Minnesota Prairie Roots

Curtis Holter's fun-loving spirit.

“Boy….struck…vehicle…” The words cut to my heart, bringing instantaneous tears as I read the newspaper headline.

That was 3 ½ weeks ago, when I learned that 12-year-old Curtis Holter had been hit by a truck and killed while biking across a busy Faribault street.

Yesterday I received a thank you from his family, including photos of the boy with the wavy hair, broad smile and friendly eyes. Although I had never met Curtis, I could see in the photos his joyful spirit and the promise of the man he would become.

He was, obviously, loved.

That became even more apparent in the letter his family wrote thanking those who have supported and surrounded them during the difficult days since losing Curtis. I had sent condolences to the Holter family.

“On the night before Curtis died, he layed (sic) down beside me on my bed. I stroked his hair, running my fingers through it and we were making plans for MEA,” the letter reads.

Tears surfaced as I recalled the many times I’ve stroked my son’s hair, the many times I’ve embraced him, felt his ribs and backbone in the thinness of his stretching adolescent body.

“On the second week we embraced everything about Curtis. We picked up his dirty clothes, we washed them, we folded them, we hung them as he would. We sat in his room looking around and cried.”

I wept more tears for the mother and father, for the brothers and sister who are left without Curtis.

I wept because I have walked perilously close to the path the Holters have walked. My son was struck by a hit-and-run driver 3 ½ years ago while crossing the street to his bus stop. He was 12 years old, just like Curtis.

But unlike Curtis, my son survived and was not even seriously injured.

Yet, in some small way, I can understand the pain of Brad and Patty Holter, who lost their son on Sept. 30. For a short time, between being made aware of the accident and confirmation that my then 12-year-old was OK, I feared the worse. Over and over I repeated and pleaded: “Lord, please, not my baby. Lord, please, not my baby.”

Unless you have lived in that moment, it is almost impossible to convey the overwhelming feeling of heart-piercing agony.

In the face of their overwhelming loss, the Holters have remained strong in their faith. And they have a message for others: “I want to encourage each of you to embrace one another, do not be afraid to talk to us in public. It’s ok. If you cry, it’s ok. God gave us tears for a reason.”

Curtis Collin Holter

CURTIS COLLIN HOLTER, the son of Bradley and Patricia (Bussert) Holter, was born on Nov. 4, 1996, in St. Paul, Minn. Curtis currently was in seventh grade at the Faribault Middle School, where he was involved in band. He was greatly involved in his church’s youth group, which has done many volunteer and service projects in Faribault, including Shine 2009. He also was very involved with Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Faribault. Curtis loved animals and cared for two dogs and his own cat at home. He played baseball as a youth and enjoyed riding bikes near his home with neighbors. He enjoyed playing in the woods at home and sliding in the winter with his family. Curtis was well liked by many and will always be remembered for his great smile and laugh.

Special thanks to Brad and Patty Holter, who allowed me to share their story, photos of their precious son and a portion of his obituary with the readers of Minnesota Prairie Roots. Their courage, strength and faith have been an inspiration to me. Blessed be the memory of Curtis Collin Holter, who, on Nov. 4, would have become a teenager.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos © Copyright 2009, Artistic Photography, Inc., Brad and Patty Holter, Faribault, Minn.

FIND TOTO, my caller ID reads. I hesitate. We’re not in Kansas and I suspect a scam. But then I push the green button anyway and answer my phone.

While I can’t recall the exact words, an automated voice spews out information about a pet alert in my neighborhood for a dog named Flurry. I’ve heard enough. This can’t be for real. I push the red button, click, and end the one-sided phone call.

That was Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday morning a silver boat of a car pulls up in front of my house. A woman exits the passenger side and tacks a sign onto a corner utility post. Likely not a garage sale sign, considering the rainy weather. But then I remember. Could this be Dorothy, looking for Toto?

Later, I step outside, bested by my curiosity. Donna, not Dorothy, is searching for her missing white Bichon Frise. Flurry was last seen on Oct. 20 along Northwest Seventh Street in Faribault. The 12-year-old dog has seizures and needs medication.

Donna wants her dog back, and she is offering a $500 reward. Now I’ve seen plenty of stray cats in my neighborhood. But a dog? Nope.

When my son arrives home from school, I tell him we need to find Flurry. He could use the $500 to pay for a Spanish class trip to Spain, because the expected flurry of fundraising never materialized.

Heck, I could use the money to help pay for our new heating and cooling system, an updated kitchen, new bedroom windows, a new front door.

I know, money shouldn’t be my motive in searching for a lost pet. But, well, $500 is a good chunk of change.

“So what’s this dog look like?” my 15-year-old asks.

“Kind of like Benji,” I say, envisioning the posted photo.

“Who’s Benji?” he replies.

Yeah, OK, then. This ought to be easy. I tell him to go outside and view the photo of Flurry. He doesn’t.

There is no search for Flurry, except on the internet. I google www.findtoto.com because, by now, I figure that earlier phone call was legit. Findtoto.com, I discover, is an Amber alert system for missing pets. I type in my 55021 zip code and find information about Donna’s missing dog. She has also posted information on Craig’s list and on FidoFinder.com.

If it wasn’t raining cats and dogs as I write this, I might be out searching for the run away Toto, uh, Flurry, right now.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A Laura Ingalls bobblehead and related books for sale at a Walnut Grove gift shop I visited several years ago.

“Is that Charlotte?” I ask the young girl clutching a rag doll.

She unfolds her arms to reveal a bonnet-clad doll with flaming red hair. This, obviously, is not Charlotte.

“It’s her version of Charlotte,” the girl’s mom tells me. I smile at her and her daughter, the little girl with braided pig tails, dark brown eyes and manners so polite she could be Mary Ingalls, even though she looks more like Laura Ingalls.

We—this woman and her daughter and me and my oldest daughter—have come to downtown St. Paul on a Sunday night in October to see Little House on the Prairie The Musical at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Many years have passed since I read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books to my two girls. But I still remember Charlotte, Laura’s beloved rag doll.

As Amber and I await the beginning of this musical set in Dakota Territory in the 1880s, we listen to foot-stomping fiddle music, catch a glimpse of a bonneted Laura look-alike and take in the stately Landmark Center, The Saint Paul Hotel and Saint Paul Central Library that ring Rice Park across the street from the Ordway.

I’ve never been here before and I am impressed with the town square feel of the block, by the gracious doorman (who obliged our request to snap a photo of us), and by the welcoming atmosphere of this elegant theater.

Amber and I pose outside the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in downtown St. Paul.

As we circle our way to our second floor box seats, I wonder aloud whether I’ll be OK sitting so high above the main level. I settle into my chair and tell the usherette that I am comfortable. She has kindly offered to move us elsewhere.

Later, my daughter and I regret that we didn’t ask for different seats. “Can you see?” we whisper to each other all too often. The man sitting next to Amber has scooted his chair forward in this snug box and sits with his elbow on the railing, head upon hand. I know Amber can’t see much, but she is more concerned about me. Our chairs face the opposite side of the theater, not the stage, so our view ranks as merely adequate even though our tickets cost $63.50 each.

Eventually, Amber tells the rude patron that she can’t see and we are happy when he and several others fail to return after the second act. “He looked bored,” Amber says. I agree.

This show is anything but boring. On stage, a high-energy cast, through song, dance and drama, re-enacts the story of the Ingalls family, who left their Minnesota home to stake a homestead claim near De Smet, S. D.

Follow U.S. Highway 14, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway, west to Walnut Grove, Minn., and then on to De Smet, S.D.

“I don’t remember that from the books,” I think all too often. But later, when I am home, I dig out my daughter’s Little House books. There, right there in print, are the stories of the Ingalls sisters getting kicked out of school, the story of Mrs. Brewster drawing a butcher knife, the tales of nasty Nellie Oleson who did, indeed, move from Walnut Grove to De Smet. I had forgotten so much.

The creators of Little House on the Prairie The Musical admit to deviating from the books to tell an entertaining story. Yet, they have not strayed as much as I initially thought.

Of all the scenes, I find the one involving the knife-wielding Mrs. Brewster to be the most powerful. The lonely homesteader’s wife pleads with Laura to quiet the howling winter wind. As the drama unfolds, it is clear that Mrs. Brewster’s isolation on the prairie has driven her into a deep depression, near to insanity. “The wind was like knives,” Wilder writes in Chapter 7, “A Knife in the Dark,” in These Happy Golden Years. Now, as I read those words and reconsider the dramatic scene on the Ordway stage, I understand.

Producers of the musical also got it right with simplistic sets that focus mostly on the vast sky. The sky backdrop changes often—from dark and brooding to the brilliant orange of a sunset to the blue skies of summer—just like the southwestern Minnesota prairie sky I knew as a child. I grew up near Walnut Grove, the Minnesota childhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

And I grew up knowing the Little House books, which an elementary school teacher read to my class. I never watched the 1974 – 1982 television series starring Melissa Gilbert as Laura because I was busy then with college and launching my career. At the Ordway, Gilbert plays Ma “Caroline” Ingalls. I was not star-struck as others may have been by her appearance. Nor was I impressed by her singing.

And this may sound really picky, but Pa “Charles” Ingalls and the other men were clean-shaven, not something I would expect in the 1880s. That little detail bothered me—a lot.

Native prairie flowers and grasses grow near the Ingalls family dug-out site along the banks of Plum Creek north of Walnut Grove.

A sign welcomes visitors to the childhood home of author Laura Ingalls Wilder in Walnut Grove.

Tickets are still available for Little House on the Prairie The Musical, which runs through Oct. 25. Go to www.ordway.org. Also check out Laura Ingalls Wilder attractions in Walnut Grove at www.walnutgrove.org and in De Smet at www.desmetsd.com. Both towns feature summer pageants.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Each guest family brings a crockpot of soup or chili to the party, which is staged in the garage.

Halloween decorations add to the festive atmosphere at Lanae and Dale's annual soup party.

NINETEEN SOUPS. Fifty guests. Forty degree temps.

That would be my sister Lanae and her husband Dale’s annual soup party, held last Saturday evening in Waseca.

It’s an event that has become as much a part of autumn as the leaves turning color. If you fail to show up one year, don’t expect an invitation the following year, unless you have an acceptable excuse.

This is one party most don’t miss, including me. I love soup, especially sampling so many varieties—this year French onion, Minnesota brie and apple, white chicken chili, spicy chicken cheddar potato, salmon chowder, lentil, Cajun shrimp with corn, butternut squash, potato cheese chowder and more.

Each year guests seem to come up with surprising new varieties for everyone to taste test. And that’s exactly what we do. Unless your stomach is as big as King Kong’s, it’s impossible to try every soup. So you strategize.

Scout out the options, Lanae advises newbies. Place several soup bowls on your tray and then ladle small quantities into each. Fail to follow Lanae’s advice and you’ll soon find yourself full before you’ve sampled many soups.

Those of us who’ve been attending the soup supper faithfully for years also know to save room for Julie’s homemade breads. Lanae’s neighbor, Julie, makes the best cheesy bread, delivered to the party still hot from the oven.

Add Lanae and Dale’s homemade wines, like blueberry, raspberry and rhubarb, to the mix, and you have the perfect party.

The perfect party, that is, if you’re willing to sit in the garage, on the driveway or around the backyard campfire bundled in layers to ward off the chilly temperatures. So what’s a little cold? It’s worth enduring for the delicious soups. After all, we are hardy Minnesotans.

A stack of vintage trays awaits diners.

Lanae tosses a festive cloth over the work bench as a serving area for soups, crackers, bread and more.

As a floral designer at Waseca Floral, Lanae always has delightful decor both inside and outside her home.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A sign welcomes visitors to the Nerstrand Elementary School International Peace Garden. More than a dozen countries are featured.

A face of Mexico depicted in a mosaic on the side of the school building.

PEACE. The word evokes multi-faceted definitions. But for school children in one small Minnesota community, peace is defined in a garden, an International Peace Garden.

For nine years now, students, staff and volunteers at Nerstrand Elementary School have created an on-site evolving garden that reflects the vision of peace among nations.

“It (the garden) reminds us that the journey toward peace is never ending and that everyone is important,” according to information on the school’s website, www.nerstrand.charter.k12.mn.us.

For the first time recently, I visited the garden which shows these kindergartners through fifth graders, and others, that this world is much bigger than tiny Nerstrand, a town of about 230 in Rice County. In developing the garden, students research the featured countries, learning about customs, food, culture, issues and more. They have also contributed to world charities, like collecting food and medical supplies and sewing quilts for the people of Guatemala.

As I walked through the International Peace Garden, I considered just how much attitudes and situations have changed since I attended Vesta Elementary School in the 1960s. Back then, we feared a Russian attack. Words like “missiles,” “the Cold War,”  “Sputnik” and “fall-out shelters” defined the world.

While issues of war and of peace remain, and always will as long as we share this world, I am heartened by efforts like the International Peace Garden in Nerstrand. Understanding of other languages, other nations, other cultures can only result in better relationships among people in this diverse world of ours.

As a sign at the Nerstrand school reads in part: “We share all the stars and one hope for peace. The people of this world are all related. We share our love of life, our sense of place, our appreciation of beauty…”

Indeed.

Tanzania is represented by a giraffe and butterfly in the International Peace Garden in Nerstrand.

An elephant depicting Kenya.

The recently dedicated Great Wall of China tower in the Peace Garden.

Words of peace on the welcoming sign.

Mexico represented in a colorful wall-side mosaic of dancers.

Visitors are bid a fond farewell in Norwegian as they leave Nerstrand Elementary School, founded by Norwegian immigrants in 1887.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The 1894 Valley Grove Church as seen through the second floor window of the 1862 stone church.

Entry door into the church.

COUNTRY CHURCHES INSPIRE a certain reverence of holiness not found in modern churches. In the wood, in the workmanship, in the setting, these houses of worship reflect the history of past generations.

Such is historic Valley Grove Church, once known as Tyske Grove, a Norwegian immigrant parish established northwest of Nerstrand. In 1862, the first stone church was built, then replaced in 1894 by a white clapboard building.

By that time, the congregation had already been renamed Valley Grove, a change made in 1870.

In the nearly four decades since the congregation dissolved, efforts have continued to preserve the two Valley Grove churches.

Walk inside the 1894 building and you’ll step back in time, to simpler days, when families gathered here to worship God, to socialize and to draw strength from each other in their new homeland.

The song Praise and Thanksgiving written by Albert F. Bayly seems appropriately fitting for country churches like those at Valley Grove:

“Praise and thanksgiving, Father we offer, for all things living, created good: Harvest of sown fields, fruits of the orchard, hay from the mown fields, blossom and wood.

Bless, Lord, the labor we bring to serve you, that with our neighbor we may be fed. Sowing or tilling, we would work with you, harvesting, milling for daily bread.

Father, providing food for your children, by your wise guiding teach us to share one with another, so that, rejoicing with us, all others may know your care.”

The plain windows in the church are topped by points of colored glass.

Autumn decor from a wedding adorn window sills.

How many feet have touched the pedals of the old pipe organ?

The graceful wood of the balcony.

Ringing the church bell.

Stairway banister in the balcony.

Hydrangea bouquet in the entry.

For more information, go to www.valleygrovemn.com. Read my earlier blog about Valley Grove, posted Oct. 9.

Photos © Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

“DO YOU KNOW WHERE you’re going?” I ask my husband as he turns the car down a gravel road.

“Yes,” he says and I can only hope Randy is not saying that just to appease my uneasiness. I like to know where I am, meaning I would not make a good explorer, vagabond or gypsy.

He would.

We are driving along Farmer Trail northwest of Nerstrand in Rice County. The gravel road twists and turns through the woods. And then, as we round a bend, three neon orange traffic cones mark our driving lane where a tree has fallen. Someone has been here already, sawing the tree into movable chunks. We skirt the mess and I think how fortunate that we are only on a Sunday afternoon cruise and not zipping along Farmer Trail.

A fallen tree on Farmer Trail.

Even though the leaves have little color and the skies are heavy with oppressive gray clouds on this early October day, the rural setting is beautiful, and undiscovered. This is the second year we have traveled Rice County back roads in the autumn, following routes that few others seek out for fall colors.

A corn field ripens against a back drop of trees.

Later, as we angle toward Faribault near Cannon City, I spot an autumn-themed display of pumpkins, corn shocks, a scarecrow and flowers. It’s worthy of a photo. As I compose an image, I hear the bark of a dog, a bark that promptly scares me back to the car.

An autumn scene near Cannon City.

As we pull into town, we stop at Trump’s Apple Orchard. And while Randy is helping a customer who is having car trouble, I scan the tables of apples, admire the pumpkins and gourds, and then tell co-owner Todd Trump that I would like SweeTango® apples. I think I’ve got him, but the joke is on me. He steps away and returns with a SweeTango®, the newest apple developed by the University of Minnesota. He hands me a slice.

His orchard should have the variety, which is a cross between Honeycrisp and Zestar, available for sale next year, Todd says.

He likes the taste and the crunchiness (something customers prefer in an apple), Todd tells me. I’m no apple connoisseur, so I can’t distinguish the uniqueness of SweeTango®. But I agree with Todd. This is one crisp apple.

Trump's Orchard apples

Trump's sells apple and other homemade pies from Trinity Lutheran Church in Faribault.

Gourds at Trump's

Pumpkins at Trump's Orchard

A stone’s throw down the road, Randy and I stop at Twiefhoff Gardens for fresh potatoes. While Randy gathers spuds, I aim my camera at colorful squash, pumpkins, gourds and Indian corn.

Indian corn at Twiehoff Gardens

Squash, mini pumpkins and gourds at Twiehoff's.

The bright oranges and yellows speak of autumn, of harvest from the earth, of meandering country roads, of trails taken by the adventuresome, and the not-so-adventuresome.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Nothing like cheery packaging to brighten your mood.

THIS SEEMS RATHER PATHETIC. But yesterday I purchased three boxes of Kleenex® brand tissue based on the cheery packaging. No subdued decorator colors for me. Rather, I chose a box dotted with vivid hues of pink, green, yellow, orange, purple and blue. The other two boxes were imprinted with happy monkeys romping in a jungle of funky flowers.

These colors complement none of the décor in my home, except my daughters’ vacated lavender bedroom with the green closet doors. And I don’t even need tissues in that room.

So, why then, would I opt for these “look-at-me-I’m-a-Kleenex®-box” designs?

If you live in Minnesota, you would understand. For the past week, we have resided in a state of dreary gray skies, premature snowfall and cold.

I am sick of this weather. Already.

Give me sunshine and warmth, not clouds and freezing temperatures. My mood seems to match the weather, and that worries me. Months of cold and snow and gloom loom ahead. Five months more of this stuff, minimum, I figure.

Not everyone, I realize, feels as I do. Take the guy I saw jogging last night, in the dark, at 7:45, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt in 35-degree temperatures. Was he crazy? I thought so.

Or am I the crazy one, buying boxes of brightly-colored Kleenex® brand tissues to lift my spirits?

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Baby, the model Yorkyshire

Baby shows off for the camera and does a sort of frenzied dance.

THIS LOOKS LIKE the type of dog Paris Hilton would carry in her purse.

She’s petite, fashionable, cute and a bit of a show-off. The dog, I mean, although those adjectives certainly describe Paris as well.

But this fashion conscious, chic Yorkyshire resides far from hip Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Baby lives in Faribault, Minn., where I saw her strolling recently along Central Avenue on our first really cold autumn evening.

Typically, dogs don’t draw a second look from me. But Baby, well, who could miss her strutting her stuff in a cotton candy pink turtleneck?

One-year-old Baby posed nicely for my camera, until she apparently decided she’d had enough. I don’t know for certain, but I expect she was tired of the paparazzi hounding her.

Enough of this already, Baby indicates as she turns away from the camera after an impromptu photo shoot.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Historical artist David Geister painted the new cover art for The Black Angels, reprinted by Mankato-based Minnesota Heritage Publishing.

THE OLDER I GET, the more appreciative I become of history. Funny how that happens.

With that said, I direct you to a historical novel, The Black Angels, first published in 1926 and now reprinted in a limited edition by Mankato-based Minnesota Heritage Publishing. See www.mnheritage.com

This Saturday, Oct. 17, the re-release of Mankato author Maud Hart Lovelace’s The Black Angels will be celebrated at the Betsy-Tacy houses, 332 and 333 Center Street in Mankato. Lovelace is best known for her Betsy-Tacy book series. See my blog, “Betsy-Tacy books debut as Modern Classics,” posted Sept. 29 on Minnesota Prairie Roots.

Now, I have not yet read The Black Angels, so I am going on good faith that this historical novel will match my expectations for a quality book by one of my favorite Minnesota authors. Set in fictional Cloudman (Mankato), Minn., in the days before the Civil War, this novel tells the story of a traveling opera troupe. Lovelace bases the troupe on the Andrews Opera Company, which performed throughout the Midwest in the mid to late 1800s. The Andrews family, at one time, lived near Mankato. Lovelace also patterns one of the characters after her Uncle Frank, who left home and for awhile joined an opera troupe.

You can learn more about the book by attending Saturday’s book release party from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. The event includes a Black Angels vignette at 1 p.m. Historical artist David Geister of Minneapolis, who painted the cover for the reprint edition, will be signing books. See www.davidgeister.com.

Adding to the festivities will be the burning of the mortgage for the Betsy-Tacy houses. The Betsy-Tacy Society owns the childhood homes of Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy in the book series) and her friend, Frances “Bick” Kenney (Tacy in the books). For more information, go to www.betsy-tacysociety.org.

This dust jacket graced the third printing of The Black Angels by Grosset & Dunlap of New York in 1926. The artist is unknown. The John Day Company first published the book, also in 1926 , with a plain yellow calico cloth cover.

Thanks to Julie A. Schrader of Minnesota Heritage Publishing for sharing the book cover images with Minnesota Prairie Roots readers.