UNLESS WE ARE NATIVE AMERICANS, immigration is part of our family history. On my maternal side, Friedrich and Maria Bode arrived from Germany at the port of New Orleans in October 1852. They would settle in Illinois. Most of the family eventually moved to Minnesota. On my paternal side, my great grandfather, Rudolph Kletscher, landed in Baltimore from Germany in 1886, several years later journeying west to put down roots in southern Minnesota.
I pulled this information from pages of family history uncovered and compiled by family members who have researched our roots in Germany. I am grateful for their work, for the names, dates and places recorded for reference. Sometimes there are stories, or tidbits of stories. But mostly the research reveals documented facts only, not stories.
It is the stories that interest me most, which explains my interest in reading Standing at the Grave—A Family’s Journey from the Grand Duchy of Posen to the Prairies of North Dakota by Minnesotan Gary Heyn. Books on Central in Faribault hosted Heyn on Thursday evening during a monthly literary event. I was among those in attendance, listening to Heyn read and then answer audience questions. I’d just finished reading his book about his ancestors who immigrated to America from Prussia (now Poland) beginning in 1867 shortly after the Civil War ended.
His ancestors could have been mine. Any of ours. Heyn took basic facts confirmed thorough research at the Minnesota History Center, church records, a Polish history website, old newspapers, even the National Weather Service and gleaned during several trips to Poland to form the foundation for his stories. The dialog and interactions are fictional slices of personal life in Prussia and then in America. Heyn’s characters really come alive when he reveals their fears, their worries, their hardships, griefs, challenges and more in intimate storytelling.
These are, at times, really hard stories. Of death by disease. Of death by accidents. Of death by suicide. Of death by botulism. I appreciate that the author doesn’t avoid tough topics. I understand the worries about weather and crop failure, vicariously stand at the graves of loved ones, recognize the depression a young mother experiences as she looks across the expansive North Dakota prairie, feeling isolated and alone.
But those difficult stories are balanced by the joys of births, of weddings, of the opportunity to claim land through the Homestead Act, to live and love and grow family in a new land rich in opportunity.
Main character, family matriarch Anna, follows her family to America many years after the first, eventually fulfilling her life-long dream of once again owning land, this time 160 acres in North Dakota. Most of the family found land in southern Minnesota, in the Rochester area where the author grew up and first heard the stories of his great grandmother. She lived with his childhood family. That sparked his interest in family history and genealogy, which, after his retirement as an accountant, led to writing Standing at the Grave.
Southern Minnesotans, especially, will feel at home in places like Elgin, Grand Meadow, Pleasant Valley, Owatonna and more. I’ve even visited and photographed Immanuel Lutheran Church in Potsdam, where Anna stood on the front steps and scanned the countryside below the hilltop church. I’ve walked the cemetery, where Heyn’s ancestor, Willie, lies buried in an unmarked grave.
As much as I appreciate the storytelling in this book, I also appreciate its relevancy to today. Heyn family members new to America in the late 1800s are told to speak English, not German. Sound familiar? (My own mother, who died at age 89 in 2023, spoke German as her first language.) These newcomers to America felt like foreigners, often choosing to live among others from their homeland. Among those who shared their language, culture and customs, who liked bier, sauerkraut, Weihnachtsstollen and Glühwein.
But in times of challenges, Heyn reveals in one story, “…the citizens of this neighborhood, born all across the globe, banded together to help another working man.” That coming together of many nationalities repeats in his book, even as conflicts arise.
Heyn, in his writing, reveals the challenges, the dreams, the hopes, the resilience and resolve of his immigrant ancestors. These were strong individuals who relied on each other, their faith and their inner strength to cross a vast ocean for a new life in America. This is their story, but also a universal story of immigration, as relatable today as then.
This book helped me better understand those who came before me from Germany to America from a personal perspective. This book also reminds me of the struggles immigrants still face today in America, especially today.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
A Christmas message from southern Minnesota December 24, 2025
Tags: America, birth of Jesus, Christmas, Christmas message, commentary, history, holiday, immigrants, Jesus, King Herod, Minnesota, opinion, refugees, United States
THERE’S MUCH TO PONDER this Christmas as we find our nation in turmoil. Anger simmers and boils. Discord rises. Oppression continues. Peace in our country, let alone throughout the world, feels more elusive than ever. These are difficult days.
Likewise, the newborn Jesus and his parents faced similar challenges some 2,000 years ago. They were refugees who fled their Judean homeland for Egypt under the threat of an oppressive and violent leader. King Herod ordered all baby boys in Bethlehem to be killed after learning that a “King of the Jews” was born there. He feared being replaced. When I consider a leader so cold, calculating and cruel that he would mandate the killing of any boy age two and under to retain power, well, it seems unconscionable. But it was reality. And, had I been Mary, I also would have done everything possible to save my son.
Consider that in the context of today. Here. In America. Threats to our immigrants may not be as severe as death, although some have died in ICE custody. But detention and deportation, or the threat thereof, are very real. This is happening all over the U.S., including right here in my southern Minnesota community.
For example, locally-based HealthFinders Collaborative, a community health center serving the underserved and uninsured in my area, has issued a statement that their patients, staff, volunteers and others do not feel safe due to visibly present federal agents in our communities. People are canceling appointments. People are afraid. In response to the very real fear people are feeling, HealthFinders is expanding virtual visits and is locking clinic doors. I expect those living in biblical times felt similar angst under the authoritarian rule of King Herod. No wonder Mary and Joseph fled with Jesus to Egypt.
This Christmas I can’t pretend everything is OK while hatred, disparaging rhetoric and injustices run rampant in this country. As a woman of faith, I look at Jesus and see how he lovingly embraced people. He showed love, care, compassion, kindness. To all. He would not be alright with certain groups of people being hated on. He would not be OK with people targeted, hunted, gathered, detained, sent away. Poof. Gone.
If there’s any message to take away from Christmas this year, it’s that we need to stand up for our neighbors. Ask ourselves the once-trendy question, “What Would Jesus Do?” We need to voice our concerns. Resist. Help. Encourage. Follow Jesus’ lead of serving, loving and supporting those who need us most right now. And that’s not the King Herods who choose power over humanity.
In closing, I hold hope that we, as individuals and a nation, will stand strong against that which oppresses us, that which is inhumane and that which is just plain wrong. We all, whether people of faith or not, inherently understand the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. Let us live as people who care about goodness, kindness, compassion, love and peace.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling