Preserving History: The Legacy of the Field House Museum

Arnold00:00:01

One of the hidden gems in St. Louis is the Field House Museum. If you have not been there, you need to go. They just reopened and we're going to talk about that today on St.Louis in Tune. Welcome to St.Louis in Tune and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker along with co host Mark Langston, who is the ever effervescent individual behind the board.

Mark00:00:45

It was just an extra cup of coffee.

Arnold00:00:48

I had some Mexican cocoa coffee this morning. I made.

Mark00:00:52

Yeah.

Arnold00:00:53

I had some at a local establishment, a grocery store where they have some coffee that comes in. And I liked it so much I thought, I'm going to look up a recipe for that. And I did. And I made some this morning.I still need to tweak the recipe, but I thought I've got the stuff laying out on the counter. I thought if this one really works well, I was going to bring you a cup, but I need to tweak it a little bit. Wow. But it's got.

Mark00:01:16

I'll be up for days.

Arnold00:01:17

Unsweetened cocoa. It's got regular coffee or what do they call the stuff? That's espresso. Espresso or. And it's got powdered sugar in it and it's got cayenne in it.

Mark00:01:28

Powdered sugar, huh?

Arnold00:01:29

Yeah. Cayenne and cocoa are really good together.

Mark00:01:32

I've heard of cocoa going in them.

Arnold00:01:34

Yeah. And then cream.

Mark00:01:35

Okay.

Arnold00:01:35

Or half and half are.

Mark00:01:36

Bailey's Irish cream.

Arnold00:01:38

Yes.

Mark00:01:40

That would be my preferred cream.

Arnold00:01:43

Preferred modality.

Mark00:01:44

Irish cream. So wait, you have. Do you get the beans and then you grind them and you weigh them and put them in the thingamabobber.

Arnold00:01:51

I ground them and put them in the.

Mark00:01:52

You do all that stuff?

Arnold00:01:53

We do French press, right?

Mark00:01:54

Oh, my, yes. That's what my son Matthew does.

Arnold00:01:57

It's simple. It's.

Mark00:01:58

I walk in the kitchen in the morning and it's, don't ever move out. It smells so good. Oh, my. And he doesn't share. Once in a while he'll make some concoction with Irish cream in it and ice and he'll say, dad, try this.

Arnold00:02:14

You only get a little sip. I know. That's it.

Mark00:02:17

That's it exactly. Arnold. I know he's stingy.

Arnold00:02:21

A lot of it is about the coffee, the kind of coffee. Okay, but we'll try that.

Mark00:02:25

Yeah. Mexico.

Arnold00:02:27

I'm still working on Mexican coffee. It's kind of Mexican cocoa. Chocolate coffee.

Mark00:02:31

All right. I want to hear more about it. And feel free to bring one in anytime, even if you just want us to test it.

Arnold00:02:38

I'll put an extra cayenne in.

Mark00:02:39

Okay. All right. I'll bring one of my little. My Irish cream things.

Arnold00:02:44

Okay, folks, we're glad that you joined us today. Even as we talk about different kinds of coffee, we want to thank our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage, for their support of the show.You can listen to previous shows@st.lntune.com please help us continue to grow by leaving a review on our website, stlintune.com, apple podcast, or your preferred podcast platform. I return to civility today. If someone accidentally spills something in a public place, stop and help clean up or go get help.And if that someone is you, make sure you clean up after yourself. Now, we've got a big cleanup going on in St. Louis.It's not the kind where somebody accidentally spilled something, but it's a kind where the tornado has gone through. And I would really encourage folks to go to the city website.They actually have it right on the very front page of how you can help if you want to donate things, where you can donate, et cetera, like that. I'm sure they don't want people just showing up because that kind of clutters things up.But if you can help in some way, go there, sign up and do that. But it's really great. They said, hey, push the stuff to the curb, make the construction materials on one side, make the tree material on the.On another place, and they're going to come pick that stuff up. Got a lot of people who are in need in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Mark00:04:01

It's so tough. It's a very tough time.

Arnold00:04:03

Speaking of a spill that happened, Stephanie Bliss, who is the executive director of the Field House Museum, is here in studio. And the Field House Museum had some kind of spill a little bit ago, and you guys just reopened from remodeling from that spill. Talk about that spill.And we're going to get into the Field House Museum.

Stephanie00:04:23

I wish it was just a spill at the Field House Museum. Unfortunately, it was quite a bit more.We had a pipe burst on Christmas Eve of 2022, and the pipe burst in the attic of the historic house, and water came down three floors and into our basement. And so we have been recovering from that with an unexpected restoration project for the past couple years.

Mark00:04:50

How long was the water running? I read it in the paper, but I don't think it said anything about how long it ran.

Stephanie00:04:56

So I was out for dinner that evening, and I received a call around 7pm saying we had some movement on the third floor of the historic house. And typically what happens is it's something falls from the window or the walls. Excuse me. And you just go back there, check, make. Everything is okay.But when I walked in, water was cascading down the stairs. It was going down the center of the house. So coming. Coming through the center of. There's. The house is set in a front room and a back room.And so the water was coming between the two rooms, down the walls in the center, and a chandelier fell from the ceiling and water was coming through that. It was not great. But we got the fire department out. Unfortunately, our sprinkler system is probably one of the oldest in St. Louis.It was put in the 1930s when we became a historic house. And it has, instead of the nice little knobs that we have today on the sprinkler systems, it has a wheel about the size of a steering wheel.And they had to take a wrench to it to get it to fully turn off. And then the system had to release all the water through it. So it was going for quite a while.

Arnold00:06:18

And was this due to freezing?

Stephanie00:06:20

Yeah. So we. That was a very cold winter that in 2020, the. The sprinkler company technician said we didn't do anything wrong. It was. We had a.We had a heating system in the attic. So it just happened to be that we had, as he said, Alaska weather in St. Louis. And I actually have a video. My husband took it.Well, all of this was happening while the fire department was there. And you hear dispatch saying there's pipes bursting up and down 7th Street. So they had hundreds of calls that night in the city of St. Louis.

Arnold00:06:59

Now, you obviously replaced the entire sprinkler system. Maybe not.

Stephanie00:07:02

No, the sprinkler system works perfectly. We replaced the parts that had the issues to it. And then we did get the nice new fancy small knob.

Mark00:07:11

Good.

Stephanie00:07:11

On the system.

Mark00:07:12

I was wondering about that.

Stephanie00:07:13

So now I can take care of things.

Mark00:07:14

Little WD40 on there. And you.

Arnold00:07:17

Yeah.

Mark00:07:17

Okay, good.

Arnold00:07:18

But the renovation has been very extensive. Knowing that the cascading water. I love that word, cascade.I was over there and met you, and you took me on a little back behind the scenes tour and the artisanship.Because I think that we've seen that on local media where how individuals were doing some unbelievable kinds of things to make it back to what it originally was.

Stephanie00:07:43

Yes. Once we stopped the water we got a company to come in and dry everything out.And while the house is plaster walls, and technically plaster doesn't get wet, the wood behind it gets wet. So we had to access that wood. So we had to cut holes in the wall. Different parts of the walls had to come down because of crumbling.We tried to stay as much intact as possible because we are from 1845, but there were certain parts that did have some issues. So we had to re plaster, do some ceiling work, and then we had to find artisans to come in to redo our faux finish of our wood.So we had a gentleman named Charlie Br. He's a local artist here in St. Louis.He, instead of taking everything back down to the bare bones of the wood, he matched the colors that had been done in a previous restoration to refo finish the areas that had issues. So by eye, he found colors that matched what was already there.

Mark00:08:45

What's his last name?

Stephanie00:08:46

Charlie Blood.

Mark00:08:47

Blood, yeah.

Arnold00:08:49

Quite an artisan.

Stephanie00:08:50

Yes. And then we had a company come in and redo our wallpapering, which that was not a fun task at all. And we had at the same time we.When this happened, we had done. We were in the middle of a window restoration project, so we also had them working on restoring the windows as well.

Arnold00:09:12

So this house, folks, if you're not familiar with it, it's located south of the arch, south of Busch Stadium. I'll let you describe where it's at because when it was occupied by the individual, Roswell Field and his family. And we're gonna get into who he was.That was on the outskirts of St. Louis.

Mark00:09:32

That's where. Really? Yeah, yeah. There's a nightclub bar right there in there. Right next door to you.

Stephanie00:09:37

There's a few.

Mark00:09:38

It might help people know where it is.

Stephanie00:09:39

Yes. So we are a block south of Busch Stadium on Broadway.So although they're not open right now, if you're familiar with BB's or where the old Beal on Broadway was at, we are right around there and we have a few parking lots. So if you go to the games and you walk north on Broadway, you walk past us and just down the block is the Broadway Oyster Bar.

Mark00:10:00

That's it.

Arnold00:10:00

And if you've gone to Dobbs, you've gone too far.

Mark00:10:03

Oh, good. Okay.

Stephanie00:10:04

You have. But, yeah, the house was built, as I mentioned, in 1845. It was a row house of 12 houses called Walsh's Row.And he built them as rental units for gentlemen and the sort. So you had bankers, doctors, lawyers. These were their city homes. When they lived out in the country. If you're familiar with Ulysses S. Grant, he had.He had a house a block over from where we're at. And he actually got married at that house. I didn't know that. And that was his city home.

Arnold00:10:30

Wow.

Stephanie00:10:31

So the Field family rented the house for a few years while they were in St. Louis. But, yeah, we were the outskirts, the suburbs almost. It wasn't a suburb, but it was.

Arnold00:10:40

The southern part of the dropping off point.

Mark00:10:43

And Mr. Fields, he built those houses.

Stephanie00:10:45

He did not. A gentleman named Mr. Walsh built them. Mr. Walsh was. He built a couple different housing developments in St. Louis.

Arnold00:10:53

So let's talk about Roswell Field, who many people may not know. Very important in the history of St. Louis as it relates to Dread and Harriet's.And then we're going to talk about Eugene Field, who most people would know as the poet and author. So let's delve into the history of this house with the Fields.

Stephanie00:11:12

Yeah, we were, as you mentioned, we were saved because of Eugene Field. That's who we are most known for. But his father, Roswell Field, was an attorney here in St. Louis. He came from Vermont. He was well educated.I believe he became an attorney at 16 or 14. It was crazy back then. And as an adult, he came to St. Louis. He established himself here. He mostly did land suits. He was fluent in six languages.He spoke four, two were dead languages, so you can only write in them. But he was fluent in six languages.And he did land suits, which is the transfer of property from one person to another, which worked really well considering we were the hub of so many different cultures here in St. Louis. Right.

Arnold00:11:57

Spanish, French and English.

Stephanie00:12:00

Yep, yep. And German. He was right.

Arnold00:12:02

That's right.

Stephanie00:12:03

And he like. And he knew German as well, but. So he mostly did land suits, but he took on the Dred Scott case.He wasn't their first attorney, but we feel that he was one of their more influential attorneys because he changed it from a freedom suit, which was very common in St. Louis because of our proximity to Illinois being a free state. And he changed it from that to one about citizenship.It was called diversity jurisdiction. And so he argued how the Scots were citizens and what constitution constituted as a citizen when their enslaver lived in free territory.And that's how it made it up to the Supreme Court.

Arnold00:12:41

Yeah, he set the case for the Supreme Court and Montgomery Blair, who is another St. Louis connection. The Blair House in D.C. is where actually Harry Truman lived when the White House was getting renovated. And on the inside.But his house is over in Lafayette Square, and it is still standing where he lived.

Mark00:13:01

And that's a museum, or is it.

Arnold00:13:03

No, it's a private residence.

Mark00:13:05

I'll be darn.

Arnold00:13:05

Yeah, it was for sale a while back, and somebody but. So Montgomery Blair was the one. One of the attorneys who argued before the Supreme Court about the Dredden Harriet Scott case.

Stephanie00:13:15

Yeah. Unfortunately, Roswell had a lot going on here in St. Louis. He had children. His wife was having health issues.She actually died after giving birth to another child. That child passed away a few months afterwards. So he was here in St. Louis doing a lot of things. So he asked Montgomery Blair. He.December 24th must be a thing for us, because he wrote a letter to Montgomery Blair on December 24th asking for help representing the Scots out in D.C. oh, wow.

Arnold00:13:42

That'd be a great letter.

Mark00:13:44

That. That's scary, though, when she talks like that.

Arnold00:13:47

December 24th. She's probably always on guard. Whenever December 24th comes around, I will be.

Stephanie00:13:52

Now.

Mark00:13:54

I know.

Arnold00:13:55

So now the Scots. Excuse me. The. The Fields had five kids, or. I know some died young.

Stephanie00:14:03

Yeah. Roswell and his wife Francis had believe five children. Two of them survived into adulthood.So it's Eugene Field who was born in the house in 1850, and his younger brother, Roswell Jr.

Arnold00:14:17

Okay, now let's talk about that. He was born in the house because there's a plaque outside that was dedicated when Mark Twain was here in St. Louis. And Mark. Mark Twain and Roswell Jr.Who is Eugene's brother, were standing outside. The plaque raised you. Correct me if I'm wrong, Stephanie. It reads something about that this is where Eugene Field was born.And Roswell said he wasn't born in this house. And Twain said, yeah, it doesn't matter. We're going on anyway.

Stephanie00:14:46

So essentially, that was the conversation. Yeah. So Mark Twain was in town. He was here to promote the World's Fair is what it was. And so he had this grand tour.He went on a boat up and down the Mississippi River. They went to a commencement ceremony where he was honored, and then they happened to stop by the Field house.And, yes, the house was dedicated as Eugene's birthplace. And Roswell Jr. Said, no, this isn't his birthplace. He was born on Collins Street. And Mark Twain said, yeah, we're not gonna go with that.This will forever be Eugene's birthplace. And there's been census records that have shown that the Fields lived in the house in 1850.

Arnold00:15:30

Now, is that plaque still there?

Stephanie00:15:32

Yes, the plaque is still there.

Arnold00:15:33

Wow.

Mark00:15:34

I'm gonna look for It. Next time.

Arnold00:15:36

Yeah, really. Let's talk about Eugene. He's got a very. What I would call. How do I want to describe this? He really didn't find himself. He turned within himself.He went to. He liked to travel, had a girl in St. Joe with the letters. And we'll get into those exhibits. But he was a flunky.

Stephanie00:15:58

He was.

Mark00:15:59

She agrees.

Stephanie00:16:01

Eugene was a big kid. He went to three universities, three colleges, and he did not graduate from any of them. He was not a student.But he was a very well versed man, very smart, very intelligent. School was just not for him. Unfortunately, he. Like I said, he was a bit of a prankster, too. He got in trouble. He raided a chancellor's wine cellar.

Arnold00:16:24

At Mizzou.

Stephanie00:16:26

At Mizzou.

Mark00:16:27

Still happens today.

Stephanie00:16:30

Supposedly, there's a story where he borrowed a horse, painted it, and sold it back to the individual who owned it prior. He was. As an adult, he. He was a newspaper columnist. That's what he really was.It's just that he became so popular that he was given a job in Chicago where he could write about anything and everything that he wanted to, which was uncommon at the time. Most of it was just the news, but he wrote about politics, how he felt, sports, whatever was on his mind. And he also wrote poetry in those.And so his poetry became popular through his newspaper column. But while he was in Chicago, they would have traveling editorials, columnists come in into the newspaper room, and they would do tours.One Thanksgiving, the editor at the newspaper was like, hey, everybody, I'm gonna give you all turkeys for Thanksgiving. And Eugene was like, I don't need a turkey. I want a suit. And his boss was like, okay, I'll get you a suit.So the boss happened to know the warden of the local jail and came back to Eugene.

Mark00:17:42

Oh, no.

Stephanie00:17:43

With a suit of stripes, pinstripe. You know, the jailhouse stripes. Yes. And Eugene took that suit, and he kept that suit.And every time a traveling editor would come into the editorial room, he would go put that suit on, and he would start sweeping, and he would pretend that he came from the local jail. And he got the other employees at the. In the newsroom to go along with it.And they would be like, oh, yeah, our boss has a deal with the local warden. And so we get discounted services, so be careful of that guy over there. He's from the jail.And you have to know that Eugene was this like, six foot three, skinny, tall, statured guy where he could look intimidating.

Arnold00:18:32

So I hadn't heard that that's a great story.

Mark00:18:34

Yeah, I love it.

Stephanie00:18:36

Supposedly, while he was in Denver, too. Oh, I think it was. And I'm. I apologize if I get this wrong. It's been a few years since I've been giving you my tours with my stories.But in when Eugene was living in Denver, I believe it was, Edgar Allan Poe was coming to town, and they were going to have a parade to welcome him. And so Eugene decided to dress up that day and head into town.And he headed right down that main road, and when everybody waved at him, he waved back at them. And they all thought that they had met this famous author who had come to town and it was really Eugene.

Arnold00:19:17

That's crazy.

Mark00:19:18

This is crazy.

Arnold00:19:19

This is crazy.

Mark00:19:20

He's a prankster.

Stephanie00:19:21

He was a prankster.

Arnold00:19:22

This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langson of St. Louis in Tomb. We're talking to Stephanie Bliss, who's the executive director of the Field House Museum. She has a degree in historic preservation.And what a great. You really had to do that the last couple years here. Historic preservation in getting the Field House Museum back up to snuff.Now, there are some exhibits that you have going on there right now, and one is I mentioned, is his life in letters and travels. And I mentioned that he traveled to St. Joe. He had a flame up there with a gal that he was going back and forth with.So talk a little bit about these exhibits, but let's start with that one first.

Stephanie00:20:01

Yeah, that one is about actually with him and his travels all around the world. So he went to Europe a couple times. But the flame that you mentioned was actually became his wife, Julia. She was from St. Joe, Missouri.He met her through his friend Edgar when he was at Mizzou. And Eugene asked for her hand in marriage right away, and her father said no.She had two older sisters, and you could not marry a younger child at the time if the older children were unwed, because then they became spinsters. So you had to marry oldest to youngest so that all of them were eligible to be married off.So, yes, while he was engaged to Julia but could not marry her, he went off to Europe, squandered all of his inheritance with his best friend, Edgar. They bought tons of things over there, books, all sorts of stuff. He had to sell some back off to get back home.But yes, the book, the exhibit talks about his travels and all the fun that he had and his love of Julius.

Arnold00:21:05

The letters there are like the actual letters are there. And then there's some copies of the letters, probably because of just their delicate. But the content of them is just unbelievable.And how he went back and forth and I guess finally convinced the father or the father finally relented in allowing the marriage to take place.

Stephanie00:21:27

Yep. Yep. So that's that. They did get married. She gave birth to eight children. Five of them survived into adulthood.

Arnold00:21:34

Are there relatives that still survive that come to the house?

Stephanie00:21:37

Yeah, we have some who are still involved. We have two of their children. Two of the different sets have family still here in St. Louis.

Mark00:21:44

Wow.

Stephanie00:21:45

And yet they help. They come by, they participate.

Arnold00:21:48

So isn't that cool?

Mark00:21:50

That's neat.

Arnold00:21:50

It is neat. We're going to get into some of the other exhibits that are going on down there. One involves toys and the other involves music.We're going to take a brief break. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langson of St. Louis in Tune. We're talking about the Field House Museum with Stephanie Bliss. Don't go away.This is Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune on behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation.In 1857, the Dred Scott decision was a major legal event and catalyst that contributed to the Civil War. The decision declared that Dred Scott could not be free because he was not a citizen.The 14th Amendment, also called the Dred Scott Amendment, granted citizenship to all born or naturalized here in our country and was intended to overturn the US Supreme Court decision on July 9, 1868.The Dred Scott Heritage foundation is requesting a commemorative stamp to be issued from the US Postal Service to recognize and remember the heritage of this amendment by issuing a stamp with the likeness of the man Dred Scott. But we need your support and the support of thousands of people who would like to see this happen.To achieve this goal, we ask you to download, sign and share the one page petition with others. To find the petition, please go to dredscottlives.org and click on the Dred Scott petition drive on the right side of the page.On behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage foundation, this has been Arnold Stricker of St. Louis Intune. As strange as it may sound, at Better Rate Mortgage. We love talking to people about mortgages. Everyone in St.Louis promises a better mortgage rate. But what you really need to turn that perfect house into your dream home is a better mortgage at better rate mortgage.We open the door to so much more. So where are you in the home buying process? Researching, maybe wondering how much you can afford? House hunting?Get a pre approval from Better Rate Mortgage Ready to buy.Our team is ready to make your mortgage Process fast and easy, whether you're purchasing your first home or taking cash out to make your dream home even dreamier. Our door is open. Come on in and get started. Today. We'll show you how.Call Sean directly at 314-375-3293 or online@betterratemortgage.com Remember, at Better Rate Mortgage, a Better Rate is just the beginning.Betterratemortgage.com and MLS hotage 401335 an equal housing lender, Winkin, Blinken and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe Sailed on a river of crystal light Into a sea of dew. Where are you going and what do you wish? The old man asked the three. We've come to fish for the herring fish that live in this beautiful sea.Nets of silver and gold have we? Said Wynken, Blinken and Nod and I could go on. It's a great poem and it's written by Eugene Fields.Stephanie Bliss is in studio talking about the Field House Museum. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis in Tune. Do you guys have that particular poem written out by Field somewhere?

Stephanie00:24:58

Yes, we do.

Arnold00:24:59

Oh, my gosh.

Mark00:25:00

What? Under lock and key, I hope.

Arnold00:25:03

Yeah. Wow.

Mark00:25:04

Not near water anywhere.

Stephanie00:25:05

No. Okay.Thankfully, with the incident with the pipers, our core collection, the Field family items, most of that did not see damage or if it was minimal, and we were able to restore it, like some of the furniture. The ones that hit hardest was our toy collection, however, and they are important to us.We do love our toy collection, but they aren't as irreplaceable as the Field family items.

Arnold00:25:32

And the items. You have a library there that people can come and do research and look at the, I guess, wink and blink and a nod, the manuscript in Fields.

Stephanie00:25:44

Hands different manuscripts, different books. We have some items from Fields, like some books from his collection that he owned.We also have some that are rare books of copies that were created over the years.

Arnold00:25:58

Wow.

Mark00:25:58

Wow.

Arnold00:25:59

Now, a couple of the other exhibits that you have going on, you have one that deals with toys.

Stephanie00:26:04

Yes. So we do have a large toy collection. Eugene was an avid toy collector. He had thousands of toys by the time he died.Unfortunately, most of them burned in a fire. So we collect toys in his honor. And the current toy exhibit that we have up is called It's Fisher Price. It's growing up with Fisher Price.And so we have all sorts of different Fisher Price toys, from wooden to plastic on display.

Arnold00:26:28

Wooden toys, Mark.

Mark00:26:30

I know. Yeah.

Stephanie00:26:31

Most people don't know that Fisher Price, when they started out, it was wooden toys, like the pull toys that make the noise behind them.

Arnold00:26:39

My brother had one of those choo choos where the eyes went up and down. You pull it.

Mark00:26:43

Okay.

Arnold00:26:44

Like that. I think that was Fisher.

Mark00:26:46

Lead paint was on it.

Stephanie00:26:47

Yes, there. Unfortunately, there are some that over the years now it's not. They're not good to touch anymore because they do have toxic paint on them.

Mark00:26:58

But they were good for the kids back then. Just kidding. I'm kidding.

Arnold00:27:02

No, on this one.

Mark00:27:04

Stop.

Stephanie00:27:04

Well, they did have issues with the little people.That's why they changed the style of the little people figures for their little people collect is because not only did they have lead paint on them, but the way that they were made, they were small and kids could choke on them.

Mark00:27:18

Yeah.

Stephanie00:27:19

Then they had to make the chunky little people is what they're called.

Arnold00:27:24

They were eating chunky chocolate chip cookies or something.

Mark00:27:26

I've become a chunky old guy.

Arnold00:27:29

So there's a music exhibit also.

Stephanie00:27:32

Yeah, so it's. It's one of our smaller exhibits. It touches on the different styles of music and how music was played and how you listen to music in the 80s, 1800s.So we also have a little spot where you can practice a waltz if you want to, because that's what they would dance to in the 1800s. And it touches on the not so nice with minstrels and that sort of stuff in the culture of the time of the 1800s of music.And also it talks about how music choirs came about groups. So it goes into that and how it became part of our culture and went into the home, as opposed to always having to go out to a concert to see it.

Arnold00:28:14

Yeah, I think we think about how we live today, but if you go back to this time back in the 1850s, 1860s, you try to figure out. But going to the Field House Museum, you get a really good sense of how that happens.And all the kind of museums about the Campbell House Museum, all those kinds of things like that. One of the things I. I don't believe people are aware of is it is a National Historic landmark.

Stephanie00:28:44

Yes.

Arnold00:28:44

And it's a historic landmark because of Roswell. Because of Eugene.

Stephanie00:28:50

Yeah, we were saved. Yeah, we were saved because of Eugene. Eugene was very popular. He was born in 1850, died in 1895. So he's only 45 years old by the time that he died.But his works were so popular that after his death they sold out across the country. And his wife Julia created a 12 volume set of his works and sold those.And there was at least one Eugene Field Elementary School in every state at one time. So he was very popular up until the 1930s. And we. They said, hey, we need to save this house, because Eugene was born in it.And so it was saved in 1934 and 35 and opened in 1936 because.

Arnold00:29:28

It was going to get knocked down.

Stephanie00:29:29

It was going to get knocked down. Yes. There was a gentleman who had a printing company right next door. And these row houses, by the 1930s, they. They did not have electricity.They did not have running water. They weren't in the greatest condition. And so they were going to tear them down for a parking lot.And a gentleman named Irving Dillard wrote an article on the paper and he said, how horrible would it be for us to lose this history? And nobody really took to the article. Nobody. And.And so he wrote a second one because he found out that Denver was saving Eugene's house there at the same time. And he said, how horrible is this that Denver can save his home, but we can't save his birthplace? And Jesse P.Henry, who was an insurance man here in St.Louis, Daniel and Henry Insurance, they're still today in business, he saw the article and he found out that the property was actually owned by the St. Louis Public Schools. They had just rented out the property because they had been given property all throughout the city by Shoto and for education.That's. Then it became the public schools. And so Jesse P. Henry was like, hey, we're gonna save this house to the schools.And so the school children in 1934 and 1935 helped raise $2,000 in pennies, dimes, and nickels.

Arnold00:30:49

It's a lot of money back then.

Stephanie00:30:50

Well, yeah, you're going in the Great Depression right there. And they. They still raised that money. So we opened on December 18th, not.

Mark00:30:58

Quite the 24th, thank God.

Stephanie00:31:03

1936. So we are the longest running historic house Museum in St. Louis.

Arnold00:31:08

That's a fact that people do not know. Say that again, Stephanie.

Stephanie00:31:11

We are the longest running historic house Museum in St. Louis, opening our doors on December 18, 1936.

Mark00:31:17

Wow.

Arnold00:31:18

Wow. Who knows?

Mark00:31:19

No, I never knew.

Arnold00:31:20

That's why she's on this show, to talk about these things.

Mark00:31:23

Here we go. I do learn stuff, even though I.

Stephanie00:31:26

And we did receive some national. There's a National Register of Historic Places. We did get that because of Eugene.But our national landmark status, the status that says we can never be torn down or moved, was because of Roswell and his work on the Dred Scott Case.

Arnold00:31:42

Wow. That's a big deal, too.

Mark00:31:43

That is a big deal.

Arnold00:31:44

So between dad and son, you've got some pretty good guns going on there for historical preservation. And the name has changed over the course of time, too, correct?

Stephanie00:31:55

Yes. So when we started out, we were the Eugene Field Shrine. We went to the Eugene Field House. We became the Eugene field House and St. Louis Toy Museum.But in 2016, we built an expansion, a 4,000 square foot building next to the historic house.And when we did that, we decided that we needed to change our name once again and change it to the Field House Museum because we wanted to encompass the entire family and their contributions.

Arnold00:32:21

That's a big deal. And the family owned. Owned property down by Carondelet Park.

Stephanie00:32:27

Yeah. So the house was supposed to be a temporary residence for them. Like I said, it was a rental unit.They were getting away from the city and they had bought property in Crondalet. Crondalet was technically another town at the time, and you had to apply to get into Crondalet. And so they applied and got property down there.If you're familiar with the area, the south side of the park, there's a Eugene Roswell and a Field street that kind of outlies their property.

Arnold00:32:56

That's so fascinating.

Mark00:32:57

Wow.

Arnold00:32:58

Isn't it?

Mark00:32:58

Yeah. I love knowing this stuff.

Arnold00:33:00

Yeah. Because this is stuff that gets lost unless it's discussed continually. Talked about is Wynkin Blinken and not his most famous poem.He did another one, didn't he, that was, like, really well known.

Stephanie00:33:13

Yes. So I would say Wynkin Blinken and Nod is his most famous poem.However, the Duel or the Gingham Dog and Calco Cat is another one of his more famous ones. These two, this dog and this cat, they.They get into a terrible spat, as he says, and they, the old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate tell the story of their row. And by the end of the poem, there is nothing left of the gingham dog or calico cat. And to this day, the owners thought the pair were stolen away.But the truth of the cat and the pup is this. They ate each other up.

Mark00:33:46

Oh, dark stuff.

Arnold00:33:47

These were for kids, right?

Stephanie00:33:49

No, technically they weren't for kids. That's the funny thing. So when Eugene was writing his poetry, he was writing for adults to remember their childhood.It's just that adults were reading the poetry to kids, and kids really took to his poetry and he became known as the children's poet, even though he wasn't writing for kids.

Arnold00:34:07

Pompa.

Mark00:34:08

This is all dark, but if you.

Stephanie00:34:10

Think about it, if you look at true versions of poetry, children's poetry in the 1800s and prior to Hans Christian Andersen, those original stories and poems were tales of like lessons, not necessarily fun and fantasy. So he wasn't far off from his predecessors writing.

Arnold00:34:31

That's true.And as we advance Rocky and Bullwinkle to our generation mark, where when you go back and you listen to that, the jokes that just went over your head as a kid. Oh, okay. I get what's going on there now as an adult. This was talking to adults.

Mark00:34:46

Yeah, that's right.

Arnold00:34:48

Gosh. Now, the hours of the Field House Museum are what, Stephanie?

Stephanie00:34:53

We are open Wednesday through Saturdays, 10am to 4pm and Sundays, noon to 4.

Arnold00:34:58

And there's something that I think is very good that you guys are doing. Talk a little bit about the reciprocal programs. What is a reciprocal program? And who does that? Who can take advantage of that?

Stephanie00:35:10

So we have several different programs that we utilize. One of them is called roam. It is for a certain membership level, and with that you get free admission to museums all across the country.

Mark00:35:21

Oh, wow.

Stephanie00:35:22

Yeah, that's. Yeah. And they have a whole list on their website. And so that's one of them that we offer.Another one that we offer is called Time Travelers, and that's actually through the Missouri History Museum. And that gives you discounts at different museums across the country as well.When you're a member of our organization, then we have a program called Museums for All, and that is for individuals who are on low income SNAP services. If they come to the museum and they want to see it, we give it to them at a discounted rate. And then we also have our free third Thursdays.So the third Thursday of the month in the afternoon, we our expansion. Our museum exhibits are free to the public. And then we give discounted tours of the historic house.

Mark00:36:07

Nice. I like that.

Arnold00:36:08

That's cool.

Mark00:36:09

That is cool.

Arnold00:36:10

And you've had also the St. Louis Browns exhibit down there at one point of time.

Stephanie00:36:14

Yeah, we along with creating our own exhibits, we do have other individuals who come in and we share space with them. We've had the Annie malone Historical Society, St. Louis Browns. And then upcoming we have an exhibit about the Weatherbird.And that collection is actually on loan to us from Dan Martin, who is the current Weatherbird creator.

Arnold00:36:35

Okay, that's cool to see those original drawings like that.

Mark00:36:38

Yeah, the Weatherbird.

Arnold00:36:39

Yeah. Yeah, I always used to look for those. That's to have to be a political artist of those cartoons where you're not even saying Anything.But you're showing it.

Mark00:36:48

Yeah.

Arnold00:36:48

And you're communicating a lot in a cartoon. The ability to do that.

Mark00:36:52

Oh, yeah.

Arnold00:36:54

Wow.

Mark00:36:54

Yeah. Very creative.

Arnold00:36:55

Very creative. What was the biggest surprise that you found out when you became the executive director at the Field House Museum?

Stephanie00:37:02

I don't know if it would be the biggest surprise, but I would say the biggest thing is that being a small institution, there are so many things that you have to juggle on a daily basis. And it's funny because people say, what do you do? What do you do?And I say, I do everything from helping create exhibits, to put on events, to cleaning up the parking lot. It's in a small museum, in a small organization, you have to be able to be flexible and take on any sort of job.Which when you think you're coming out of college. Right. That's not what you think. Right. You think, oh, I'm going to be this person and I'm going to do this one thing.But with small institutions, you have to be flexible.

Mark00:37:42

I think she's the CEO, Chief, Chief everything, Officer.

Arnold00:37:46

That's the way it works.

Mark00:37:46

Yeah. Is that how it works?

Arnold00:37:47

I'm going to do that.

Mark00:37:48

How long have you. How long have you been the executive director? Right out of college?

Stephanie00:37:52

No.

Mark00:37:52

So you've been around a while?

Stephanie00:37:53

No. I wish. No. I started.I did my internship at the Field house Museum in 2010, and I started part time in 2011, worked my way full time, then assistant Director, and then 2017 is when I became the executive director.

Arnold00:38:10

Now is the Field house Museum a 501C3?

Stephanie00:38:13

We are. We are 501C3. Private, not for profit. So we do not receive any of those ZMD dollars. We do not receive federal funding unless we get a grant.All of our funding is private. Donations, memberships, gift shop sales.

Arnold00:38:28

And how do you have, like, events in which you have a big fundraiser or something like that annually or something like that?

Stephanie00:38:34

Yes. So we do different things. One of them that we have done, this will be our third year, I believe, is a croquet tournament in October.So we'll be hosting.

Mark00:38:45

Where do you do that?

Stephanie00:38:46

We've done it in Tower Grove park the past two times.

Mark00:38:49

Croquet tournament.

Stephanie00:38:50

Yeah. It's pretty fun, I bet. Yeah.

Arnold00:38:53

I always like to hit the ball and knock my sister's ball.

Mark00:38:57

How long has it been since you've played?

Arnold00:38:59

Oh, my gosh. What are you talking? 50 years, maybe 55 years.

Mark00:39:02

So there's professional people that do this or.

Stephanie00:39:04

We've had some hosts. So we had Jody Fuse. The first year that we did it, she. She is actually a croquet pro. She goes and plays on the croquet.

Arnold00:39:13

Circuit on the tour.

Mark00:39:15

It's going to be on NBC.

Arnold00:39:18

Can you imagine the announcers? And she's bending down to strikes the ball.

Mark00:39:24

Wicked, isn't it?

Arnold00:39:25

Oh, hit the metal of the wicket.

Stephanie00:39:27

It's actually quite fun. We don't. We don't play backyard croquet. We pay six wicket croquet. A golf croquet is what it's called.And so instead of everybody having to go through each wicket, you have two teams of two individuals. And whosever ball goes through the wicket first that team gets the point and then everybody goes to the next wicket.

Arnold00:39:51

Oh, it's like best ball.

Stephanie00:39:52

Yeah.

Arnold00:39:54

How far are these wickets from the tee box? I guess.

Mark00:39:59

I know we joke about it, but it sounds like a lot of fun.

Arnold00:40:01

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Stephanie00:40:03

The courts are actually. We have a condensed court. Our courts are 45 by 90ft.

Arnold00:40:08

Wow.

Mark00:40:09

That's a golf. That's like a golf.

Arnold00:40:12

Yeah. So that's huge.

Mark00:40:14

Yeah.

Arnold00:40:15

No, that's cool.

Mark00:40:16

That is cool. It is. I'd love to come and watch it.

Stephanie00:40:18

You should come. It's in October, so we're hoping to have a fun time. It'll be our, I think, third annual one.

Arnold00:40:24

So there's teams of two.

Stephanie00:40:25

Yep. So you sign up as a team, you and a partner.

Mark00:40:29

What do you say?

Arnold00:40:29

We ought to do that.

Mark00:40:30

I was gonna say.

Arnold00:40:30

Yeah.

Mark00:40:31

Look at that. Great minds work alike.

Arnold00:40:33

That's right.

Mark00:40:33

I know that. How would you hear about that? How do you. How does the public hear about that?

Stephanie00:40:37

So we have. It's always on our website. Our events are on our website. We do try to put it out on the online calendars and put it out there as well. Yeah.And if you look up, if You Google croquet St. Louis, you're really not gonna find a whole lot.

Mark00:40:52

No. Come on.

Stephanie00:40:53

So you can find us pretty easily by just doing a simple Google search of croquet in St. Louis.

Arnold00:40:59

Now, it's not people. Professional croquet mallets and stuff that they bring.

Stephanie00:41:03

We provide them. We have had someone who brought their own croquet mallets, but we do provide them for the teams.

Mark00:41:09

Handmade.

Arnold00:41:10

Do they have a little plastic sponge rubber thing on them or are they just wood to wood?

Stephanie00:41:14

They're wood. They're the real heavy duty things.

Arnold00:41:17

Real deal.

Stephanie00:41:18

Yeah.

Mark00:41:18

Heck, no messing around here, brother.

Arnold00:41:20

I guess not.

Mark00:41:20

It's just like the big deal.

Arnold00:41:22

Wow.

Mark00:41:22

It is a big deal. I want to Encourage people to go, yes.

Arnold00:41:26

We need to do a teamwork. That would be great.

Mark00:41:28

Okay.

Arnold00:41:29

It'd be a lot of fun.

Mark00:41:29

Yeah, it would be. As long as we could do a.

Arnold00:41:32

Little interview as we're going down the course there.

Mark00:41:34

Yeah. We could do a man on the guy on the announcer on the spot. Whatever they call it nowadays is the.

Arnold00:41:40

Croquet field called something the court.

Mark00:41:43

It's a court.

Arnold00:41:43

Yeah.

Mark00:41:44

Not a pitch, but a court. Guy on the court, not a diamond.

Arnold00:41:47

Hey, I see you missed that one.

Mark00:41:49

Yeah, I think it'd be great.

Arnold00:41:51

That would be.

Mark00:41:51

I know. And I guess you. You have to get it in and hit the stake at the end, right?

Arnold00:41:56

Yep.

Mark00:41:56

Whatever the heck that is.

Arnold00:41:57

Yeah.

Stephanie00:41:57

But it's in the middle of the court, not on the end.

Mark00:42:00

Oh, see, this is like a lot of twists and turns here.

Arnold00:42:03

Right there. It's not my familiar croquet.

Mark00:42:05

Oh, we're gonna have to. Yeah, we're gonna have to study up on this. And that's on the website?

Stephanie00:42:09

Yeah.

Mark00:42:10

Okay. I'm gonna go and check it out. If Arnold will tell me where the website is. I don't know if he's.

Arnold00:42:16

The website is the fieldhousemuseum.org fieldhousemuseum.org Just Fieldhouse.

Mark00:42:23

Not the field, but field house.

Arnold00:42:25

Fieldhousemuseum.

Mark00:42:26

Okay.

Arnold00:42:26

Dot org correct. 634 South Broadway, 314-421-4689.

Mark00:42:33

What was that number again?

Arnold00:42:35

634 South Broadway in St. Louis. And it's 314-421-4689.

Mark00:42:42

Wow. Yes. We should go.

Arnold00:42:44

You should. Stephanie, thanks for coming in.

Stephanie00:42:47

Thank you.

Arnold00:42:48

If you hang on here, we're the word of the day. I was actually going to read the poem, but I read part of the poem already, and people can go look up the poem. It's.I hadn't read that for ages, and I was like, wow. It's Speaks differently.

Stephanie00:43:06

It does.

Arnold00:43:07

As an adult.

Mark00:43:08

Yeah.

Arnold00:43:09

And you see some of the. I've seen some of the scenes and actually some artists, musicians have used wink and blink and a nod and put some music to it.You can go to just look that up and you can see some of those things.

Mark00:43:24

I've never heard that before.

Stephanie00:43:25

I believe that Carly Simon did a version of it.

Arnold00:43:28

That's correct.

Stephanie00:43:29

And then the Doobie, but brothers as well.

Arnold00:43:31

And Peter, Paul and Mary do. Did they do one of that?

Stephanie00:43:34

I'm not sure about that one.

Mark00:43:35

Wow. Yeah. But. Yeah, the doobie brothers. Michael McDonald's from St. Louis. That's nice.

Arnold00:43:41

Yes. Doobie, Dooby Doo Scooby.

Mark00:43:44

I know. Not Scooby Doo, but Doobie Doo.

Arnold00:43:46

Do you have any days of the day, Mark?

Mark00:43:47

Speaking of Scooby Dooby Doo. Let me see. Or not that, but let me see here.

Arnold00:43:52

Frank Sinatra.

Mark00:43:52

There was. There's a lot of things actually going on I'm trying to find. And I'm sorry, we need to do Weights and measures Day. World B Day. B E E, B E E Day.Like the Buzzers Bees. National Women in Aerospace Day. They have done a lot of contributions, but people don't give them credit for.

Arnold00:44:13

Yes.

Mark00:44:13

National Streaming Day. Do you stream stuff?

Arnold00:44:17

Yes.

Mark00:44:18

A National Stop Nausea Day. What the heck is that?

Arnold00:44:24

Imodium Day.

Mark00:44:25

I know. A National Rescue Dog Day. I think they're doing an adoption thing now for pets too.

Arnold00:44:32

Except in St. Louis County.

Mark00:44:34

What?

Arnold00:44:35

They have parvo going on out there.

Mark00:44:37

They had parvo going on out. That's right. A National Quiche Lorraine Day. There was one that. Nah. Here it is. This is yours. National Band Directors Day.

Arnold00:44:47

Yes.

Mark00:44:48

See, I knew he'd get excited about that. I knew he'd get excited about it. Flower Day. Today's National Flower Day.

Arnold00:44:55

Is there a specific flower or is it any flower?

Mark00:44:57

Flower Day is here. What can be lovelier than gifting flowers to those that you love? No.

Arnold00:45:04

And it's great in flowers. If you go to a grocery store, you can buy a little thing, very much money, and they last long and it's a great thing to take home to your spouse.

Mark00:45:13

True. Why not do that?

Arnold00:45:14

Yeah.

Mark00:45:15

Emergency Medical Services for Children's Day. Eat More Fruit and Vegetables Day. My mom petitioned for that one.

Arnold00:45:23

Yeah.

Mark00:45:24

Mark, you gotta eat more. End of the World Day. End of the World Day reminds us how fake apocalypse warnings distress people around the world. So. No, it's not gonna end.

Arnold00:45:36

No. Okay.

Mark00:45:37

And let's see. Do I have anything? International Tea Day. Do you ever drink tea?

Arnold00:45:42

Tea? Yes, occasionally.

Mark00:45:43

Do you spot a tea? National Juice Slush Day. Can you believe? National Memo Day. Do you use those little post notes?

Arnold00:45:51

I used to. I don't anymore.

Mark00:45:52

Uh huh. Is that right?

Arnold00:45:54

No.

Mark00:45:54

Okay. And I think that's about Navy Day in Chile. That has nothing to do with us. National Waitress and Waiter's Day.

Arnold00:46:04

Oh, okay.

Mark00:46:05

Tip heavily.

Arnold00:46:06

National Service Day.

Mark00:46:07

Tip often. Okay. Yeah, I've got a few more, but that's the. That's the good stuff.

Arnold00:46:12

You talked about dogs there. Did you know that owning a dog reduces risk of dementia by 40% while cats make no difference at all?Speaking of cats, this morning I saw a neighbor talking to her cat. It was obvious that she thought her cat understood her. And I came back to my house and I told my dog and we just laughed a lot.

Mark00:46:39

All right. I love that guy there.

Arnold00:46:42

I'm not sure how many cookies it takes to be happy, but so far it's not 27. And usually these conferences take place throughout the year. Parent teacher conferences.And this teacher was telling these parents, in my 23 years of teaching, your son is my favorite student to have absent.

Mark00:47:05

Yeah, Stephanie's never coming back.

Arnold00:47:10

Let's see, here's.

Mark00:47:11

There's more.

Arnold00:47:11

Here's the problem.

Mark00:47:12

We have Stephanie, did you know that.

Arnold00:47:15

Egyptian babies did not know that one day their daddy will become a mummy?

Mark00:47:22

That is terrible. That's so bad.

Arnold00:47:28

Wow.

Mark00:47:28

Tough room.

Arnold00:47:31

And out of all my body parts, my eyeballs are in the best shape because I roll them like 340 times a day.

Stephanie00:47:40

My kids might agree with that one for me.

Arnold00:47:43

And lastly, I don't always carry all the groceries on one arm, but when I do, my keys are in the.

Mark00:47:48

Wrong pocket all the time. Never fails. Never fails, I don't think.

Arnold00:47:53

Never fails.

Mark00:47:53

Yeah, every time.

Arnold00:47:55

Well, that's all for this hour and we thank you for listening.If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows@silver stlintune.com Consider leaving a review on our website, Apple Podcast, Podchaser, or your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to grow.We want to thank Bob Berthiselle for our theme music, our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage, our guest, Stephanie Bliss and co host, Mark Langston. And folks, we thank you for being a part of our community of curious minds. St.Louis in tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Radio Network. Remember to keep seeking, keep learning. Walk one worthy and let your light shine. For St. Louis in Tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.

Stephanie00:48:52

Sam.

Mark00:49:19

It.