Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A glimpse of winter on the Minnesota prairie March 8, 2011

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Traveling U.S. Highway 14 west of New Ulm to southwestern Minnesota.

I NEEDED A TRIP to southwestern Minnesota this past weekend, as much to be with extended family as to reconnect with the land where I grew up. I was not disappointed, on both counts.

I embraced the family I love as we talked and laughed and talked and laughed some more while celebrating my middle brother’s 50th birthday until just past midnight on Saturday.

Sometime in between, we joked about the possibility of being snowed in on his Redwood County acreage. Snow was in the forecast and we all know that snow on the prairie, combined with wind, could strand us.

By the time we finished breakfast mid-morning on Sunday, the flakes were flying and U.S. Highway 14 was dusted with snow, enough to cause cautionary travel as my husband, son and I headed east back to our Faribault home.

Fortunately, we drove out of the snow even before reaching New Ulm.

Every time I visit the prairie, I realize all over again how harsh winters are out there and how very different they are from the winters I experience in southeastern Minnesota. Honestly, if you saw the drifts and plowed ridges of snow along Highway 14 and the endless vista of wide open spaces that stretch like a sea of white, you would understand.

Join me on this visual journey along a section of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway between New Ulm and Lamberton. These photos don’t even do justice to winters on the prairie because we weren’t traveling in a prairie blizzard. But, in these images, you can envision the possibilities…

 

Railroad tracks run parallel to Highway 14 as the land stretches under spacious skies.

In some spots along U.S. Highway 14, the snow is piled higher than vehicles.

Snow had been pushed into rows in fields along Highway 14, acting as natural snow fences.

The wind sculpted drifts along the snow fences.

The snow had been pushed into mountains so high that only the top portion of Family Foods was visible from Highway 14 on the eastern side of Sleepy Eye.

Snow pushed off Highway 14, as seen through the windshield of our car.

Visibility was reduced as we traveled along U.S. Highway 14 Sunday morning near Lamberton, creating this surreal image of the local grain elevators. The top seven images were taken on Saturday.

We were thankful the lights on this sign, on the east side of Springfield, were not flashing Sunday morning. During severe winter weather these lights are activated and roads are closed to keep motorists safe.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Reflections on the 2008 Cottonwood bus crash February 21, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:41 AM
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THREE YEARS AGO Saturday, the small southwestern Minnesota community of Cottonwood suffered an unbelievable tragedy. They lost four of their children when a van ran a stop sign and slammed into a school bus, killing Jesse, Hunter, Reed and Emilee.

I intended to mark that February 19 anniversary date with a blog post. But I forgot. I am not proud of myself. How could I forget to honor these young lives, to remember a prairie town that mourned so deeply, to tell the families that I have not forgotten them or this horrible day?

The event touched me personally as my cousin Joyce’s grandson, 8-year-old Bryce, was riding in the front seat of that bus. He was OK, suffering only several small abrasions.

I’ve kept the emails Joyce and I exchanged after that February 19, 2008, tragedy because I never wanted to forget. And now I’ve gone and done just that.

So today, several days late, I want to remind all of you to hold your children close, to tell them how very much you love them. Treasure them. Every day.

My cousin told me back then, three years ago, about the terror she felt after learning of the crash and not knowing if her grandson was OK. Later, she would thank God for watching over Bryce as she prayed for the recovery of the injured, the families who lost their children and the community of Cottonwood.

I purchased a teddy bear, a bag of M & Ms and a book for Bryce, a voracious reader, and mailed the items to him along with a letter just days after the crash. I figured he could use a teddy bear to hug and words of encouragement.

I wrote, in part, “I hear that you were very brave, which is a tough thing to be when something so scary happens.”

I encouraged him to talk to God, his family or anyone else “when you feel scared and sad.”

Then I ended my letter: “Lots of people love you.”

Today as I reflect on the four children who died that Tuesday afternoon in February 2008 on the cold, wind-swept prairie in a tragedy that should never have happened, my heart aches for their families.

But I hope that through the grief and the pain and the healing they can hold onto the love, the love that will always be there, and the memories, the sweet, sweet memories of their precious children.

CLICK HERE TO READ a blog post I wrote on February 19, 2009, marking the one-year anniversary of the Cottonwood bus crash.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

 

 

Snow in Minnesota, again February 20, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 1:43 PM
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UP UNTIL ABOUT 45 minutes ago, snow was falling fast and furious here in Faribault, at a rate of an inch an hour.

Visibility had dwindled to a block in town. As for the country, I wouldn’t even want to guess.

But now, shortly after noon, the snow flakes aren’t as thick or as heavy and conditions have improved. Perhaps this is simply a lull in a storm predicted to drop up to 15 inches of snow here in southeastern Minnesota, more in southwestern Minnesota, “more” being 20 inches.

My area of Minnesota is currently under a winter storm warning until noon Monday.

In southwestern Minnesota, where my mom and other family members live, a blizzard warning has been issued. Snow and winds have created difficult driving conditions and low visibility on the prairie, according to information I just read on the Minnesota Department of Transportation website. I expect that snow gates, if they have not already been lowered across roads like Minnesota State Highway 19, will soon be put in place. That means you do not travel those roadways without the risk of a hefty fine. Prairie people, for the most part, understand the dangers of traveling in a blizzard and stay put.

I expect to spend my day holed up at home, wrapping up writing projects for Minnesota Moments’ spring issue. It’s a good day to do that and a good way to avoid working on income tax. I detest rounding up tax information and, this year, have put off the awful numbers task longer than normal.

On the way home from church, my husband and I stopped at the grocery store, a busy place at 10 a.m. As we entered the store, we were greeted by a shopper who just smiled and said, “Here we go again.” He was, of course, referring to the snow.

Then, a half hour later as we exited the store with our bread and other food packed into three bags, a cart-pusher, who was struggling to gather grocery carts in the snowy parking lot, declared, “Winter all over again.”

See the common word in their statements? That would be “again.”

Yup, here we go again.

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR reports about weather conditions in your area. So submit a comment.

 

I APOLOGIZE for the lack of current photos, but I am without my Canon for a week while it is being cleaned.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The winters of my childhood January 20, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:56 AM
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REMEMBER THE WINTERS of fun?

You could hardly wait to rush out the door and slog through freshly-fallen snow, plowing furrows for a game of fox-and-goose.

You could barely wait for Dad to push bucketsful of snow from the farmyard with his tractor and loader into mountains suitable for scaling.

 

Three of my younger siblings and I pose atop a snow mountain our dad created in our southwestern Minnesota farmyard in this photo dated February 1967.

You excitedly dug into the sides of snowdrifts, hard as bedrock, to carve out snow caves.

You raced across the tops of those snowdrifts, up and down and all around the world of white.

 

Our southwestern Minnesota farmyard is buried in snowdrifts in this March 1965 image. My mom is holding my youngest sister as she stands by the car parked next to the house. My other sister and two brothers and I race down the snowdrifts.

You packed snow into hard balls, aiming for siblings, wiggling and screaming at the brother who grabbed your collar and stuffed ice-cold snow down the back of your neck.

And when the snow was the perfect consistency, you rolled and packed it into big balls, shoving and grunting and straining, working together with classmates or siblings to build a snowman or a snow fort.

Such were the winters of my childhood on a southwestern Minnesota farm. Fierce. Brutal. But, mostly, fun.

Today, living through one of our snowiest winters in forever, I am reminded of those childhood winters. I would be wise to remember the fun I once experienced on the cold, snowy, wind-swept Minnesota prairie.

 

This huge, hard-as-rock snowdrift blocked our farm driveway in this March 1965 photo. My uncle drove over from his nearby farm to help open the drive so the milk truck could reach the milkhouse. That's my mom and five of us kids atop the drift.

WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES of childhood winters?

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Heading back home to the southwestern Minnesota prairie for Christmas December 26, 2010

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We drove along U.S. Highway 14 as we traveled to southwestern Minnesota for Christmas. This stretch is between the Sanborn corners and Lamberton.

FOR THE FIRST TIME in decades, my family and I celebrated Christmas Eve with my mom and four of my five siblings, and their families, “back home” on the southwestern Minnesota prairie.

It was my mom’s wish that all of us be there, attending Christmas Eve church services with her at our home church, St. John’s Lutheran in Vesta.

Our Christmas together was as wonderful and memorable and as full of laughter and love as I expected it would be.

Initially, I doubted that we would make the 2 ½-hour trip west given the steady snow that began falling early Christmas Eve, slicking the highways and creating difficult driving conditions. But by the time we left Faribault around 2:30 p.m. Friday, the snow had stopped and major highways were clear.

So, with the trunk packed full of luggage, air mattresses and sleeping bags, presents and coolers, the five of us crammed ourselves into the car (along with pillows and board games on our laps) for the journey to Redwood County. We were headed first to my brother’s house just north of Lamberton.

When we got to New Ulm, nearly 1 ½ hours into the trip, I dug my camera out of the camera bag wedged near my feet and snapped occasional photos of the prairie. It is the land I most love—the place my kids call “the middle of nowhere.”

A train travels east along U.S. Highway 14 between Essig and Sleepy Eye while we travel west.

I love this land of plowed fields and wide open spaces, of small-town grain elevators occasionally punctuating the vast skies, of cozy farm sites sheltered by barren trees.

I love, especially, the red barns accented by the fresh-fallen snow, portraying an agrarian beauty that perhaps only someone who grew up on a farm can appreciate.

As much as I have disliked all of the snow we’ve had this winter, I saw only a beautiful winter wonderland when I was back home for Christmas on the prairie.

The sun begins setting over the prairie as we head west, passing through Sleepy Eye and Springfield before reaching Lamberton. We saw only occasional glimpses of sun on a mostly gray day.

The elevators in Sleepy Eye. Small-town prairie elevators like this can be seen for miles away.

One of many picturesque barns along U.S. Highway 14.

Elevators and trains are a common site along U.S. Highway 14 in the rich farmland of southwestern Minnesota. We've nearly reached our destination when I photograph this elevator complex near sunset.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Winter storm on the prairie December 1, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 11:59 AM
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Snow blows across the driveway on the farm where I grew up near Vesta.

WHEN I HEARD yesterday of five-foot snowdrifts in the Springfield area, west of New Ulm, I simply had to get my hands on some photos from southwestern Minnesota. Honestly, unless you’ve lived on the flat, open, wind-swept prairie, you really can’t comprehend the ferocity of a Minnesota winter.

In that part of the state, November exited with a strong winter storm that whipped snow into hard, sculpted drifts, made roads nearly impassable if not impassable and closed schools on Monday and Tuesday.

Snowdrifts, some six feet high, sculpted around the grove and bins on the home place.

Although I have not lived on the prairie for nearly four decades, memories of winters there are as fresh as the five, up to 10, inches of snow that fell there.

I won’t tell you that I walked uphill two miles to school in snowdrifts eight feet deep. But I will tell you that when I attended junior high school in Redwood Falls some 20 miles from my farm home, we had a difficult time getting to school one winter. Because of all the snow and poor road conditions, buses would not make their rural routes. One bus left the cafe in my hometown of Vesta each morning bound for Redwood Falls. If you could get into town, then you could go to school. For my brother and me, that journey into Vesta was via an open cab John Deere tractor driven one mile down a county road by our dad. After school he would drive back in to town and bring us home.

I also recall during high school once riding home on a single school bus crammed with students who would normally fill two buses. The driver opted to take all of the Vesta area kids to Vesta (not home) in one bus as weather conditions were so poor. The bus crept along the highway with one student standing just inside the open bus door guiding the driver in near-visibility conditions.

The often brutal winters on the prairie also necessitated designated “snow homes,” homes in town where country kids could stay if snow stranded them in town. Although I had snow homes every year from junior high until I graduated in 1974, I never once had to stay at one. My siblings did.

Even though the prairie winters were harsh, as a kid, I loved winter. Rock-hard snowdrifts that circled the granary and the house and the barn and the snow piles formed by my dad with the bucket of his John Deere tractor became treacherous mountains to explore. We drove our imaginary dog sleds there, played King of the Mountain, dug snow tunnels, slid in our sleds…

Winters were fun back then.

Wind-whipped snow drifts around the abandoned milkhouse and silo.

I’m certain, though, for my parents, winter must have been a lot of hard work—pushing all that snow from the driveway and yard to open a path for the milk truck, thawing frozen drinking cups and a frozen gutter cleaner, emptying the pot that served as our bathroom in the cold front porch…

All of these memories rushed back as I viewed the photos my niece Hillary took of this recent winter storm in southwestern Minnesota. Her images are from the farm where I grew up, the place of sweet memories and of long, cold, harsh winters.

Snow began falling Monday afternoon in the Vesta area, causing low visibility and poor driving conditions as snow covered roadways, according to my niece.

Snow swirled into drifts in the farmyard on the farm of my childhood.

Snowdrifts formed at the edge of the yard, next to the grove.

IF YOU HAVE WINTER memories or stories to share, submit a comment to Minnesota Prairie Roots. I’d like to hear yours.

Text © Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos © Copyright 2010 Hillary Kletscher

 

Returning to my Minnesota prairie roots September 12, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:58 PM
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THIS AFTERNOON, my husband, son and I returned from a weekend trip to my beloved prairie, southwestern Minnesota. The journey brought stops along the way and back—one which stretched into a 2-hour lunch at The Dam Store, a food/live bait/tackle place just outside Rapidan near Mankato.

This homey joint, which sits next to the Rapidan Dam on the scenic Blue Earth River, advertises the “BEST DAM HAMBURGERS AND PIE BY A DAM SITE.” That’s no lie. But you won’t read about it here. I’m planning a magazine feature story on this kitschy 100-year-old café/store. That explains the lengthy lunch hour (or rather two), of a cheeseburger and fries and dam good homemade chocolate caramel pecan pie, that evolved into interviews and photo-taking.

You'll find great hamburgers and homemade pies at The Dam Store, an unassuming century old eatery.

As we traveled west toward our destination in rural Lamberton in Redwood County, I filled my camera with images from the road, setting a fast shutter speed and zooming down the passenger-side car window or aiming through the windshield whenever a photo op arose.

All along that drive, I gawked at the sky, the wide, wide prairie sky that I can never get enough of no matter how many times I view it.

Likewise, I cannot get enough of this land where I grew up. Here the soil and sky and wind taught me how to see and smell and feel and listen, and because of that, how to write with a detailed, grassroots style.

Returning to southwestern Minnesota renews my gratefulness for roots that reach deep into the earth. Even though I left this land 36 years ago, I remain forever connected to the prairie, “home” in my heart.

Driving U.S. Highway 71 in southwestern Minnesota, you can see a sky and land that stretches beyond forever.

Empty corn cribs on the prairie await another harvest. Or perhaps they are no longer used.

Even a collapsed barn possesses a certain beauty on the prairie. While I saw many barns in disrepair or falling apart, I also saw many that still stand, strong and proud in this wind-swept land.

Sheep and a horse graze in a roadside pasture.

A lone silo leaves me wondering, "What happened to the barn?"

(I shot the landscape photos while we were traveling along U.S. Highway 71 between Minnesota Highway 30 and U.S. Highway 14 in southwestern Minnesota on Saturday.)

UPON OUR RETURN to southeastern Minnesota, I grabbed today’s Faribault Daily News from the mailbox to find my photo, and a feature story about me, splashed across the front page. Several days ago reporter James Warden interviewed me about my blogging.

I’ll be honest and tell you that I’d been dodging the interview with James because I’m a bit uncomfortable in the spotlight. I much prefer the other side of the notebook and camera.

Even though I would have preferred my story tucked discreetly inside the pages of the newspaper, I cannot contain my enthusiasm for James’ reporting and writing. He captured the essence of me and my blogging style by using words and descriptions and details that would be fitting of a Minnesota Prairie Roots blog post.

If you’d like to check out journalist James’ take on me and my blogging, click here.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

West of New Ulm June 15, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:12 AM
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Traveling along Redwood County Highway 10 between Vesta (my hometown) and Lucan in southwestern Minnesota, a land defined by open spaces, big skies, farm fields and small towns.

DOES SOUTHERN MINNESOTA exist west of New Ulm?

Of course it does, you say. Just look at a map, follow a road west.

Well, folks, I can tell you that for many Minnesotans, southern Minnesota ends at New Ulm, or even Mankato some 25 miles to the east.

I’ve drawn this conclusion after decades of trying to explain where I grew up. Typically, I say that my hometown lies half-way between Redwood Falls and Marshall on State Highway 19.

All too often, I’ll get a blank stare, meaning I must resort to a more detailed explanation that Vesta is west of Redwood Falls, which is west of New Ulm, which is west of Mankato.

Then maybe, just maybe, they’ll understand.

Minnesotans unfamiliar with the southwestern part of our state really ought to spend some time there, in this land of wide open spaces and endless skies, of farm fields and small towns, of grain elevators and water towers that can be seen from miles away.

I’m proud to claim roots in the southwestern Minnesota prairie. My blog name, Minnesota Prairie Roots, honors the land that shaped who I became as a person and a writer.

Although I don’t get back to the prairie as often as I’d like, I’ve never lost my connection to this place. I appreciate the solitude, the wind, the sky—especially the skies—the rich black soil, the weathering red barns, even the cemetery where my father and other family members lie buried on a rare prairie hilltop that overlooks the countryside.

I have not lived in southwestern Minnesota for nearly three decades. But I’ll always consider this land, this place my kids call “the middle of nowhere,” my home.

Well, I rather like “the middle of nowhere,” this Minnesota that lies west of New Ulm, which lies west of Mankato.

One of many red barns along Cottonwood County Road 7 near Westbrook.

A farm site just outside of Westbrook along Cottonwood County Road 7.

Windmills dominate the landscape along Minnesota Highway 30 in the Jeffers area.

A lone farm building along State Highway 30 in southwestern Minnesota.

Horses graze under the spacious skies upon the southwestern Minnesota prairie along State Highway 30.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling