Joe Boman

Meeting with Joe Boman.
September 4, 1999
Bob Corbett, interviewer

Joe Boman was born in Dogtown in 1933 and raised at 6449 Plateau. He left the neighborhood by 1951, but has fond memories of growing up here. He described it as being a place where, despite the troubles others were having (in the depression), he was able to have a wonderful childhood.

Joe told me about his Grandmother, born Peopsel, in Germany, she had two brothers who immigrated to the U.S. and then helped other members of their family come to St. Louis. As a 7 year old girl she came alone on a ship in 1890. Living in south St. Louis, she married Lorenz, another German from Strassbourg. They moved to Dogtown and purchased a farm that included the present day Ripple Ave. (just a block west of Hampton in West Park). The farm included Ripple and land below. They sold off parcels of land but kept some rental property and lived at 1333 Ripple. In another place in this work I have written about the Icarian community in Cheltenham. Joe has memories as a boy of standing on that hillside in his grandmother's yard, and looking out to the south. He was able to see the buildings that the Icarians had built, and at that time he used to watch a dog which often came out on a second story walk way and circled the building.

Joe's mother worked at the rectory and was the typist for the LET'S GO of 1925 to 1931. Father O'Connor had a set bound for her and it is today a family treasure. It was he who loaned those books to me. Now that I've read through them I can certainly understand why Joe and his brother regard them as a family heirloom