Babe Rohland: Putting a face on history

It's easy to think of history as set apart from real life, to forget that when Ma Barker's gang shot a man on a front lawn in 1934, it was someone's front lawn. When auto magnate Henry Ford received a savior's welcome in St. Paul in 1923, someone handed him the bouquet. For 93 years of Minnesota history, that someone has been Babe Rohland more often than you'd think.

She was born Margaret Winifred Miner on Oct. 16, 1914, in St. Paul, but people have called her Babe forever. With uncanny serendipity, she's bumped elbows with famous people and infamous events.

Her memories put a face on almost a century's worth of Minnesota's 150 years. Here's a glimpse into Minnesota's past, as seen through the bright blue eyes of a woman for whom history began -- as it does for any of us -- as life.

One moment, Babe was staring at the strange man in the uniform with funny leggings who'd walked into her house. The next, she was being tossed into the air, over and over again with a thrilling exuberance. Uncle Louie had come home safely from the ravages of World War I. All around her, she recalled, people were singing "Over There."

But war's end in 1918 was followed by a worldwide influenza epidemic, and within weeks the 4-year-old Babe was on her deathbed. "I remember hearing, 'I don't think she'll live through the night,'" Babe said. "And I thought, 'What is live?'"

So many people were dying that families built their own coffins. "People were dying so fast," she said. "They had police guard the caskets to keep them from being stolen."

Babe recovered, and her knack of finding a front-row seat for history began. First, though, she had to learn to dance -- which took about a heartbeat. She loved being in front of an audience.

Prohibition was in force, an era of teetotalers, hypocrites and inventive home-brewers. Babe remembers the raids on illegal stills, especially the one next door in the Summit-University neighborhood, when federal agents sloshed whole barrels of bathtub gin from the third-floor window into the alley off Milton Street. "It stunk."

As a teenager in the late 1920s, she and her friends took the streetcar on summer weekends from Wabasha and 7th to the Wildwood Amusement Park on White Bear Lake. The Twin City Rapid Transit Company had built the park, with its dance pavilion, giant slide and roller coaster, to lure people into riding to the end of the line.

One night, the pavilion was jumping with a five-piece combo. She asked a friend who the band leader was, and he said, "Oh, some guy called Larry Welk." Babe laughed at the memory, for the Welk who would become an icon of Saturday night TV always seemed a buttoned-up Lawrence. "People say he was never called Larry Welk," she said with a toss of her head, "but I know differently."

Here is as good a place as any to note that Babe, at 93, still is a knockout. Given her love of dancing, she must have cut a striking figure at the pavilion. She still has a dancer's stance, and a flirt's timing. Imagine the evening of Nov. 23, 1930, when she and friends were dining at Alverdes, a swanky place in St. Paul, and saw Adm. Richard Byrd at a nearby table. Byrd had recently returned to ticker-tape parades honoring his first Antarctic expedition, famed for its flight over the South Pole.

Somewhere between dinner and dessert, Babe got his autograph.

Wildwood closed with the Great Depression. But a different wild life flourished. Years earlier, St. Paul's police chief had told gangsters that they could consider his city a safe haven -- as long as they kept their noses clean in his town (and paid a small "fee.") He didn't care how many crimes they committed in Minneapolis -- or anywhere else, for that matter. So they came to the Capital City: John Dillinger, Al Capone, Ma Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, Alvin (Creepy) Karpis, Baby Face Nelson.

"It was kind of common to have the gangsters here, but they never bothered us," Babe said. "They weren't after us for anything. But if you got in their line of fire, too bad."

The gangsters were good for the nightclubs, their allure and ready cash attracting top bands and plenty of illegal hooch. One of the hot spots was Castle Royal, a nightclub in the Wabasha Street caves. The club's gimmick was a live mermaid floating in a fish tank. It was all done with mirrors, Babe knew, because -- wouldn't you know? -- the mermaid was actually her neighbor Lorraine, from the carnival family next door. Their monkeys, Babe said, were forever filching the clothespins from the laundry line.

Gangsters gone bad

The gangster period thrived until Ma Barker and Creepy Karpis grew brazen. In June 1933, they kidnapped William Hamm Jr. of the brewing family, getting a ransom of $100,000.

In Babe's front yard lay Roy McCord, a St. Paul radio operator. He'd walked toward a car that he thought contained prowlers, but who turned out to be members of the Barker-Karpis gang. They didn't appreciate the attention. McCord, while badly injured, recovered.

Four days later and only a few blocks away, the gang kidnapped banker Edward Bremer, getting $200,000. Their crimes lit a fire under the feds, and the gangsters fled St. Paul. Ma Barker eventually was tracked down in Florida in 1935 and died in a gun battle. Karpis served time at the new federal prison, Alcatraz, and was paroled in 1969.

War and roses

In 1936, Babe met Tom Rohland at Northern States Power, where they both worked. Their first date was at Castle Royal. Within a year, they were engaged.

She'd wanted a winter wedding, but the country was gearing up for war and when Tom got his first draft notice, they decided, along with many couples, to move up their wedding date. She bought an elegant satin gown at Newman's for $17.95, and they were married in August 1941.

In 1945, the war ended and they walked knee-deep in streamers through downtown St. Paul. "We formed arm-to-arm chains walking down the streets."

High-powered handshakes

Life became more about domesticity, with Tom building a home in Highland Park as their family grew. One summer day in 1960, the family headed for Holman Field. John F. Kennedy was running for president, a Catholic candidate -- something Babe had never experienced as a voter.

Kennedy's plane touched down, and he worked the crowd.

Babe made sure she shook his hand.

"I think I've seen so much, that I just don't get that impressed with things anymore," she said. But she says this with a smile.

In a journal assembled by her family for her 90th birthday, she wrote in that perfect penmanship of those who came of age when letters mattered, "The memories are the 'wish-I-could-do-it-over' kind."

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185