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.
Hey I went to the Estate Sale they had end of this summer, got some nice old bottles for my tinctures and such, simple little two bedroom house that really had never been updated much.
I realized this morning that most abandoned buildings I’ve run across have been allowed to deteriorate for years. This one was well-maintained until the very end. I don’t know what is going to replace it, but it won’t be as loved and unique as this house.
(Copied from my post at http://www.capecentralhigh.com/cape-photos/house-in-a-hole/)
Earl Siemers was one of my Dad’s cousins. The land on the west side of the interstate, south of Route K and north of Bloomfield Road was owned by the Siemers family.
I helped haul hay out of the fields where all those stores are now.
The greater Siemers family patriarch, Heinrich Conrad Siemers, purchased a lot of the land west of Cape Girardeau from the Federal Government upon arriving here from Germany just after the turn of the century. It was divided among many family members over the years.
If you look to the west of Cape, one can see or might remember seeing a couple of big silos currently atop a hill and they have been there for a long time. That land was also part of that land included. That dairy farm belonged to the family of Frank and Esther James. Esther was a member of the Siemers family and sister to my paternal grandmother Alma Robinson.
I’m the great grandchild of Esther Siemers and I met Mrs. Earl Siemers along with her husband when I was little. The farm across is the Kirchdoerfer farm which is my grandma Marie’s brother Joe and Mildred Kirchdoerfer home. Both of these farms along with the Farrar Farm were the outskirts of town until the interstate came
My family bought a milk cow from that farm back in the 70s. Back then it seemed like such a long drive from Cape out to that farm. I am so thrilled that the farm is still there and I crack up when the smell of cow manure fills the walmart parking lot and people wonder what it is. I’m instantly reminded of my childhood and I love it! So, so glad they’re still there. I hope that farm continues for many future generations.
I’d LOVE to know what that small plot went for $? Seems they held out FOREVER so I sincerely hope they got a GREAT price!
I would check the land office in Cape County in the 80′ and 90’s and for the Drury name around the time Walmart went in out there. The couple had no children. He worked at St Francis hospital the last few years of his life, I dont remember what she did.