When your day fails to go as planned January 27, 2012

I RECENTLY READ somewhere—and I read a lot—if you want to make God laugh, plan your day.

Well, God must have been rolling on the floor, laughing until he cried and his belly hurt on Thursday because I had one of those days. You know, the kind that veers completely from your intended course of action.

My main goal for the day was to finish pulling together financial information for the professional who completes our taxes. Now those of you who know me, either personally or via this blog, realize how much I detest numbers. Math whiz I am not. And to add to the stress this year, I once again need to file a Free Application for Federal Student Aid after a two-year respite. I despise forms, especially when numbers comprise the bulk of the required information.

I never got to the numbers on Thursday.

Rather, I spent most of my morning researching information for a document my husband needs for a church meeting on Sunday. I’m happy to help him, but I never thought the project would consume hours of my time.

I expect God was getting a chuckle out of that, his subtle reminder that perhaps I should give just a little more of my time to him.

The rest of the day slipped away in work-related issues with precious little time for writing.

Have you noticed the repeat of the word “time” in all three of the above paragraphs? Why am I so obsessed with time?

Despite my day failing to go as planned, I knew I had a delightful evening ahead. My husband and I had been planning for weeks to attend a presentation by Minnesota photographer Doug Ohman who has published a series of “Minnesota Byways” books.

But then, 50 minutes before Ohman’s talk, my husband called. The car had broken down on his way home from work and he needed a ride and a tow.

Long story short, we missed Ohman’s 6 p.m.presentation. (Who chooses these times anyway?)

After a late supper, kitchen clean-up and e-mail catch-up, I finally kicked back in the recliner to finish the final chapters in Still Standing: The Story of SSG John Kriesel by John Kriesel as told to Jim Kosmo.

About then, God must have been muttering to himself, “Well, she thinks she’s had a bad day…”

He was right, of course. Put in the perspective of all the problems and tragedies a day can bring, my Thursday rated as just fine, thank you. My legs weren’t blown off in a roadside blast. I wasn’t fighting to live. None of my friends had been killed in Iraq.

Minnesota National Guardsman Kriesel had dealt with all of that and managed to overcome, to be positive, to move forward with his life. His story is about as inspiring as any you’ll ever read.

And then, when I finished that book Thursday evening, I picked up Conversations with the Land by Jim VanDerPol, a Chippewa County farmer and writer. I’m only a few essays into his book, but already I appreciate the approach he takes to the land and to life in general. He pauses to notice, to savor, to value his land and his role as tender of the earth. His writing resonates with me, reconnects me to the prairie of my youth, the land that still influences my writing.

And so my Thursday ended and a new day has begun with a sunrise so splendid that my husband called to tell me about it, as he often does when the morning sky is especially beautiful.

The remnants of today's sunrise as viewed from my office window.

Several weeks ago, I started penning this poem after pausing to watch the sunrise:

Jam on toast

My fingertips lift within a mere whisper of the keyboard

as I halt, half-thought, words interrupted mid-sentence,

to tilt my head toward the window and the sunrise

spreading gold and pink across the sky like jam on toast.

#

In that morning moment, I want nothing more

than to dip my fingers into the jar of dawn,

to sample her sweetness, to taste of her earthy goodness,

to delight in sunshine and rain and succulent fruit plucked from vines.

#

PERHAPS TODAY should be the day I finish this poem.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A Minnesota prairie native discovers a ship docked in the Wisconsin woods January 26, 2012

I GREW UP on the southwestern Minnesota prairie, a mostly flat land vertically-interrupted only by small-town grain elevators and water towers, by silos and groves of trees hugging farm sites.

I never felt hemmed in. How could I feel confined under an endless sky in a land that stretches into forever, nearly unbroken before your eyes?

Perhaps that will help you understand why I sometimes struggle with trees. I’m not talking a tree here, a tree there, but trees packed so tight that they become a forest. Dense. Black. Blocking views. I need to, have to, see the land spreading wide before me if I’m exposed for too long to miles of thick woods.

Likewise, I prefer my land flat.

All of that said, time and age and exposure to geography beyond the prairie have resolved some of those space and landscape issues for me. I can, within limits, appreciate terrain that rolls and rises, trees that clump into more than a shelter belt around a farmhouse.

I can appreciate, too, geological anomalies like Ship Rock, a natural formation jutting out of seemingly nowhere from the trees that crowd State Highway 21 in Adams County near Coloma in central Wisconsin.

Ship Rock is located next to Wisconsin Highway 21 in the central part of the state.

Whenever I pass by Ship Rock, which has been numerous times since my second daughter moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, in December 2010, I am awestruck by this isolated pinnacle of Cambrian sandstone. Finally, this past summer, my husband, teenaged son and I stopped to climb around the base of the rock cropping and to photograph it (me mostly photographing rather than climbing).

Ship Rock rises from the flat landscape, a surprise in the Wisconsin woods.

My husband walks across the rocks below the looming Ship Rock.

If you can ignore the distracting graffiti, then you can appreciate the nuances of the mottled stone, the ferns that tuck into crevices, the surprise of this Ship Rock docked in the most unexpected of places. The rock formation truly does resemble a ship.

I am surprised by the ferns that grow in the tight spaces between rocks.

Grass sweeps between rocks in this August 2011 image taken at Ship Rock.

A month ago while traveling past Ship Rock, I snapped a photo. The ship seemed forlorn and exposed among the deciduous trees stripped of their summer greenery. Yet she also appeared threatening, a looming presence rising dark and foreboding above the land awash in snow.

I could appreciate her, even if she wasn’t a grain elevator or a water tower, a silo or a cluster of trees breaking a prairie vista.

Ship Rock, photographed from the passenger window of our van at highway speeds in December.

CLICK HERE for more information about Adams County, Wisconsin.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Doug Ohman preserves Minnesota in photos January 25, 2012

MANY YEARS AGO I heard Minnesota photographer Doug Ohman talk about his Churches of Minnesota book, a project in his “Minnesota Byways” series published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

He’s an impressive speaker, sharing his love for photographing those subjects which hold historical, community and personal significance for so many Minnesotans.

Thus far he’s covered Minnesota churches, barns, courthouses, schoolhouses, cabins and libraries in his series. I don’t think I’ve missed any and I’ve read most. His books also include prose by well-known Minnesota writers like Will Weaver, Jon Hassler and Bill Holm.

If you’re at all interested in the places that are so integral to our lives, you’ll want to read Ohman’s books and, if you have the opportunity, hear him speak.

Buckham Memorial Library, built in 1929, features a Charles Connick stained glass window and Greek murals.

Thursday night, January 26, this noted photographer travels to my community of Faribault, to Buckham Memorial Library, to present “Free to All: Libraries of Minnesota” as part of the Minnesota Book Award Author Tour. His book, Prairie, Lake, Forest: Minnesota’s State Parks, was a 2011 MNBA nominee.

I’ll be there for several reasons: I enjoy Ohman’s books. I want to learn more about his approach to photography. I’m interested in learning more about libraries in Minnesota. I appreciate libraries.

He’ll be at the Faribault library at 6 p.m. for this free event. A photo of Buckham, by the way, is included in his Libraries of Minnesota.

Southeastern Minnesota residents will have plenty of other opportunities to hear Ohman speak on his “Minnesota Byways” series as a dozen additional appearances are scheduled through-out the Southeastern Libraries Cooperating regional library system. Click here to view a complete listing of Ohman’s upcoming visits. His presentations will vary—from schoolhouses to churches to farms and more—depending on location.

I’d recommend taking in one of Ohman’s presentations. You’ll gain insights into Minnesota history and photography and more from a photographer who possesses an unbridled enthusiasm for preserving, in images, that which is part of the Minnesota landscape.

The Houston Public Library is on the cover of Ohman's book, Libraries of Minnesota. I shot this photo last summer of the library in the southeastern corner of our state.

Built in 1912, the library in Janesville is an Andrew Carnegie library on the National Register of Historic Places.

A statue of Linus greets visitors to the Dyckman Free Library in Sleepy Eye. Charles M. Schulz, creator of the Peanuts cartoons, based his character Linus on real-life friend Linus Maurer, a Sleepy Eye native. Maurer, a cartoonist, worked with Schulz. Ohman, who managed the former Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America, includes a photo of Linus at the Sleepy Eye library in his book.

Several summers ago I photographed this 1930s Works Progress Administration log cabin in Hackensack. Sitting on the shore of Birch Lake next to a towering statue of Lucette Diana Kensack (Paul Bunyan's sweetheart), the cabin today houses the Hackensack Lending Library.

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED in reading another book about libraries, check out Carnegie Libraries of Minnesota by Kevin Clemens. The book highlights the history and architecture of Minnesota’s Carnegie libraries, primarily in photos. Click here to learn more about the book.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Thoughts from a Minnesotan now that winter has arrived January 24, 2012

Even I'll admit that snow brings a certain beauty to the landscape, including this view of my neighbor's yard.

AS UN-MINNESOTAN as this may sound, I don’t particularly like winter. I’d grown rather fond of the unusual 50-degree temps earlier this month and a landscape free of snow.

Yet I knew better than to get all smug about the weather, realizing that, at any time, the proverbial shoe (or boot) would drop.

No fashion boots for me...I wear practical Northwest Territory boots.

It did, with temperatures plummeting to below and barely above zero followed by two measurable snowfalls within the past several days.

Snow means work, aka shoveling snow.

Snow means walking with trepidation.

I wasn’t always fearful of walking across snowy or icy sidewalks, driveways or parking lots. But then 3 ½ years ago I had total right hip replacement surgery because of severe osteoarthritis.

I would like to keep that expensive ceramic implant intact for another 17 years. So I tread with caution, eyes locked on whatever slick surface I must traverse. I will myself not to fall. Thus far, the strategy has worked to keep me upright and out of the hospital.

Despite my winter worries, I still shovel snow. However, I questioned the sanity of that effort on Monday as I crunched my way across the ice-glazed, snowy yard toward the sidewalk encrusted in snow and ice.

The car my son drives, encased in ice on Monday. Freezing rain fell before the snow. He walked to school.

I didn’t exactly rush my way through snow removal. More like half-skated.

By the time I finished clearing the sidewalk and the end of the driveway, I truly wanted to give up and leave the rest for the husband or the 17-year-old. But winter wasn’t about to defeat me.

I may not like her, but I sure as heck won’t allow her to get the best of me.

A city of Faribault snow plow spreads salt and sand onto the street by my house on Monday.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A hodgepodge of forgotten images from a steam and gas engine show January 23, 2012

LIKE MOST PHOTOGRAPHERS, I shoot a seemingly infinite number of images. That can lead to forgetting photos filed in my computer.

But then one day—as in Thursday—I was asked about an image in a file I hadn’t perused in a long time. A Californian wanted to use a photo of an elderly man, presumably a farmer or a retired farmer, in a PowerPoint presentation for a nonprofit. I shot the image at the Rice County Steam and Gas Engine Show as the man walked past the wheel of an old Rumely steam engine.

The West Coaster needed the photo to emphasize the point that farmers represent only two percent of the population and their average age is pushing 60. I didn’t fact-check those statistics. But I did check out the nonprofit before agreeing to her request.

This inquiry led me to sift through two folders full of photos from the steam and gas engine show. Within these files lie images that, alone, wouldn’t be enough to comprise a blog post. But, pooled, they make for interesting content wherein I raise some questions, point out the unusual and share memories.

I present to you then the forgotten photos. Feel free to comment. I’m quite certain you will have a few thoughts to share once you seen the featured subjects and read my words.

PHOTO A: What have we here, dear readers? Look to the left and scan to the right and you see horns on a wagon, a lawn tractor and an apparently handcrafted tractor. What is the meaning of this?

PHOTO B: Unfortunately, dear readers, I do not need you to tell me that this is a fly strip. Because I grew up on a dairy farm, I am quite familiar with this gross, sticky fly catching strip. One hung in our farmhouse porch where filthy chore clothes and manure-laden buckle overshoes lined the walls and floor. Another fly strip dangled over the Formica kitchen table as a rather unappetizing bit of home decor fly trap. But at least it kept the flies off our dinner plates.

PHOTO C:  Two questions: Why is a chemical company publishing a cookbook? Can anyone tell me anything about Heinrich Chemical Company of Minneapolis?

PHOTO D:  Did you play with a cap gun as a child? I did. I played “Cowboys and Indians” with my siblings. I know that phrase is not politically correct today, but I was a child of the 1960s, the time of westerns. I watched Gunsmoke and Rawhide on television. And if we’d gotten more than one channel on our black-and-white T.V., I would have watched Bonanza, too. And, yes, I do remember life before television.

PHOTO E:  After a quick online search, I failed to find another Massey Ferguson Ski Whiz snowmobile like this one. My husband and I have concluded that this double-seater was handcrafted from two machines. What do you think?

PHOTO F: This image spurs an observation. See how the wings on the Dekalb sign align with the Oliver making the tractor appear to have wings? I did not plan the shot, did not even notice what I’d composed until after the fact. I know that Dekalb symbol well as I detasseled corn for the seed corn company and my dad grew Dekalb corn. Any experienced corn detasselers out there?

THERE YOU HAVE IT. A few photos to possibly bring back memories, prompt discussion or simply amuse you.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

An enlightening, poetic moment and more January 21, 2012

SOMETIMES I’M A SLOW LEARNER, mostly in math and science. But this time my delayed learning applies to words, specifically poetry.

Dear readers, don’t stop reading now simply because I mentioned the word “poetry.”

I prefer to read and write poetry that is down-to-earth and not so open to interpretation or overloaded with big words that I cannot possibly comprehend the content.

With that perspective, consider this: Poetry is meant to be read aloud.

“Duh,” you say. “She just figured that out.”

Yes, I did.

Poet Derek Liebertz reads a poem during "The Image and the Word 2012" reception. The poems are displayed next to the photos that inspired them.

Thanks to Derek Liebertz and Yvonne Cariveau, organizers of “The Image and the Word 2012” exhibit at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild in downtown Mankato, I now fully grasp the importance of reading poetry. Out loud. To an audience.

You see, I attended a reception Thursday evening for the poets and photographers whose work is featured in an exhibit that pairs photos and poems. During that event, Derek and Yvonne read poems inspired by those photos and also invited other participating poets, me among them, to read their works.

Only once, many, many years ago, have I read my poetry in public, unless, of course, you count all those times I read silly “married life” poems at cousins’ bridal showers decades ago. Public reading was not the easiest thing for me to do, but I managed.

The atmosphere on Thursday evening was so relaxed and casual, however, that I nearly breezed through reading two of the three poems I’d written. In hindsight, my readings could have been much better had I practiced at home. But I didn’t, and what’s done is done.

Yvonne Cariveau reads a poem. To the left is a photo taken by Kay Helms and voted as the "favorite photo" during the Thursday evening reception. The landscape image was taken along Highway 14 between Waseca and Owatonna.

The other poets, though, clearly were accustomed to and comfortable sharing their poetry with a listening audience. I listened with a learning ear, picking up on the drama, the cadence, the tone, the volume, the movement of the hands, the facial expressions and every nuance that conveyed the meaning and depth of a poem.

I got it. Finally.

That does not mean I’m eager to read poetry in public again. But I understand how a poem can be more fully appreciated when read aloud by its author.

Why did it take me so long to figure this out?

BESIDES THE POETRY lesson I learned Thursday evening, I also met and learned a bit about several other “The Image and the Word 2012” participants. Derek, for example, works as a programmer at his wife Yvonne’s company, Voyageur Web. Who would expect techies to write poetry? Not me. Derek, the most dramatic of the readers, tagged his day job as his “Clark Kent” persona. You have to appreciate a guy with that type of humor, which weaves into his writing.

Then I met John Othoudt, a retired highway department employee turned photographer. His exhibit photo of farmers gathered at the tailgate of a vintage pick-up truck was taken at the Le Sueur County Pioneer Power Show. With a single click of his mouse, John edited the image into a pencil drawing style that makes the photo appear vintage 1950s. It inspired me to write “Taking lunch to the men in the field,” recalling the afternoons my older brother and I did exactly that on the Redwood County crop and dairy farm where we grew up.

"Lunch Time" by John Othoudt of Lake Crystal

I’d encourage you to click here and check out John’s photography. This man has talent. I share his passion for noticing details and photographing the often overlooked everyday and ordinary things in life. He shoots in the moment, he says. His “Lunch Time” photo, for example, happened as he was planning another shot. I understand. Some of my best photos have simply happened, unexpectedly.

Then I met Terri DeGezelle, whose credentials are even more impressive than those she shared with me Thursday. Click here to learn more about this woman who has written 64 nonfiction children’s books and is also an avid nature photographer. Her “Artist’s Colors,” a photo of colorful chalk, won the best paired photo-to-poem honor at the reception. Susan Stevens Chambers wrote the accompanying poem. I loved Terry’s enthusiasm and warm personality and the pure passion she exudes for the crafts of writing and photography.

As I was preparing to leave and thanking Yvonne for organizing the exhibit, I talked briefly with John Calvin Rezmerski, who encouraged me in my writing. His “Window” poem was voted as the favorite poem. Only until later, back home, did I learn that he is the League of Minnesota Poets current Poet Laureate and a well-known, established poet with 20 books, chapbooks and anthologies to his credit. He’s retired from teaching creative writing, journalism, literature, storytelling and more at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. Unlike me, he’s quite experienced at reading his work in public.

I met other delightful individuals, too, including Kay Helms, whose “The Witness Tree” was selected as the favorite photo at Thursday’s reception. The stunning sunset image was taken along U.S. Highway 14 between Waseca and Owatonna.

Helms’ photography will be displayed February 17 – March 18 at the Arts Center of Saint Peter in a collection of words and photos highlighting individuals who worked the land in south central Minnesota. Click here for details.

IN SUMMARY, Thursday’s reception proved invaluable for me. I learned that I could stand (or sit) before an audience and read my poetry without too much trepidation. I learned that poetry shines when read. And, finally, even though I was likely the most novice of the participating poets, I felt comfortable among all that talent. They are a fine bunch of poets, but more important, they are warm, kind and welcoming individuals with whom I enjoyed networking.

CLICK HERE TO READ a previous post I wrote about “The Image and the Word 2012.”

Click here to learn more about me, my writing and photography, including my published poetry credits.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

“Lunch Time” photo courtesy of and copyrighted by John Othoudt

Playing Scrabble for the love of words January 20, 2012

Letters from a 1960s Scrabble for Juniors game. The player who laid down a tile to complete a word printed on the game board earned a red counter. The player with the most counters won the game.

MY FINGERS SLIDE across the smooth, one-eighth-inch thick, blue cardboard squares imprinted with letters. B, M, C, R, O, A…and the dreaded Q, if I’m without a U.

In these tile letters, I touch childhood memories of gathering around the Formica kitchen table set upon worn red-and-white linoleum tiles to play Scrabble for Juniors.

The cover of the vintage Scrabble game for kids from my childhood.

It is the early 1960s and this “crossword game for children” manufactured by Selchow & Richter Company, Bay Shore, N.Y., marks my introduction to Scrabble, which today, in the grown-up version, remains my favorite board game.

Imagine that.

Imagine then me, a wee wisp of a grade school girl leaning across the table to snatch letters from a box lid, shaping those letters into a word and then, triumphantly, carefully, lining the letters upon the playing board, all the while scolding my siblings for bumping the table.

To play on this side of the vintage Scrabble board, players laid letters down to complete the pre-printed words. Lay down the last letter tile in a word, and you earned a red counter chip.

The 1960s Scrabble box cover includes an image of a cowboy at a time when television westerns were popular.

On the flip side of the vintage board, players created their own words, earning one point for each tile in each word formed or modified. As I recall, I couldn't get my siblings to play this side of the board too often.

While I’m certain my brothers and sisters wanted to win, I doubt their interest in this word game ever matched my passion. I delighted in unscrambling the letters into words. Words. Glorious words. Through my cat-eye glasses, I could envision the possibilities.

My earliest memories are of words read aloud from books. Books. Glorious books. At age four, after surgery to correct crossed eyes, I remember Dr. Fritsche at the New Ulm hospital asking me to look at a book. I could see. The pages. The words. The pictures.

Can you imagine how my parents must have worried about their little girl’s vision, how, as a poor farm family they scraped together enough money for the surgery that would keep me from going blind in one eye? I am, to this day, grateful for the gift of sight.

Those are my thoughts on this morning, the day after I heard a bit of trivia on the radio about Scrabble, information that proved to be false. Scrabble was not invented in 1955 as the radio announcer shared.

Rather, Alfred Mosher Butts, an unemployed architect, conceived the idea during the Great Depression and trademarked it in 1948.

For those of you who appreciate trivia, here’s some Minnesota trivia to tuck away in your brain: Jim Kramer, a proofreader from Roseville, Minnesota, won the U.S. Scrabble Open in 2006. This past year, he ranked fourth in the Division 1 section of the National Scrabble Championship and earned $1,000. Three other Minnesotans—from Minneapolis, Rosemount and Spring Lake Park—were among the 108 players participating in the Division 1 competition.

What, I wonder, initially drew these Minnesotans to Scrabble? Did they, like me, gather around the kitchen table as a child to grab letters from a box, form the letters into words and then slide those letters onto a playing board? Do they, like me, love words?

Letters in the adult version of a Scrabble game I received as a Christmas gift in the 1970s.

LET’S HEAR FROM YOU. What’s your favorite board game and why? What are your memories of playing board games as a child? Do you still play board games?

As any Scrabble player would know, I could not legitimately make the word "Minnesota" in a Scrabble game. But this is my blog and these are my rules. If anyone is ever up to a game of Scrabble, I'll play. The guys in my house just don't seem to enjoy word games.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Travel Wisconsin: Atypical tourist photos from Appleton January 19, 2012

SAY “WISCONSIN,” and what pops into your thoughts?

I would expect these top two answers: cheese and the Green Bay Packers

Wisconsinites, am I right?

Every time I travel to the Dairyland State, which has been often since my second daughter moved to Appleton a year ago, I find myself drawn to that which distinguishes Wisconsin from my home state of Minnesota.

With my camera, I try to catch the snippets of buildings and life and sites and scenes that the typical tourist might never think to photograph. Often I capture these images in an instant, from the car window passing by or walking along a sidewalk. I have an moment to snap the shutter and then the scene vanishes.

Let me show you those snippet photos taken during a New Year’s weekend trip to Appleton, an hour’s drive from Lake Michigan in central Wisconsin.

Next time you’re in Wisconsin, or anywhere for that matter (even in your own community), I’d encourage you to not only look at what surrounds you, but to truly see.  Let me repeat that word. See.

Notice the signage, the curve of a street, the contrast of a building against sky, the shape of a window, the quirky and the unusual. Take in the details. Then, and only then, will you truly see.

I was more than a bit lost in Appleton as our daughter chauffeured my husband and me around town. I spotted this building along the railroad tracks and photographed it because, well, my eyes were drawn to it. Appleton residents, what is housed in this building?

My favorite quirky discovery of the weekend, this signage near none other than...see the next photo.

Lamers Dairy, along the Milky Way, sells its own bottled milk, cheese, wine and other food and merchandise. Visitors can watch milk being bottled. Unfortunately, this does not occur on weekends, when we were visiting.

Walking in historic downtown Appleton, I saw not a cheesehead, but this banana, who later posed for a photo. However, I prefer the action photo to the posed. She was promoting the Tropical Smoothie Cafe. My daughter was hoping we would also spot a gorilla pushing balloons along another Appleton street. But, alas, the gorilla was nowhere to be seen.

Inside artsy Studio 213, I laughed at this humorous tee. I grew up on a dairy farm. What can I say? I appreciate barn humor.

Over at the Downtown Appleton Farm Market in City Center, a vendor marketed bison meat. Now I'm wondering, is that bison head real and how do you cart that around?

When I shop at farmers' markets, I pay attention to details like merchandise display. Jan Jourdan's vintage marketing theme drew me right over to sample her Jan's Fabulicious Cookies. I asked to try the gingersnaps. Ooops. Not gingersnaps, but molasses cookies. Thick and chewy, they were as advertised, "fabulicious." Love those aprons, too. If my daughter hadn't just given me one for Christmas...

TO SEE MORE PHOTOS from Appleton, click here to view a previous blog post from the historic downtown.

Click here to see photos I shot along Wisconsin Highway 21 in a post titled “Preserving central Wisconsin’s rural heritage via on-the-road photography.”

In case you missed the link earlier in the story, click here for more info about downtown Appleton.

Click here to learn more about the Downtown Appleton Indoor Winter Farm Market.

Click here to learn about Lamers Dairy.

Click here to read about Studio 213 and here to check out the Tropical Smoothie Cafe.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Inside the Owatonna orphanage museum: Heartbreaking stories and photos January 18, 2012

A telegram sent to an Owatonna orphanage in 1892 announcing the arrival of two sisters.

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM, August 19, 1892:

Please meet Godman and two little waifs afternoon train.

It is an archaic word, that word “waif.” So I must page through my Webster’s New World Dictionary to confirm that I fully understand its meaning.

I read:

2 a person without home or friends; esp. a homeless child   3 a stray animal

The definition is mostly as I expect, except for the “stray animal” part.

It hurts my heart to read the telegram sent in 1892 to the Minnesota State Public School for Neglected and Dependent Children in Owatonna.

It hurts even more to view the photo of the “waifs,” sisters Mary and Clara, taken on the day they arrived. You can see the despair in their eyes, almost hear their wailing, feel their terror. If I could step back into time, to that day in August 1892, I would wrap those little girls in my arms and hold them and stroke their hair and give them all the love they never knew.

Sisters Mary and Clara, upon their arrival at the Minnesota State School.

Of all the documents and images displayed at the former school, now a museum, this one of the sisters sticks with me for the emotions it captures and evokes. I first saw the photo several years ago during an initial visit to the Minnesota State Public School Orphanage Museum. I have never forgotten it.

This past weekend I was back at the orphanage site to tour a new Owatonna Arts Center exhibit, “Where are the Children,” by Judy Saye-Willis. The Northfield artist taps into the location to pull together an introspective display about children with input from a variety of artists and a writer. I was especially impressed with the graphite drawings of children by Cambridge artist Marilyn M. Cuellar. (Note that Cuellar’s art pieces displayed in Owatonna are copies and not originals.)

The former state school dining area is now a beautiful public venue.

After perusing that exhibit, I walked toward the museum part of the building, through the former school dining room that today serves as a venue for wedding receptions, concerts and more. I hadn’t intended to go to the museum, but my husband had already wandered over there.

Signage under a state school photo in a section of the museum.

This visit I didn’t study each document and photo in depth. Rather, I swept through the U-shaped exhibit area, focusing on specific segments to photograph like the 1892 telegram and photos of the two sisters, including this one taken at a later date.

Mary and Clara, hardly recognizable as the same sisters who arrived in 1892.

I paused, though, to listen to a visitor talk to me privately about her father and an aunt who lived here. She spoke without a hint of bitterness, which surprised me given the negative experiences of many children who called this school home. Her father eventually was placed with a southern Minnesota farm family. In many instances, these families physically and emotionally abused the state schoolers. Her father, she said, was hit once, but never again.

Contracts were signed between the school and families, typically farm families, allowing state schoolers to live with and work for these families. The families were to provide $100 in wages and two suits of clothing.

Later, I would photograph a radiator brush, “a Matron’s favorite tool for punishment,” according to the Fall 2010 issue of the museum newsletter, The Radiator Brush.

A dreaded radiator brush rests atop a radiator in the museum.

Next, I photographed “the chair,” also used to punish children.

Chairs like this one on display in the museum were used to control and punish children and keep them in their place.

I cannot imagine living here in this institution, separated from family.

Yet the school, despite its failings, offered for many children a better alternative than remaining in abusive and neglectful home settings too tragic to even fathom.

And so that is how sisters Mary and Clara, two little waifs who had been “the victims of extreme cruelty and neglect,” ended up on a train bound for the Minnesota Public School for Neglected and Dependent Children.

One of the photos on display in the museum of a matron and her girls.

A snippet of a letter from third grader Arthur Peterson to his mother. You can almost hear the desperation in his words: "I hope you will come up to see me."

Museum exhibits, mostly in words and photos, but also artifacts, tell visitors about life at the state school.

This photo of a little state school boy caught my eye. The museum's collection includes more than 1,100 original photos and an additional 150 reproductions. You can't help but be moved by such soulful images.

Patricia Ann Pearson, 7, left, and her sister, Yvonne, 9, on the day they were separated. They would not see each other for 33 years. Theirs is only one of thousands of heart-wrenching stories of separation.

FYI: From 1886-1945, nearly 11,000 orphaned, abused and/or abandoned children were sent to the Minnesota State Public School for Neglected and Dependent Children. Today visitors can tour the former school grounds, including a cottage and the cemetery. Click here to learn more about the museum. In 2011, an estimated 7,000 visitors toured the museum and Cottage 11.

Click here and then click here to read two previous blog posts I published about C-11.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos plus poetry equals what? January 17, 2012

OK, READERS, LISTEN UP. Time for a brief math lesson. Yes, math. Didn’t expect that from me, did you? But today I want you to solve a word problem. Remember those? Oh, how, as a child, I hated word problems like this:

If  Susie goes to the grocery store and buys 3 apples for 25 cents each, an orange for 33 cents and a candy bar for $1, how much change will she get if she gives the clerk $5?

Questions like that taxed my pathetic little math brain back in grade school. This equation requires multiplication, addition and subtraction skills, all of which challenged me considerably and still do.

But present a word problem (perhaps more of a riddle) like this and I will solve it in a snap:

If you add poetry to a gallery full of photos, what do you get?

Ah, so have I stumped you on this one?

The answer: “The Image and the Word 2012”

Of course, you might stop right now and say I tricked you into believing we really were doing math. And you would be mostly correct. But since I prefer words to numbers, what would you expect?

You can expect to see three of my poems exhibited at “The Image and the Word 2012,” a show that pairs poems with photos. The exhibit opened January 11 at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild, 523 South Second Street, in downtown Mankato.

The brainchild of poets Derek Liebertz and Yvonne Cariveau, “The Image and the Word” features photograph-inspired poetry from southern Minnesota poets. This photo by Antje Meisner, for example, prompted me to write “I am not Martha.”

"Cartwheel" by Antje Meisner and the inspiration for one of my poems.

You might expect that this playful image inspired an equally carefree poem. It did not. Rather, I penned a poem about my not-so-fond memories of a junior high gymnastics class. Any of you who could not, like me, execute a perfect cartwheel, somersault or tumble will surely relate to “I am not Martha.”

A second poem recalls memories of my brother and me taking lunch to our dad and Uncle Mike working in the fields. The third poem I will not discuss here, in print.

All of the poems in the exhibit were inspired by photos from Mankato area photographers, including members of the Bend of the River Photography Club. This fifth annual “The Image and the Word” exhibit is presented in cooperation with the Southern MN Poetry Society.

I’d encourage you to attend an opening reception for this exhibit from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.  on Thursday, January 19.  This free-form event, where visitors can wander in and out of the gallery, will feature poetry readings. (I’m not so sure about that “reading” part; I prefer solitary writing to public speaking.) The photographers will also talk about their photos.

Just to entice you, wine and snacks will be available and all who attend this free event will receive a free poetry book. Yes. Free and free.

And while you’re there, vote for your three favorite poems, three favorite photos and the best pairing of photo to poem. Three, three and three.

Plan also to stop at numerous artistic locales during the Third Thursday Gallery Walk from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. You can view new art and visit with area artists. Click here to see a complete listing of sites on this monthly gallery walk.

REGULAR GALLERY HOURS  for this exhibit are from noon – 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and from 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. Thursdays.

The show continues through February 15.

Mankato offers many other cultural opportunities, including WordWalk at Riverfront Park and a CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour. Check my June and July 2011 blog archives to read posts on those attractions.

I’m sorry if you don’t live in or near Mankato. I will try to take photos of the exhibit.

OH, AND THE ANSWER to that first word problem, well, it’s $2.92.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photo courtesy of Antje Meisner