I happened to be in Cape when the old St. Francis Hospital was reduced to a pile of rubble in September of 2000. Somewhere, filed with my Florida film, are photos I took inside the hospital after it closed, but before it was razed. They’ll surface one of these days.
St. Francis Annexation
I ran across this Missourian ad from Sept. 2, 1967 calling out the vote for the St. Francis annexation. I’m assuming that was to annex the space where the present hospital complex is near William St. and Mt. Auburn Rd.
New Hospital under construction
I shot this aerial of the new St. Francis Hospital under construction some time in the mid-70s, as best as I can guess. I had a hard time figuring out what the building was based on how it looks today.
When I called up a Google Earth shot, I could see this building buried in layer after layer of additions.
St. Francis site today
The Fort Hope Apartments occupy the old hospital’s space today.The low-income housing development was built in 2001. A Missourian story in 2004 said that single tenants at Fort Hope must make less than $23,040 a year. The income for a family of four must be no more than $32,880 a year. Monthly rents range from $240 for a single-bedroom apartment to $355 for a three-bedroom apartment.
Restricted access and no-nonsense management is credited for the complex being reasonably crime-free and well-maintained in an area known for problems.
Old St. Francis neighborhood
This aerial, shot in early November, has Good Hope St. on the left; Sprigg St. running across the top; Morgan Oak at the right; S. Ellis running acrossthe middle, and Pacific at the bottom.
The small, orange-colored building on Good Hope across from the Fort Hope Apartments is the infamous office of Dr. Herbert, the man who gave me a wooden stick phobia. It was painted white in my generation’s day. The family living there now knew nothing about the building’s past.
Other St. Francis neighborhood stories
Here are links to several stories touching on the hospital and the neighborhood.
- Vintage photos of a “Nun Circus,” including photos of the grotto behind the hospital.
- Photos of a college girl working in the hospital laundry in 1967.
- Dr. Herbert is the reason I can’t eat Popsicles. Anyone who grew up in that era will know immediately what I’m talking about.
- Farmers and Merchants Bank
- Cape Salvation Army, which replaced Farmers and Merchants
- Meyer / Suedekum Hardware store
St. Francis Photo Gallery
Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.
I recall going to visit my grandmother when she had a pacemaker put in. My uncle “snuck us in past the nun” at the front desk because we were under the appropriate age to visit (I am convinced the nun knew). As a community police officer it was my job to check the building for vagrants. It was quite a scary place even in broad daylight!
Dr Herbert was the best doctor around. He always knew immediately what was wrong with me. He came across gruff but I think he was a teddy bear inside.
Mom was a proud Operating Room Head Nurse, and later Supervisor, St Francis employee for 34 years and many of my youthful memories center around it. I colored on orange X-Ray sheets at her desk outside the OR while she was in surgery, enjoyed the lamb shaped Easter cake made for me by the nuns, and sat by while the nurses emptied the autoclave, etc. Security was not an issue then. I can still hear the echo of the nuns in their habits and smell the medicinal aroma when I think of SF. Thanks for the nostalgic visit.
Dr. Herbert was indeed a “bear,” but he really cared about the children he treated, and woe be to the mother who did not follow his instructions in douching out her child’s runny nose with salt solution! Today, my 30-year-old son has taught his 4-year-old son to use a Netti pot to achieve the same effect.
My husband spent some time at the old St. Francis Hospital when he cut off a finger at Southeast Lumber Company in the early 60’s. The nuns would confiscate their cigarettes, so they kept them in the nightstand drawer. Those nuns were ahead of their time!
My three first children, girls, were all born in the old St. Francis, deliveres by doctor John Crowe, so due to that, I have rather fond memoried of the old place!
Joe Whitright
My sisters and I were born there in the 50s, also delivered by Dr. Crowe.
Susan and her family (Sciortino) have a long history with St. Francis Hospital. Her aunt Catherine (Bargman) died there after childbirth during WW II. Her husband Henry, stationed (stateside) in the Army, came home on train, emergency, and not knowing she had died, got off the train at the downtown station and ran all the way to the Good Hope street hospital, only to be told she had died a day earlier. Susan’s grandmother Josephine LaMantia Sciortino and her grandfather John both died there, Joesphine in 1964 and John in 1939. Her mother Gladys Sutton Sciortino died there in 1973 and her father Joseph in 1974. Susan graduated from St. John’s in St. Louis in 1961 and went to work there as a staff nurse in September 1961, working there when it closed and moved to the new location. After the move was made there was a “tag” sale at the Arena building. We attended and I purchased the following: a crucifix and picture from a room, a guerney (sp)?, a nursey crib frame, a sheel metal bin, on rollers used for laundry and some other items such as metal containers used for meals etc. After the University had used it for student nurses’ they had a “tag” sale at the university farm. I attended and purchased a metal bedside table and a metal food table that folded across the bed for meals. When the hospital was taken down (as these pictures show), I (too) managed to enter the restricted area and “rescued” several pieces of floor (concrete with tile surface), that, according to Susan, came from the ICU on third floor which was placed there a few years before closing taking the place of the OB unit and nursery which closed. Southeast then was the only hospital with those facilities in Cape Giradeau.
I have a couple of pictures of the floor “chunks” and also the 1961 group of new nurses that were hired. The large picture is “somewhere” in a back corridor of the present hospital. The pictures are on FB. If you cannot see them there and have an interest to see them, you can e-mail me at ekinder34@hotmail.com. Also, Susan’s Uncle Paul Sciortino, Aunt Rose Sciortino and her Aunt Angeline Sciortino Brice.
Sorry…the last sentence: Also, Susan’s Uncle Paul Sciortino, Aunt Rose Sciortino and her Aunt Angeline Sciortino Brice also died there…somewhere (without looking up the dates) in the 1990’s
When I was a nursing student at SEMO from 1975-1977, I worked as an orderly at the old St. Francis Hospital. When the new hospital was opened, the staff helped with the transition from the old building to the new. I was sorry to see it go.
I remember those times. I worked in Maintenance there and at the new med. center.
I have several old St. Francis stories. Will try to be brief. First, the building intriques me not only because of the significant history but I had three siblings born there and a grandfather pass there.
I remember when I was a boy children were not allowed in the patient rooms and I always dreaded it when my parents would visit somebody at St. Francis because I thought it was old, dark and creepy. Kids were allowed only in a main floor waiting room or the cafeteria. I thought Southeast was more “kid friendly.” One Sunday afternoon my Mom went to visit a friend and Dad took me to the basement to get snacks. As we were sitting on a bench in the corridor they wheeled a dead body right in front us and out the back door.
When I was about 12 my doctor ordered an EEG there. A nun met Mom and I at the main lobby to take us to the room and she looked at me and said, “Are you ok? You look a little pale.” I wanted to say, “No, I’m not ok. I’m going to get a skull full of pins stuck in my head and I’m scared out of my mind!” But she was very sweet.
About 1990 the building was long vacant and unsecured and I just walked on in with my camcorder and walked through the whole building and filmed. Glad I did because now that it’s gone. I know it was risky but I wanted to do it in the name of historic preservation. 😉 When it was a dorm some of the students complained of hautings. During my tour the batteries in my camcorder, camera and flashlight all went dead at the same time. I knew it was time to leave.
Greg, when I took my stroll through the place, I made into what much have been the lab. There were glass slides all over the place. No telling what biohazards were scattered on the floor and every horizontal surface. I made a couple of photos and made a quick exit.
Before I left, I unscrewed a room number that might have been the one my mother was in when I was born. She wasn’t sure exactly which one it was, but I’m sure I’m correct, give or take a couple of numbers, based on her description.
I don’t know about it being haunted, but I scared the bejeebers out of some kids who were exploring like I was.
I lived there three semesters between 1983 and 1986, and no hauntings. Guess I was lucky.
Ken, yes, I too was scared of the biozards from the microscope glass samples and little blood and fluid vials. GROSS!! I sure wasn’t going to touch them. I prayed all those germs and virus died after a certain length of time. And I was concerned about being exposed to dust and asbestos. And I was concerned about ghosts but I was a little worried about coming face-to-face with more terrestrial creatures like a drug dealer. I thought I’ll try whach him with my Maglight. That would have been AWESOME if you took the room number from your birth. My mom gave birth to three of siblings and she thought it was on the second floor in the middle of building. I took a room number plaque. Room 211. I unscrewed it with car keys. And I also took along a large, electronic gadget that looked like a large radio. I know nothing about biomed equipment and have no idea was it was or what it was for. A couple years ago I donated the room number to the River Heritage Museum and the gadget to SFMC. Like I mentioned on my FAcebook page I’m sure they were just popping their buttons to get it back. I plop it on a desk and they’re thinking, “Great. We tried to leave all this junk behind and this stupid boob drags it back.” But they seemed happy to receive it.
GAVE Many pints of blood at ST Francis. 25$ a pint was living money back in the early 70s.
jim luckett
I was on my way back to Springfield, Missouri, around 199(7? 8?) from Nashville, TN and decided to take a detour through Cape. Saw St Francis’s smokestack and went to investigate. Was intrigued, and decided to buy it. The previous owner had passed away, laving his son with it, and several similar buildings, so it was not hard to acquire.
Had fun exploring it. I recall the police being called first time I was there, in an afternoon. They seemed quite surprised to find it had transferred ownership; short while later that information had went from patrol car to City Hall, who dispatched someone to meet me.
Interesting place at 3:00am in a lightening storm. Creepy. Surprised nobody ever used it for a movie set.
Interesting note about the morgue. It was in the very bottom, down some stairs. Still had all it’s metal; scrappers hadn’t found it I guess, the door was behind another door as I recall, hard to spot.
The room full of glass slides on the topmost floor, that was crazy. Left there very quickly. The whole area at the very top had been blocked off from the inside; had to crawl on the ledge outside the building to unblock it.
Didn’t get to see it as much as I wanted to, living in Springfield. Nice to see these pictures, and history.
There were a number of old gaslights, converted to electric, that were on the grounds. Most of them unbolted themselves, and then ran away. Several were in that nice restaurant that was downtown around 1998. After I ate dinner there and saw them I went and pulled up the rest and took them to Springfield. Wanted someone there to have them, however nobody seemed interested. Same with the front door I think it was.
I am going to scan my pictures shortly, and put them online.
The morgue metal that you saw was probably the dorm kitchen supplies. I went to SEMO from 1983 to 1986, and spent three semesters in this building: Fall ‘83, Spring ‘84, and Spring ‘86 (I think). At least one semester I worked as a dishwasher, cook, and server. We knew it was a morgue then, and I was intrigued to look around for remnants of such. Though my imagination wanted to believe some of that stuff was from the past history of the building, I really don’t believe it was.
I worked at the old St Francis hospital on Good Hope street in Cape Girardeau, MO from 1957 and moved with it, when it moved to the new St Francis at it’s present location on St Francis Drive in Cape. I worked in the lab as a lab technician and my husband ran the washers in the laundry. My husband was killed in an auto accident on his way to work one morning by someone who had been out drinking all night! I worked at the hospital for 40 1/2 years, before retiring in 1998.
I remember Paul and Dan….I worked with Dan and knew your husband well…..good times and sad also. I worked in Maintenance and the boiler room at both the old and new hospitals. My mother worked in nursing….Marian Cox
Art Cox
what year was the old saint francis hospital on good hope street built on.
I don’t have the answer right at the tip of my fingers, but if you are interested in the hospital, put “St. Francis” in the search box on the blog and all kinds of stories will pop up.
My dad Ralph Gremminger Sr. was the food service director at the old St Francis, 73- 77 and when it moved out by highway. We moved in 77 to his new job at a hospital in St. Louis. The morgue fear is real I remember being there late at night “helping” dad and my brothers scaring me in the basement where kitchen was. He had Hawaiian themed dinners with stuffed pig and and lots of fun, dedicated employees. I have many pics in my dad’s stuff if you want me to post them.
Later I went to school at SEMO, met my future hubby and he was staying there because it was non traditional student dorms. Weird circle huh?
Do you live in the area? I’d love to scan the photos, then return them.
I live in NW Arkansas, but planning a trip over there in near future. Gas needs to dip some lol. Let me get out his stuff and see what I got. I could scan to you.
I live in NW Arkansas, but planning a trip over there in near future. Gas needs to dip some lol. Let me get out his stuff and see what I got. I could scan to you. Sorry took so long to reply I didnt know you did.
I’m from a family of 9 siblings from New Madrid that were all born in the “old” st Francis from Oct 1948 to Dec 1959…. 9 kids in 11 yrs 2mos
Erwin Porter
Hi Ronda just reliving my past. I thought of the old hospital and wondered about that haunted place. So Did some research to find some comments like yours. I was a guard for the state of MO. Back when it was a dorm around 1978 I think it was about that time. I heard some strange noises in the basement by the draining table especially!
I worked at the old Hospital from 1074-76, in the Maintenance Dept. and boiler room. We moved to the new Medical Center in 1976. I remember Bill Mccubin, Sulvester Lappe, both Musgraves, Eddie Brooks, and many more great people. My mom worked there in nursing..Marion Cox. I left St. Francis for the Veterans Home in 1989. Me and Eddie Brooks refinished the St. Francis statue still located in the front of entrance #1.
I worked at St. Francis in 1974-76 in the Maintenance/Boiler room. I lived right across from the hospital on Good Hope in the 1960’s. When we moved in 1976 to the new medical center, I worked there until 1989…then went to the Veterans Home. Great history…