Altenburg, Mo., women keep housekeeping tradition alive

ALTENBURG, Mo.

See slide show of "Altenburg's Finest"

Some of the Altenburg cleaning ladies posed Feb. 11 at the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum. (Kit Doyle)

Some of these women have been carpooling to Cape Girardeau for nearly 40 years to clean the houses of the doctors or dentists or business people who employ them. Many have worked for the same family all those years. They know many of Cape Girardeau's secrets but aren't about to tell them. Most have keys to the houses they clean and, in some ways, have helped raise children who are not their own.

The children in the family Arleen Schlichting cleans for call her Grandma.

Altenburg's German heritage has given them a deserved reputation for hard work, immaculate cleanliness and honesty. "They trust us," said Myrtle Kuehnert.

At one time as many as 100 women in Altenburg were members of the Bucket Brigade, as they call themselves. Their numbers are dwindling because younger women in Altenburg are interested in other kinds of work. The youngest of the carpoolers is in her 50s, the oldest in her 80s. Most started housekeeping once their own children went to school or were out of the house.

Some clean only one day a week, some two or three days. Helen Kuntze goes to Cape Girardeau to clean houses five days a week.

The tradition started during the Great Depression, when many Altenburg girls went to St. Louis to work as cooks and nannies for wealthy families to help their own families survive. As Cape Girardeau grew, the tradition handed down from mothers to daughters for generations transferred south, enabling the women to return home each day.

They've never been thought of or thought of themselves as maids, said Carla L. Jordan, director of the Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum in Altenburg. "It's always been an honorable profession."

The women's own homes are as tidy as the homes they work in and have nice art and beautiful carpeting, Jordan said. "They learned that in the homes they worked in."

Earlier this week, 16 of the women gathered at the museum to talk about their work. Some are related to each other. All know one another well.

Alice Hecht, Charlotte Wachter, Mary Pinkerton, Arleen Schlichting, Lillian Fiehler, Betty Wachter, Myrtle Kuehnert, Louise Petzoldt, Elvera Weber, Dorothy Pilz, Irene Palisch, Doris Weber, Marie Gerler, Helen Kuntze, Betty Weber and Ruth Bremer are almost all descended from the 700 Saxon Lutherans who immigrated to Perry County from Germany in 1839 and helped form the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. As girls most spoke German before learning English. Some have never been to Germany but they speak with German accents.

Myrtle Kuehnert's employer once implored her not to cuss her out in German. "You were talking to the vacuum cleaner, weren't you?" her employer said. Kuehnert answered affirmatively.

Theirs is a sisterhood of hard work -- Thou shalt not be lazy is the 11th commandment in Altenburg, Jordan said -- and laughter. Their well-polished stories about adventures in housekeeping provoke eruptions of glee.

Most, but not all of, the relationships between housekeepers and employers are long-standing. Sometimes housekeepers are traded by families, almost like baseball players. Mary Pinkerton quit one of her jobs when her cleaning was subjected to the "white glove test." "He couldn't treat me like that," she said.

Almost all live in Altenburg or next door in Frohna. Pinkerton is from Pocahontas and has been cleaning houses in Cape Girardeau since 1972. She is known for being able to fix almost anything, including plumbing, lawnmowers and cars, even though she can't drive.

Decades of housekeeping have taught them about the vicissitudes of cleaning and life. They know the only way to clean a shower is to get in the shower. The 4-year-old she was baby-sitting locked Arleen Schlichting in the shower one day. He couldn't unlatch the door but handed her a phone. She called her employer, the late Dr. Joe Low, a speech professor at Southeast Missouri State University, who announced to his class that he had to go home and let his housekeeper out of the shower.

A couple of the students in Low's class were from Altenburg, so the story of Schlichting's misadventure got around town.

Carpooling can be an adventure in itself. The Bucket Brigade has lost control of cars and dogs and at least one woman was unintentionally left in Cape Girardeau. Some were in a car that got stuck returning to Altenburg after a snowstorm. When the passengers got out to push and freed the car, the driver drove away. Dorothy Pilz said they never did find out why. More laughter.

Most of the Altenburg women started cleaning houses because their children had started school or left home and because their families needed the money. "We counted every penny," Ruth Bremer said.

In some ways the family they clean for is their second family. On their cleaning days they might make soup for the family to eat when they get home. They baby-sit, take the dog for a walks, bake and do laundry. Elvera Weber lugged 50-pound blocks of cheese when she used to clean My Daddy's Cheesecake in Cape Girardeau. "I had a strong back and a weak mind," she said.

Almost everyone they've worked for has been nice to them, the women said. "It did us all good to see how the other end of the world lived," Bremer said.

The Altenburg women aren't the kind of housekeepers who don't do windows. They might draw the line at cleaning up after pets. Their German heritage does not allow pets in their own houses.

They learned many skills useful to their own lives. When she was only 14, Schlichting was helping a mother care for her babies. Kuehnert said her cleaning job has been a blessing in her life. For instance, her job enabled her to accompany the family she works for to Hilton Head Island, S.C., for a week.

For anyone who wants a hard worker who can really clean and is honest, the answer is simple, Mary Gerler said. "You need a lady from Altenburg."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137