Minnesota Prairie Roots

The family matriarch oversees the making of pupusas from her chair.

She perched on a chair, back rim rod straight, eyes fixed on the griddle before her.

I watched, considering how I could, unnoticed, photograph this lovely old woman with lines etched deep in her skin by weather and smiles and age.

Just the way she held herself, like a queen presiding over royalty, intrigued me. Her entire demeanor spoke to wisdom and respect and knowledge earned perhaps by years of struggle.

None of this I knew with certainty. All of this I speculated solely from observation.

She sat, some five feet from a food tent during International Market Day at Central Park in Faribault. Under the tent, members of her extended family tended to frying pupusas and to customers who were waiting to buy the beef and cheese-filled flat bread.

I waited too, seeking the opportune moment to snap images. After awhile, I decided simply to walk near the woman, aim my lens and push the shutter button. I snapped two profiles before she noticed the whirr of my camera and turned toward me. I lowered my camera, bent low and asked if she was in charge.

She gazed up at me with a puzzled look, then spoke in Spanish. Just like that, a boy, about 12 years old, stood beside us. I repeated my question. He translated. She spoke. He translated back: “Just watching.”

I chuckled, not quite believing this matriarch.

“Is she your grandma?” I asked the boy.

“No, that’s my grandma, and my mom,” he said, pointing toward the tent. “She’s my great grandma.” Four generations together. The boy told me she was 86.

I hung around, standing in line for a pupusas and hoping to capture more images of this elder who had so captivated me.

She did not disappoint. Although I missed getting a picture, I saw this regal woman rise up from her chair, reach across the hot griddle and pat the top of a pupusas. Just like that. And she wasn’t in charge?

A bit later I was rewarded again. From across the tent, I observed a man embrace her. I quickly took a picture, with no time to properly compose the frame.

If love has a face, then I saw it, in that moment, in the smile and eyes of that beautiful old woman.

From a mere five feet away, the old woman quietly observes as family members fry flat bread.

Beef and cheese-filled pupusas fry on a griddle.

A man, probably a family member, embraces the old woman in a touching moment outside the food tent.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

When it comes to blogging, I never have a shortage of ideas. My computer is filled with files of photos and my notebooks with pages of notes. Just the other day I compiled a list of blog topics because I simply did not want to forget something. The list numbers nearly two dozen items.

I know some of you who have seen me out and about may be wondering, “Why hasn’t she written about (here’s where you fill in the blank)?” I promise. Your blog is coming.

Here’s my current list of blog topics, in no particular order:

Kenyon horse pull

Minneapolis henna artist

Bike parking at the Kenyon swimming pool

Pequot Lakes

Hackensack Library

Bemidji art

Bemidji candy shop

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox

Loons

Itasca State Park

Courthouses

The Mississippi River

Twiehoffs’ in Faribault

Munsinger Gardens in St. Cloud

The Blob

Lake Harriet

The Rose Garden

Homemade pizza

Tim Swanson’s 1959 Chevy

Treasure City in Royalton

The Turkish Scarf Project

Aztec dancers

Paintings

Some of these topics date back to a month ago, when my family vacationed in northern Minnesota. Others are places I’ve been just in the past week.

Sharing my photos and the stories I’ve gathered now ranks as my favorite type of writing. I enjoy it almost too much, if that’s possible.

If you haven’t visited the Midwest Mix Magazine website, check that out too. I have a few blogs there and at least one more to be posted soon on the Blue Collar BBQ and Arts Fest in Faribault.

In the meantime, I promise to keep blogging and, hopefully, entertaining and informing you through my writing and photography.

I’m also working on stories for the holiday issues of Minnesota Moments magazine and Midwest Mix Magazine. So…, I best get busy writing, after I hang out the laundry.

Authentic architecture is integral in the Concordia Spanish Language Village.

A colorful mosaic graces a building.

Nearly 40 years ago, I longed to spend part of my summer at a German language camp in northern Minnesota.

It was, I figured, as close as I would get to Germany without leaving the state, unless you counted visiting New Ulm. I’d been to that predominantly German community several times.

But I needed more. With a natural ability to quickly learn a foreign language and with a passion for German, I hoped to immerse myself in the culture. And that could happen at the Concordia German Language Village near Bemidji.

However, as much as I wished to become a German camper and as much as my high school German teacher desired the same for me, it wasn’t going to happen. Sending me to summer camp didn’t fit family finances.

Sunset on Turtle River Lake.

So I never went to camp. That was until this summer.

And it wasn’t exactly German camp. It was El Lago del Bosque, Concordia’s Spanish Language Village, also on Turtle River Lake north of Bemidji.

No, I don’t speak Spanish. But my daughter, Miranda, is majoring in Spanish and worked the past two summers in the El Lago del Bosque kitchen. Several weeks ago my husband, son and I traveled north to see her.

As we drove down the 2 ½-mile tree-lined winding road toward the Spanish village, I couldn’t help but ponder my adolescent wish of so many decades ago.

But that was in the past and I had other concerns now. How exactly would I communicate in a totally Spanish-speaking environment? Not to worry. We got by for the brief time we were at the Sunday evening asado argentina (outdoor Argentine barbeque) with Miranda as our interpreter.

Besides I was way too busy admiring the brick courtyard, complete with fountain and gorgeous flowers, and the Spanish architecture and paintings to even think about language barriers. This camp was unlike any I’d ever seen. I would have sworn, at least from exterior appearances, that I was at some swanky resort.

From what my daughter has told me, the food classifies more as cuisine than camp food with everything, even the bread, made from scratch. I could like this kind of camp.

Miranda returns home this weekend from her three-month stint at El Lago del Bosque. We’ll be picking her up at her sister’s place in Minneapolis and eating a meal together. I asked where and what she wanted to eat.

Anything, she said, except rice or beans.

Tabletop artwork at Concordia.

Art representing San Miguel de Allende.

Table art representing Santiago.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A Faribault firefighter seeks donations while standing in the turning lane of N.W. Fourth Street. This photo was taken from the passenger side front window of our car as we neared the intersection with Second Ave N.W.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful to our local firefighters, but I saw something this morning that truly astounded me.

There, standing in the turning lanes at one of Faribault’s busiest intersections, were several firefighters seeking donations for The Muscular Dystrophy Association’s national “Fill the Boot” campaign. The drive benefits research and local services for the Twin Cities chapter of the MDA.

It’s a worthy cause and I applaud the charitable efforts.

But walking where they were, putting themselves in danger and creating a distraction for motorists seemed more than a bit unwise on the part of the firemen extending their boots for a donation.

What about safety first?

My husband rolled down the driver's side window as we passed this vehicle and firefighter, who was seeking donations in the turning lane of N.W. Fourth Street.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

All the sweetness of summer beckons in this peaches-and-cream hued rose along the Boulevard of Roses.

Stop and smell the roses.

Bend close and breathe in the sweet perfume of a rose.

How many times have you heard that phrase?

Kenyon's Boulevard of Roses cuts through Minnesota Highway 60.

Well, if you’re traveling through Kenyon in southwestern Goodhue County, then you really ought to heed those words, literally.

Most roses have passed their peak bloom.

BUT DON’T TARRY. Time truly is passing as rose petals there fade and fall upon the Boulevard of Roses that slices through the heart of this small town. Some 80 rosebushes, by my estimate, grow in the narrow strip of grass between traffic lanes along Minnesota Highway 60, also known as Gunderson Boulevard.

Many times while driving through Kenyon, I’ve admired the four-block-long stretch of roses. But not once, not even once, did I stop to smell the roses. That is, until Sunday afternoon, during Kenyon’s annual Rose Fest.

Festival events had mostly concluded by the time my husband, Randy, and I arrived in town. We stopped at Kenyon Veterans Memorial Park (see my previous post), took in the horse pull at Depot Park, shared an order of scrumptious turtle donuts (mini donuts dripping with caramel and chocolate and sprinkled with nuts) before I suggested that we view the roses.

“Is it safe to walk in the boulevard?” I asked as we exited our car on a side street and vehicles zoomed by on Highway 60.

“There’s not that much traffic,” Randy insisted.

OK, then.

So we crossed the eastbound traffic lane and stepped into the flower zone. Rosebush by rosebush I worked my way down the grassy pathway, pausing to photograph the choicest of the blooms. Most had already passed their peak.

Yet, much beauty awaited us in the arching curves of the petals, in the dreamy colors of peaches-and-cream and buttercup yellow, of bushes weighed heavy by dozens of roses.

And then the scent, the heavenly perfume of roses, breathed in, slowly, deeply. Almost intoxicating, this sweetness consuming my being as I dipped my nostrils close, touching the petals. I couldn’t get enough of this heady stuff, each rose with a distinguishing scent, as unique as their colors.

But just like that, I was snapped out of my reverie by a passing semi truck that sucked at the roses and left me questioning the wisdom of standing so near the traffic lanes.

However, the distraction proved temporary as I resumed smelling the roses, inhaling their sweetness, with each deep breath.

A semi truck passes dangerously close to the rosebushes.

Rosebushes stretch for four blocks along Gunderson Boulevard.

© Copyright 2009 by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A table setting that speaks to summer breezes at a southeastern Minnesota lake cabin.

A bouquet of home-grown gladiolus Debbie created for the serving area.

At the risk of sounding, oh, so Minnesotan, I’m going to write about the weather, a perennial topic here in the north land.

Except for the lack of rain early on, hasn’t this just been the most perfect summer? Few, if any, mosquitoes, primarily humidity-free, cool days and good sleeping weather make this a summer to remember.

It’s been ideal for picnics and potlucks and campfires, for gatherings with family and friends.

Just last week my bible study group met at a Cedar Lake cabin near Faribault for a potluck and farewell honoring our friends Mark and Sonia.

Debbie and John, who co-own the cabin with family, invited us. And the instant I saw the summery table Debbie had set for us on the porch, I thought of Seals and Crofts’ hit song from the early 1970s, Summer Breeze:

“See the smile a-waitin’ in the kitchen, food cookin’ and the plates for two.
See the arms that reach out to hold me, in the evening when the day is through.
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind.
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind.”

Now I’m uncertain as to the entire meaning of the lyrics, but Summer Breeze always has been one of my favorite oldies.

I didn’t share my thoughts with Debbie as she finished final meal preparations, but I gushed over her decorating style. Debbie, who has worked as a floral designer and interior decorator, possesses a flair for pulling everything together. I mean, she made paper plates and plastic cups look like fine china in the summery table she set for eight, nine with her husband, John, the grill master.

Debbie created a beautiful table setting using her favorite color, green, mixing and matching with pinks and yellows in paper products and flowers.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A view of Immanuel from the church balcony.

If I had to choose between worshipping in a modern church building or in a sanctuary that has been around for years, I would typically opt for the vintage. I appreciate the architecture, the artisanship, the craftsmanship and the sense of reverence that abide in the church buildings of yesteryear.

But sometimes, just sometimes, when a congregation constructs a new house of worship, they get it right, as did Immanuel Lutheran Church of rural Courtland.

When the new church was built several years ago, stained glass windows, pews, the altar, even the 100-plus-year-old pipe organ and more from the old church were incorporated into the new structure.

The result is a stunning reflection of the congregation’s past.

My forefathers, the Bode family, who helped found Immanuel 150 years ago, would be pleased with the forethought that went into planning this more functional, yet historically beautiful, church.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The Good Shepherd stained glass window at the front of the church.

A side stained glass window features grain, reflecting the congregation's agricultural heritage.

Another window shows Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

A commemorative plate shows the old and new Immanuel churches and celebrates the congregation's 150th anniversary.

A close-up of pipes in the 114-year-old pipe organ, played today by a member of the Bode family at Immanuel.

A majestic vintage pipe organ graces Immanuel's balcony.

A rear photo shot of Immanuel, looking up to the balcony and toward the spacious fellowship hall.

Flags fly in the Field of Honor at Kenyon Veterans Memorial Park during Rose Fest.

A tag marks the flag flown in honor of LTC Kevin Duffy.

Military artillery at Kenyon Veterans Memorial Park.

I’ll admit that, as the daughter of a decorated Korean War veteran, I possess a soft place in my heart for Americans like Mike McDonald, Marty Budde, Mark Hegseth and Donald Meese.

I met all of them Sunday afternoon at Kenyon Veterans Memorial Park. Three of the four were gathered at a picnic table in this Minnesota Highway 56 roadside park prior to the closing ceremony for a weekend Field of Honor flag display during the town’s Rose Fest.

Meese came a bit later with his wife, Judy, to photograph the flag honoring their son-in-law, Lt. Colonel Kevin Duffy, a full-time Army man who recently served in Afghanistan.

The temporary flags could be placed in tribute of anyone, not just military people, said McDonald, president of the Kenyon Veterans Color Guard, the organization sponsoring the flag event.

“It’s to show everyone that this is the United States of America,” the Vietnam veteran said, looking toward the rows of 201 flags posted on either side of the highway near the town’s grain elevators. “The best way to do that is with a flag.”

The Field of Honor also raises money for the color guard, which marches in parades, attends veterans’ funerals, presents school programs and is working to build Kenyon’s vets’ park. Dollars from last year’s first-ever Field of Honor, which featured 80 flags, paid for a sign and new flagpole. A donation of $20 per flag is suggested.

The vets’ group hopes to add another military symbol to the artillery already in the park.

You simply have to admire guys like McDonald, who are striving to publicly honor those who have served or who are serving. As a Vietnam vet, the Kenyon man understands the importance of honor. He came home to a mostly ungrateful nation in turmoil over the Vietnam War.

Today he said it feels “awesome” to be appreciated for his service in Vietnam. He served as a crew chief door gunner aboard a Huey helicopter.

His friend and fellow color guard member Mark Hegseth of Kenyon flew an Air Force A-1E airplane in ground support and rescue missions in Vietnam.

Marty Budde, a retired military man and color guard vice president from rural Faribault, was stationed in Germany during the Vietnam era. Donald Meese of Nerstrand served with the Army Reserve for 23 years.

Although I didn’t have time to hear their personal in-depth stories of military service, I heard enough to know that these men deserve to be recognized—for giving of themselves to their country and for now actively working to honor all veterans.

They are striving, said McDonald, to change attitudes so that no other soldier feels unwelcome upon returning home from war, like he and so many others were decades ago.

Donald Meese snaps a photo of the flag flown in honor of his son-in-law, Lt. Col. Kevin Duffy of the U.S. Army.

The official Kenyon Veterans Color Guard flag.

Kenyon Veterans Color Guard members Donald Meese, from left to right, Marty Budde, Mike McDonald and Mark Hegseth.

A plaque in Kenyon Veterans Memorial Park honors Major Benjamin Danielson, whose fighter jet was shot down in Laos in December 1969. He was missing in action for years before a bit of his remains were positively identified. He was laid to rest back home in Kenyon in 2007.

To read an interesting collection of military stories from around the country, get a copy of God Answers Prayers—Military Edition, True Stories from People Who Serve and Those Who Love Them, edited by Allison Bottke and published in 2005 by Harvest House Publishers. The book includes “Faith and Hope in a Land of Heartbreak,” a story I wrote about my dad, Korean War veteran Elvern Kletscher of Vesta, Minnesota.

© Copyright 2009 by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Howard Homeier's patriotic pickup truck parked in downtown Kenyon, Minnesota.

You gotta appreciate a guy like Howard Homeier.

Sunday afternoon I saw him toolin’ west on Minnesota Highway 60 through downtown Kenyon in his dark green 1951 or 1952 Chevy pickup (he’s not sure which year), flag a wavin’ from the truck.

Mounted to the front bumper, secured inside a special frame he built, a sign proclaimed “Liberate Iraq. Support Our Troops. Call Your Congressperson!”

Now this was a guy I just had to meet.

So when Howard steered the vehicle left and pulled in across from the VFW, I was there waiting, expecting some young redneck to spring out of the pickup.

Instead, I got Howard, a World War II veteran and member of the Kenyon Veterans’ Color Guard. Maybe Howard’s a redneck, maybe not. Doesn’t matter.

What matters is that Howard served in the U.S. Army during World War II, in the China Burma India Theater. I think I’ve got that right. When we were chatting, I was without my notebook and pen. Howard found a dried up pen and scrounged a 2002 Kenyon Lumber Mart receipt from the glove box so I could etch his name onto the scrap of paper. Hey, whatever works. I wanted to get this Kenyon veteran’s name spelled correctly.

Howard obliged my request for photos, even letting me crawl inside his pickup so I could photograph the small poppy-topped American flag that protrudes from the Chevy’s ashtray.

He apologized for his messy truck. I didn’t care, didn’t even see much of a mess, only a cracked, well-worn seat, a big old steering wheel and that flag displayed by one patriotic veteran.

The flag has been inside his truck for quite some time, Howard said, and the “Support Our Troops” sign in place for three-plus years now. He’s pretty darn proud of it, but was quick to share that not everyone appreciates his viewpoint. He drove his pickup to a nearby country church, he said, and was asked by the pastor to remove the sign. Can’t have that in the church parking lot, the reverend said.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“What could I do?” he replied. “Took it off.”

Right then and there I wanted to find that clergyman and tell him a thing or two about respecting men like Howard who’ve faithfully served our country. But I kept quiet, because I didn’t want to stir up trouble. And, given we live in a free country, the pastor is entitled to his opinion too. But I could tell the whole incident bothered Howard, a lot.

Then this WW II veteran showed me two laminated cards, both paying tribute to soldiers like him. “Field of Honor. This Flag is in Honor of Howard Homeier,” one card read. Howard had just come from a ceremony at the Kenyon Veterans Memorial Park, where 201 American flags were flown over the weekend during the town’s annual Rose Fest.

He was beaming, this patriotic WW II veteran, this American who supports our troops.

Proud World War II veteran Howard Homeier in his early 1950s vintage Chevrolet pickup truck.

Inside Howard Homeier's Chevy pickup.

Howard Homeier drives his Chevy down Minnesota Highway 60, the main drag through Kenyon.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

(Watch for upcoming blogs about the “Field of Honor” at Kenyon Veterans Memorial Park and about this Goodhue County community’s celebration of Rose Fest.)

When tornadoes hit the metro area on Wednesday afternoon, I was concerned. My oldest daughter and other extended family members live in south Minneapolis.

I was pretty certain Amber was OK as she works in St. Paul. But I wasn’t sure about everyone else, including my mom, who was in Minneapolis visiting her brother.

Turns out everyone, and everything, was fine. Almost.

My niece Tara and her husband, Andy, who live in Plymouth, were driving to the Mall of America, inching along in stop-and-go traffic on Interstate 35 Wednesday afternoon, exactly when the tornadoes touched down.

As Tara tells the story, she first noticed a small branch or shrub blowing in the air while they were parked at a dead stop in the construction zone. By then the rain had mostly subsided.

Andy saw the foliage too, she says, but thought only that strong winds had blown something off a tree.

I’LL LET TARA PICK UP THE TALE: “He (Andy) continued to watch the cars around us as we crawled forward, and I continued to watch the debris. It wasn’t until I saw the tree branch/shrub swirling around again, this time accompanied by a head or foot board of a bed, that I started to freak out and realize it was a tornado.

“I opened my window to listen for sirens, but there was nothing. The sky wasn’t a funny color, there was no rumbling, and WCCO radio wasn’t saying a peep about bad weather.

“Areas of 35 were also starting to flood. There was an area on the other side where the water was up to the top of the vehicle tires. The water was rushing like a river as the person was getting out of their vehicle and the water was spilling through the cracks of the barrier into our lane so we had to maneuver the car quickly into the other lane. I’m not sure if our side completely flooded like the other side because we were trying to get out of there as quickly as possible.

“The one thing I fear the most was within 50 feet of me yesterday! It was quite a scary experience and I don’t care to EVER be that close to a tornado again.”

I understand my niece’s fear and respect for tornadoes. During my childhood, a deadly tornado hit the farming community of Tracy some 25 miles to the south and west of my home farm. Nine people died. The images of that devastation are forever imprinted upon my memory.

Then, some 30 years ago, a tornado hit the farm where I grew up, demolishing the silo, tossing farm wagons around the fields and causing other damage.

I am thankful that my niece and her husband escaped the August 19 Minneapolis tornado unscathed, on the day of their third wedding anniversary.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling