THERE’S SOMETHING TO BE SAID about the importance of family reunions. They allow us to reconnect, to celebrate, to reminisce, to build new memories, to support, encourage and appreciate one another and our shared histories.
THE BODE FAMILY
My first reunion of the summer was a small gathering with a maternal aunt, uncle, cousins and my youngest brother and his wife in south Minneapolis. Aunt Rae, my godmother, was in town from Missouri. Over a table laden with breakfast foods, we talked and laughed and then afterwards moved to the screened in porch for more catching up and a discussion about the current state of affairs in this country. Mostly, though, we talked family. Since my mom’s death in 2022, I’ve felt even more the need to stay connected to her siblings and their families.
THE KLETSCHER FAMILY
The next reunion happened on the last Sunday of July. The extended Kletscher family met in Echo, a small southwestern Minnesota town some seven miles north of my hometown. There, in a community center, we filled tables with homemade foods for a noon potluck. Afterwards, I circulated in an attempt to talk to nearly everyone in attendance. This reunion has been going on annually for probably seventy years or more. I don’t always make it. But I try to because I’d rather see my cousins and my remaining aunts and uncle at a happy event rather than at a funeral.
THE HELBLING FAMILY
And then there is the Helbling reunion, held last weekend at a nephew’s rural Faribault acreage. This gathering brings my husband Randy’s family together from all across Minnesota and the country. Our son flew in from Boston. Our second daughter and her family arrived from Madison, Wisconsin. Others came from Michigan, Missouri and North Dakota. This event happens annually. And each year family members travel from all over to see each other, which says a lot about just how important family connections are to all of us.
This year organizers changed things up a bit by replacing BINGO with a raffle of homemade/home-grown foods and goods. There were cookies, banana bread, multiple jams, wine, honey, engraved stones, crocheted animals, garden fresh potatoes, salsa and more, including canned rabbit meat. I brought an anthology that included five pieces of my writing. Randy brought a bottle of Cry Baby Craig’s hot sauce, an allowed raffle item given it’s made in Faribault.
Everyone went home with something. But perhaps the best part of the raffle was the money raised for the Community Action Center in Faribault via the sale of $5 raffle tickets. With $300 in raffle ticket sales and a company match by an employer, the CAC will be gifted with $600 from the Helbling family. This family cares.
I love my husband’s family. They are a genuinely loving, kind, caring, compassionate, generous and supportive group. During the reunion, we shared family updates while the kids bounced in a cow-shaped bouncy house. During a corn hole tournament, Tristan and his teammate once again walked away with the “trophy,” a mini corn hole board. My six-year-old grandson showed me how to pound nails into a round of wood in a game of hammerschlagen. My granddaughter and I watched baby ducks swim in a pond next to a menagerie of poultry, goats and two black sheep. Kids shot rockets high into the air. Adults gathered in lawnchair clusters to chat. Slowly, as the sun set, family members began to leave. I left feeling so loved.
The evening prior, the siblings and their spouses met at the Craft Beverage Curve in Faribault for food, drinks and conversation. The new addition to the reunion proved popular. Family raved about the setting. I felt a deep sense of pride in my community. But mostly, I felt the love of the Helbling family which I have been part of for 43 years. Tom and Betty Helbling would be proud of the family they started. And they would be happy that, on the second Saturday in August each year, their family reconnects at a reunion.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
In which I protest, grieve & reflect June 19, 2025
Tags: America, assassination, commentary, government, grief, June 14, Minnesota, mural, news, NO KINGS protest, Northfield, protest, protest signs, reflections, Rep. Melissa Hortman, Sen. John Hoffman, thoughts, United States
I LEANED MY HEAD against Randy’s shoulder, my left hand gripping the rod of a protest sign and a small American flag. I felt such profound sadness in that moment. The moment when a pastor asked for a period of silence in honor of Minnesota State Representative/House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, assassinated in their home during the early morning hours of June 14.
Flag Day. Nationwide NO KINGS protest day. A day of gathering turned tragic here in Minnesota.
I alternated between leaning into my husband and leaning my bowed head against the bottom of my NO MORE KINGS protest poster held high, the sign with the cursive words, “I value freedom,” scrawled on the back side. The wind blew, swept my hair across my face like a veil covering sadness. The heaviness felt palpable here, in Ames Park in Northfield, along the banks of the Cannon River. But so did the energy.
We were a group of hundreds—maybe even a thousand (I’m not good at estimating crowd size)—gathered to publicly express our concerns about leadership in this country, about decisions being made that negatively affect all of us, about the state of and future of our democracy… It was my first protest. Ever. I wanted, needed, to be here. To remain silent seems complicit.
I’d already arrived when a friend texted that Minnesotans had been advised by state law enforcement not to attend NO KINGS protests. That warning linked to the suspect in the shootings of the Hortmans and of State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. We would later learn that NO KINGS fliers were found in the vehicle of Vance Boelter, now accused in the double murders and attempted murders.
That explained why, on the way to the riverside protest, I overheard a woman telling a couple that her police officer son had advised her not to participate in the rally. She was going home. I was not. Nor were any of the others converging on Ames Park at noon. I wasn’t scared. Vested safety people, trained in conflict resolution and de-escalation, were in place. I felt safe in the masses, which, I suppose, is an unrealistic perspective. But I refuse to be silenced by fear, by the words and actions of those who attempt to suppress voices. And intimidate.
And there were those, including the drivers of a white pickup truck and of motorcycles which repeatedly roared past the rally site, spewing their opposition in noise and in political flags bannering messages I won’t repeat. But they, too, have a right to protest. Peacefully. Just as I do. And I wrote that on the back of a second sign: FREE to PROTEST. But, mostly, passing vehicles honked in strong support.
At this rally of people opposing the current administration and its policies and actions, I felt a unity of purpose and a deep, cohesive concern for the future of our country. I felt uplifted, embraced, empowered. Speakers spoke (although I couldn’t hear most). The pastor led us in prayer. We sang—”The Star Spangled Banner” and “We shall overcome.” We cheered. We chanted. We waved our posters and flags. And a group held an over-sized American flag, which I couldn’t see from my vantage point deep in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd.
We were mostly an older group. Baby Boomers. Grandparents. Even octogenarians. Perhaps some protested during the Vietnam War. Or served this country. We’ve lived a few years, enough decades to understand that we need to rise up against authoritarianism. Enough to understand what’s at stake. But there were some young people, too, like the dad behind me with his preschool daughter playing in the grass. He clearly cares, if not for himself, but then for his child.
The morning after the NO KINGS protest, I left for Madison, Wisconsin, to spend time with my 5-month-old grandson (and his parents). As I snuggled Everett, I thought, he (and my other two grandchildren) are part of the reason I chose to protest. Their lives stretch before them. I want them to live in a country where they are free. Free. I want them to live under a government based on a three-pronged system of checks and balances, not one ruled by a king or some version of a king or dictator. I want them to live in a kind, caring and compassionate country. Not a selfish, uncaring, divisive nation filled with hatred.
I returned to Minnesota yesterday and am catching up on laundry and writing. And, along with my fellow Minnesotans, I’m collectively grieving the assassination of an elected official and her husband. And I’m thinking, this is what it’s come to in Amercia…
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling