Jay Wrote

  You have heard of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark and their dog on June 14.   You may not know that she was a fair housing heroine as well as a humble, effective and respected leader in the Minnesota legislature. In 1998 or '99 Legal Aid's Housing Discrimination Law Project, a FHIP program, had been operating for just a few years.  We were fortunate to hire a law clerk, Melissa, as she had a sterling resume and could have worked anywhere - maybe even at her family used auto parts business (junk yard).  She caught the fair housing bug.   Our sister organization, Central MN Legal Services, soon hired her as a housing attorney.   Melissa took the case of a CMLS tenant with severe repair problems.  Because she was the person she was, she didn't stop at investigating the lack of heat that brought the client to the office.  She learned that the owner of the property treated her with terrible...

  Linen: The Warp and Weft of History. Jay Wilkinson, April 2025 jewilkinsoniii@gmail --- jwwrote.blogspot.com “Show me that you’ve been working over, Christina.” He leaned forward in the  rocker and touched the square of linen. His speech sounded of his Silesian birthplace.  His granddaughter pulled the piece away from the loom, carefully to keep the threads  aligned and untangled.   He rubbed the cloth between thumb and forefinger and remarked: “Very vell done!  The tight weave will last a lifetime.” “It's my first one, I want it to be right so I don’t forget, poppa. You know I sowed the  the flax seeds, weeded the field, pulled the plants, laid them out, soaked them, broke  and stripped the threads out, carded out the seeds and such.” “Yes, under your muter’s supervision and with Nana’s spinning help. You’ve done  a wonderful job. Talented nine year old, you are.” I am touching this fabric as I write. Did my fifth great-grandfather,Christo...

 Family and Inheritance:  The Wilkinson Case My paternal grandfather and name-sake,  J. Edgar Wilkinson, who died soon after I was born, was a private firm lawyer practicing in Philadelphia’s Orphans’ Court.  We call that probate court in Minnesota and it addresses disputes over the deads’ estates and wills and oversees trusts and guardianships.  I was told he spent a lot of time seeing to it that the needs of widows and orphans were attended to.  But I know nothing about his practice save the following story I have pieced together. In a case where he was appointed guardian of an older man, Brooks, there was much at stake.  It was alleged in the Philadelphia court filing that led to J. Edgar Wilkinson’s appointment, that Brooks was "feeble minded and unable to properly care for his property; that he was the victim of designing persons; that large sums of money had been secured and extorted from him …”  The guardianship, with its first stop in Phil...

 My last paid job was working as an election judge for the spring 2020 primary election. It was thirteen hours of civic service and there was no trouble. When was my first job? Was there any trouble? How about the next one? I’m referring to “trouble-trouble”, not John Lewis’s “good trouble” - maybe another essay to be written.    Misaligned.   My first paid work was mowing the family lawn in Proctor, Vermont, probably when I was 9 or 10 years old. The mower was a manual, boy-powered push mower with two wheels at the end of a reel holding four curved, spiraling blades that sliced grass off against a metal piece mounted at the bottom rear of the mower. A wooden roller followed behind the cutting platform, probably to keep the mower balanced and rolling forward or back. The handle shaft was well-patinated wood with a T handle at the top. It seemed old at the time. It was surely manufactured but it was easy imagining a blacksmith banging away at iron to ma...