LV Steinhoff Archives

March 10, 2014

Brother Mark Gets Older

I was lucky enough to stumble across these negatives just in time for Brother Mark’s March 10 birthday. How old is he? I guess I could root around and find his birth year, but let’s just say (1) he’s younger than I am and (2) Mother, Kid Adam and I went to his 50th surprise party in St. Louis quite a few years back, so he’s on the far side of that.

I think it will suffice to say that he no longer has to fear dying young.

Look at all the cultural icons in one photo: the cowboy hat, shirt and vest; the pinch-your-finger-right-off rocking horse; the toy telephone of indeterminate color and something dark and round with feet. It looks like his second birthday, unless Mother had used up all her candles on Mark’s older brothers.

Christmas time

This shot of Mother, David, Mark and me was shot at Christmas. David, with his bow tie was the spiffy dresser of the crew. Mark looks like a deer caught in the headlights in the backwoods of Bollinger County.

Speaking of spiffy dressers

This is Dad’s brother Hubert, or “Unk” or “Uncle Hue.” He was the uncle every kid should have. He was funny, patient and enjoyed being around us kids. Uncle Mark followed in his footsteps.

Well, maybe not exactly: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mark in an outfit like this.

Peaceful coexistence

Someone must have wanted to get a shot of David and Mark when they weren’t saying things like, “He’s looking at me” or “Make him STOP!” It was a LONG, LONG trip from Cape to Florida and back in 1960.

Afternoon at Grace and Guy’s

I actually like this as an image. We spent a lot of time under these shade trees at Grace and Guy Gardiner’s house in Advance. Mother is on the left and Grandmother Elsie Welch is on the right with David. Mark, the center of attention as usual, is in the foreground with his orange push-up.

Those hours of listening to oldtimers talk about taming Swampeast Missouri had an influence, I’m sure. It’s funny how the world works: one day we’re a kid listening to old farts spinning tales, and the next thing we know, we’ve taken their place.

Monkey, Buick and my bike

Brothers David and Mark pose next to our 1959 Buick LaSabre station wagon. Mark is dressed in some kind of strange jumpsuit and he’s holding a stuffed animal. It’s hard to make out, but I think it might have been a monkey. Off on the right is one of the few photos I’ve been able to find of my bike. It looks like it might have my Missourian paper bag in the front basket.

Chillin’ in the pool

I didn’t get to spend much time in the Country Club swimming pool, but that didn’t matter. We Steinhoff boys had our own pool in the backyard. I think Mark was housebroken by the time we got the pool.

So, Mark, here’s wishing you a Happy Whatever Birthday.

March 3, 2014

Books from Dad

Shortly after I started Central High School, Dad came home with four book under his arm. I don’t think it was any special occasion or if they wrapped in gift paper. I don’t even remember if he said anything when he handed them to me unless it was, “Here are some books you might find useful.”

They were

Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language
Roget’s International Thesaurus
Merriam-Webster’s Synonyms
Robert’s Rules of Order

Why these books?

As I type these, I have to wonder who told him this would be a useful combination. Dad was a smart guy, but he constructed roads and bridges, not words and paragraphs. I can’t think of anywhere he would have been exposed to Robert’s Rules of Order.

Still, those books served me all the way through high school, got packed up to go to Ohio University, and were thumbed through at papers in Ohio, North Carolina and Florida.

I’m shuffling stuff around in my office to make more efficient use of space, so I took the books down this afternoon. I flipped to the front pages to see if he had written anything in the flyleaves.

No, he was a strong believer in never engraving on or writing in anything that you might need to sell or pawn some day.

They’re a little worse for the wear, and they wouldn’t bring anything at the pawn shop, but they are priceless to me.

January 25, 2014February 18, 2021

First Plane Ride

This tiny scrapbook looks like it captured my first plane ride when I was about four years old. Lake of the Ozarks kept twitching in the back of my mind. Then, I thought “Bagnell Dam,” not knowing for sure if the two phrases were connected.

Wikipedia provided the answer: Bagnell dam impounds the Osage River creating the Lake of the Ozarks. It is 148 feet tall and 2,543 feet long. Construction started in 1929 and was finished in 1931. The Lake of the Ozarks has a surface area of 55,000 acres, over 1,150 miles of shoreline and stretches 92 miles from end to end, making it one of the largest man-made lakes in the world and the largest in the United States at that time.

Dad, the Joiners and me

Troas “Bones” Joiner is on the left. He was the Joiner part of Steinhoff, Kirkwood and Joiner Construction. Bones was a ruddy-faced, good-hearted man who knew his way around a wrench and was artist with a bulldozer. He was a Cat skinner of the first order. His son, Bill, is on the right. I’m sitting on Dad’s lap.

Bagnell Dam a boost during the Depression

The concept of a hydro electric power plant on the Osage River was first introduced by a Kansas City developer as long ago as 1912. Ralph Street managed to put together the funding to construct a dam across the Osage River and began building roads, railroads and support structures necessary to begin construction of a dam that would impound a much smaller lake than what is presently known as Lake of the Ozarks. Sometime in the mid-1920s, Street’s funding dried up and he had to abandon the idea of the first hydroelectric power plant on the Osage River.

Upon Street’s failure to deliver the power plant, Union Electric Power and Light stepped in with an engineering firm from Boston, Massachusetts, and designed and constructed Bagnell Dam in one of the most unlikely spots along the Osage River.

Many thought the $30 million project would be a disaster with the stock market crash of 1929, but it proved to be a boost to many families in the area as well as the hundreds who traveled across the country seeking work.

By today’s standards, all construction was done by hand, and the equipment used in the construction was quite primitive. The construction of Bagnell Dam was completed and Lake of the Ozarks was a full reservoir in fewer than two years.

The first of many plane rides

I don’t have any recollection of my first plane ride. Not only was it a small plane, it was a seaplane on top of that. I think I’ve only flown in a pontoon plane two or three times, once to the Dry Torguas and back (obviously).

I’ve spent hundreds of hours in tiny aircraft and helicopters over the years. I’ve always felt more comfortable in them than in commercial airliners where you are treated like cattle. I have plenty of scary war stories about flying, but there’s something comforting about sitting next to the pilot when he says, “Oops.”

Was the dam builder superstitious?

Here’s an intriguing factoid: Construction of the dam allowed for thirteen floodgates, as the original design called for. However, only twelve floodgates were installed, and the thirteenth spillway opening is walled shut with concrete. The engineers calculated that twelve floodgates provided a large enough margin of safety. It may be apocryphal that Union Electric officials did not want to jinx the dam with the unlucky number 13.

January 5, 2014

Reading Race Prize

Buried in a box of old newspaper clips that are crumbling bad enough that I’ve been sneezing all afternoon was my first grade Reading Race Prize.

Mrs. Kelpe, the first grade teacher every kid should have, wrote on the back, “To Kenneth, who was once again the winner of the Reading Race. I am proud of you, Kenneth.” It was dated March 25, 1954, the day after my birthday.

My “sailer” hat

My first grade scrapbook has this photo of me wearing the prize for winning an earlier Reading race.

The account of my big day

Dad’s typewriter didn’t have a spellchecker on it, so some typos crept in from time to time. The fact that he and Mother went to all the trouble to document my young life is much appreciated. As Kid Rel II, Brother David’s scrapbook was a lot shorter. Brother Rel III Mark’s book simply said, “Refer to earlier editions.”

“…Mrs. Kelpe timed up on readying (sic) today and had a prize for the fastest ones. I won as my time was only 1-1/2 minutes. It took one boy 6 minutes. The prize was a white sailer hat. A little bit [big] but I like it. Boy! I was good to win that hat. [OK, so I needed to work on humility.] I told Mrs. Kelpe she was the best teacher I ever had and I’ve had a plenty.“