Growing Up Inside History

For several years in the 1950s and ‘60s, was just “home” to Rick Lane, whose uncle, architect William Bodley Lane, bought the house in 1955 and sold it to the historical society in 1992. The Lane boys and their family lived with “Uncle Bill” for several years.

“It’s not nearly as scary as I remember it,” Rick Lane said as he toured it recently with out-of-town family. “It was a little spooky when I was 4 or 5 years old.”

Lane, who lives in St. Charles County, and his brother, Jim Lane, a school psychologist in the , pointed out furnishings they remembered from the years their uncle lived in the home, including a piano and chandeliers in one of the twin parlors on the main floor.

“I can remember I always wanted to slide down this banister,” said Jim Lane, as he walked up to the second floor where the family’s bedrooms were situated. “We were forbidden to do so.”

Rick and William got to follow in the footsteps of many residents who called Mudd's Grove home over the years, most notably the Mudds, for whom the historic property was named.  

Henry T. and Sarah Elizabeth Mudd and their seven children lived in the house from 1865 until 1882.

Mudd was a prominent civic leader, serving as a town trustee, a school board member, a county auditor, a curator of the University of Missouri and a state legislator.

He also was president of the state horticultural society for several years and apparently had a grove of fruit trees on the land surrounding his Kirkwood home that led to the name Mudd’s Grove.

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