Coloring book duo depicts St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood

The award-winning duo who created a coloring book highlighting the historic homes of St. Paul’s Irvine Park have teamed up again, this time to share stories from the old Rondo neighborhood.

Author Richard Kronick and illustrator Jeanne Kosfeld published “Finding Rondo Saint Paul: A Coloring Book of the People and the Place” earlier this year. It illuminates the lives of 21 people and the residences, businesses and social landmarks that were part of their lives.

Kosfeld and Kronick said they took on the project to share the histories of some of Rondo’s foundational families, people who were displaced in the 1950s and 1960s when Interstate 94 was built through the center of the capital city’s historic Black neighborhood.

Tears came to his eyes as he researched the stories of families who thrived in Rondo despite the entrenched racism and discrimination in St. Paul at the time, Kronick said.

“The irony of racism was that while people faced constant obstacles, these people were able to do so well for themselves,” Kronick said. “They accomplished great things.”

Kosfeld, whose ink drawings highlight not only the homes and businesses of the neighborhood but the people who breathed life into them, said she felt honored to illustrate another part of St. Paul’s history.

“It’s a little book that I am so proud of,” she said. “This one put the people out front.”

They credited local historian Frank White, who grew up in Rondo in what was called Cornmeal Valley, with deepening their understanding of the families who lived in the area. White took them on tours of the old neighborhood and pointed out where certain homes and businesses were once located.

St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood ran roughly between University Avenue to the north, Selby Avenue to the south, Rice Street to the east and Lexington Avenue to the west. Cornmeal Valley was on the east end of the neighborhood, Oatmeal Hill on the west.

While the authors acknowledge the freeway project’s federal dollars helped families who had been unable to sell their homes, hundreds of homes and businesses were demolished for the miles-long trench down the middle of the neighborhood that became I-94. Kronick said it tore the social fabric of Rondo.

White, whose family lived at 409 St. Anthony Av., said he appreciates that the authors took time to learn about the neighborhood and the families who called Rondo home. He welcomed a chance to share the neighborhood’s history.

“Their book is helping spread the stories about the individuals who made Rondo so vital,” White said. “People like Jim Griffin, Jim Mann, Clarence Wigington, who was the first Black municipal architect in the country. Many times, in our history, those stories get overlooked.”

While residents were displaced by the freeway project, White said many of their children and grandchildren still live within the historic borders of the neighborhood. In that way, he said, Rondo lives on.

“Some people might say its Black history. But, for me, it’s St. Paul history,” said White, who became a youth coach and parks and recreation official in St. Paul and, later, Richfield.

Kosfeld used family photographs and old newspaper pictures as the basis for her illustrations. She also researched clothing of the period. It was important to her, she said, that her drawings “were respectful. No cartoons or caricatures.”

“Rondo,” Kosfeld said, “can be a heavy subject to some communities. But I wanted to show it was just beautiful. Playful.”

The project took nearly two years to complete from January 2023 to early 2024. Kosfeld and Kronick published the coloring book themselves. The Rondo book can be found at several shops and bookstores in St. Paul, including Next Chapter Books, Red Balloon, Wet Paint, Waldmann Brewery, Subtext Books, the Minnesota Historical Society gift shop and St. Paul Children’s Hospital.

Kosfeld is working on a third coloring book with a St. Paul focus, this one on the art, architecture and history of the St. Paul park system, to be published by the Ramsey County Historical Society.