Cape Girardeau History and Photos

August 21, 2010August 22, 2010

St. Francis Hospital “Nun Circus”

Brad Elfrink in his workshop

Cape is a place that overlaps and interlocks. My friend and former co-worker, Jan Norris, asked me if I’d meet up with Brad Elfrink while I was in Cape. He does beautiful “whimsical hand crafted collectibles” that she wanted photographed for her button site.

Brad and his wife live on Sprigg St., just down from William, which is why I photographed that corner for a recent page.

He and I talked about local landmarks that have quietly disappeared. I told him I had been looking in vain for a unique house in the neighborhood that I photographed in the 60s. He broke the news that it had been torn down, but that he had some of the decorative bricks from it in his back yard. (More about Brad and that on that another day.)

I prowled St. Francis Hospital

I mentioned that I sort of “found a way” into the nearby boarded-up St. Francis Hospital just before it was torn down. I wanted photos of the interior (and to make off with the room number tag off the room my mother was assigned after I was born).

“Do you recognize these rocks?”

“Do you recognize these rocks?” he asked me.

I took a wild stab and said, “Did they come out of the grotto in the gardens behind the hospital? I always thought that was neat.”

St. Francis Hospital Grotto

Yep, Brad saw it being torn down and scavenged a few rocks for future use.

Nun Circus

The photo above of the grotto was in a film sleeve slugged Nun Circus, with no date or other info. From a technical standpoint, the frames were overexposed and overdeveloped, which caused the whites to block up to the point they were almost unprintable.

I’m going to put up a photo gallery of the “Nun Circus” and some of Brad’s recovered Grotto rocks. I apologize for the quality of the black and whites. I rationalize that their historical value may outweigh their poor quality.

St. Francis Photo Gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left of right side of the image to move through the gallery.

Typical Cape serendipity

Friend in Florida with no connection to Cape puts me in contact with an artist who just happens to have salvaged pieces of two buildings I had photographed in the 1960s. Things related to Cape don’t have Six Degrees of Separation. You can make the connections in no more than two or three.

August 20, 2010

Studying the Human Body

Six or eight months ago, I scanned these pictures of kids in an unidentified school obviously posing for me. I figured they had to be posing, because the boy is holding a notebook labeled The Human Body and everybody else is engrossed, but not excited.

Science class at St. Vincent’s School

I was looking for something else this afternoon when I stumbled onto a Feb 12, 1966, Missourian Youth Page that contained these photos, which turned out to have been taken at St. Vincent’s School. You can read the whole story by Judy Crow here.

The photo caption says “Reviewing with pride the drawings and descriptions of parts of the human body that earned them ‘A’ grades for their science notebooks are Ruth Schnurbusch, Peggy Casey, Danny Wengert, Mike Wulfers and Steve Todt. They are 7th graders.

Getting to the heart of the matter

In the other photo, three pupils are transfixed by a guy in a dark suit holding something that looks like an alien mounted on a microphone stand.

The actual situation is much less interesting. The caption says that James J. Hopen demonstrates the mechanism of the heart model he recently donated to the science classes of St. Vincent’s Grade School. Watching attentively are sixth graders Mike Klipfel and Kathy Stranahan, front, and eighth grader Mark Wood, rear.

August 19, 2010March 11, 2021

Pete Seeger & Songs of My Life

I was trading some messages with bicycling buddy Annie O’Reilly the other day when Pete Seeger’s name came up. I mentioned that I had seen Pete in concert three or four times and photographed him in May, 1977, when he played in White Springs, FL. I said that I’d keep my eyes out for the pictures while I was working on the Cape project. “He just turned 91, so I’d better have them ready for an obit. I hope it’s later, not sooner, though.”

I’ll toss up his photos, along with random thoughts about the music of my life.

A Bushel and A Peck

One of the first songs I can remember from my childhood is A Bushel and A Peck, with the lines, “I love you a bushel and a peck, A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.” I don’t know if Mother would sing it to me or if it was just a phrase she’d use like, “Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

Johnny Horton and The Battle of New Orleans

The first song that was “mine” – meaning I knew all the lyrics and my parents didn’t teach them to me – was probably Johnny Horton’s 1959 hit, The Battle of New Orleans. I never realized what a colorful character he was until I Googled him.

My freshman debate partner, John Mueller, owned every Kingston Trio album ever cut, so I got introduced to Tom Dooley, M.T.A, Sloop John B, 500 Miles and Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Of course, I learned later that their rather saccharine versions of those songs had been done much more robustly by earlier singers, including Pete, but it was still a nice introduction to folk music.

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan

Marty Cearnal, a SEMO college student who worked at Nowell’s Camera shop introduced me to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what to make of Dylan, but that Joan sure could sing purty.

Peter, Paul and Mary

When Mary Travers died, I pulled out photos I shot of PP&M at Ohio University. You can read the whole account on my bike blog, PalmBeachBikeTours. Much like the Kingston Trio, PP&M made songs “sweet” and non-threatening.

They make Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right sound pretty. It wasn’t until I discovered Bob Dylan’s version that I appreciated the off-hand way Bob kinda verbally shrugs his shoulders as he dismisses a relationship gone sour because “I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul.”

After I published the story, Carol Towarnicky, a college friend, reminded me that the concert had been held April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King had been killed.

The thing I love about folks singers is that they really care for the message they’re delivering and they really care for their fans. After the PP&M show, the trio stuck around for an hour or more talking to the campus reporters and their fans. You’ll see Pete is the same way.

Florida Folk Festival

I was looking to replace a color film processor for The Post and wanted to see one like it in operation. The nearest one was at The Gainesville Sun. I noticed that Pete Seeger was scheduled to perform at White Springs, not far from there. Figuring I’d get a two-fer out of the trip, I planned to look at the processor, then go to the concert.

I ended up buying the film processor, but the high point of the trip was watching Pete up close. Unlike bigger venues, we were right up with him.

This Machine Surrounds Hate

We were close enough that we could clearly read the signature motto on Pete’s banjo: THIS MACHINE SURROUNDS HATE AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER. With all the hate speech in the news these days, we need Pete more than ever.

I like Pete’s message better than Woodie Guthrie’s banjo that read, “This machine kills Fascists.”

Pete brings the crowd along

You aren’t a spectator at a Pete Seeger concert, you’re a participant. Grandparents, parents and grandkids are all pulled into the show. If you don’t know the song lyrics – and that’s rare for his fans – he’ll coach you along.

After the show

It’s after the show that Pete’s decency and humanity came through. There were a few reporters hanging around, but the room backstage was filled with regular folks and their kids who wanted an autograph, a photo or just to talk to the man who is a national treasure.

He took time to talk with everyone and to make each of them feel special. I didn’t see him show any impatience or try to rush anyone through.

Where’s his entourage?

When he had finally talked with everyone who wanted to meet him, he hoisted his guitar and banjo over his shoulder and walked out. This isn’t a fellow who demands a dressing room with the right color of M&Ms in it.

I’m struck by how young Pete looks in these photos, although I thought he looked old when I took him in 1977. He was born in 1919, so he was about 60 when these photos were taken. I guess when you’re 30, 60 looks old.

Pete Seeger Photo Gallery

Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

August 18, 2010October 9, 2015

Bicycling to School

Grandson Malcolm, who is going to turn 6 any second now, headed off on his bicycle for his first day of kindergarten this morning. He’s lucky enough to have a good school only a few blocks from his house in Lake Park, FL.

Brother David pumps up his tires

Here’s Brother David in his baseball uniform pumping up his tires. Note the speedometer. I had one of those on my bike, too. I pegged it going down the steep hill gravel road leading from Old McKendree Chapel. It’s the kind of thing you do just once in your life if you survive it.

Technical note: the black and white photos were taken with a half-frame camera that would get two photos in a standard 35-mm frame. You got twice as many photos per roll of film, but the quality was only half as good.

Brother Mark with his Sears Spyder

Mark had a Sears Spyder with a rare leopard skin banana seat. When he outgrew it, it ended up in a shed in Dutchtown where it went underwater in at least two floods. Read about my quest to fix it up for him as a present.

After I wrote that piece, I was surprised at how many bicycle collectors there are out there and wrote a second story. After discovering how much it was going to cost to restore the old bike, I loaded it back in the car to take it back to him. After all, you can only love your brother so much.

A fellow who read the stories knew a restorer in Henderson, KY, who had a near mint version of Mark’s old bike. Mark asked if I’d divert a few hundred miles out of my way to pick it up on my last trip to Cape. Sure. Gas was a lot cheaper than fixing his old bike.

I’ll be writing about that adventure on my bike blog.

I’m still looking for photos of MY bike. So far, I’ve found about a two-second video snippet of me pulling out of the driveway on it, and a still frame where it’s way in the background.