Altenburg Archives

August 7, 2014January 4, 2024

Lyndon Moore Tool Exhibit

Lyndon Moore and his wife, Margaret, travel all over the country in a truck with six dogs collecting vintage tools and hauling them back home to Bloomfield. The have an exhibit at the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum August 1 through September 25.

Official press release

Here’s the official press release: The Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum, 75 Church Street, in Altenburg, MO is proud to announce an exhibit opening. The L&M Tool Collection of Lyndon and Margaret Moore, of Bloomfield, MO, is one of the premiere American tool collections in the country. This exhibit is a special selection of the L&M Collection featuring tools manufactured in Missouri, rare tools, tools with broad public appeal, and tools used in the early settlement of Missouri. Also included in the exhibit are rare regional hardware photographs and historic hardware store exhibit cases. The exhibit will be open every day from Friday, August 1 through September 25 from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Admission is free.

Pictures and press release can’t do it justice

Snapshots and a press release don’t do the exhibit justice. Friend Terry Hopkins and I stopped by there Wednesday. I told him to open this saw display case and take a sniff inside.

He reeled back and, with a strange expression on his face, said, “That’s Grandpa Hopkins’ workshop.”

He was right. Some combination of oil and linseed oil or something brought back memories of old-time hardware stores and workshops. I’d love to have a bottle of that fragrance. It’s as much a part of my olfactory memories as the smell of diesel fumes and freshly pushed dirt on one of Dad’s construction sites.

Lyndon is the real treasure

Friend Shari and I happened to be there when Lyndon was in the museum. Director Carla Jordan, staffer Gerard Fiehler, Lyndon, Shari and a couple of other folks sat around eating an excellent carryout lunch from Nickie’s Cafe and Sweets. Carla has a way of making strangers instantly feel comfortable with each other.

Lyndon regaled us with a funny tale of scandal in downtown Bloomfield, then switched gears and told us a poignant story of a “pedal car” that got away from him when he was five years old. Forty-some years later he saw that same car, in mint condition, hanging from the rafters in a fellow collector’s “piddle shop,” and finally acquired it. He said it was a good thing his father couldn’t get it for him when he was 5, because he’d have torn it up playing with it.

Carla said Lyndon will be spending a lot of time in the museum. You might be able call ahead to see if he’s there. The number is 573-824-6070.

Be prepared to hear story after story about the history of every item in the exhibit, how he acquired it and how it works.

This is not your usual exhibit, trust me.

Gallery of the tool exhibit

The glass cases that house some of the exhibits are as interesting as their contents. You can appreciate the tools for their utility, their artistry or their history. Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

March 29, 2014June 6, 2015

Last Generation Sneak Peek

I mentioned my Last Generation project on March 26. I’ve been working like crazy to get a video presentation done so I can talk with a SEMO historical preservation about shooting regional history (or something like that. I usually don’t know what I’m going to talk about until I get in front of a group).

I finally got it whipped into passable shape this afternoon. Some of the transitions between clips are a little rougher than what I like, but I think the stories Dorothy, Edgar and Myrtle are more important than the technical stuff.

Shooting video is a whole different ballgame than shooting stills, even if you have been shooting picture stories for years. For one thing, the audio is as important, if not MORE important than the images. The best segment of the three was with Edgar Dryer (shown above when he was 8 or 10). He was 78 last fall when I photographed him. I couldn’t have asked for better natural lighting. He was also the first person I used a wireless mike on. That made a world of difference.

The biggest challenge was getting all the audio levels to match when you are shooting different subjects in different places. Watching tutorials and reading the manuals to figure out how to do it was mega-nap-inducing. I got the levels within acceptable levels, but I’m sure someone who knows what he or she is doing could have saved me hours of work.

The Last Generation video

I hope you enjoy the video. I have at least another dozen Perry County folks to work on before the Perry County Lutheran Historical Society’s Third Biennial Immigration History Conference in Altenburg October 23-25.

By the way, if you want to enlarge the video, hover your mouse over the bottom right-hand side of the vido screen. You’ll see a square box that says Full Screen. That will make the video fill your monitor screen. Press ESC to get it back to normal size.

March 26, 2014

The Last Generation

I’ve been working on The Last Generation off and on for about two years. It tells the story of the last generation of the original East Perry County pioneer families who spoke German as their primary language. I’ve had an opportunity to meet interesting men and women who grew up in an era before electricity; when little girls died of “winter fever” and telephones were just arriving.

The challenge has been to edit the videos and recordings down to a workable length. I have more material than I can use, and I was planning on interviewing some more people when I go back to SE Missouri next week. It’s been a race against the clock. Several of my subjects have died since the project started. Here are three of my friends.

Myrtle Schilling Kuehnert

Myrtle Schilling Kuehnert, above, met her future husband at Altenburg’s Trinity Lutheran Church when she was 13. She said he would have to ask her father for permission to ask her out after an evening church service. Her father told him she had to be back home by midnight because she had to help him milk cows at 4:30 a..m. She said they went uptown to a tavern where they played the jukebox and each drank a beer.

“AT 13!?!?” I exclaimed.

“Well, there weren’t any restrictions at that time.”

She wrote “Ernie” close to a thousand letters while he was serving as a turret gunner in the Pacific during World War II. She has all his letters, but he had to, “with a heavy heart,” throw her letters overboard when the ship had be be lightened during a storm.

Edgar Dreyer walked 4 miles to school

“Uphill each way. In the snow,” he said.

Edgar Dryer is a great and funny storyteller, but he grows solemn when he talks about his sister, Irene, who died when she was 13 years old, on his 4th birthday. He still remembers her coffin being brought into the living room or “die gute Stube,” and the strain it placed on his family. “She died of ‘winter fever.’ It’s pneumonia these days.”

He went to school until the tenth grade, then his father said, “Son, now you have to go to work.”

Electricity was a big thing

Dorothy Weinhold – and several of the other subjects – said that electricity was the biggest change they remember in their lifetimes. Her mother actually bought an electric iron before the house was wired for power because she was tired of firing up the wood stove to heat the old flatiron.

After she said their bathroom was outdoors, I asked, “Sears and Roebuck catalog or corncobs?”

She laughed and said, “I remember the Sears and Roebuck catalog.” Pausing, she added, “but I’ve heard about the corncobs.”

Presentation and exhibit in the fall

I’ll show the videos and exhibit prints from the project at the Perry County Lutheran Historical Society’s Third Biennial Immigration History Conference in Altenburg October 23-25.

November 15, 2013April 22, 2021

Treat Me Like A Tractor

I’ve been burning up the road between Cape and Altenburg interviewing people for my Last Generation project – trying to capture the last generation of East Perry county residents who spoke German as their primary language.

There are a lot of crops being harvested right now – primarily corn and beans. I was southbound on Rt. C near New Wells when this monster machine appeared in front of me doing about 20 miles per hour.

The driver did a masterful job of keeping the high center of gravity vehicle going while dodging mailboxes and shoulder drop-offs when he had to get over in his lane for oncoming traffic.

As the cars backed up behind me, I could only think of how many people would be honking and writing letters to the editor about how bikes don’t belong on the road if I had been on my Surly Long Haul Trucker. (For the record, this is one of my favorite bike routes. I’ve always been treated with courtesy on it. It’s only when you get close to Cape that you run into drivers who are jerks.)

So, when you see me on my bike with my Slow Moving Vehicle triangle on my back (just like this guy’s), treat me like a tractor. And, if you are going too fast to slow down without hitting me, you’re going too fast to keep from hitting the Monster Machine or the many deer I’ve seen alongside (and crossing) the road.

Heartwarming Americana

I was trying to make a left turn out of a nursing home in Perryville where I had been shooting one of my subjects – a 103-year-old Altenburg woman.

A school bus dropping off kids had traffic backed up about a dozen cars deep. “Oh, man, I’m going to be here for a long time,” I thought.

Reminding me that I was back in the Midwest, a car about four back slowed down to create a gap, then the driver motioned me out. Yep, we’re not in Florida anymore.

I didn’t mind the delay

The bus driver must have made at least six or eight stops, with the line of cars growing longer and longer behind me. I didn’t mind the delay, to be honest. I really enjoyed watching the grade school kids hop off the bus loaded down with their backpacks and dash to the house where a parent would be waiting at the door.

One middle school kid stopped at the mailbox, grabbed a letter from it and went running up the hill to his home. He seemed excited. I wonder what was in the envelope?

The driver finally got to a spot wide enough for him to pull off to let the line of cars go by. I was kinda disappointed. Since I wasn’t watching the clock, it was nice change of pace.

P.S. I was too far back to get a good bus shot, so I had to dip into the time machine to pull up this Athens County bus from Oct. 11, 1968.