Life in Black and White

Hi, friends! How have you been? How was your Summer? We’re still over here plugging away. In the months it’s been since I updated, we renovated the laundry room, painted the living room, and added a dishwasher. It was a busy summer. 😀 I realized a few days ago that I’ve been saving all my […]

1904 World’s Fair Map

Hello, everyone! I can’t believe it’s taken me until the very end of March to make my first post of 2019! I don’t know if I should apologize or just shrug and laugh… because that’s just life sometimes. I’ll just cut to the chase. Last night I got the coolest email from the curator of […]

Meet the Romeiser Children

I can’t believe in the year I’ve been blogging about our house, I haven’t done a full post where I introduce ALL the Romeiser children. We’ve been spending this time researching them individually and trying to collect enough information so that we could do singular posts about each person… but since that is slow going, […]

SCCHS Haunted Walking Tours

Good morning, friends! Last night we wrapped up being featured speakers for the St Clair County Historical Society haunted walking tours. The theme was ‘Belleville Horror Story’ and we were asked to represent our home by sharing research and stories, along with former owners Chris and Nikki Hettenhausen. All said, we stood out front of […]

Stuff we’ve found: More Goodies!

Up next on my favorite installment of Stuff We’ve Found are these beauties! Another glass bottle, a short rim cartridge, a frequent buyer punchcard from Romeiser’s, dominoes, and really, really old glass. Husband has been doing some rewiring work on our 2nd floor and to access some of those electrical lines, he’s been crawling in […]

Shopping Small on Main Street

Gooooood mornning Belleville! I’ve been woefully inferior about maintaining any sort of regular posting schedule, which I absolutely apologize for! I’ll get right on fixing that. 😉 This morning, I want to share with you an incredible photo from the Romeiser Company during their heyday! These beautiful street fairs were wildly popular… and honestly, not […]

Baby Julia

Last Friday we spent the afternoon doing something completely out of character: traipsing around a cemetery. Walnut Hill Cemetery in Belleville, IL is the eternal resting place of many of Belleville’s original families, including the Hilgards. Theodore and Emma Hilgard were Elise’s parents– you’ll remember Elise as the matriarch of the family who originally lived […]

Researching the History of Your Home!

Hey everyone! Today I had the pleasure of speaking at Belleville’s Museum Day activities. I was at the Garfield Saloon talking about how to research the history of your home. I figured these would be great notes to share with all of you. I don’t claim to be an expert in historical research whatsoever, but […]

Belleville News Democrat Feature

Last week, I sat down with Heidi Wiechert to tell the story of Emma Romeiser Pannes… today the story went live. It is accompanied by a video interview with Derik Holtmann that narrates a bit of her and John’s life set against the backdrop of what they’re most known for: that they died on the […]

Daughters

Imagine the twinkle in a Father’s eye as he gazes upon his sweet children. Picture the care and devotion that went into nurturing tiny loves, joy felt in watching them reach milestones, the swelling of pride as they learned to read and sing and dance. Imagine an outing to a photographer in St. Louis specifically […]