Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

I’ll take country over big city any day August 5, 2014

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Approaching downtown Minneapolis. Growing up on a southwestern Minnesota dairy and crop farm, I would travel with my parents and siblings once a year to visit relatives in Minneapolis. We got off at the 46th Street exit.

Approaching downtown Minneapolis. Growing up on a southwestern Minnesota dairy and crop farm, I would travel with my parents and siblings once a year to visit relatives in Minneapolis. We got off at the 46th Street exit. Thankfully lanes have been added since then. But I don’t understand that sign on the left: “RATE TO DOWNTOWN $ AT 42ND.” Whenever I see these signs entering the Cities, I wonder.

I CAN’T RECALL THE LAST TIME I’ve been in downtown Minneapolis. But it’s been more than 30 years since I’ve walked in the heart of the city and I have no intention of visiting anytime soon.

Almost to the I94/35W split near downtown Minneapolis.

The I94/35W split near downtown Minneapolis.

The big city is not for me. Give me wide open space and sky and fields and farms and small towns.

Give me horizontal, not vertical.

Minneapolis presents a photogenic skyline from afar.

Minneapolis presents a photogenic skyline as my husband and I bypass the downtown on our way to visit family in the metro.

Give me alfalfa or soybeans or a cornfield, not concrete and asphalt parking lots and buildings so tall I need to visually strain my eyes to see their tops.

I need to breathe, to see the horizon, to touch the earth.

Oh, you might advise me that I am missing out on cultural and unique dining experiences and whatever else the big city offers. Maybe. But I’ve found my own happiness in “outstate Minnesota,” as the geographical region outside the metro is termed. That moniker, even though I sometimes use it, seems to diminish the importance of anything outside the Twin Cities area.

I am thankful, however, that we don’t all like living in the same place. If that was the situation, there would be no rural, only metro. Or only rural and no cities. That, of course, is oversimplifying, but you get my point. We all crave different environments. That is a good thing.

The curving interstate and speeds of some vehicles can give the illusion of being on a racetrack.

The curving interstate and speeds of some vehicles can give the illusion of being on a racetrack.

I will always prefer a country gravel road over the racetrack craziness, or gridlock, depending, of a Twin Cities area interstate.

A gravel road just north of Lamberton in southwestern Minnesota.

A gravel road just north of Lamberton in southwestern Minnesota. File photo.

But that’s me, deeply rooted in rural Minnesota.

© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Country meets city in northeastern Wisconsin November 8, 2013

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A farm just off Northland Avenue in Appleton, Wisconsin.

A farm, left, just off Northland Avenue.

ON THE NORTHERN EDGE of Appleton or maybe its the southern edge of Grand Chute, Wisconsin (I examined maps and cannot determine which), lies a farm place with two vintage silos, a barn, a collection of aging outbuildings and even an old windmill.

The place, a rural oasis separated from busy commercial Northland Avenue by a cornfield, has intrigued me since I first spotted it three years ago.

What I hadn’t noticed, though, until my last trip to Appleton, were the cows grazing in a pasture just across the street from a residential area.

This is the thing I love about Wisconsin. This state appreciates rural. You’ll find barns and silos, corn and cows seamlessly blending into urban settings. And the mix doesn’t feel awkward or patronizing or out of place.

It feels, oh, so right in this state tagged America’s Dairyland.

© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

On the road in Wisconsin: Duo country churches near Shennington October 20, 2013

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NUMEROUS TIMES I’VE PHOTOGRAPHED these side-by-side country churches along Wisconsin State Highway 21 just west of Shennington:

Photographed while driving by in the winter of 2010.

Photographed while driving by in the winter of 2010.

Photographed while traveling by in the spring of 2011.

Photographed while traveling by in the spring of 2011.

Another shot of the two churches taken in spring 2011.

Another shot of the two churches taken in spring 2011.

Several months later, in December 2011, I snapped this image.

Several months later, in December 2011, I snapped this image.

My most recent photo, shot on Sunday afternoon, October 13, 2013.

My most recent photo, shot on Sunday afternoon, October 13, 2013.

Beautiful, aren’t they? St. John’s and St. Peter’s Lutheran. German and Danish.

Not once have I stopped to investigate why two houses of worship, seemingly from the same time period, are separated only by a cement parking lot.

I should stop, shouldn’t I?

For now, though, I must rely on information published on Waymarking.com. Because that info is copyrighted, you’ll need to click here to read what I learned.

Every place has a story.

If you know anything about these two churches, please submit a comment so that we can all learn more. I’m certain there are stories to be told.

© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Snippets of rural Minnesota in photos November 1, 2011

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A harvest scene along U.S. Highway 52 in southeastern Minnesota Sunday afternoon.

YOU CAN TAKE the girl off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the girl.

Even decades after leaving my childhood farm at age 17 to start my freshman year of college in the fall of 1974, I hold tight to my agricultural roots.

My rural upbringing shaped me as a person, defined me as a writer and photographer.

More often than not, I find myself creatively focused on the rural, on those places and memories that remind me of the farm and which hold the strongest grasp on my heart.

So I am naturally drawn to photographing rural landscapes and barns and country churches and tractors and small towns whenever I travel. These are the places and objects to which I feel the deepest connection.

I'm always and forever photographing barns like this one along Hwy 52 between Pine Island and Rochester.

Today I’ll take you along U.S. Highway 52 and Interstate 90 in the southeastern section of Minnesota. I’ll show you rural snippets photographed at highway speeds through the passenger side and front windows of our family’s cars. Yes, cars, plural. My husband and I made a quick jaunt to Tomah, Wisconsin, on Sunday to exchange vehicles with our second daughter. Hers needs repair and we met her half-way between her home and ours.

After 2 ½ hours of travel to reach Tomah, we lunched with Miranda and a friend before turning around and heading back home to Faribault.

The day rated as gloomy and dreary weather-wise. Yet, as you will see, such moody skies bring out an emotion in images that you might not feel had the day been sunny bright.

I’m always surprised, when I view the photos, to see the details I missed in the process of shooting the images. But then, along-the-highway scenes flash by in an instant and they are gone, not wholly appreciated until that second, later look in a photo.

You can barely see the distant tractor in this shot. But that's what I like about this scene, how the sheer size of the cornfield and the skies dwarf the tractor, reinforcing the thought that everything is truly small in comparison to the landscape, to the big, big world.

Every red building stood out against the grey, grey skies. Sky is always an integral part of my photos.

Even the stripes of crops are aesthetically pleasing to my photographer's eye.

This photo of Pine Island connects town and country in a seamless blend.

An historic barn and a horse...a common sight along Hwy 52 and I-90.

The red-roofed barn provides a jolt of color under heavy grey skies.

A country church, strong and sturdy, along I-90 near the Winona exit. Look closely and you'll see a sheriff's department squad car parked by the church.

Westbound on I-90, the sun begins to set. I like the contrast between the vivid yellow sign and the grey of the day.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign in Pemberton September 22, 2010

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A welcome to Pemberton sign along State Highway 83.

PEM-BER-TON. The word rolls off my tongue in three syllables, a cadence of sound that names a southern Minnesota town.

I’d never been to this community southeast of Mankato on Minnesota Highway 83, only heard of it tacked onto the end of Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton Public Schools.

But Saturday evening I was in Pemberton for a wedding reception and dance. I arrived early, wanting to explore this town of about 250 before heading over to the former school turned community center.

My quick tour revealed the usual run-down, boarded-up old buildings balanced by a well-groomed park and newer homes. Mostly, though, I was intrigued by the signs on downtown buildings.

Pemberton's main street was quiet on Saturday except for wedding guests driving through downtown.

When was the last time you saw a FALLOUT SHELTER sign? I found one tacked onto the front of a boarded brick building whose original purpose I wouldn’t even want to guess. The faint writing at the bottom of the sign warned: NOT TO BE REPRODUCED OR USED WITHOUT DEFENSE DEPARTMENT PERMISSION.

For those of you who grew up during the 1960s, during the Cold War, like me, a FALLOUT SHELTER sign brings back memories of teachers instructing students to duck under desks and protect their heads, as if that was going to do any good in the event of a nuclear attack.

My husband recalls the particular concern about Communist attacks given his central Minnesota school’s “close” proximity to North Dakota missile silos.

Thankfully those Cold War days of hysteria are behind us and many, many years have passed since I’ve seen a FALLOUT SHELTER sign.

A Fallout Shelter sign on a downtown brick building. Another sign, on the door, warns: Harley Parking Only: All Others Will be Crushed.

The brick building upon which the Fallout Shelter sign is posted.

Across the street, I spotted a weathered PIONEER SEEDS sign on an old garage and, as a boy pedaled past on his bicycle, considered how carefree small-town life can sometimes be. I never allowed my children, when they were elementary-aged, to ride their bikes solo in Faribault. But that’s the difference between small towns and mid-sized cities like mine.

An old Pioneer Seeds sign drew my eye to this building.

And you won’t see a sign like this in most towns: WANTED DEER HIDES—Trade For Gloves. Another sign identified a corner white wood frame building with gaudy blue paint trim as White Fox Fur & Feather Company, supplier of natural materials for the fly fishing industry, according to the company Web site.

Turn your deer hides in here, at White Fox Fur & Feather Company, in exchange for gloves.

I wondered if any of the other wedding reception attendees noticed the downtown signs that tell the story of Pemberton, past and present.

At Jamie’s Pemberton Pub, a pit stop for the wedding party, signs informed me of Mexican Night, Texas Hold ‘Em, Pitcher Night, All day Happy Hour, a Steak Fry and the small-town bar standby, karaoke. Obviously, this is “the place” in Pemberton.

Jamie's Pemberton Pub seems to be the happening place in Pemberton.

I wondered about WOOD N STUFF, about the wood stuff built inside the non-descript building with the overhead garage door. The building could use a bit of polishing, maybe some decorative wood work, to draw customers. Or maybe the place is closed.

What types of products are made at Wood N Stuff?

Closed. The Pemberton Café, likely once the local hot spot for coffee and cards, sits forlorn, windows shuttered, grass sneaking through the cracks in the sidewalk, in a scene all too common in rural Minnesota.

The abandoned Pemberton Cafe on the town's main street.

Yet, despite the abandoned buildings, the closed school, Pemberton survives, anchored like all farming communities by the grain elevator. This is home, a town with a busy convenience store, a post office, a beautiful community center, a park for the kids and a FALLOUT SHELTER.

Approaching Pemberton from the east, the grain elevator and bins mark the skyline.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling