About five years ago, Judy Strodtman visited the Tlingit indigenous community in Alaska, where her nephew has a heritage. It was there she fell in love with totem poles carved and painted with a series of symbols that are typically created by indigenous people.
When a walnut tree in her yard at Fayette had to be cut down due to an electric line, she asked the electric company employees to leave the bottom part of the tree standing. She and her children then asked Dan Allenbaugh, a woodworker based in Liberty, to carve the tree into a totem pole. It features a woodland spirit, arrowhead, cross, indigenous person, owl, and eagle.
“It is absolutely wonderful. I have little spotlights on it at night so you can see it as you drive by,” Judy says. “All my neighbors love it.”
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See the totem pole by driving by 370 State Route W, Fayette.
This article was originally published in the July/August 2025 issue of Missouri Life.
