From the Morgue: The life of a steeplejack

Terms such as haberdasher, milkman, rag picker and printer’s devil have faded from our day-to-day vocabulary, as those vocations have disappeared.

Another occupation, which seems to have been replaced by workers using bucket trucks, is "steeplejack". The word’s use in this newspaper is almost non-existent. In fact, aside from “Out of the Past” columns, "steeplejack" has only appeared once in the pages of the Southeast Missourian for the past 34 years, and that was in a 2005 obituary for a gentleman named Charles Crumbaugh, who was “a retired self-employed steeplejack.”

But 50 years ago, Boyd Hobbs was still making a living repairing flagpoles and painting church steeples and other public buildings, hanging precariously from a bosun's chair. I found a story about Hobbs in the May 14, 1975, Southeast Missourian. Written by the newspaper’s newest hire, Fred Lynch, it offers a glimpse of a steeplejack’s life.

Steeplejack Boyd Hobbs paints a window frame in the cupola of the Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau in May 1975.Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian archive

Ups and downs of a steeplejack

By FRED LYNCH

Missourian Photographer-Writer

“A man’s gotta eat,” answered Boyd Hobbs on why he is a steeplejack-of-all-trades. Lowering himself on a crude rope chair from the top of Common Pleas Courthouse, the 61-year-old pigeon perch painter paused to ponder his professional position.

“I guess I’ve painted about every flagpole in Cape Girardeau,” Hobbs said. “I’m more than a painter. I’ve fixed the chains on some of the poles.”

For over 30 years, Mr. Hobbs has been up one steeple and down another in several states, including Alabama and Florida. In the spring and summer months he said he has all the work he can handle both near and far from home. He lives on Cape Girardeau Route 1.

“I’ve gone into towns and told people that I could paint their church steeples and flagpoles, and I would usually get the job right then,” Mr. Hobbs said.

Steeplejack Boyd Hobbs secures his platform atop Common Pleas Court while his helper, Ernest Slinkard of Advance, paints below him in May 1975.Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian archive

He likes to be in high places and also inside high places. Mr. Hobbs has painted many smokestacks inside and out during his career. Before painting them he brushes the soot out “just like a chimney sweep,” he said. From the top he lowers himself down the stack.

“It seems silly to paint the inside of a smokestack because it soon gets dirty again,” he added.

During the winter, the steeplejack takes to the trees, climbing them for trimming. He has had no accidents while painting, but he said he has fallen twice about 20 feet from the trees. The first time he broke a foot. About seven years ago in Farmington, he fell and broke the other foot.

The hardest job he could remember was erecting a radio tower 140 feet high on the Jackson courthouse square without using special equipment. His son, Lonnie, who lives in Advance, helped raise the steel sections by pulley to the top. Mr. Hobbs was perched on the top to bolt the sections together.

Just as a pilot would rather be flying, Mr. Hobbs does not prefer to work on the ground. An advocate of enjoying one’s vocation, he said, “I’ll keep working this way as long as I am able.”

Hobbs was still “able” three years later, when Missourian writer/photographer Philip Nash caught up with him as he painted the window frames of the old Opera House at Broadway and Lorimier Street, now home to Katy O'Ferrell's Irish Pub and Restaurant.

That article indicated Hobbs had begun his career in about 1943 while living in St. Louis, when he worked on a smokestack. Hobbs noted: “I work when I want to for as long as I want and when I feel like doin’ nothing, I do it. But I’m not very good at that. I like to keep busy,” he said.

Hobbs passed away later that same year on Sunday, Oct. 30, 1978, in Cape Girardeau. While the Missourian published only the briefest of death notices for him, more details of his life can be found on FamilySearch.org and FindaGrave.com.

The former notes that he was born in Stoddard County Oct 20, 1913, the son of Jacob Rolland and Artie Necie Ridge Hobbs. He married Ruby Belle Probst on May 31, 1941, in Cape Girardeau. She passed away July 11, 1962, in Cape Girardeau. Both were buried at New Lorimier Cemetery.

It’s also interesting to note that Boyd and Ruby were the parents of Rockabilly Hall of Fame member Lou Hobbs.

Sharon Sanders is the librarian at the Southeast Missourian.