“This is my grandfather, Jacob Kaplan’s passport. He was born in Lithuania in 1890 and immigrated to the United States where he met and married my grandmother. My great-grandfather, Abraham Kaplan, immigrated also and somehow the family ended up in St. Charles, Missouri. There weren’t a lot of Jews, but they rounded up enough men to pray and would meet in the basement of my great-grandfather’s house. To my knowledge, it was the first synagogue in the area.

My great-grandfather started a scrapyard and it grew into a business they named Kaplan Lumber. They opened the lumber company in 1926 on First Capitol Drive on the curve in the road across from what is now Lindenwood University. People referred to that part of the street as ‘Kaplan’s Curve’ because of the business. I only remember visiting a few times as a kid because, by the time I was 10, it moved to St. Peters.

My dad, Leonard “Labe” Kaplan, was born in St. Charles in 1930 and lived at 1069 Madison Street. Growing up, he knew he was going to follow his father into the lumber business. So after my grandpa retired, my dad and his brother took over. When I was a kid, my dad would leave the house by 6:30 a.m. and return with his work clothes covered in dust. He smelled like dirt because he was out there, not sitting in an office behind a desk.”

📷| Colleen O’Connell Smyth