A River Town — Saturday Snapshots
My hometown of Louisiana, Missouri rests alongside the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Hannibal. In many ways, it’s more like the Hannibal that Mark Twain knew than Hannibal, which has grown considerably, is now.
I visited Louisiana yesterday, for the first time in six years, since shortly after my mother died. Given that I’m in the middle of a month-long memoir project on my blog, this was an opportune time to visit. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a happy occasion –one of my classmates died last month and his mother died this month. I went for a joint visitation. The funeral is this morning, so please offer a prayer or thought of comfort for his friends and family.
I always loved Louisiana in October — it’s a beautiful town for displaying fall color.
The prettiest tree I saw was in the Riverview Cemetery
Barge from Riverview Cemetery
The Champ Clark Bridge for Highway 54 — the only Mississippi River Bridge between Hannibal and St. Louis is at Louisiana, Missouri. Photo taken at Riverview Park
The railroad bridge has a swing span to allow boats through. This is the same barge that I photographed several minutes earlier from the cemetery. This picture is from Riverview Park.
Entrance to Big Ordonia outside of Louisiana, Missouri
One of my memoir project posts, Places — October Memoir Challenge, was about all of the houses where we lived. Two of them were in a neighborhood called Ordonia across from the plant where my dad worked. The whole subdivision was demolished right after I left for college. This is the street that used to lead back to the house where I lived from age 8 to 18.
Louisiana Public Library, Louisiana, Missouri
Louisiana boasts a Carnegie library. You can see why I thought of it as a castle for books. Last year, I wrote about my first adventure outside of the children’s section: Louisiana Public Library.
I also took photos of all the schools I went to — I’ll post them tomorrow as one of my memoir posts.
I hope you enjoyed this virtual visit to my hometown. For more Saturday Snapshots, visit At Home With Books where Alyce graciously hosts a weekly round-up of photographic pleasures.