Brentwood resident Sue Ladage: July 4th every day

At first glance, Sue Ladage’s Brentwood home looks like any other this time of year. American flags, patriotic props and red, white and blue banners out front celebrate the season.

Step inside, and the Americana decor demands attention. Ladage’s living room lights up like a Fourth of July festival, replete with Uncle Sams, Betsy Rosses and colorful critters a plenty, all of a patriotic sort.

There’s a case of part-cloth mice, each a different American symbol or hero. Boldly painted gourds capture America’s old man, Uncle Sam, in twisted form. Resin wood figures freeze the Fourth in folksy fashion. Sparkly kitsch combines with classic kitchen decor, including plates on the wall featuring legends like Abraham Lincoln.

All in all, it’s a blast, with the sense of rockets’ red glare and the bombs bursting in air–not just one day but every day.

“I just love the Fourth of July,” said Ladage. “It makes me happy.”

Along with the living room and kitchen, the bathroom and bedrooms also don red, white and blue decor. Ladage points to wooden Uncle Sam figures made by her now-deceased father as favorites.

Upstairs, her office sports one red wall and one blue. In that comfy room she favors the flags that mark our country from another’s.  One bears 48 stars, the same as the year she was born.

Not to be missed are the many cases of more Americana:  red, white and blue snowmen, Santas, beanie babies and more, all signs of patriotic pride par excellence. With its colorful patches, Ladage’s master bedroom’s quilt acts as a finale to Ladage’s Fourth of July home tribute.

Only a few black/white old photos in the upstairs hall contrast with the patriotic decor dripping from the walls.  The German-American forebears in the pics point to the source of Ladage’s pride in all things patriotic.

“My 90-plus-year-old mother  told me my great-grandfather loved the Fourth of July.  She says I’m just like him,” she said.

A Lutheran, Ladage was drawn to American history around not long before she moved to her current home, in 1993.  Researching her heritage, she learned her family was among the Saxon Lutherans who arrived here in the mid-1800s. Those settlers eventually founded the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

Also around 1993, she started collecting Americana items, by way of eBay.  Now Ladage uses Etsy, she said. Family and friends gift her patriotic items as well. At Christmas and around other holidays the ante goes up for putting on more patriotic ritz, she said.

The mother of four grown children and grandmother to two, she and husband John host her sister, mother and other relatives in her patriotic pad every Fourth of July (or thereabouts).

Lately, her decor includes Americana scenes that include bicycles.  That’s her passion too, along with patriotism.

Her small pooch Mackey joins in Ladage’s love, as seen in his red, white and blue necktie.

“May the Fourth Be With You,” a bathroom signs says, like a benediction for all who visit.