PATRICK'S PEOPLE: Claude Oehme helped construct many local buildings

Name an area town, and Claude Oehme can rattle off a long list of buildings that Oehme Brothers Masonry Construction helped to build.

“In any town you can name in a 75-mile radius of Pittsburg, probably the Oehme Brothers built something there or somebody there worked for the Oehme Brothers,” said Claude “Bill” Oehme Jr., who followed his father into the business.

There were four brothers in the business — Charlie, Carl, Claude and Otto “Pete” Oehme, and only Claude, who recently turned 95, still survives.

“I was born Dec. 16, 1916, on West Third, and spent my boyhood running up and down Third Street playing ball,” he said.

But that’s not quite all he did. Starting at the age of 10, he started learning bricklaying from his father, Otto “Dutch” Oehme, who was born in Germany and came to the United States as a baby.

“My father was a bricklayer, mason and contractor,” Oehme said. “He was a real good bricklayer, one of the best around.”

One of Dutch Oehme’s many accomplishments was the brick work for the Hotel Besse.

“By the time I hit my age as an apprentice, around 20, I was already a bricklayer,” Oehme said. “Then the Navy yanked me away for the war. When I got back, I was hot to go on as a bricklayer.”

The four brothers went into the bricklaying business.

“Our first job was a building on 24th Street, a Buick place, I think,” Oehme said.

The business thrived, with Charlie handling most of the business arrangements. Oehme said that he did all of the hiring and firing.

“I had the reputation of being a rough guy to work for,” he said. “If you were a bricklayer, you stayed, if you weren’t a bricklayer, you didn’t. We kept 50 bricklayers at one time, and we kept them busy, too. Each of the guys ran a job sometime, and I just hoped to do the biggest and best.”

The new Mt. Carmel Medical Center, now known as Via Christi Hospital, and Axe Library and the Garfield W. Weede Physical Education Building, both at Pittsburg State University, probably fit into that category. Timmons Chapel isn’t so large, but makes up for it with its beauty.

“All that stone was what they call Kansas City limestone, and it was all hand-cut by us,” Oehme said.

Oehme remembers that Bess Spiva Timmons, who donated the chapel to PSU, would come around and put money under the stones.

“It was usually coins, generally about 50 cents,” he said.

He has other memories of working on Axe Library

“Axe Library was some building,” Oehme said. “It had stone up on the roof and I did it because I was the only one with guts enough to get up there.”

“I was brick foreman for the new Pittsburg High School,” said Bill Oehme. “I started it because my father was finishing up Axe Library.”

Bill Oehme said that they did the brick work for Meadowbrook Mall before going on to work at the Weede building.

“After the Weede, we went to Mt. Carmel,” Bill Oehme said. “All the pre-cast concrete panels at the hospital my father personally oversaw, setting every one of them.”

“We had a cherrypicker we could use with the stone work and we kept it busy,” his father said. “When the glass people wanted to get glass up to the third floor, we did that for them out of the goodness of our heart.  There were stone things underneath each window, and we had a machine to do that. I welded a lot of it.”

“My father learned how to weld and got certified for that job,” Bill Oehme said.

The Oehmes built the Morning Sun building at Seventh and Locust, and in 1973 built an addition to it.

They also built a lot of things for McNally Manufacturing, and had to work on an office building near Third and Walnut twice.

“All the south end of Pittsburg is undermined by old coal mines,” Bill Oehme said. “That office building — the whole building — went down two feet. I remember it very well — it happened on a Sunday morning.”
Those are just some of the Pittsburg jobs.

“I remember building three schools in Fort Scott, a high school, an elementary school and I did some work at Fort Scott Community College,” Oehme said. “Then there was the Columbus High School  and Greenlawn School about 10 miles out of Columbus. We did the Girard High School, too.”

He also spent two or three years working in Parsons, doing some buildings at Parsons State Hospital and Training Center, a Baptist Church and some homes for prominent Parsonians.  

“We did a lot of work in Joplin, built the Police Department and several schools,” Oehme said.

“We did a lot of traveling,” Bill Oehme said. “Some years we drove enough to drive around the world.”

But that took a toll, and Oehme developed heart problems. He retired in 1980 after undergoing heart surgery, but still maintains membership in the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers. He recently received the Golden Trowel Award for 70 years of union membership. His son is a 50-year member.

Oehme and his wife, Betty, have been active in Masonic organizations, including Rob Morris Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star, in PIttsburg, and Electa Chapter in Girard.

“I think I’ve been a worthy patron 10 or 11 years,” Oehme said.

He also holds memberships in Mirza Shrine, Fort Scott Scottish Rite, Knights Templar and the Masonic Blue Lodge.
The couple also enjoys cutting a rug now and then.

“We go to two dances a week, one at Columbus and one Saturday at the American Legion in Miami, Okla.,” Oehme said.