Ken Steinhoff, Author at Cape Girardeau History and Photos

July 16, 2010November 18, 2016

H&H Building, Draft Board and Dentist

I don’t have a whole lot of pleasant memories of the Himmelberger & Harrison Building – better known to natives as the H & H Building.

When I was about six, I needed to have a cavity filled. It was my first visit to a dentist’s office. I don’t remember the dentist’s name nor exactly where his office was in the H & H Building. What I do know is that he wasn’t anything like the dentists we go to these days with their high-speed, water-cooled drills, their pain blockers and soothing music.

This guy, I swear, used a drill that had to have been foot-powered like an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine. It wasn’t a drill so much as a jackhammer.

To this day I am dental-phobic. I’m so rigid, that the only thing that touches the chair is the back of my head and my heels. I even tense up in a barber chair because it reminds me of the ordeal.

A visit to the Cape Convention & Visitors Bureau

While I was in town this spring, I stopped by the H & H Building to see if the Cape Convention & Visitors Bureau would be interested in buying an ad on CapeCentralHigh. What would be a better fit than a blog getting Boomers all excited about coming back to Cape for high school reunions?

It was a very nice visit, but I walked out empty-handed. Well, truth be told, I came out worse than empty-handed. I offered to run a free ad for the Story-Telling Festival to show how well we could drive traffic to their site and I bought a T-shirt from them.

South East Missouri Trust Co

While wandering around their office, I spotted a cool old safe in the corner left over from when the office was the South East Missouri Trust Co. That’s the third safe I’ve discovered in Cape left over from the 20s and 30s.

Yale Time Lock was cleaned and guaranteed

This one still had stickers dating back to pre-Depression days guaranteeing the Yale Time Lock had been properly cleaned and serviced.

After I left the office, I shot a few more pictures of the lobby area.

Staircase led to the Draft Board

I remember that staircase. I walked up it to register with the Draft Board when I turned 18. I didn’t get off to a good start with Draft Clerk Miss Lolla B. Gilbert. I guess I should back up to explain that I have lousy handwriting. Despite my Dad’s best efforts, my cursive was illegible. I got in the habit of printing anything I wanted to read, and even that was a struggle to decipher.

When I had finished filling out part of the paperwork, Miss Gilbert grabbed it and said in an offended tone, “You PRINTED. You were supposed to sign.”

Not wanting to make her any more distressed, I picked up the form and scrawled my signature.

Even more offended now, she said, “I can’t read that.”

“Mam, that’s why I printed it.”

“You didn’t list any scars”

I won’t say she was exactly mollified, but she didn’t say anything else until she got down to the bottom of the form. “You didn’t list any distinguishing marks or scars.”

I guess I had a lucky childhood, because I had escaped any disfiguring injures, so far as I could recall. The silence grew between us.

Finally, inspiration struck. “I cut my finger once,” I said hopefully.

“Where? Show me.”

The mailbox where she mailed the letter

And then, as I curled the middle finger of my left hand to show her the cut, I hoped that she would take the gesture in the spirit in which it was intended.

I’ve often wondered if Miss Gilbert had an evil grin on her face when she sent me the letter to report for the draft physical that would have given me an all-expense-paid vacation to beautiful Southeast Asia, had I not come in Number 258 in the 1969 Draft Lottery.

Historical side note: The Southeast Missourian ran a story about the two 19-year-olds who were at the ends of the spectrum when birthdates were drawn in the Dec. 1, 1969, Draft Lottery. Gary Wayne Hurt, 1030 West Cape Rock Dr., was born April 24, the second date selected in the lottery.

Lonnie Lee Brockmire, 1826 Woodlawn, celebrates his birthday on Feb. 26, the second to last date drawn. If you’d like to look up what your Draft Lottery number was, follow this link to the list in The Missourian.

If you’d like to see what the H & H Building looked like in 1966, it shows up in the background of a fender-bender in this post.

Photo Gallery from H & H Building

Here are some additional photos from the H & H Building. Click on any picture to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

July 15, 2010

Teen Age Club Fashion Show

Missourian photographer Fred Lynch dipped into his stash of Frony photos to come up with pictures from a fashion show sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. The first photo ran June 30; the second showed up July 14.

That jogged my memory. I have couple sleeves of negatives that were slugged TAC Fashion Show 1966.

They are pretty unspectacular, but I thought someone might enjoy seeing them. I won’t even try to ID anyone in the photos. I don’t know where the show was held, either. You’ll have to fill in the blanks.

I have another set of photos marked TAC Fashion Show Prep /3/9/67 that I’ll run down the road.

The difference between boys and girls

These little girls were following and critiquing every outfit as it went by.

1,000-Yard Stare

The guys have that thousand-yard-stare, my-watch-must-have-stopped look.

Photo gallery of Fashion Show

Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

July 12, 2010November 14, 2012

A Walk On Themis Street

After we had finished touring Central High School, Linda Stone said she’d like to walk up on sit on the steps of the house where she grew up, “where Jim Stone and I played chess.” Tricia Tipton and I followed her on a walk down memory lane.

We lived at 1753 Themis when I was two years old

She didn’t know that I lived in one of the first houses on Themis Street when I was about 2 years old. Mother often talks about how the site CHS sits on was once a swampy field with a dead horse in it. The house to the east of us, occupied later by the Ravenstein family, was a low spot that had to be filled in before it could be built on.

“I played chess with Jim Stone”

Linda reminisces about playing chess with Jim Stone, who lived across the street from her. She and Tricia Tipton list off all the CHS students who lived on the street. Central was the epitome of a neighborhood school.

In an earlier email message, she wrote, “Our neighborhood was filled with kids exactly our age, so all summer a huge gang of us would play hide-and-seek until well after dark. My first-ever real date was with him (Jim) — summer of ’63, I think. I still remember scrambling to find a proper little summer dress to wear. It was a borrowed rust and tan plaid sundress. Vivid, colorful memories! He and I did not really date, we usually sat on the front porch and talked or went over to his house and looked at his home-made science lab with all his projects. Lots of fun.”

“Everybody on our block went to Central”

On my side of the street, Ronnie Marshall (’65) next door. The other side of our house next door and up the street: Sitz, Nowell, Early, Estes, ?, Goddard (the principal), then Garmes. Then across the street at the top of the hill and down toward the high school: Mulkey, Kies, Dunklin, Stone (Jim), Young (Debby), Lueders (the photographer plus Dickie and Holly (’67), Amlingmeyer. I know I am missing some.

Linda, Tricia and Jim circa 1964

One afternoon when I stopped by Jim Stone’s house, we noticed Linda and Tricia out in Linda’s front yard at 1744 Themis.

I can’t believe that Linda and Tricia let two guys with cameras get anywhere close to them while they were working on making themselves (more) beautiful. That’s Linda’s sister, Lisa, walking into the frame from the right.

Tricia’s inside attacking her hair

I have no idea what’s she’s doing. It looks painful. I am, to this day, amazed that I was able to shoot this sequence and live. The girls must have been sedated on some kind of hair goop at the time.

The result wasn’t bad

Linda went digging for her past

Linda wrote, “In prep for attending the reunion I’m digging through boxes that have moved with me from Cape to St. Louis, Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, Dothan (AL), Coeur d’Alene (ID), Scottsdale and Durango. And that includes more than one house in St. Louis, Dallas, Atlanta and Scottsdale.”

Brownie Troop 3

This picture is Brownie Troop 3 at some kind of ‘flying up’ ceremony which was held in my home at 1744 Themis St. in 1958. The girls are all from the future class of 1966. Left to right: __?__, Martha Penrod, Tricia Tipton, Pam Burkhimer, Mary Frances Sitze, Mrs. Sitze, Debby Young, Sally Bierbaum, Marsha Hitt, Mrs. Lolita Stone, Marilyn Maevers, Linda Stone (circled in ink), Prudy Irvin, Mary Lynn Nowell.

Birthday babes on Themis

This photo was taken in front of the house that was in the video. Linda wrote, “Bottom row: Jane Dunklin, Mary Frances Sitze, Linda Lou Stone, Joan Early. Top row: Mary Lynn Nowell, Sally Ann Stone, Judy Dunklin, Joan Amlingmeyer. I recognize the dress as my Easter outfit that my mother sewed for me. Since Sally’s birthday is in April and this was taken on our front porch, it might have been a party for her.”

Boomer Birthday Party

It is a birthday party for Holly Lueders, who lived directly across the street from us (in the the home that Debby Young later occupied). These are all future graduates from the classes of 1965, ’66 and ’67. Baby boomers blooming on Themis. From the bottom and proceeding clockwise: Dickie Lueders (hiding his face), Jane Dunklin, Mary Frances Sitze, Joan Early, Judy Dunklin, Holly Lueders, Mary Lynn Nowell, Linda Stone (spoon in mouth), Sally Stone, Joan Amlingmeyer, John Amlingmeyer.

Themis Street Photo Gallery

There are a few shots not shown above. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left of right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

July 12, 2010

Mapping Main Street (Cape)

My friends at Old Town Cape posted a note on their Facebook Fanpage: Hey fans do you have any cool pics on Main Street? Add them to this national documentary site, and help us represent Cape Girardeau!

The site is Mapping Main Street. “When politicians and the media mention Main Street, they evoke one people and only one place. But there are over 10,466 streets named Main in the United States.” The project’s goal is to get photos or video of all of those streets to create a composite of the Main Street that WE live on.

Cape Girardeau’s Main Street

When I was in Cape in October, I walked Main St. shooting photos of whatever caught my eye. I’ve published some of them, and I was holding onto others until I do some research. I’m tossing up these random images for your consideration. Which, if any, of these shots make YOU remember Main Street? If I get enough response, I may send your choices in to Mapping Main Street.

Click on any photo to make it bigger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.