by Dennis Dalman
Once upon a time, a little adopted girl named Kari spotted a tiny oak-tree seedling, still attached to its acorn, struggling to grow in the big woods next to a giant oak tree.
The shade from the big oak had blotted out the sunshine the little oak needed to grow. The tiny tree looked “weak and forlorn, like an orphan.” Feeling sorry for it, Kari decided to re-plant it in a sunny place back home in her backyard so it could – maybe – grow and thrive, like an adopted child, like Kari herself.
Thus begins a storybook entitled “Kari’s Tree,” written by Marilyn Salzl Brinkman of St. Joseph. The large format book (11 x 8.5 inches) is lovingly, colorfully illustrated by Albanian artist Anahit Aleksanyan, who filled the book with charming images of woodland creatures: birds, squirrels, a fox, a raccoon, a snowman.
Throughout the years, as Kari grows older all the while nurturing her precious oak tree, it grows bigger, taller, growing leaves, casting shade on the lawn. One day, Kari must leave home to go to college in another city and is gone a long time. When she returns to see the thriving tree, she is so happy to see it again and so is the little visitor she brought along, her new adopted daughter.
In subtle ways, “Kari’s Tree” explores the themes of conservation, adoption, acceptance and ethnicity.
It was published by Lakeside Press in Willmar, and all the communications during the publishing process were done via email, including contacts with the woman in Albania who illustrated the story.
“I’m very proud of my little book,” Salzl Brinkman said. “I had always wanted to write a children’s book. The book was inspired by the time I saved a little tree by replanting it after my husband and I moved to Kraemer Lake near St. Joseph.”
Many people in the central Minnesota area are familiar with Salzl Brinkman and her writing. She is the author of eight books of local history and many columns, many of them history-based, when she was a frequent guest columnist for the St. Cloud Times newspaper. She also wrote for “Crossings,” a history magazine.
It seems Salzl Brinkman was born to be a writer.
“It’s that I can’t not-write,” she said during an interview with the St. Joseph Newsleader. “I’ve tried not to write, but I just can’t and soon I’m writing again. It all began when I was very young. I wrote lots of letters. Instead of giving notes to classmates, she wrote them letters, and she had a pen pal by the time she was in fifth grade.
As a student in Albany High School, Salzl Brinkman wrote stories her teachers sent for publication to the Albany Enterprise newspaper.
“I had good teachers,” she said. “Especially Mrs. Garding and Ms. Dufner.”
Later, she wrote many letters to high-school friends during summer vacations. Still later, when her husband-to-be, Harold Brinkman, went into military service, she wrote him letters almost every day.
After marriage to Harold, she began to write long, vividly detailed Christmas letters to relatives, and when relatives visited they always thanked Marilyn for the marvelous Christmas letters she wrote.
Throughout the years, she wrote stories and now and then kept diaries and journals, wrote poems, essays and read voraciously. She still reads one book every week.
“I firmly believe one must read in order to write well,” she said.
Her professional writing career began in 1979 when the pastor of her parish (St. Catherine’s Parish in Farming) became ill with Parkinson’s disease, the pastor who had intended to write a book on the parish’s history.
“I turned to my friend, Marceline Schleper, and I said, ‘I think we could do that.’” And they did, and it was published. It was a labor of love requiring many interviews, research, rough drafts and re-writes. It was written on a non-electric portable typewriter.
Eventually, her writing came to the attention of John Decker at the Stearns County History Museum, and he encouraged her to write stories for the museum’s magazine, entitled “Crossings.”
Throughout the years, Salzl Brinkman was told she should get a college degree to be taken seriously as a history writer. She enrolled at St. Cloud State University and majored in American Studies and English (with an emphasis on creative writing).
“It took me nine years to obtain my degree, but it offered me a much-needed opportunity to have my writing critiqued and analyzed by a number of professors – wonderful teachers,” she said. “As a sophomore, I met Bill Morgan (American Studies professor) and together we researched and wrote “Light from the Hearth” (local history book).”
After that book was published, she had many requests from various history museums and community organizations for stories, research, documentations and presentations.”
She served on the board of the Stearns History Museum and on various committees or other museums and organizations. She also joined a book group and a writing group, which helped her hone her already abundant skills.
As if Salzl Brinkman did not have enough to do with her busy writing career, she also helped raise three children: Nancy, Brian and Karen. Her children’s book, “Kari’s Tree” is dedicated to her grandchildren: Cori, Kari, Tyler, Grant and William. While living at Kraemer Lake, Salzl Brinkman worked as a paralegal for the St. Cloud Legal Services. She was also a hairdresser for 28 years at the St. Cloud Beauty College.
Marilyn, one of 15 children, grew up on a farm in St. Martin with parents who put great faith in reading and writing skills, her mother being a gifted storyteller.
She met her future husband, Harold Brinkman, and after their marriage they settled down to farming. Much later, the couple and their children moved to a house at Kraemer Lake, where they stayed for 28 years. Three years ago, they moved to a house in St. Joseph.
During their Kraemer Lake years, Harold worked as an assistant superintendent at the Rich-Spring Golf Course in Cold Spring. And, true to form, Marilyn wrote a history of that golf course. About that same time, she also wrote a history of the Stearns Electric Association.
Nowadays, Salzl Brinkman is working on stories from her life that might become a published memoir.
She often thinks back to the time a woman asked what her job was and she said she is a writer, a published author.
The woman, in disbelief, exclaimed “You?! An author?!”
To this day, Salzl Brinkman chuckles at that memory.
“Well,” she said, “I guess I showed her!”
To get a copy of “Kari’s Tree,” email Brinkman at Brinkman1943@gmail.com.
Or contact the publisher at lakesidecreates.com or at Lakeside Press Inc., P.O. Box 826, Willmar, MN 56201.
Marilyn Salzl Brinkman
This is the cover of a children’s book, “Kari’s Tree,” written by Marilyn Salzl Brinkman of St. Joseph.
