Here’s a gig you might not have heard of in St. Louis: Weekend manager at the Campbell House Museum. This is a 169-year-old mansion located at the corner of Locust & 15th.
Let’s not forget the curiosity of the building itself, a townhouse among highrises that hides a bizarre display of Gilded Age opulence inside. The epic biography of Robert Campbell, a former resident, is also worth mentioning. He immigrated from Ireland in 1822 to America; joined the fur trade out West; fought and befriended Native Americans. He settled in St. Louis’ most prestigious suburb, expanded his real estate and banking holdings, and hosted President Ulysses S. Grant. He also saw his children, 10–perish in childhood. There was an international scramble for $69 million worth of assets, which included this house which was made a private museum in 1943.
Does this sound like a unique place to work? The weekend manager is an example of a unique employee. This person leads tours on Saturdays and Sundays but lives full-time in the brick carriage house at the back, where the male servants used their beds.
Andy Hahn, museum executive director, said that turnover is quite high. In the last two decades, at least 10 people have been through this process: a costume designer and a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra staffer. The museum will recruit the next person if one leaves. Hahn says, “We’ve had quite the parade over the years.”
Victoria L. Schultz is the current weekend manager. She gave a private tour through the carriage house one morning. It still has a whiff of mud and manure at ground level, as well as two carriages. Schultz lives in the studio apartment on the second floor above them. She spends her spare time there, drinking tea and writing steampunk novels. She says that she feels culturally fed, sitting at her dining table. The whole unit is shaking because the outside construction crew is working on the museum’s welcome center. “It’s almost like my brain is on fire, and I don’t have the time or the energy to put out the flames.
Her inspiration house is filled with original Campbell family furniture. The 53 interior photos taken in the 1880s have been used to recreate the rooms. Schultz believes the house is haunted. Schultz believes that the place is haunted. She saw the motion sensor light turn on in the kitchen bedroom in November. However, she checked her phone’s surveillance feed and confirmed that the house was empty.
David Newmann was weekend manager from 2012-to 2015. He says he enjoyed imagining the past caretakers. He woke up in the studio and realized that his coachmen and groundskeepers had brewed coffee on a wood stove only steps away. They would have mowed the lawn outside, a task that is now done by weekend managers. Newmann says that he felt a connection with the former staff. “Thankfully, we now possess power tools.”
We now have details about the original labor force. Many of these women were from Ireland. They prepared up to 60 meals per day in the kitchen. Their ears were tuned to the wall-mounted bells of servants that jingled whenever someone pulled a string in another room (yes, it was just like in Downton Abbey).
Researchers recently discovered the story of Eliza Rone who arrived in slavery and was the only person to have lived in this house. She was a nursemaid. Robert freed her in 1857, possibly at the request of Lucy Ann Winston Kyle, his mother-in-law. Lucy Ann Winston Kyle was a Quaker who hated slavery and had just moved in. She remained a paid worker for a good ten years after Rone’s emancipation. Later, she settled in Kansas City where her husband John founded a black mason lodge and her son worked for a black newspaper. She wrote a thank you letter to Campbell’s bachelor sons that she had helped raise in 1918.
Megan Power was the weekend manager for 2004-2007 and this new research is now available for museum tours. Megan Power, who was weekend manager from 2004 to 2007, said that the best part of her job was the ability to connect with people in the present. She was fifteen years younger than she was then. She and her friends used to relax in the Campbell House garden’s cool shadows on hot summer nights and try the liqueur she had made from roses. She got to know senior museum volunteers during the day. Over time, she observed how the museum’s senior volunteers dealt with the loss of friends and spouses. She says, “I learned a lot of life lessons.”
This institution may not be immune to collisions of race, age, and class. Newmann was a twenty-something man without much money who enjoyed banging on the drums in his carriage house. He had very few neighbors. After his rock band had finished their song, he and his friends looked out of the window to see a group of homeless people below. They applauded.
Schultz has been living there since March. Schultz has been there since March. She intends to stay for a while. “I would have to be a millionaire to want to leave.”