Published on Show Me Mizzou April 24, 2025
Story by Dale Smith, BJ ’88
Every bucket list has idiosyncrasies. For Nell and Paul Redhage, it’s a quest for Millard Fillmore, the 13th U.S. president and the only chief executive to have eluded them so far.
As part of their travels to every state in the union, Nell, BS Ed ’73, and Paul, BS Ag ’73, have visited at least one presidential library, monument, homestead or other memorial dedicated to every other commander in chief.
They weren’t always so worldly. When Nell (née Geisert) and Paul first noticed each other as 10-year-olds at a 4-H dance, the demands of farm life in Franklin County, Mo., generally kept them close to home. They weren’t dancing partners that day and claimed no spark between them. Six decades later, though, each still recalls the other’s dance partner. As teenagers, they’d notice one another at weddings or at sporting events between their competing high schools.
Their paths crossed again at Mizzou. This time the dance was at Memorial Union during freshman orientation. Nell was there by herself. “I didn’t know a soul on campus except Paul and a couple of acquaintances,” she says. Among Paul’s missions at the dance was finding a date for a party at the Beta Sigma Psi fraternity.
“If I didn’t, the upperclassmen would set me up with a blind date, and I didn’t want that,” Paul says.
“I was saving him from a fate worse than death,” Nell quips.
The rest, as they say, is history — though not just theirs. Nell majored in music education and Paul in agricultural journalism, but they shared a keen interest in America’s past. After graduation, Paul built a career in agricultural sales, communication and advertising, a career that led the family through moves across Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Nell taught elementary school music, directed choirs and eventually earned a master’s degree in library science.
Along the way, they logged vacation miles visiting historic sites while raising a pair of daughters, journalist Jill Redhage Patton and cellist Jody Redhage Ferber. Complaints came from the back seat about the number of cemeteries on those itineraries, but both girls grew into world travelers, nonetheless.
Nell and Paul, now 73, live in Labadie, Mo. They’re less mobile than they used to be and are taking more river cruises than road trips. But they’ve still got their eye on a certain presidential site in East Aurora, N.Y. Millard Fillmore can’t elude them forever.
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