Cape Girardeau History and Photos

October 17, 2016

Hey, What’s that Sound?

Mary Welch Steinhoff w Ken Steinhoff 1949

Missouri is thinking about becoming winter. Every day when I look out the kitchen window, a few more maple leaves are turning yellow. I had to take a rake to the driveway a couple afternoons ago. I’m a rake kind of guy. I never liked the noise and hubbub of power leaf blowers.

Maybe it’s because I never got good at using one. Mother, on the other hand, could keep a wave of leaves rolling down the hill like she just dared them to slow down.

Furnace one day; AC the next

Mary Steinhoff and LV Steinhoff w Roy E Welch in background - Rolla MO 1942 — Mary Steinhoff and LV Steinhoff w Roy E Welch in background – Rolla MO 1942

It got down into the 50s the other night. Cool enough that the hall thermostat read 61 degrees. I threw three rice bags that Wife Lila had made for me into the microwave, then put one at my feet, one at my knees and one at my chest to make the bed toasty. The next morning, though, I gave in and set the furnace at 66 to take the chill out of the air.

Being Missouri, though, the temperature cracked 80 two days later, and I had to switch from furnace to AC to keep the house below 77 degrees.

I had gotten used to the silence

All of these seasonal changes mean it is what used to be Mother’s Birthday season. This is the second one without her. I had just gotten used to the silent house.

Mostly silent

There are some odd creaks and groans: some of it comes from me when I crawl out of bed in the morning. Some of are familiar sounds like the board in the hallway floor I used to try to step around when I was sneaking in late. It still squeals on me, even though it’s been years since I had a curfew, and there’s nobody around to scold me.

Who is in the house?

I was in the basement the other night, though, when I heard what sounded like the scraping sound the kitchen chair would make when Mother would push it back. That was followed by a couple of sharp raps like the door opening, and footsteps on the stairs.

Mother? I thought?

Wife Lila? One is 1,100 miles away, and the other is much further away than that.

Then it dawned on me

Walnuts. The wind was throwing walnuts against the roof like they were golf balls.

That, or Mother wasn’t happy that I hadn’t mowed the lawn recently or chased the leaves down the hill.

What do the pictures have to do with this?

Absolutely nothing. I just like them.

Here are some stories about Mother.

September 4, 2016

Labor Day

While I was going through old files at Mother’s house, I ran across this deposit slip from December 26, 1963. I thought of it with Labor Day coming up.

It tells a number of stories

I was paid slightly under thirty bucks a week from SKJ – Steinhoff, Kirkwood & Joiner. Dad put me to work as a laborer one summer mostly to show me why I wouldn’t want to go into the construction business. It was the only time from age 12 until I retired from The Palm Beach Post in 2008 that I wasn’t employed by a paper in some capacity or another.
Even then, I had two deposits for photos: $5 from The Missourian, and $1.90 from the Board of Education (I don’t have a clue where that odd amount came from).
Another guess is that Dad must have leaned on me to cash all my summer checks before the end of the year so he could close out his books. As a kid with few expenses, I drove the poor accountant at The Missourian crazy because I wouldn’t cash my checks for weeks. This was the last time in my life I was able to cause that problem.

August 21, 2016

St. Joseph Catholic Church

Shortly after Road Warriorette Shari and I photographed Luther’s Chapel Cemetery in Perry County’s Union Township, we turned into Apple Creek to explore St. Joseph Catholic Church Cemetery.

Click on the photos to make them larger.

Town originally called Schnurbusch

Apple Creek was originally named after a prominent family in the area, and there is a stone expressing appreciation to W. Joseph Schnurbusch for donating the land for the church.

German Catholic immigrants built the first St. Joseph church in 1828; the log structure was used for 12 years, then was replaced by the “Rock Church.” The present brick building was constructed between 1881-1884.

It’s a peaceful place

The grounds are full of crosses and the usual statuary.

The rules are pretty clear

The Joint Parish Council is pretty clear about what it will and won’t allow in the cemetery.

If you don’t follow the rules, you might be hauled into the Parish Office, where knuckle-rapping might be on the list of punishments meted out. (A convent was added to the church in 1917.)

I was framing a group of crosses

I was trying to frame a photo of the crosses in the background when my eye was drawn to something beside me off to the right.

What’s with the red rope?

A stone marking the final resting place of what I think was a long-dead priest held a wrapping of red rope. When I looked closer, it wasn’t just wrapped around the stone, part of it was going up into the tree.

This didn’t exactly break any rules, but it sure seemed odd.

A decoy?

The rope was looped around a tree branch, and hanging from the end of it, swinging in the breeze, was something that looked like a duck or goose decoy. There was no good way to get a shot of it short of climbing the tree, and y’all don’t pay me enough to exert that much energy.

The stone was old, and the rope had faded enough that it had been there a relatively long time. I’d love to know the story behind this.

We missed the most interesting part

When I got back to talking with my Jackson and Altenburg museum friends, they said we had missed the most beautiful and unusual part of the church grounds. They were right. I’ll publish photos from that area soon.

July 29, 2016

Clouds Over Tower Rock

If it’s Wednesday night, that means it’s Liver & Onions night at The Mississippi Mud Tavern in Altenburg. Buddy Gerard and I usually top off the evening with a trip down to Tower Rock to check on water levels and see if any boats are passing.

This night, the only boat traffic we heard on my scanner was far, far away and breaking up, so the prospects of seeing a towboat go by was slim. Radar was painting some strong storms around, but they were mostly east and south of our position. Still, these clouds made for a pretty picture. Click on it to make it larger.

I was sort of hoping for a shot like this recent visit.

I ran into some heavy rain north of Fruitland, but Jackson must have REALLY gotten a deluge, based on how the creeks were running.