Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A Farm Country Thanksgiving November 24, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:26 AM
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The third book in the Farm Country series.

WHENEVER I OPEN one of Lakeville author Gordon Fredrickson’s books, I feel like I’m stepping back in time to my childhood on a southwestern Minnesota dairy farm.

I’m thankful for Fredrickson, who understands the value in preserving the history of small family farms. Because he was raised on a Scott County dairy farm and farmed for awhile as an adult with his wife, Nancy, Fredrickson gets his 1950s era farm stories right.

Last night I snuggled up in the recliner with his latest children’s picture book, A Farm Country Thanksgiving. I thought it would be a fairly quick read, but I was wrong.

I didn’t whiz through this story told from the viewpoint of 10-year-old farm boy Jimmy. Rather, I savored every rhyming word by Fredrickson and every detailed illustration by Michaelin Otis.

I was the one sledding down the hill. I was the one with snow stuffed down my neck by my older brother. I was pitching silage down the silo chute, eating banana-filled Jell-O, sitting at the kids’ table on Thanksgiving…

If you grew up on a farm in the 1950s and 1960s, you absolutely must read this book and Fredrickson’s other Farm Country series stories about Halloween and Christmas. He’s also published three If I Were a Farmer books.

I guarantee that you will feel all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic and want to dig out the old photo albums or reminisce with your siblings.

I noticed the ear flapper caps, the buckle overshoes, the checkerboard ringed silo (just like the one on my childhood farm), the old runner sled—book illustrations that are as accurate as photographs. The only difference: My albums hold black-and-white snapshots.

Fredrickson captures the essence of family, of hard work, of rural life. He understands that these are worth preserving. But his efforts to save our rural heritage extend beyond his books. This writer travels across Minnesota, and sometimes out of state, presenting his message to school children, senior citizens and others. He dresses the part of a 1950s farmer in bib overalls, brings farm props, talks and reads from his books.

I will tell you too that Fredrickson and his wife, Nancy, are as genuine and kind-hearted and as down-to-earth good as they come. My husband and I lunched with the couple this past summer. Although we had never met before then, having corresponded only via e-mail, I felt as comfortable with the Fredricksons as if I had known them for years. They are truly my kind of without pretenses folks.

 

I snapped this image of the Fredricksons after lunching with them in August.

I must also point out to you that Fredrickson gives me a plug on the back cover of his Thanksgiving book. He has pulled a quote from a book review I wrote. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the praise I am directing toward him here. He has earned his praise by writing these books, complete with glossaries (after I suggested a glossary), that forever preserve life on the family farm.

I thank him for taking on this project with a passion rooted deep in the land.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Book cover image courtesy of Gordon Fredrickson

 

Thoughts on the latest conflict in Korea November 23, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:38 PM
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WHEN I HEARD this morning of the North Korean attack on South Korea over contested waters, I thought instantly of my dad. He fought on the front lines during the Korean War and was wounded at Heartbreak Ridge.

My father, Elvern Kletscher, left, with two of his soldier-buddies in Korea.

He, like so many other Americans, gave of themselves in Korea and, still, 60 years later, the conflict between the north and the south remains. Were the Americans’ efforts six decades ago worth the personal losses given nothing was ever truly resolved?

I know what my dad sacrificed for his country. He gave up a certain sense of inner peace. He was forever haunted by the horrors of war. That affected many facets of his life and impacted his family too. Me. My mom. My siblings. Life was sometimes a struggle for him.

But my dad was lucky. He survived. He did not die, like his buddy Ray, who was blown apart the day before he was to leave Korea. My father saw his friend die. You never forget something like that. I heard the horrible, wrenching story many times.

All of these thoughts passed through my mind today. I miss my dad, who died in 2003. I wonder how different he may have been had he never been called upon to defend South Korea, to kill North Koreans, to see his friends die upon the mountains of Korea.

I wonder. And, yes, today, with the news of the escalating tension, my heart breaks.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Cheese, cheeseheads and football November 22, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 12:30 PM
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A glimpse of shoppers walking along Pearl Street in La Crosse, Wisc., as seen from inside Cheddarheads, a cow/cheesehead crazy gift shop.

I WENT TO THE GROCERY store Sunday to purchase some last minute food for Thanksgiving dinner, including cheese for pre-meal snacking. My extended family prefers to extend their stomachs before indulging in a turkey dinner with trimmings.

Because they are an adventuresome bunch, I grabbed mango and tomato basil cheeses from Henning’s Wisconsin Cheese and Eden Vale’s black peppercorn smoked Gouda and cranberry white cheddar.

My husband questioned some of my selections, but I didn’t waver except for also choosing the “Best of class 2007” Colby from Henning’s. My family is not the safe American, Velveeta, plain old cheddar type of cheese-eaters. We prefer jazzed-up cheeses.

I’m also serving St. Pete’s Select blue cheese from Faribault Dairy Company, a subsidiary of Swiss Valley Farms. My husband and I, and two of my dinner-guest brothers, love that creamy, premium blue cheese, aged in the sandstone caves of my community.

All of this cheese writing this morning reminds me of my second eldest, who is currently traveling through Wisconsin on her way to find an apartment. She just landed a job in the Appleton area.

We’ve been teasing her about living in Wisconsin and becoming a cheese connoisseur, although I don’t know why given she attended college in La Crosse.

I suggested that she carry a cheese cutter lest Wisconsin officials stop her at the border. We even discussed whether the door into her apartment will unlock via a cheese cutter rather than a key.

Oh, yes, we’re a silly bunch, aren’t we?

My family has nothing against Wisconsin; we kind of like that state and Wisconsin cheese.

But don’t expect my daughter to become a cheesehead. She’s been asked several times whether she will now become a Green Bay Packers fan. The answer is a resounding “NO!” Like me, she is not a sports person. But, if she was, I suppose she might consider switching her allegiance from the Vikings to the Packers.

I’ve heard, and my daughter has probably heard too, that the Vikings aren’t doing very well this season. Is that true? Like I said, we could care less about sports…

Maybe my daughter should have purchased one of these cheesehead hats from Cheddarheads in downtown La Crosse. They were showcased in an old bathtub painted like a Holstein when I was there in May.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

I cave in to technology November 17, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:41 AM
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I GOT A NEW CELL PHONE 2 ½ weeks ago. Big deal, you say.

Well, if you’re me, this is a big deal. You see, up until Halloween, I did not own a cell phone.

I know, I know, that is difficult to believe. But I have, for years, resisted getting a cell phone. I told myself I really didn’t need one and couldn’t justify the added monthly expense.

Then my second-born handed over her cell phone before leaving for a six-month stay in Argentina. I got used to having the darned thing. When she returned to the United States and I had to give her phone back, I kind of missed it. Yet, I didn’t cave in and get my own phone.

But then she went to Argentina again and, before leaving, handed over her cell phone for the second time. That did it. Upon her return in October, I got a cell phone and so did my husband and our 16-year-old son. Our two daughters upgraded.

I still cannot believe that we (I) did this. Me, the last hold-out in modern civilization now owns a cell phone with a slide-out keyboard. And I am texting, yes, texting.

 

 

My new, very own, fancy schmancy cell phone with slide-out keyboard.

 

Initially I balked at the very idea of texting. Why would I want to text? How could I possibly tap out a message with my thumbs on such a small keyboard? I am. (It doesn’t work to use your index finger; I tried that.)

I won’t win any texting contests. I’m slow. And the writer in me struggles with the language of texting—the abbreviations, lack of proper punctuation and capitalization.

But…I’m adapting. I type “u” for “you.” I punch “r” for “are.” It is sad and pathetic and I feel almost like a traitor to the English language. I wonder if someday while writing a story, I’ll write like I’m texting.

That brings up an interesting point. How will this style of communication affect today’s younger generation? Will they know how to spell? Will they be able to write complete and properly punctuated sentences?

Will they know how to communicate face-to-face?

I am sounding like an old-timer here. I realize that. But when I consider advances in my lifetime, technology marks the biggest change. I grew up in a house that, for the longest time, did not have a telephone. When my parents finally got one, we were on a party line and answered our number—2074—to two long rings.

During my freshman and sophomore years of college, the one phone in my dorm was four floors down and shared by everyone.

I remember when I thought getting a cordless phone was a big deal. I still have that free-range phone and my corded landline.

How many phones does one woman need? Do I really, truly, need a cell phone? I still struggle with justifying the expense.

That is me, though. I’ve always been frugal and slow to embrace technology and change. I wasn’t the first in line to buy a microwave, a computer, a VCR or…fill in the blank. My television is a freebie garage sale 1990s vintage set. It works just fine, thank you, unless the weather is humid or windy. (Yes, I rely on an antenna for reception.)

Now I have this cell phone. I suppose eventually I will want to upgrade to internet capabilities. But first I need to learn how to check my voicemail, take photos…

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE on cell phones and how they impact our lives? What are positives and negatives? Share your thoughts in a comment to Minnesota Prairie Roots. I’d like to hear.

If you wish to congratulate me on my cell phone acquisition, feel free to do so. You won’t be the first, though, to do so.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering my dad, a Korean War veteran November 11, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:12 AM
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Elvern Kletscher, my dad

 

I’VE JUST PULLED TWO FILES from a cabinet in my office. One’s labeled “Elvern K. (obit, death certificate).” The other is simply labeled “KOREA.”

Then I turn toward a chest of drawers, also in my office, and remove a shoebox from the bottom drawer. It’s tagged “Elvern Kletscher’s Korean pix, etc. Important stuff.” I’ve underlined “Important stuff” twice.

The contents of that shoebox connect to the contents of the files. All encompass my dad’s time serving with the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict.

 

 

Some of the items from my dad's time in the military, stored in a shoebox.

 

Sifting through the files and shoebox brings me to tears as I remember my dad, who fought on the front lines, was wounded on February 26, 1953, at Heartbreak Ridge and received a Purple Heart medal 47 years later. He died in 2003.

My father talked very little of his time in Korea. So other than generalities and a few shared stories, only his black-and-white photos and letters offer me a glimpse of the young man who was drafted and sent into combat.

In letters written to his family, my dad vents his frustrations and concerns. I’ll share snippets of a letter from Korea dated March 4, 1953, his 22nd birthday, and written days after he was wounded.

Dear Mother, Dad & all

Guess you’s have been snowbound for awhile. “Huh” Just got your letter today. Well I’m 22 now. Birthday is past by a couple hours. Sure isn’t much of a birthday. But guess I can’t expect much over here.

Then he proceeds to blast the draft board and politicians after learning that his younger brother, Harold, may be called to duty. I can’t quote everything he wrote, but let me tell you, my father is fuming. He writes, in part:

Do they know what this is like over here? Hell no. Why the heck don’t some of them come over here and look this over. They’d probably come to their senses…

In the third page of his letter, my father-soldier continues:

I didn’t get your package yet, but they will be here soon mail is awful poor in coming through. Nobody is getting any mail. I’ve got 17 points now I think. They pile up fast. Sure wish I had the 36 of them though. I still think I’ll leave Korea in August. So it isn’t too long anymore. I sure hope I get out 3 months prior to my discharge. That’s almost all we talk about in the day time is how many points each other has got and when we think we will leave this hell hole.

Those are two strong words: hell hole.

But the few war stories that my father shared were nothing short of hellish. He told of digging foxholes and praying that God would save him from death, of a buddy blown up before his eyes, of a sniper picking off members of his platoon until my dad picked off the sniper, of being pinned down for days in trenches under constant enemy shelling…

 

 

My dad brought this 7-inch by 9-inch cloth "RETURNED FROM HELL" patch home with him after serving for nearly a year in Korea.

 

Through the attacks, the combat, the deaths of buddies, all through his year in Korea, my dad held strong to his faith. He wrote:

Sure was good to go to church. I had communion. I always try and make every church service they got over here. Once a week the chaplain comes up here on the hill. It’s always good to go. Always makes a guy know he isn’t alone.

In concluding his 3 ½-page letter, my father tells his parents:

I’m feeling fine and don’t worry about me. I’ll write again. Love Vern

Not once in his 87-line letter does my dad mention that just nine days earlier he was struck on the right side of his neck by shrapnel from a mortar round.

 

 

Elvern Kletscher, left, with two of his buddies in Korea.

 

TODAY, VETERANS DAY, please take time to honor a veteran, remembering all they have sacrificed for their country.

In conclusion, I wish to quote a few lines from a news release issued by former Second District Congressman David Minge on May 12, 2000, the year my dad received his Purple Heart for those wounds suffered on Heartbreak Ridge in Korea.

These two men are a prime example of sacrifice and service to our nation. For fifty years, Norman Kalk and Elvern Kletscher knew the truth that they had earned these medals. I am gratified that we could finally recognize their contributions and acknowledge the debt we can never repay.

#

A STORY WHICH I WROTE about my Dad’s service in Korea was published in 2005 in the book God Answers Prayers Military Edition, True Stories from People Who Serve and Those Who Love Them, edited by Allison Bottke. To read that story, “Faith and Hope in a Land of Heartbreak,” click onto the Harvest House Publishers website.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

PS to my whooping cough post November 7, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:34 PM
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DELORIS EDNA EMILIE BODE died on May 10, 1935, from pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia and a gangrene-type infection of the mouth.

The second-born daughter of Lawrence and Josephine Bode, she was only nine months and nine days old.

She was my aunt.

The gravestone of Deloris Edna Emilie Bode in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery, rural Courtland.

Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

 

 

If she only had a Rolex November 5, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:32 AM
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DID YOU HEAR about the St. Paul car dealership owner who was robbed this week of $5,000 in cash and a $20,000 Rolex watch?

Two men posing as would-be customers attacked the owner of Brothers Auto Sales after he accompanied them off-grounds to view a trade-in. The whole thing was a set-up. The duo punched, kicked, tackled and maced the auto dealer while stealing his wallet and watch.

Sadly, reports like this really don’t surprise me any more.

But what surprises me about this crime is the value of the watch. A $20,000 watch? You’ve got to be kidding, right? I had no idea, none, nada, that a Rolex costs that much.

Who has that kind of money to spend on a watch?

Of course, these comments are coming from someone who buys her watch at Walmart. Even if I could afford a Rolex, which I clearly can’t, why would I need a time-piece that costs thousands and thousands of dollars when I can get a working watch for under $20? Both keep time, although I’m certain my discount store watch is not nearly as fashionable as a Rolex.

 

 

My Walmart watch photographs just like a Rolex in this unedited image.

 

My comments are not meant, in any way, to diminish the crime or the harm inflicted upon the victim.

But this whole $20,000 watch thing really bothers me, especially since just hours earlier my 22-year-old daughter and I were discussing repayment of her college loans, all $20,000.

Gee, if only she had a Rolex to pawn.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The ghost of Annie Mary Twente continues to haunt me October 30, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 4:00 PM
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I LOVE MY EXTENDED family, even when they continue, for decades, to haunt and taunt me.

Now, they will never admit it, but I determined long ago that my Aunt Marilyn, and now her daughter Dawn, are the perpetrators, the instigators, the whatever-you-want-to-call-them, behind a Halloween tradition.

You see, for years I’ve received a Halloween card from the ghost of Annie Mary Twente, a 6-year-old who fell into a coma and was buried alive in Albin Township near Hanska in 1886. Legend goes that Annie’s father had his daughter’s body exhumed and found scratch marks inside the girl’s coffin where she tried to claw her way out.

That tale is enough to scare anyone. For some reason, I once told my aunt that I detested this macabre story. I think that was around the time I lived and worked as a newspaper reporter in St. James, near Hanska. She’s never forgotten.

I have no clue how long Marilyn searches for the perfect Halloween card. But she always manages to come up with an appropriate greeting befitting of Annie Mary. Because of copyright laws, I can’t quote card verses here. But the image on the front of this year’s card (the one from Marilyn) shows two glowing jack-o-lanterns atop a fence in the diminishing light of early evening. As I study the photo, I am reminded of the fence that surrounded Annie’s grave. (Her remains have since been moved to the Alexandria area.) Spooky.

As varied as the cards are each year, I can always be assured that Marilyn/Annie will pen the same message in her childish block print: “I MISS YOU! ANNIE MARY.” Clearly, at six, she never learned cursive.

As if one Halloween card from the little ghost girl isn’t enough, for the first time this year, I received a second greeting. That arrived this morning with a nice little message that Annie Mary is thinking of me. How thoughtful.

For years, I anticipated this unsettling Halloween greeting. But I never expected the haunting to extend beyond October. Last December, though, Annie Mary sent me a Christmas book about mice and a plastic mouse that pooped candy and wished me a “Merry Christmouse!”

 

 

Annie Mary sent me this mouse last Christmas.

 

For gosh sakes, I didn’t need Annie Mary knowing that I hate mice. But, somehow, she learned this invaluable information. Just last week an unexpected package arrived from AM (Annie Mary). Honestly, I was afraid to open the darned thing. So I pushed and prodded, suspected a mouse trap, peeked quickly inside and then threw the envelope at my second-born.

She pulled out two tiny sticky gray rubber mice, a flashing skeleton head pin and CHUCKLES candy. Ha. Ha. Very funny, cousin Dawn, uh, I mean Annie Mary.

 

 

I did not welcome this Halloween gift from Annie Mary.

 

I suppose you’re wondering why I dislike mice so much. Let’s see. Would a mouse cavorting in the silverware drawer or floating in a crockpot spook you? Or how about getting stuck in your in-laws’ bathroom with a mouse in the dead of night when you’re six months pregnant? Yes, all three horrible mouse encounters happened to me.

With enough living (and dead) mice in my life, I certainly don’t need Annie Mary mailing replicas to remind me of all that real-life mouse horror.

Oh, and I haven’t even told you that the ghost child blemished Valentine’s Day last year by sending me not one, but two, valentine cards.

 

 

Valentine greetings from Annie Mary. Which is authentic?

 

So…, I’m wondering if you had relatives like mine, who feign innocence about any and all communications from Annie Mary Twente, what would you do? Would you still claim them as your family members? Or…, would you try somehow to get even?

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Unofficial nasty weather in southwestern Minnesota October 26, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 3:06 PM
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Redwood County farmland only miles from my hometown of Vesta. This photo was taken last spring.

ABOUT MID-MORNING TODAY, an e-mail popped into my in-box. “Windy greetings” the subject line read. I clicked.

“Are you blowing away down there too?” wrote my cousin Dawn. “This is just nasty.”

She didn’t explain how nasty, but I can about guess. Dawn lives in Redwood County, smack dab in the middle of the Minnesota prairie—the place of endless fields, wide open spaces and few trees to break the unrelenting wind.

Big skies, wide open spaces and wind are a part of the landscape in southwestern Minnesota, where I shot this cornfield image about two months ago.

And today, from all I’ve read and heard, those winds will blow strong and sustained at 30 – 40 mph, sometimes reaching gusts of 60 mph. Dawn’s right. That’s downright nasty. And scary.

I speak from experience. This past summer I was caught, along with three family members, for 45 minutes in a car in a night-time thunderstorm that packed 70 mph winds. We were on unfamiliar Redwood County Road 5 between Walnut Grove and my hometown of Vesta when the storm hit.

I have never been more frightened in my life. Torrential rain in pitch black darkness pierced periodically by jagged lightning. Winds buffeting and rocking the car, flattening roadside grasses to the gravel shoulders. No radio. No cell phone service. No way of knowing where we were, what lay ahead of us, when the storm would end.

That July night I pressed my head against the back of the car seat in prayer. My 78-year-old mom kept telling us we were in the safest place we could be although I didn’t believe her for a second and I told her so. But I suppose it’s just natural for a mother to comfort her child, even if that daughter is in her 50s.

So…, when you start talking wind, strong wind, I listen. As I look out of my office window now I see the tops of the trees dancing against the backdrop of a dismal, gray sky. Rain is falling. My neighbor’s slender, house-hugging shrubs are swaying, too, and the few leaves left on trees are twisting and turning and spiraling to the earth.

Yet, because I live in a valley in Faribault, in the city, I certainly am not seeing the full power of the wind like my cousin out on the wind-swept prairie some 100 miles away.

My advice to Dawn (who also rode out that July storm in a vehicle) would be this: Do not travel. And, if you must attend your son’s football game tonight, pull on the winter coat, cap and mittens, and anchor yourself to the bleachers.

U.S. Highway 14 slices through the heart of southwestern Minnesota. I wouldn't advise travel if winds reach 60 - 70 mph. I took this photo several years ago during the summer.

READERS, IF YOU have a weather report to share, please submit a comment to Minnesota Prairie Roots. You know how we Minnesotans are—always obsessed with the weather.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The unrest in Argentina unsettles this Minnesota mom October 22, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 4:43 PM
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TYPICALLY, MASS PROTESTS and violence in another country would not overly concern me.

But when your daughter is in that nation’s capital, where left-wing party members have overtaken the streets in massive protests, and where a 23-year-old has been shot and killed during the demonstrations, you pay attention.

Thankfully, I knew none of this until my 22-year-old was safely out of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and back in the U.S. My first hint of the political unrest came in an e-mail I opened just hours before her arrival at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport late Thursday morning. She was already in Houston, waiting for her connecting flight to Minnesota, when she e-mailed me.

She wrote of demonstrators blocking traffic on Buenos Aires streets and of a temporary subway system shut-down, resulting in difficulty securing a cab to reach her airport shuttle bus Wednesday evening.

Only later did I learn of the death of Mariano Ferreyra, identified as a Partido Obrero militant. According to the Buenos Aires Herald, Ferreyra was “shot in the chest and killed during a violent confrontation between railroad workers and members of the leftist Worker’s Party (Partido Obrero)” on Wednesday.

Even after reading numerous online newspaper articles about the shooting, the demonstrations, and a blockage of a portion of the Panamericana highway by Kraft Foods Inc. workers, I still don’t understand the situation. And, yes, that would be Illinois-based Kraft which has a plant in suburban Buenos Aires that produces cookies and other food. The Argentine factory was involved in a labor dispute more than a year ago that led to a larger dispute between leftists and the government.

Although my daughter was never in any danger, just the fact that she watched angry protestors march along the street past her apartment toward their gathering spot at the Obelisk 10 blocks away is enough to unsettle me.

The shooting occurred in another area of the city, not anywhere near her home along Avenida Corrientes in the Once/Balvanera neighborhood.

The bottom line in all of this, for me, comes down to my relief that my daughter is back in the United States, far, far away from Argentina’s current discord.

She told me, too, of a two-day strike by garbage collectors that left stinky trash piled high along streets and sidewalks. As in the past, even before the shut-down, she’s seen the cartoneros (which means “cardboard”) collect and dig through garbage.

My daughter likely would have photos to show me of the demonstrators and the garbage, except that she was mugged in a northern Argentina city several weeks before the mess in Buenos Aires. That crime left her without her camera, with only her passport and the emergency funds I wired to her.

Yet, despite all of this, I’m certain, that my daughter would return, in a heartbeat, to Buenos Aires, where on two visits, she’s lived for nearly a year. She loves the culture, the language, the people.

Yet, I hope, that for awhile anyway, she will reside in North, not South, America, where today, for this hour, this minute, life seems calmer to me than on the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling