Antique Desk’s Secrets Revealed in St. Louis Store
A customer’s discovery at an antique shop brings secrets to life and confirms one family’s thrilling story.
A customer at the White Rabbit antique shop in St. Louis, Missouri, was examining a desk for sale and found a surprise. The desk had a drop front and fitted interior, not an uncommon sight at an antique store (or in many homes), but the customer realized it had a secret compartment with an envelope inside.
The customer immediately brought these findings to the staff’s attention. Andrea Goris, the shop’s social media coordinator, told local media station KMOV that the envelope contained documents and pictures from 1917 about a car crash that happened in New York on the Hudson River.”
Goris posted the story online, saying she “Didn’t expect so many people to catch on to it and be so excited about it.” The story came to the attention of Bob Klebe, the desk’s former owner, who had sold it when he and his wife moved into a retirement home.
He hadn’t known about the documents and pictures concealed in the desk, but he knew the story they told. It had happened to his mother when she was 12 years old.
Klebe said his mother enjoyed telling the story about the winter day when she, her father, and her brother were driving across the ice on the Hudson River. He recalls that “at the time, there was no bridge,” but when the river froze over for a month in 1917, it created an ice bridge.
The family’s car broke through the ice. Fortunately, a group of nearby hockey players came to the rescue. Klebe recalls they “saved my mother by wrapping one of their hockey sticks around her scarf and pulled her out of the Hudson River.”
The dramatic story was written up in the local news, and Klebe’s mother saved the clippings and photos, which she kept in the desk’s hidden compartment. He believes she would appreciate their recent rediscovery. Not only does it provide evidence of her story, but it also shares it with a much wider audience and ensures it will continue to be remembered.
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