THIS TIME OF YEAR in Minnesota, we not only usher in autumn but also the season of fall craft, collectible, vintage and antique sales. This past weekend, two women in the unincorporated hamlet of Cannon City just east of Faribault hosted two occasional seasonal sales.
Both were marketed as barn sales—Nicole Maloney’s Mini Flea at the Red Barn and Debbie Glende’s The Barn Sale.
I shopped at both, located across the road from one another along Rice County Road 20/Cannon City Boulevard. I’ve been to Glende’s several times, but never Maloney’s although she’s sold goods in her yard and a small shed for some 10 years. Somehow I missed her market.
But you can’t miss the massive weathered red barn which rises above her rural property. It was the first building I noticed upon pulling into the yard. And it is the reason, says Maloney, she opens her place once a year to sell her finds. Monies raised from the sale are going toward reshingling the barn. I expressed my gratitude to her for saving her barn when so many others are falling into heaps of rotting wood.
I also complimented Maloney on her artful displays of merchandise. I could see she has an eye for design. I was not surprised that she holds an interior design degree, although she doesn’t work in the field. The annual sale allows her to use her design skills to create inviting displays.
As I wandered about the yard, I saw separate groupings of items themed to rustic cabin/farmhouse, Halloween, Christmas, nautical and more. And sometimes I observed simply a hodge podge of goods, including furniture. All of it, though, seemed deliberately staged to appeal to shoppers.
Across the road at Glende’s sale in her small (compared to Maloney’s) red barn, shoppers circled inside the building to view an eclectic array of merchandise cramming shelves and tables, hanging from walls, sitting on the floor. From my non-merchandising perspective, it looks like a lot of work to artfully arrange and showcase all those goods.
Like her neighbor, Glende’s merchandise was heavy on Halloween and autumn themes. As it should be for a sale held the last weekend in September. She also holds sales in December and again in the spring. But my eye was drawn to a large vintage sign promoting beef sirloin steak for $1.50. I don’t know if that was per steak or per pound, but a bargain either way.
Outside the small red barn, shoppers found plenty of piles of stuff. Junk to some. Treasures to others.
Sales like these appeal to me also because the sellers are attempting to extend the lives of whatever rather than tossing something into the garbage to end up in a landfill. It’s a win-win for everyone.
I seldom buy anything at these sales because, at this age in my life, I don’t need more stuff. Even if I see a lot of items that I would really really like to have. Such as a vintage lamp in Glende’s yard. And a small round side table in Maloney’s.
Instead, I settled for photographing these two barn sales, which attract many, bring back memories and prove a delightful way to spend a bit of time on a stunning autumn day in southern Minnesota.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
The stories of two Marthas September 19, 2025
Tags: Ariel Lawhon, books, Buckham Memorial Library, Cambodia, Camodian Genocide, commentary, Faribault, healing, historical fiction, history, Martha Ballard, Martha Brown, Minnesota, The Frozen River
HISTORY CONNECTS THE STORIES of the two Marthas. One, Martha Ballard, a midwife and the main character in a book of historical fiction, The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. The second Martha is Martha Brown, local author, educator, speaker, musician and political candidate for state representative in my district. She shared her personal reflections about a trip to Cambodia on Thursday evening at the Faribault library in a presentation titled “Cambodia—Healing a Broken County.”
I’d just finished reading Lawhon’s book earlier Thursday so the commonalities between a story set in the late 1700s in postrevolutionary America and Brown’s recent trip to Cambodia connected in my mind. In both stories exist violence, trauma, strength, power and resilience within an historical context.
THE CAMBODIAN GENOCIDE
I’ll start with Brown. She focused on the time before and after the 1975-1979 Cambodian Genocide in which some 2 million Cambodians were murdered under the rule of Khmer Rouge, the Communist political party then in power. She also touched on the illegal and secret bombings of Cambodia by the U.S. in 1969 against North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia. That, too, claimed untold civilian lives.
I don’t want to get into historical details here or a political discussion about the Vietnam War. Rather, I intend the focus to be on those who suffered in Cambodia and those who survived. Just as Brown focused her hour-long talk. She arrived in Cambodia expecting to see trauma from the genocide. But instead, she said, she found recovery, healing and joy. She saw survivors of the genocide as part of the healing.
A HORRIFIC HISTORY NOT HIDDEN
The history of the genocide has not been hidden nor erased in Cambodia. “They don’t bury their history,” Brown said. I jotted that quote in my notebook, mentally connecting that to current day America and ongoing efforts by the current administration to erase/hide/rewrite history. We all know the quote—”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”—by Spanish Philosopher George Santayana. We would do well to contemplate and hold those words close.
In her presentation, Brown did not avoid the hard topics of children recruited and indoctrinated to participate in the Cambodian Genocide killings of educators, doctors, ordinary people, even those who wore eyeglasses. Perpetrators were never punished, went back to their lives, now live among the population. This was hard stuff to hear, especially about the brainwashing of children to kill. “We need to teach our children well,” said Brown, ever the educator who cares deeply about children.
LESSONS LEARNED IN CAMBODIA
Her passion was evident as she spoke of hugging survivors, of apologizing for the U.S. bombings of Cambodia, of crying while in the southeast Asian country. She learned that how you live and treat people is more important than wealth. She learned that people can be poor and still be happy. She learned about the differences in a society that focuses on community rather than self.
When Brown’s talk ended, others shared and a few of us asked questions, including me. Mine was too political to answer in a non-political presentation. But I asked anyway about the internal and external factors contributing to the rise and fall of empires. Brown hesitated, saying only that we could draw our own conclusions from her talk.
A MUST-READ BOOK
Then I wrote “The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon” on a slip of paper. Not to give to Brown, but rather to the local director of Hope Center serving survivors and victims of sexual assault and domestic violence and their families. I handed the paper to Erica Staab-Absher after hugging her. “You need to read this book,” I said.
In this book of historical fiction, the author bases her writing on real-life midwife Martha Ballard, who documented her life in a journal. Ballard was witness to violence, sexual assault, injustices, secrets, manipulation, power, trauma and much more. This book will resonate with anyone who has survived a sexual assault or cared about someone who has been so viciously attacked. I cannot say enough about the value of reading this book and how empowering it was to me as a woman. It is a love story, mystery and a documentation of strength and resilience.
Resilience. Strength. Healing. Those three words come to mind as I connect the work of a New York Times bestselling author and a talk about the Cambodian Genocide at my southern Minnesota library. By reading and listening, I learned. To read a book pulled from the shelves at my public library and then to listen to personal reflections about a trip to Cambodia on the second floor of that same library are freedoms I no longer take for granted. Not today. I choose to remember and learn from the past. And hope we do not repeat it.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling