Amy Steinhoff Archives

Since the world didn’t end at midnight on December 31,1999, all of the Steinhoffs were able to converge on Missouri for Christmas 2000. The group shot was taken at Brother Mark’s house in St. Louis on Christmas Eve. The Tulsa branch consisting of David, Diane, Kim and Amy, had to blast out on Christmas Day to beat a snow storm headed our way, so they aren’t in as many photos. The Florida Clan was represented by Ken, Lila, Matt, Sarah and Adam. Mother, front left and looking younger than most of us, is the glue that binds us together.

Since all of our readers will be busy with their own families, this photo gallery is for us. Y’all are welcome to look at it, but there won’t be a final exam later.

Sarah’s a Floridian

Snow was a new experience for Matt’s wife, Sarah. She had lots of catching up to do. We were coming up from Florida in separate cars linked together by CB radios. When we got the first glimpse of the St. Louis Arch, Matt and I tried to convince Sarah that it’s a tradition for first-timers give it a healthy lick, but she wasn’t buying it. We even explained that it was perfectly sanitary: vendors sell alcohol wipes to protect you from germs.

Mother never throws anything away

Mother dug out Mark and David’s graduation robes and Mark’s high school diploma. She found my white lab coat stolen from the Central High School darkroom. It had a neat NRA patch from one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s alphabet soup agencies on one shoulder, but Mother carefully removed it, much to my disappointment.

My prom jacket

Adam looks a lot better in my old prom jacket than I did in 1965.

Photo gallery of the 2000 Steinhoff family Christmas

I hope your families have as much fun in 2012 as we did in 2000. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

Family was my Number One Thing to be Thankful for in 2010, and it tops the list again in 2011.

The Steinhoff Family from Florida, Missouri, Colorado and Oklahoma managed to make it back to Cape to celebrate Mother’s 90s Birthday Season. Son Matt shot this group photo. (Click on any image to make it larger.)

He had everything set up earlier in the morning to do the photo in the back yard, but the sun moved and the shadows were bad. He shuffled us over to the side yard where the light was better, but still spotty. He worked fast, mainly because so many of his subjects were young and prone to crankiness and because so many of his subjects were old and he didn’t know how many takes he’d have left.

Matt’s last perfect family portrait

He took much longer to shoot this one of the Florida branch on Easter Sunday 2009. In fact the video I recorded of him arranging everyone, running to get into the photo before the self-timer tripped, checking the camera display, yelling at various of us for minor infractions, then redoing it time and time again, runs 7:46, something that a couple of commenters have complained about. They didn’t get it: it was SUPPOSED to be long. That’s why it’s titled How to Shoot a Family Portrait (In the Real World).

Here’s where you go to see still photos of the extravaganza and / or subject yourself to a 7:46 min video.

They’re both iPad proficient

I’m thankful that my grandsons have had a change to meet and get to know their Great-Grandmother. Malcolm gets to see his great-grandmother only once or twice a year, but they’re close enough that she can kibitz his computer game. There’s not that big a gap between 90 and seven, I suppose, when you both know how to use iPads. Malcolm is Matt and Sarah’s son.

Graham – the newest addition

Mother journeyed to Florida shortly after Graham was born in February (remember our Road Trip back). Graham doesn’t know a stranger. I have a snippet of video right after this still shot was taken that shows him breaking out in a huge grin and reaching for her.

Both of my sons keep in regular contact with their grandmother by phone calls and email. Even though they didn’t grow up in Cape, they feel the same attraction to the area that I do. Graham belongs to Adam and Carly.

Missing from the photo, but not forgotten

Even though Matt wasn’t much older than this when Dad died in 1977 – and Adam hadn’t even been born yet – both boys have heard so many stories and memories that it’s almost like they grew up with him.

Dad may not be in the photograph at the top of the page, but he’s still in the picture for us.

Cape Central High Photos

Ken Steinhoff, Cape Girardeau Central High School Class of 1965, spent half a century in the ink-slinging business for papers in Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida.

He retired in 2008 and has been spending time scanning hundreds of thousands of images because “photos once taken as news have grown enough whiskers that they’ve become history.”

Please comment on the articles when you see he may have left out a bit of history, forgotten a name or when your memory of a circumstance conflicts with his.

(His mother said her stories improved after all the folks who could contradict died off.)

Your information helps to make this a wonderful archive and may end up in book form.

Tag: Amy Steinhoff

Steinhoff Christmas 2000