In 1937, columnist Frank Madden infused new life into a civic festival by penning a fantastical legend of a snow king and ice king battling for control of the seasons in old St. Paul.
Now, his grandson is helping make the 140th anniversary of the Winter Carnival a reality.
This year’s Winter Carnival’s presenting sponsor is Dungarvin, a social services nonprofit also celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. And, as it happens, Dungarvin was founded by Diane and Tim Madden.
“I don’t even know if he realized at the time how ingrained the legend became and has added to the whole idea of Winter Carnival being so iconic,” Tim Madden said.
Tim Madden also served as Boreas Rex LXVI in 2002 — 65 years after his grandfather embodied his own protagonist to become the first King Boreas of the modern era. (Frank Madden was technically Boreas Rex III, honoring a pair of men who’d served as earlier iterations of the character in the 1910s.)
Diane and Tim Madden smile in a photograph from approximately 1976, the year they founded the disability support organization Dungarvin. Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, Dungarvin serves about 10,000 people across 15 states. (Courtesy of the Maddens)
Dungarvin’s own founding legend dates back to the 1970s, when Diane and Tim Madden were not yet married. Tim was pursuing a law degree and Diane had just graduated with an education degree from the University of Minnesota, focusing on special needs.
In the landmark 1974 Minnesota court case Welsch v. Likins, a group of people with disabilities successfully argued that the state institutions of the time were closer to prisons than actual care centers, which violated their constitutional freedoms. In response, the state began to redirect resources toward building a network of private group homes for people with disabilities and asked a variety of advocates — including Diane Madden — if they would be interested in founding and leading one of these community-centered homes.
So in 1976, the Maddens bought a house in the Como Park neighborhood and moved in as support providers alongside 15 residents, and Dungarvin was born.
Over the years, the organization has fostered not only lifelong connections between residents and staff members, Diane Madden said, but also relationships: Two of those original Como Park residents, who have since passed away, fell in love and got married after meeting through Dungarvin.
“Those are really meaningful things,” Diane Madden said. “And we’ve always been really fulfilled by it. When we started out, we lived in the homes, we did everything, and it has been meaningful.”
Diane and Tim Madden, founders of local disability services nonprofit Dungarvin. Tim Madden, grandson of the Winter Carnival’s first modern King Boreas, served as Boreas himself in 2002. (Courtesy of the Maddens)
The name Dungarvin is inspired by the real-life Irish city of Dungarvan, where Tim Madden had visited on a backpacking trip in his late teenage years. It was raining, and Tim was alone and struggling to figure out how to get from the town to his next destination. A police officer approached him and, after Tim explained the situation, flagged down a bus and paid the fare out of his own pocket.
“When it came time to name the company, we reflected on the story,” Tim Madden said. “A lot of people were forming their names like ‘Happy Acres’ or ‘Brighter Days’ or something like that, and I said: How about an experience I had where somebody paid attention to me in a moment of need and did something about it.”
Today, the organization has grown: Across 15 states, Dungarvin serves about 10,000 people and is always on the lookout for talented and interested support staff.
And as for the Winter Carnival, “we’re excited about what’s going to be happening in a few weeks,” Tim Madden said. “This is unusual that we have a milestone for the Winter Carnival at the same time that a company has their milestone, and they have that intertwined history, so it’s special that way.”
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