The Old Home Place

My family used to have a farm south of Altenburg, MO. It doesn't exist anymore -- it's now a tree harvesting farm owned by the local lumber company -- but I can remember going hunting there as a kid with my Grandpa and his brothers.

My Aunt Emilie (my Grandpa's aunt, actually) wrote a poem about the farm during the Depression era (hers was the musical branch of the family).

She married Charles Moeslein ("Uncle Charlie") who was a printer at Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis. They retired to Altenburg, MO when they got old and Uncle Charlie took us fishing every time we visited my Great Grandma Scholl up there (Emilie's sister). We went all over the place: Apple Creek, Brazeau Creek, the Mississippi River at Wittenberg, Kasten's Pond, Gerler's Lake, Stueve's Lake. It was a lot of fun.

The farm itself had been long sold off and planted with rows of trees before I was born. Every year we'd go squirrel hunting there and see how much more the farm house had collapsed upon itself. The house has vanished by now.

This poem was written in the early-Thirties in St. Louis. Our Brother Curt [Hoehne] came home from the War and settled down there in 1946 and lived there quite a few years. Then his wife died, and he sold the place to the East Perry Lumber Company. They have planted the whole place in Trees.

The Old Home Place

by Emilie Hoehne-Moeslein

I love the old Homeplace.
Away back in the River Hills
Among the rocks and rills.

I spent a happy childhood there'
Twas not so long ago
With Mom and Dad, and all the kids
And how we all did grow.

We had an old spring box there
Where the coolest water flows
How many a pail I carried
Goodness only knows.

I loved the smell of the Pine Trees
When they were covered with dew.
And the sound of the whispering breeze
Such secrets the Pine Trees knew.

The old Homeplace is still the same
It's just that we have gone
We roam the wide world over
Until our work is done.

It's peaceful here and quiet
No noise can follow there
The peaceful sounds of nature
Hush every worldly care.

We would sit on the porch in the Twilight
And hear the Whipporwill call
The fireflies dancing about in the night
Wove a magic spell over all.

It's waiting there for someone
With a strong and patient will
To carry on the work and chores
Its promise to fullfill.

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wittenberg, Missouri

Here's a picture of the second St. Paul's as of 1939 (100th Year Anniversary of the Saxon Immigration). Both churches are gone, as is the rest of Wittenberg, MO because of excessive flooding. I've been told that it was because of the damming up of the Mississippi for river locks by the Corps of Engineers.

My Great-Great Grandpa Joseph Hoehne was listed as the elder's representative on the church council picture at the time. Eventually he moved back to Trinity Lutheran, Altenburg some time before St. Paul was shut down. I'm not exactly sure when that happened. My Grandparents and Mom can remember attending worship services there.

 

 

 

My pastor in Poplar Bluff told me he attended some kind of ceremony there in the '90s and has a couple of bricks from the decommissioning (or whatever it's called).

You can see the original white wooden church to the left side of the small picture below. I think that one was used for the Sunday School when the newer brick one was built.