FAMILY FINDS CONFEDERATE SOLDIER'S GRAVE

It took four years for Rose Mary Bayer to find her past.

When she did, Bayer found it buried under nearly 60 years of underbrush and fallen trees.

Bayer of Huntsville, Ala., arranged a ceremony Sunday for Confederate Army Pvt. Perry P.W. Hopper, who died in 1923. Hopper is Bayer's great-grandfather -- something she learned within the last four years.

Bayer said her father separated himself from his siblings and told his children little about their past. On a trip through Cape Girardeau in 1994, Bayer discovered family records linking her to her lineage. A year later, she, her brother Charles Hopper of Port St. Lucie, Fla., and her sister Rita Westhafer, of Bristow, Okla., found the Hopper Farm and the family cemetery.

Working in the fall, when the hay fields had been cleared and a path opened to the family plots, the three siblings cleared the debris of 53 years of neglect and discovered a dozen headstones. It took two years to complete the job. Using chainsaws, they cleared fallen trees and snaring vines from the marker of John D. Hopper, their great-great-grandfather.

"We're pretty sure this is where he is buried, but his headstone was found way over there," Bayer said, indicating an uncleared area of the family plot. "He was the first we found."

John Hopper's headstone was discovered once before, in 1944, when Edward Hopper and Lee Joyce were cleaning the cemetery of debris.

Bayer said initialized footstones were still in place and headstones have been matched up that way. Perry Hopper's marker had worn down to a round stump but his young wife's headstone was found alongside.

Between Perry Hopper's and John Hopper's headstones are the graves of Mary and Nathan Collins who died more than 100 years ago and moved the family to Cape Girardeau from North Carolina in 1833. "It all started with them," Bayer said.

Bayer said her quest started from a need to understand her past. She plans to return as often as she can to the cemetery to continue clearing and discovering. She said she hopes to get permission to re-open the cemetery, if it is not full, so family members, including herself, can be buried there.

On Sunday, representatives from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, American Legion Post 63, family members and Civil War re-enactors gathered at the family cemetery to commemorate a new marker for Perry Hopper.

Hopper fought for the Confederacy from 1862 to the close of the war, and participated in the battle of Cape Girardeau on April 26, 1863. He remarked years after the war was over that he was certain his regiment would have been able to capture the city if they had been allowed to continue the fight.

Bayer said his service in the Civil War was one of the proudest events in Hopper's life. Until his death, he wore a medal he was awarded from that conflict.

Floyd Smith, an American Legion second-vice commander, said it is unusual, but appropriate, that the legion would honor a Confederate soldier. The occasion is so rare, Smith said, that the legion didn't have a ritual to follow and had to make one before the ceremony.

"The American Legion is a veteran's organization and this is a veteran," he said. "Although the nation was split at the time, both sides were fighting for what they believed in."

Smith said the legion honors both Confederate and Union soldiers. Smith said he became involved in Bayer's quest to learn about Hopper and said once he got involved he had to see it through to the end.

Charles Hopper said discovering the first headstone from beneath the clutter was "almost like when your first child is born."

He said they found the markers by using a metal pole to probe the ground. He said some of the markers were buried under 6-inches of dirt.

"We still haven't found all of them," Charles Hopper said. "It was a thrill to find your great-great-grandfather then your great-grandfather."