Star Tribune
Srimati Neenaben “Neena” Gada, 81, dies
Arriving in Minnesota from her native India at the age of 24, newly married Srimati Neenaben Gada disembarked from the plane to find her new home state nothing short of bracing. It was 32 degrees on May 1, 1967, and Gada, woefully underdressed in an Indian sari and sleeveless blouse, spent her first moments in Minneapolis “freezing,” she wrote later.
She warmed to the state — and bought a coat — and went on to become a singular force for Indian immigrants in Minnesota, founding a school of Indian language and culture, steering the India portion of the long-running Festival of Nations and proudly sharing the customs of India with anyone curious to know them.
Gada, of Minnetrista, died last month. She was 81.
Born in Kutch, Gujarat, Gada graduated from Wilson College in Mumbai with a bachelors degree in sociology and political science. She met her husband, Ram Gada, through an arranged marriage. He had already immigrated to the United States to earn a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of North Dakota when he returned to India to find a bride. They both felt the other was a good choice, and weeks after meeting they flew to Minnesota as husband and wife.
Known to friends and family as Neena, Gada wrote of her early life in 1960s Minnesota that it was nothing like the Perry Mason books she read as a student in Mumbai. There were other surprises: the grocery store didn’t carry Indian food, restaurants didn’t serve vegetarian dishes, and bystanders asked Neena about the red mark on her forehead or her sari. “I wanted to raise awareness about India’s culture, so I provided all the information they sought,” she wrote in a short memoir.
They found a community of Indian couples at the University of Minnesota, and soon Neena was catching Indian movies on campus, going to the U’s Ames Library of South Asia or visiting a woman who taught Hindi in the Linguistics Department. After buying their first house in New Brighton and having two children, Neena’s thoughts turned to her kids.
“I had to create a balanced environment where my children could experience Indian culture and learn languages as well,” she wrote.
With four other women, she founded the School of India for Languages and Culture in 1979, operating out of the Commonwealth Community Center at the University of Minnesota. The school held three hours of class every Sunday, teaching all things India, from languages to history, geography to dance. Dignitaries like the Indian ambassador visited the school. Teachers from SILC ventured out to public schools and libraries to give talks on Indian culture. The school continues today as a secular nonprofit.
“It’s a legacy that’s still running strong,” said her daughter, Lisa Gada Norton. Wrapping kids up in a sari or using henna ink on their hands, Gada showed the children pieces of Indian culture that didn’t exist in Minnesota. “It gave me an identity,” said Gada Norton.
“For her, the school was her passion,” said Preeti Mathur, a friend of Gada’s and author of the book “From Seven Rivers to Ten Thousand Lakes: Minnesota’s Indian American Community.” “She would just come to life when you would mention it.”
Gada’s volunteer duties expanded every year to include the India portion of the Festival of Nations, a long-running St. Paul event that shuttered last year. Gada also served with the India Association of Minnesota and was in charge of exhibits for the first India Day celebration in 1983, a precursor to today’s India Fest held annually at the state Capitol. With her husband, Gada was also a narrator for the India Oral History Project at the Minnesota Historical Society. She became a U.S. citizen in 1992.
“I am grateful to Neena for her love and I wish her peace and bliss in her next journey,” Ram Gada wrote in a note to friends and family last month. “We had an amazing life with our two children, four grandchildren and many friends near and far. From the moment she walked through the door at our first meeting, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Neena’s beauty and radiance lit up the room and her intelligence won me over.”
Her dream was to create an Indian community in Minnesota so that their children “would know our wonderful homeland,” he wrote.
In her own letter to friends written several years ago, Neena Gada reflected on her life. “I call the Indians living here during the 1960s as the pioneers,” she wrote. “It took many years of hard work and effort against all odds to get where we are today. Our dreams have come true (we did it!).”
Beside her husband and daughter, Gada’s survivors include her son, Ketan Gada, and four grandchildren. Services have been held.
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
