Farwell Park may get renamed to honor ‘matriarch of the neighborhood’
The family of Lorraine B. Smaller has petitioned the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to rename Farwell Park after the late community leader. Photo courtesy of Martine Small. Farwell Park photo from KARE 11/YouTube
By David Pierini, Editor
They lined up at the lectern with their stories, pulling tissues from a box as they spoke. Where would they or their children be but for the grace and love of Lorraine B. Smaller?
Northside residents, including members of Smaller’s family, attended a public hearing of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board on Feb. 7 to support the renaming of Farwell Park after the late educator and youth advocate many called “Mama.”
Smaller founded the alternative school Hands-on Childhood Development Center, which later became Cedar Hill Academy, graduating some 2,000 students. When she retired at age 70, Smaller started the We Care Performing Arts Program at Farwell to give neighborhood kids free programs in voice, drumming, martial arts, dance and more.
“She was my best friend,” Stayci Bell told the board. “She made me feel proud of myself as just who I was, that I was enough and that I was good.
“So many things in this world that are traumatizing are on street names. There are things named after people who stole, raped and pillaged. She built up this community, our spirits, our lives, our children. She is with me every day. To name a park after her would give us a place of calm to remember her, to praise her (and) to be in peace with her.”
The testimony was a case for sainthood as much as it was a preliminary step in a two-year process required by the board for renaming a park or facility. In December, MPRB renamed the chalet at Theo Wirth Golf Course after Northsider Eddie Manderville, who desegregated the clubhouse and went on to introduce the game he loved to other African Americans.
The renaming petition was filed in November 2023 by family members. Smaller’s son, Gayle Smaller, asked that the board consider a sped-up process so that his mother’s name could be on the park this spring when it is set to celebrate various park improvements.
Unless the board votes to expedite the name change, a second public hearing won’t take place until September 2025. The board would then schedule a vote for the end of the year.
Cynthia Fernandez told board members Smaller is an icon and an African-American leader who belongs in the same conversation as Frederick Douglas and Fannie Lou Hamer. Smaller’s picture hangs next to her mother’s in her home, she said.
Kristel Porter cried, remembering how Smaller accepted her son at her summer camp. Porter was a young, single mom juggling parenthood and a career looking for help watching a 5-year-old with outsized energy.
“He had impossible behavior and when it came time to pick him up, I was bracing myself for bad news and a long lecture on his rambunctious actions. She said he was great. I don’t know what kind of magic she had on this kid, but it worked.
“As the years went on, she stayed in touch with me, and she went from Mrs. Smaller to Mama. I am so grateful for the blessing she has been to my family and the many lives she has touched in the community.”
Leon Mallet said Smaller gathered in children others gave up on.
“I was one of those kids kicked to the side and thrown to the curb,” he said. “This woman was a sister and a soldier, a liberator, and a warrior. Women like this in our community don’t get thanked enough. She could inspire you and motivate you and breathe life into an individual who was damn near dead.”