Photo by Anna Min of Min Enterprises Photography, LLC
We’re excited to welcome Debra J. Stone to our blog today. Debra is the author of The House on Rondo, a personal story of the street where her grandparents lived when she was a child. Thank you for being here, Debra, and for answering our questions.
Did you have any childhood dreams for when you became an adult? Yes. If so, did they come true?
I wanted my own apartment and to live in a big city. Yes, I made my dream come true. I moved to Chicago in my early twenties and lived in a high-rise apartment. When I was about seven, my mother took me to see children’s theatre productions that made me want to be an actor. As an adult, I was a stage actor for a fifteen years.
It’s wonderful to know you made your dreams come true.
Did you love to read as a child? Yes. If so, can you tell us some favorite books?
I loved to read and went to a neighborhood public library.
My favorite books were the adventure stories of Jack London, especially, Call of the Wild, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville, and the poem “We be Cool,” Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales, “The Littlest Mermaid,” scary stories by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven,” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne, and The Little House on the Prairie series, but I stopped reading them because of Pa’s ugly remarks about native people. My cousins were of the Ojibway tribal nation. These are just a few that have come to my mind.
Many wonderful childhood favorites. It’s a shame when stories quote people’s ugly remarks. I’m glad you were supportive of your Ojibway cousins.
What was an early experience where you learned that written language had power?
I learned how to spell my name before I entered kindergarten and I was the only one in my class who knew how to do that. I wrote letters to my paternal grandparents in California telling them news about the family, and they encouraged me to keep writing. Those letters developed into stories.
What was your biggest fear when you were young? Did you get over it?
The werewolf was my biggest fear after watching Lon Chaney, the actor in the movie. Yes, I got over it because they weren’t real. At least I hope so…
I sure hope so too. 😊
Debra with siblings
What advice would you give to your younger self?
None, I was very fearless as a young person. Except, when watching the werewolf movie!
It’s fabulous to meet someone who was fearless even when they were young. What a great role model for readers!
Is your past woven into the story?
Yes. I am the oldest of three. Every Sunday, my family drove to visit my maternal grandparents who lived in a house on Rondo Avenue in Saint Paul. We lived in north Minneapolis, across the Mississippi River, which divided the two cities. So it was exciting seeing the city streets with people and the traffic.
If so, how?
I wanted to give a voice to the voiceless. The House on Rondo, character, Zenobia, put a human face to the loss of a neighborhood community in the name of progress. The interstate highways isolated inner-city neighborhoods. Now, we travel around most major cities.
I remember Toni Morrison’s, saying to writers, “write the story you want to read,” has influenced my storytelling.
So this story has a deep personal connection. Thank you for sharing this with us. It had to be hard to see what happened to the neighborhood.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I didn’t know. I wanted to be an actor like Cicley Tyson or Ruby Dee and act on Broadway in New York.
What is your favorite or most challenging part of being a writer?
Procrastinating is my challenge. My favorite part is research and creating characters.
Have you had any careers besides writing?
Yes. I decided to leave an international banking training program to become an actor. I studied Stanford Meisner theatre technique in Chicago. After this, I acted in improvisational theatre and wrote sketches for performances. Later, when I came to a crossroad in my acting career, I moved back to Minnesota and worked in academic researching youth development programs. Lucky for me, I had other skills and interests that I followed.
You’ve chosen a very unusual viewpoint character. Can you tell us how you chose who to tell this story?
After a dozen drafts, the voices came through, and one of those voices was the house. It made sense to me and I liked it. I’m a big fan of magical realism, and I’m influenced by writers such as Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Toni Morrison, Percival Evertt, Kate DiCamillo, and others who use this interesting viewpoint of animating objects or animals.
In addition, both Zenobia and former cowgirl Mrs. Ruby Pearl are vivid characters. Can you tell us more about how you developed them? Are they real characters?
No, they’re not based on one single real person but are based on a composite of young persons and adults I’ve known in my life. However, the character of Mrs. Ruby Pearl is based on my research on a real Black cowgirl who lived in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the copyright of her photo dressed in western cowgirl gear in the early 1900’s. Instead, I was able to capture her essence in a photo from online resource of the African American Smithsonian Museum. The research helped make the fictional narrative real. I also like to use the acting skills I learned to develop characters.
What made you choose to write about Rondo Street?
I found that I couldn’t stop myself— it haunted me.
It was an obsession, a good one, of Rondo and the vitality of this community that I vividly remembered.
Please tell us about the historical research you did to make this feel authentic.
I was fortunate to have a Jerome Fellowship in Literature so that I was able to travel to Nebraska and see for myself the Sandhills and the towns of western Nebraska. My maternal great grandparents migrated to this land after the US government moved the Pawnee nation to reservations. I researched Black migration to the West, and they became known as the Exodusters. I used documents at various state and county historical societies, local libraries, museums, oral histories, and government agencies records of transportation and interstate highway development. I used microfilm records of old newspaper articles. It was not possible to do more live interviews of people who lived during the early history of Rondo Avenue—most were deceased.
What was your favorite part of the research?
My favorite part of the research was finding 1920’s and later photos of the people who lived on Rondo.
What was the most difficult part of researching?
The most difficult part was finding out so few photos of Black people existed in historical societies and museums.
That’s such a shame that we’ve lost such an important part of our country’s history. I’m glad you’re doing what you can to make us aware of this part of it.
Did you have to leave anything out of this book that you wished you could have included? If so, what?
I wished I could have had included some of the research I did about the tribal nations who lived on the land in Minnesota and Nebraska. I wanted to include more stories about the Black towns of the Western United States. I couldn’t make it work in the narrative. Perhaps, it will be another story…
Can you share a bit about the resistance?
In my research, there were residents who tried to save their homes and businesses but lost them anyway.
In the resistance, there was sadness yet also joy. People are still celebrating the Rondo community by holding jazz festivals and rethinking about how to bringing Rondo Avenue back. Even though it will be a different community than the original.
I hope they can make that happen! It’s wonderful that people are still celebrating and creating a strong sense of community.
Do you have any message or advice for the teachers and parents who will be sharing your book with their students and families?
The importance of history and community.
What do you hope readers will take away from your book?
The joy of Rondo Avenue and whatever they want. It’s out in the world now, and I have no more control of this story I created.
Can you tell us what you’re working on now?
Hmmm, I have ideas but not ready to share what they are yet…
Well, we can’t wait to see what you write next. The stories of Black towns in the West and more history of the tribal nations in Minnesota and Nebraska all sound like wonderful avenues to pursue, but I’m sure your creative muse will direct you to the perfect story. When it does, we’ll be looking forward to reading it. For now, I’ll encourage our readers to pick up a copy of The House on Rondo.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Debra J Stone writes essays, poetry, and fiction. She received a 2023–25 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in Literature and the 2023 Loft Mirrors and Windows Fellowship for writing books for BIPOC children and young adults. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and her Australian cattle dog, Ruby. Find her online at https://www.debrajeannestone.com/ or on Instagram @debra2036.
ABOUT THE BOOK
When thirteen-year-old Zenobia has to leave her friends and spend the summer at Grandma’s while Mama recovers from a stroke, life seems so unfair. But then the eviction letters start arriving throughout her grandparents’ neighborhood, and white men chalk arrows to mark the gas and water lines, and a new world of unfairness unfolds before her. It’s 1963, and Zenobia’s grandparents’ house on Rondo Avenue in Saint Paul—like all the homes in this thriving Black community—is targeted for demolition to make way for the new Interstate Highway 94.
As Zenobia gradually learns about what’s planned for the Rondo neighborhood and what this means for everyone who lives there, she discovers how her story is intertwined with the history of her family, all the way back to Great Grandma Zenobia and the secrets Grandma Essie held close about the reason for her light skin. With the destruction of the neighborhood looming, Zenobia takes a stand on behalf of her community, joining her no-nonsense neighbor, onetime cowgirl Mrs. Ruby Pearl, in a protest and ultimately getting arrested. Though Zenobia is grounded for a month, her punishment seems of little consequence in comparison to what is happening all around her. Even though the demolition continues, she is proud to discover the power and connection in protesting injustice.
The House on Rondo captures the heartbreak, resistance, and resilience that marks a community sacrificed in the name of progress—a “progress” that never seems to favor Black families and neighborhoods and that haunts cities like Saint Paul to this day. As Zenobia learns what can be destroyed and what cannot, her story teaches us that joy, community, and love persist, even amid violence and loss.
