A few years ago, Geoff Story was looking through a box of old glass negatives at a Cherokee Street antique shop when something caught his eye: a sign that said FROZEN CUSTARD. “You see ‘frozen custard’ and you immediately think Ted Drewes,” he says.
While there are other frozen custard stands in St. Louis, in this case, Story was not mistaken. His find that day at Elder’s Antiques led to a unique connection with the daughter of Ted Drewes Jr., whose father opened the legendary St. Louis business and kept it thriving into the present day. When news broke yesterday that Drewes Jr. had died this week at age 97, it reminded Story, a photographer and filmmaker, of the family photos he’d stumbled upon.
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These weren’t just photos of the family’s longest-running St. Louis custard stand (and the one that briefly preceded it, in St. Petersburg, Florida). There were also photos of the Drewes family: Their Christmas tree with gifts beneath; Ted Drewes Sr., a gifted athlete, playing tennis; and an already unmistakable Ted Drewes Jr. at the beach.
After realizing what he had, Story sought to track down Ted Jr.’s daughter Cindy, but his initial Facebook outreach didn’t get her attention. It took an introduction by Story’s friend Barbara Clark, who lived near Cindy in Elsah, Illinois, to make the connection in 2019. That led to Story making black-and-white prints of seven photos and giving them to the Drewes family. “She said it was the best Christmas gift she ever received,” Story recalls.
Story regrets not buying the entire box of negatives and wonders if they were all photos of the family. “$700 seemed like a lot at the time,” he says. But now, thinking about Ted Drewes Jr.’s passing, it feels like they would have been worth it.
An inveterate explorer of estate sales and antique shops, Story has struck gold before (footage he found of a “gay party” in 1940s-era St. Louis led to international media attention, and a documentary film), and he knows he will again. He says he focuses on faces.
“I photograph people, because to me, those are fleeting moments in time that I want to capture. You know, architecture, nature, it will be pretty much the same if you go back and visit but people continue to change,” he says, adding, “Old photos, you can go through boxes of them and they just look, a lot of them look the same, and they’re not that interesting. But then you find those diamonds in the rough.”
