Tell It Like It Was | Schwaigerhof and FRESH

FRESH Renewal Center_Maryville University_Mel Fuhr_Jerry Aholt_Lee Newman_God of the Wind_Rennard Backhaus_Frank Schwaiger, Jr._I am an aberration-A. E. Housman 

Gentle readers, when last we met, I gave you a brief history of the Anheuser-Busch brewmaster’s country home, Schwaigerhof. Let’s continue, but don’t forget, anything in (((parentheses))) is my input. (Got it?) 

An interior view of Schwaigerhof, courtesy of Cheryl. 

 Cheryl (Schwaiger) McKinley shared memories of her early life, and was about to talk about her college education, when I wrapped up part 1. Let’s see if my iPad remembers what she said.  

Cheryl McKinley: I graduated from Stanford, but Vienna was my year abroad. And growing up in a fiercely independent family, I studied at the University of Vienna, on my own. ‘Cause I had learned German…when I was younger; I was sent overseas to my family (in Germany) to learn German. I didn’t grow up speaking German because it was wartime, and my parents didn’t want any possibility of me being a little German kid…speaking German in school…or talking about Germany…because if you’re a German living in America during the war, you’re the enemy. So, they were very careful about that. So, I did not learn German at home; I had to learn it later. 

pO: …Stanford…what was your major there? 

CM: Sociology. 

pO: …and in Vienna…what were you studying there? 

CM: I just studied a variety of things. That was ’68 that I was overseas…and came back and finished up the degree in California in ’69…went off to New York City in ’70, ’71, and had a couple, three jobs there, and left for California in ’72. …to Minnesota in ’82. I retrained as a pastoral caregiver…which means like a chaplain. My area of interest was helping chemically dependent people and their families. That’s what my specialty is. 

CM: I went to seminary, eventually graduating with an MA in theology. And then I went to Hazelden (in Minnesota) in the clergy training program there for a year. And then I discovered a new concept called spiritual renewal. (The Catholics have been doing it for millennia, but renewal for recovering people was a new idea.) And I thought it was worth bringing to other parts of the country. And I figured nobody else was going to do it, so I will try to do it. And at that same time, I was meeting my future husband, Dick McKinley, who had a similar interest. And in ’89 we got married, and in ’90 we moved to Missouri and started FRESH Renewal Center. 

Cheryl and Dick McKinley in the FRESH (Schwaigerhof) kitchen, 1991. 

CM: FRESH stands for fellowship, renewing, experience strength and hope. FRESH had a mission of serving people with addictions and helping their spiritual growth. And after a year or so of practicing that program in the country at Schwaigerhof…we changed the mission to include all spiritual seekers…because people came to us and said, “Do we have to be in 12 step recovery in order to…further our spiritual growth?” We said, of course not. 

CM: So, that’s how FRESH got started…the vision, and I owned this land, and I kept coming back, and looking at it, and thinking, “Is this place special?” And I would bring my best friends there, and we would all look out the window at the landscape and think together, “Is there something about this place that’s special?” …because we all seemed to be getting a great deal of healing from it. And that seems intrinsic to the place…everybody that comes there feels safe, and begins to unwind, and become part of nature again…discover whatever they’re supposed to discover. 

pO: Well, you all preserved a lot of nature there.  

CM: Well, after 18 years of being with FRESH…I didn’t want to sell the land…I knew I wanted to go to a warm place because I have a very strong reaction to cold, and I realized I would be cold all my life…I wanted to be warm. Luckily, I had a husband who was willing to go wherever I could find what would please me…that was a great stroke of fortune…that Dick was that flexible. 

CM: There was a strong feeling in me that I did not want to have this land chopped up into little McMansions…which is what I think any developer would have done…with the beautiful hills, the lake, and everything…they would have made it into some kind of a suburbia. 

pO: Thank you for doing that! 

CM: You’re welcome. That’s why it looks the way it looks. So, in order to get somebody to take care of the land, I had to find an institution…and I knew churches weren’t going to be the right way…so it had to be an educational institution.  I started a years-long relationship with the University of Missouri in St. Louis…and after years of talking about this, they phoned one day and said…central admin said no…basically Columbia had turned down the gift. So, through some quick thinking, we transferred our interest over to Maryville University, which is a private institution, and they’re a little bit more nimble. The chief financial officer and the president came out, looked around…we told our story. And so, we did the transaction. 

CM: Part of my transaction with them is that I get to use it 2 weeks out of the year (early June)…and I can have FRESH events out there.  So, FRESH really did pretty well for about 18 years. 

Gentle readers, five years ago, Cheryl and the board of directors made the decision to dissolve FRESH as a non-profit corporation. They gave their assets away, as required by law. The assets were given to three other non-profit agencies that they believed in, in St. Louis.  

CM: I decided I…if we want to do something…which we still do…we have a mailing list. We don’t need a corporation. So, we use our mailing list to let people know who’s coming in June. And we have a regular person who’s been doing a writers’ group there for over 30 years, and she still comes every year. So, we create a little event around that. And that’s who we are today. 

pO: You’ve given me a full story already, but I always like to tie into Augusta...like the people. How about the Augusta Garage…get anything done there…or the grocery store? 

CM: Well, yeah…Mel Fuhr had a little grocery store there…with a butcher counter in the back. And my dad made a point of going in there and checking out whether he rotated his beer cases. And even after dad died, Mel…he’d tell me the same story again, and again, “Well Mr. Schwaiger…we would be afraid…we’d see him coming and we rushed to the front of the store where the beer cases are…” So, Mel had a little bit of the fear of God…about Mr. Schwaiger checking the expiration dates on the cases. 

CM: And I think we had a fantastic relationship with Lee Newman…for a long time. He was our groundskeeper and became kind of a close friend…and still is.  

CM: You know, we’re all introverts in my family. Once we get to the country, we just hole up…enjoy it…and read a book…build a fire and have a good time. The furthest out we got was…the Legion Hall…going for their incredible, once-a-month dinners. I think when we (FRESH) first moved out there, we didn’t have any chairs. And…is there somebody named Jerry Aholt? 

pO: Yes, there was a Jerry Aholt. 

CM: I approached him…’cause he was the link to the Legion Hall…and they gave us the most antique chairs you’ve ever seen, but they were chairs…maybe 80 of them…and he loaned us that for about 10 years. 

pO: That’s interesting! 

CM: That was very sweet. I didn’t even have a cooler to put lemonade in. Those people would give us things we needed to do our first picnic, which was in 1991 in the spring.  

pO: And your brother…there’s a sculpture that you can see from Hwy. 94. Is that his? 

CM: Yes. I bought it, and I put it there. The name of it is God of the Wind, and he has the right to come and get it. And Maryville knows; it’s written into the contract. 

God of the Wind. 

pO: When your father originally bought the land…did it include that field? 

CM: Yes. The field has alfalfa in it. There were 3 brothers…Rennard and… 

pO: Backhaus! So, they farmed that field that you can see from 94? 

CM: Yep.  

 Gentle readers, I thought this story would be lacking if I didn’t get a word or two from the artist himself. Thus, I made a call to Frank Schwaiger, Jr. on January 19, 2025. 

pO: I would like to get your viewpoint on your…adventures…whatever you want to call it…at Schwaigerhof. 

Frank: Okay. It won’t be very productive, because I never liked it…but we can proceed on that basis.  

pO: Well, it makes it more interesting when people are truthful. (I laugh.) 

Frank: I’m a straightforward guy…and my parents’ attempt to replicate a European setting out in Augusta, was not in line with modernism which was my architectural affiliation and still is. They did what they wanted to do, and that’s fine…and I wasn’t a fan of that. So, I kept away…and still have, however, I do have a little plot of land out there that my father chose because it reminded him of his countryside in Bavaria…and I’m very happy to spend time out there…and I commune with the spirits of the departed Indians…that revered that site. 

pO: Great! By the way, I’ve seen your land; I walk a lot. I end up trespassing now and again. And I liked it.  

Frank: You walked back there? 

pO: Oh yeah! 

Frank: Oh? Even though it’s posted…there are cameras everywhere, and booby traps, and bombs in the ground…and you’re going to be arrested by the St. Charles police force…and I won’t bail you out? 

pO: Well…that’s the chance you take when you go for a walk nowadays.  

Gentle readers, what’s the retired Augusta town-painter-with-a-compulsion-to-write going to do with this guy? I mean…I’m only giving you a fourth of our conversation… 

Frank: Where else are we going with this dialogue here? Why are you doing this? What could possibly be interesting about the Schwaiger family and their descent… (let’s not go there.) 

pO: I don’t know why. I just know that I moved out here around ’76 and I have fallen in love over the years with Augusta…and it’s something I give back to the community. My blog is called Tell It Like It Was, and I talk to longtime residents, and I get their story. That’s all I’m looking for. I don’t expect them to be historians; I just want them to tell me about their life. It gives me some kind of satisfaction. 

Frank: I can accept that…it’s kind of an aberration…but life is all about that. I have no problem with that. 

pO: I am an aberration. I have admitted that in many of my stories. One old-timer told me I should run for town board because I was a regular guy. No way! Regular guys do not go writing about the inhabitants of a small town in Missouri.  

pO: Tell me about the inspiration for your sculpture out in the field. Anything. 

Frank: Well, I’m an artist and a professor of architecture, and a historian, and a painter. And I’m having a major show at Bruno David Gallery in Clayton…my ninth show there…on February the 7th. I have 50 new paintings. 

Frank Schwaiger, Jr. as pictured in the St. Louis Homes Magazine, January 13, 2023. 

Frank: But at any rate…as an artist I invent…or develop…or conspire to bring into being images of mythological and romantic themes. And the God of the Wind out there on that property owned by Maryville University, which I own…I mean the sculpture. And we just repainted it recently and cut all the weeds down. It looks pretty good. 

Frank: I just sold a version of that to a client in Japan who owns a private island in the Sea of Japan…and it’s bolted to the top of a mountain on the island…in red. And I’m very pleased that as the fishermen come rowing home with their tuna, they then see the sun shining on the red god in the distance and know that they’re close to home. Somehow that’s very touching…even though it may be fatuous, but nevertheless… 

pO: Go for it.  

Frank: Life is all about fatuousness…so, yeah, I had an extra one and I thought I’d put it out there in the field…and see what happens. I occasionally hear people say that they’re very fond of it. And someday I’ll remove it and bring it back to St. Louis…install it in the art park of my archive on Hickory in downtown St. Louis. But that day isn’t nigh.  

pO: I’ve always liked it, but I think it’s because…I’m going back to that word, aberration. It’s an aberration out there in that farm field. That’s why I’ve always liked it. I know people who don’t like it…well, there’s one guy I can think of. 

Frank: Are you kidding? What is that? 

pO: Well, some people just hate “modern” art. 

Frank: Well, it’s not modern art; it’s ancient history. It’s mythological. Anyway, you’re hanging around with the wrong crowd. (We both laugh.) 

Kind readers who follow my rambling, I’m moving on. In my first installment of Schwaigerhof, I promised to share an interesting blog I found which offered ample information on Frank Schwaiger, Sr., the Anheuser-Busch brewmaster, who built his weekend getaway just outside Augusta. But I’ve decided to let you investigate the blog yourself. My own story is long enough. 

Check it out: JK's Miscellaneous Brewery Pages. https://sites.google.com/site/jesskiddenbrewerypages/jks-misc-brewery-pages 

An illustration from Jess Kidden’s blog. 

Or to zero in on Anheuser- Busch and Frank Schwaiger:  https://sites.google.com/site/jesskiddenbrewerypages/brewers-gull-schmedtje-and-schwaiger 

Schwaiger (far left), at that time the AB vice president, is one of the AB executives touring the newly opened Anheuser-Busch brewery in Los Angeles, February 1954. (Photo found in jesskiddenbrewerypages.) 

Gentle readers, apropos of nothing, let me leave you with some words from A. E. Housman. In the late 60s, I was required to study Housman’s poem, Terence, This is Stupid Stuff for an honors class at Mizzou. In his poem I read these words that will slosh around in my brain forever:  …malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man. How curious. 

With sincerest curiosity, 

paulO 

The Friends of Historic Augusta's S.A.G.E project (Stories of Augusta's German Evolution) is sponsoring this program (TILIW stories) in partnership with the Missouri Humanities and with support from the Missouri Humanities Trust Fund. If you wish to read more stories, or want to make a donation to Friends of Historic Augusta and Tell It Like It Was, please use this link: https://www.augustamomuseum.com/tell-it-like-it-was-stories