The remains of two people discovered last month by construction workers who were putting in concrete footings for a new warehouse near the Mississippi River will soon be laid to rest in St. Mary's Cemetery in Perryville, a church official said last week.

The Rev. Louis Derbes of St. Mary's of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville said church officials have given the go-ahead to bury the bones in the religious community's cemetery, despite the fact that no definitive identification was made.

The remains, which were buried in what had once been the cemetery of St. Vincent's Seminary in Cape Girardeau, were given to Derbes last week following an examination by Cape Girardeau Coroner John Carpenter.

Caskets will be made for the remains and, sometime soon the bodies will be buried in a simple ceremony at Perryville. The ceremony will be similar to those given to members of the religious order, like priests, Derbes said.

Burial in the Perryville cemetery has typically been reserved for members of the Congregation of the Mission, the religious order found by St. Vincent de Paul, though a few people buried there were students in the seminary, nuns and diocesan priests who were not members of the order.

Although there is no definitive proof that the bodies were those of community members, enough circumstantial evidence was available to allow church officials to assume that they were members of the religious order.

One of the bodies had a religious medal, a crucifix about the size of a rosary and buttons indicating a shirt, perhaps like one belonging to a member of the order.

The second body was buried six inches away from the first in a cemetery that had been divided into consecrated and unconsecrated ground. Unconsecrated ground was for people who were not baptized Catholics.

The Cape Girardeau cemetery also had sections for members of the religious order. If the first body belonged to a member of the order, the second probably did as well, church officials said.

The bodies were discovered March 24 when workers at Standley Batch Systems in Cape Girardeau were preparing to pour cement for the concrete footings of a new warehouse and machine shop. The business is on land once owned by St. Vincent's Seminary near where the new Mississippi River bridge is under construction.

As workers tried to get water from one of the holes, they discovered a casket that had been buried in the seminary's cemetery nearly 150 years ago. In the course of an investigation, another casket and remains of a second person were found adjacent to the first.

The cemetery was moved in 1923. As few as seven and as many as 30 of the graves that had been part of the cemetery were never accounted for in the move, Derbes said.