An arch frames Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault, Minnesota. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.
WHENEVER I VISIT the campus of Shattuck-St. Mary’s School on Faribault’s east side, I feel like I am walking onto an East Coast college campus. This place of aged stone buildings presents a scholarly image that seems more post-secondary than prestigious college prep school. Known for producing hockey legends, SSM has a current enrollment of nearly 500 students in grades 6 – 12. Most board here.
Window sills, nooks, hallways and more are decorated for the Christmas Walk.
Some of those students mingled and participated in Shattuck’s Campus Christmas Walk, an annual holiday gift to the community. I try to attend each December, enjoying the figure skating show, music and treats and the opportunity to view the historic buildings in holiday splendor.
The decorated entry of Shumway Hall.
The historic buildings feature lots of stained glass windows.
Inside the historic dining hall.
The dark handcrafted woodwork, the sagging stairs, the stained glass windows and more speak to the history of SSM. The school traces its roots to an Episcopal mission school and seminary established in 1858.
Students at a computer station in a newer area of the campus.
But today it’s every bit technologically modern within aged walls. There’s a strong vibe of arts and culture and academics. That Shattuck welcomes locals like me onto campus is a good thing in building community relations and exposure of all this school offers. I couldn’t help but think while at Shattuck on Saturday how much my son would have liked this educational setting and the challenges offered therein. He graduated last spring from Tufts University in greater Boston.
Skaters from Shattuck-St. Mary’s Figure Kating Center of Excellence presented a Christmas Spectacular on Ice.
As I watched the figure skating show, I swayed to “Feliz Navidad” and other holiday tunes while talented skaters glided and twirled across the ice in their sparkly sequined costumes. I remembered then how much I once loved to skate on a bumpy pond in the shadow of a small town grain elevator.
Signs directed visitors.
In the Shumway Hall entry hall, carolers sing for Christmas Walk guests.
A lone musician performs.
A short walk from the ice arena, I listened to string instrument solos, delighting in that music and the holiday tunes of carolers performing in an entry hallway. And I remembered how I once stood on the stage of my high school dressed as a Dickens caroler with a yellow posterboard bonnet wrapped around my head.
A sizable crowd of kids and adults gathered for holiday treats and kids’ activities.
Cookie decorating delighted the kids.
Farther down, in the Morgan Refectory (the dining hall), kids munched on cookies they’d decorated, green and red frosting outlining their lips. They also created Christmas ornaments. I paused with my husband to sip a cup of hot chocolate, trying to warm myself after an hour in a cold ice arena. Years ago, after completing farm chores, I would thaw my numb fingers over the milkhouse stove.
A prop at the figure skating show.
These nutcrackers fascinated the kids.
The sight of kids sticking their fingers inside the mouths of oversized nutcrackers caused me to chuckle. I recall doing the same decades ago with a nutcracker my sister received from her godfather. There’s something about a nutcracker…
I entered the Shattuck complex through a rear entry and shot this from inside, showing the stone exteriors of campus buildings.
A reading nook in an addition.
An ornament sparkles on one of many Christmas trees on campus.
And there’s something about Shattuck during the Campus Christmas Walk. Even without any kids in tow, I experienced the holiday magic of this historic place.
© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Symbolism from the banks of the North Branch of the Zumbro River December 1, 2016
Tags: commentary on judicial system, human behavior, life, Minnesota, opinion, Pine Island, Pine Island Trailhead Park, symbolism, thoughts, Zumbro River
THE NORTH BRANCH of the Zumbro River ripples Hamm’s beer Land of Sky Blue Waters blue toward Pine Island Trailhead Park.
Through bare branched trees, sunlight flashes diamonds across the water’s surface.
Light and darkness. Darkness and light. Intertwined, like good and evil.
Farther down, as the river bends, I stand on the trail head bridge appreciating water so clear I can see the sandy, pebbly bottom. Sand sculpted by water. A bird’s footprint. Clarity. If only life was so simple, so clear, so still. Free of that which pollutes.
I turn my attention momentarily away from the water to lines that shadow across the bridge deck. Lines like bars run the length of the pathway. So symbolic. Bars. They hold people in. They keep people safe. Yet they don’t when the system fails.
I peer through the bars that stop me from tumbling into the shallow water far below. Falling, falling, falling.
Between the bars, I see my mini shadow and that of my husband. Shadows so near the water’s edge I fear they may fall in.
The snake of the Zumbro slithers by, curving away until I can no longer see what lies beyond the bend. Beyond today.
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Note: I took these photos in October.
© Copyright 2016 Audrey Kletscher Helbling