Lila Perry Steinhoff Archives

November 10, 2015August 31, 2021

Watered-Down Anheuser-Busch

I’m a disgrace to my German heritage. I have to confess I went years not liking the taste of beer. Then, one hot summer, Brother-in-Law John Perry came down to Florida to help us re-roof the house.

Well, to be more accurate, he did most of the work when he wasn’t answering dumb questions from The Boys and me. (Sample: “These nails have the heads on the wrong end.” “Just put them back in your pouch and use them on the other side of the roof.”)

At the end of the day, I took a shine to the Bud Light I was quaffing with John. Nowadays, I usually have a bottle with dinner at least three nights a week.

My friends make fun of me for drinking Bud Light, but I counter by saying, “I’m not really crazy about beer, and Bud Light is the closest thing you can get to Not Beer that still has a little of the taste of beer.

In 1993, the folks at Anheuser-Busch came up with something that might be a little light even for my taste. They switched over one of their lines in Ft. Collins, Colorado, to produce cans of drinking water for folks fighting the Flood of 1993.

Use by 10/15/1993

Wife Lila and Foodie Road Warriorette Jan are always giving me grief about how long I keep food past the theoretical expiration date. I wonder if they’d object if I cracked the can and took a swig of 1993 water? The can’s full and shows no signs of leakage.

Canned water outlasted Dutchtown

Ronald Kucera Jr. of Kucera Demolition reduces a Dutchtown house to landfill material. Eleven of 15 houses eligible for a buyout have been marked for demolition after residents got tired of more and more frequent “100-year” floods.

Not-so-fond memories

Brother Mark and I have some not-so-fond memories of the Flood of 1993, when we were surveying the height of the water inside one of the buildings Dad used for his construction company. We were barely able to get the canoe under the top of the door.

November 6, 2015

Rose Mary Seyer 1925 – 2015

Wife Lila posted a sad note to Facebook on October 31: Early this afternoon, a lovely, sweet woman, my Aunt Rose Mary, slipped the bonds of earth into eternal rest.

She and I were close, and I never missed an opportunity to see her and my uncle whenever I was in town. She was kind, gentle and soft spoken. She always had a cup of green tea for me when I visited. We talked about family, of course, but we also talked about quilting and canning… two things she and I both did, until she couldn’t in the last few years.

Funny thing… when I was a child, my mother, Rose Mary’s older sister, would call me ‘Rose Mary’ about half the time, when she was sorting out children’s names as mothers tend to do. I didn’t mind. I will miss her terribly. Going back home won’t ever be the same. .

This photo of Rose Mary and Ray Seyer was taken in 2010 when I recorded Ray talking about growing up in Swampeast Missouri, his World War II navy experiences, ghosts and his feeling that Rush Limbaugh, even as a teenager, was a “horse’s patootie.”

Rose Mary’s obituary

Rose Mary Seyer, 89, of Cape Girardeau died Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015, at Ratliff Care Center.She was born Dec. 9, 1925, in Cape Girardeau to John Jacob and Christine Rosolia Diebold Hoffman.

She and Raymond C. Seyer were married Feb. 26, 1946, at St. Mary Church in Cape Girardeau. Rose Mary was a graduate of St. Mary High School. She was a member of St. Mary Cathedral and St. Mary Ladies Sodality.

Survivors include her husband, Raymond C. Seyer of Cape Girardeau; children, Michael (Brenda) Seyer and Dan (Mary) Seyer of Cape Girardeau, Diane (Ray) Staebel of Liberty Hill, Texas, Janette (Stephen) Bennett of Alexandria, Kentucky, Joyce (Dave) Bruenderman of Cape Girardeau, Linda (Bob) Garner of Jackson, Ralph (Debbie) Seyer of Kirkland, Washington, and Steve Seyer of St. Clair, Missouri; 27 grandchildren; and 42 great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents; infant son, Timothy G. Seyer; brothers, Adrian, Jerome, Norman and Charles Hoffman; sisters, Thelma Hoffman and Lucille Perry; and grandchild, Wendy Seyer.

Saying goodbye

St. Mary Cathedral was full of friends and family for Rose Mary’s funeral mass on November 3. The funeral procession on the way to St. Mary Cemetery stretched for blocks.

“Family treasure”

Lila posted to Facebook, “Spent the evening with people who mean the world to me…. my Seyer cousins. My life with them began when I moved to Missouri in 1957. We all are in town together because of the passing of their mother, my aunt Rose Mary. They give a whole new meaning to the term ‘family treasure’. I love these people.”

Photo gallery of Rose Mary’s family

You can tell from the photos on the family refrigerator in the first photo that family was important to Ray and Rose Mary. Here’s a photo gallery of the family gathering Thursday night at Linda and Bob Garner’s home. Good times were remembered and thank-you notes were written. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

October 20, 2015October 21, 2015

The Last Rose of Summer

I’ve been struggling with what to post about Mother’s Birthday Season when she’s not here to celebrate it. I’ve made a dozen false starts, but none of them worked. Then, two things hit me today.

I got an email from Curator Jessica that read, “We had our first killing frost last night and my poor basil didn’t make it. This afternoon, while I was lamenting my basil, I turned around and saw one of my rosebushes had a bud that seemed to have weathered the frost. I sang the Grateful Dead to it and thought of you.”
I woke up to a flat tire (a nail nailed me). When I got back from having it patched, I opened the car door and was confronted with the rosebush on the light pole in front of the house. I took that as a sign I should visit Mother and Wife Lila’s Mother.

She was referring to Dark Muddy River

Miz Jessica heard Dark Muddy River because I told her I was considering it for a video about people and places along the Mississippi River that are no longer there.

When the last rose of summer pricks my finger
And the hot sun chills me to the bone
When I can’t hear the song for the singer
And I can’t tell my pillow from a stone

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own

When the last bolt of sunshine hits the mountain
And the stars start to splatter in the sky
When the moon splits the southwest horizon
With the scream of an eagle on the fly

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And listen to the ripples as they moan
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own

Black muddy river
Roll on forever
I don’t care how deep or wide
If you got another side
Roll muddy river
Roll muddy river
Black muddy river roll

When it seems like the night will last forever
And there’s nothing left to do but count the years
When the strings of my heart start to sever
And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears

I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And dream me a dream of my own
I will walk alone by the black muddy river
And sing me a song of my own
And sing me a song of my own

The song

I’ve listened to that song while riding my bike around Lake Okeechobee on nights that are pitch-dark except for bolts of heat lightning cutting across the sky, and I’ve played it while watching the whirlpool swirl around Tower Rock in the Mississippi. It hits me differently every time, particularly in this context. I’m still going to have to come up with a Birthday Season story, but this will have to do as a space filler.

Click on the photo above to hear it on YouTube.

August 17, 2015

Liberty Bell of the West

Bill Nowell of Nowell’s Camera shop invited Girlfriend Lila and me to go on a ramble to Ste. Genevieve one weekend in 1966 or 1967. On the way, we stopped to see the Liberty Bell of the West. Back in those days, you could walk right up to it and give it a ring or two. Today, you have to push a button that causes a door to open, and you have to look through bars.

The bell was given by King Louis XV of France to the Catholic Church of the Illinois Country in 1741. The people of Kaskaskia rang it in celebration after American General George Rogers Clark occupied the town on July 4, 1778.

Photo gallery of the Liberty Bell in 2012

I haven’t run across the negatives from the Nowell trip, but here are some photos from 2012. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.