Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.
There are photos of the interior at the end of this post, for those of you who may want to skip my ramblings and get to the best part.
The Sheltering Arms House, at 2648 Emerson Ave N, had a pre-open house on Saturday. For those looking to read up on the recent history of this house, most of that was covered first on Johnny Northside, and later on this blog - each hyperlink will take you to that blog's "Sheltering Arms" search results.
In short, however, the home was built in 1891 as an orphanage for the Sheltering Arms Orphanage. It is believed to be the first or among the first orphanages away from the main campus on the Mississippi riverfront. The orphanage was the precursor to what is now the Sheltering Arms Foundation.
It's worth repeating that the Sheltering Arms was run by a group of twenty-five Episcopalian nuns, dedicated to serving needy children "without regard to race, color, or creed." A women-run organization with that mission in eighteen ninety-one is a part of this city's history that most definitely needed to be preserved.
In a smaller sense, this house had its own place in north Minneapolis history as well. That's because...
