Tolkkinen: Fergus Falls woman creates community, one bowl of soup at a time

FERGUS FALLS - When Rita Nau moved to Fergus Falls during the pandemic, she didn't know a soul.

It can be hard to make friends in America, and greater Minnesota is no exception. But Nau has found ways. In January, the former restaurateur began baking bread and making soup for neighbors, friends and friends of friends — really, anybody who wanted to swing by her home on a Wednesday evening.

"I feel like we're going into a very difficult time in our country," Nau said. "I need to know the people in my community."

On a recent soup night at her house, I encountered an artist, a registered nurse, a doctor, a trio of quilters, a history professor, father-son kinetic sculptors, the library lady and the former mayor. People dropped cash into a ceramic dish to help cover costs and accepted a bowl of smooth potato-bacon soup. They chose from among several kinds of freshly baked bread. On the brightly spangled tablecloth sat small dishes of extra bacon and cheese.

There were children. There were retirees. Some, like Nau, hadn't lived in Fergus Falls long. Others were born and raised there. Some visitors stayed just a few minutes. Others chatted in the living room full of art and comfy furniture until nighttime closed off the view of Lake Alice.

And you know something? I don't think I saw anybody on their phones. Not even the kids. People were joking. Swapping news. Swapping ideas. There were heart-to-hearts. Easy sharing of intimacies.

"I think it's something everybody needs and craves right now," said Naomi Schliesman, an artist, who was there with her young daughter, Zara. "It's creating hope and also creating a sense of community."

Nau's daughter set a pan of fresh almond bars on the table. The elderly dog, Stella, behaved with perfect decorum until someone opened the patio door, and she raced out after a bunny, heedlessly tearing across driveways and yards, eventually returning safely.

Maria Steen, who supports child care providers for a nonprofit and met Nau at a neighborhood block party, arrived in time to get the last bowl of soup.

"It's exactly what my soul needed," she said of the weekly get-togethers. Nau helped her get her child involved in youth theater, and soup-and-bread nights helped relieve the dark, cold stretch of post-holiday winter. "I didn't know that I needed it."

Attendance varies on soup night. Sometimes, six people show up. One week, there were 20.

I found out about Nau's soup night from a friend. But after I arrived at her house, it soon transpired, as it often does in rural areas, that we had other connections. Her late husband, Dennis, had been in my writer's group. I remembered a vehicle accident he'd written about. "Jesus!" a character had exclaimed, only to hear a smooth voice reply, "I don't see a Jesus in your contact list." It was Siri.

"That really happened!" Nau exclaimed as I recalled it. "Dennis slammed on the brakes and I said Jesus!" And then Siri piped up.

Nau and her husband moved to Fergus Falls from the Twin Cities. Before that, they lived in little Gibbon in south central Minnesota. He ran a business and served as mayor, and she owned a cafe, a quilt shop and a retreat center.

As the evening progressed, another connection revealed itself. It turned out that Nau and I had recently been at the same event in Ottertail — the $10-per-head talk given by U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach. I was there to write about it. Nau was there to protest. This 70-something widow, so warm and gracious to her guests, was also a spitfire political heckler, the first of several protesters to stand up that evening and interrupt the congresswoman and get escorted out of the room.

The interruption had annoyed me, especially as it was followed by another and another. No wonder Fischbach doesn't want to meet the public, I thought, before also grasping that the two feed into each other. Without a real public town hall, more people will protest, and the more they protest, the less likely Fischbach or the other representatives of rural Minnesota will hold public meetings.

In fact, Nau told me that had there been an open mic at Fischbach's event, she wouldn't have protested. She would have simply taken her turn at the mic.

Nau, a veteran of 1970s women's rights protests, said she doesn't like to talk politics at her Wednesday evening get-togethers. Despite her heckling of Fischbach, she would welcome people of all political stripes to her table, even MAGA Republicans, if they would come.

"Both sides can listen a little more to each other," she said.

Change can be hard, and Nau understands that. She doesn't want people to feel afraid to come to her house.

That's why, on the invitation she posts online, she says, "No need to knock. Just waltz in like you own the place."

In this era, when it seems like we all chat online and rarely in person, we need more people like Rita Nau.