Mary Welch Steinhoff Archives

December 23, 2020

The House in a Hole Is History

Back in 2014, Niece Laurie asked if I knew the story behind the “house in a hole” on Campster Drive just north of the Drury Inn. I had always wondered about it, too. so went to my best source, Mother.

She knew the woman who lived there, Mrs. Earl Siemers, from church, but she didn’t think she’d talk with me.

I gave it a shot, but Mother was right, as I should have known. Mrs. Siemers would talk with me only if I promised it would be off the record. In the real world, I’d have honored the request, but then I would have done an end-run to find a source who WOULD tell me the whole story. You folks don’t pay me enough to go to all that trouble, so I left things vague.

I posted a photo of the house and an aerial map, and, true to form, my readers told me “the rest of the story.”

Click on the photos to make them larger, then use your back-arrow to go back to the story.

Laurie the Stalker

Niece Laurie must be some kind of House in the Hole stalker because she tipped me in November that it looked like the house was going to be demolished.

It was almost sundown when I got around to checking it out, so the light wasn’t great. It did look like the white siding had been stripped off the building, so I figured its days were numbered.

What’s funny is that the photos I liked best were not of the house. I loved the trees, outbuilding and leaves in the late, Golden Hour light.

Dandelion and leaves

I was impressed with the last dandelion of the season struggling to peek out from beneath the leaves.

The Things Left Behind

I’ve always been a sucker for the things that are left behind when homes are abandoned. I raised the question, “What would you take?” to go with a blog post about an abandoned house in St. Mary.

I wondered how many flies that swatter had dispatched in its life.

Here was the naked house

I didn’t spend much time shooting the house because the light was lousy, and the building wasn’t all that interesting in its naked state. (I bet that’s the first time I’ve written that.)

Soon nothing will be left but memories

When I was running errands on Tuesday, I happened to look over the hill and saw that the yellow Cat had ripped out the trees I liked so much, knocked down the outbuilding, and crunched the house down to the basement.

If a few days, all that will be left will be memories, and those will fade, too.

October 19, 2020

Woman’s Dominion Over Nature

Mother was a master of the leaf blower

Being as how it would have been Mother’s 99th Birthday Season, it’s appropriate that I dig out these photos Fred Lynch took one day in 2014 when he was driving by the house.

Leaving no leaf unturned

She could get the hurricane-force wind under a pile of leaves, make them look like waves in the air, and send them all the way down the hill in no time.

I always said I could do better with a wide rake, but I couldn’t keep up with her.

Drastic Measures needed

After nearly falling when a leaf-hidden walnut rolled out from under me, and having one of nature’s Legos in the form of a black walnut sans hull leave me limping, I decided drastic measures were needed.

I was either going to have to display a sign like this and abandon the back yard for the duration, or I was going to have to corral the green (and black) monsters.

Plan B didn’t work

I tried my big rake first, but it couldn’t deal with both leaves AND walnuts. That’s when I reached into the closet for Mother’s leaf blower. It would move the leaves, but it didn’t have enough oomph to roll the walnuts (or I was skill deficient).

Plan C

Plan C was the blow away the leaves so I could see the walnuts. Once the surface detritus was gone, I could use the rake to herd the nuts to the edge of the yard.

That allowed me to create safe passage to the bird bath and bird feeders on Sunday night.

Unfortunately, by Monday morning, another crop of nuts had fallen. Maybe the sign idea wasn’t that bad.

October 3, 2020

The Symbol of the Nation

Ripped apart, hanging by a thread

When I went out to the car this evening, I was shocked to see that the flag in front of the house was torn almost in half. I had planned to replace it because one corner had gotten snagged on rosebush thorns and was torn. I had no idea that it rip asunder like that. I knew we had gotten a little wind, but I didn’t think it was strong enough to do that.

I’ll replace it tomorrow if there are any left in town after all the Trump rallies.

I don’t want to belabor the point, but I’m afraid that flag is a symbol of this nation: ripped almost apart, and hanging on by a thread.

My First Grade Flag Drawing

When I was kindergarten age, my morning ritual was to eat breakfast, then head out to put out my tiny American Flag. In the evening or in bad weather, I’d bring it in. One night, we had been out for a drive and got back home after sunset. I was in tears because I had violated the Flag Code.

This first grade drawing is probably why my Art 101 prof at Ohio University said, “It’s a good thing you’re a photographer.” To be honest, the work I handed in to him wasn’t much improved.

Mother’s flag a focal point for “so long” pix

Mother had a Flag she put out almost every good day, and brought it in at night. It was used for many, many family backgrounds. We had two family traditions: we always tried to take a “so long” photo (Mother never said “goodbye, so we scratched it on her casket), and when we left the house to go on a trip, we’d give two toots on the horn.

My frozen Flag

When I bought the house after Mother died in 2015, I moved the flag holder to the front of the house, installed dusk to dawn lights and flew an all-weather flag 24/7.

I said that in these times when groups are wrapping themselves in the Flag, I wanted to demonstrate that it was MY Flag, too.

An ice storm in 2018 made it look almost like a painting.

May 17, 2020May 4, 2021

Old Cape Fire Station #4

Graham Steinhoff at Fire Station #4 08-07-2013

When the Steinhoff families from Missouri, Florida and Texas gathered for Mother’s Birthday Season in 2013, Young Graham got to inspect the trucks.

We were on Kingsway long before Station 4

Aerial of Kingsway Drive c 1966 © Ken Steinhoff

A letter from Fire Chief Rickard Ennis came to the house addressed to Mother. She, unfortunately, had moved to an address in the New Lorimier Cemetery by then, so I responded to it. The survey was designed to reassure what would be the neighbors of the new Station 4 that it wouldn’t be a nuisance.

Chief Ennis,

I received your survey addressed to Louis and Mary Steinhoff at 1618 Kingsway Drive. I’m responding in their behalf. Dad died in 1977, and Mother died June 22, 2015. I’m sure Mother would have wanted you to hear about her wonderful neighbors at Station #4. (See attached survey.)

Our house was built in 1956, long before Kurre Lane was extended and longer yet before Station #4 was built, as you can see in this aerial photo I took in 1966. Our house was the first of the three houses going down the hill from Kurre, the street running horizontally at the bottom of the photo.

Mother loved having the station across the street

Mother loved having your guys across the street. If she got her lawn mower hung up in the ditch in front of the house, they’d help her get it unstuck. If she went to the store to buy a 50-lb bag of bird seed, she’d wait until she saw someone in the parking lot and ask them to help her get it out of the trunk.

Several years ago, she experienced shortness of breath that turned out to be congestive heart failure. I’m convinced that one of the reasons she didn’t hesitate to dial 9-1-1 was that she knew the folks who would respond.

Sirens were the last thing that bothered her

I smiled a bit when I read the question about the nuisance rating relating to the noise of sirens.

As a newspaper director of photography, I had to make sure all the paper’s police and fire monitors were capable of receiving new systems that were changing all the time. That meant I had a huge surplus of old radios that would find themselves in Cape. I think she had a scanner in every room but the bathroom, and she might have carried a portable in there.

As soon as she heard a siren go out from the fire station or the ambulance company, she’d fire up the scanner closest to her to find out what was going on. That gene is possibly what caused me to end up in the newspaper business.

The station was an asset to the neighborhood

Far from lowering property values, I’ve always told folks that it’s a tremendous asset to have you and the ambulance company within a block of us. I’m sure there is a priority given to keeping Kingsway Drive’s street clear of snow and ice, and on keeping the power on in our area because of it.

Oh, yes, we have NO trouble hearing the warning siren, even in the basement.

In 2013, my grandson Graham came to Cape from Florida to visit his great-grandmother. Of course, we had to go look at the fire trucks. He was impressed with the size of the apparatus, and dug “driving” it and blowing the siren, but he wasn’t quite ready for the sound of the air horn, as you can tell in one of the photos.

Mother led a full and active life for most of her 93 years, only having a quick decline after the first of 2015. I came to Cape to assist her.

You didn’t have to dial 9-1-1 when Station 4 was across the street

One night she tumbled out of bed, tearing her paper-thin skin. I didn’t think it was an injury worth going to the emergency room in the middle of the night, but I wanted a second opinion and help picking her up off the floor. Instead of dialing 9-1-1, it was nice to be able to walk across the street to describe the problem.

They did a truck roll, bandaged her up, and helped lift her. I couldn’t have asked for a better crew to show up. The fact that she recognized them helped calm her down and reassure her that everything was going to be OK.

She told me of the rumors that Station #4 was going to be replaced. If that’s the case, I’m glad she left before you folks did. She’d have been heartbroken to lose her good neighbors.

The night before the move to the new station

Mike Smith - Mike McLemore - Byron Stroer
Cape Girardeau Fire Station 4 11-27-2017

I kept telling myself that I should document the old station before it was too late. When I got around to it, the guys told me I had cut it close: this was their last night before the move.

Mike Smith, Mike McLemore and Byron Stroer were kind enough to give me the run of the place for a few hours.

The last hours of Station 4

Sometimes you throw aesthetics aside and shoot for the record. That’s what these photos do. Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around. Note: there are two pages to the gallery. I didn’t notice that at first.