Steinberg Memorial Ice Rink is in Forest Park (which Steinberg descendants helped restore), not far from the art museum that they helped expand and near the Wash. U. museum and design school that they enlivened.
We thank the Steinbergs every time we sail around our favorite ice skating rink, even when our legs splay like Bambi or our flying spins land us on our bottoms. But we forget to thank them for the gift of visual literacy.
Financier Mark Steinberg made his money during the Roaring ’20s. Shortly before he died, his wife, Etta (daughter of a Stix) began collecting Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. And when her daughter Florence married Richard Weil, they, too, became philanthropists and art collectors. (Go to the Kemper Art Museum. Find an abstract painting that intrigues you. Now look at the “given by” line.)
The Weils’ son Mark led Wash. U.’s department of art history and archaeology for a decade, directed the university art museum in Steinberg Hall), then presided over the birth of the new Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.
Another son, Richard Jr., stuck with the art of print: He rose to executive editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, then retired and launched the St. Louis Beacon, a nonprofit online news source now partnered with St. Louis Public Radio. The third son, John, inherited not only financial acumen—he founded Clayton Management Company—but a fierce love of the arts. John and his wife Anabeth have been backing culture since their courtship, when their names were coupled and boldfaced at a succession of fundraisers. While Anabeth helped steer Forest Park’s transformation, John chaired the campaign for the Saint Louis Art Museum expansion.
Stodgy St. Louis would know a whole lot less about modern art if this family hadn’t opened our eyes. But the Weils look far beyond the arts—John and Anabeth have a million causes. John and Richard own a piece of the Gateway Grizzlies. Richard and his wife, Josephine, are big backers of the Starkloff Disability Institute. They met the Starkloffs while helping their son Gabe meet the challenges of an especially severe form of muscular dystrophy. Expected to live only into his teens, he pushed through a psychology degree at Wash. U. Only after his triumphant graduation did he learn that he’d been misdiagnosed and could live many decades longer than predicted.
➡ Tell us your experiences with this family, or tell us about your own favorite dynasty. Who'd we miss? Add stories, interconnections, and examples to our St. Louis Family Histories by filling out this form.
