40 South News (http://40southnews.com/series/doug-houser/)
If you have not seen the outstanding socko boffo exhibition of panoramic photographs at the Missouri History Museum (5700 Lindell Blvd.) get on over there! Called “Panoramas of the City” it has been up for nearly a year so don’t wait because once it’s over, it’s over. You’ll never have another chance. Vintage photographs are a large part of what drew me into this retirement hobby of mine. I love them.
Both of the two largest farms of Maplewood’s pioneer families, the Rannells and the Suttons, held slaves. Both were carrying on business in the same manner as many other hundreds or thousands of people doing exactly the same thing. That this shameful institution existed on most of the property that would one day become Maplewood indicates how widespread it once was. This is probably the most important post I have ever made. This is a bill of sale, the text of which follows.
Beginning in 1832 and for the next 122 years, about 7 miles from downtown St. Louis, anyone headed west on Manchester Road would have noticed a large mansion, solidly built, on the north side. This would have been the homestead of the Sutton family. For the first 45 of those years, I have the feeling that James C. would have been firmly in control. Then as we have seen in the last couple of posts the property was divided among his heirs following his death in 1877.
In my last post I began the dissection of the Mark Twain brand scrapbook that once belonged to Kate Sutton, daughter of James C. Sutton. Beginning on page 3 Kate had pasted an obituary about her father who passed on July 19, 1877. Since it contained many details about the history of Maplewood, I reproduced it in its entirety. Immediately after that first obituary, Kate pasted a second one that appears to be from a different newspaper. It contains many interesting details about the buildings and people near the location of Sutton’s blacksmith shop in downtown St. Louis. It also mentions that a few of these buildings were destroyed in the great conflagration of 1849. We know now that the boundaries of that great fire were entirely within the area that is now the grounds of the Gateway Arch. Consider that on your next visit there. Somewhere very close by was the Sutton’s shop. I didn’t hear anyone complaining so I’m assuming you all were able to read the obituary in my last post. Once again our thanks to Chrissie Hayes McConnell for sharing these bits of her family and our community history.
My neighbor’s wife is a scrapbooker, I’ve heard. I’m not sure exactly what these scrapbookers are doing or what their scrapbooks look like. I’ve seen only a couple in the past. My grandmother started one when my father was born. My sister has that one.
Perhaps 15 years ago I first heard of the existence of a trove of historic images and documents belonging to the Sutton Family. The information came from a man named Bill Hayes. He was a descendant of James Sutton. I believe he had lived in a house at 7345 Elm when he was a child. This home had once belonged to one of Kate Sutton’s daughters.
When first I visited Larry and Jean Wiss McDaniels (whose historic family photographs we saw in my last post) they had laid out on their table in addition to their impressive collection of family photos many other interesting items. Larry had books about Bataan and Corregidor, two islands where important battles took place during WWII for control of Manila Bay in the Philippines. He also showed me newspaper clippings about a hero named Arthur E. Huff. It was on the island of Corregidor in 1942 where Captain Huff made news when he and several other men restored the flag of the United States to the top of a flagpole after Japanese artillery had shot it down. For their bravery they were awarded the silver star. All well and good.
If this Maplewood History blog were a wagon it would have been stuck in a rut for about the last month. The touch screen on my Lenovo All-in-One computer began to act up about the beginning of April. Thus started a chain of events that I won’t even try to repeat here. Mostly I just want to forget them. That computer would have been two years old this November.
This will be the last post about the Shaw-Stephens Post 103. In 1956 the name was officially changed from the Maplewood Memorial Post 103 to the Maplewood-Richmond Heights Memorial Post 103. The document concerning this (posted below) states that the post was originally chartered as the Maplewood Memorial Post 103. This seems to be inaccurate. According to a 1919 article from the Post-Dispatch (copied in my first blog post on this subject), the unit was organized as the Shaw-Stephens Post 103.
What follows are more images salvaged from the large pile of stuff the folks at Post 103 were forced to leave behind when they closed their doors. If you missed the first blog post about 103, you can find it here.
On October 1, 1919 what would become the Maplewood American Legion Post 103 was organized as Shaw-Stevens Post 103. In 2007 I got a call from Evelyn Detert of this post. She invited me to come by and photograph anything that appealed to me from their 88 year accumulation of artifacts. This I did. Then a few years ago I got another call from a woman at the Legion Hall whose name I have unfortunately mislaid.
When I published the first half of my images of Gene Kitson’s unusual matchbook cover collection, I wanted to come up with an unusual and clever title. Failing that I decided to use the one above. My thinking is that if the title is clever or unusual enough it will attract more clicks than Miner’s. Should that occur I’ll consider myself the winner of Editor Miner’s weekly “Most Viewed” designation that his articles usually always win. Anyway, the subject – Matchbooks – started me thinking about burning which led to Elvis’ “A Hunk, A Hunk of Burning Love” song which is definitely a strange title for a song.
According to my meticulous record keeping (Translation: If my camera didn’t do some of this stuff automatically I would have no idea when some of these events occurred). I got a call from Gene Kitson in early 2007 who was wondering if I had any Maplewood matchbook covers. When I said I did not. He said, “Well, I do. Would you like to borrow them?” I said I would and I did.
Maplewood’s premier memoirist Bill Jones is remembering them faster than I can get them out. Here’s three more that I know you will enjoy. DH
The Hershey Chocolate Bars – Maplewood High, 1943
Our high school a capella choir was excellent. I felt privileged to be invited to participate. We harmonized beautifully.
Bill Jones is back with another of his priceless memories. After you read this story about an experience a female friend of Bill’s had, I think you’ll agree that when her date wanted to rush things, she was definitely not colluding. DH
“THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN OFT GO AWRY”
We Maplewood kids were all good kids . Sexuality was never a discussion in my 4 years at Maplewood High and my close friend waited four decades before sharing
this tale with me. When a teenager, she met a tall young man at our Esquire Bowling Lanes and befriended him.
A little over 11 months ago I created a post entitled, “A Serendipitous Encounter with the McGregor Family Home and History.” It turned out to be very popular. 46 comments. Wish they all got that sort of attention. One of the very positive things that came about was that contact was made with some of the descendants of the Maplewood McGregors. Through their family historian, Doug McGregor, and with input from other family members more information and historic photographs were gained. The task of an editor is deciding what to pass on and what “to leave on the cutting room floor” as Doug McGregor put it.