Home as historic adventure In restoring their spacious house, Robert and Kaye Hamblin discover Cape Girardeau's past and bring it into the present

When it comes to uncovering the history of a home, married duo Robert "Bob" and Kaye Hamblin have dug up their home's roots down to the foundation.

The Hamblins have lived at 313 Themis St. for the past 12 years, and still they're finding odds and ends to fix up on their Victorian style home.

"Our family and friends all thought we were totally loony; they were pretty amazed," Kaye Hamblin said of their plan to restore the house. "But we were looking for something we could have an adventure with, and we found it," Bob added.

The two discovered the home by chance -- on a summer night in 2003. They were attending a Tunes at Twilight concert at the Common Pleas courthouse lawn, and Bob Hamblin parked in front of the home on Themis, turned to his wife and said, "Oh, look, this house is for sale. I've always wanted to buy an old house and fix it up," leaving Kaye staring at him incredulously, as she recalled.

But that sparked the journey the two embarked on for the next decade. They searched all over downtown Cape Girardeau for the perfect home to restore, but never found quite the right fit. Kaye thought she could outwit her husband by touring the home and hearing the asking price, but after seeing the inside for the first time, she said, they were smitten the minute they walked in the door.

Kaye Hamblin takes a break from signing her new book "Finding Julia" to talk with a friend Saturday, Dec. 9, 2014 at her Cape Girardeau home. (Glenn Landberg)

The home, with its spacious wrap-around porch and elegantly carved spindles, has three stories. The first floor has six rooms, the kitchen having been updated in the 1980s. On the second there are four rooms, and the third is an attic that has been turned into a bedroom and sunroom. The house is complete with five stained-glass windows, five fireplaces and two chimneys.

Restore, not renovate

The Hamblins said it was a priority to restore their 1898 historic home, instead of renovating it. In each room they tell a different story, whether it's the painted archways in the study, the egg-and-dart-style bricks of the foyer fireplace or the dung-beetle centered stained-glass windows that decorate the house.

Pointing to one of the largest stained glass panes in the house, the one above the staircase leading to the second floor, Kaye stops her train of thought and switches to a story about the oddly darkened windows.

"This is an interesting story, though. See that stained glass window up there?" Kaye asks pointing toward the staircase. "It's actually partially covered by the porch when they added it. My daughter and I went up on the balcony one day to clean the outside of it, and when we did we realized that those little metal supports that are across it -- some of them were missing and the pieces of glass were just sitting there."

The Hamblin house on Themis Street in Cape Girardeau as seen Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015. (Laura Simon)

After finding a repairman, Kaye recalls being horrified watching them remove the window and taping it to a piece of plywood. But after a week it was repaired, good as new.

"We have had a lot of surprises. We just never know what's coming next. I guess we're a little more resilient than we used to be," Kaye said.

Inspired writing

From this old home's history, the Hamblins have been inspired to write two different books on the history of 313 Themis St.

The first, by Bob, is called, "This House, This Town: One Couple's Love Affair with an Old House and a Historic Town." Published in 2010, it focuses on the second owners of the home, the Harrisons. In December Kaye released her first book inspired by the home's history as well, called "Finding Julia: The Early Development of Southeast Missouri," which focuses on the first owners, the Harrises.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com

Bob credits being in downtown Cape Girardeau as his inspiration, and being a part of history, the two couldn't help but learn more about their historic home.

"I did one [book] on the second family, the Harrisons, who lived in the house, but Kaye is a better historian than I. She dug deeper and went back to the builder of the house, the first family who lived in the house, and I had started with the second family," Bob said. "They [the Harrisons] were prominent in Cape Girardeau and this region, so my book is about the Harrisons and about Cape Girardeau; Julia Harris, the builder of the house, all of her family were involved in the early history of the state of Missouri, particularly Southeast Missouri. So my book was about the second family and Cape Girardeau and her [Kaye's] book is about first family and the state of Missouri, a broader canvas, but the house plays a role in both books."

Kaye describes the three years she spent researching the Harrises' story as the most fun she has ever had. She researched at the Cape Girardeau Public Library, The Cape Girardeau County Archives, Southeast Missouri State University's Kent Library and Southeast's archive; as well as traveling around the state to wherever her discoveries took her.

"[After beginning my research] I read all the Missouri history books I could get my hands on, made notes, and then I started finding anecdotes about the families that came from George Bollinger's line, and I just kept making big boxes of notes and pictures. I took my camera everywhere and took pictures," she said. "And then I started sorting things out. I made a chapter, and I still wasn't intending to make a book, I was just having fun finding things."

Kaye's book was published through Southeast Missouri State University Press, and on Dec. 6 she hosted her first book signing at their home. The book is now available online on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the Southeast press website.

Robert and Kaye Hamblin sit in their favorite rocking chairs inside their historic Cape Girardeau home, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015. (Laura Simon)

The Hamblins agreed that at the time they purchased it, they had no idea what they needed such a large house for, but restoring it has provided an outlet for their family to come together and host a variety of events they never could have dreamed at their previous home on Price Drive.

smaue@semissourian.com

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