Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Bison: History, cultural importance, a film & a poem October 12, 2023

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Minneopa State Park near Mankato is home to 30-40 bison fenced on 325 acres of primarily prairie. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)

THEY ARE MASSIVE BEASTS, once roaming the American Great Plains by the millions. They are bison, also called buffalo, today numbering some 370,000 in North America. Most are raised as livestock. But some 31,000, or eight percent, are part of conservation herds, including right here in Minnesota. Such herds are designed to protect wild bison and preserve their genetic diversity.

Interpretive signage about bison overlooks the prairie at Minneopa State Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)

An upcoming documentary, “The American Buffalo—A Story of Resilience” by awarding-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, and my own recently posted poem about bison prompted my renewed interest in this animal. Burns’ 4-hour film airs in two parts, at 7 pm on Monday, October 16, and on Tuesday, October 17, on PBS. His documentary traces the history of bison, their importance in Native peoples’ lives and culture, their near extinction, and efforts to bring them back.

Bison up close while driving through Minneopa State Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)

My connection to bison began decades ago with childhood visits to Ramsey Park (in Redwood Falls), now also more appropriately called Cansayapi Park. Cansayapi in the Dakota language means “where they marked the trees red,” the traditional Minnesota River valley homeland of the Dakota. The Lower Sioux Indian Community is located near nearby Morton with an enrolled membership of 930 of the Mdewakanton Band of the Dakota.

A map, posted in Minneopa State Park, shows the prairie and historic bison territory in Minnesota. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)

Given the region’s rich Native heritage, the presence of a small group of bison in the Ramsey Park Zoo seems fitting. I recall rushing to see the buffalo there, both excited and intimidated by their massive hulk. Today I’m not so much afraid as respectful of their size and their importance in Indigenous Peoples’ culture.

A sculpture of White Buffalo Calf Woman, part of Indigenous culture, displayed at the 2011 Mankato City Art Walking Sculpture Tour. Artwork by Lee Leuning and Sherri Treeby. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2011 by Audrey Kletscher Helbling)

One need only look back in history to see how invaluable bison were to these original inhabitants of the prairie, the plains. Bison provided food, shelter, clothing and more to Indigenous Peoples. They also held spiritual and cultural significance. Bison were considered kin, respected by those who respected Mother Earth.

Bison at Minneopa State Park watering hole. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)

And then the white man came in the 1800s, overtaking the land, nearly driving bison to extinction as they hunted and slaughtered the animal primarily for their hides.

Blue Mounds State Park in rural Rock County, Minnesota, is home to 80-90 bison, although I did not see them when I visited the park in 2013. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2013)

And so the story of bison is not only one of past atrocities in American history, but also one of personal history for me with those fenced bison in Minnesota’s largest municipal park, known as “The Little Yellowstone of Minnesota” for its beautiful natural topography seemingly like Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone, the one in Wyoming, is home to nearly 6,000 bison.

A sign along the prairie’s edge at Minneopa State Park informs about bison in Minnesota. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)

In my youth, I didn’t understand the importance of bison in Native culture. I simply delighted in seeing them in the zoo at then Alexander Ramsey Park in my native Redwood County. Neither did I recognize how offensive the name of the park I loved as a child—Alexander Ramsey Park. Alexander Ramsey served as our first territorial governor and then as the second state governor of Minnesota during the US-Dakota War of 1862. He offered a bounty to anyone who killed a Dakota person and called for Indigenous Peoples to be driven out of Minnesota.

This 67-ton Kasota limestone sculpture stands in Reconciliation Park in Mankato. It symbolizes the spiritual survival of the Dakota People and honors the area’s Dakota heritage. The park is the site of the largest mass hanging in U.S. history. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)

With that backstory and an understanding of a period in Minnesota history marked by hatred and injustices, I paid homage to bison in a poem now gracing a sign in Mankato. Mahkato, a Dakota word which means “blue earth,” was the site of the largest mass execution in the United States on December 26, 1862. Thirty-eight Dakota, sentenced to death in sham trials for their roles in the US-Dakota War, were hung in Mankato.

My poem posted along a recreational trail in Mankato. (Photo credit: Kay Herbst Helms)

I wanted to honor the original inhabitants of Mahkato, the bison, the Native culture, the land. And so I wrote “The Mighty Tatanka,” using the Dakota word for bison. My poem was selected for inclusion in the Mankato Poetry Walk & Ride and is posted on a sign in West Mankato.

The Mighty Tatanka

Tatanka trips from my tongue
like the steady beat of horse hooves
pounding the prairie
in pursuit of massive beasts.

Bison. Honored. Sacred to the Dakota.
Source of life and food and shelter.
Once roaming, grazing, stampeding
this land upon which I stand.

While my poem is succinct, limited by wordage requirements in the poetry competition, I’d like to think “The Mighty Tatanka” is powerful. It holds not only the rhythm of carefully selected words, but a story. A story of bison, of Indigenous Peoples, of a way of life, of a culture. It holds, too, honor for the land and of those who first inhabited, and respected, it.

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FYI: My poem is posted on a sign along the West Mankato Trail near the intersection of Owatonna Street and Blue Earth and Sylvia Streets in West Mankato. You can listen to me read my poem by calling 507-403-4038 and entering 406.

Noted Minnesota wildlife photographer Jim Brandenberg’s (right in video) work, including this image of bison, is featured in a gallery bearing his name in Luverne, near Blue Mounds State Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2013)

To see Minnesota Bison Conservation Herd bison in Minnesota, visit Minneopa State Park near Mankato, Blue Mounds State Park near Luverne, the Minnesota Zoological Garden, Oxbow Park & Zollman Zoo by Byron, and Spring Lake Park Reserve Bison Prairie in Dakota County.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

 

A look at Taopi, plus an overview of failures, injustices & war in Minnesota October 9, 2023

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Just inside the entrance to Maple Lawn Cemetery, a sign directs visitors to Taopi’s gravesite. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

MY GOAL WAS SIMPLE—to write a piece honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day. My focus, I initially decided, would be on Taopi, a member of the Little Crow Band of the Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe. Taopi is perhaps best known in Faribault, where he lived for a while and is buried. A small Mower County town near the Iowa border also honors him in name. But my writing expanded beyond Taopi.

Taopi’s grave, and that of his daughter, are easily spotted via the propped poles. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

Recently I visited Taopi’s gravesite at Maple Lawn Cemetery. My interest piqued. I wanted to learn more about this Dakota leader and his importance in my community and in Minnesota history. His place in history connects to the US-Dakota War of 1862, a war all too familiar to me. My native Redwood County, where the Lower Sioux Agency was located, centered that deadly, short-lived conflict between white people and Native Peoples.

Now, viewing this war through a lens not tinted primarily by a white perspective, I understand the injustices. Decades ago, when I wrote a high school term paper on the war, I admittedly wrote a biased, unbalanced report based on biased, unbalanced research sources.

With time and maturity came the realization of the great injustices done, first when the US government acquired Indigenous Peoples’ land at a seemingly low cost and then failed to honor those treaties. The treaties opened nearly 24 million acres to white settlers. It was the Natives, the original inhabitants of this land, who found themselves cheated of government annuities, starving, pushed off their land and confined to strips of land along the Minnesota River. That includes the Wahpekute, a small band of the Dakota who lived in south central Minnesota, including the Faribault area. I live just below a Faribault city park called Wapacuta.

An exhibit at the Rice County Historical Society Museum. Artifacts from Indigenous Peoples are also displayed in cases. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

At the time of the US-Dakota War of 1862, Taopi was in the thick of all of it as a “farmer Indian,” the name tagged to Native Peoples who opted to farm, adapting the ways of the white man in occupation, dress and sometimes religion. He lived near the Lower Sioux Agency, relocated to a reservation there following the Treaty of Mendota in 1851. Those who continued with their hunting and fishing culture were known as “blanket Indians.” Taopi assuredly felt the animosity of his own people for the lifestyle and other choices he made.

A woodcarving of Taopi by noted Faribault artist Ivan Whillock is for sale in the Rice County Historical Society Museum’s gift shop. One is also displayed in a museum exhibit on Taopi. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

I can only imagine the pressure Indigenous Peoples experienced as white settlers moved into the area. The change, at times, had to feel overwhelming. Life would never be the same. Long-time homelands were lost, tradition and culture endangered. And so Taopi and others adapted, likely accepting that change was inevitable.

The gravesite of Taopi and his daughter, Cornelia Whipple Taopi (named after Cornelia Whipple, married to Bishop Henry Whipple). (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

But one thing that remained constant with Taopi was his focus on peace. He opposed the war and was a leader in the Dakota Peace Party. He is credited with saving the lives of many.

Yet, at war’s end, Taopi found himself caught—disliked by his peoples, who considered him a traitor, and disliked by whites holding a deep animosity toward any Native person. In Faribault, though, he had a friend in Bishop Henry Whipple, a strong advocate for First Peoples, and in town founder Alexander Faribault. Eventually, Taopi and other Natives moved onto land owned by Alexander Faribault, living under his protection on a bluff overlooking the Straight River. Taopi died in 1869. In 1895, the Indigenous Peoples of Faribault were displaced once again, moved to the Lower Sioux Reservation. They had always existed on the fringes in Faribault, never fully-accepted by most residents while under the protection of the bishop and town founder.

Dana Hanson’s “Father’s of Faribault” (left to right, Alexander Faribault, Taopi and Bishop Henry Whipple) featured on a bench along Central Avenue in downtown Faribault. The same artwork hangs inside Buckham Memorial Library. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

And so that is a brief look at Taopi, whose gravesite I visited. His presence remains visible elsewhere in Faribault. He’s featured in an exhibit at the Rice County Historical Society Museum. A “Fathers of Faribault” portrait of Taopi, Bishop Whipple and Alexander Faribault by Dana Hanson hangs at Buckham Memorial Library. Just a block to the north, that same artwork graces an historic-themed bench. Taopi was, most assuredly, a man of importance in local and state history. I will remember him primarily as a man of peace in a time when peace was decidedly elusive.

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© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Sources: The First Cathedral, an Episcopal Community for Mission by Benjamin Ives Scott and Robert Neslund; the Minnesota Historical Society website; and the Rice County Historical Society Museum’s Taopi display.

 

The power of hair among Native Peoples September 19, 2023

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“My Powerful Hair,” published in 2023 by Abrams Books for Young Readers. (Book cover source: Abrams Books)

SOME OF THE MOST MEANINGFUL, enlightening and powerful books I’ve read, I’ve found in the children’s picture book section of my local public library. That includes My Powerful Hair written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Steph Littlebird.

I happened upon this book while searching for recently-published astronaut and geography books for my 4-year-old grandson. I never did find those sought-after titles. Not that it mattered. What I discovered instead were three must-read books: My Powerful Hair, Boycott Blues—How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation and We Are Better Together.

Parks is certainly familiar to me as the Black seamstress who in 1955 refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. That sparked a bus boycott and the Civil Rights Movement. Likewise, working together to effect change, to improve our world, to help one another is a familiar theme.

“The Native Man, His Eagle & His Chanupa,” an oil painting by Dana Hanson and part of her 2018 “Healing the Land” exhibit at the Owatonna Arts Center. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2018, used for illustration only. Art copyrighted by Dana Hanson.)

THE IMPORTANCE OF HAIR REVEALED

It is the story on hair, though, which proved a particularly teachable read. My Powerful Hair focuses on Native Peoples’ hair and its importance in their culture, their history, their lives. Through the writing of New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Lindstrom, who is Anishinaabe/Metis (and an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), and Indigenous artist Littlebird of Oregon’s Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, I learned the symbolism and power of hair in Native American culture. Admittedly, this is something I should have known, having grown up on the southwestern Minnesota prairie between the Upper Sioux and Lower Sioux Indian Reservations (today termed “communities”). I thought I was informed. But I wasn’t, not about hair.

Told from the perspective of a young Native girl, My Powerful Hair explains the reasons Native Peoples grow their hair long. And keep it long. Hair holds stories, memories, strength, sorrow, connections to each other and to Mother Earth. And more. Page after page, the narrator shares events in her life that weave into her hair. When Nimishoomis (her grandfather) taught her to fish, her hair reached her ears. When her cousins taught her to make moccasins, her hair flowed past her shoulders. In the sharing of these moments, I began to understand the power of hair in Native American culture.

A photo panel at the Traverse des Sioux Treaty Center in St. Peter shows Dakota leaders photographed in Washington D.C. in 1858. The photo is from the Minnesota Historical Society and is used here for illustration only.

FORCED HAIRCUTS

I also understood fully, for the first time, the trauma inflicted upon Indigenous individuals forced long ago by white people to cut their hair. The writer and illustrator don’t hold back. In the first few pages, a young Nokomis (grandmother) is in tears as the hands of a Catholic nun grasp, then cut, her braids. It’s an emotionally impactful visual.

But this was reality at Indian boarding schools, within faith communities and elsewhere back in the day, in a time period when efforts focused on erasing Indigenous culture, on conforming Native Peoples to European ways. It was wrong.

Displayed at Bridge Square during Northfield’s Earth Day celebration in 2022. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo April 2022, used for illustration only)

“A TERRIBLE INJUSTICE”

A blogger friend from the central Minnesota lakes region recently shared a bit of her family’s experience per my request. Of unverified (records were often destroyed) Cherokee ancestry, Rose speaks of her mother’s trauma after being sent to a Catholic girls’ school in Crookston. “Mom didn’t tell us much about her experience there,” Rose says, “only that they made her cut her long black hair. My mom never cut her hair again for the rest of her life. She saw the forced haircut as a terrible injustice.” Injustice seems a fitting word.

In an author’s note, Carole Lindstrom shares the same trauma, documented, she writes, in a photo of her grandmother and two great aunts with their black hair shorn above their ears. They were forced into an Indian boarding school in the early 1900s.

“Honoring the Legacy of the Dakota People” focuses this artwork by Dana Hanson. Chief Taopi centers the painting with Alexander Faribault to the left and Bishop Henry Whipple on the right. The word “Yuonihan” means honor or respect. This art hangs inside Buckham Memorial Library. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo November 2022. Art copyrighted by Dana Hanson.)

POWER IN STORIES, IN HERITAGE, IN RESPECT

Rose is thankful for books like My Powerful Hair. “I am glad that stories like this are being told,” she says. “Much First Nations history nearly disappeared. And many First Nations keep their ceremonies and other information ‘secret’ so it won’t be distorted or misused by people who don’t understand, or who seek to harm them.” Based on history, that seems warranted.

This Minnesota woman has one more reason to feel grateful for children’s picture books by Indigenous Peoples. Her grandchildren are of Ojibwe heritage; their other grandmother lives on the White Earth Nation in northwestern Minnesota. “My hopes for my grandchildren are that they learn all they can about their Ojibwe ancestors and customs and values,” Rose says. “I hope they can choose what lessons they want to carry forward in their own life. I hope they are fantastic examples of how people from different backgrounds can get along and respect and love one another.”

And so I learned, not only from Rose, but from reading My Powerful Hair. Stories woven into our hair matter. For they are powerful.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts on MLK’s “I have a dream” speech August 28, 2023

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A student watches a video of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the “Selma to Montgomery: Marching Along the Voting Rights Trail” exhibit at St. Olaf College, Northfield, in 2015. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2015)

WE ALL HOLD DREAMS. Hopes and desires and wishes that improve our lives. Financially, mentally, emotionally and otherwise. Perhaps they are dreams directed inward. Or they are dreams for others in our lives, especially our loved ones.

Sixty years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. revealed his dream at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. His was a powerful speech packed with powerful words that resonated as much on August 28, 1963 as they do today:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Visitors could photograph themselves at the “Selma” exhibit and express their thoughts. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2015)

King’s statements in “I have a dream” held the hope of Americans denied very basic civil and voting rights simply because of their skin color. A year later, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law, prohibiting discrimination (and segregation) in public places. Passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 followed, assuring the right to vote. But the struggle continued as it does today for people of color.

Back in 1964 and 1965, I was too young and too far removed from the Civil Rights Movement to have any knowledge of what was happening in the world beyond my childhood home in southwestern Minnesota. I lived in a rural area of primarily Germans and Scandinavians, where the only difference was in religion. Either you were Lutheran or you were Catholic with a few Presbyterians, Methodists and Brethren tossed in.

I don’t recall ever seeing a Black person. Few, if any, lived in Redwood County. Indigenous Peoples lived on nearby reservations to the east and to the west by Morton and Granite Falls. But I never saw the Dakota, never interacted. Mine was a world of whiteness. Now I am the mother-in-law of a man whose father is black, his mother white. I’ve heard my son-in-law’s unsettling stories of what it’s like to be a Black man in America today.

Opinions expressed in the “Selma” exhibit polling place. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2015)

Today I live in a place of varied colors and cultures. For that I feel thankful. At the core, we are all just people with hopes, desires, wishes. We all hold dreams, no matter our skin color.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

“The Viaduct,” an enduring Faribault landmark August 23, 2023

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A side view of a section of Faribault’s historic viaduct. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2023)

ARCHITECTURE, ART AND HISTORY meld on an expansive structure connecting Faribault’s east and west sides.

The viaduct reflects in the Straight River in the early evening light. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2023)

Locally referred to as “The Viaduct,” the continuous concrete rib arch bridge routes pedestrians and traffic along Minnesota State Highway 60 over railroad tracks and the Straight River far below. Three massive reinforced arches distinguish this as a viaduct rather than a bridge.

Piers and under the roadway up close. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2023)

Thousands of times I’ve crossed the viaduct via vehicle in my 41 years living here. But not until recently did I pause to really study the underbelly of this 1937 Works Progress Administration project which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Only via a close-up look from ground level did I fully appreciate this engineering feat.

I followed Randy along this path leading to the tracks. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2023)

I followed a narrow dirt trail through trees and underbrush in Teepee Tonka Park to reach a good viewing spot of the viaduct underside. From that perspective next to the train tracks, I observed the way patterns and lines repeat to build a strong structure that has withstood the test of traffic and of time. The bridge was rehabilitated, the roadway widened in 2008-2009.

Hanging out under the viaduct. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2023)

The viaduct impresses in design and size. I felt dwarfed by its massiveness, even more noticeable when I spotted a couple sitting on the far end. They appeared small in comparison to the concrete piers rising above and around them. I felt overpowered, too. I wondered how WPA workers managed to build this wonder in the late 1930s without the modern equipment of today.

Westbound on the viaduct, Buckham Memorial Library is to the left and the Immaculate Conception Church steeple in the distance. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo October 2022)

But it is more than utilitarian construction that marks this viaduct as noteworthy. The viaduct is a work of public art—an interactive sculpture which provides a sweeping view of historic downtown Faribault and the surrounding area when heading westbound. To view the bridge from below is to truly see its artsy side, its Art Deco/Classical Revival style. That style carries through in the concrete piers and, on road level, in the decorative railings and lights, replicas of the originals.

The viaduct is a marvelous work of architecture, art and engineering. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2023)

As I stood under the viaduct studying its design, artsy arches, curves and lines, I considered the many people who have traversed this bridge. If only this concrete could speak, oh, the stories it would tell. Stories of construction workers who labored for 1½ years to complete this project. Stories of Ford Model As, among the first to drive across this linkage between east and west. Stories of students arriving at the Minnesota State Academies for the Deaf and Blind. Stories of athletes heading to hockey camp at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School. Stories of prisoners transported to the Minnesota State Correctional Facility, Faribault. Stories of ambulances racing across the viaduct toward the hospital. Stories of expectant parents headed there, too. Stories of families and students on their way to River Bend Nature Center. Stories of travelers simply passing through Faribault.

On the east side of the river, a road passes the viaduct and leads to Teepee Tonka Park. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2023)

For 86 years, The Viaduct has gathered stories atop graceful arches, upon a roadway that is more than a route. This is a local landmark, an architectural and artistic marvel which visually and historically defines Faribault.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Building the Eiffel Tower in France, then Minnesota June 22, 2023

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Completed 3-D wooden puzzle of the Eiffel Tower. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2023)

CONSTRUCTION OF THE EIFFEL TOWER in Paris took two years, two months and five days and a whole lot of engineers and factory and construction workers.

Construction of the Eiffel Tower in Faribault, built by one man, took 30 minutes.

Clearly there’s a difference in what, exactly, was constructed. My supposed-to-be-retired automotive machinist husband assembled a 3D wooden puzzle of the Eiffel Tower by B.C. Bones in a half hour. Information on the puzzle box estimates construction time at 1 to 2 hours. I am not one bit surprised that Randy fit the 32 pieces into a tower in much less time. His mind works that way. He sees a bunch of parts and he immediately envisions how they all work together.

Me? I would still be struggling to build the Eiffel Tower, especially given the missing architectural blueprint in the puzzle box. That and a missing fact file were likely the reasons this 2003 puzzle was in the freebie pile at a Northfield garage sale.

That Randy managed to construct the tower in such a short time and without a cheat sheet blueprint impresses me. But then I am not one who likes puzzles or has the ability to figure out how stuff connects. We each have our talents. Puzzling puzzles is not one of mine.

Now this two foot high tower sits on a vintage chest of drawers in our living room, displayed not as a completed puzzle project, but rather as a work of art. Just like the real tower in Paris, a tourist draw for 7 million annual visitors who appreciate its architectural and artistic beauty.

Engineer Gustave Eiffel designed the tower, built in 1889 to celebrate the Exposition Universelle. The structure reaches 1,083 feet heavenward and weighs 10,100 tons. But the fact I found most interesting on the official Eiffel Tower website was the 2.5 million rivets used in construction. That’s a whole lot of rivets holding the metal pieces in place.

Only slots hold the tight-fitting wooden puzzle together. But it’s amazingly strong and can be carried without falling apart. That gives me some insight into just how strong the real Eiffel Tower was engineered to be.

This garage sale freebie proved an interesting and engaging find. I learned something about architecture and engineering and facts about the Eiffel Tower unknown to me, mostly because I’ve never researched this architectural icon. And for Randy, this puzzle proved easy. For a garage sale freebie, I’d say we got our money’s worth.

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TELL ME: How would you do assembling this 3D puzzle without a blueprint? Do you do puzzles? Have you visited the Eiffel Tower in Paris?

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Reflections on Juneteenth June 19, 2023

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Photographed in August 2018 in a storefront window of a business in downtown Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2018)

ON THIS DAY OF CELEBRATION, Juneteenth, I reflect on our nation’s past, on how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go.

June 19, 1865, marks the day when enslaved people in Texas learned of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln 2 ½ years earlier. That proclamation freed slaves in Confederate states. It wasn’t until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in December 1865 that slavery was fully abolished in the entire United States.

Thinking about slavery is difficult. It’s emotionally challenging to consider that some 4 million men, women and children were “owned,” treated like property rather than human beings. Forced to work, forced to live under abusive and oppressive conditions. Without freedom to come and go.

Today the focus is not on the awfulness of slavery, but rather on the move from enslavement to freedom. Thus the celebrations on Juneteenth.

Moving onward as a people and a nation, we need to work harder on respecting one another, no matter our skin color, our social status, our differences. We’ve certainly made strides. But the reality is that we can do better.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Exploring historic Oak Ridge, more than just a cemetery June 15, 2023

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Sign on the Oak Ridge Cemetery limestone crypt. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

THEY ARE PLACES of sorrow, of history, of art, of beauty. Of stories, too. They are cemeteries.

Trees fill the historic Oak Ridge Cemetery in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

Decades ago, as a child, I feared cemeteries, thinking about the bodies buried in caskets beneath the ground. The unexpected death of my paternal grandfather when I was not quite eight shaped my thoughts then of graveyards. But my thinking and perspectives changed as I aged until I felt comfortable walking in a cemetery. I had accepted death.

The natural beauty of Oak Ridge, especially the oaks, is one of the things I most appreciate. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

Today, exploring cemeteries is an activity I enjoy. I appreciate all they hold. Oak Ridge Cemetery, set on rolling hills on Faribault’s northwest side just off Second Avenue NW/Minnesota State Highway 3, is among the countless graveyards I’ve walked.

An informational sign about Levi Nutting. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

It’s Faribault’s first cemetery, incorporated in 1857, five years after the town was founded. The death of his 26-year-old wife, Mary, on Christmas Day 1856 prompted Levi Nutting to lead founding of an official cemetery. Nutting was a man of prominence. As an early area settler, he helped shape his community, serving as mayor and Rice County commissioner. Nutting also held several state government offices, including that of a senator.

Nutting family grave markers. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

Levi and many other Nuttings lie buried beneath the soil at Oak Ridge among the oaks and spruce and maple. This place feels like a hilltop island of peacefulness. Not that it’s quiet here. But a sense of calm and serenity in this spot of remarkable natural beauty prevails.

(Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
(Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
(Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

History also infuses Oak Ridge, not only in names on gravestones, but also on informational plaques scattered throughout the grounds.

The burial spot of a Civil War veteran, flagged for Memorial Day. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
Civil War veteran Michael Cook’s marker details his death. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

There are a whole lot of long ago dates inscribed in stone. The first known burial here was in 1850, before cemetery incorporation. Men who fought in the Civil and Spanish American Wars lie here. So do legislators, business leaders, farmers, paupers, immigrants and more, according to the Oak Ridge website.

Loving words on a husband and wife’s tombstone. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

“IN THEIR DEATH THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED” reads the message on the headstone of Rodney A. Mott and Mary Ripley Mott.

Markers like this can be purchased for unmarked graves. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

Hannah Jane Rockwell’s marker, installed through Oak Ridge’s Sponsor a Marker for an Unmarked Grave Program, simply lists her name, birth and death dates, and then the loving words, “Mother to 10.”

A message written in a notebook at Jeremy’s grave. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

Jeremy J. Weber’s black tombstone, still shiny with newness, is surrounded by expressions of recent grief. The 34-year-old father of three died in 2021. A waterproof case includes a notebook for messages and memories. Words written therein are loving, heartbreaking.

Beautiful urn art graces a grave. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

Grief is undeniably here. I read that, see that, feel that. But I also feel the love. These were individuals with families who loved them and whom they loved. These were individuals who were valued personally and/or professionally. They were, above all, human beings who held a special place on this earth.

Fitting for Oak Ridge, oak leaves on a tombstone. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

Cemeteries reveal all of this, if only we take the time to walk among the tombstones, aged and new. Inscriptions, art, names, dates, memorabilia and flowers placed graveside all tell stories. That is the beauty within the boundaries of a cemetery like Oak Ridge, which rises high above a city founded 171 years ago, the place where Levi Nutting moved with his family in 1855, a year later his young wife dead.

The historic limestone pumphouse sits atop the hill, in the heart of the cemetery. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
This map shows a section of Oak Ridge’s lay-out. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

FYI: Oak Ridge accepts donations and welcomes volunteers to help with cemetery upkeep. Burial plots are for sale. And markers may be purchased for unmarked graves.

 

Mother’s Day gratitude: In her words, my mom’s gift to me May 10, 2023

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Mom’s journals stacked in a tote. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

DAYS BEFORE MOTHER’S DAY, I slide a clear plastic tote from a closet in the bedroom where my daughters once slept. I unlatch the lid. An overwhelming musty odor rises from the spiral-bound notebooks layered inside.

These are my mom’s journals. The story of her life recorded on paper from 1947 until her final entry on March 4, 2014, with a few years missing.

Mom died in January 2022. She left this handwritten documentation of an ordinary, yet extraordinary, life. As her oldest daughter and as a writer, I cherish the words she penned. They are not flowery poetic or personal entries, but rather a record of life as a farm wife and mother to six. Days that revolved around family, faith and farm life.

The only photo I have of my mom, Arlene, holding me. My dad is holding my brother, Doug.

With Mother’s Day only days away, I chose Mom’s 1955 journal, the year she became a mother, to begin reading. Mom invited her parents over for a Mother’s Day goose dinner that May, about two months before she gave birth to my oldest brother. I flipped ahead to July, reading her entries in the days right before Doug was born. Even at full-term, she kept working as hard as ever, freezing 24 boxes of green beans, canning a crate of cherries, pulling weeds in the garden and ironing clothes within days of delivering an 8-pound baby.

A page in an altered book crafted by my friend Kathleen. This page honors me and my mom. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

Fast forward to May 1956. Mom notes in her Mother’s Day and subsequent entries that her mom went to the “Heart Hospital” on May 10 and came home May 17. Some six months later, Josephine died of a heart attack. She was only 48. And I was only two months old. I cannot imagine the grief my mom felt in the unexpected death of her mother. But she never put those emotions on paper. Rather her diary entries are straight forward, almost of journalistic detachment. Notations of her mom’s December 1 death, a funeral and writing thank yous.

My mom saved everything, including this Mother’s Day card I made for her in elementary school. I cut a flower from a seed catalog to create the front of this card. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

On the next Mother’s Day in May 1957 and through 1961, there are no references to any special way in which my mom was honored. No gifts. No special meal. Only that I had a bad case of the measles as a nine-month-old. In May 1962, my brother had the mumps. But I did give Mom a paper flower at a school Mother’s Day program.

In entries in the years that followed, Mom always wrote of attending the Mother’s Day programs at Vesta Elementary School. I hold vague memories of standing on the stage, reading a poem about lavenders blue dilly dilly in verse that now eludes me.

And although I don’t remember, I gave Mom plants and, in 1967, “a fancy flower,” whatever that means. But most meaningful to me, a writer, was the gift of a writing pad to Mom in 1964. Now, in return, I have the gift of her words written in perfect, flowing penmanship.

In May 1963, Mom got a Whirlpool dishwasher. In May 1968, she redeemed Green Stamps for two lamps. She also got an automatic Maytag washing machine with suds saver for $300 from Quesenberry’s Appliance in Redwood Falls. I can only imagine how these Mother’s Day gifts of dishwasher and automatic washer eased her workload.

A section of a family-themed photo board I created for Mom’s January 2022 funeral. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2022)

I wish I’d realized while growing up on the farm just how hard my mother worked. That would come later in life, when I became a mom in 1986, raising three kids, not six like her. In her final years, I thanked Mom many times for loving and caring for me, for raising me to be kind, compassionate, caring and a woman of faith. I hugged her and held her hand and cried whenever I left her care center, each time wondering if it would be the last time I would see Mom.

One of my favorite later photos with Mom, taken in 2017. (Photo credit: Randy Helbling)

Now, as I mark my second Mother’s Day without the mom I loved, still love, tears edge my eyes. I read page after page after page of her writing. Gratitude rises for this legacy she’s left, this story of her ordinary life on a southwestern Minnesota farm, this story of a mother who loved, labored, and lived a full and beautiful life.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering Gordon Lightfoot & his ballad about the Edmund Fitzgerald May 3, 2023

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A photo of the Edmund Fitzgerald shown during a 2014 presentation in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

CERTAIN SONGS FROM MY TEEN years into my early 20s occasionally surface like ear worms in my mind. Today that tune is “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” a ballad by Canadian singer, songwriter and guitarist Gordon Lightfoot.

Taconite pellets, like these, filled the cargo holds of The Edmund Fitzgerald as it journeyed across Lake Superior on November 9 and 10, 1975. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

The 84-year-old musician died on Monday, leaving a legacy of storytelling that includes his version of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s fateful final journey. The iron ore carrier sank in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, claiming the lives of 29 crewmen.

Newspaper clippings about The Fitz were passed around to audience members at a 2014 presentation in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

Stories about the catastrophic shipwreck during a storm with hurricane force winds, waves reaching 70 feet and a gale force warning bannered newspapers. It was especially big news here in Minnesota since the 729-foot long by 75-foot wide ship left Superior, Wisconsin, just across from the port city of Duluth. The Fitzgerald was weighted with 26,000 tons of taconite pellets and bound for a steel mill near Detroit, Michigan.

PBS did a documentary on the Edmund Fitzgerald. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

On the afternoon of November 9, the freighter left Superior. By 7:15 pm the next evening, the USS Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared, the wreckage later found 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan.

In Lightfoot’s words:

The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Lightfoot on the cover of his 2002 CD, which my husband owns. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” soared to #2 on the Pop chart and remained there for 21 weeks. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)

The lengthy folk song of 6.5 minutes unfolds in suspenseful storytelling style. Lightfoot takes his listeners on board the massive Edmund Fitzgerald caught in the stormy, churning waters of Gitche Gumee (Ojibwe for Lake Superior). The songwriter uses some artistic license in his version of the disaster as noted when comparing facts to lyrics. Yet, his haunting song, like reality, carries the truth of death, the heavy emotions of loss. Every time I hear Lightfoot’s song, I feel overcome with sadness, as if the powerful, roiling waves of Superior are rolling over me, pulling me down down down into the dark depths of the lake.

The Edmund Fitzgerald stretched more than two football fields long. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2014)

The emotional intensity of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” remains strong for me, even decades after I first heard the new release in 1976. And that’s a credit to Lightfoot, who wrote history into a ballad that is poetically and tragically memorable.

TELL ME: Are you a fan of Gordon Lightfoot or any of his songs? I’d like to hear your thoughts on him, this ballad or musicians and/or songs particularly memorable to you.

FYI: Click here to read a post I wrote in 2014 about a presentation on the Edmund Fitzgerald at the Rice County Historical Society Museum in Faribault.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling