The Gooma Gooma Lady

The Gooma Gooma Lady lived during the Great Depression. She was either a forerunner of homeless people, or maybe just a little eccentric. In those days, women didn't up and jump on a box car to escape the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; she did what she did to stay alive. She was stuck, abandoned, mired in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 44th Street.

No doubt she was the object of ridicule and fear. She dressed funny. She wore combat boots up to her kneecaps, long flowing dark dresses, and always carried an umbrella and a canvas bag. Like the Indian waterboy, she wore all the field equipment she could find.

Into the canvas bag went things she found that she thought keepers -- not trash, but bits of wire, hardware, string, someone's old sock. She never walked on the sidewalk, but kept to the plot between the sidewalk and the street, the frontage area. Children feared her, and they were admonished by their parents to Stay Away From Her, Don't Talk To Her, Leave Her Alone. Apparently, adults followed their own advice and didn't find the time or interest to approach her, or see if she was OK, or hungry, or lost. And the Gooma Gooma Lady never intruded upon their space, either. The sidewalk was her moat, her separation from others.

Perhaps she was one of those recluses who had thousands of dollars tucked away under her mattress, if she had a mattress. We'll never know. She was young once, maybe even pretty. She probably never harbored the thought "When I grow up, I'm going to be a derelict." Being the scavenger that she was, she may have been satisfied with her lot in life. The children who saw her gave her the name "Gooma Gooma Lady" which fit her. Her name might well have been Elizabeth, like the Queen of England. We will never know.

Likely, a mental disorder kept her from feeling like an outcast or neglected. If so, it was probably a good thing. She never hurt anyone. She served a purpose. While she never got a sign erected that said "44th Street is being kept clean by the Gooma Gooma Lady," she did clean that street. Actually, if she'd gotten such a sign, she would have moved.

Where did she stay during the cruel winter? What did she eat? Did she ever have a husband, children, a job?

She apparently never even had a country.