Out of the past 12/20/14

1989

At least 51 members of the Missouri Army National Guard were in Panama when U.S. troops struck Panamanian military bases early today; most are from the Bootheel; the military action is a bid to capture Gen. Manuel Noriega and break his defiant grip on power; the Missouri National Guard started rotating military police to Panama for training in October.

Some time shortly after Jan. 1, a new multi-jurisdictional drug task force will become fully operational in the region; the task force will conduct both covert and overt narcotic investigations in the 12-county Troop E region of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, as well as Perry County.

1964

The annual "Hanging of the Green" is held in the evening at Christ Episcopal Church; the children of the congregation assist with the traditional decorating for the Christmas celebration; a pot luck supper and evening prayer service are held after the decorating.

Jackson's postmaster, Elmo Cline Martin, 47, dies at his home in Forrest Acres; he is survived by his wife, the former Miss Virginia Knoll; a son, Gary Martin; a daughter, Susan Martin; two sisters and two brothers.

1939

The German liner Columbus, scuttled by its crew late yesterday, was the ship on which Mr. and Mrs. Fred A. Groves and daughter, Marjorie, of Cape Girardeau, took a Caribbean cruise last August, a vacation which Groves says was to have been "quiet and restful"; after four leisurely stops in the Caribbean, the ship turned north, presumably for New York City; but with the war situation becoming acute, the ship docked at Havana, Cuba; from there passengers were transported to Miami and then by rail to New York City.

W.F. Suedekum Jr., who has been taking a 10-month master mechanic course at the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute of Aeronautics at Glendale, California, is home visiting his parents; he has been at the school since August.

1914

Joe Sanders, the Commerce, Missouri, man who suffered a skull fracture at the hands of his neighbor during a fight Friday evening, dies at Saint Francis Hospital, never having regained consciousness; Sanders, 41, is survived by his widow and five children.

It is the worst sort of winter day in Cape Girardeau; streets and pavements are coated with ice, when the slowly faling rain begins to freeze in the evening; sidewalks are slippery and unsafe for walking; the heavy ice on telephone and electric light wires have many of them out of commission.

-- Sharon K. Sanders