concordia-memories.org Forum Index concordia-memories.org
Recalling Concordia's Past
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Unforgettable characters

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    concordia-memories.org Forum Index -> Concordia Memories
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
roger.pape
Site Admin


Joined: 17 Mar 2009
Posts: 414
Location: Liverpool, NY

PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:14 pm    Post subject: Unforgettable characters Reply with quote

Some of you probably read my Jan. 15th blog posting that described several people from Concordia that I considered to be "unforgettable characters". (Note. This has been moved to the next post.}

I'd like to see a discussion started where people nominated their Most Unforgettable Character and why. Start thinking and reply to this posting.


Last edited by roger.pape on Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:06 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
roger.pape
Site Admin


Joined: 17 Mar 2009
Posts: 414
Location: Liverpool, NY

PostPosted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:53 pm    Post subject: Unforgettable Characters Reply with quote

(Originally posted January 15, 2009)

Every community has its share of memorable characters and Concordia is no exception. Many of you should remember the series of articles entitled Most Unforgettable Character that appeared regularly in the Readers Digest. When I get a message board or forum going, I would like to have people nominate and write about their Most Unforgettable Character. As an example, I have included brief sketches of several people that I will always remember.

Alvin Bosselmann

No one could forget Alvin Bosselmann as he limped through the streets of Concordia on his way to old Highway 40 to “count cars”. He would always pass by our house and, if we were outside, stop to talk with us about his favorite subject, namely machinery. He was a regular visitor to the creamery. He enjoyed watching all of the activity, with the overhead pulleys and belts turning the churn, the pumps, and the cooling coils in the vats of cream. In spite of his infirmities, he was always cheerful and glad to talk to anyone who would listen. Alvin had a particular fascination with steam. He would talk at length about various steam engines and his conversations were always punctuated with “Mensch und Kind …” and tailed off with a slow "Ach, ja..."

Alvin was one of three children adopted by Henry and Doretha Bosselman. He became crippled as a young child. (Was it a result of scarlet fever as Nora Hartwig's Concordian article suggests or was it polio.) His mother made him special clothes so that he could dress himself. He is in the following class pictures of the children from Wilks school. These were taken in the early 1910s in front of the new church, across Schiller (Main) Street from where the school stood.





My father is the impish young lad in the back row of the lower photo, second from the right. Can you spot Alvin? I think he is in the front row of the upper photo, fourth from the right. Maybe you can spot some of your relatives in these photos.

Update. Since this article was first posted, I discovered the following picture that I had been looking for. It is a group shot of the German Lutheran (Wilk) School. Alvin is on the right end of the front row standing next to Miss Lulu Baepler. It clearly shows the special shirt his mother made for him to dress with his crippled arm.



Henry Bosselman ran the brick factory in Concordia at the north end of Gordon Street. I can still remember the big old concrete block that stood at the edge of our pasture. It was the starting point for our sledding runs down into the old depression from where the clay was dug. That block was the footing for a steam engine that ran the factory. Maybe that was the reason for Alvin's fascination with steam engines.

My sister Mary reminded me of Alvin’s love of trains (steam engines, of course). He would show up like clockwork at the depot every day waiting for the train to arrive. Mary said that the MoPac crew once gave him a railroad hat that he proudly wore for years.

You can catch a glimpse of Alvin in the St. Paul's College movie clip. He can be seen walking across the campus with his familiar gait during the College Sunday segment (about 54 seconds into that video).

Mr. and Mrs. Wukasch

One of the people who touched many lives in Concordia was Teacher Joe Wukasch. (Everyone called him Joe.) He was a fixture in the St. Paul’s School system for many years, starting in 1900 at North Davis Creek School until his retirement from the present town school in 1950. He served as principal all those years at either the Davis school, the Wilk school, or the present school.

I still have many visual images of him while in his seven and eighth grade classes, like him standing a the pump organ playing with one hand as he directed the morning devotions or wiggling his ears as he strained to listen to someone. What I remember most is the way he would tell stories, jumping from one subject to another until he couldn’t remember what we were originally discussing in class.

Along with all of his humor, he had the typical German sense of discipline. As principal, he was responsible for meting out punishment to a wrongdoer. He would take his heavy yardstick with him as he brought the errant student (always a boy) to Room 5. There he would lean the student over the teacher’s conference table and administer the whipping. All of the teachers would leave their classroom door open so that everyone could hear the thrashing and cries of the student.

People will remember his wife as proprietor of Wukasch’s Variety Store, several blocks down Main Street from the school. We all had to buy our school books there, if we didn’t have them handed down from an older brother or sister. While some may have resented the monopoly they had, no one made an issue of it. Mrs. Wukasch was a stickler for getting the exact amount of Missouri sales tax. You may recall the zinc mils (later red and green plastic) that were used for the fractional cents. I remember being in the store once when she made someone break a dollar bill for 2/10ths of a cent in tax.

Mrs. Wukasch would always ride in the rear seat of their car. That made Teacher Wukasch the butt of some jokes. One day Herman (Snieder) Stelljes (the unofficial mayor of the Concordia North of the tracks) invited blacksmith Emil Holsten (unofficial mayor of South Concordia) to ride in his car and had him sit in the back seat. Snieder parked in front of Topsy’s Café and told people to come out and see that he was giving Mrs. Wukasch a ride. Some of the jokes were a little more cruel. Phil Henry admitted to me several years ago that he was one of the group that left a burning bag of you-know-what on the Wukasch porch one Halloween evening.

There are good shots of Teacher Wukasch in one of my dad’s movies leading the Pledge of Allegiance at the school picnic as well as leading some songs. The St. Paul’s School movie clips also have some good shots of Miss Lulu Baepler, Teacher Klinkermann, and Teacher Mueller that should bring back a lot of other old memories.

So start thinking about your nomination. (You’ll probably come up with more than one.)


Last edited by roger.pape on Sun Jun 22, 2014 2:30 pm; edited 4 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Omar Stuenkel



Joined: 27 Mar 2009
Posts: 1
Location: Coeur d' Alene, Idaho

PostPosted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 3:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Henry Somfleth
I remember Henry Somfleth as our sole police officer when I was young. We would see him on his rounds with a sort of slouch walk. He had a firearm in a holder hung on one side. I don't recall that he ever arrested anyone. I know that in those days our little jail was always vacant. However, his very presence and official status intimidated us. His brother, Bill, was the night watchman. There was also another brother, Henry.

Brothel
When I was in my late teens in the Thirties a town scandal surfaced when it became apparent that there was a local brothel (I think on St. Louis Street). Such public righteous indignation arose that either the brothel "girls" went underground or they were somehow moved out. Things sometimes happened surreptiotiously.

_________________
Omar Stuenkel
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
roger.pape
Site Admin


Joined: 17 Mar 2009
Posts: 414
Location: Liverpool, NY

PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:43 am    Post subject: Julius Roepe Reply with quote

Julius Roepe

Many of us will remember Julius Roepe as the person who succeeded Henry Somfleth as the local policeman. He always drove around town in his old coupe (I don't recall the model or year). He had a particular passion about chasing youngsters that set off fireworks in town around the Fourth of July. Kids would frustrate him by putting lighted cigarettes on the wicks of cherry bombs to delay the explosion and would be long gone before he got there.

One day, while he was in Topsy's Cafe, some kids blocked up the rear of his car and began setting off fireworks on the other side of town. Jul raced out to his car, revved up the engine, and then sat there while the rear wheels spun.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
roger.pape
Site Admin


Joined: 17 Mar 2009
Posts: 414
Location: Liverpool, NY

PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:55 am    Post subject: The Brothel Reply with quote

The brothel on St. Louis Street continued through the 1950's. It was run by Selma Leas. It was across 7th Street from our rock phosphate plant. Sitting on top of the railroad cars, we could watch the patrons as they drove in the alleyway to the parking lot behind it. I don't recall any red lights around it. The Schowengerdts lived in the big white house on the corner next to the place. (That's not something one would include in a real estate listing. Actually, they were more concerned about the dust from our fertilizer plant.)

My cousin Bill had to deliver block ice to the place. The girls there would always flirt with him. One day he told me, "I didn't know they sold beer there." Some of the old guys that hung out there probably just went for a beer or two.

Note. Selma's last name has been corrected above. The correct name is 'Leas'. This can be seen in the 1940 census records for Concordia. Clara Sass was living just south of her which was the source of the confusion. My sincere apologies to the Sass family for this error. (Thanks to Richard Larimore for pointing out the error.)

Selma's maiden name was Marth, born July 26, 1898. Based on the 1920 census, Selma was living with Archie Leas and their 2 1/2 year old son Frank on a farm west of Concordia. (Looking at the neighbors in the census records and comparing them to the 1914 plat map, the farm may have been part of the property owned by Selma's father Frank.) Since Archie's 1917 WWI draft registration lists him as married, they presumably were married by 1917. By the 1930 census, the three of them were living in Kansas City, where Archie was a steel worker. The 1940 census lists Selma as divorced. After the divorce in the early 1930s, Selma returned to Concordia and set up her establishment.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    concordia-memories.org Forum Index -> Concordia Memories All times are GMT - 6 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group