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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Opportunity Doesn’t Knock… it Rings the Doorbell
I can honestly say that I never once in my life pictured an afternoon spent researching the history of the doorbell. But, it’s still cold outside (surprise, surprise), so what else am I going to do? Clean? Yeah… right. Recently, local Belleville history enthusiast and President of the Belleville Historical Society Larry Betz contacted me […]
The Belleville Library: Part II
Last week, we introduced you to the connection between the Romeisers and the Belleville Public Library. Missed the first post? Check it out here! And here… is the rest of the story. At the end of Part I, you learned about how monies from leftover Romeiser Company stock had been donated to the library by […]
