Tag Archives: Bill Sublette

Monday Update » 6.25.12

Good After­noon! A lot has hap­pened over the last two weeks.…

Pier­re’s Hole in the Teton Val­ley, Ida­ho, the site of the 1832 Rocky Moun­tain Rendezvous.

Andy’s Back!
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy made it back from his excur­sion to Robert’s old stomp­ing grounds in Wyoming and Ida­ho. We’ll do a full post of the Ren­dezvous and all the sites he vis­it­ed, but to give you a pre­view, here’s a shot of Pier­re’s Hole. Not only did Robert trade here dur­ing the ren­dezvous, but it was also the site of the famous Bat­tle of Pier­re’s Hole, in which Robert played a key role with his friend Bill Sub­lette. (Beau­ti­ful, huh?)

Camp­bell House class at Life­long Learn­ing Institute
We are pleased to announce that staff from Camp­bell House Muse­um will be teach­ing a class at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty’s Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute (LLI) this fall. The LLI is a col­lege-style cur­ricu­lum of cours­es for peo­ple age 55 and old­er, and they offer a range of class­es on his­to­ry (local and oth­er­wise), art, and lit­er­a­ture. This fall, Camp­bell House will be the top­ic of a four-week course. This is what we’ll be teach­ing each week:

  • Week 1: His­to­ry of the Camp­bells and the Lucas Place Neigh­bor­hood (Andy)
  • Week 2: Late 19th Cen­tu­ry Cul­ture (Shel­ley)
  • Week 3: Field trip to Camp­bell House (Andy and Shelley)
  • Week 4: Doc­u­ment work­shop (Andy and Shelley)

Inter­est­ed? Fall 2012 reg­is­tra­tion isn’t online yet,  but if you’re age 55 or old­er, send an email to shel­ley [dot] satke [at] gmail [dot] com, and we’ll send you a reminder when you can reg­is­ter. In the mean­time, learn all about the LLI here.

New Gar­den Volunteers
Have you seen how beau­ti­ful the gar­den looks? In addi­tion to the reg­u­lar bunch of vol­un­teers (par­ents of the staff!), we’ve been joined by Dan, Dan and Alex, three young men from St. Louis Arc. Dan works with Dan and Alex to teach them life skills while build­ing friend­ships in the local com­mu­ni­ty. Every Tues­day and Thurs­day they work out­side keep­ing the gar­den in tip-top shape for our guests and neigh­bors, and they’ve been doing a won­der­ful job. They’ve been a joy to work with — stop by to see their handiwork!

Do you have a green thumb? Could you lend a hand mow­ing, prun­ing and plant­i­ng? We’re always look­ing for help! Drop Andy a note at andy [at] camp­bell­house­mu­se­um [dot] org.

Jes­si­ca and Mark in front of Vir­gini­a’s gazebo.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Pierrons
Speak­ing of the gar­den, cheers to Jes­si­ca and Mark, who had their wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny in our gar­den on Fri­day night. The flow­ers were in full bloom, the weath­er coop­er­at­ed, and every­one had a won­der­ful evening on Jes­si­ca and Mark’s big day.

Camp­bell House is the per­fect out­door spot for a wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny. If you would like to check out the space in per­son, please email Shel­ley at shel­ley [dot] satke [at] gmail [dot] com.

Meet Kevin
Be sure to vis­it our blog tomor­row, where we’ll con­tin­ue with our pop­u­lar “Meet the Interns” series with Kevin. Talk about well-round­ed — he’s work­ing on a dou­ble major in his­to­ry and chem­istry. Tune in tomor­row to find out what he’s doing at Camp­bell House this summer!

Monday Update » 6.11.12

Wel­come back to Mon­day, every­one! We hope you’ve been enjoy­ing your sum­mer so far. As usu­al, we’ve been busy here and we have some fun things to report to you:

Facelift for Camp­bell House
Actu­al­ly, more like a coat of paint. 2012 marks the 10-year anniver­sary of the com­ple­tion of the exte­ri­or ren­o­va­tion of the house, and we’re due for anoth­er paint job. For­tu­nate­ly, we’ve secured a gen­er­ous grant from the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for the funds to have the brick, win­dows and cor­nices repaint­ed. Since the house is so big and tall, this is going to be an excit­ing process because the painters will have to use a series of lifts to reach the high­est points of the house. Work will like­ly begin this sum­mer after we com­plete spot tuck­point­ing, and we’ll be sure to share pic­tures as the work pro­gress­es. Three cheers for the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for help­ing us keep the Camp­bells’ home in tip-top shape!

We ♥ Our Interns
Camp­bell House has a full com­ple­ment of six interns this sum­mer. Though most of them are from St. Louis, they rep­re­sent uni­ver­si­ties from all over the coun­try, (Vas­sar, Wart­burg Col­lege and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty) and a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines includ­ing art his­to­ry, chem­istry (real­ly) and Amer­i­can cul­ture stud­ies. They’ll get the full muse­um expe­ri­ence this sum­mer by giv­ing tours, con­duct­ing research, inven­to­ry­ing the Camp­bell col­lec­tion as well as all of the oth­er day-to-day stuff that needs to get done (i.e. water­ing the gar­den, book­ing tours, work­ing on mem­ber­ship renewals, etc). Check back in with us as we post intern pro­files to the blog. These dynam­ic — and wicked­ly smart — stu­dents breathe new life into this house, and we’re for­tu­nate to have their fresh per­spec­tive. While they’re learn­ing the muse­um biz, we get new insight and ideas for mak­ing this old house cur­rent and rel­e­vant to a young demo­graph­ic. Are you inter­est­ed in join­ing us for an intern­ship, too? Email Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn at andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org.

Inte­ri­or of Fort Laramie by Alfred Jacob Miller
Water­col­or, 1858–1860

Retrac­ing Robert’s Route
This week, Intre­pid Researcher Tom™  and our illus­tri­ous Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy are tak­ing a trip out to the wild west to vis­it Robert’s old stomp­ing grounds. Begin­ning at Fort Laramie, the pair will meet Robert’s great-nephew Alan (who is com­ing all the way from North­ern Ire­land) to see the annu­al Ren­dezvous that reen­acts the year­ly event where trap­pers would meet with mer­chants to trade furs for goods. Fort Laramie is sig­nif­i­cant because Robert found­ed Fort William, which was Fort Laramie’s pre­cur­sor. This year’s event will com­mem­o­rate artist Alfred Jacob Miller’s 1837 trip to the ren­dezvous. Miller pro­duced some of the most famous images of the Ore­gon Trail and Fort Laramie, includ­ing the one on the right. After the ren­dezvous, the trio will vis­it Muse­um of the Moun­tain Man, Pier­re’s Hole (the site of the famous bat­tle in which Robert and pal Bill Sub­lette played a major role), and final­ly — if they have time — a trip to Fort Bridger. We’ll be sure to post pic­tures after the trav­el­ers return.

A pic­ture from the process: the entire key­board was removed from the body of the piano.

Music to Our Ears
In what proved to be a five-month project, the Camp­bells’ piano is DONE! JoAnn Kaplan of Kap­stan Piano Ser­vices worked tire­less­ly to clean, fix and/or cus­tom-fab­ri­cate new parts, and final­ly tune the old Schomack­er. We did­n’t do all that work for noth­ing — we’ll start host­ing par­lor con­certs lat­er this year. Check back for details.

Tours on Tap
Did you miss our wild­ly suc­cess­ful Lucas Place/Tap Room walk­ing tour last fall? Have no fear — we’ll offer it again and then some. This week we’re meet­ing with our friends at Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion of St. Louis to put togeth­er some fun and infor­ma­tive tours. As soon as we work out the details we ‘ll get a sched­ule of events post­ed. Do you have an idea for a build­ing, neigh­bor­hood or spe­cial tour of Camp­bell House? Let us know! Send your bright idea to shelley.satke [at] gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do.

Detail of the reuphol­stered piano bench. That’s silk vel­vet and yes, it feels as good as it looks.

Facelift 2.0: Bidet and Piano Stool
The house is get­ting repaint­ed, and two pieces of fur­ni­ture have been reuphol­stered, too. The fab­ric on Vir­gini­a’s bidet cov­er had dete­ri­o­rat­ed to noth­ing more than threads, and the piano stool was­n’t in much bet­ter shape. Board mem­ber and inte­ri­or design­er Tim Rohan gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed new fab­ric and had the tops of both pieces of fur­ni­ture reuphol­stered over the exist­ing fab­rics so we would not lose the orig­i­nal mate­r­i­al (what was left of it, anyway).

New Geo­cache
Are you into urban trea­sure hunt­ing? We have a new geo­cache in our garden.…dig up your GPS or down­load a geo­cache app to find it, and add your name to the list!

Board Pres­i­dent Fritz Clif­ford with St. Louis Bal­let dancers.

We’re the Daaaahncers
Last week we wel­comed a crew of St. Louis Bal­let dancers who per­formed at our Mag­i­cal Spring Thing in April. They got the VIP tour with Andy and Board Pres­i­dent Fritz lead­ing the way.  Do you have a spe­cial group that would like to have a spe­cial behind-the-scenes expe­ri­ence at Camp­bell House? Con­tact Andy (andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org) or Shel­ley (shelley.satke [at] gmail.com) and we are more than hap­py to accom­mo­date you!

Bye, Bob
Bob’s going away.…for now. The beloved gar­den gnome that was left on our front steps as a prank will be vaca­tion­ing back at the DeMe­nil Man­sion until we launch a secret expe­di­tion to bring him home.  <super sadface>

.…and that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. Have a spec­tac­u­lar week!