Elsie Adkins Welch Archives

December 5, 2021

BSA Wallet Contains Surprises

Ken Steinhoff Boy Scout wallet 11-30-2021

When I was a kid, my grandmother gave me a small cedar chest to hold my “special” things. Nothing in it had much value – it had lots of Boy Scout detritus, including my Boy Scout wallet, some Scout rings and bracelets, a carved Order of the Arrow, and lots of certificates for awards.

Is that green sticking out?

I thought I had hit paydirt when I opened the wallet and saw a green bill sticking up. Note my address: Kingsway Dr. Rt. 2. Our mailing address for years was just Route 2 because we were outside the Cape city limits.

Looks like a folded five-dollar bill

Yep, sure is. I don’t recall having many of those at that age.

All that is green is not money

When I unfolded it, it was only half as wide as a regular bill, and this was on the backside.

Note that the address was Highway 61, not Kingshighway, and the Area Code was still 314.

Esicar’s alas, went on the auction block in 2011, briefly became The Butcher Block, and is now empty.

My Totin’ Chip

Barely visible through the glassine sleeve is my Totin’ Chip, which attested that I had read Chapter 15 in the Handbook for Boys, and that I knew that ownership of the woodsman’s tools means responsibility and that I accepted it.

“In consideration of the above, ” he is hereby granted “Totin’ Rights.”

To this day, I remember how to hand someone an axe, and to say “Thank You” to signify that I am accepting a cutting tool from someone.

The ink has pretty much faded, but I think Scoutmaster Ralph Fuhrmann signed the card.

A Western Union Telegram

Also folded up was a bit of yellow paper that turned out to be a Western Union telegram from my grandmother, Elsie Welch, who must have been visiting Miami.

It was dated the day before my birthday in 1950. I don’t recognize the handwriting, so it may have been an actual telegram received in Advance, Mo.

As years went by, hand delivery was phased out, and Western Union would simply call the recipient for permission just to read the message over the phone.

In the kinder, gentler years between wars, when the arrival of a telegram was unlikely to start out, “The War Department regrets….” I was known to send girls “thinking of you” telegrams to be delivered in school when I was out of town on debate trips, and the like.

I don’t remember sending Wife Lila a telegram, but I DID send her flowers when she was at a weeklong water safety camp in Eldon, Mo. It caused quite a stir when the flowers arrived, and I assume I earned serious Brownie points.

My namesake uncle was killed in Eldon

Eldon, ironically, was where my namesake uncle, Kenneth Welch was killed in a car vs. train crash in 1935.

The hospital where he was taken sent a $5 bill (that was paid in full).

May 9, 2021

Mother’s Day Season

Mother long graduated from having a Birth Day to having a Birthday Season that grew from weeks to months. I guess it was only appropriate that I started celebrating extended family Mother’s Days more than a week ago.

When Mother died in 2015, I pulled together a collection of the posts I had done on Mary Welch Steinhoff over the years. She was a hoot and a half.

Plenty of flowers at home

I never liked plastic flowers, but all of Mother’s plants were popping off in a fireworks of color, so there was no need to buy any dead dinosaurs.

A stop in Advance

Last week I went down to Advance to put flowers on my Mother’s parents’ gravestone. Looks like the ants at the base of the memorial are churning up the dirt.

Here’s a post I did about my Grandmother, Elsie Adkins Welch, and her life.

I just looked at the dates. My grandmother died in 1973 when she was 80 years old. Dad died only four years later, at age 60. I was always afraid that I had inherited the genes of Dad and his brothers, but maybe Gran has kept me rolling some extra years.

A stop at Tillman Cemetery

W.M and Mary O Adkins tombstone 05-10-2019

Just down the road from Advance is a curvy road that climbs out of the flats into some rolling hills and leads to what we always called Tillman Cemetery.

Pleasant Hill Cemetery, which it is more properly called, is the final home for Mother’s great grandparents and a host of other relatives and friends whose names I grew up hearing.

I’ve written about Tillman Cemetery and some of the Adkins relatives before.

Lucille Hoffman Perry

I couldn’t neglect Wife Lila’s side of the family. This is her mother, at rest in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Cape.

Mother was always asking, “Who will put flowers on the graves after I’m gone?” I was around to do it one more time.

May 14, 2017

Making the Rounds for Mother

When I pulled into 1618 Kingsway Drive late April 18 after a marathon month on the road that took me from Missouri to Ohio to Florida to Ohio, then back to Missouri, the first thing I noticed was a single red rose on the bush around the yard on the front yard.

The next morning, the bush was covered in blooms. Even though we had several days of torrential rain over the past few weeks, there were quite a few blooms ready for me to make the Mother’s Day rounds.

I don’t like plastic flowers

I’d rather leave some ratty real blossoms cut from the front yard instead of plastic plants made out of dead dinosaurs. The latter might last longer, but they are impersonal. The first stop was Wife Lila’s mother’s grave in St. Mary’s Cemetery off Perry Avenue.

Unusual tributes

My brothers and I usually mark Mother and Dad’s graves with things we pick up on the road, or things from the house. I’ve left tiles from the ruins of a building in Cairo, a railroad spike from Wittenberg and a coin smashed flat by a train car. David and Mark have buried tiny shoes from Mother’s shoe collection and Christmas ornaments.

Mother was an unusual lady, so we think she’d appreciate our quirky leavings.

“Who will decorate the graves?”

I spent many hours with Mother driving all over Cape and Stoddard counties visiting tiny cemeteries that contained the final resting places of her friends and family. This is my grandparents’ grave in Advance. You can click on the photos to make them larger.

I don’t know how many times I heard her ask, “Who will put flowers on the graves after I’m gone?”

I’ll do my best.

June 19, 2016June 19, 2016

Dad Would Be Proud; I Am

Son Matt was only two years old when Dad, L.V. Steinhoff, died in 1977, so he really only knows him from photos. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Malcolm

Grandson Malcolm, son of Matt and Sarah, is 11. He’s a voracious reader, a soccer player and a serious geek with a wicked sense of humor. He’s coming to spend a few days with me in Cape next week while Wife Lila is attending her Class of 1966’s 50th reunion.

I hope I can give him some Swampeast Missouri memories to take back with him.

Graham, Elliot and Finn

Son Adam and Wife Carly produced three rambunctious, adventurous and terminally cute boys, Graham, Elliot and Finn.

One of Adam’s Facebook friends, Laurel Cherwin, created a collection of photos of the family, along with this copy:

I Honor Adam Steinhoff : a man who loves his boys! He passionately embraces Fatherhood as an exciting adventure and fills his boys lives with love, pure joy, exploration, thrill seeking activities, encourages creativity, expression and silliness! I Love you Adam & So proud of the father and man you have become.

I can’t say it any better than she did.

A quick thought on Father’s Day

Brothers David and Mark and I were blessed to be raised by two great parents who nurtured us, guided us and made us who we are today.

I’m proud of the way my boys have turned out. That’s the best Father’s Day gift anyone can have.

(That’s my grandmother, Elsie Welch, on the couch in this photo from 1963. I’m the guy in the mirror taking the picture.)