PHOTO BY PHOTO, I scrolled, stopping halfway through the collection of 265 images. I’d seen plenty, enough to understand that Adin Nathaniel Castle, 19, of Faribault was much loved.
Today Adin’s family and friends will memorialize him, then bury him at Maple Lawn Cemetery. He died on May 24 from injuries sustained in a head-on collision on Minnesota State Highway 3 in Castle Rock Township. The other vehicle reportedly crossed the center line, hitting the car driven by Adin’s girlfriend, Arianna Hess, 18, according to the state accident report. Adin died at the scene. The crash remains under investigation. The couple was on their way out of town on a date.
I didn’t know Adin in life. But I certainly feel like I know him in death based on his online obituary and the accompanying photos and guestbook comments.
Oh, those photos. Frame after frame I see Adin grow from newborn to child to teen, surrounded always by family and friends. At the apple orchard. Fishing. Celebrating birthdays. On the playground. In a canoe. Getting his hair cut. Playing ball. In a Halloween costume. Working on cars. A baby become boy become man. Smiling. Happy. Embraced by so much love.
KIND WORDS
“You raised a good son,” Kathy writes in an online guestbook. Adin is survived by his parents, two siblings and other family.
By all accounts, Adin was a light in the life of many, including customers at Glenn’s Service, an auto repair and tire shop, towing service and gas station in Faribault. He worked there the past three years as an attendant.
Imagine being so appreciated and so valued that you are remembered as bright, smart, polite, respectful, hardworking, helpful, smiling, funny, chatty, caring, humble and positive. Those attributes, among others, are tagged to Adin. To be remembered in such a way speaks to his character.
“A bright spot at the (gas) pump,” notes Kathy.
SO LUCKY…
Adin loved working on vehicles, especially Ford vehicles, his obit reads. He also enjoyed fishing, camping, drawing, star gazing and date nights with his true love, Arianna. She writes: “Adin was always a great man who took pride in his community and his family and I was so lucky to get to love him. I’ll miss you, my love.”
“…so lucky to get to love him.” I love those words typed by Arianna. She shows incredible strength in personal grief, a deep understanding of what it meant to love Adin.
PASSIONATE ABOUT VEHICLES
He was passionate about cars and trucks. His family is taking that love and running with it, inviting mourners to drive their classic cars, trucks or favorite rides in the procession to the cemetery. I expect Adin would have liked that.
The community has rallied in the face of this unspeakable tragedy with kind and loving words and via contributions to a GoFundMe account to help cover funeral and medical expenses. Donors have gifted $11,767 toward a $13,000 goal.
Adin lived only a short while on this earth. But the positive impact he made on others is evident. That much I understand about the young man I never knew, but now know.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Westward bound deep into Minnesota farm country May 28, 2026
Tags: agriculture, barns, Brown County, commentary, farm fields, farm sites, farming, land, landscape, Mankato, memories, Morgan, New Ulm, Owatonna, photography, Redwood County, rural Minnesota, sky, southern Minnesota, travel, Vesta
THROUGH SEVEN SOUTHERN MINNESOTA counties we traveled—Rice, Steele, Waseca, Blue Earth, Nicollet, Brown and, then, home to Redwood. Westward bound.
Only occasionally now, mostly for the annual family reunion and on this day a beloved aunt’s funeral, do Randy and I follow this 125-mile route back to my native Redwood County.
Every trip, I see the immensity of sky and land as the landscape unfolds before me. The farther west we drive, the more rural the look, the feel, with the exception of Mankato and New Ulm.
We bypass the small towns along four-lane U.S. Highway 14 while passing endless farm sites and fields.
I have my eye on the view from the passenger side of our van, scanning the land, watching for photo ops. Photography can be a challenge while traveling at highway speeds. Still, I try, managing to capture images that document the ruralness of this place.
Barns, especially red ones, always grab my attention. They symbolize agriculture more than any other building. Yet, most no longer center a farming operation. Absent of animals, many barns have been repurposed or have fallen into heaps of rotting wood. I always appreciate a well-kept barn still standing strong against elements and the passage of time.
This trip I’m also cognizant of crops at the beginning of the growing season. Corn is popping up in rows across the land, green shoots reaching toward the sun, the sky. Green is good. When my next trip this direction comes in late July, that corn will stand towering and dense across acres of fields.
I may not be a farmer, but my connection to the land more than 50 decades removed from my childhood farm remains strong. I still look at the crops. I still hope to spot a herd of Holsteins. I still see a silo and mentally climb the interior ladder to throw down silage. I still eye a grove of trees with the playfulness of youth.
While nostalgia runs high on trips like this deep into Minnesota farm country, reality is that farming remains as challenging as ever with ever-rising expenses, low commodity prices and the uncertainties of weather. Will rain fall when needed? Will storms come with devastating wind and hail? Always, always, the risks exist from planting to growing to harvest.
But on this day, mile after mile after mile, I see the hope of a farmer. I see a way of life. I see dreams.
And I feel small in this place where land and sky dwarf farm sites, where fields stretch across endless acres, where the highway ribbons ahead of us across seven rural southern Minnesota counties, westward bound.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling