Kare11
30 new homes going up in St. Paul to honor Jimmy Carter’s legacy
The massive Habitat for Humanity build will take place in St. Paul’s The Heights neighborhood, the first phase of a project that will see 150 homes built by 2028.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The construction of 30 new homes in St. Paul is among many events being staged to mark President Jimmy Carter‘s 100th birthday on Oct. 1. Considering the former president’s long legacy as a philanthropist, it’s no surprise that he wants any gift-giving to go to other people.
Thousands of Habitat for Humanity volunteers are gathering Monday to build 30 homes in St. Paul over five days. The project is led by country music giants Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who worked alongside the Carters for years, beginning with projects in Hurricane Katrina’s disaster area.
The massive Habitat for Humanity build will take place in St. Paul’s The Heights neighborhood, the first phase of a project that will see 150 homes built by 2028 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.
The Carters’ relationship with Habitat for Humanity stretches back 40 years, to when the couple went to New York City on a build in 1984.
“The image of a president of the United States sleeping in a church basement and physically helping rehab a tenement building captured the world,” said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International.
The Carters went on to build homes annually for 35 years. Carter repeatedly said that working with the organization was a way he put his Christian faith into action, Reckford recalled.
Cleora Taylor, a medical assistant, met the Carters in August 2018 when they helped build 41 new homes in South Bend and Mishawaka, Indiana.
Years later, Taylor recalled how the former president greeted her by name and knew about her children, including her daughter, who was 11 at the time and has autism.
“It means so much to me that he knew me,” said Taylor, speaking from her living room in the home the Carters helped her build, on a street named Carter Court. “He’s just such a good, welcoming, humble guy. I’m just glad to be a part of a legacy that he’s leaving behind.”
Presidential historian Cassandra Newby-Alexander, professor of Virginia Black history and culture at Norfolk State University, said the strength of Carter’s legacy is in his morality. Unlike many who claim to care about the disadvantaged, Carter has shown that they — and not power or money — are his main concern, Newby-Alexander said.
“I think he has probably done more personally in his post-presidency than anyone else because he’s not out there looking for attention,” she said. “He’s looking to change things. He’s not out there trying to make money for himself. He’s out there trying to live the life of a Christian — a true Christian, one who cares about the poor and the homeless and the children.”
While leadership in philanthropy is often gauged by the size of donations or the heft of assets under management, Carter’s giving came in the form of his seemingly ceaseless personal effort. From building homes to monitoring elections and pursuing the elimination of a painful but neglected disease, Carter used his stature and presence to rally resources and attention to his causes.
“In so many ways, he set the standard for how presidents should be in their post-presidency, as someone who is going to continue to do good, someone who’s going to continue to positively impact society,” Newby-Alexander said.
Carter’s legacy of giving back also includes working to eradicate Guinea worm, a commitment The Carter Center has made since 1986. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had identified the disease as a candidate for eradication after smallpox. Carter took up the mantle, vowing to outlive the last such parasite.
“To the demise of the worm” is the catchphrase, according to Dr. Jordan Tappero, deputy director for neglected tropical diseases at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has given $263 million to The Carter Center since 2000, mostly to support its work on Guinea worm.
The number of cases has fallen from 3.5 million when the center started to only 13 known cases in humans in 2022, and now focuses on closing the “last mile” of infections in several African countries. Even after Carter entered hospice in February 2023, Tappero said, Carter was still contacting his team.
“He still wants updates and wants to know what’s going on because his mind will never stop until the last heartbeat,” Tappero said, speaking in March 2023.
Carter engaged directly with health ministries and heads of state to muster their commitment to public health interventions, said Steven M. Hilton of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Since 1991, the foundation said it has committed nearly $50 million to The Carter Center for eradicating Guinea worm and to support its work treating and controlling trachoma, a disease that can cause irreversible blindness.
Hilton considers Carter to be “a remarkable man with a deeply compassionate heart.”
“I feel fortunate to have witnessed firsthand the strength of his character, including his dedication to seeing enormous humanitarian challenges through to the end,” Hilton said in a statement.
Tappero draws inspiration from the Carters’ humility, energy and dedication. “If we all had one-fifth of his energy, commitment and passion,” he said, “the world would be a much better place.”
Taylor, who lives near South Bend, Indiana, said she saw that commitment firsthand as Carter, 93 at the time, helped her put up a kitchen wall in her four-bedroom home.
“It was just so amazing that he still was out here, outside at that age, working with us,” she said. “It made us want to work harder.”
She still gets emotional thinking about that week, an incredible opportunity for her and her four kids.
“Not only did I get to meet Jimmy Carter and his wife and his children and hundreds of volunteers, other celebrities, I get to own a piece of the world. I get to own a piece of land,” Taylor said.
“I never thought that I would be able to do something like that, being a single mother. And for them to have to put so much into it, the volunteers and for Jimmy Carter to actually be here? It was amazing for people to care like he cares.”
Officials say the worker died in an accident at the Reyes Coca-Cola plant on Eagandale Boulevard in Eagan.
EAGAN, Minn. — A Coca-Cola employee was killed Monday while working on a semi-trailer at the botting plant in Eagan.
According to the Eagan Police Department, officers were called to the Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling plant on Eagandale Boulevard just before noon on Monday. Officials say there was an “accident” that killed the employee, who has not yet been identified.
*This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Steven Tekautz was stalled on the side of the interstate in his 1988 Southwind Motor Home when it caught fire Sunday night.
EAGAN, Minn. — An Inver Grove Heights man is dead after his stalled motorhome caught fire on Interstate 35.
According to the Minnesota State Patrol, 30-year-old Steven Tekautz was stalled on the side of the interstate in his 1988 Southwind Motor Home when it caught fire Sunday night.
The MSP said the motorhome, which was parked off of the northbound lanes of I-35E at Northwood Parkway in Eagan, started on fire just after 10 p.m.
Law enforcement said Tekautz was trapped inside the vehicle, and was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene.
Charlotte Tommerdahl was born on the White Earth Reservation in Calloway, Minnesota on Oct. 29, 1924 and moved to Minneapolis during WWII.
BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. — With friends and generations of family standing around her, Charlotte Tommerdahl blew out the candle on her 100th birthday cake.
“The years just flew by,” she mused from an oversized armchair in her Brooklyn Park apartment several days earlier.
The world has certainly changed since her first birthday. She was born in Calloway, Minnesota on Oct. 29, 1924, the second of nine children.
“Our town was Calloway, about 15 miles north of Detroit Lakes, which is the Becker County seat. I went to grades one through eight in my town, grade school and then we went into high school and we had our choice of going to Detroit Lakes or going north to Woburn on the reservation,” Charlotte recalled.
On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, Charlotte shared stories from her life on a reservation in northwestern Minnesota, where she graduated high school at 17. She moved to Minneapolis not long after.
“I got a job in the creamery but it was a nothing job and my cousin called from Minneapolis,” Charlotte said. “The huge Twin Cities Ordinance Plant was operating with, they made 350 caliber bullets for the war effort, shipping them by crate loads overseas.
“They hired many, many, many people and they needed office workers,” she laughed. “My cousin worked in a production building, loud and noisy and all that, but she liked it. But she needed someone to help her pay her rent.”
So in March, she got on a bus for the city. After a short-hand typing test and a spelling test, Charlotte had secured a job as a secretary in the War Plant. She worked there until the war ended in 1945.
Still needing to pay her rent, Charlotte searched the papers and found a job working as the secretary for a chief engineer at the Bemis Bag Company in Minneapolis.
While working there she married her husband Wally, a man from Detroit Lakes she had met at a dance when they were both in high school.
“… Had our wedding in Calloway. Mother was by then the Postmaster, and she invited everybody in town. There were 200 people in our town!” Charlotte remembered.
The two were married in 1948 and two years later, their son Skip was born. Two other children, Barry and Diane, followed over the next eight years.
Charlotte was at home, the one Wally built for the family by hand, for 17 years before returning to work as a secretary for the Anoka-Hennepin School District. She was with them for 21 years before retiring in 1987.
Wally died in 1997 at the age of 72, from cancer.
Charlotte’s voice still tells of how much love they had in their marriage.
“We had a long, good marriage, [Wally was a] good role model for those kids. Never had a problem with those kids.”
While Charlotte lives alone, she has clearly maintained connections with her community and has many friends in her building.
Charlotte recalled a conversation with her building’s manager earlier that day.
“She said, ‘Here’s what you’re gonna be asked: What do you attribute to your long life? How did you happen to reach this age?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know what to say!’” Charlotte laughed.
When she talked about her life, she recounted hardships from growing up on the reservation with only her mother to care for nine children.
“… She was washing clothes all the time and they didn’t have wringer washers, either. She would have to rinse the boys’ overalls and wring them by hand and hang them on the clothesline. Imagine nine kids at a table eating!” Charlotte exclaimed, remembering the meals. “The boys like to stand up and grab the bread, you know. Table manners were real import to her and we all learned well.”
Times were often tough. But she also told stories of good times: Game nights, get-togethers with friends, lunches with other couples and her children’s many adventures.
Charlotte also loves Minnesota sports, especially the Vikings and the Twins.
“But you know, you can’t live in there,” she said, gesturing dismissively toward her TV.
So, what’s Charlotte’s advice for reaching 100?
Stay busy. Even at 100, Charlotte goes to activities in her senior co-op’s common room. She worked hard as a secretary for decades and after retiring, continued to volunteer.
Play cards. Being with groups of people, either friends or family, still makes Charlotte’s eyes light up. Be around other people that make you happy.
Get a dog. “Barry got himself a new dog and he said that ‘I lost a lot of weight with my new puppy,’” she shared about her second son. “He runs it every day… I think… when we have get-togethers, [we] have dogs and the dogs are here, and there, and everywhere!”
All things in moderation. Charlotte said she enjoys a single cocktail or a glass of wine from time to time, but as she cautioned: “You shouldn’t eat too much bacon. I had a nutritionist sit with me, I remembered everything she said and that taught me moderation in everything you do and eat.”
And her final point, which came up several times and was spoken like a lifelong secretary and editor:
“I read; always have a book. I feel sorry for people that don’t read. There are so many good books out there.”
