Bonnots Mill; Fall Supper Time Is Here!

It’s that time again—when all the local parishes are having their fall suppers. To find out what’s when, you can either look at the gigantic Coke Building sign on Jefferson Street and the Expressway, or you can look at the schedule on the Catholic Missourian’s website.



Sunday was Bonnots Mill. St. Louis of France parish always gets the award (in my opinion) for most scenic parish hall space. It’s up on a bluff overlooking the Osage River, with only oaks and ash trees between you and the deep blue sky. (For more pictures of this, see one of my earlier posts about Bonnots Mill.)



We got there in midafternoon, so we missed the lunchtime and dinnertime rushes. It was ham cooked with pineapple, and German pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, sauerkraut, coleslaw, homemade pickled beets and bread-and-butter pickles, applesauce, a platter of sliced yellow and red heirloom tomatoes, and homemade bread.

Plus, as always, your choice of desserts from the glorious dessert table.



The “country market” had a nice selection of bake sale items, canned salsa and preserves, as well as some great-looking garden-fresh vegetables, including sweet corn, some beautiful eggplants, and tremendous, puckery, deep pinkish-red heirloom tomatoes and yellow tomatoes. (Oh, we will miss them in January!)



Someone at the parish has created a bunch of nice postcards of the St. Louis of France church (with its distinctive “Star of David” on the steeple) and of the town of Bonnots Mill—several of the postcards were reprints of historic photos—and all these were for sale. (Ten cents a piece!)

Our m.o. is to go for a walk after the picnic—it helps after such a great meal! So we drove to the town of Bonnots Mill (as opposed to hiking straight down the side of the bluff between parish hall and church). Sue likes to take pictures of antique buildings and the railway. (And so do I—but I don’t do nearly as well as her!)



There’s some really cool stuff in Bonnots Mill. Here’s the historic Dauphine Hotel, which opened for business in 1875. Now it’s a bed and breakfast. (Oh, and that’s the post office, to the right.)



While we were walking around, a fellow in a pickup stopped and told Sue that the church was open this afternoon, if we wanted to go up there and take pictures of the inside.

Oh, boy! We love seeing the interiors of these churches, and we’d never seen the inside of this one before. What a treat!



But even more of a treat: There were people inside! We met a friendly lady named Jeanne Knollmeyer, who chatted with us about the history of the church. Much of our discussion revolved around music, since the church had a guest organist that day, a talented fellow from Clinton, Missouri, named Sam. (Is it Sam Lucas? I can’t recall his last name, but the Internet reveals that a fellow with that name is the organist at the Clinton United Methodist Church.) Anyway—he was up in the choir loft playing, beautifully, the church’s hundred-year-old organ.



It sounded great—the acoustics in the church are superior, and the organ had a nice sound and seemed perfectly in tune. Beautiful music, the first time we’d been in that beautiful, historic church. What a treat!



Next Sunday (Sept. 22) is Frankenstein—Our Lady Help of Christians parish is having its supper. This is a special year for them, as the church is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. It’s definitely going to be a party there this year! And they always have such good homemade whole-hog sausage . . .

Japan Trip, September 2011

Boy, that got your attention, didn’t it!

Yesterday we went with my parents to Japan! Missouri!

Seriously, just as Missouri has a Paris, Florida, Santa Fe, and Mexico, it’s got a Japan, too. I adore Missouri’s place-names; I can’t help it. My dad’s an authority on them, and there was no avoiding my getting hooked, too.

By the way, the locals pronounce it JAY-pun, or JAY-pan . . . not jah-PAN like the nation.

The place-name of Japan, Missouri, has a fascinating history. At one point, soon after December 7, 1941, the town was in danger of losing its unusual name. I have no idea what they might have changed the name to, but you can’t blame them for having anti-Japanese feelings at that time.

But cooler heads prevailed—once it was explained that the town takes its name from the local Catholic church, and the story of the church’s namesakes was told, the town name “Japan” was retained.




So you want to hear the story, right? Of course you do! Actually, it’s pretty grim.

The full name is Church of the Holy Martyrs of Japan, and it commemorates twenty-six priests and fellow Christians who were crucified in Nagasaki, Japan, on February 5, 1597. (The feast day for these martyrs is February 6.) The men were killed as part of an effort to wipe out Christianity in Japan, which largely succeeded over the following three centuries.




The martyrs represented a variety of ethnicities, including Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. Thus in this story Japanese people are both persecutors and martyrs. And this is why the place-name was kept, even after the attack of Pearl Harbor.




At the back of the church is a mural depicting the scene of their crucifixion (see photos above), as well as other materials about the history of Christianity in Japan; the Our Father written in Japanese, for instance, and an explanation of what a “fumie” is: “A likeness of Jesus or Mary upon which . . . suspected Christians [were required] to step . . . in order to prove that they were not members of that outlawed religion.” This test of faith was used from 1629 until 1856 and possibly even later, according to a sign in the church.

The exterior of the church isn’t terribly remarkable; with its white clapboard siding and simple shape, it could be any number of churches around here, including Protestant ones.




There is a little shrine or grotto, and that kind of marks it as Catholic.

There are some beautiful big pine trees next to the church, which I thought was nicely evocative of Japan and its cultural aesthetics.

And the interior of the church is quite distinctive. The first thing you notice is the color yellow! Lots and lots of yellow. All the side windows are yellow stained glass, so all the light pouring into the church—except for a bluish rose window high above the altar—is yellow.






Even the bell-ringin’ ropes up in the choir loft are bathed in yellow.




The slogan for this parish seems to be “God’s grace in a country place.” And country it is, indeed. Here’s the view looking out from the front of this church:




Well, by now you might be thinking of visiting Japan, yourself, even though it doesn’t have any decent sushi restaurants. (Actually, I don’t think there are any restaurants there at all!)




So here’s how to get to Japan: It’s in southwestern Franklin County. Take I-44 between Sullivan and Cuba (Cuba, Missouri: that’s a whole ’nother story!). Between those towns is a little burg called Bourbon (yes, Bourbon, Missouri), and just east of Bourbon, you need to take Highway J north. (By the way, you can’t exit directly off of I-44 to Highway J—you have to get off on an access road, or do like we did: Skip I-44 and travel instead on old Route 66, which is more fun anyway.)

Anyway, from Bourbon, go north/northwest on Highway J (J for “Japan,” huh?) until you reach Highway H; veer left a little ways on that, then turn left onto Highway AE, and the Church of the Holy Martyrs of Japan will be on the left.

Or, if you’d rather get to it from Highway 50, you could go south on Highway H from Gerald, which takes you through the town of Strain . . . but hey, I don’t want to confuse you with all these crazy place-names!

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Thanks once again to Sue, for sharing some photos with me: two gloriously color-corrected interior shots, plus the one of the full mural. My blog would look really junky without her awesome images.

Spreading Joy in Westphalia, Missouri

It’s a wedding tradition I had certainly never heard about, but if you search the Internet for word combinations like “manure + spreader + wedding,” you can find some information (but not much). If you have done just that, and landed on this Web page, and if you have any information, I hope you’ll post a comment or go to the Op Op Facebook page (see the link at the right) and leave a note there.

As I mentioned in my last post, we drove around south of Jeff City last weekend, and part of that was in Westphalia. While we were there, we asked a couple of locals if they knew about a tradition involving a newlywed couple exiting the church grounds not in a limo but on the back of a manure spreader.

And this couple had indeed heard of it. They said it has to do with good luck—it’s supposed to guarantee a long marriage, or something like that. (They intimated that their observations have disproven the notion, but apparently it’s a tradition that some people might still do.)

—Have you ever heard of such a thing?




The reason I asked them is that my mom has recently been scanning her old slides, and a couple of these show a bride and groom exiting the parking lot of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Westphalia, Missouri, perched side-by-side on the back of a manure spreader (thankfully it was covered with some kind of tarp!). In the picture, they are being pulled by an Allis-Chalmers D-15 tractor.

(These people, by the way, are not friends or acquaintances of my parents; my dad just happened to be in Westphalia when this occurred and took pictures, which is exactly what anyone in their right mind would do when presented with such a spectacle!)

The manure spreader’s wheels are devoid of tires—they are just bare rims—it must have been a rough ride! Also, there are two old brooms tied upright somewhat decoratively on the front corners of the spreader. A rope swings in a U-shape, hanging at each end from one of the brooms. Dangling from this rope are two stirrups from a horse saddle.




The front end of the spreader is marked “Donated by ?” (I think that’s a question mark), and the side (funnily enough) that the groom is on is labeled “HER.” (I bet, amid all the joy and rice-throwing, the couple inadvertently sat down on the “wrong” sides.) The wheel rim that’s visible in the photos is marked “wheel of” something—I can’t see the part not facing the camera.

I’m pretty sure those are strings of Stag beer cans dragging from the back of the manure spreader. Classy!




The date of this photo is almost certainly October 1964: Anyone know who this couple is? If the luck of the “manure-spreader wedding limo” has held out, they’re getting close to their golden anniversary!

Here’s a photo we took last weekend of St. Joseph’s church in Westphalia.




It’s a very attractive, historic town, and if you haven’t been there, you should make a point of visiting it. Westphalia, you might recall, is home of the Westphalia Inn, with its delicious family-style dinners and house-made wines, and its popular Norton Room, Corkscrew Deck, murder-mystery dinners, and live music. Westphalia also has bed and breakfasts for you to relax at, plus the Westphalia Historical Society now has a museum.

And St. Joseph’s, like the other Catholic parishes in the region, has an annual summer picnic (which was August 7 this year) and fall supper. The fall supper will be on October 16 this year. And you know—not even counting the delicious sausage—that’s a perfect time of year to go for a drive in rural Missouri.

. . . Though I wouldn’t recommend seeing it from the back of a manure spreader!




NOTE: The 1964 photos in this post are property of my Mom and Dad, who gave me permission to use them, so don't you dare copy them. Be nice; ask permission first!

MYSTERY SOLVED. Read the comments below, and click here for a newer post explaining everything. And click here for more on the story!

Micro-Trip Sunday

Busy Sunday! It was yard work, and then it was a micro-trip.

Recent Yard Work

The yard’s been a fright all summer. I got behind this spring on account of my busted ankle. (And spring is a bad time to get behind.) Then we had all that rain and bad weather. (I’d like to propose a new word just for the spring of 2011: tornadoiest.)

Then it got too darn hot! And who wants to do anything outside in hundred-degree heat? Might as well ask me to do yard work in two or three feet of snow!

So with the somewhat cooler weather we’ve been getting, I’ve started banging away at the yard again. It’s sheer biomass out there—the weeds, plus all the stuff that simply needs trimming on a regular basis. I would love it if one day Jeff City had curbside pickup of yard waste, like Columbia has, but I guess that would be too much like socialism or something, so it won’t “fly” here.




Anyway, I finally got around to weeding and dressing up a few of our flowerbeds. Mulch hides a multitude of sins. This year I discovered a brand new weed: black nightshade. We had (and probably still have) it in abundance in a flowerbed along the back of our house. Durn stuff snaps off easily right at ground level—I’m sure a lot will resprout.

After reading about the plant, I’m going to tentatively blame the catbirds for its presence in our yard—apparently black nightshade produces juicy, black, edible berries. And you know how catbirds love them berries. For a while this spring, the catbirds were building a nest in the mock orange right near that flowerbed.

Ah well. Just like catbirds love them berries, we love them catbirds.

We’ll find a way to deal with the black nightshades, mulberry seedlings, wintercreeper sprouts, poison ivy starts, and all the other catbird-distributed berries that take root in our yard.


The Micro-Trip

I like that term, don’t you? I made it up just now—though I suspect others have used it, too. It’s something shorter than a “staycation,” even shorter than a “day trip.” It’s more than a single-destination trip; it’s a miniature tour, an adventure that starts at Point A and leads to several more points, including a few surprises, before returning home.

What got us out of the house, after we’d cleaned up from the work outside, was the summer picnic at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in St. Thomas, a little burg south of Jefferson City.

One of the things we like to do at church picnics is step inside the church and look around. It’s really cool to see how different congregations (and denominations, and religions) have decorated their holy spaces.






St. Thomas has a really nifty old pipe organ up in the choir loft. I think it’s being repaired or renovated, as there were pipes lying on the floor next to it. (I hope all goes okay with that process!)




I’ve blogged about the St. Thomas summer picnic before, but here’s a refresher: Fried chicken and roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, fresh tomatoes, sauerkraut with potatoes in it, applesauce, homemade bread, and a dessert, chosen by you off the opulently enticing dessert table.

At St. Thomas, the dessert table is actually organized by dessert type: Slices of peach pie, strawberry pie, blackberry pie, rhubarb pie, pumpkin pie, coconut cream pie, lemon meringue pie, cake, cookies, etc. It’s even labeled. I don’t know of any other of the church suppers in the area that are that careful. Usually, the desserts are spread out on tables willy-nilly, in glorious disarray, and you might have to guess about what kind of pie to choose.

Anyway: St. Thomas! Good fried chicken. Long wait. We had tickets #1770 and 1771, I think, and about the time we got in the door, we saw people with tickets 2120 or something. And this was still three hours or so before the end of the serving period.

Quilt auction. Cake walk. Country store (bake sale, homemade preserves, fresh produce). Stuff for the kids to do, including pony rides. The beer wagon. Country music. And much more. I’ve told you about these local church suppers before.

Sue’s been using an old twin-lens reflex camera—you know, the kind that uses film—and developing her own black and white negatives. (She can scan negatives herself, so she doesn’t need an enlarger or whatever.) So we walked around the town of St. Thomas, where she found lots of fun “textures” to photograph.




Also, St. Thomas has one of the post offices that, according to recent announcements by the U.S. Postal Service, will probably soon be closed. We had to get a few pictures of it. They don’t build ’em like this anymore.




Back on the road, and we drove through the town of Meta, whose big industry is the making of pet foods; formerly, it was a hub for charcoal manufacture.






Meta is a town that reminds me of Eureka Springs, sort of; it’s hilly and decorated with some truly nifty old houses. Unfortunately, Meta hasn’t experienced much of a renaissance, and many of the old homes are quite dilapidated.

We drove on, cruising through the “wide spot on the road” known as Babbtown, and stopping next at Koeltztown. You generally hear it pronounced “kelts-town.”




By far the most prominent building in Koeltztown is the St. Boniface Catholic Church, which in 2008 celebrated its 150th anniversary; the congregation dates to 1858, though the current building apparently went up in 1877.

It’s a lovely church, adorned with remarkable paintings, including the Stations of the Cross on both sides of the sanctuary.




Perhaps more remarkable is the large, elaborate, handmade stone grotto or shrine outside the church. A plaque on it reads: “Donated by Henry J. Lueckenhoff, in memory of Joseph and Anna Lueckenhoff.” It’s really something to see.




The stones were carefully chosen and placed. At certain places, whoever built this (Henry J.?) attached particularly intriguing or beautiful specimens—big chunks of crystals, or rocks with prehistoric mud cracks, and more.




It’s kind of like a geology field trip, just looking at it.

And of course, after a morning of yard work, I couldn’t help but look at it and think, “Hey, maybe I could make a planter like this. We sure have lots of rocks I could use . . .”




From there, we drove back home, stopping briefly at Westphalia, which I guess will have to have a whole separate post.

All in all, a satisfying day—good yard work accomplishment, good country food, and a relaxing drive. And we needed it.

Community Effort

More reflections on the subject of church suppers. One of the things I marvel at during these parish festivals is that they are truly a communal effort—men, women, and youngsters all have something to do; all can contribute. And the organization is truly impressive.

As we dined in the cafeteria at St. Anthony’s at Folk, Missouri, last Sunday, we sat beside one of the older members of the parish, who offered us some information. For instance, each family was in charge of donating five pies and three loaves of bread. (The pies, she noted, could not be cream pies, since the church’s refrigerated storage would be devoted to other foods.)

She also mentioned that the meat was local; in fact, her family’s farm had provided some of the beef. The sausage, also from local meat, had been prepared by a locally owned meat-packing company down by Vienna, and the people of Folk had stuffed it themselves a few days before the festival.

The Work Schedule!

After eating, Sue and I entered the church to look around. In the narthex I spied a stack of sheets listing the work assignments for the day’s events. Very interesting! Here are the categories, with the number of people listed for each shift. I’m leaving off personal names.

Most jobs have two shifts; the first starts at “beginning” or “10:45” and lasts until 3:00; the second shift starts at 3:00 and lasts until “end,” or about 7:00 p.m.

Dining Room, 26 persons per shift
Bread and Pies, 3 or 4/shift
Steam Table: 4/shift
Tea and Coffee: 3/shift
Kitchen: 5/shift
Dish Washing: 5/shift
Supper Tickets: 3 or 4/shift
Carry Food and Trash: 3/shift
Sandwich Stand: 4/shift
Sandwich Stand Tickets: 2/shift
General Raffle: 2 or 3/shift
Selling Raffle Tickets: 2/shift
Game Tickets: 2/shift
Arts and Crafts: 4/shift
Bingo: 5/shift
Toy Store and Grab Bag: 2/shift
Bounce House: 3/shift

Then, the folks assigned to the following jobs work all day, “start–end”:

Cookshed: 10 people
Carryout Meals: 5 people
Sausage Fryers: 9 men
Cooler and Meat Sales: 4 men
Shooting Match: 9 men
Splatter Cards: 3 people
Beer Stand: 10 men
Traffic: 10 men
Games: one shift, from noon to 6:45, a total of 15 folks, to oversee kiddie games of “Golf,” “Muffin Pan,” “Hoopla,” and “Plinko”


Analysis?

Looking at the names on the list—and observing workers at the festival—you can see there’s a separation of labor by gender, as might be expected; men typically work at the beer wagon, help drivers find parking spots on the grassy hill nearby, cook the meat, and oversee the “shooting match” (which their immigrant grandparents probably called a Schützenfeste).

Women are generally in charge of the baked goods and desserts, the beverages, dishwashing, side dishes, and most things pertaining to children.

Women and men work shoulder-to-shoulder in the kitchen—feeding thousands within a few hours requires a lot of heavy lifting, so any notions of cooking being “women’s work” are brushed away, since man-muscles are clearly needed.

The names on the list also provide hints to ages and family relationships—the teens and young adults are undoubtedly the ones with names like Tyler, Megan, Brooklyn (yes! such a name in little bitty ol’ Folk!), Ashley, and Cody. They carry platters of food to tables, serve the beverages, and bus, clean, and reset the tables. They’re working at the Bounce House and the games of “Muffin Tin.” The boys carry bags of trash out to the dumpster.

Folks of my generation have names like Kevin, Jennifer, Mike, and Lori. They’re doing all the stuff that’s responsible, complex, and hard: Kitchen. Beer wagon. Sausage frying. Shooting match. Sandwich stand.

Then there are the people with names like Gertie, Dick, Norma, Betty, and Herb—the retirement generation; they’re selling supper and raffle tickets, and some of the women continue with kitchen work. They also work at the “country store.” Most of these can be sit-down jobs, and most allow for plenty of “visiting.” They’ve earned it. Twenty years ago, at this exact same location, these persons were handling the tough, demanding jobs; fifty years ago, they were bussing tables and taking out the trash.

Finally, the surnames—a study in Germanness. Here are some names from the Folk parish: Baumhoer, Gabelsberger, Heckman, Huhn, Luebbering, Temmen, Veit, Welschmeyer, Stegemann, Lueckenhoff, Hagenhoff, Woehr, Massman, Reinkemeyer, Kempker, Werdehausen, Scheppers, and Leucke. And more. And if you visit the little cemetery across the road, you know you’ll see these same names well represented.

There’s something really cool about all this; from Augustus to Andy to Ashley, from Johanna to Judy to Justin, and Henrietta to Hank to . . . “Fallon”??—well, yeah!—there’s a daily continuity here that families spread across the continent miss almost entirely.

Fall Supper Time

Fresh, local, whole-hog sausage. Beef roast (or turkey, with all the fixings). Kraut, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, applesauce, homemade bread, and your choice of homemade pie or other dessert. Sometimes there are extras; Taos, I recall, always has cooked turnips!

The rural ethnic-German communities in the area have begun their fall suppers. There’s at least one to attend every Sunday, from now through Thanksgiving. (These are not to be confused with the summer “picnics,” which end about Labor Day—these feature fried chicken and plenty of fresh local summertime produce—slaw, tomatoes, peppers, etc.)

The fall festivals—which include activities such as quilt raffles, bake sales, kids’ games, bingo, and the beer wagon—are fund-raising efforts by the parishes. And efforts they must be! Everyone has a job to do; thankfully, “many hands make light work.”

Last Sunday was the festival at Folk. (That’s Folk, Missouri, located west of Westphalia off Route 133—and just north of Painted Rock Conservation Area).

We usually take some time, after eating, to look inside the sanctuary of each church. They are always quite beautiful, and each unique according to the history and personality of the parish.





Schedule

I wish I could give you a definitive calendar of the upcoming church suppers this fall, but I’m not Catholic, so I’m not privy to the diocese or parish newsletters that provide such information. Pity.

As far as I know, the only other ways to find out “which suppers are when” are by:

1. Scanning for ads in the Jeff City newspaper;

2. Reading the Coca-Cola building billboard facing the 63/54 Expressway at its Jefferson Street intersection (one of our Munichburg treasures); or

3. Simply asking your Catholic friends.




I guess I could, some year, make notes of which festivals are on which weekends, since these rarely change: “Oh, we’re always on the second weekend in September.”

But frankly, it’s more fun to look at our beloved Coke Sign. Long may she wave!





(Thanks, Sue, for letting me post some of your lovely pictures from St. Anthony's in Folk!)

Impromptu Miller County Tour

Sue and I had a late lunch on this dreary, drizzly day, and on a complete whim decided not to head straight home from the fast-food establishment we had patronized. (Well? We had a coupon, okay?)

So we tooled down Highway 54 south, toward the Lake. Oops, I mean west, toward the Lake. From the Jefferson City perspective, it’s nonsense that Highway 54, which heads north and south through town, is officially an east/west route, and Highway 63, which heads north one direction and east the other direction, is a north/south route. But anyway.

We drove “west” on 54, through Brazito and past Etterville and got as far as the Eldon exits, but instead of visiting the land of Lloyd Belt Automotive—Where You’re Always a Good Deal Better!—we turned east onto Missouri 52 and drove to Tuscumbia.

Tuscumbia made national headlines a year ago when President Obama signed the federal economic recovery bill, because its crumbling, historic bridge over the Osage River was one of the first projects in the nation to result from the bill. The idea is to create new jobs for people while also improving the infrastructure: They are building a new bridge alongside the old one.

It’s truly sad that the old bridge is slated for demolition, because it is indeed a breathtaking structure. . . . But at this point, “breathtaking” takes on a new meaning when you stop to look at its state of dilapidation. I mean, it’s bad enough that it’s one of those old bridges that seem uncomfortably narrow by today’s standards. But worse than that, it’s crumbling down.

Soon after ground was broken for the new bridge in February of last year, we visited the bridge and were amazed to watch pieces of concrete fall off as traffic rumbled over it. We wandered around, exploring beneath the structure, but we felt safer if we stood to the side of it. The ground under the bridge is littered with chunks of concrete and iron. It is literally falling apart.

Yes, it is sad that the powers that be are planning to destroy the historic old bridge, which is eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. You’d think it could be saved as a pedestrian footbridge, a curiosity and a monument to the engineering feats of the past, offering exciting views of the beautiful Osage below.

Right there at the heart of Miller County, whose total population is about 24,000 in 600 square miles, Tuscumbia, the county seat, could really use a nifty tourist attraction like the funky old 1930 cantilever through truss bridge.

But if funding was unavailable to keep it in repair over the last number of decades, there certainly won’t be money for such fixes once the new bridge is open. And it doesn’t look like Miller County itself has the buckaroos to pay for its preservation, plus the creation of an adjoining park, and so on.

I was driving, so I wasn’t able to look at the bridge much. Like I say, it’s narrow, and there were little piles of concrete debris along the edges where the bridge is disintegrating. I kept my eyes on the road! On this informative page is a YouTube showing the experience, heading northward (though we were driving south). You’ll see the bridge is also inclined.

The link above also includes a Google “street views” of the bridge. If you position the view so that you’re looking at the part over the north bank of the river, you can clearly see the bare iron support rods exposed as the concrete has crumbled away. Yikes!

And as we continued our drive through Miller County, we noticed that its roads must not be a very high priority for MoDOT in general. Pothole after pothole, some blackened with little lumps of asphalt, amid a patchwork of different road surfaces. And I kept grumbling, “Nice place to put a road!”

So, from on the south side of Tuscumbia, we turned left at the Red Oak Inn, thus staying on Highway 52 (Highways 52 and 17 merge to cross the river), and followed an impressive ridge paralleling the Osage. This is the kind of road that sports car lovers and motorcyclists crave: curves and hills, long steep grades. Creek-bottom lows and ridgeline highs.

We continued into the town of St. Elizabeth. The town itself has about nine square blocks and the community is home to a population of about three hundred (they have about a hundred more folks than the county seat, Tuscumbia). We drove through St. Elizabeth at about ten till five, and cars were parked all around the Catholic church: Time for mass.

We were exploring St. Elizabeth’s nine square blocks, and driving past St. Elizabeth R-IV school, when we heard the church bells ring: Five o’clock; mass is starting!

Here is a fun fact: The Catholic church at St. Elizabeth, Missouri, is the St. Lawrence Parish. Don’t that beat all?

We kept on Highway 52, east, and crossed over Big Tavern Creek. After that we drove on Highway 133 to Meta (home of Diamond Pet Foods), then proceeded north on Route B. This gave us a quick taste of the northwest corner of Maries County and the southwest corner of Osage County, then another very brief corner of Miller again.

Back in Cole County, we drove through the community of St. Thomas (where the parish name indeed matches the name of the burg), paused a while at the MDC Osage River access there (all right, it was a potty break, okay?), and enjoyed the view of the river beneath the highway bridge, where an old ferry used to be.

. . . And from there we drove home, via Wardsville, which is increasingly now a Haystack Acres, Pastureville, Hayseed Estates, a rather homogenous modern suburb of Jeff. Blair-Oaks-Falcons-ville.

I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures to share with you, but alas. It was an impromptu trip; we only left the house to grab a burger. Plus, it was gray and drizzly, anyway, and don’t worry: We’ll go back when it’s better weather and take good pictures then.

Knecht Ruprecht

Today I’m homing in on one of the oldest Christmas ornaments on our family Christmas tree (the Weihnachtspyramide—I told you about it recently). From a very early age, I was taught to be very careful with this object because it was so elderly. “It’s not a toy,” my parents said, with a certain degree of sternness that told me they meant it.

And of course I wanted to be on my best behavior, ’cause Christmas was around the corner, and I wanted as much loot as possible! And no lumps of coal.

Coal? Lumps of coal? Yes. They told me that if I misbehaved, if I’d been bad during the year, I would get lumps of coal in my Christmas stocking instead of candy and toys. And I’d get switches, too!

That word, in its intended sense, was unknown to me at the time. I did know what light switches were, because we’d had a few replaced in our house, and my brother and I had been given the old switches to play around with. Click, click. On, off. It was kinda fun, and receiving them on Christmas morning wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as chocolate bars and, say, the new Johnny West toys, but it wouldn’t exactly be a “punishment,” either.

It wasn’t until later that I learned that “switches” were light, flexible branches used, basically, for flagellation. Geez. If I didn’t behave, they’d whip me with sticks!

How Germanic, huh? Actually, very Judeo-Christian, and heck, very human. Bad deeds are punished at the end of your year, at the end of your life. The lumps of coal, the switches, amount to the kids’ Christmas-morning version of damnation.

But Santa always comes through in the end and brings presents on Christmas, since kids have loving parents, just as a loving God has redeemed us because he loves his creation. . . . I think that’s the idea, anyway.

But the threats of Christmastime punishments used to be spelled out much differently. I’ve been reading up on the various personages that used to be envisioned by children in December.

Didja know that all the gift-giving used to take place on December 6, which is St. Nicholas Feast Day for the Catholics? St. Nicholas was a patron of children and the poor and had been known for giving gifts to them.

It was the Protestant reformer Martin Luther, and his cronies, who convinced folks to focus more on the birth of Jesus, and to change their gift-giving date to December 25, Christmas. Luther naturally wanted to downplay the importance of Catholic saints and put greater emphasis on the Savior.




But going back to St. Nicholas Day, December 6, it was St. Nicholas who would bring the presents, accompanied by a shady dude who went by various aliases. Essentially, this guy was the devil character, the punisher. A mean ol’ hombre.

He was like an assistant to St. Nicholas, freeing him from the distasteful punishing aspects so he could focus on good cheer, presents, fruit and nuts, and so on. It was a classic case of good cop/bad cop.




So this guy’s cognomens included Aschenklas (Ash Nicholas—for chimney ashes that apparently gave him a dark appearance), Pelznickel or Belsnickel (Furry Nicholas—for the furs he wore), or Knecht Ruprecht (which translates to Knight Rupert).

He generally carried around a sack with coal and sticks. When he appeared “in person”—as a man in a costume, the way kids see Santa Claus today in shopping malls—he would interview kids to find out if they’d been good.

It would feel a lot different than sitting on Santy’s lap, to be asked if you’ve been naughty by someone whose sole job is to punish.

I remember my grandma talking about Knecht Ruprecht occasionally; she must have been one of those kids threatened by his presence, even as she was enticed by the presents of St. Nicholas.

An interesting note is that although Protestant reformers drew St. Nicholas out of the picture, they retained the character of Knecht Ruprecht, apparently because he was not a saint.

My purpose here is not to tell the story of St. Nicholas, or, as the Dutch called him, Sinter Nikolaas, the name that got changed into “Santa Claus” by English speakers. Instead, I wanted to give some attention to poor, forgotten Knecht Ruprecht, the stern one who kept kids minding their p’s and q’s, who has been lost in our frantic flurries to purchase presents and our striving for a “merry” holiday.

So my focus today is on this one old Christmas ornament that’s been in my family since at least 1905, when our first photograph of the tree was made. Back then the horse that he rides had all four legs intact, and it straddled the distance between the two posts at the gateway to the garden.




It’s also in the picture from 1915.




When I was a little kid, I assumed this was just a weird version of Santa Claus—sure, he was skinny and wore somber brown instead of jolly red, and he didn’t look very happy, but he had a white beard . . . and it wouldn’t have been the first time my family did things differently than the rest of America.




Sometime before I can remember, his horse’s legs and one of Rupert’s arms got broken off. It was probably the arm that held the bag of coal and the switches!

This is one of the ornaments that none of us have ever tried to refurbish. We’ve allowed him to “look his age”—partly because as an antique, even in his sad condition, he might be “worth” something. You never know.

So here’s how Knecht Ruprecht is looking today. Like his overall image in the world today, he’s kind of downtrodden.




I don’t think you can blame me for his and his horse’s disabilities, because my parents wouldn’t let me play with him. His injuries must have occurred in the first century or so of his existence, well before I came into the picture.

And anyway, at Christmastime, you know I, of course, was always most certainly an angel . . . Just in case anyone asks . . .