Thank goodness I learned to type in high school typing class.  Friend Mary remembers my ManFriend, even now the class clown, lifting up his Smith Corona manual typewriter to his shoulder and playing it like an accordion.  Truth told, he still types that way, but with two fingers and sometimes in all caps.  Just like a bad dream,  I remember one day arriving at high school and suddenly learning that term papers were due that day.  I had forgotten!  Best friend Chris and I scurried home, and because she was (and still is) a faster typist than I am, pulled out the portable manual typewriter and …

When I discovered recently that I had the opportunity to get a house tour of the historic Green Parrot Restaurant, I immediately checked in with my five Amazing Cousins for recollections. Then I drove by, only to discover that the Green Parrot is now an historic home up for sale. It's listed by our very own realtor, the Barry Upchurch Company. My mother remembers we went there because it was my Nana's favorite. For the record, Nana was grandmother, or Nonna in proper Italian spelling—Alfia Balsamo Arnone, an immigrant from Tre Castagne (Three Chestnut Trees) Sicily, in the early 1900s. Who …

Last week, we experienced one of those rare St. Louis mornings in the mid-80s, very low humidity: a good heat index, mild with a chance of numerology. I was sitting on the front porch of a historic home at 1 Fairway in Sunset Hills. No longer using that address, the owner tried to tell me about his historic home called “The House of the Setting Sun.”   “This house tells its story all by itself,” said owner Lou Murray, who lives in Kirkwood on property previously owned by the Lemp Family. By the time our two-hour visit was up, my head was cloudy with numbers and symbolism. High school math …

Being in the real estate business has its rewards.  Well, it might be tough these days, but realtor Debbie Suter of CBGundaker was in the right place at the right time: Sunset Hills. Having gone through some personal life-changing events in the past couple of years, Suter happened upon this historic monolith and deteriorating two-story manse. It was cracked and decayed. But Suter could see potential in its stained glass window depicting a tall ship, its curving stairway in the two-story foyer and its atrium-style dining area.  “I was showing homes to clients who were thinking of moving to St…

Anyone who is anyone that grew up in the south St. Louis area, and maybe even beyond, knows the legend that Sunset Country Club was founded by Adolphus Busch and Eberhard Anheuser. They first purchased land for the Sunset Inn in 1910 and the Sunset Inn opened in 1911. Word is that it was because the St. Louis clubs wouldn’t allow them membership that the pair started a resort. Ask anyone. Whether it was because they were beer brewers, German or new money—there were unspoken reasons. Sunset Country Club turned 100 years old with a centennial celebration last year and the publication of a …

Back in the 1950s, my dad was gassing up his car at the Sieveking gas station on Gravois Road and spotted the "PUPPIES" sign. We promptly became the proud owners of a beagle pup named Texaco. He was a cutie, but his name was the best part of the story and continues to be a family topic of dogs-we-have-known-and-loved. As it turns out Sieveking Oil Company is still around, as a petroleum product distribution business in High Ridge, MO, and still run by the Sieveking family. The Sieveking homestead on Old Gravois Road, also known as Highway 30, is still standing, but gone are the famous rock …

The few square miles now making up Sunset Hills was once the playground of the rich and famous beer brewer barons. Overlooking the Meramec River, the summer homes of Falstaff beer's Lemp and Griesedieck families, Anheuser, and Busch make Sunset Hills today a beer-lovers historical paradise.  Our area has a long and storied connection to the Lemp family (the first brewery, 1840, in St. Louis began as a grocery store), the Pabst family (1890’s) and the Carling label, as well as to the Griesedieck family. And now we learn about the Koehler family’s Columbia Brewing Company. Davidson Mullgardt, …

A lot has changed while I was away from St. Louis over the past 35 years. Occasionally, I'm haunted by what I've missed. Crestwood and Sunset Hills, springing from a former agrarian lifestyle and really quite rural, have become municipalities. I won't cover the obvious changes, but we do have words in the local lexicon now that weren't familiar when I left. One is Powder Valley and the other, Laumeier Sculpture Park.  Laumeier Park is highly accessible and in my hometown of Sunset Hills. And it rocks, literally. There is a 1917 rock home-turned-art gallery on the Laumeier park property that …

A good bottle of beer bridged the gap for me in California, when I came across a photographer whose Uncle Eddie is Father Ed Griesedieck, an heir to the St. Louis Falstaff beer brewing company. The Monsignor, 80, told the Sunset Hills Historical Society Feb. 28 about life on the former family estate in Sunset Hills, surrounded now by Tapawingo National Golf Club and serious McMansion housing developments. His niece Judy, the photographer, now lives in St. Paul, MN and we reconnected recently, thanks to Fr. Ed. Griesedieck spoke fondly of his young years on the 230 acres of natural hills and …

The first sign of spring is the Cardinal. I'm talking about the birds-on-the-bat kind of Cardinals. Baseball. Long before there was talk of ball players making $30 million, there was a St. Louis love of baseball that seems nearly genetic, hereditary. Many of us grew up playing softball or little league baseball, and everyone in South St. Louis knew of Heine Meine Field. (Yes, it's pronounced HI-knee MY-knee.) A middle-aged sports reporter and friend from St. Louis, now in California, still remembers hearing that quirky, rhyming name on the radio as a kid. The fields cover nine acres near …

It's February. The month known for famous people including St. Valentine, Abe Lincoln, George Washington and yes, our own Father Moses Dickson.  A cemetery in Crestwood is named after Dickson, an African American abolitionist who founded the Knights of Liberty in the fight to end slavery. Dickson is buried here in one of the first public cemeteries in St. Louis for black folks. Dickson was born in 1824 and came to Missouri from Ohio in the 1840s.  He led the efforts of the Underground Railroad--ferrying slaves to the north--until the Civil War began, when the Knights of Liberty joined the …

“Home is where your story begins.” So says the plaque in my office. It was a housewarming gift from family friends I have known all my life. It is Phyllis, one of my best friends in the world, who gave it to me. She knows all of my secrets. We were childhood friends. Our moms are childhood friends. Our families grew up together. Friends and relatives--home--are a huge part of each of our stories and our histories, and now that I’ve moved back home, I am constantly reminded of this. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That might be, but it is worth so much more as inspiration, …

What a heckuva year I choose to move back to St. Louis: One of the hottest summers on record, a tornado touches down less than a mile from my new Sunset Hills home and now, one of the heaviest snowfalls in history--possibly since 1902. That morning of what promised to be a Snow Day, I sat in my pj's and waited to find out if my neighborhood schools were closed. Lindbergh R-8--CLOSED.  Mehlville, my alma mater--CLOSED. Kirkwood--CLOSED.  But wait, what's this? Thomas Jefferson School--OPEN at 9:30am. I had a scheduled tour of Thomas Jefferson School that afternoon but one look at a foot of …

The car reads 16 degrees outside. The sky is gray, and it looks and smells like more snow. It’s 2 p.m., and I've got no place to be. What to do to enliven the spirit and fill the soul? Truth be told, I needed a little fix for my art addiction. And I could try to find Brownhurst, the historic home of the Brown Orchid Farm. I had just learned it was somewhere behind the office supply store I'd been frequenting for the past six months. So, I ducked into the Marianist Galleries on the campus of St. John Vianney High School. From Cousin Donna, I had heard about this gallery and the art of Brother …

With all the attention on Sunset Hills since the New Year’s Eve tornado, we see O’Leary’s, Wired Coffee and Growler’s Pub all over the news.  What we all knew before the tornado hit were the fried dill pickles at O’Leary’s, that Wired has the best scones in town, and Growler’s Pub, now known for its beer, used to be known for German fare as the House of Maret. The Maret family still owns some property along Maret Drive that miraculously had very little damage during the recent storm. What recently may be called "ground zero" near Sunset Hills City Hall is the land between what used to be the …

We wax nostalgic in these holiday seasons. The ghosts of our memories make their way into the rituals over the years with the traditions of our holiday foods. Carving the ham at New Year's? It's good luck. Black-eyed peas? Yech, but yes, it's good luck. Shrimp? Herring? Something about the way they swim--good luck and yummy. My Italian side of the family eats shrimp on New Year's Eve, and spaghetti and meatballs on Christmas Eve, or a Sicilian concoction called farsu magru. This year we revived the pre-gift-opening meal of banada just like Nana used to make. Banada is like thick pizza with a…

Just when I was wondering about this week's column, I got a phone call from a long-lost high school gal pal who now lives in Kansas City. I figure as part of the "Now and Then" assignment, long-time friends qualify. She and I were great friends growing up. And don't tell our moms but we skipped school together to lunch on John White burgers and the onion soup where nobody would ever catch us--Famous-Barr in downtown St. Louis. So Yvonne Ferbet, now Townsend, and I met for lunch to discuss those good ol' days of the 1960s and '70s and reminiscing about our modes of transportation: hers a 1969 …

Did you ever have one of those recurring dreams? You're driving down the road, heading for a curve and the river is just there on the side--it all feels very familiar-- and then you wake up?  That is the feeling I had when my mom and I drove south on old Gravois Road, just this side of the Meramec River. There is no longer a bridge crossing to the next town of Fenton, since it is being rebuilt. But if you turn right just prior to the river, you are in Minnie Ha Ha Park which is the newest addition to the City of Sunset Hills' 70 acres of park properties. "Minnie has a rich history of …

Having recently returned to live in my hometown of St. Louis (I went to Mehlville High School—OK?) being here feels as foreign to me as it must have felt to my German-immigrant great-great-grandfather. The family tree shows brothers Wilhelm and Karl vonEime left for America in 1852. Family lore reveals Wilhelm built the first two-story log cabin west of the Mississippi. His wife Katherine Koehler arrived from Germany in 1854 after accepting her husband's proposal to join him in this "suitable home." Way to go, Katherine! When I lived in California, I used to tell my friends there that my …