Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photographing a mission festival near Janesville August 9, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:57 AM
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WHEN I PHOTOGRAPH an event such as the mission festival last Sunday at Marquardt’s Grove, rural Janesville, I slip into my sleuth persona. Hey, I read Nancy Drew mysteries as a young girl, what can I say?

The overall scene at Sunday’s mission fest, looking toward the stage and worship areas.

Perhaps it’s not as much sleuthing as observing which, I suppose, is the essential component of good detective work. First I’ll view the big picture, the overall scene. And then I’ll begin to break it down, to notice the details.

It takes concentration, effort, and an ability to understand the smaller parts which, pieced together, comprise the whole.

This I do all the while also trying to remember what I am hearing and the general mood of the setting. It is not easy because I sometimes become so zoned in on shooting images that I shut down my other senses.

The other challenge comes in being respectful to those attending such events. On Sunday I was especially concerned about that given this was a worship service. I think, I hope, that after awhile worshipers no longer noticed me slinking around trees, weaving my way past temporary plank pews or pointing my camera down at their hands and toward their faces.

Yes, I expect observers sometimes wonder what exactly I am photographing. Digital photography has unleashed my creativity. I aim to tell a story with my photos, to take you there, to show you the details that make life especially interesting.

Here then are some of my detailed photos—the ones you likely would not think of taking—from the mission festival of Freedom and Wilton Lutheran churches.

The first detail: the sign on the front steps of Freedom Church about a mile from the mission site in Marquardt’s Grove.

The jacks, as they are termed, which hold the planks in place, have been used for some 60 years. The planks, for the “pews,” are borrowed from a local lumberyard and then returned after the mission festival.

Sharlou Quiram measured the makeshift altar before crafting a cross design quilt of satins, velvets and brocades nearly 10 years ago. It hides the altar, “a bunch of really old board nailed together,” says Len Marquardt, and in use for 60 years. Flowers come from parishioners’ gardens, patios, decks, yards.

When I took this photo of the choir, I was aiming to emphasize the outdoor setting in the woods.

Vintage pocket-size songbooks were boxed and stashed on the stage behind the Freedom Band. The first hymn of the day was “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.” At the end of the service these books, which have been used for decades, were collected.

Some of the music used by the Freedom Band was transposed decades ago from a hymnal.

Ava, 15 months, hangs out at the pop and candy stand with her dad, Ben.

A 12-volt battery and converter amplifier powered the speaker system for the worship service.

Desserts, including coveted homemade blueberry pie, and an abundance of main dishes and salads lined makeshift tables (boards supported by sawhorses) at the potluck following the worship service.

Enjoying the potluck dinner in Marquardt’s Grove while diners wait in line to dish up food. The vivid colors, the contrast of neon orange and hot pink, caught my visual interest as I captured this photo.

That’s exactly what you think it is, an outhouse in the woods, built from old barn boards. Follow the cow trail and you’re there. The outhouse is meticulously scrubbed every year before the mission fest. The grounds are also cleaned by volunteers who pick up the cow poop and sticks and then mow portions of the pasture as needed. Lynne Holst, wife of guest pastor, the Rev. Dr. Robert Holst, told my husband an interesting story about outhouses. When the Holst family served as missionaries in New Guinea from 1962 – 1968, Pastor Holst asked his wife what she wanted as a birthday gift one year. She thought, then replied, “A new outhouse.” She got her wish.

FYI: Click here to read an earlier blog post about the mission festival.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Pets on parade in Faribault August 8, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:34 AM
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Taco the dog, photographed earlier this summer on a Saturday morning at the Faribault Farmers’ Market in Central Park.

PETS AND KIDS equal cuteness, wouldn’t you agree?

Thursday evening the cuteness combination commands several city streets during my community’s Pet Parade—the 76th annual according to information published by the Faribault Parks & Recreation Department.

The kids and their animals will line up in categories like little dogs, big dogs, rabbits, kittens and cats, unusual pets, farm animals, and, at the tail end, horses, of course.

In between, there will be floats and kids in strollers and on bikes, trikes, scooters, skateboards and roller blades. There will be clowns and costumes and perhaps even chaos in this “It’s a Zoo Around Here!” themed event.

I haven’t been to the Pet Parade in many years, mostly because my kids are all grown up and they were the reason I attended.

We never participated in the parade. Our only pets were goldfish. And I probably never told my three they could walk in the parade without a pet. Sometimes parents are smart like that and don’t share details. Just let the kids think that because they don’t own a cat or dog or snake or some other animal, they must simply watch.

I expect I never told them either about the free freeze pops and music in Central Park after the parade. I don’t know if treats are still part of the parade. But the parade still ends in Central Park. This year’s entertainment features zoo animal dances by girls ages 5 – 9 who participated in a Spirit Team summer camp. More cuteness, for sure.

The Pet Parade mural installed on the Central Park band shell.

Central Park is also the site of an artistic tribute to Faribault’s long-running Pet Parade. In May the Mural Society of Faribault installed a Pet Parade mural on the park’s historic band shell, making it the seventh mural the group has placed in Faribault.

Lots of dogs on the left side of the mural…

The artwork definitely possesses that cuteness factor although I wish a few animals besides dogs were featured in the mural.

And what about that date, “since 1939?”

Lots of dogs and that 1939 date on the right side of the mural.

If that date is right, then the 2012 Pet Parade would not be the 76th, but the 73rd annual. Correct? I’m not really all that good at math. And, yes, my kids know that.

FYI: The Pet Parade begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday, August 9, at Ninth Street Northwest and Second Avenue Northwest, proceeds south on Second Avenue, turns west on Fifth Street and ends in Central Park.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

In southern Minnesota: “An old-time mission festival out in the woods” August 7, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:45 AM
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A sign marks the mission festival site at Marquardt’s Grove where cattle gates to the pasture are opened to allow entry. That’s the dry bed of Bull Run Creek on the left.

AT 8 A.M. SUNDAY, Harold Krienke swung his truck into Marquardt’s Grove some 10 miles south of Janesville to help set up for the annual mission festival in the woods near his country church, Immanuel Lutheran.

It was then he spotted the large black cat with the long tail edging dried up Bull Run Creek some 100 feet from the site where worshipers would gather 2 ½ hours later. “It wasn’t a house cat,” Krienke laughs. The cat—perhaps a panther, some speculate—didn’t scare him; it had been seen previously in the area.

Krienke’s animal encounter certainly wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last, at this mission festival held for the past 75 years in a five-acre wooded section of a 70-acre pasture where cattle still graze days before the event. Last year several head of cattle busted through an electric fence and charged across the creek toward the worship site. Another time horses caused a bit of trouble. No harm done, though, as the wayward animals were chased away.

Len Marquardt, who owns the woodlot and pasture, previously owned by his father, Alfred, and Alfred’s father, Gustav, before him, takes it all in stride. A few wandering animals won’t stop him from continuing the tradition of three generations of his family hosting the long-time festival of Freedom Church, as it is commonly known (referencing its location in Freedom Township), and the past two years in conjunction with Trinity Lutheran Church, Wilton Township, also known as the Wilton Church.

An overview of the worship site with the Freedom Band seated on the stage and the audience seated on plank benches and lawn chairs on the hillside. Freedom and Trinity Pastor Glenn Korb is standing at the makeshift altar.

Len’s heart and soul are committed to what he defines as “an old-time mission festival out in the woods.”

That definition seems apt for this event which, many Freedom members estimate, has been ongoing for a century. In the early days, area farmers took turns hosting the annual summer mission festival. The outdoor worship service has always been held around the same time of year, initially chosen, Len says, because the wheat harvest would have just been completed and farmers would have had more money to donate to the church.

Offerings are collected in ice cream buckets at the mission festival.

Money, though, has never been the focus of the festival although a collection is taken. Rather, the purpose is to “help people to focus on missions,” says Len, who several years ago accompanied his daughter, Julie, and others on a mission trip to Nicaragua. It changed him and he now takes personally the words “Here am I, send me” from the hymn “Hark! the Voice of Jesus Crying.” Julie, now a third-year student at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska, followed up with a mission trip to Hong Kong and is now considering a career as a missionary.

“I think we need to be a church in mission,” Len says as he explains the purpose of the mission fest on his family’s property. The natural setting of farm fields, open pasture and woods, with a cool breeze stirring oak leaves and raising goosebumps on Sunday morning, connected worshipers to the message delivered by the Rev. Dr. Robert Holst, retired president of Concordia University, St. Paul, and a former missionary to Papua, New Guinea.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Holst delivered a message on missions and afterward answered questions about his missionary service in New Guinea. Len Marquardt says the congregation has never had trouble finding a guest pastor as they savor participating in an “old-time mission festival out in the woods.”

As Rev. Holst spoke of his experiences in his sermon, “Global Missions: International Love,” worshipers, sitting among the trees, could easily imagine the primitive ways of the New Guinea people, their belief in spirits, their sacrifice of pigs, their mistrust and misunderstandings and lack of knowledge about God and the challenges the pastor faced in telling them about Christ.

Foreign missions seemed as close as a thought away for attendees like Jeanette Schoenfeld of Wilton Church who enjoys the mission fest because, she says, “It’s like they do in Africa,” worshiping outdoors.

Baby Jaci sits with her dad, Mike, and brother, Bales, during the worship service.

Len Marquardt and others, including his sister, Sally Hodge, appreciate, too, the traditions they are passing from family to family through generations of mission festivals. As Sally samples a vinegary, potato-green bean dish prepared for the mission fest potluck, she glances back to kids racing up the wooded hillside. “I remember tromping up the hills, tromping up the trails, building wood forts…talk about history and family and pleasure in knowing each other…” Sally says as she glances across the table at friend and fellow parishioner Davin Quiram.

All ages, and several generations of families, attended the mission fest on Sunday.

Sally Hodge sings in the choir and usually plays in the band. But this year she didn’t make the practices so was unable to join the Freedom Band. She lives just up the hill from Marquardt’s Grove and grew up on the other side of “just up the hill.”

Davin, like Sally a life-long member of Freedom, concurs as the two reminisce and remember the rare treat of soda pop from the mission fest pop and candy stand, which Davin will later man. The friends don’t recall specific mission speakers or messages from their childhood days, only those racing through the woods and gulping pop memories.

Davin, though, is quick to rattle off the areas of ministry covered by mission speakers in the past 10 years: American Indians, Hispanic, college, Japanese and such.

An elderly man turns to a hymn in the old pocket-size songbook that’s been used for decades.

While guest speakers change from year to year, the music remains constant with worshipers singing hymns from the pocket-size Mission Hymns Suitable for Mission Festivals and Similar Gatherings (out of print for 80 years).

Likewise, the Freedom Band, the church band comprised of Freedom members and others from the area and in existence for an estimated 80 years, uses the same familiar music books such as The Church Band Book—Choral Melodies of the Lutheran church for Military Band by A. Grimm, published in 1919 by Antigo Publishing Co., and a handwritten book of music transposed from a hymnal for the band.

The Freedom Band and some of its handwritten music.

The Freedom Band has always played at the mission fest and other area mission events in years gone by. At any time, 5 – 7 members of Sally’s family, the Marquardts, may be playing in the band—all on the trumpet but for one on the sax.

Gemma Lin returned to the mission fest, one year after her baptism there in 2011.

Part of mission fest also includes the occasional outdoor baptism. Sally’s father, Alfred, born in 1911, was baptized at the Freedom Mission Festival. Last year, a century later, two-month-old Gemma Lin of Mankato was baptized in Marquardt’s Grove and her great uncle was baptized the night before at Freedom Church. Aleta Lin, Gemma’s mom, treasures her daughter’s unique baptism and the story of that baptism which will always be a part of family history. She hopes Gemma will, through the years, continue to attend mission fest, a life-long tradition for Aleta, a life-long member of Freedom Church.

A bible lies on the floor of the stage where the band played and the preachers preached.

For those outside of Freedom, memories of past mission fests also come quickly. Such festivals were once a staple among rural congregations as a time to worship God in the outdoors, to socialize afterward at a potluck dinner and even meet future spouses.

Worshipers line up for a potluck dinner after the worship service.

Guest pastor Holst opened his message by reminiscing about the mission fests of his youth, recalling the washtubs full of soda pop—root beer, 7-UP and Orange Crush—set out by the youth group. He also remembered the ball games between fathers and children.

On Sunday there were no ball games or kids racing for a rare treat of pop. But plenty of kids—from babies to teens—settled onto temporary wood plank benches and lawn chairs or upon blankets or in car seats on the same ground in Marquardt’s Grove that has, for generations, served as an outdoor house of worship on one Sunday in August.

The vintage mini songbook lying on planks and the mission site in the background.

FYI: Check back for an additional post featuring mission fest photos and for a separate photo essay of Freedom Church.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

For the love of reading: Faribault’s east side now home to a little library August 6, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:18 AM
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Pat Rice’s little library, right, installed about a month ago in her front yard, 713 Ravine Street, Faribault.

PAT RICE LOVES TO READ. That passion, short and simple, inspired this retired audiologist to recently install a little library in her front yard on Faribault’s east side.

Hers is among four little libraries—one officially registered as a Little Free Library—now gracing neighborhoods in my community.

The little library seems a natural outreach for this woman who reads 100-plus books a year, belongs to a local book club, accepts donations for the American Association of University Women, Faribault chapter’s annual book sale, and serves on the Buckham Memorial Library Advisory Board.

The Smiths’ Little Free Library, located in their yard at 825 Sixth Ave. SW.

It was her connection with another library board member, Joan Smith, that led to the establishment of Faribault’s first Little Free Library last fall. Pat read an article about a little library and passed the story along to Joan whose husband, Dale, crafts elaborate birdhouses. Dale adapted his birdhouse pattern and built a little library which is posted on a corner of the Smiths’ southwest Faribault front yard. It’s open 24/7 to anyone who wants to take and/or leave a book.

And now, thanks to Dale’s efforts, Pat has a near-duplicate little library in her front yard at 713 Ravine Street.

The books recently stashed in Pat’s little library.

She’s stocked it with mostly a variety of paperbacks (adults tends to favor romances and mysteries, she says), several cookbooks and some children’s books. Pat plans to add more children’s books, even though few kids live in her neighborhood.

But she enjoys children’s books. “I love the illustrations,” says this long-time reader who remembers, as a four-year-old, stretching on her tiptoes to print her name on her first library card at the Camden Library in Minneapolis. That marked a memorable moment for a preschooler whose family had no extra money for books. Acquiring that orange library card—yes she remembers the color—allowed her access to thousands of books, fostering a life-long love of reading.

To this day, Pat still appreciates, and buys, children’s books. She has a little library full of them in the upstairs of her stately brick home. That stash includes a collection of 40 ABC themed titles. Among her favorites are the books of Grand Marais author and illustrator Betsy Bowen who specializes in woodblock prints.

Whenever Pat needs a baby gift, she gives a book.

There’s no doubting this woman’s passion for books. She doesn’t have a television, at least not one that’s plugged in. “I would rather read,” says Pat. She counts Jan Karon, Thomas Gifford and Minnesotan John Sanford among her favorite writers. On a recent 20-hour trip to Virginia, she and a friend listened to four books on audio.

Dale Smith built Pat’s little library, which is open to anyone. Pick up or drop off a book if you’re walking or driving by.

Now she’s hoping the little library in her front yard will encourage others to read due its easy accessibility. “I think there’s a lot of people who don’t use libraries,” Pat says. She cites a story shared by Dale Smith about a man who chose a Zane Grey book from the Smiths’ Little Free Library. It was the first book the man had read in 40 years.

For a voracious reader like Pat, that’s encouraging and reaffirms her reasons for establishing a little library in her east Faribault neighborhood.

#

FYI: I plan to scout out the other little libraries in Faribault and post about them in addition to updating you on the LFL installed in my hometown of Vesta a month ago by Todd Bol, co-founder of the Little Free Library project.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering the quotes of 35W bridge collapse survivor Garrett Ebling August 4, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:39 AM
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YOU’VE LIKELY SEEN HIM on the news this week, perhaps read about him in a newspaper article. He would be Garrett Ebling, survivor of the 35W bridge collapse.

I’ve never met Garrett, although we have communicated, first after my son was struck by a hit-and-run driver near my Faribault home in May of 2006. Garrett was managing editor of The Faribault Daily News then and showed such compassion and concern for my son and our family.

The following year, not long after the bridge collapse, Garrett and I would reconnect. This time I was on the other end, offering him compassion, concern and prayers as he battled to recover from severe injuries sustained when his car plunged from the bridge into the Mississippi River.

His fortitude impressed me then and still does.

Shortly after, I asked Garrett if he would share his experiences and thoughts with me for a magazine article. He agreed, granting me one of only a few interview requests he accepted. The result was a feature story which published in the November/December 2007 issue of Minnesota Moments. Garrett answered my questions via email given his jaw was wired shut or had recently been unwired, I can’t recall now which. That interview process worked best given his tenuous physical and emotional condition.

The story also included information and quotes from phone interviews with his rescuer, Rick Kraft of St. Paul, and his fiancee, Sonja Birkeland, to whom he’d proposed only four days before the bridge collapse. (They married on August 3, 2008, one year and two days after the bridge collapse and now have a young son, Cooper.)

Garrett’s responses to my long list of questions showed me his incredible strength, determination and positive attitude. He shared his excitement after he stood for the first time in these words:

This morning I stood up—STOOD UP—for the first time since the accident. I was so excited I screamed to my therapist: “Monica, look! I’m standing! I can’t believe it!” But with my jaw wired shut it sounded like “”Wonka, ook! Aye andin! Aye ant eave it!” For a brief moment I didn’t care that I’m muzzled.

Sir Edmund Hillary—the first person to climb Mount Everest—once said “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” When this is all said and done, I will be standing—STANDING—at the top of the mountain.

But I will not have conquered the bridge. Rather, I will have bested the uncomfortability, the uncertainty, the pain. I will have realized from which the depths I can rise up.

It’s the top of the mountain that puts us closest to heaven.

That last sentence, particularly, has stuck with me through the years. This week I worked the quote into a poem I submitted to The Minneapolis StarTribune which issued a call to readers for 35W poems. Mine, “Quotes from a survivor,” was accepted for online publication and was also published in the Variety section of the August 4 print edition. You will find it, and several other poems, by clicking here. Poems were limited to 35 words.

Garrett, the former journalist and now a small business owner of a sandwich shop, recently published a book, Collapsed: A Survivor’s Climb From the Wreckage of the 35W Bridge. Notice that use, again, of the word “climb.”

I have not yet gotten a copy of Garrett’s book. But I expect inspiring words from this man who has overcome seemingly insurmountable physical and emotional obstacles during his climb to the mountaintop.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A fairy tale park in New Ulm August 3, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:32 AM
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An overview of German Park in New Ulm, photographed last Saturday.

IF A PARK COULD BE WRITTEN into a fairy tale, then German Park in New Ulm certainly would serve as an ideal setting for a happily-ever-after story.

Descend the hillside steps into this picturesque park near New Ulm’s downtown business district, and you walk into an enchanting world of flowers and foliage, fountain and photographic opportunities.

I kept my distance from the bridal couple and their families.

However, on the Saturday of my visit, the happily-ever-after part of this story limited my photo ops. Not that I wasn’t tempted to write my own twists into the plot unfolding before me. But I figured the main characters, the bride-to-be and her groom being photographed here, would not appreciate me wedging my way into their storybook wedding day.

Columns add interest and a poetic quality to German Park.

So I skirted the edges of German Park, admiring the flowers and the fountain at a distance. I weaved among the columns, appreciating the beauty and charm of this place, all the while wishing I could photograph freely.

I kept a respectful distance in this, my closest shot of the bridal couple and their families.

At one point a nervous grandma hurried over to snatch up a camera bag as I approached with my camera bag hugging my hip, my Canon EOS 20D looped by a strap around my neck. I wanted to advise her that I wasn’t about to spoil the story, to wind my way up the path toward the happy wedding couple like a wily, wicked witch.

THE END

OK, I was a wee bit sneaky in including the bridal couple in this frame. But I liked how the  words tranquility, blessings and ordain from the Preamble to the Constitution seemed to fit the occasion.

One of numerous pavers which enlighten visitors about New Ulm, here the Hermann Monument.

This column informed me of something I never knew, that a deadly tornado ravaged the city on July 15, 1881. That event raised an awareness of the need for a local hospital.

FYI: To learn about the New Ulm tornado of 1881, click here to read an account published in the Saint Paul Daily Globe.

Click here to learn more about the history of New Ulm Medical Center.

Finally, click here to read an earlier blog post about New Ulm’s Goosetown.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Discovering New Ulm’s Goosetown, across the tracks and down by the river August 2, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:44 AM
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DISCOVERING SOMETHING totally unexpected rates, for me, as the plum, the prize, the most interesting aspect of travel.

And you needn’t journey far to find these places. Last Saturday while driving to southwestern Minnesota, my husband and I stopped in New Ulm because I wanted to see the Defenders and German-Bohemian historical monuments. Well, we never did get to the Defenders marker.

The German-Bohemian sculpture and marker in German Park.

But we eventually got directions for and located the immigrant sculpture overlooking scenic German Park. As lovely and manicured as that park is, and I’ll share photos in a future post, it was not the highlight of our visit.

Rather, it was Goosetown which captured my fancy.

We drove across the railroad tracks and past the old Valley Grain Co. to reach Goosetown.

Goosetown is that side of New Ulm—across the tracks and down by the river—where mostly Catholic German-Bohemian immigrants began settling in the late 1800s. They were primarily farmers or retired farmers, of peasant stock. And they kept geese, which wandered and fed along the banks of the Minnesota River.

Goosetown residents worked at the local roller mills, including the Eagle Roller Mill. That mill and the New Ulm Roller Mill once made New Ulm the third largest milling center in Minnesota. The New Ulm flour millers had elevators in three states.

And so the name Goosetown became attached to southeastern New Ulm, specifically to South Front and South Valley streets. The immigrants who lived here labored in nearby roller mills and breweries and worked as carpenters, masons and cigar makers. Women supplemented the family income by making Klöppel lace and/or sewing feather-filled bedding. Families also gathered clam shells from the river for pearl buttons.

At first thought, it all seems rather romantic, this stretch of Gȁnseviertel next to the railroad tracks and river. But I expect life there was hard as families, many of them living in two-room houses, struggled to survive. I also expect, and New Ulmers can correct me if I’m wrong, that this area of town wasn’t always embraced by the community at large. You know that thing about “the other side of the tracks.” Every community seems to have that part of town perceived as less than positive whether due to poverty or people who are different from the majority. Riverside land (and Goosetown is no exception) was once the site of town dumps, which should tell you something, too.

Sisters Amber, 8, and Kiera, 4, pose with Gertie the Goose, a statue donated by Dr. Ann Vogel of New Ulm and located in Riverside Park.

I likely could have learned even more about the history of Goosetown had the Regional River History & Information Center, 101 South Front Street, Riverside Park, been open. The center is housed in the former Franklin School.

Kiera showed me another goose tucked into a flowerbed in front of the river center.

Today New Ulm embraces the heritage of Goosetown with a plaque and statue in Riverside Park. There’s also an occasional Goosetown reunion and Victor “Fezz” Fritsche, leader of the one-time Goosetown Band, was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in 1991.

The logo for the Goosetown Roller Derby Girls who have names like Deutschland Dolly and SoUr Kraut.

Most recently, in January, a flat track roller derby team, Goosetown Roller Girls, was founded.

Goosetown Storage, once the home of Minnesota Seed Company.

A side view of Goosetown Storage, with signage pointing to its original use as the location of Minnesota Seed Company. Anyone know the history of Minnesota Seed?

At least one building is labeled Goosetown Storage and the New Ulm Fire Department has a Goosetown Fire Station next to the train tracks.

Engine House No. 3, commonly known as the Goosetown Fire Station, was established in 1890. The newer station pictured here houses two pumpers. A 47-foot drill tower (not shown here) stands nearby.

Even so, I was unaware of this ethnic treasure until we happened upon Goosetown on Saturday. New Ulm is best known to the touring public as the site of a major battle during the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862; for the August Schell Brewing Co.; the Hermann the German Monument;  the childhood home of author and illustrator Wanda Gag; the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame;  the Glockenspiel; the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity; Way of the Cross stations; the home of Minnesota’s 14th governor, John Lind; and most certainly as a city that features all things German. You can see how historic Goosetown could get lost in that long list of New Ulm attractions.

If you’re like me and appreciate the lesser-known, less touristy aspects of a community, drive across the tracks and down by the river in Anytown. Perhaps you’ll discover a place like Goosetown, rich in heritage and sturdy brick buildings and stories stitched into the land, if only you knew those stories.

FYI: Please check back for more posts from New Ulm.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Goosetown Roller Girls image comes from the team’s website.

 

Scam alert August 1, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 3:16 PM
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HE SPEAKS WITH A STRONG, authoritative voice about life-threatening situations in which you may be unable to summon help.

For a moment, albeit brief, I almost believe him, that the American Heart Association in conjunction with the American Diabetes Association is offering free medical emergency alert equipment to me if only I’ll press “1” on my phone for more information.

But I am smart enough to realize a scam when I hear one. Yet, I can understand, as the recorded message continues, how a vulnerable senior citizen could fall victim to this fraud.

“You’ll never have to feel worried or helpless again,” the convincing voice reassures me.

But be assured, this is a scam, an attempt to defraud consumers, according to a representative I spoke with this afternoon at the American Heart Association.

I asked whether the AHA had issued/would be issuing a news release to warn the public as I’d be happy to share that information on this blog. Not at this time, she said, because the same scam circulated several months ago and had been reported to the FBI. The rep suggested I call local law enforcement. I already had.

Last week I reported the potential scam to the Faribault Police Department. But because I had not been defrauded, I was told the matter would not be investigated and that the call could, indeed, be legitimate.

OK then, are you serious? I emphasized that I was convinced the offer was bogus. That mattered not. I thought I was doing the right thing by alerting police before any local residents became crime victims.

Today, after receiving the same phone call trying to convince me I needed this free medical emergency alert device, I did my own investigating by calling the American Heart Association then following up with a call to the Rice County Attorney’s Office. I am awaiting a return call.

In the meantime, if your phone rings and the caller offers you free medical emergency alert equipment and assures you that “You’ll never have to feel worried or helpless again,” don’t believe it.

Your worries will have just begun.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Let’s study action verbs today

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:20 AM
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I KNOW. I KNOW. You already are thinking you do not want to read this post. After all, you have no interest in grammar or the eight parts of speech.

Or maybe you love language, like me, and wonder what I could possibly teach you.

Perhaps I can’t teach you anything. But I can show you, via a series of photos, how kids define “fun.”

I’ve also labeled each image with an appropriate action verb followed by a definition pulled not from a dictionary or online source, but from my creative brain. Who says some grammar guru can tell me exactly how to define a word?

Twirl: To spin a boy around and around until an adult suggests you stop or the kid may puke up the potluck lunch he just ate at the family reunion.

Swing: To move your arms in such a way as to imitate hitting one out of the ballpark.

Run: To launch or propel one’s body forward at a rapid pace in an effort to get as much candy as possible because, uh, like you want to be the winner and scoop up the most candy.

Grab: To reach out and grasp handfuls of candy as fast as you can.

Hoard: To scoop a large quantity of candy into your hands, protecting your pile with your body, until an adult notices and advises you that you must share.

Gather:  To pick up and fill your hands to overflowing with candy.

Stash: To pull the cap from your head and use it to corral all of the candy you’ve plucked from the grass.

FYI: These images were taken at the Kletscher family reunion held this past weekend at the park in my hometown of Vesta. To read an additional family reunion post with many fun photos, click here.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling