If John Albury Bryan was the father of the restoration of Lafayette Square, it might be fair to ask who the mother was. The answer is most likely Ruth Kamphoefner, and rightly so. However, there were movers before Ruth moved to the Square in 1972. Consider the fascinating lady that lived about 100 feet from Bryan on Benton Place. She died eight weeks before him, and the passing of these two must have resonated in the neighborhood. Let’s take a time trip back and look in on Henrietta “Retta” Strantz Reed.
An Opportune Friendship
Retta Strantz Reed was born in 1895. Eighty-one years later her obituary referred to her as the ‘Mayor’ of Benton Place. Her funeral procession led through Lafayette Square and past her longtime home at 35 Benton Place. Having served as a private in the U.S. Army during World War I, she is buried at Jefferson Barracks.
To tell you Retta’s story, I need to first introduce Carrie Jacobs Bond. She was a prolific songwriter, responsible for this memorable nugget, sung by the original Bert and Ernie (a cabbie and a cop) in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”.
Carrie wrote over 200 songs and designed the cover art for most of her sheet music. She was the first person to sell over a million copies of sheet music. By virtue of self-publishing, every word of every song remained the property of Carrie Jacobs Bond.
A surprisingly tough and ambitious widow from Chicago, she once survived by hawking painted plates, while slowly selling off everything but her piano. When success came and money was no longer a fantasy, she moved to Hollywood and took the young and recently widowed Retta on as a traveling companion.
In Hollywood, Retta found work where Carrie was scoring films, at the Fairbanks-PIckford-Chaplin United Artists Studios. In 1922, she had a small (and uncredited) role in the first big production of “Robin Hood”. She was paid above scale due to her ability to ride both a horse and a motorcycle.
A Bail Bondsperson on Benton Place
Returning to St Louis several years later, with a self-confidence perhaps nurtured by her association with Carrie (and Robin Hood?), she became a special deputy with the State Fish And Game department and held that post until 1936, when the department was restructured as the Conservation Commission.
By 1930, with a new political fire in her belly, Retta Reed ran for 7th Ward committee person in South St. Louis. Unsuccessful, but undeterred, she became a notary and bail bondsperson. Her bonding business specialized in dealing with trucking companies whose employees incurred driving violations. She became and remained a familiar presence in the municipal courts for decades.
In 1942 she ran for justice of the peace, again unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, over in Benton Place, the state of once-exclusive homes had diminished from palatial to downright affordable. Property values trended downward with each sale. In the earliest days of 35 Benton Place, Montgomery Blair sold the undeveloped lot to William Maurice. Maurice’s brother John designed the house there as well as the (no longer existing) Ludlow Mansion across the street. A giant tornado in 1896 ruined the park and Lafayette Square in general. In 1900, with many betting against a full recovery for Lafayette Square, ownership of #35 passed to Dr. A.H. Lewis, the man behind Natures Remedy laxative. That’s Lewis below:
The omnipresent amateur historian William Swekosky pointed out in his personal notes that Dr. Lewis was, among other things, a collector of string and possessed “an immense ball on his desk, saved over a period of years, that he intended to reuse.” Five home sales later, 35 Benton Place found a buyer in the dauntless Retta who, against the grain of neighborhood decline, moved there in 1940 and stayed for the next 36 years.
Controlling The North End of The Place
With the property, Retta assumed ownership of the 30-foot high wall that separates Benton Place from Hickory Street below. It was originally built in 1887 to isolate the affluent residential area from the hustle and flow of Schnaiders Beer Garden. By 1903, the beer garden was cleared for development of Roberts Johnson and Rand Shoe Company (now the Lofts At Lafayette Square). To this day, half the wall remains the property of 35 Benton Place. Swekosky referred to the budding real estate investor Reed as “small but very active”.
In 1946, she bought and razed the 10 room red brick Ludlow Mansion at 40 Benton Place. It had been vacant and vandalized over the preceding five years. Benton Place seemed to be slowly falling apart. In the same year, a city ordinance made the only car path there a public thoroughfare. By 1948, with that street newly repaired and paved, Benton Place residents began contesting the street status again. Retta led the effort to formalize city control, claiming that “holes in the street became canyons” under private management. Expressing concern for her two daughters, she wanted the city to install and maintain streetlights as well. Proponents of repeal held that free public use of their street was a violation of their privacy. Alderman Joe Slay requested that the city hold a public meeting for residents, to “let them fight it out.”
A compromise was struck, and as part of that, St. Louis City agreed to furnish streetlights (still there today), to be turned off at 10 o’clock pm by a switch Retta controlled at 35 Benton Place. In his notes, Swekosky alleges that she cheated whenever her daughters stayed out late, and kept the lights on until they returned. He noted, “the rest of the place would kick, as they did not like to help her pay the light bill.”
With a Bee in Her Bonnet
Swekosky, a reliable source of colorful anecdotes, wrote that Retta “raises bees on her lot, and tropical fishes, takes care of a blinded vet of the Japanese area and raises hell when other property owners do not kick in with their share of the light bill.” He incongruously added that one of Reed’s daughters, Mary, “is a dancer for KSD television, and her other daughter, Lola, is married to a boat builder on Lake Of The Ozarks and flies to the foot of Market Street in a water plane, riding to #35 after calling her mother almost every week”.
In 1949, she ran for 7th Ward Alderperson again, losing to first-time candidate Ray Leisure. In June of that year, she was mentioned in the Post Dispatch when a nail keg she improvised to house some squirrels was taken over by a colony of her bees. She kept seventeen hives on her now spacious property at the north end of Benton Place.
A queen bee and her entourage moved into this new residence “designed to hold 100 pounds of nails or eight squirrels.” Retta Reed stated that she could “no more count the number of bees than I could the number of beans in a fishbowl.” The squirrels moved to another empty nail keg Retta attached to a tree, joining a menagerie consisting of “three dogs, about fifty chickens, a number of pigeons and Minnie The Moocher, a cat that created a furor by having successive litters in the Municipal Courts building two years earlier.”
Retta was married and widowed three times. Her first marriage, to John Heggi resulted in four children. Her second husband was William Strantz, whom she met in Los Angeles in 1922. Lola and Mary were the children from this marriage. After his death in 1937, she met and married Earl Reed. Earl was able to keep up with Retta for many years and passed away in 1964. By this time Retta was seventy, and slowing a bit herself. She continued to be a force on Benton Place but was winding down operations.
Hostess To The Police Force
Her home at 35 Benton Place became a haven for policemen looking to take a break, and Retta’s house became an early take on the substation concept. This proved a welcoming place for coffee, lunches, and conversation. Retta Reed always had doughnuts and hot coffee available for the police, firemen, and needy neighbors.
By the early 1970’s, Retta moved to assisted living. She was quoted as saying, “This place is nice, but it’s sad that I can’t see my coppers anymore”.
When she passed away in 1976, both the police district commander and the St. Louis Chief of Police attended the funeral. Chief Eugene Camp eulogized her as “ a great asset to her neighborhood. She has helped poor people”. A longtime court veteran commented that “at the time she was the only woman professional bondsman. I never knew anybody to say a bad word about her, even other bondsmen, and THAT is unusual, She did the business right”.
Who among us can squeeze as much from the time we get? I admire this gal, and researching Retta Reed began to feel like hanging out at #35, sipping coffee and brushing away the occasional bee while listening to some old tune from the Carrie Jacobs Bond songbook.
Deliberate Foreshadowing Note: Digging into the history of the abandoned house Retta razed at 40 Benton Place resulted in a wild tale. Stay tuned.
Thanks to research sources including:
National Public Radio – https://www.npr.org/2009/08/29/…/remembering-composer-carrie-jacobs-bond
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Jacobs-Bond
The St Louis Post Dispatch – June 8 1942, November 17 1946, January 29th 1948, March 9 1949, June 1 1949, August 27 1964, October 20 1976,
The History Bucket for the photo of Carrie Jacobs Bond
eBay for the Natures Remedy tin photo
Find A Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/81367138/henrietta-amelia-heggi,_strantz,_reed)
Loved this one! She seemed like quite the woman!
Thanks for a great break from our frightening daily news reality. Always love a great local history read.
Especially with photos. What a great life.
Agreed! Thanks for reading, Mary Beth.
Without all those contentious, obstinate and strong-willed fore-bearers, there would be no ‘us’.
Thank you, Mike
Wonder what became of Lola and Mary.
Live wire Lola Deloris Strantz Schiller passed away in 2018 at the age of 95. She’s buried in JB Cemetery. A magnificently detailed bio is at ‘Find a Grave’:. Her brother Bill lived in Affton and passed in 1980, age 71. Can’t find any detail on Mary, and I wonder if she might have stayed in NYC after moving there in the 1940s. Incidentally, Lola is credited with helping to deflect the course of Interstate 44 south in 1972, saving Lafayette Square.The reference to the 1975 “felonious building inspector” is another of my essays.
My mother Lola got remarried in 2003 at the age of 80 and she passed away in 2018 at the age of 95. Meredith passed away in 2020.
I am the daughter of Fred Heggi her son of the first marriage. Lola and Mary were my aunts. Lola became the owner of #35 Benton Place after my grandmother’s death. She was active in the preservation of Benton place. She carried on Retta’s passion for Lafayette square. Mary went to New York and became a model and eventually ended in California married to a television executive. Lola lived to be 94 ( died 2018) and Mary 96 (died 2021)
Hi, Susan;
Wow; thanks for sharing that. I’m glad you ran across your aunt and grandmom in my essay. I love that house on Benton Place; perched like it is, high over Hickory Street. Wishing you all the best.
I lived there in 1985. I would walk down the alley to the house on Hickory that I purchased in 1984 and was rehabbing. Chief Camp dropped by one day in an attempt to visit with Lola. Lola’s son Eric Strutman lives in St. Louis County. Lola also owned the vacant lot across the street and the house two residences south of #35 Benton Place. The neighbors were upset that I would park my van and cars in the cul de sac and the city put up no parking signs, which I think was eventually rescinded.
Like Retta, I ran for committeeman and was the Republican committeeman in the 7th ward.
Thanks for sharing that, Gary. I’ve heard that Lola was quite the character.
I grew up in this house! My parents rented it for years after Retta died. I was terrified of the basement which had a huge cage around a door that was barred Off and locked multiple times! My parents said it went to the tunnels under the street. Which is where the door to nowhere in the side of the wall is supposed to go. The basement was filled with old antiques covered in sheets and tombstones that I was told retta would have police bring to the home because of their similar shape to an ironing board? True or not I don’t know but it was creepy! It was an amazing old house. You could see the layers of history in it such as the original kitchen in the basement or the numbered doors on the third floor from when it was a boarding house during the depression or the tiny little sinks tucked away in hidden places for the servants to use.
Oh, your imagination and mine would get along real well, Samantha. Nothing inspires me like the blocked-in doorway in the 30′ wall facing Hickory Street from Benton Place, or the underground tunnels at Benton Place and Park Ave, or along Lafayette Avenue. Exciting and creepy at the same time. When you’re a kid, all that stuff gets wonderfully amped up. I’m glad you had that experience; one that still tantalizes in a horror movie sort of way. What a neighborhood!
Thank You so very much on this story, or tribute… Retta, was my Great Aunt. I have fondest memories of being a visitor in her home. The pocket doors, still remain in my memory, as well as a staircase that is always treasured. She also sent my Mother to Wilhelmina’s Modeling School… My Mother was Doris Fleischmann. Retta and Fleda Fleischmann were half Sisters. ( My Grandmother). Retta was always a wonderment to my sisters and I. Such a gracious and hospitable lady… Thank you for having this site to further know someone I adored growing up….