The Colorful Rock Garden of Kindness on Cumberland Street

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Wolfie Browender’s blog, Saint Paul By Bike — Every Block of Every Street. All images are by the author, except where noted.  

July 9, 2024

Macalester-Groveland, Midway, Summit-University, Frogtown, North End

23 miles

Little Free Libraries are plentiful throughout St. Paul. They come in abundant designs, colors and sizes. Occasionally a library is void of books, but never before have I spotted a sign explaining the empty library.

Frogtown

With a speed limit of 35 miles per hour and cars and semis pulling on and off Pierce Butler Route, it’s wise for bicyclists to keep their eyes on the road. Of course, that means you miss objects of interest like the monument and the building behind it at the Iron Worker’s Local 512 office.

The North End

The exploration of the North End continued as I wove my way back and forth on roads near Elmhurst Cemetery. I traveled on Kent, then Schletti, Mackubin, Cohansey, Arundel and Cumberland between Arlington Avenue on the south and Nebraska Avenue on the north.

Many of the homes I passed, ramblers primarily (with the exception of 498 Arlington, of course), date to the 1950s. That is, until Arundel Street, where residences on both sides are 20 to 30 years newer. More on this later.

An unpretentious home at 1462 Cumberland St. stood out because of its tidiness and three signs posted in front. Attached to a wooden walkway, the signs invite passersby to help themselves to an intricately decorated rock or two from the Kindness Rock Garden. The rocks are painted with inspirational phrases and animals, flowers, insects and more.

Joan Johnson is the woman responsible for creating the rock garden, including painting one-of-a-kind decorations on each and every rock.

The burgeoning undertaking began quite unexpectedly in August 2019. At the time, Joan was a special education teacher at Como Park Elementary School. It was workshop week — the last week in August, when most teachers and staff return for meetings to prepare for the first day with students.

Joan recalled that the staff at Como was irritable. “We were all kind of grumpy and things weren’t great. Nobody was happy with our administration, and things were just tough.” Joan resolved to lift the mood of her team members by presenting each person with a hand-decorated inspirational rock. “I brought them in to share with my group from the autism program, and they all said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to give everybody one.’”

Joan agreed to paint enough rocks for the entire Como Park staff, “and over the next two days I painted 125 rocks to take back so all the teachers and the staff in the school could get one.”

Joan’s clever presentation of the rocks added to the excitement. “I put them in a basket and went to everybody and said, ‘Close your eyes and pick one.’ Each rock had a little inspirational saying on it. I said, ‘This is your inspiration for the year.’ So the next day at our meeting at school, everybody was in a much better mood.”

The thoughtful gesture changed the tenor of the school year and beyond. “I still see some of these teachers, and they tell me they still have my rocks and that they still live by that little inspiration.”

Joan became a teacher because of her son, Adam. He was born with Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, a rare and fatal genetic disorder that affects the central nervous system. She said it took 12 years to find a doctor who properly diagnosed Adam’s condition.

Joan retired from teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic so she could provide full-time home hospice care for Adam. “He wasn’t supposed to make it past the age of 16. And he was 36 when he passed away. People say it was because of me and my husband, but we think his own determination and love of life kept him going. And, of course, now we do realize that we had a lot to do with it, too.”

Joan described the day when her husband picked a large cucumber from the family garden and brought it into the house. “Adam looked at him and said, ‘I was going to bring that in.’” So, Joan continued, “[Adam] crawled over to the cupboard, picked it up, crawled out the door, down the stairs, across the lawn, put the cucumber back in the garden and crawled back, turned around, went back over there and got it and brought it back in and said, ‘Now you can have the cucumber.’”

Kindness is another trait of Adam’s that Joan mentioned. “He loved the rocks that I used to paint. So on the nights that I would have a hard time dealing with his illness, I would go and paint rocks, and (I) decided to make my own rock garden.”

Joan created a memorial to Adam through the Kindness Rock Garden in 2023. That year passersby took more than 500 rocks from the garden; upwards of 350 were picked up between April 8, 2024, and my visit on July 9, 2024.

Creating pocket-size works of art to give away continues to bring Joan solace. “It helps me relax and enjoy and be able to have help with the sadness by doing something happy to share with other people.”

Joan is inherently artistic, but she didn’t fully recognize that gift until she was an adult. In fact, she taught herself to paint. It began my painting a picture with one of her grandsons. “We just painted a picture, and that was kind of fun. So I got some water paints and started painting, and everybody said my painting was good. I read a lot of books, watched a lot of videos, practiced a lot and kept on going.”

Now Joan combines her love of painting and teaching to educate others. “I’ve taught kids in the neighborhood how to do it. I’ve had classes together with other friends, and I’ve taught them how to do it.”

Most of the rocks Joan beautifies are ones she collects along the North Shore. “I have two places in Two Harbors where they welcome you to pick their rocks. I get the perfect flat rocks from there. And then when I run out of those, I can pick up some at Hobby Lobby. But I like the ones from the North Shore.”

Over her years of decorating rocks, Joan has developed a step-by-step process. “First I do usually put a layer of paint on them, turning them into white, black, blue, green. If you do that, it’s easier when you’re painting on it for [the design] to show up. Then I spray them all with an acrylic clear spray, which will protect them from the weather and make them shiny.”

For rocks with writing on them, Joan begins with an acrylic paint pen. “I use those because I can do the writing with a real small tip. And my writing looks much better than trying to do it with a brush.” Acrylic paints and a brush are her instruments of choice on the strictly artistic rocks.

Her favorite subject to paint? “Sunsets. In the winter time I go down to Florida to visit a cousin, and we always go watch the sunset at the ocean. All the different colors are so pretty.”

It turns out that the houses across the street from Joan’s replaced a small elementary school. Arlington Elementary, its playground and associated facilities occupied the block between Arundel and Cumberland streets and Arlington and Nebraska avenues. Arlington Elementary and three other nearby schools were shuttered in the late ‘70s. The Arlington building, demolished several years later, was replaced in 1984 with 23 single-family homes.

Relatedly, Saint Paul Public Schools also owned land across the street from Arlington Elementary on the western side of Arundel Street, which it had held in reserve for an expected school expansion. That never happened so the land was sold, and in 1981, nine single-family homes were built.

Western Avenue, 1556 to be exact, was my next stop, prompted by the railroad switch stand planted in the front yard.

There’s nothing novel about signs, flags, pennants and other ornaments trumpeting the Minnesota Vikings. However, the Vikings-themed sidewalk and porch at 1398 Woodbridge St. strike a uniquely poignant, somber note. It honors Andres Mateo, an ardent young Vikings fan, who, according to his obituary, passed away at age 13 after battling lymphoma for two years.

I started this ride late in the morning, greeted by a vivid azure sky. Gradually, bulbous cumulus clouds dotted the blue sky. By the time Joan and I finished talking, thickening platinum nimbostratus clouds had shrouded the once rich blue. Back on my bike and pedaling south, I felt light drops of rain, and the sky looked like it could open at any time. Before that happened, I decided to retreat into the Rice Street Library.

While waiting out the rain, I got a text from my neighbor Danise wondering if I was on a ride. She said a deluge had befallen our section of Highland Park and shared a photo.

Despite that and the threatening sky, the area around Lawson Avenue and Rice Street on the North End had but a few sprinkles. Still, I took cover at the library for more than an hour before tightening muscles and boredom prodded me back onto the bike.

Unmistakable signs of the recently passed storm were visible as I rode west and south toward home. Water-filled potholes and pools along curbs forced me to weave to and fro as I rode through Frogtown, Summit-University, Macalester-Groveland and Highland Park.

Upon my return home, I realized how lucky I was on this ride. First, I had the pleasure of meeting Joan, seeing and being given a couple of her creatively decorated rocks and experiencing how they beautify her neighborhood. Second, I had the improbably good fortune of avoiding the cloudburst that appeared to fall everywhere but where I was riding. There are worse conditions in which to ride than a boisterous thunderstorm, but not getting caught in one is always preferable.