From the Morgue: Short stories to (hopefully) entertain readers

As I do research for these columns or compile the "Out of the Past" column using old Southeast Missourian newspapers, I will occasionally run across items I find interesting.

It could be a humorous incident, or an article that reflects a different time and a different attitude than today.

In some cases, these older articles are so complex, I can’t summarize them in a sentence or two. So the full story doesn’t make the cut for inclusion in the “Past” column.

This column is a collection of several of those articles. There’s no rhyme or reason. I just found them interesting, and I hope you do to.

Now, one comment regarding the first item about a 5-year-old boy who started smoking cigars when he was just a toddler: I don’t smoke…anything. Never have, never will. And I certainly don’t condone a 5-year-old smoking. That said, I’m including the story as a lesson in how our attitudes have changed over the years.

Published Oct. 8, 1938, in the Southeast Missourian:

Five-year-old Billy Sitzes likes his cigar despite his tender age and, if four years lend experience, he's a veteran. He posed for these interesting picture studies with all the nonchalance of an old hand, at both posing and smoking. At the extreme left he tilts the stogie at a rakish angle, squints his eyes and looks the pictureman right in the face; then with the adeptness born of doing it, he blows off the ash in the next picture just before the cameraman moved up closer to catch a near view in the next one of the cigar, a couple of teeth and a place where a tooth used to be and, finally he smiles, the cigar droops and he's just a kid again.Southeast Missourian archive

Cigar smoker at age of 5

Cape boy has been at it since infancy

After four years of smoking stogies, 5-year-old Billy Sitzes of Cape Girardeau contends that there’s not a lot of difference in cigars. In fact, he declares, they’ll all do when a fellow wants a smoke.

Billy handles his cigar like a veteran. Much to the distress of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur J. Sitzes, 1107 Broadway, Billy began smoking at the age of 1 year. He got hold of a cigar, smoked it, and it didn’t make him sick. Since then he’s been at it, probably not smoking as often as adult cigar fans, but with sufficient frequency to satisfy his whim. Just once in a while, for variety’s sake, Billy smokes a pipe and occasionally he indulges in a cigarette, but he prefers cigars.

Tried to break habit

Failing by various methods to discourage his premature indulgence, the parents have finally concluded that it is best to let him have his occasional cigar, hoping that he will sooner or later get one that will cause him to develop a distaste for them. But Billy has thus far conquered all of them. Observers of his habit have handed him the “foulest pieces of rope” manufactured and when, without batting an eye, the youngster took the cigar in tow well under control they shook their heads and walked away. Apparently the smoking has had no ill effects. Billy is a husky youngster and well able to hold his own with any child his age.

He does not inhale the smoke, but sometimes surrounds himself with a cloud, particularly when he wants to put on an exhibition. Ordinarily, he cocks the cigar at a jaunty angle in his mouth and puffs nonchalantly until it has been consumed down to a stub, tosses it away, and goes on about his play.

Here’s another story about a 5-year-old getting into mischief.

Published July 11, 1923, in the Southeast Missourian:

Lizzy runs away with boys; halted at precipice edge

Curtis Ballard, 5-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Ballard, knows how to start a Ford car, but his education regarding the handling of Lizzies ends there. Accordingly he had a narrow escape from destruction, along with his father’s sedan, at noon today, when he started the machine and rode, powerless to stop it, to the edge of an embankment west of his home, where the car was brought to a stop by a rescuer. Another second and the boy and machine would have gone over the embankment.

Ballard, who resides at the crest of College Hill, North Henderson, left the key in his car at noon today. Curtis got in and started it. The car was headed toward the garage, at the west end of the lot, and sped along, but it swerved somewhat from its course and missed the garage. However, it did not miss Mrs. Seabaugh’s garden, next door. It plowed through the garden, going in the direction of the steep embankment at the end of the lot, on the west.

Mrs. Ballard heard the commotion and ran out to help stop the car, but she fell down and was out of the race. Just at that moment Clyde Lewis, who works at the College fruit farm, happened along. He heard the screams, sensed the situation and sped after the traveling Ford. Just as the car came to the edge of the cliff, Lewis reached the machine, flung himself upon the running board and clamped on the brakes.

It required the service of the College farm tractor to get the car out of Mrs. Seabaugh’s garden, which will never look the same. The car was not damaged, but Mrs. Ballard’s nerves are said to need considerable care and attention and some of the boys were ready to bet today that Curtis will take his supper off the mantle.

Published Monday, Feb. 25, 1924, in the Southeast Missourian:

Subscriber turns house around and carrier boy is badly fooled

People who are contemplating changing the position of their houses ought to let someone know about it.

That’s the way Robert “Chick” Ross, demon carrier boy for the Missourian in the extreme north end, and caddy de luxe at the Country Club feels about it. “Chick” got his opinion of people who are prone to suddenly move their houses around through his experience Saturday night.

“Chick” is naturally a conscientious and systematic carrier boy — and besides, he was out Saturday to win the weekly cash prize of a dollar for the boy who does the best work. He worked so diligently with his collecting work, and his route is so long, that when he got to the home of Ed Steger, Red Star, it was dark. He found the house all right, finished his work and turned to the right, as usual, thinking he was headed back to the city. He walked and walked, through mud and water. His feet were wet and he was muddy to his knees. Finally he landed in the “jungles” instead of Main Street and he knew then that something was wrong. He retraced his steps and again came to the Steger home. Close observation showed him that the house, which formerly faced south, had been turned around on the lot and now faced east. That is what threw him off.

It was 8 o’clock when the weary “Chick” got back to the Missourian office to dry his feet — and get the dollar prize.

Published Aug. 27, 1925, in the Southeast Missourian:

Watermelon train is wrecked; Thebes has biggest feast

Thebes (Illinois) had its first big watermelon spread Tuesday afternoon and it will be a long time before the evidence of it disappears. Seven carloads of melons, going from Southeast Missouri fields to eastern markets via the Thebes (railroad) bridge, left the Cotton Belt tracks just after the train rolled over the bridge, and rolled down the high embankment.

When the noise died down, watermelons were scattered over the whole town and immediately everybody started eating. Most of the melons were crushed, but there were enough good ones to supply all who cared to carry them home. More than 2,000 melons were in the shipment.

Make note, if you would, of the cause of this next crash: “Losing control of their automobile as they attempted to change drivers…”

I’ve driven a lot of miles with my Big Bro, but I can honestly say, we have always stopped the car if we decided to “change drivers.”

Published Dec. 1, 1924, in the Southeast Missourian:

Closed auto dives into lake, carrying brother and sister under water

Losing control of their automobile as they attempted to change drivers, Gus and Margaret Russkamp, 5 S. Lorimier St., had a miraculous escape from death Sunday, when their automobile, a Ford coupe, plunged into the icy waters of the lake at Hely’s quarry on South Kingsighway, turned a flip-flop and landed upright on a ledge almost completely submerged in the water, 30 feet below the level of the roadway.

Dazed and shocked by the crash, the two climbed out through the top of the car, which was caved in by the plunge, and were rescued from their perilous position by Charles Watts, driver for the Cape Taxi Co., who was on the road nearby and saw the car dive into the lake. Throwing a rope to the imprisoned couple, Watts and others pulled them to shore, after they had been in the water less than five minutes.

They were hurried to their home, wrapped in heavy blankets, and it was said today they were none the worse for the incident, except for the shock. The car was pulled from the ledge, where only a small portion of the top was visible above the water. It was badly damaged.

Russkamp said today that he was driving the car, when his sister asked to be allowed to take the wheel. As they were shifting positions, while the car was still in motion, her coat caught on the steering wheel, he said, and jerked it sharply to the right. Before either could straighten the course of the machine, it had headed for the rocky brink of the lake, and dived 30 feet to the rock ledge beneath the water.

Although the car did a flip-flop in the air, it landed in an upright position on the concealed ledge about six feet below the surface of the water with only a section of the top of the car visible from the bank. As the car landed on the ledge, Russkamp said he and his sister clambered upon the seat, to keep their heads above water.

The water, near where the car landed, is said to be nearly 50 feet deep, and the ledge is believed to be only a small one. Had the car landed either to the right or left, or farther out in the lake, it would have gone to the bottom, it is believed, and both occupants probably would have been drowned.

As was the case, with the car almost submerged, the couple attributed their narrow escape to the fact that the top was smashed in the fall, making their escape possible.

Neither Russkamp nor his sister can swim.

“I don’t remember exactly what happened,” Russkamp said. “When we started to change positions in the car, my sister’s coat caught on the steering wheel some way, and I saw the car start for the hole. I was behind her, however, and could not get to the wheel, and that’s about all I remember until the car hit the water. We both got to our feet as quickly as we could after the smash.”

Although their clothing was soaked with the cold water, neither felt any ill effects from the “dip,” and Miss Margaret went to Marston today to resume her work as teacher in the public schools.

Russkamp, who was formerly employed in the office of the International Shoe factory, is not employed at present. He and his sister are children of Mr. and Mrs. August Russkamp, the former a retired business man.

The accident is the second to occur at the quarry lake within the past two years. Arthur Smith, a railroad employee, was drowned there two years ago when his automobile plunged into 20 feet of water.

Gus and Margaret Russkamp’s guardian angels must have been riding on their shoulders for them to have survived such an accident.

And in this last item, it’s clear that R.E. Dover’s guardian angel was working overtime for him, when he fell beneath a train in the Fornfelt-Illmo railroad yards.

This 1953 aerial of Illmo shows the train yard at the top of the photograph.G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive

Published July 18, 1949, in the Southeast Missourian:

44 cars pass over Illmo brakeman but he is not seriously injured

Forty-four box cars passed over R.E. Dover, 30, Fornfelt brakeman, at Illmo Sunday afternoon, but a severe scalp laceration is his worst injury and he was able to relate the experience from his Saint Francis Hospital bed today.

Dover, a brakeman for the Cotton Belt Railroad, was attempting to hop the northbound freight train, and ride it from the Fornfelt-Illmo yards into Illmo, a distance of 200 yards. In some manner he lost his footing and fell between the tracks and was dragged for several yards before his clothing became loosened from the metal rods underneath the car.

The passing rods tore all the clothing from his body, and after the train was stopped he was wearing only one stocking. A cigarette was his first request he made to the rescuers. Someone saw him fall and the train was signaled to stop.

“I was aware of my predicament,” Mr. Dover said, “and did not move a muscle until I realized how deeply the metal rods were cutting against my back, and then I moved my body a little toward one track and they stopped hitting me.”

A long time

Amid the deafening sound of the train wheels, he said his thoughts were that any minute one of the rods was going to catch him and drag him onto a rail.

“It seemed like a week before they were able to stop the train,” Dover, who has been employed by the Cotton Belt since Sept. 1, 1943, said.

He said he was attempting to get on the front of a box car, catching the steel ladder bars, but “when I first got on the train, I knew I had made a mistake somewhere.”

He did not know how he got under the train. Nevertheless, he said, the first thing he knew was when he hit the railroad ties and then the dragging and the severe pain of the metal rods striking his back as each car passed over him. His back was painfully bruised.

Sharon Sanders is the librarian at the Southeast Missourian.