Local Author Discovers Ladue’s Intriguing, And Sometimes Shocking, History

Charlene Bry, former owner of Ladue News, discovered a few surprises about the City of Ladue’s history while doing research for her newly-published book Ladue Found: Celebrating 100 Years of the City’s Rural-to-Regal Past.

“In 1850 there were slave owners living in Ladue,” Bry said. “I also discovered the city had a brothel, a band of gypsies and a race track.”

Bry spent two and a half years researching almost 200 years of the city’s history, both its highlights and lowlights, that had previously never been recorded.

“I wanted to be truthful about the city’s history,” she said. "I want people to know this is their community; they now have a sense of their past and they can own it and their kids can own it. I want people to know the city has now been found for everybody.”

Bry focused on the years 1850—1950 because she didn’t want to lose stories of the past that have been kept for generations by families. “The past is so important and we’ve been losing it,” Bry said. “The really interesting part of the book is the past.”

She said a quote by David McCullough, the noted author and historian, resonated with her as she worked on the book: “Citizens must know the history of their community and their nation in order to know themselves in the future.”

When Bry received a letter from one of the families about which whose history she wrote, she knew immediately her reason for writing the book. “The letter thanked me for taking on this monumental task because otherwise no one would have ever known about their family’s history.”

This past weekend, Bry was on hand at a couple of book signings to talk about her research and book. One of these public events, held on Saturday at Ladue High School, was organized by Ms. Theresa Badgett’s marketing class at the school.

The marriage of Bry’s book and the class began when Bry contacted Associate Principal Mike Tarpey. “He thought this would be a great project to do with my marketing class and it has been fabulous,” Badgett said.

Her class of 20 students began working on the event in January. They designed flyers and invitations, called people, and stuffed envelopes. The students also solicited businesses and organizations for raffle items to raise money for the Ladue Scholarship Fund.

“My goal for the kids was to learn real world, hands-on marketing,” Badgett said. “There are some things about marketing you can learn in a book and there are other things you have to learn hands-on. This was very hands-on for them. This was kind of a last hurrah for me since this is my last year here and it was fabulous.”

Sophomore John Cline said this project helped him apply theory fto practice and taught him that there’s a large amount of preparation that goes into planning an event. Karlyn Burton, also a sophomore, said she learned how to market an event and how to get the demographics you need.

“I’m now really interested in marketing,” Karlyn said. “Ms. Badgett showed us how real world it is instead of just learning out of textbooks and doing papers.  We really got the full grasp of how to put on a good event.”

Bry was impressed with Badgett’s energy level and the work the students did to promote her book and the book signing. Their efforts resulted in steady sales on Saturday. In fact throughout the day several people returned to buy additional books for gifts.

Ken Fox, whose wife Kate had purchased the book earlier in the day, was looking through it at his home and immediately found it was fascinating. “At first I didn’t know what to expect,” Fox, a college and career advisor at the high school, said. “I was impressed by it so I came to the book signing to buy two more to give as gifts to people who have moved back here.”

After taking care of printing costs, all the proceeds of the book’s sales are going to the Ladue Scholarship Fund. On Saturday, Bry delivered her first check, in the amount of $800, from a book signing held on Friday night at Sallie Home; she will be donating a second check based on Saturday's sales.

A Ladue resident for the past 50 years, Bry’s previous book was A World of Plants: The Missouri Botanical Garden which she co-authored.

Ladue Found is available for purchase at: Sallie Home; the high school; or by contacting Martha McBride-Rummel, Bry’s assistant, at LadueFoundBry@aol.com. It is not yet in bookstores.