Lay cornerstones in the community

Our town, your town, my town. There are many small communities with a history which are questioning the future. Public television in Duluth recently aired the documentary “This Town,” which highlighted regional towns that have had economies falter, populations decline as a result, and are now shadows of the cornerstones of rural America. It is a story that has been repeated too many times across the country as family farms falter, young adults seek better pay in larger cities, and the entire culture of America moves to the fast lane.

There are some who see the quality of modern life in a small town as a choice, with rich rewards that cannot be measured in dollars and cents.

One of these is Christopher Ingraham, a Washington Post reporter who wrote the book “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now: Why We Traded the Commuting Life for a Little House on the Prairie.” For his job as a data reporter, Ingraham evaluates what the numbers on a spreadsheet measure and writes his column regarding any number of statistics that he finds interesting.

In 2015, Ingraham decided to use the USDA’s information to write about “the absolute worst place to live in America.” He found Minnesota’s Red Lake County at the bottom of the list and proceeded to denigrate the community for all the world to see. He did not expect to receive pushback from Minnesota’s elected officials and, of course, the citizens of Red Lake County, who invited him to visit and learn firsthand the enrichment that results from living in a small town.

Ingraham accepted the offer. At the time, he could not afford to live close to his job in Washington, so he commuted 90 minutes twice a day on crowded trains that often were unreliable, adding to the stress of trying to spend time with his wife and twin sons and make ends meet. He found a very welcoming community in Red Lake Falls in spite of the negative column. Not only that, he and his wife weighed the pros and cons of moving and within six months left the big city for, as he says, the “little house on the prairie.”

Ingraham’s book begins with his family frolicking in the snow during a winter festival four years after their move from Maryland. Thanks to the internet, he is able to work from home in a large, very affordable house with a yard that offers ample room for the boys to play. He tells how his wife had always wanted to run for public office and ended up being elected to the town’s city council.

Ingraham says the book is about “what social scientists call the urban-

rural happiness gradient,” meaning that overall, when surveyed, people who live in cities are less satisfied than those who reside in small towns and rural areas. Being a data reporter, he quotes Pew Research Center results that show 54 percent of Americans “say they’d prefer to live in a small town or rural area.”

Ingraham does not sugarcoat the difficulties they experience when his wife goes into early labor with their third child and their local hospital is not equipped to deliver such a premature baby. Nevertheless, he feels the benefits of living in a small town far outweigh the disadvantages. It’s the feeling of community that holds the most sway.

In walking down Avenue C in Cloquet recently, seeing it with eyes unfamiliar with this part of town, several first impressions stood out: many storefronts stand vacant, some people appear to use the sidewalks as their dogs’ toilets, and getting close to the buildings allows one to read the cornerstones. There is one at the base of the Cloquet Lodge No. 158 that was laid on May 18, 1919, just seven months after the 1918 fire. The group that rebuilt the lodge were the Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization that holds the motto: Friendship, Love and Truth. These people and others demonstrated that fire wasn’t going to destroy the spirit of the area.

Sometimes we tend to shrug our shoulders and accept the decay as inevitable.

Maybe it’s not.

In this time of the coronavirus pandemic, many people are finding they can work from home or, as Ingraham does, hundreds of miles from his headquarters. Young and not-so-young adults may find innovative technology that allows them to enjoy the quality of life in a small town and earn a decent salary. As previous generations demonstrated, we, too, can change the path we choose to follow. There are farmers, businesses, and entrepreneurs in our midst working to keep our communities vibrant.

Ingraham has become an advocate for his current lifestyle in Red Lake Falls. We need to do the same. We can lay some new cornerstones and polish up the old ones.

Writer Francy Chammings is a retired English teacher and clinical psychologist who loves living in Carlton County.