A saint made several trips to Minnesota during her lifetime.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta visited the Kump family in Golden Valley.

“She was very warm,” Theresa Kump-Leghorn said. “She liked to laugh. She liked a good joke, She enjoyed playing with our pets.”

In 1960 after reading an article in a Catholic magazine, Theresa Kump-Leghorn’s mother wrote a letter to Mother Teresa. It started a friendship that lasted several decades.

“We knew we had somebody special in the house,” Kump-Leghorn said. “She’s just a friend of the family like anybody else. She would play with us kids. She would have meals with us.”

Mother Teresa passed away in 1997 at the age of 87. In 2016, the Catholic Church named Mother Teresa a saint.

“My mother and father were very honored to participate in the beatification of Mother Teresa,” Kump-Leghorn said. “It was a very big moment for them.”