a mat on a floor.
In memory of Mary Anne
“There’s a need for single women to have a bed instead of a mat,” Smith said. “That’s what we fought for … to get them off of the floors. … And now they get their own beds.”
The wing is named after Smith’s older sister Mary Anne Baker, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease when she was in her 50s and died at 64.
Before her diagnosis, Baker and Smith’s other sisters and families would help out at Place of Hope. They adopted a room on the second floor, repainted it and furnished it.
“She was a big part of that,” Smith said. “Her heart was here.”
What would she think about the new wing?
“She was very humble. She’d say, ‘Oh you’re kidding me!’ At the same time, she’d be very honored, I think,” Smith said. “You know what she would love? She would love to see the women who are helped.”
The wing is similar to Katie’s Wing, opened last year as a safe place for women with young children experiencing homelessness. It provides shelter for at least eight families. It was named in honor of Katrina Stigman, who died of breast cancer at age 28.
The most recent wing dedication was bittersweet.
“Mary Anne was awesome. I’m glad we could do this,” Smith said. NORMAL, Ill.
to dogged detective work by Mary Ryder of Books to Benefit, a woman from Mackinaw has been united with a family Bible from the 1880s and the marriage certificate of her great-great-grandparents.
“I had goosebumps,” said Jennifer Vielhak, great-great-granddaughter of Henry and Anne Sauder, describing her reaction to Ryder’s discovery.
Vielhak’s uncle, Paul Watkins of Bloomington, a great-grandson of the Sauders, was there when the book, certificate and other information were recently turned over to Vielhak.
“I never dreamed that this was around,” Watkins said. “This is a side (of the family) we don’t have a lot of information on.”
The ornate certificate includes illustrations of a traditional wedding at the top and an older couple on the bottom, as well as a depiction of Jesus Christ turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana.
The marriage certificate from the Sauders’ 1886 wedding was found folded inside an old Bible that had been donated to Books to Benefit.
The organization sells donated books to support literacy programs, particularly those of Youthbuild Mclean County. Its next sale is planned for June.
Ryder is the volunteer vintage book specialist for Books to Benefit. Whenever books from earlier than 1950 are found among the donations, Ryder checks books sites to see if they have particular value.
Generally, the vintage books go into a special collections room and are sold for one-third of their market price. If books are determined to have scholarly or historic significance, Ryder will look to museums or academic libraries that might be interested in preserving them and making them available for research, explained Jackie Langhoff, Books to Benefit president.
That’s what happened this year, for exampled, when Books to Benefit partnered with Illinois Wesleyan University to preserve a first-edition copy of William Wilberforce’s 1807 “A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade” in its special collections.
Then there are items that would be valuable to the family of the original owner, such as the Sauders’ Bible and marriage certificate, or an 1862 edition of a bayonet training manual that was signed by a Civil War officer who had ties to a family in Normal.
“I guess I missed my calling,” said Ryder, a retired English literature professor. “I should have been in law enforcement.”
The German-language Bible was in bad shape, destined for the recycle bin, but Ryder said, “I always thumb through books before we pitch them.”
That’s when she found the certificate, which she had to piece together, as well as some flowers and even a four-leaf clover.
The luck of that four-leaf clover
Twas with Ryder and the descendants of Henry D. and Anne Sauder. The certificate indicated Henry D. Sauder was from Roanoke. “That’s what set me off on the hunt,” she said.
An attempt to track down descendants through Sauder Furniture in Roanoke led to a dead end, but other genealogy sources led Ryder to Vielhak. She also used a German-english translation dictionary to decipher words on the certificate and in the Bible. “It’s been an intensive search.” Ryder gave the family the genealogy she mapped, a picture of the tombstone of Henry D. Sauder and a photo of the minister listed on the certificate, Jacob Zehr, who later became bishop of the Mennonite congregation in Goodfield.
Vielhak said she is not sure what she will do with the Bible, certificate and other items. But she and her uncle agreed it might be time to organize another family reunion.