If these Walz could talk: Couple who bought VP candidate’s Mankato home reminisce
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Five years ago, Tom Allen and his wife Bree bought a light yellow house on a quiet Mankato cul-de-sac. The couple who sold the house had an unusual reason for moving: one of them had become Minnesota’s governor — and now could become Vice President.
“It is kind of, like, wild to wake up in the same bedroom that the potential VP candidate for the United States slept in,” said Allen.
The couple who sold them the house was Tim and Gwen Walz, Minnesota’s governor and first lady. This week Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris chose Walz as her running mate on the Democratic ticket.
“We came to this house as a young recently wed couple. This home welcomed our children from their birth,” said Tim Walz in a handwritten letter left behind for the new homeowners. “Our dreams were born here, and this house has served us well.”
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Gwen Walz also wrote a letter, which now hangs alongside her husband’s on the Allens’ wall.
“This is one of the best neighborhoods in the world,” wrote Gwen Walz. “One hope is that you love the unique nature of this home that allows you to be in the country.”
The couple also left behind a bottle of wine, a gift card to the local bagel shop. And scores of beads, which Allen suspects belonged to Hope Walz, one of the Walz children.
“I just found one this morning,” he said. “We still find beads in our yard everywhere.”
The yards on the block where the Walz family lived in Mankato are open to each other, creating a safe haven for generations of kids and grandkids to run. At one point, there was a communal trampoline.
“So we all kind of, you know, village parented everybody,” said Mary Ingman, who has lived on the block for decades.
She said one of her earliest memories of Tim Walz is of the Dad-who-can-fix-it-all variety. And yes, his obsession with lawnmowers is legit.
“Tim was fixing his lawn mower so he could mow. And it was a push mower for this property,” she said. “Took forever.”
Even so, Tim Walz apparently didn’t take the very best care of the grass, said Jeff Ray. He recalled one of Walz’s first rallies when he was running for governor.
In the middle of the rally, Ray said Tim Walz called out his wife, Lisa Ray, directly. “He goes, ‘I’ll get back to you. I know we have that creeping Charlie in the backyard. I’ll take care of it,’” said Ray.
It’s been weeks of intense backyard speculation on the Walz family’s old block about whether their former neighbor would get the nod from Harris.
“I was dancing in my house yesterday with excitement, because my dreams are coming true,” said Julia Snelson, who has lived half a block away from the former Walz house for 34 years.
When Tim Walz first started his political career, she asked him to come and talk to her students at a nearby school. At the time, Snelson wasn’t a very political person.
“I got the chance to get to know his record and what he stands for and what he’s about, and really liked it,” she said. “And so I said, I think you should really consider moving up the ladder and becoming president.”
For now, Snelson said, vice president will do.
But whether or not Tim Walz is destined for greater things, Allen remarked on how he still struck him as an average Joe.
“Wow,” he said. “That dude really is quite normal.”
