southwestern Minnesota | Minnesota Prairie Roots

My crazy family reconnects at a rural Minnesota reunion July 29, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: family, family reunion, family reunion games, Henry and Ida Kletscher, Kletscher family reunion, memories, Minnesota, southwestern Minnesota, Vesta

My cousin Kirt leads his team in the first Kletscher Fear Factor competition by “agreeing” to a beauty make-over.

WHAT HAPPENS IN ~~VEGAS~~ Vesta stays in ~~Vegas~~ Vesta.

Kirt sports the family name on the back of his shirt.

That mantra was repeated by several of my cousins on Sunday afternoon as my extended family gathered in my hometown for the annual Kletscher family reunion.

We gather in the Vesta park across the road from corn and soybean fields. Here a John Deere tractor drives past on Sunday afternoon.

We meet in the Vesta park across the road from corn and soybean fields. Here a John Deere tractor drives past on Sunday afternoon.

Every year I anticipate this weekend celebration which brings the descendants of Henry and Ida Kletscher to the small southwestern Minnesota prairie town of Vesta. The reunion kicks off with a Saturday evening campfire and then continues the following day with a noon potluck followed by games and visiting.

The playground proves a popular area for elementary-aged through high school.

Laughter, play, competition, conversation and great homemade food define the weekend. I love my extended family and I love this reunion.

My mom, left, and several of the aunts line up to watch the afternoon games. Elaine, bundled in the fleece blanket, was the oldest attendee. She’s 91.

Since adding competitive games several years ago, the connectedness between generations has grown stronger:

Teams formed and then the make-up case was opened for beauty make-overs on three guys.

Teams formed and then the make-up case was opened for a beauty contest.

First, fairy wings for Lucas…

…and then a little make-up.

Denver undergoes a make-over for his team.

Kirt, who wanted what happens in Vesta to stay in Vesta, puckers up.

Kirt hams it up for the crowd, which voted by clapping and hooting and hollering. He won the beauty contest.

Just like my cousins and I hold dear our childhood memories of family get togethers in a time when we all lived near one another, now our offspring and theirs, are, once a year, experiencing a similar family closeness.

Dorothy, hands behind her, races to pluck raisins from rice cereal during a contest.

Dorothy, arms behind her, races to pluck raisins from rice cereal.

My cousin Terri, who co-hosts the Emmy-nominated television show, "Nature Adventures with Terri and Todd," brought a snake for part of the Fear Factor competition. She was attempting to get many family members to overcome their fear of snakes.

My cousin Terri, right, who co-hosts the Emmy-nominated television show, “Nature Adventures with Terri and Todd,” brought a snake for part of the Fear Factor competition. She was attempting to get family members to overcome their fear of snakes.

My cousin Sandy’s grandson Keelan shows no fear of snakes. Some contestants kissed the snake to earn the highest number of points.

My cousin Dawn apparently wasn’t too fond of the tapioca pudding she was racing to eat during a competition.

I can’t emphasize too much the importance of such reunions in this crazy busy world. Grandpa and Grandma would be proud to know their children and families still care enough about each other to gather every July in the place where my great grandparents, Rudolph and Mathilda Kletscher, put down roots.

The youngest attendee, 3-week-old Maddison, came with her parents from Lakeville, 120 miles away.

Henry and Ida’s offspring of all ages came to the reunion—from their oldest daughter, Elaine, age 91, to the youngest great great granddaughter, Maddison, born only three weeks ago.

Kids and families played together in the sand, too, building memories.

And as for that Vegas mantra, I warned my cousins that I couldn’t keep what happens in Vesta, in Vesta. They just laughed and said they were OK with that.

But I’m not sure my cousin Bob was OK with unknowingly eating tofu in the chocolate cream pie I brought to the potluck. When I revealed the secret ingredient, he could not hide his disgust.

“I’m supporting the soybean farmer,” I told this farmer. That didn’t seem to matter. Another memory…

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Higher than your knees July 11, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: agriculture, corn, crops, farming, Fourth of July, Lamberton, memories, southwestern Minnesota

Into the cornfield and up close.

I CAN ALMOST FEEL the corn leaves slicing across my arms, hear the leaves whispering in the wind, see the stalks growing higher and higher, racing toward the prairie sky on a July afternoon.

Corn and soybean fields define southwestern Minnesota.

These are the memories I hold within my cells—the imprint of corn rows stretching into forever. My father’s work laid out before him across the acres. First, seeds dropped into the rich black soil. Next, corn rows cultivated. And then, in autumn, the combine chomping across fields. Golden kernels spilling into wagons. Trips to the grain elevator.

I see all of that in the corn growing in my native southwestern Minnesota.

Through the wildflowers…

On July 4, my husband and I waded through tall ditch grass and wildflowers to check out a cornfield near Lamberton. Back in the day, corn growth was measured against the expected “knee high by the Fourth of July” standard.

Not quite reaching my husband’s shoulders even though the corn appears head high from this angle.

Unless a farmer has to replant or gets his crop in late, his corn is more like shoulder high by the Fourth in today’s agricultural world.

Corn grows in a field next to one of my favorite barns along U.S. Highway 14 in southwestern Minnesota.

This year, though, with late planting and many fields drowned out by too much rain, corn growth appears behind the norm.

Across the fence and across the cornfield, my brother’s neighbor’s place.

But one thing remains constant, no matter the weather, no matter the year. Farmers hang on to harvest hope.

Comments (26)

Sweet vintage signage in Sleepy Eye & a theatre in need of rescue June 9, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: business, businesses, King Koin Launderette, main street, Mathiowetz Auto Body, PIX Theatre, rural Minnesota, signs, Sleepy Eye, small towns, southwestern Minnesota, Theatre, vintage signs

Classic vintage signage on the King Koin Launderette in Sleepy Eye.

EVERY TIME I PASS through Sleepy Eye along U.S. Highway 14 in southwestern Minnesota, I admire the same business signage, especially on the King Koin Launderette downtown.

With no time ever to stop for a proper photo shoot, I settle for a drive-by shot.

That laundromat sign is just so classic. You gotta love it.

Another eye-catching sign on the west side of Sleepy Eye.

Ditto for the simple geometric sign that’s likely marked Mathiowetz Body Shop for years. The garage style building and clutter of vehicles tell me this is a body shop, even if I miss the sign.

Can the PIX Theatre be reclaimed?

And, finally, there’s the PIX Theatre. Each time I observe the clearly abandoned building with those three aging letters and the hole in the marquee, I want to scream, “Please, somebody, anybody, buy this place and restore it.”

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One grand winery & pizza place in the Minnesota River Valley June 6, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: Belview, food, Grandview Valley Winery, historical markers, landscape, Minnesota River valley, pizza, southwestern Minnesota, travel, vineyard, wine, winery

A vineyard at Grandview Valley Winery, rural Belview, Minnesota.

TWO YEARS AGO TOMORROW, in the scenic Minnesota River Valley north of Belview, a winery opened.

Folks have raved to me repeatedly about Grandview Valley Winery, located on land that’s been in a family (Wayne and Kari Rigge and John and Laura Rigge) for four generations.

Now, after visiting this winery, I understand their enthusiasm.

The winery and its vineyard.

But it’s not just the great homemade pizza and the wine that appeal to me. It is the geographic surroundings, the pronounced pastoral loveliness of this peaceful place positioned within the southwestern Minnesota prairie.

Entering Belview from the north upon returning from the winery. Grandview is nearly six miles north of this small town.

Pause to read the Boiling Spring historic marker.

Another marker notes the Knutson family farm.

To get there from nearby Belview, follow Redwood County Road 7 north, winding past farm places, past historical markers for Boiling Spring and the Knutson family farm, where my Aunt Iylene grew up.

Turn onto this gravel road just off Redwood County Road 7.

This is good pasture land.

Inpressive aged bedrock.

And then, shortly after the markers, turn east, your vehicle kicking up dust as you pass more farms, cattle grazing in pastures and mammoth bedrock heaped in hills along tree-hugged gravel roads leading to Grandview.

Almost there.

Arriving at Grandview Valley Winery.

Nearly six miles from Belview, you reach vineyard and winery.

Dine inside or outside on the patio to the left.

Solitude embraces with the type of comfort that comes from being in a locale where you feel cocooned from the world, sheltered from the worries and stresses and rush of everyday life. For me, it was the “I could live here” thought. Or at least escape here for a few hours. This marks the perfect place to sip a glass of valley made wine with delicious homemade pizza.

The nearly full parking lot.

Not that Grandview offers quiet dining. Quite the opposite. The gravel parking lot on this late May evening, is already nearly full. Inside the winery, diners pack tables while several groups gather on the patio. It’s almost a surprise to see so many here in this rural location, although I’ve been warned about the busyness and sometimes long wait for pizza.

The bacon cheeseburger and BBQ pulled pork pizza.

But on this Saturday evening, probably because of area high school graduation parties, my husband, a sister, my older brother and his wife, and I need not wait all that long for our two pizzas—halves of German, BBQ pulled pork, buffalo chicken and bacon cheeseburger. To my surprise, I find the sauerkraut-topped German pizza to be especially tasty and my favorite of the four.

The guys order beer, my brother choosing Goosetown, a German craft beer from August Schell Brewing Company in New Ulm. Goosetown is an historic nod to an ethnic New Ulm neighborhood where primarily Catholic, German-Bohemian immigrants began settling in the late 1800s. They kept gaggles of geese. My husband opts for Grain Belt’s Nordeast, another Schell’s made beer, because Goosetown is not on the beer list he’s been handed and he doesn’t hear my brother’s order.

I failed to photograph the wine. But I did photograph the wine list.

I choose a semi-sweet white wine made from Frontenac Gris grapes and finished with hints of peach, apricot and green apple. Rockin’ Coyote holds the promise of summer and the wild side of this land where I’m certain more than a few coyotes range.

Our conversation flows with the ease that comes from dining among those you love, those who know your history and your quirks and don’t care.

We laugh. And I am teased mercilessly for my gullibility as my sister-in-law reveals that crawdads will not be served at her daughter’s wedding as she previously told me.

Grandview feels like home to me, my connectedness as solid as the aged bedrock lodged in this land.

FYI: Click here for more information about Grandview Valley Winery.

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Delhi: Little town on the Minnesota prairie June 4, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: Delhi, farming community, photo essay, prairie, Redwood County, rural Minnesota, small towns, southwestern Minnesota, travel

UNLESS YOU’RE A LOCAL or a native, you likely bypass the small towns which sit off county roads, tucked away from trafficked highways that take time-pressed travelers from destination to destination.

Nearing Delhi at the intersections of Redwood County Road 9 and 6.

On a recent trip back to my native southwestern Minnesota prairie, my husband and I sidetracked off our usual route along State Highway 19 between Belview and Redwood Falls to follow Redwood County Road 9 to Delhi.

Decades have passed since I visited Delhi, at the intersection of county roads 9 and 6.

A sweet, well-cared for home in Delhi.

Most would surmise there’s not much in Delhi. That is until you look and consider that some 70 folks call this rural farming community home.

Another cute home with lovely landscaping that includes field rocks.

Home.

In need of a little TLC, both home and car.

While some residents care about their properties with well-tended houses, others show less interest in maintenance. That is not uncommon in small towns. Or perhaps such neglect is more noticeable with fewer houses.

Parked along the tracks just off Redwood County Road 6 west of Delhi.

Like so many small towns along the railroad line, this settlement once boomed. Information published in The History of Redwood County, Volume 1, states that Delhi was platted in 1884, shortly after the railroad came through the area. Alfred M. Cook, a builder and owner of a flour mill in neighboring Redwood Falls, named Delhi, according to Minnesota place name info on the Minnesota Historical Society website. He came to the area from Delhi, Ohio.

The front window of the 1910 Delhi State Bank is now mostly boarded with a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The Delhi State Bank, built of brick in 1910, and now abandoned and apparently last used as a church, shows me that folks once believed in this place.

Driving toward downtown.

Not that they don’t anymore. But like all too many prairie communities, Delhi has mostly withered away.

Grain trucks parked near the grain bins.

Many other businesses once operated here, but they are no more, with the noticeable exception of a grain business. Delhi, in the late 1800s, housed general, drug, hardware and lumber stores, a hotel, a railroad and telegraph agent, a feed mill, a blacksmith shop, a farm implement business and more.

What a lovely church this must be inside as evidenced from the exterior.

What a lovely church this must be (or once was) inside as evidenced from the exterior.

The Presbyterian church today appears shuttered.

Evidence of faith in former bank and bin.

Despite all of this and the inclination to despair, I cannot help but admire the determination of Delhi to cling to the land. Prairie roots run deep.

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I’m not a tree hugger, but… June 2, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: Cottonwood, nature, prairie, southwestern Minnesota, tree hugger, trees, Vesta

MY AUNT JEANETTE has been duly informed.

The ancient cottonwood stands on the north edge of Vesta.

If she ever attempts to have the massive/towering/gigantic cottonwood in her yard cut down, I will be right there hugging that tree.

Now I am not a tree hugger in the true definition of a tree hugger. I would not scamper onto the limb of a tree to prevent its removal. For one thing, I am not agile like a squirrel. Secondly, I am not an outspoken, protesting type person, at least not in public.

But I did protest privately to my aunt when she mentioned cutting down that beautiful sprawling cottonwood gracing her yard.

The tree is messy, she explained, wondering then if I’d like to clean up the cottony seeds and sticky bud capsules dropped onto her lawn.

Point taken.

Yet, this cottonwood deserves special consideration given it’s likely the oldest tree in my southwestern Minnesota prairie hometown. It’s certainly the biggest in girth and the tallest tree in this community of some 320.

I can imagine the early settlers arriving in this mostly treeless land, wind-bent prairie grasses stretching for miles before them. And then, in the distance, the shimmering leaves of a cottonwood.

Or perhaps one of them brought a cottonwood seedling here, planted it on the north edge of this new prairie town.

Decades later, a tire swing looped by a rope to a limb, the sturdy cottonwood still stands strong against the vast prairie sky in my beloved hometown.

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The changing prairie view May 14, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: Cap X2020 transmission line, Harvestore silos, opinion, power lines, rural landscape, rural Minnesota, southwestern Minnesota, thoughts

Newly-erected power lines, part of the Cap X2020 transmission line project northwest of Morgan along Minnesota State Highway 67, run seemingly into forever.

I FEEL ABOUT MONSTROSITY power lines as I do about wind turbines. I don’t appreciate their visual impact upon the land.

These towering giants, in my opinion, mar the landscape, distract and detract, cause me to feel small, unsettled and insignificant in their presence.

A farm site along Minnesota Highway 67 seems so small in comparison to the new transmission power poles.

A farm site along Minnesota State Highway 67 dwarfed by a new transmission power pole.

Perhaps it’s just the southwestern Minnesota prairie rooted girl in me who values her horizon wide and broad and vertically interrupted only by grain elevators, water towers, silos and groves of trees.

Old style power lines still run along Brown County Road 29 between New Ulm and Morgan.

I wonder if my grandparents felt the same about the early rural electric co-op posts and lines strung along gravel township roads, the cement stave silos popping up on farms…old water-pumping windmills abandoned.

A cluster of Harvestore silos define a farm northeast of Vesta along Minnesota State Highway 19.

I felt a certain discontent when blue Harvestore silos began soldiering into southwestern Minnesota decades ago. They lacked personality and represented, to me, the demise of the small family farm.

Wind turbines in extreme southwestern Minnesota. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo, July 2013.

These are my thoughts as I travel through my native prairie today. Progress does not always please me. Visually or otherwise.

(This post is cross posted at streets.mn.)

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Rural driveway May 8, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: agriculture, farming, landscape, Morgan, photo essay, rural scene, southwestern Minnesota

I KEEP FLIPPING between the three photos.

Original.

Edited.

Or edited.

But I can’t choose a favorite.

I like them all.

I like the lines of the field and drive, how my eyes are drawn to follow that pick-up into the farmyard.

I like the muted tones of grey and blue and those splashes of red in truck and outbuildings.

I like the ribbons of greening grass trimming the driveway, the bare trees edging the farm site.

This rural scene, along Brown County Road 29 southeast of Morgan, pleases me for the memories it holds. Not of this farm, but of my childhood on the farm. My heart is happy every time I travel back to southwestern Minnesota, past the fields and farms, gravel roads and grain elevators…through small towns…

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Bringing the magic of prom to a Minnesota nursing home May 6, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: aging, Belview, life, nursing home, Parkview Home, prom, southwestern Minnesota, teenagers, thoughts

TIS PROM SEASON in Minnesota, that annual rite of spring which throws teenage girls into a spin over finding just the right dress, getting a fabulous up-do, planning photo sessions and doing whatever to create the perfect evening.

That’s all delightful, to live in a fairytale world.

But what a group of girls in rural southwestern Minnesota did on the day of their high school prom impresses me more than all the magical glitz and glam.

They took the time last weekend to share prom with the residents of a small town nursing home.

This my mother, who recently moved into Parkview Home in Belview, shared with me during our weekly Sunday evening phone conversation.

If those teens could have eavesdropped on our exchange, they would know just how happy they made my mom by stopping at their workplace before prom to show off their Cinderella selves.

Mom didn’t comment specifically on the dresses, although she did on the “fancy hair.”

And, she noted, some of the girls brought their dates, who, she laughed, looked a bit bored and “were probably wondering when they could leave.”

I don’t doubt her observation. Physically Mom is limited in her abilities. But mentally she is still, as they say, sharp as a tack.

This isn’t about my mother, though, who also profusely praised those prom-goers as kind and thoughtful.

Rather, this is about these young women and, yes, their dates, too. I am impressed by their care, kindness and generosity of spirit. They could have gone on their way, without a thought of stopping at Parkview. But they did. And for that, this daughter is grateful.

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A Minnesota prairie sunset May 5, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
Tags: nature, photo essay, prairie, southwestern Minnesota, sunset, Vesta

MY HUSBAND SCURRIED back to my mother’s house, told me to grab my camera and hurry.

And hasten we did. Between her house and the neighbors, along the grass alley a block. Turn west at my uncle and aunt’s house. Fast-walk another block.

Focus on the setting sun, the sky colored in layered shades of orange and yellow, pink and purple.

Oh, how I love the sunset on my beloved prairie in my hometown of Vesta, Minnesota.

I can never get enough of it.

This moment when day transitions into evening with beauty unequal on a land that stretches flat into forever.

Spectacular sunset, like poetry sweeping across the prairie sky.

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Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

My crazy family reconnects at a rural Minnesota reunion July 29, 2014

Higher than your knees July 11, 2014

Sweet vintage signage in Sleepy Eye & a theatre in need of rescue June 9, 2014

One grand winery & pizza place in the Minnesota River Valley June 6, 2014

Delhi: Little town on the Minnesota prairie June 4, 2014

I’m not a tree hugger, but… June 2, 2014

The changing prairie view May 14, 2014

Rural driveway May 8, 2014

Bringing the magic of prom to a Minnesota nursing home May 6, 2014

A Minnesota prairie sunset May 5, 2014

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An essay of barn photos & memories; In praise of preserving country churches; & Testing the track during a Soap Box Derby trial run in Faribault

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