NOT FAR FROM THE CHURCH, bannered in the window of a downtown Red Wing business, I spotted uplifting signage: you are valued. you are enough. you are worthy. you are loved. I always appreciate such positive public postings of care and affirmation.
And then, just up the street across from the public library and a small park, I noticed rows of fake tombstones placed upon a corner of the Christ Episcopal Church yard. From a distance, I thought this to be part of a Halloween display. But when I got closer, I realized I was looking at something far scarier. This was a memorial to the 24 Minnesotans who died as a result of domestic violence in 2024. It also honors three others whose deaths are called “suspicious,” with many details yet unknown, but enough to be included in the Violence Free Minnesota “We Remember 2024 Report.”
It is sobering and sad to stand on a busy street corner in the heart of a beautiful Mississippi River town in southern Minnesota on a lovely October morning and ponder these lives lost. Yet, this needs to be known, to be publicly shared, especially now during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Hope Coalition, an advocacy and support organization for domestic abuse survivors and their families in Goodhue and Wabasha counties, placed this temporary graveyard against the backdrop of the impressive 1871 stone church with a mission of “Serving God. Serving our Community.”
As I paused, I felt the power of this public display revealed in photos, ages and dates. To place the faces of domestic violence victims upon fake tombstones personalizes the crime. You can’t look at those photos without understanding that these were individuals who were valued and loved.
Center front were the images of three men, all killed while responding to a 911 call regarding an alleged sexual assault in Burnsville on February 18, 2024. Shot to death were Burnsville police officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and paramedic/firefighter Adam Finseth, 40. It was a high profile case as were the murders of four in Duluth on November 7, 2024. Kathryn “Kat” Ramsland, 45, and her son, Oliver Nephew, 7, and Erin Abramson, 47, and her son, Jacob Nephew, 15, were shot and killed in their homes in a case of domestic violence.
Those who died due to domestic violence in Minnesota in 2024 come from all areas of the state. Rural. Suburban. Urban. This crime knows no geographical or economic boundaries, no age limits, no educational or job status… Each life lost means someone, some family, is grieving.
That includes in Red Wing, the very city where I stood in the churchyard viewing the photos on tombstones. Andrea “Drea” Broyld, 41, who worked at a local coffee shop, was shot and killed inside her Red Wing home on November 17, 2024. The suspected shooter has been charged with second-degree murder. As the anniversary of Andrea’s death approaches, I expect a wave of grief will sweep across the community as people remember the nice young woman who wrote encouraging notes on coffee cups.
We should all encourage one another, in life in general, but especially in cases of domestic abuse and violence where listening and support are essential. If something doesn’t look or feel or seem right, it likely isn’t. Trust your gut. That’s a starting point. So is awareness. And seeking professional help.
While I never expected to happen upon a “We Remember 2024” display in a churchyard, I’m grateful I did. Photographing this gives me the opportunity to raise awareness about domestic abuse and violence. And it gives me the opportunity, too, to repeat these words: you are valued. you are enough. you are worthy. you are loved.
FYI: Click here to reach Violence Free Minnesota and the “We Remember 2024” report. This features the photos, stories and other information about those killed in acts of domestic violence last year. To learn more about Hope Coalition, click here. And to learn about Christ Episcopal Church in Red Wing and some of the great work they do in the community, click here.
If you, or someone you know, is being abused (whether physically, psychologically, mentally, financially or otherwise), please seek help. Call 911 if you feel threatened and/or your life is in danger.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Protesting in Minnesota October 19, 2025
Tags: America, commentary, democracy, First Amendment rights, freedom, Minnesota, NO KINGS protest, Northfield, peaceful protest, rally
I AM AN AMERICAN, a Minnesotan, a resident of Rice County and the city of Faribault. I am a writer, photographer, blogger, poet. I am a wife, mother, grandmother. And I am also a protester.
On Saturday I joined millions across the country and world participating in NO KINGS rallies in my fourth protest since June 14. I care about America. I love America. But I don’t like what’s happening here under the Trump administration, which is eroding our democracy and taking, or attempting to take, away our rights, freedoms and, oh, so much more by authoritarian rule, force, threats, retribution, control, manipulation…
I refuse to remain silent at a time such as this. So I exercised my rights to free speech and freedom of peaceful assembly under the First Amendment to the Constitution by participating in a protest in neighboring Northfield along with a thousand or more others. We packed Ames Park along the Cannon River and lined the east side of Minnesota State Highway 3 for a block to listen to speakers, to share our concerns, to hold protest signs high, to hear plans of action, to sing and pray and reflect, and to engage in conversation.
At times throughout the 1 ½-hour event, I protested next to a Vietnam War veteran, a mechanic, a retired professor of Spanish and Latin American literature (also a poet), a retired college office employee, a retired engineer, a retired elementary school teacher… I also mingled among countless others there for the same reason—to protest. To express our concerns about healthcare, education, the economy, immigration, due process, freedom of speech, a free press, free and fair elections, government funding cuts, the presence of military in our cities, the balance of power, the judiciary, the overreach of power, clean energy… The list goes on and on.
I saw a baby strapped to his/her mom. Kids on shoulders. Kids with signs. Young people of high school age and early adulthood. Those in their middle years. Those in their sixties, like me. And those even older, some probably pushing ninety. The turn-out for this protest was even bigger and more diverse age-wise than the one in June in Northfield on the date Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Doug, were assassinated.
To be among this group of peacefully protesting concerned Americans during the NO KINGS rally felt empowering. Uplifting. We were unified in our movement, even as one speaker pointed out that we may not agree on everything. Another termed what’s unfolding in America today as not “normal.” It is not, and should not be, normal. Ever.
Support from motorists passing by was overwhelmingly positive with honking horns and waves. Of course, we got a few middle fingers and intentionally roaring, racing vehicles. Only once did I feel unsafe—when a car sped by at a dangerously high speed, the driver clearly attempting to antagonize and threaten us. That was the only overt hatred I witnessed.
Those of us peacefully gathered did not, as some Republican politicians adamantly and wrongly stated, come because we hate America. Far from it. We love America. That was clear in the peaceful tone of the event, in American flags waving, in recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, in singing of the national anthem, in signage, in our desire to uphold the Constitution, in our genuinely deep concern about the state of our country under President Donald Trump. In our voices rising. Loud. And free.
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© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling