B-125 and B-126

Older home

Owner: Andrew Schlote
1940 Census: Andrew Schlote, age 64, farmer
                         Gussie Schlote, age 50

                         Orestes Schlote, age 36, farmer
                         Catherine Schlote, age 24
Location: 697310   4287397  (in Busch C. A. on the southeastern edge of Lake 35)
Acreage: 162.82
Price: $18,487.80
Property sold on January 27, 1941
Cemetery: Schlote
Today: open cistern, foundations of all buildings pictured, sidewalks, steps of newer home                                                                        
             Just over two miles due west from Weldon Spring, Andrew and Gussie Schlote, their older son Victor and his wife Sylvia, and their younger son Orestes and his wife Catherine, farmed 164 acres in the years leading up to 1940.  To reach their property, a person would drive down Highway 94 past the Earl Hoffman place, now the location of Francis Howell High School, and turn northwest on an unnamed road which went past Enterprise School and the homes of the Stumbergs and other families.

            Orestes Schlote, whose nickname was Toots, was the fourth generation of Schlotes to work this land.  His great-grandfather, Andreas, a shoemaker, came to the area with his two sons, August and George, from Germany in 1857; Andreas’ wife died during the ocean crossing.  In 1875 George Schlote owned 117 acres, which his father and brother helped him farm.  By 1905 August added another 47 acres just to the northeast of George’s parcel.  George’s son, Andrew, who was born in 1875, was sixty-five years old in 1940, when he and family lost their homestead of 164 acres to the war effort.

From left: Orestes Schlote with son Kenneth, Velma Schlote (daughter of
Victor and Sylvia), Andrew and Gussie Schlote, Myrtle (Schlote) and Harold
Sudbrock, and Victor and Sylvia Schlote

            Even today the number of building foundations still in evidence indicates an active, financially successful farm.  Look around and you will find the ruins of the smokehouse.  The Schlotes milked cows in the large, square barn, selling the milk to a local dairy.  They also raised cattle.  The long, narrow barn was their chicken coop and also sometimes used for raising sheep.  The Schlotes also had a busy time during the fall when their threshing business was in high demand.  The Schlotes’ grain crops were mostly corn and wheat, along with some oats and barley.  Besides raising livestock and crops, the Schlotes operated a steam-driven sawmill next to one of their ponds.  The farm’s older home was where Andrew and Gussie lived.  The newer, second home, a few yards away, was the residence of Victor’s family and then Orestes’. 

            Andrew Schlote, who played the fiddle, was a man who was very careful with his money.  He was very fond of horses and loved to drive a team.  Schlote, however, never learned to drive a car and, even though he owned the threshing machinery, he always left it up to his sons to drive the tractor. 

Newer home

            When the War Department purchased the Schlote farm in 1940, Victor and Orestes had already recently left the farm, Victor moving with his family to Weldon Spring and Orestes and his family moving to Millwood in Lincoln County.  When Andrew Schlote agreed to a sale price with the government agent in the fall of 1940, he believed he retained rights to forty acres of virgin white oak timber on the property.  He therefore sold it to a logger.  Several farmers in the TNT area did the same.  Eventually Schlote and the other farmers had to give the lumber money to the government.

            Andrew and Gussie Schlote received their money for their land before the 150 parcels were condemned, so they were able to purchase property just a few miles away from the Schlote homestead.  They spent the rest of their lives living on a small farm near the intersection of Highways 40 and K.

           

           

Smokehouse

            

           

           

Garage

Barn

Barn with stone cistern