Rose DeChaine arrived at the Minnesota School for the Feeble-Minded in Faribault in August 1924.

State officials had received testimony that the 22-year-old Brainerd woman was working as a prostitute. They explained the reason she was being institutionalized with a single phrase on her commitment form: “Is immoral.”

Separated from her children, DeChaine would spend the better part of two unhappy years confined to the school before finally being released.

But her freedom came at a cost. DeChaine’s mother had agreed to allow the state to sterilize her daughter under a new law passed by the Minnesota Legislature.

Spurred on by proponents of the pseudoscientific eugenics movement, Minnesota was one of 32 states to enact such a law during the first half of the 20th century, permitting its Board of Control to sterilize “feeble-minded and insane persons” committed to a public institution.

“It was a horribly cruel policy,” said DeChaine’s grandson, John Erickson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose book “When Mortals Play God” follows the disastrous ripple effects DeChaine’s commitment and sterilization had on their family.

“There was a lot of bad science happening at that time, and it was used to justify some pretty horrible behavior.”

Unlike eugenics laws in many other states, Minnesota’s required the consent of the patient or their next of kin before a sterilization could be performed. But calling the procedures voluntary is much too generous, said historian Molly Ladd-Taylor, whose book “Fixing the Poor” chronicles the rise and fall of Minnesota’s eugenics law.

“A critic in the 1930s called it the price of freedom,” Ladd-Taylor said. “You would consent to sterilization as a condition of what they called parole — so hardly informed consent as we know it today.”

In practice, Ladd-Taylor found that public officials used the law to curb the birthrate of impoverished Minnesotans who relied on expensive public assistance programs, especially during the lean years of the Great Depression.

During the half-century that the eugenics law remained on the books, Minnesota sterilized at least 2,350 people, according to Ladd-Taylor. Like DeChaine, roughly 80% of them were women. And nearly all of them poor.

‘Human thoroughbreds’

The eugenics movement enjoyed broad public support in the United States at the turn of the last century, including that of many prominent American intellectuals and politicians, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Helen Keller and Alexander Graham Bell.

In Minnesota, the movement’s most outspoken proponent was physician-turned-politician Charles Fremont Dight, who served a term on the Minneapolis City Council before making eugenics his life’s work, according to a 1984 article in Minnesota History magazine.

Obsessed with the idea of perfecting the human race by means of selective breeding, Dight founded the Minnesota Eugenics Society in 1923.

“Just as we have thoroughbred sheep, cattle and hogs, we may have human thoroughbreds if we make use of nature’s laws for securing them,” Dight wrote in a 1922 pamphlet excerpted by the Minneapolis Tribune.

Another leading local voice in favor of eugenics at that time was Frederick Kuhlmann, director of the School for the Feeble-Minded, where the state would perform most of its sterilization surgeries in coming years.

Dight and Kuhlmann were instrumental in shepherding the eugenic sterilization bill through the 1925 legislative session, Ladd-Taylor writes.

“My impression is that there was, if not broad support, not broad opposition either,” she said. “It was seen as a child welfare measure.”

Although the bill was given three public hearings, it appears to have passed with very little fanfare. The House approved it by a vote of 86 to 34 with no debate on the floor.

The Senate did the same a month later by a margin of 40 votes to 4. In an article about the Senate’s work that day, the Pioneer Press reported: “Sixteen bills were passed at the evening session, most of them of minor importance.”

Signed into law by Gov. Theodore Christianson on April 8, 1925, the final bill’s consent requirement was a disappointment to Dight, who believed sterilization should be mandatory for everyone he judged to be inferior. He spent his remaining years campaigning in vain for stricter eugenics legislation.

Saving taxpayer dollars

DeChaine was among the first Minnesotans sterilized under the new law after it took effect on Jan. 1, 1926.

Rose DeChaine, pictured here on her wedding day in May 1930, was one of the first Minnesotans to be sterilized under the state’s 1925 eugenics law. (Courtesy of John Erickson)

She was typical of many women sent to the School for the Feeble-Minded at that time.

“She was uneducated, she was raised in a pretty poor household, and she got in a lot of trouble,” said Erickson, who researched his grandmother’s case off-and-on for nearly two decades before writing his book.

Already the mother of two children she was struggling to support, DeChaine was pregnant with a third and living with her mother when she was sent to Faribault.

Rural Minnesota was suffering from a slumping agricultural economy in the 1920s, and the Great Depression would soon spread the pain to the rest of the state. Public assistance was administered by county officials who were often eager to offload anyone they viewed as a burden to local taxpayers.

“Judges — particularly in these small communities — would commit them because that would get the problem out of the community,” Erickson said.

After being committed, they were the responsibility of Mildred Thomson, director of the state Board of Control’s Bureau for the Feebleminded and Epileptic, who would consult with their families and the staff at the school in Faribault to determine whether they were an appropriate candidate for release — and sterilization.

Thomson, like many of her colleagues, viewed herself as an advocate for the people under her care.

Ladd-Taylor writes that “the officials who administered Minnesota’s sterilization law saw it as a child welfare measure that would ‘protect’ the dependent, delinquent, and disabled poor from the burdens of childrearing — and facilitate their transition from welfare to work.”

The need for low-wage domestic labor was one of the primary reasons more women were sterilized and paroled than men, Ladd-Taylor said. Furthermore, families were more likely to consent to the sterilization of women, and “the community didn’t want so-called ‘feeble-minded’ men being released.”

Although the state did not record the ethnicity of those who were sterilized under the law, it’s likely Native Americans were disproportionately affected, Ladd-Taylor said.

Sterilizations under Minnesota’s eugenics law peaked in 1937, as the Depression pushed more of the state’s residents onto public assistance rolls. They began to ebb as World War II caused a shortage of surgical nurses, who were necessary to perform the operations.

Only after the war did “the combined effects of social welfare entitlements, a prosperous economy, and public revulsion over Nazi crimes end routine sterilizations in Minnesota’s public institutions,” Ladd-Taylor writes.

The Minnesota Legislature officially put a stop to the practice in 1975, when it passed a law creating new protections for people with intellectual disabilities.

Related Articles

One of the FBI’s original 10 Most Wanted Fugitives was caught in St. Paul — by a bunch of kids

Sign up for From the Archives, our weekly St. Paul history newsletter

How the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Minnesota in three weeks

Photo gallery: Throwback Thursday

Museum offers new home to gun St. Paulites used to fire first American shots of WWII

Even the most social child could get nervous before attending summer camp for the first time. To ensure that your kids have the best possible experience, Henry DeHart, interim president and CEO of American Camp Association, suggests bringing them into the selection process. “Involving the child in that from the very beginning is very helpful,” he says.

From there, you can determine which kind of camp — sleep-away, full day or half-day — is the best fit for your children. For sleep-away camps, DeHart notes that there are ways to ease them into going on their first trip without their parents. “A lot of camps have family camp weekends and some have family camp weeks, where you can go be at the camp as a family and your child gets to know the camp staff and the director and the facilities and maybe the next year or later that summer, they’ll go on their own,” he explains.

Lisa Tai of Huntington Beach, California, sent her 9-year-old son to summer camp in Colorado for the first time last summer. Since 2019, though, Tai’s family has been attending a camp together in California and she says that helped prepare her son for his first summer camp adventure.

“He had an idea of what the camp was like,” she says.

Related Articles

The benefits of summer camp far outlast a single summer

Recipe: When life gives you strawberries, makes preserves with balsamic vinegar

Eagan native Eva Erickson reveals her autism in an emotionally charged episode of ‘Survivor 48’

Travel: I love Philadelphia, but I’d never taken a City Hall tour. Don’t make the same mistake

After a long winter, send your houseplants on a summer vacation

It helps, too, that Tai’s son attended camp in Colorado with his cousin. And Tai herself had attended the same camp from third grade through high school, so she was able fill her son in on what the experience might be like. “It was fun for me to prepare him for it and, when he was done with that camp, to see his entire face light up every time he was telling me every single detail,” she says. “They still play some of the same games that I played when I was little.”

If you’re not already personally familiar with a summer camp, you’ll want to do research before you make your selection. DeHart recommends asking if the camp is ACA accredited, with a peer-reviewed process gauging health and safety standards. Beyond that, you’ll want to find out about the camper/staff ratio. “How do they handle supervision when staff has downtime or time off?” DeHart asks. You might want to tour the camp and meet the director, as well as inquire about staff training. In addition, ask about refund policies and communication policies.

For sleep-away camps, which need more preparation than day camps, DeHart suggests talking to your kids beforehand to find out their concerns and come up with strategies to address them. “It’s helpful for children to have had an overnight experience away from home before they go to camp,” he adds.

DeHart also suggests packing a familiar object with your child and, if possible, sending a letter in advance so that it’s at the site when they begin camp. If your child has any medical needs or dietary restrictions, be sure that the camp is aware of them.

As for packing, Tai has a few suggestions. “I packed a lot more than I’m used to packing for each of my kids,” she says. Remember that, with all the activity at camp, kids might need to change clothing more often than they would on any other trip. “He had four packing cubes and I had a label maker and labeled what was inside every one,” says Tai. “I think that’s the biggest thing that helped him is that he didn’t have to worry about everything when he woke up in the morning.”

But, Tai does have an addition to her packing strategy for this year: Trash bags to store dirty clothes.

Three months into the year, Grand Avenue has welcomed new businesses like cat café Catzen Coffee and bid farewell to others like clothing retailer Poppy. All the while, the building that was once home to Anthropologie and Salut Bar Americain sat mostly empty, save a Park Dental clinic.

Formerly known as Milton Mall, the building on the northeast corner of Grand Avenue and Milton Street is undergoing a renovation to attract new tenants and support two restaurants instead of one.

The renovation will transform the sprawling spaces — Anthropologie was nearly 10,000 square feet and Salut around 8,500 square feet — into “smaller spaces in line with what retailers are looking for now,” said Sara Martin, broker for the building and executive vice president for JLL.

Once a car dealership, the 917 Grand Ave. building has an octagon-shaped skylight in the center that will be reclaimed as part of the design, Martin said.

Rendering of the planned octagonal atrium at 917 Grand Ave. in St. Paul, which is undergoing a renovation to welcome new tenants. (Courtesy of JLL)

“We are creating a central corridor that didn’t exist before and a beautifully tiled octagon-shaped area with bench seating and greenery,” said Martha Anderson, president of Anderson Property Management, which manages the building. The central corridor will run through the building, linking Grand Avenue to the parking lot in back.

Now known as 917 Grand, the building is owned by the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, a Columbus-based pension fund that owns other buildings along the avenue.

In recent years, STRS Ohio has caught flack for the number of vacancies in its buildings along the corridor.

“They are investing a large chunk of money in keeping this building current and creating spaces that we think will be viable in the long term,” Martin said of the pension fund, adding that the goal is for all four of STRS Ohio’s properties to be fully occupied within the next four years.

New tenants

A rendering shows two neighboring patio spaces at 917 Grand Ave. where the Salut Bar Americain patio was. (Courtesy of JLL)

Current floor plans show 917 Grand could be home to two restaurants, each with a 150-seat outdoor patio, Martin said. Salut, which closed January 2024, was known for its spacious 300-seat patio.

In addition to restaurateurs, Martin said there are also two retail spaces for lease, one nearing 3,500 square feet and another at 2,200 square feet.

The renovation will also see that each tenant is given their own set of restrooms, which Martin said is consistent with what retailers are looking for.

“We always look for local tenants whenever we can, that’s always the preference,” Martin said. “But we’re open to talking to anyone with interest in Grand.”

Grand and Victoria

A rendering of a mixed-use apartment complex planned by Afton Park Development at the corner of Grand Avenue and Victoria Street in St. Paul. The project would include two restaurants and a retail space at street level. (Courtesy of Afton Park Development)

Just one block east at Grand Avenue and Victoria Street, local developer Afton Park Development is planning a six-story apartment complex with street-level restaurants and retail.

The $40 million project would be built on the site of what is now Victoria Crossing East, which houses a Juut salon and the former Billy’s on Grand space, later known as the Gather Eatery and Watch Bar, among other businesses.

The company’s plans call for nearly 90 units of market-rate housing, indoor parking and two 4,000-square-foot restaurants on either side of a retail space.

Irish goodbye

Related Articles

Developer plans six-story, mixed-use project at Grand Avenue and Victoria Street in St. Paul

Award worthy: Visiting St. Paul’s three James Beard semifinalist restaurants

After anti-LGBTQ+ protest, Grand Avenue music school to offer free classes

St. Paul’s Irish on Grand to close after 35 years

Photos: St. Paul Winter Carnival Grande Day parade makes Grand Avenue debut

Another vacancy will be coming to the avenue soon as Irish on Grand bids farewell to its brick-and-mortar store on Sunday.

After 35 years on Grand Avenue, owners Maeve O’Mara and Liam O’Neill will retire and close up the beloved Irish gift shop to give themselves more freedom and be able to travel together.

The online store will continue to run at irishongrand.com, where shoppers can buy clothing, gifts and jewelry. Irish on Grand will also continue its booth at the Minnesota State Fair, a tradition the couple adores.

As for the building at 1124 Grand Ave., the for sale sign is officially up, O’Mara told the Pioneer Press on Wednesday. The couple hopes to sell the building to another independent retailer.

From birding to sailing, there are a host of adventures waiting for kids at camp. While the summer months provide ample opportunities for children and teens to hone their talents or pick up a new skill, the lessons that they’ll learn through the camp experience can last for years to come.

“Our research shows that camp is a primary driver of some really significant outcomes in child development and it is because it’s such an immersive experience,” says Henry DeHart, interim president and CEO for the American Camp Association.

Related Articles

Eagan native Eva Erickson reveals her autism in an emotionally charged episode of ‘Survivor 48’

Travel: I love Philadelphia, but I’d never taken a City Hall tour. Don’t make the same mistake

After a long winter, send your houseplants on a summer vacation

Boulder, Colorado, wins Sundance Film Festival starting in 2027, beating out Utah and Ohio

The cookbook ‘Pakistan’ serves up recipes for mutton pulao, garlic chutney and sweet seviyan

“You put children in an immersive, safe and supportive environment and you’re building independence and you’re building social skills — how to make friends with people that have different backgrounds than you, how to appreciate different perspectives and different backgrounds — how to have grit,” he adds. “Sometimes, things don’t go the way that you want them to at camp and you don’t have your parent there to solve the problem, so you have to develop problem-solving and grit and resilience.”

In the aftermath of the pandemic, demand for summer camp hit what DeHart calls a “generational high.” Moreover, in the years that have passed since then, interest in both sleep-away and day camps has remained strong. According to the ACA’s numbers, about 26 million school-aged children — roughly half of all U.S. kids — head to some kind of camp during summer vacation.

“During the pandemic, parents had an opportunity to better understand what their children really needed because they weren’t getting it during the pandemic,” says DeHart. “One of the things that they recognized is that there were really important experiences that help develop critical skills that weren’t happening in an academic setting.”

And, while one might assume that sleep-away camp is the best way for kids to gain these skills, that’s not necessarily true. “Our research has shown that the outcomes that come from camp are not dependent on whether it’s day or overnight. Day camp has just as rich of benefits as overnight camp,” says DeHart.

He adds that while overnight camp provides a more immersive experience, the benefits for youth have more to do with the quality of the camp. “A three- or four-day program can be as impactful as a two- or three-week overnight camp experience if it’s a high quality experience,” he says.

Campers rehearse Nirvana’s “About a Girl,” at the School of Rock Camp in Tustin, California. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“We view the summer camps as the time to do things that are more special that we wouldn’t necessarily do throughout the year,” says Angie Timbanard of Huntington Beach, California. Her two children, now ages 10 and 9, have been going to day camps since they were small. Both have participated in a School of Rock camp, where they learned to play musical instruments. Timbanard’s son has also done a coding camp and her daughter has tried camps for both horseback riding and sailing.

But, Timbanard points out, as they learn new skills, her kids are also learning how to be independent. “Generally speaking, other than the first day of school, they don’t have a lot of exposure to a brand new environment where you’re there alone and you don’t know what to expect,” she says. “You have to acclimate to what the day presents you, so I think it really helps them in practicing that skill.”

For Miko Vaughn, also of Huntington Beach, enrolling her two sons in Huntington Beach’s Junior Lifeguard program, where they’ll learn ocean safety skills, is a way to ensure that they’ll eventually be able to enjoy beach life on their own. “Junior lifeguards is one that I really believe in because we live so close to the ocean,” she says. “I do think they need it if I’m ever going to let them go to the beach by themselves.”

Participants in the Huntington Beach Junior Lifeguard program run along the beach just south of the Huntington Beach Pier on Wednesday, July 14, 2020, in Huntington Beach, California. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

And, generally speaking, Vaughn says that day camps help children learn in a playful way. “I think it stimulates them in a different way than school does, where they get to play more, which is important because kids are losing that since they’re so isolated on screens nowadays,” she says. “They get to play at school, but not that much, so I think that’s a huge benefit.”

The lessons of camp aren’t just for young children. DeHart points out that, since some camps do hire staffers as young as 16 or 17, older teens can gain critical life skills as well. “You have opportunities to learn leadership, to learn the responsibility of caring for other people or putting other people’s needs first. You’re forced to collaborate and have a sense of teamwork,” says DeHart. “A lot of the skills that employers tell us are hard to find in the applicants they see now are the exact type of skills that you learn when you work at camp.”

“We have kids who have gone through camp, we’ve known them since they were little and now they’re in college and they keep coming back and helping us with the younger kids in camp,” says Deborah Brin, camp coordinator for the Audubon Society’s Sea and Sage chapter.

With four week-long sessions held on a 360-acre nature area in Irvine, California, Sea and Sage provides opportunities for youth to engage with local nature as they learn about birds. “I think it creates a foundation for lifelong learning,” says Brin of the program.

Brin shares that one former camper is now a park ranger for the National Park Service. Others have gone on to work in fields related to biology or conservation. One Sea and Sage camp alum has just published her second academic paper. “We’ve known her since she was seven,” she says.

But, the skills children learn out in nature are applicable even if they don’t become a biologist. “Children are prepared to be creative, have a lot of excitement, be curious, have an open mind, be kind — that’s one of our big things — and begin to develop observation skills,” says Brin. “Even though we’re focusing on birds, it’s going to help with many aspects of life.”