St Mary's Cemetery Archives

August 31, 2015April 14, 2021

St. Mary’s Cemetery at Sunset

Sunday was a lazy day. I slept late, ate breakfast, went to get dressed to go out and slay dragons, but as soon as I sat down on the bed, the sheets and blankets wrapped themselves around my resisting body and dragged me down until I just couldn’t fight them off any more.

After my nap, I puttered around the house for a bit, but it was pretty late in the afternoon when I managed to actually let sunlight hit my body. I cruised around checking out a couple locations filed away as being possibilities, but they were dry today.

When I turned into St. Mary’s Cemetery off Perry avenue, it were getting close to sunset. I used the shadow cast from the cross to block out the direct sun to keep from getting lens flare.

48 years ago

Something kept telling me that statute looked familiar. Yes, indeed, this was taken August 24, 1967, almost exactly 48 years ago, and at pretty close to the same time of day. It had been floating around in the miscellaneous scans folder for four or five years because I wasn’t sure where it was taken.

Either my technique or technology has gotten better in the last half century because the recent photo is much better. (Curator Jessica will recognize my style at once. She’s figured out that I’m a sucker for backlit flags.)

I have an aerial photo of the cemetery in an earlier post. And, as always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.

April 6, 2014May 1, 2014

Preservation Homework: Churches & Cemeteries

Dr. Katy Beebe invited me to speak to her historical preservation class at Southeast Missouri State University last year. Dr. Lily Santora asked if I would come back April 8 to meet with her class.

Dr. Beebe’s class was researching Main Street, so I put together a list of the stories I had done about downtown. Dr. Santora gave her class a wide variety of local landmarks. I’ll spend the next couple of days helping her students by posting links to stories I’ve done about their topics. I’m going to concentrate on churches and cemeteries today. (Maybe I can make up for all those assignments I didn’t turn in when I was a student.)

[Hint to students: don’t just read what I’ve written. The comments are generally more interesting than my copy. Feel free to post questions and comments of your own. My readers are a friendly group who love to share Cape’s history. Click on the photos to make them larger.]

First Presbyterian Church

St. Mary’s Cathedral

St. Mary’s Cemetery

When people talk about cemeteries in Cape, I think of Old Lorimier, New Lorimier, Fairmount and Memorial Park. I didn’t have any contact with St. Mary’s Cemetery until Wife Lila’s Mother, Lucille Hoffman Perry, was buried there in 1998.

There’s plenty of information on the city’s web site about the first three city cemeteries I mentioned, but all I could find in a quick search was that St. Mary’s is a Catholic cemetery that was founded in 1903. It is located on the west side of Perry Avenue where it turns into Perryville Road. The aerial was taken April 17, 2011. (Click on the photo to make it larger.)

The bright driveway at the bottom of the photo wasn’t paved in 1998. It was just a rutted lane then.

Find a Grave

The Find a Grave site lists 953 internments (but not Lila’s mother) and says it has 38% of the grave markers photographed.

UPDATE

After the story was published, Sharon Sanders, Missourian librarian and the keeper of Judy Crow’s flame, emailed me with this new information:

Thanks for doing this blog. I had never seen an aerial of the cemetery. I can point to exactly where my parents are buried.

The land was purchased for the cemetery in 1903 by the Rev. Eberhardt Pruente, longtime pastor of St. Mary’s Church. He borrowed the money from his sister, who was also his housekeeper, to pay for the land. Pruente, as well as his sister, are buried in the crypt under the crucifix in the center of the burial ground. The land was part of the Wenzel Hauptman farm. Mr. Hauptman is also buried at St. Mary’s.

Many years ago, my late writing partner and I updated her earlier book on St. Mary’s Cemetery. It lists all those buried there, pertinent dates, who they married, who their survivors were, etc. It’s still available through the Cape Girardeau County Genealogical Society for $50.

48 years ago

First Presbyterian Church

St. Mary’s Cathedral

Christ Episcopal Church

Evangelical United Church of Christ

St. James AME Church

Fairmount Cemetery

St. Mary’s Cemetery

Find a Grave

UPDATE