Tag Archives: Magical Spring Thing

Monday Update » 4.23.12

A draft of one of Lind­sey’s pan­els. Come by in two weeks to see the whole exhib­it in per­son. (Believe me, she’ll be REALLY hap­py if you do.)

Wel­come to the down­hill slope of Mon­day, every­one. It’s been a marathon around here the last few weeks, and this is what we have to show for it:

New Civ­il War Exhib­it
Out with the old and in with the new.….Weekend Man­ag­er Lind­sey is putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on her new exhib­it, A Fam­i­ly Apart: The Camp­bells Dur­ing the Civ­il War Years. She’s pulling some of Vir­gini­a’s dress­es and jew­el­ry out of stor­age, along with some excep­tion­al old let­ters. Come by after May 8th to see the sto­ry of the Camp­bells dur­ing this tur­bu­lent peri­od in Amer­i­can history.

Mag­i­cal Spring Thing
Sam Clark’s big show — the Mag­i­cal Spring Thing — on April 14th was a huge suc­cess. We’re still recov­er­ing from it, but we raised a few dol­lars for new envi­ron­men­tal pro­gram­ming and spe­cial projects around the house. Big thanks to Sam and all the vol­un­teers and board mem­bers who helped pull off anoth­er spec­tac­u­lar show with Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis Bal­let, stu­dents from Web­ster Uni­ver­si­ty’s Leigh Ger­dine Col­lege of Fine Arts, St. Louis Rag­timers and the Ball­room Dance Acad­e­my of St. Louis.

Web­ster Groves High School stu­dents work­ing on an over­grown area at our fence. The yard looks won­der­ful thanks to their hard work.

Web­ster High School Lends a Hand
Our gar­den vol­un­teers (read: Moms and Dads of the CHM staff) are espe­cial­ly grate­ful for the group of ten Web­ster Groves High School stu­dents and par­ents who came by on April 10th to do some heavy lift­ing in the gar­den. The enthu­si­as­tic teens knocked out an impres­sive amount of weed­ing, trim­ming, mulching and plant­i­ng, and it was a plea­sure to have them at the house.  The gar­den looks FABULOUS because of all their help. <please come back!>

The Mys­te­ri­ous Gus Meyer
Between dig­ging up scoop on Lucas Place and the Camp­bell Fam­i­ly, there isn’t much Intre­pid Researcher Tom™  can’t find. Last week, he start­ed the quest to uncov­er more infor­ma­tion about Gus Mey­er, a devot­ed ser­vant who began work­ing at Camp­bell House as a gar­den­er in 1901, and he even­tu­al­ly worked his way up to be Hugh Camp­bel­l’s per­son­al assis­tant. After Hugh died in 1931, Gus stayed in the house and took care of Hugh’s broth­er Hazlett until he died in 1938. Gus con­tin­ued to live in and man­age the house until it final­ly opened as a muse­um five years lat­er. He signed the Muse­um’s guest book on its open­ing day, and we lost track of him after that. Intre­pid Researcher Tom™ has found infor­ma­tion on his fam­i­ly and what hap­pened to him after he left his job of over 40 years at Camp­bell House. We’ll make a blog post with all of his find­ings shortly.

Bring Mom to Camp­bell House for Moth­er’s Day
Stumped for what to get your dar­ling mom on Moth­er’s Day? Easy, bring her to our house for Arias in the After­noon, a gar­den par­ty we’re co-host­ing with Union Avenue Opera. Spend the after­noon relax­ing in our gar­den and lis­ten­ing to a spe­cial one-hour con­cert while enjoy­ing tea and nib­bles from our neigh­bors, the Lon­don Tea Room. It’s going to be a great event and if you bring your mom, you’ll be her favorite son or daugh­ter. We promise. Click here for tick­ets.

Urban Explor­ing 2.0: Muse­um Build­ing at the Mis­souri Botan­i­cal Garden
After the over­whelm­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of the post on our recent trek through the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Elec­tri­cal Sub­sta­tion, we’re going to try mak­ing Urban Explor­ing a reg­u­lar fea­ture. This week­end we had the chance to get inside the Muse­um Build­ing at the Botan­i­cal Gar­den, a struc­ture that’s closed to the pub­lic. A blog post fea­tur­ing pic­tures of the Muse­um Build­ing and Tow­er Grove House is com­ing this week.

That’s just some of what is hap­pen­ing at Camp­bell House. Check back with us for some excit­ing news on house paint­ing (!), the 2012 Free­dom’s Gate­way Sig­na­ture Event, and our Spring Mem­bers Par­ty. From the Camp­bell fam­i­ly to yours, have a stel­lar week!

Campbell Contemporaries » 4.5.12

One of the was­cal­ly wab­bits at City­gar­den. Alas, he does not have a sup­ply of choco­late, cream-filled eggs.

Look­ing for some­thing to do over the next cou­ple of weeks? Here are some staff rec­om­men­da­tions to keep your social cal­en­dar hop­ping (ter­ri­ble pun clear­ly intended):

Fri­day, April 6

Sat­ur­day, April 7

Sun­day, April 8

Thurs­day, April 12 through Sat­ur­day, April 14

Fri­day, April 13

Sat­ur­day, April 14 through Sun­day, April 15

Sat­ur­day, April 14

  • After you’re done run­ning and hang­ing out with art­sy intel­lec­tu­als at the Chase, sup­port Camp­bell House at our Mag­i­cal Spring Thing fundrais­er at the Mag­nif­i­cent Mahler Ballroom.

Hap­py Fri­day Eve, and be sure to send an email to shel­ley [at] camp­bell­house­mu­se­um [dot] org if you have a spe­cial soiree for us to fea­ture in our next Camp­bell Con­tem­po­raries install­ment in two weeks.

Monday Update » 3.26.12

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn with his unusu­al­ly shy Leo before our urban explor­ing field trip to the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Sub­sta­tion on Locust this morning.

Hap­py Mon­day, everyone!

We had a busy week­end, due in part to the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight mad­ness hap­pen­ing at the Dome. While our week­end man­ag­er takes a well-deserved break, here are some newsy bits and a few things we’ve got cook­ing over the next two weeks:

Camp­bell House Archi­tects Featured
Camp­bell House research vol­un­teer Tom Gron­ski’s arti­cle on the Camp­bell House archi­tects (Joseph C. Edgar and Thomas Waryng Walsh) earned top-billing in the Mis­souri Val­ley Chap­ter of Archi­tec­tur­al His­to­ri­an’s newslet­ter. Read all about it (and some oth­er beau­ti­ful local build­ings) here.  Way to go, Tom!

Field Trip to the St. Louis Tran­sit Com­pa­ny Substation
A long-vacant build­ing up Locust was built to house a big, giant bat­tery sys­tem for street­cars. It was con­struct­ed right before the 1904 World’s Fair because the city antic­i­pat­ed sub­stan­tial­ly more street­car traf­fic due to the influx of vis­i­tors. We’ll have a post about our vis­it to the old build­ing com­plete with pic­tures for you next week.

New Civ­il War Exhibit
Lind­sey’s plug­ging away on research, writ­ing, and find­ing objects for her new exhib­it on the Camp­bells dur­ing the Civ­il War. Shar­ing new research on Robert’s polit­i­cal lean­ings, slav­ery, and the impact of the war on the fam­i­ly and their friends, the exhib­it will open in the third floor gal­leries in ear­ly April. You won’t want to miss it!

A Few Good Interns
We have more intern inter­views booked, but we’d love to hear from you or some­one you know needs a sum­mer intern­ship. We’re not picky about your course of study because it takes all kinds to oper­ate a muse­um. Non­prof­it Man­age­ment? Muse­um Stud­ies? PR/Marketing? His­to­ry? Art? Come talk to us. Camp­bell House is a small place, so every­one — staff, vol­un­teers and interns — wear many hats. You’ll get to see all sides of how we run the busi­ness, and we promise you’ll have an awe­some expe­ri­ence here. Con­tact Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn at andy [at] camp­bell­house­mu­se­um [dot] org if you want to talk; we’d love to hear from you!

Upcom­ing Events
We’re work­ing on putting togeth­er two spec­tac­u­lar events that you won’t want to miss. In just a cou­ple of weeks, we’ll again be host­ing the Mag­i­cal Spring Thing at the Mahler Ball­room, which will fea­ture St. Louis Bal­let, Union Avenue Opera, the St. Louis Rag­timers, the Ball­room Acad­e­my of St. Louis. It’s going to be an unfor­get­table evening, so click here for more infor­ma­tion. On Moth­er’s Day (May 13th), we’re pleased to part­ner with Union Avenue Opera to bring you (and your mom!) Arias in the After­noon: A Vic­to­ri­an Gar­den Par­ty. While you enjoy scones, tarts and tea from the Lon­don Tea Room, Union Avenue Opera artists will ser­e­nade you with a spe­cial Moth­er’s Day pro­gram. For details, read all about it here.

50-cent piece appear­ances last week: 0

Another Magical Spring Thing

St. Louis Bal­let com­pa­ny dancers per­form at the 2010 Mag­i­cal Spring Thing.

We’ve got some big events com­ing up, and you’ll want to mark your cal­en­dar for the first one on April 14.

Anoth­er Mag­i­cal Spring Thing is the sec­ond install­ment of 2010’s uber-suc­cess­ful vari­ety show pro­duced by our very own Sam Clark. Fea­tur­ing the St. Louis Rag­timers, Union Avenue Opera, St. Louis Bal­let, and the Ball­room Acad­e­my of St. Louis, the evening will be a treat to the eyes and ears to raise mon­ey for new fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed envi­ron­men­tal and gar­den pro­gram­ming at Camp­bell House Museum.

Host­ed at the Mag­nif­i­cent Mahler Ball­room, the night will be an ele­gant evening that begins with gourmet hors d’oeurves and cock­tails at 7:00 with the show fol­low­ing at 8:00. After the per­for­mance, guests can enjoy a dessert bar and danc­ing on the ball­room floor.

We had a packed house in 2010, so make your reser­va­tions ear­ly! Tick­ets are $125, and pre­ferred seat­ing tick­ets are $150. Event spon­sor­ships are avail­able. For tick­ets, call us at the Muse­um at 314/421‑0325 or down­load the RSVP at our web­site.

Happy blog-iversary from Campbell House Museum!

1 year ago tomor­row, Camp­bell House Muse­um embarked on a new ven­ture — this blog.  For the past twelve months, we’ve post­ed a let­ter from “This week in his­to­ry”.  Since tomor­row is the 1 year anniver­sary of the blog’s cre­ation, we thought we’d com­mem­o­rate it by updat­ing you on the PRESENT at Camp­bell House!

First, the muse­um would like to thank the loy­al read­ers on this blog.  In 1 year, we’ve had 1,210 hits on this blog, far sur­pass­ing what we had orig­i­nal­ly hoped to achieve.  Thank you all so much for stick­ing with us!  Robert and Vir­ginia Camp­bell and their rel­a­tives can tru­ly come alive when you read their let­ters; we hope you’ve enjoyed get­ting to know the Camp­bell fam­i­ly and that you con­tin­ue to read what your “favorite char­ac­ters” write each week .  We would also like to thank those who have become a “fan” of Camp­bell House Muse­um on Face­book.  We start­ed the Face­book page at the same time we start­ed the blog, and over the course of a year we’ve reached 100 fans!   Both the Face­book page and the blog have increased our vis­i­bil­i­ty in St. Louis and the world; we tru­ly appre­ci­ate all your sup­port.  If you wish to keep up with Camp­bell House even more close­ly, you can also check out our brand new Twit­ter account, camp­bellh­mu­se­um, where we’ll be send­ing out quick tweets for excit­ing stuff in the museum!

Now, here’s an update on what’s hap­pen­ing at the muse­um.  Tomor­row, Sat­ur­day May 15, is our annu­al spring mem­ber’s par­ty.  If you are a mem­ber of Camp­bell House Muse­um, we hope you join us and bring a friend.  If you are not yet a mem­ber, we hope you con­sid­er join­ing ( http://stlouis.missouri.org/501c/chm/membership.htm ) and sup­port­ing our mis­sion of pre­serv­ing the Camp­bell story.

Our “Immi­gra­tion Adven­tures to Amer­i­ca” exhib­it has been up since Novem­ber and has been a great suc­cess!  To go with that exhib­it, we have pub­lished Shel­ley Satke’s tran­scrip­tion of Hugh Camp­bel­l’s 1818 jour­nal, doc­u­ment­ing his immi­gra­tion to Amer­i­ca.  The jour­nal is on sale in the muse­um’s gift shop for $5.95.  It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry, and we hope you all come see the exhib­it and buy the book!  Speak­ing of books, you can still pick up Patrick Mac­Cul­loch’s The Camp­bell Quest in the gift shop!  If you like the let­ters you’ve read here, you’ll love The Camp­bell Quest.   The sto­ries that Patrick tells about his rel­a­tives (some of whom are fea­tured on here) are so fas­ci­nat­ing that you won’t be able to put the book down!  Last­ly, the muse­um is proud to announce the pub­li­ca­tion of it’s upcom­ing chil­drens book, Wel­come to My House — The Camp­bell House by Kather­ine Heugat­ter, illus­trat­ed by Lau­ra Pel­sue.  Let ser­vant Gus Mey­er take your kinder­garten-3rd graders on a fun tour of the house, com­plete with activ­i­ties and pic­tures, and help them learn about the Camp­bell fam­i­ly in their own way!  The chil­drens book is about to be print­ed and will be on sale for $7.95 in the gift shop.   We hope you all come to the muse­um to see these new sto­ries and learn about the Camp­bell family.

Last­ly, we are so excit­ed to announce our new spring event.  On Sat­ur­day June 19, the Camp­bell House will host “A Mag­i­cal Spring Thing” at the Mag­nif­i­cent Mahler Ball­room!  This incred­i­ble night of enter­tain­ment will fea­ture the mag­ic of the cir­cus, the mag­ic of musi­cal the­ater, the mag­ic of dance, the mag­ic of opera, the mag­ic of illu­sion, and the mag­ic of light.  There will also be a live auc­tion fea­tur­ing sev­er­al mag­i­cal things, includ­ing 7 night beach­front accom­mo­da­tions in the Vir­gin Islands, a Michael East­man pho­to, and jew­el­ry from Tiffany and Co — who would­n’t want that?  Wine and hors d’oeu­vres will be served at 7 PM and the show begins at 8.  Tick­ets are $125 or $150 for pre­ferred seat­ing.  Cock­tail attire is pre­ferred and valet park­ing is avail­able.  All pro­ceeds from this event ben­e­fit the Camp­bell House Muse­um.   Please come enjoy this incred­i­ble night and sup­port Camp­bell House Museum!

Thank you all for stick­ing with us through the first year of the blog.  Hap­py blog-iver­sary from Camp­bell House Muse­um!  Here’s to the next twelve months of “This Week in History!”