From Households to the Street: The Neighborhood and Residents during the Rohde Years.

Beyond the Rohde family, the building was home to a succession of tenants. Among the earliest documented residents on the 1924 side were Charles and Lina Hoffman, who were living there at the time of the 1900 census.¹ Charles’s story, however, adds a layer of mystery to the building’s history. After vanishing from the home without a word in 1897, it was nearly a year before his mother received a letter explaining that he had enlisted in Volunteer Company L of the 12th Division and was serving in the Philippines.² These are the types of hiccups often encountered in historical research; while the news reached the papers in 1900, military records indicate he was actually discharged in 1898. Regardless of the conflicting dates, the story provides a vivid window into his life. City directories continued to list Charles at 1924 Sidney as late as 1903, marking the final trace of the family at that location

St. Louis Republic article about Hoffman, December 21, 1900³

From U.S., Spanish American War Volunteer Index⁴

Also on the 1924 side were the Siebeneichers. From about 1910 to 1914, Ferdinand Siebeneicher lived in the building with his wife, Amelie, and their daughters, Mercedes and Lillian.⁵ The home was a center for family life; on one occasion, it was decorated in silver leaves and white carnations for a surprise party celebrating the couple’s silver wedding anniversary, attended by twenty-six neighbors and relatives.⁶

Sadly, in 1914, Ferdinand, a core maker who crafted molds for metal castings, died of throat cancer, leaving Amelie a widow. Rather than relocating, Amelie remained in the building with one of her daughters as part of a multigenerational household until at least 1924, maintaining an independent home and establishing a long-term presence at the address.

We know that Amelia remained at the address until at least 1924 because of a frightening accident that occurred on a rainy night that year. While crossing Eighteenth and Sidney Streets with an umbrella shielding her face, Amelie walked directly into the path of an automobile making a left turn. Typical of the era’s often hurried reporting, the local newspaper incorrectly identified her as “Mrs. Aurelia Siebeneicher,” though the listed address at 1924 Sidney Street confirmed her identity. Despite sustaining a scalp laceration that required a trip to the City Hospital, she recovered and returned to the home where she had already spent over a decade.

Another long-term resident of the building was the Suhre family. Minnie Suhre, a widow, headed the household at 1926 Sidney Street along with her brother, her sister, and three grown sons. By 1910, one of her sons had moved out, but Minnie and the rest of the family continued to live together, forming a multigenerational household.

Sophia Rohde and her mother, Caroline Gamolo, were part of a similar family network. In 1910, Caroline lived with Sophia and two grandchildren; by 1920, however, she had moved to a nearby sanitarium, where she died the following year of chronic myocarditis. Together, these households reflect the extended family arrangements that were common in the neighborhood.

The building’s longest residents were the Hartoebbens. They began renting on the 1924 side from Sophia Rohde in roughly 1931, and eventually became owners of the property after her death in 1949. Bernard and Mary Hartoebben lived there with two of their children, Louis (24) and Helen (15), on the second floor. Bernard worked as a bottler at a brewery, while Louis was employed in a shoe factory. At least one member of the family remained in the house until 1995, when Louis passed away, marking the end of the Hartoebbens’ remarkable sixty-year presence in the building.

While the Hartoebbens provided a steady anchor for the building for over half a century, they were far from its only occupants during the first half of the 1900s. Between 1903 and 1949, the house saw a constant rotation of residents who celebrated at least nine weddings within its walls. Many of these individuals, such as Maria Moser in 1933 and Grace Boyer in 1938, appear in the home’s history only briefly through their marriage to the Gruber boys, Herman and Melvin. Similarly, Charles and Oliver DuFaux were never recorded in a census or directory at this address, yet their marriage license applications in the late 1940s explicitly linked them to the Sidney Street house. These milestones, alongside the births of children to the Richard and Kozdron families, highlight how the property functioned as a foundational site for many who were just starting their adult lives.

The history of the residence is also marked by more private stories that exist outside of official city ledgers. Louise Jannopoulo represents another such “hidden” history; though her name never appeared on a census or directory, she was inextricably tied to the address for decades. Following a documented suicide attempt in the house in 1921, she eventually moved to the City Sanitarium for the final four years of her life. Yet, upon her death in 1945, her death certificate still claimed 1926 Sidney Street as her “usual address,” suggesting a deep-rooted connection that official records failed to capture. Along with the final departures of neighbors like Robert DuFaux in 1950, these fragments reveal a building that served as a profound center for the community’s most personal, if sometimes unrecorded, moments.

Figure X. House History: Personal Milestones 1900-1950

While the house saw families come and go, the neighborhood around them continued to grow and change, reflecting broader patterns of urban development in St. Louis.

1. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, St. Louis, Ward 12, St. Louis (Independent City), Missouri, roll 894, page 9, enumeration district 0187, accessed January 20, 2026, Ancestry.com. ↩︎
2. “Turned Up in the Philippeans,” The St. Louis Republic, 21 Dec. 1900, p. 4 ↩︎
3. “Turned Up in the Philippeans,” The St. Louis Republic, 21 Dec. 1900, p. 4. ↩︎
4. U.S., Spanish American War Volunteers Index to Compiled Military Service Records, 1898; Record for Charles Hoffman, 1st Missouri Infantry, Company L; accessed via Ancestry.com. ↩︎
5. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, St. Louis, Ward 14, Saint Louis City, Missouri, roll T624_818, page 4a, enumeration district 0230, FHL microfilm 1374831, accessed January 20, 2026, Ancestry.com. ↩︎
6. “A surprise party was given Mr. and Mrs. Ferd Siebeneicher,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, [Insert Date of Paper], Part 3, p. 7; digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org). ↩︎