Here’s a photo of the of the old Kopp farmhouse on Henry Ave. in Manchester as it stood circa 1893:
Kopp Farmhouse circa 1893
In the early 1860s, my great-great grandfather, Charles (Andreas Heinri Carl) Kopp, bought this house and 16 acres on Henry Ave. in Manchester, Missouri. This house, located at 650 Henry Ave., is still standing today, although it has been extensively remodeled (see below and more photos on Flickr). His daughter, Elizabeth, was born here in 1867. This picture was taken ca. 1893/1894.
Left to right: Charles, grand-daughter Annie (Anna) Schroeder, 2nd wife Clementina (nee Weidner), Elizabeth Schroeder (nee Kopp), and a boy that might be his stepson, Charles Steinmeier.
And here is a photo I took of the very same house earlier this summer:
My dad passed away on Monday May 26, six years to the day that my mom died. He had been living in a nursing home and was under hospice care due to an infection he’d received from having an abscessed tooth that had gone untreated until it was too late. The infection would eventually spread throughout his body and would be his demise.
He was a World War II veteran and had spent most of his time in the service stationed in Greenland, “an awful place” as he put it, where he served as Chief Clerk at the Quatermaster Depot because of his typing, accounting and office skills learned while attending business school in St. Louis. He also had a very keen eye and was an Expert Marksman, able to hit a bullseye with multiple rounds fired from 500 yards away. While he was stationed in Greenland he took to boxing. He really enjoyed this and quickly earned a reputation of a tough fighter. He became so skilled with his fists that soon many GIs coming through his port on their way to Europe wanted to fight him. They’d see him in the mess hall and make comments like, “He doesn’t look so tough.” This usually meant a challenge was being issued and he would have to fight. He never lost a bout.
We will never forget the stories he would share with us about his days in the Army during World War II, or the stories of growing up in and around Manchester, Missouri, back when it was just a small farming town on a dirt road miles from “the big city” of St. Louis. My dad came from a large family that was always there with him, living in and around the Manchester area, but he lost his father (Emil Julius) to pneumonia during the Great Depression, when he was only 10 years old.
His passions for his family, taking us on extended vacations in the family car, history, music (loving everything from country to reggae), reading, camping, baseball, hunting, fishing, nature, planting trees, wildlife and the environment will never be forgotten. He would plant so many trees and shrubs in our yard that it became difficult to play in, and later even more difficult to mow. He read the Bible to me (cover to cover) when I was probably too young to understand what most of it meant, and he would take me for long walks around our Bridgeton neighborhood almost every evening, rain or shine. We would stop and rest on a bench and talk about the Moon and stars in the night sky. These things I will never forget.
He was a recycler (of EVERYTHING… glass, aluminum, tin, cardboard, paper… right down to separating the cellophane envelope windows from the paper and removing staples from pamphlets and magazines) and a backyard composter (not allowing my mother to put any sorts of biodegradable waste in the garbage, but instead using it to fill drainage ruts in our backyard) decades before it was politically correct to do so. And he was extremely meticulous in everything he did, whether it be planting trees at one of our many houses when I was growing up, repairing something, changing a tire or building a birdhouse. If it wasn’t absolutely perfect, he’d start all over.
He was also bullheaded, short-tempered and fiercely independent. He was extremely stubborn, defiantly opinionated and stood up for what he believed in and never backed down to anyone, be them friend or foe. But at the very same time he could be extremely caring, warm, loving and sensitive. I see many of these same character traits in myself. Life is funny like that.
Gina and I had to put our 10-year-old Golden Retriever, Ruby, to sleep tonight. She had had a baseball-sized tumor that she had carried with her on her right side the past couple of years, and it ruptured this past Monday, which not only meant that a very expensive surgery would have been required to remove it (in the neighborhood of $600), but that she, due to her age, plus having advanced infection from the growth (detected in a blood test), and also possible kidney problems, would also be in danger of never waking up from the anesthesia. There was also the added concern that a ruptured tumor indicated advancing cancer, and that even after it was removed, the cancer would continue to spread and her quality of life would have gone downhill rapidly and she may have only lasted another few months with us, anyway. So in considering all of the above, we felt it was just best to have her euthanized. At least our last memories of her were of her standing there looking at us lovingly and happily wagging her tail, as she always did.
She was the happiest, sweetest, and most playful dog I’ve ever owned, and she was my best buddy, always right there by my side no matter what it was I was doing. We will miss her dearly.
Recently I decided to try and do some updating of the Kopp family tree… not sure why, really. Guess I’ve always wanted to know exactly where my family came from. All we ever really knew was that our oldest known ancestor, Frederick (Friedrich) Kopp, came to the United States in the late 1850s with four of his kids. It was only discovered in the last decade or so what the name of the ship was and when exactly it arrived (they came in through the port of New Orleans and then traveled up the Mississippi River and settled in the St. Louis area, first in the area that is now Carondelet Park, and then in Manchester, where they began farming). So I thought I’d try to do a little digging and see if I could come up with some more information, and maybe find out what Frederick’s parents’ names were, and so on. Well, after digging for the past two weeks or so, I haven’t really found much out. But I was able to get some pretty interesting documents from an older relative, including some pretty incredible photos that I’ve since uploaded to my Flickr account.
One of the things that really bothers me about doing family history research is that all you can ever find are names, and, sometimes, exact dates. Not much else is known about any of these people. You MIGHT get lucky and find out what they did for a living, or if they served in the military (my great, great grandfather fought for the Union Army in the Civil War, I’ve learned), but aside from that, there isn’t anything else to tell you what these people were like, and that kinda bums me out.
Anyway, I’m going to continue with my research and hopefully dig up more information than my family currently has.
A family member sent the following in an email forward today. This is the kinda shit that really makes my blood boil…
A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was a vowed atheist and a member of the ACLU. One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.” The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am God. I’m still waiting ” It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him, knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were stunned and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, “What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?” The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting America’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole. So, He sent me.”
THIS IS GOOD, KEEP IT GOING. Amen
I actually found this one on Snopes.com. Check it out, this is just one of several similar “stories of faith.”
Our 4-year-old son Milo shot this photo of me and Gina at the Forest Park Balloon Race this past Saturday afternoon. I thought it turned out pretty cool…
Just been kinda busy lately. Trying to finalize the band lineup on a two-day “garage fest” for St. Louis in October has become increasingly difficult due to miscommunication and possible scheduling problems with one band in particular, which just so happens to be one of the potential headliners. All of the bands will be from Missouri and I was thinking of calling it the “Show-Me Blowout,” named after Deke Dickerson’s old MO-based rock’n'roll fanzine of the late ’80s/early ’90s. By the way, the dates for this thing will be Friday and Saturday, October 12th and 13th, if you want to clear that weekend on your calendar NOW so that it won’t conflict with anything that may come up in the meantime. Bill Streeter, Jason Potter, and a couple of other people are helping me with this. It’ll be an official TIRC production. However this thing shakes out, it’ll be fun. I just hope it’s successful. I’d hate to get the bands all lined up for this thing and sell only 50 or 60 tickets each night. That would suck. Realistically I’m only really expecting to be maybe 100 people there each night. That’s because historically garage-type shows in St. Louis don’t quite pack in the crowds like I think they should. The venue will be Off Broadway on Lemp, which has an excellent sound system and great sight lines for watching the band from just about anywhere you happen to be in the place, from the balcony to the bar…
I’ve also been busy inviting people to a new “social network” site I created for GaragePunk.com called The Hideout. It’s very similar to the one Bill Streeter set up for his site, The Circuit. Please check them both out, and if you haven’t joined yet, please do so! These things aren’t nearly as cheesy or sleazy as Myspace…
Still waiting on the arrival of our new camera, the one that will replace the Sony we had stolen in the recent burglary. I went ahead and took Bill’s suggestion and bought a Canon Powershot TX1. Now we just have to wait for it to get back in stock so it can ship (I guess it’s kinda popular right now… go figure, me buying something “popular”… weird). We’ve already received all of the accessories we bought for it. Hopefully I’ll get it in time for our son’s 4th birthday party which takes place in our backyard a week from today.
The TIRC-STL Google group now has a page detailing most (if not all) of the more rock’n'roll-friendly venues in the St. Louis area. You can check it out here. I wanted to get that page updated since there will be quite a few new venues opening up in the city in the near future. And if you live in St. Louis and love garagey-type rock’n'roll, please join the TIRC list if you’re not on it already!
Speaking of TIRC… Jason Potter just finished up with a new episode of the TIRC Podcast (number three). I hadn’t done an episode since February and was trying to find someone else to take it over for me, since I really didn’t have the time to do it anymore, what with Savage Kick and all. Click here to download, listen, and enjoy!
About a week ago I received my first T-shirt ordered from the GaragePunk.com store on Spreadshirt.com, and I was VERY happy with the quality. This shirt rules! I bought one of the simple “iPod & Crossbones” tees with “GaragePunk.com” printed in small text on the back just below the collar. I got the burgundy heavyweight cotton shirt. The print is white, and the texture of the transfer is thick and soft like velvet. It completely rocks. I didn’t think I would like it more than I like traditional screen printing, but I do! No shit. So now I’m trying to set one of these shops up for TIRC, with a few of those logos on different-colored tees. As soon as I get that finished up I’ll post an update with the link. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, buy one of those iPod & Crossbones tees!
As some of you who are friends with me on Myspace may have noticed, I have a birthday coming up very soon. Number 42, in fact. It doesn’t really bother me as I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to being a 40-something and accepting the added aches and pains and general lack of energy that comes with it (let’s just say, now I know why very few professional athletes continue their careers into their forties). By the way, no, I won’t be having a party, but if you’d like to send me a present, I won’t refuse it…
That’s all for now. Have a great weekend!
A bunch of friends of ours get together once a year and go camping for a weekend out in the woods. It’s called “B.U.T.T.” (an acronym for “Bored Urban Transient Tour”), and this is our 17th annual campout. This year we’re headed to a private spot owned by one of our friends’ family along the Meramec River near Robertsville, Missouri (about an hour outside of town). It’s always a lot of fun and a great way to spend time with people we don’t get to spend time with much anymore (hectic schedules, distance, careers, kids, etc.). Plus, we’ve got a new two-room tent (Cougar Flats by Columbia - sleeps EIGHT!) that we’ll be setting up for the first time. It’s a really nice one that we got on sale at Uncle Sam’s military outlet store last fall. Anyway, we’re really looking forward to getting away from the hustle & bustle of the city for a couple of days.
