![]() Saturday at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, with visitation starting at 11 a.m. 8, when he will lie in state in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda from noon to 3 p.m., with eulogies at 1 p.m.įuneral services will be at 1 p.m. The celebration of Al Quie's life begins Friday, Sept. His family chose to bring him home, to the Valley Grove cemetery in Nerstrand. Mishael Hernandez died, far too soon, just after his 50th birthday. "He had a lot to say about Al Quie," his daughter said. Hernandez said yes, taking to the radio to talk glowingly about his former neighbor. Quie, a Republican, won the 1958 special election that sent him to Congress, where he voted in favor of both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. "Not too long after we left Nerstrand, called my dad and asked for an endorsement," Hernandez said. Most of the Hernandez children found their way back to Minnesota for school or work. ![]() The Hernandez family never forgot his kindness and they never forgot Nerstrand. They were neighbors for one year out of the 99 years and 11 months of Quie's life. Mishael Hernandez served his flock for about a year - long enough to baptize one of the Quie children - then completed his studies, was ordained and moved on to a congregation of his own. The Hernandez children introduced their classmates to burritos. Her father, a talented musician and artist, performed with the church's brass quartet. "Snow angels, trick-or-treating, cakewalks, ice cream socials, church pageants. It was a temporary posting, but Nerstrand and its people and the kindness of the Quies left a profound mark on the family. Virginia Hernandez, now 97, still treasures it, almost 70 years later. Gretchen Quie gave it to her as a gift on the spot. And would the children behave? Mom was a bundle of nerves."Īt one point during the dinner, as four adults and 10 children broke bread, Virginia Hernandez admired a glossy yellow Melmac pitcher on the table - the height of midcentury modernity. She later wrote in a memorial on those early days, "It was a vexing proposition for my Mom who had never been so honored in her life. "The Quies got us started," Hernandez said. "Albert Quie," she said, "made a leap of faith for diversity in the 1950s before diversity was a thing." "We knew nothing about subfreezing temperatures, how to load coal in a furnace, keep track of mittens, how to eat lefse, which was so different from Mom's tortillas," said Miriam Hernandez, who was about 5 when her family moved into the parsonage and enrolled her in a one-room schoolhouse. Virginia, her son Quito and daughter Miriam are seen in this photo. Mishael and Virginia Hernandez and their five children were the only Mexican-Americans in tiny Nerstrand. In Hernandez, still a student at the time, Quie saw a shepherd. ![]() Grace Lutheran was a flock in need of a shepherd, he would later say. Quie was head of his church's call committee. Mishael and Virginia Hernandez and their five small children would be the only Mexican Americans for miles in any direction. One day, a dairy farmer from Rice County named Albert Quie approached him with a job offer.įifty miles south, Grace Lutheran Church in Nerstrand, Minn., needed an interim pastor.Ī Norwegian enclave with a population of 228 in the 1950 census, Nerstrand sat on the rolling southern Minnesota prairie, surrounded by farmland. It was 1956 and Mishael Emilio Hernandez had moved his growing family from California to Minnesota to attend Luther Theological Seminary in St. This is a story about one of those lives. ![]() He will lie in state in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda on Friday, and the weekend will be full of celebrations of the life he led and the lives he touched. This weekend, Minnesota remembers its former governor, congressman and neighbor who died in August, one month shy of his 100th birthday.
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