The Subtle Queerness of Summit Hill, St. Paul

Or, how not to judge a book by its cover

My girlfriend and I moved into our first apartment in St. Paul’s Summit Hill neighborhood on the first day of Pride Month.

It was also Grand Ol’ Day, the annual celebration of all things Grand Avenue, complete with a parade, hundreds of local business booths and even more Twin Citians milling up and down the thoroughfare. Indeed, it made for a completely painless move-in into our second-floor unit, only accessible by stairs. (I hope you can detect my sarcasm.)

As time passed and we settled in, a sort of restlessness fell over us. We were used to the punk-y grunge and working-class family vibe of Southeast Como, Minneapolis, a hub for UMN students, and Summit Hill felt stuffy by comparison. We didn’t think we would find other queer and trans folks amongst the stately Victorian mansions we could only dream of owning ourselves, and we were feeling isolated from our Minneapolitan friends.

However, once you stroll Summit’s quiet streets, you’ll start seeing the occasional pride flag fluttering in the breeze. You’ll find your community hidden in plain sight.

I got a lesbian flag sticker for my water bottle and a matching full-size flag for our bedroom wall at Mischief Toys & Games, located just a few blocks east of us.

Mischief has been a Grand Avenue institution for a decade now, occupying a typical Victorian-era Summit Hill home, save for its periwinkle blue paint job and walls covered in toys from stuffed animals to board games, from earrings to sarcastic pins and stickers.

The story of Mischief closely follows that of the Adelsheim-Marshall family, its proprietors. Once Abigail Adelsheim-Marshall, who uses any and all pronouns, and her sibling entered their teenage years, her parents, Dan Marshall and Millie Adelsheim, wanted to accommodate their changing tastes and offer older kids in general more than what big box stores could offer.

“‘We think that big kids and teens deserve better than iTunes gift cards for their birthdays,’” Marshall told Mpls.St.Paul Magazine in 2015.

Originally located in St. Anthony Park in the family’s former baby goods store, Peapods, the Grand Avenue house offered the Adelsheim-Marshalls an affordable price and prime location, being just down the block from another St. Paul institution, Café Latte.

Adelsheim-Marshall, now 29 and Mischief’s store manager, says that their queerness is inextricable from the store’s identity. She also says that being queer-affirming is necessary to be a welcoming space to teenagers and young adults.

“There are a lot of queer teenagers, you know, a lot of trans, nonbinary teenagers,” they say. “There’s this underlying energy that teenagers aren’t really welcome in the world, because they’re boisterous. Most toy stores kind of top out at like 12 (years old), and they don’t have much beyond that. We want (Mischief) to be a place that is explicitly affirming and welcoming to them.”

Mischief has also set itself apart by raising awareness and giving back to community. They sell a variety of yard signs proclaiming that Black Lives Matter and calling to Protect Trans Youth, among other messages.

“We’ve sold upwards of 5,000 yard signs in the last month-and-a-half, and we have donated $38,000 to local nonprofits based on those proceeds,” she says.

Overall, Mischief is a youthful breath of fresh air in Summit Hill and is a truly unique Grand Avenue business that is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Like many queer folks, I have a complicated relationship with Christianity, this country’s majority religion with an infamously vocal conservative intersection. There is no shortage of churches in Summit Hill, particularly north of Grand Avenue, but what has intrigued me is how several of them are outwardly progressive and queer-affirming.

On my walks through the neighborhood, I noted St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, House of Hope Presbyterian Church and Unity Church-Unitarian as such places of worship. Millie Adelsheim of Mischief also mentioned St. Clement’s Episcopal Church on Portland Avenue.

Queer allyship appears to be inherent to Presbyterianism and Unitarian-Universalism as religious sects. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church has an LGBTQ+ advocacy committee that seeks to “address and rectify injustices … due to oppressive power structures perpetuated by human sinfulness,” per its website.

Marcia Hayes, chair of Unity Church’s board of trustees, says, “(Unitarian-Universalism) has moved away from the parts of Christianity that deny the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” 

Hayes and her wife have been attending Unity for a decade and raising their child in the faith.

Beyond these core tenets, these denominations’ locations in Summit Hill are led by queer people, which is significant. Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones, senior pastor at House of Hope, moved from Nebraska to Minnesota last May because of the state’s queer-friendly reputation. In fact, he wrote an entire book about coming out as gay while serving as a Baptist preacher in Texas. 

“When I came out, I could finally be my authentic self and feel this sense of freedom. Not only did it make me a better human being, it made me a better minister, too,” Jones says.

Both Rev. Dr. Jimmy Hoke, who leads HoH’s youth and family ministry, and Johan Wyckoff, their communications coordinator, attested to Jones’ “timely,” “thoughtful” and “uplifting” sermons.

Hoke, whose background is in academia, teaches young HoH members about the Bible through a queer lens, challenging how children are often used as weapons in hateful rhetoric from the Christian right.

“I couldn’t be a person of faith without my queerness,” they say. “(Hateful rhetoric) often limits the way that queer and trans people can talk constructively about their faith. I appreciate being in a space where we can give other people a chance to ask, ‘What do I actually believe?’”

All three HoH members acknowledged the irony of cultivating such a welcoming space in a centuries-old Gothic cathedral with a painfully dated historical marker in the front, but there’s also a playground affectionately called Hippo Park and a community garden outside, too.

Both Hayes and the HoH members said queer folks looking to explore their faith are welcome to worship with them and see what they’re about. While I’m personally not ready to do so, it’s nice to know the invitation is open.

My girlfriend and I moved to Summit Hill mostly on a whim, and it likely won’t be where we settle for good. I wouldn’t call Summit Hill a gayborhood, but it’s been a pleasant setting for this phase of adulthood we stepped into together.

Most of all, Summit Hill has asked me to keep an open mind about things until they give me a reason to close it. It has yet to give me any.