(soft music) - [Jim] This might have been the last place you saw your Christmas tree, but it's not the end of the journey and not the end of its usefulness.

- [John] That's the fish's new house there.

(Dennis singing in foreign language) - [Jim] They are keeping alive a local dialect called Paw Paw French that's not as long gone as you might think.

- When we were growing up, we just called it French.

- [Jim] The efforts to preserve a language deeply rooted in Old Mines, Missouri.

We look back at the night when the lights went out in St. Louis.

- [Al] My mom would say, "Okay, we gotta close all the blinds and turn out all the lights.

I can't even smoke."

♪ Once I was lost - [Jim] And the celebration of gospel music in our city.

- [Maria] When we sing together, our hearts connect as one.

- It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(choir singing) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) I'm Jim Kirchherr, and we begin with a story about a Christmas gift, but not something that was ever under the tree.

No, Brooke Butler's story is about how Christmas trees themselves can be turned into, well, the gift that keeps on giving.

(light music) (gentle music) - [Brooke] You've probably heard the saying "Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

But what about the fish in that equation?

Who is ensuring there will be fish to fish for for a lifetime?

Well, that's when Christmas trees come into play.

Yes, you heard correctly.

Christmas trees can actually serve a greater purpose for aquatic life long after the holiday season.

- [John] That's the fish's new house there.

- Trees are green waste, and we do not want those to be put in the trash.

It's illegal to put them in the landfill because of methane gases.

As an organic material breaks down, it adds to the methane gases, which then add to the ozone depletion.

- So, actually, it's illegal.

- Yes.

- [Brooke] So that's a good reason in itself not to just toss your tree in the dumpster.

And while there are many locations around our city that collect Christmas trees, whether to turn them into mulch or other wood-based products, here at Spanish Lake, there's a more long-term benefit.

- When you're talking about an impoundment like Spanish Lake, habitat tends to degrade over time.

And unless there's an active habitat plan in place, the quality of the fishery will deteriorate over time.

So, on a one- to three-year cycle, we're out here sinking Christmas trees to ensure that the fish have a house to go home to, just like we do.

- [Brooke] St. Louis County Parks and the Missouri Department of Conservation have been partnering on Christmas tree disposals for the past several years.

But it's actually been a common lake management practice all over for many decades prior to their partnership.

Of course, the difference now is that there are a lot more scientific methods to back up the benefits of this practice.

- We do have a depth finder that'll give us a reading as we're moving along.

And we've also looked at the lake profile, historically where brush piles have been placed, and we tend to kinda continue to build on the brush piles that we have in place already.

In this case, we are placing a new brush pile, so.

(bright music) - [Brooke] The locations around the lake that benefit most from these brush piles are called the littoral zones, which are the shallow, down-sloping regions of a lake and are the crucial areas for maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

In the case of Spanish Lake, the littoral zone is about three to eight feet below the surface, because that's about the depth where sunlight can still penetrate through to create all sorts of organisms that support the food chain.

- Not only does cover like this provide someplace for a fish to seek refuge, it also helps foster biotic life, particularly kind of that base of the food chain, like micro-, macro-invertebrates, fungus, bacteria.

And what we see is that that effect, that introduction of habitat for that base of the food chain, cascades up all the way to having big bass or catfish on the end of your line, so.

I'd say the best fish to catch here would probably be largemouth bass, but we also have a great population of catfish in here, also some really great crappie as well.

But most of all, we just encourage folks to come out, get a line wet, and meet some of their neighbors while they're down here on the lake, so.

- [Brooke] Creating this space for neighborly interactions is rewarding.

But the Christmas trees also in fact prove great results for aquatic life.

- Well, we do do spring electrofishing surveys on these lakes.

So we'll actually come out with a boat that puts a measured amount of electricity into the water, and, really, that electricity is dialed in as to not hurt the fish, it just stuns them temporarily.

We're able to scoop those fish up with nets, bring 'em into the boat, measure 'em, and then we'll take those metrics and determine, you know, kind of the overall health of the lake and figure out if some of the management practices that we have in place are being successful or if we need to make some kind of adjustment.

Largely, when you're talking about Christmas trees, we've seen nothing but success.

You know, habitat work like this is really important for the community because it affords the community an opportunity to be actively participating in managing a natural resource.

You know, a lot of these trees are donated from our neighbors in the area, and we're actually able to take these and invest them in the lake.

And in the long term, citizens can see those benefits, whether it's a big fish on the line or hopefully a big smile on anglers' faces, so.

(soft music) (upbeat music) (typewriter clacking) - [Jim] This week 81 years ago in late February of 1943, the lights went out in St. Louis.

It was the city's second blackout drill since the start of World War II.

And while it wasn't likely that enemy bombers would ever reach this far into the middle of the country, it was part of the national war effort that everyone would be ready.

(majestic music) - [Narrator] No city, village, or single house in all America can be considered safe so long as it shows a light which can serve as a beacon for enemy bombers.

- [Jim] In St. Louis City and County, the word went out.

At 9:58 that night, sirens and whistles would be sounded, and at 10, all lights in homes, businesses, streetlights, traffic lights, headlights, all had to be turned off.

Even cigarettes had to be put out for 20 minutes.

And phone lines were to be kept clear for emergency calls only during and for 30 minutes after the drill.

In our 2007 documentary "Homefront: St. Louis," St. Louisans who were children at the time remembered those nights.

- [Narrator] Is this the real thing?

- I never understood what the air raids were about.

My mom would say, "Okay, we gotta close all the blinds and turn out all the lights."

And we'd sit out on the front porch, and my mom would say, "I can't even smoke."

- [Narrator] But wait a minute, what's wrong over here?

Looked all right from the inside, but that strip of light might be a good guide for a bomber.

- [Jim] People took this seriously.

After all, men and women were serving and dying overseas, and this was something you could do at home.

And thousands volunteered to observe and enforce the blackout as part of the Citizens' Defense Corps.

- And my dad was going around the block, and he was the air-raid warden.

And I peeked out the window, and he said, "Cover those windows."

And we knew when he opened his mouth, he meant what he said.

- The mayor and Civil Defense officials went to the top of the Civil Courts Building that night to see how the city did, and it did well.

99% success in turning out the lights.

Three people were arrested for violating what was now a blackout ordinance.

There was strict enforcement and peer group pressure, but you can't discount the other important factor: patriotic duty.

This week in St. Louis history, 81 years ago.

(soft music) (light music) St. Louis has a fleur-de-lis on its flag and French street names.

But, you know, by the mid 1800s, this was the city where mostly English and German were being spoken.

But not too far away, the French language survived for a long time.

Veronica Mohesky has the story of what's called Paw Paw French back then, even now.

(Dennis singing in foreign language) - [Veronica] If you have a good ear for it, you might recognize some French words in this song.

But the songs Dennis Stroughmatt and L'Esprit Creole are performing are not in the standard French you might be familiar with.

- I learned to play this music in Old Mines, Missouri, some as well across the river in Cahokia, starting in, like, 1990.

And so a lot of the music that we're doing, these are songs, for the most part, that I learned from living people.

These are songs that were in the tradition, old French folk tunes.

- [Veronica] Dennis Stroughmatt first became interested in the language as a teenager, but over the last 30 years has become an expert and a musician in what he calls Illinois Country French.

- I was sort of, was told or given the impression that French was gone and that all the music, you know, there's a little bit of music left.

Then what happens is I moved to Cape Girardeau and got to talking with a professor there about our traditions and about our history.

And he goes, "Oh, no, no, it's not dead, it's not gone."

He said, "You will find a lot of this in Old Mines, Missouri."

(lively music) - The town of Old Mines, Missouri, is exactly what it sounds like, an old mining town.

For about a hundred years after the Civil War, it was known for its mining of barite, otherwise known as tiff.

And even before barite, lead mining had been the prominent industry in Old Mines since before the 1700s.

And because Old Mines is relatively isolated compared to other early French-speaking cities like Ste.

Genevieve and St. Louis, the unique French language of the area was allowed to thrive.

Missouri French stayed and grew in Old Mines until the late 1900s when the town became less secluded because of better roads and technology.

The language is known by many different names, like Missouri French, Paw Paw French, and Illinois Country French.

(people singing in foreign language) It's not a completely different language, but it differs from standard French in some pronunciations, spellings, and words.

- When we were growing up, we just called it French.

- Yeah, I have no idea what Missouri French or Indiana French or Illinois- - [Veronica] Joe Politte and Natalie Villmer grew up listening to their parents and relatives speak Missouri French in Old Mines.

- Every now and then, when they would have friends come in, some of the older folks, and they'd be bantering back and forth, you know, and, you know, you've always heard that, well, they're speaking that so the kids don't understand what they're saying, you know, which was kind of true, you know?

- My dad spoke French more, even had bigger vocabulary than my mom, but he didn't want us to speak French because when he was little, he only spoke French as a child.

And his mom would send him to the store up the creek to buy something, and he would say she would tell him what it was in English, and he'd say that over and over and over, and he'd get up there and of course forget it when he walked in the door.

(Joe chuckling) Well, all these old guys would be sitting around the potbelly stove there in the store and they would laugh at him because he couldn't, you know, say it in English.

So he decided that when (chuckles) we grew up, you know, he would not encourage us to speak French.

- [Veronica] The kids in Old Mines at that time were also discouraged by teachers and often punished for speaking Missouri French.

And though neither Politte nor Villmer considers themselves fluent in the language, they are some of the best remaining speakers of it.

Possibly the youngest speaker of the language is 44-year-old Matheaw Pratt.

- I was actually taking French class in high school, failing it miserably because I was arguing with the teacher that she was saying everything wrong.

- [Veronica] Pratt credits his Missouri French skills to his grandma and Great-uncle Pete.

- And he had a funny accent.

And so I remember I was staying with my grandmother one day, and I said, "Grandma, why does Uncle Pete talk funny?"

And she kinda giggled, and she said, "Well, you know, he was a teenager when he had to learn English."

And I'm like, "What?

Where are you guys from?"

She said, "Old Mines, honey.

We grew up here."

- [Veronica] The Creole language didn't just exist in Old Mines, though most of its remaining speakers come from there.

Linguist Adam Paulukaitis says at one time, it was spoken in Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.

- That whole region is called, in french, (speaks in foreign language), the Illinois French Country.

And so the Illinois French spoken in Missouri is nicknamed Paw Paw French or Missouri French.

- [Veronica] He says many Missouri French words contain influences from English, Native American, and West African languages.

- So in standard French, tornado is (speaks in foreign language), which is borrowed from Spanish.

In Louisiana, they call it a (speaks in foreign language) or a (speaks in foreign language).

In Missouri French, they came up with the term (speaks in foreign language), which means twister.

So that's a word you will not find anywhere else in the French-speaking world.

- [Veronica] But of course, there are hundreds of words, phrases, and spellings that are different.

And Adam Paulukaitis has created a YouTube channel with videos featuring Missouri French words, songs, and folktales.

Many of the videos feature recordings from the early to mid 1900s, and most of the speakers are now deceased.

Paulukaitis credits a 1930s researcher named Joseph Medard Carriere for making many of these videos possible.

- He recorded, very carefully transcribed over 70 different folktales.

And there are some that actually show influence from West African French-speaking slaves that were brought into the Illinois country in the early 1700s.

Some of their tales have also, aspects of them have come into the Missouri French folktales.

- [Veronica] Later in the 1970s, research into the language in Old Mines continued with the University of Missouri's Dr. Rosemary Hyde.

The researcher published a book of Missouri French folktales and other observations about the language in 1981.

Today, filmmaker Brian Hawkins is working on sharing the folktales in a new way.

- I'm working on a documentary called "Toujours Icitte," which is really about the, just what I found when I started diving into this, which is a group of people that was able to preserve their cultural patrimony and their stories and songs and language in spite of pretty incredible odds.

The documentary kind of just blossomed because I learned more and more about kind of the present state of things.

- [Veronica] How many people would you say, you know, either speak Paw Paw French or do you think speak Paw Paw French or at least some?

- About 10, you think?

- Yeah, maybe 10.

(chuckles) - Maybe 10 people left- - Yeah- - That speak it.

- In the surrounding area.

- I would be hard-pressed to say that there is any one person who speaks it completely fluently.

There are people alive now who spoke it as children fluently, and there are several people who were children or grandchildren of native speakers that still retain a lot of words, a lot of phrases, they can understand.

But unfortunately, the language itself, that dialect, is restricted to a few people, and it is on the way out.

Unfortunately, it is not going to continue as a native language for anyone.

- So there's no motivation to learn it, because what are you gonna do with it, you know?

- I hate to see it die out, you know, and I don't, you know, that sounds, I guess, morbid, but it's not, you know, it's not...

There's just, the interest isn't there in the young people, but I think it helps to know, to remember a little bit of where your ancestors came from.

- [Veronica] And there is plenty of work being done to make sure the language isn't forgotten.

Dennis Stroughmatt and L'Esprit Creole perform Illinois Country French all over the region, including a recent performance at the January 6th 12th Afternoon Ball at the Gateway Arch.

(Dennis singing in foreign language) Besides the work of people outside Old Mines like Adam, Brian, and Dennis, the descendants of the Missouri French are trying to spread the language as well.

Natalie Villmer teaches students at St. Joachim School "La Guignolee," a New Year's song in Missouri French.

She also teaches adults interested in learning or brushing up on the language.

Old Mines also host a variety of French events every year, and the Historical Society is working on establishing a historic village filled with real cabins once inhabited by French Missourians.

(Dennis singing in foreign language) But it's up to the younger generations to keep awareness of the language and its history alive.

- My hope is that there is some way that it still continues.

And even if that is in song, that's how I learned it was through the song, those stories are what led me to fluency.

- [Veronica] He says the language is still an important part of the identity of Creole French people.

- If you don't know where you come from, you don't know where you're going.

And so to me, it's about a preservation for us as a community, you know?

And in our French Creole communities, as far as food, language, events, it's what holds us together.

(lively music) (soft music) - This month, we ran Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s "GOSPEL" documentary, tracing the rich history of Black gospel music.

And as part of that, here at Nine PBS, we hosted our own event focusing on St. Louis's gospel music, its traditions, and its continuing evolution.

- Come on, here we go Now here.

♪ Once I was lost ♪ I was deep in despair - [Jim] This is the Community Gospel Choir of St. Louis.

It describes itself as a diverse group of people of different backgrounds, faiths, and ages, uniting through the tradition of African American spirituals and gospel music.

♪ Now I'm on my way ♪ Now I'm on my way - [Jim] Their performance was part of the gospel event in our main studio, which included a preview of Henry Louis Gates's documentary and a panel discussion led by Carol Daniel.

- But to me, it's my ancestors' gift that's been passed down.

The sound of gospel, (sniffs) the smell of gospel.

It's a gift that we have to keep giving - [Jim] The guests were Pastor Jermaine Manor, music educator Maria Ellis, and Dr. Yolanda "Yogi" Yancie, co-founder of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame Missouri.

- Gospel music is who I am.

It's my foundation.

It's the first music that I ever learned to sing, the first music I ever learned to conduct.

It is who I am, and it's what I bring to the world as an educator.

I take my time to make sure that everybody I touch gets a little piece of gospel when they get me.

And even though it began in Black culture, it is a part of America's culture of music.

- Culture, right.

- Gospel music simply is the history, for me.

I'm caught up in the middle of being a little bit of old school, a little bit of new school and- ♪ Oh, happy day ♪ Oh, happy day ♪ Oh, happy day - [Jim] Gospel is an art form with deep roots, but it has continued to grow and change over generations, with not unexpected opinions about traditional versus modern adaptations.

- Maria, has gospel music gone too far or, (audience member chuckles) or do you, okay, that got a chuckle out there.

(Yolanda giggles) - I'm not gonna say it goes too far.

I would say that every generation, there's a sound, and the sound from the generation of Mahalia Jackson will not work for the sound of 2024, that there's a different sound, there's a different generation.

And I think as music transcends, then the sound of gospel transcends.

And that's the beauty of gospel.

You can't pin it down to just one style.

It doesn't sound just like jazz, or it doesn't sound just like the blues.

The gospel can be done in all different styles, all different kinds.

Long as you're proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, you're still doing the gospel.

So I do think it's changed, but I don't think it's gone too far.

I don't.

- Well?

- Well.

- Oh, Lord.

(people laughing) I have a 20-year-old son.

And a few years ago, we were laughing and joking and he made up a gospel genre himself, and he called it trap gospel.

- What?

- And at that time, 'cause you looking at the generation, we just said the generation, look at y'all judging already, (audience laughing) but the generation, he was like, "Well, you know, you can kinda mix our music with gospel."

That's what it was.

And so we have to, I believe in meeting people right where they are- - Which is what we should do.

- Which is what we should do to compel them to come.

We can't stay behind the four walls of the church all the time.

We have to go where the children are.

And if they are out beyond the walls of the church, then let's meet them there so that we can get them inside and raise up our next leaders.

'Cause guess what?

We're getting older.

And that generation that was teaching before are leaving us behind, thus the reason why we have to capture our legacies right here and now.

- Mm-hmm.

I remember listening to, I don't know what station it was, and it was...

It felt like rap.

And then I realized, okay, I just heard, did I just hear God?

Did I just hear?

And I realized it was a gospel song.

- Yes.

- Which I'm sure there are some elders and some mothers who- - Gospel?

- Bristling, they're not happy.

- I think we have gone a little too far, if I can be very honest.

- In what way?

- Because we're trying to fish with a different method, but we've lost the message.

- Oh, mm.

- Okay.

- Now, you can change your method, but we've lost the message.

- Yeah, that's true.

- A lot of times on Sirius Radio, like Carol just said, sometimes I have to wait to see, is this a gospel song?

- Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I'm 42, I'm all for the hey, hey, hey, hey.

But I'm like, if I gotta wait until eight minutes into the song to hear about hope and love and Jesus- - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- I've heard about your problems the first four minutes and what I'm going through, I'm tired, Lord.

Where's the hope?

Or is God's gonna do it for you?

So I just think we're kind of, I don't know, we gotta be careful.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But I think every generation has said that.

♪ I do believe ♪ We shall ♪ We shall ♪ We shall - [Maria] I think it's beautiful when we all sing together, because I believe when we sing together, our hearts connect as one.

And when our hearts are connected, then we really can receive the love and all of the fruits of the spirit, what God has given us, we can receive that because we are now connected as one.

(audience clapping) - Whoo!

- Oh my gosh!

(audience cheering) - And that's "Living St.

Louis."

You know, we've been getting a lot of good comments and ideas, so keep them coming to NinePBS.org/LSL.

I'm Jim Kirchherr, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

(lively music) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) - [Narrator] "Living St. Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.