Out of the Past: Sept. 2

1999

Funding for a $750,000 annual effort to stop crime and start positive social programs in Southeast Missouri neighborhoods has been suspended by the U.S. Department of Justice; the way Southeast Missouri is administering the program — Weed and Seed — doesn’t follow federal rules, says Stephen Rickman, national director of Weed and Seed for the Justice Department; in a letter to the interim director of SEMO Weed and Seed, Rickman cited several areas the regional effort is off course, including unauthorized budget adjustments, inappropriate expenditures and insufficient details on programs.

Fern Schlimme has been named member of the year by the American Legion Auxiliary’s Missouri Department; Schlimme, 77, a member of auxiliary unit 63 in Cape Girardeau 22 years, hasn’t held many offices in the organization; her contributions have been her many volunteer efforts.

1974

Labor Day. Picnickers get wet and swimmers don’t, on one of the coolest, dampest Labor Days ever; although many of the 100 picnic tables in city parks are occupied by area residents enjoying a last summer fling, intermittent showers dampen everyone’s spirits.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, has announced plans for construction of a new Wal-Mart Discount City store on an 11-acre tract on Highway 72 on the west side of Jackson; the site was recently purchased by the Rogers Construction Co. of Dexter, which will build the 32,000-square-foot building and lease it to the store firm, which now operates 88 Wal-Mart Discount City stores and two family centers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

1949

An emergency drive to raise funds to finance the equipping of a permanent physical therapy center at Saint Francis Hospital will be launched early next week throughout Southeast Missouri; at the same time, a construction program will be started at the hospital to prepare a wing for the ground level floor for treatment of the increasing number of polio cases; it is expected that the center will be fully set up and in operation within two weeks, and there will be facilities for treatment of 300 outpatients.

Three nurses with three members of a committee in charge of the baby show yesterday at Jackson Homecomers had all they could manage when 77 babies, their mothers and grandmothers poured into the courthouse; so large was the throng that the Circuit Court room had to be opened, and nurses made a temporary office out of the lawyers’ reception room; contestants came from Burfordville, Dutchtown, Cape Girardeau, Millersville, Delta, Chaffee, Oak Ridge, Neelys Landing, St. Louis, Gordonville, Paragould, Arkansas, Phoenix, Arizona and Jackson; selected king and queen were Joe David Koehler, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Koehler of Jackson, and Jane Sue West, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Vernie West of Cape Girardeau; each is 2 1/2 years old.

1924

Workers have started repairing the break in the sanitary line of the West End sewer, nearly five months after the break occurred; a force of 15 men, under the direction of Commissioner Martin Krueger, are removing the dirt and debris from the cut in Houck’s Hill, two miles southwest of Cape Girardeau, where the break occurred, and late this week will be ready to lay new pipe— either cast iron or concrete — through the hill.

Classes begin in all Cape Girardeau public schools in the morning; while no figures on the enrollment are available, it is said the schools are well filled with pupils.

Southeast Missourian librarian Sharon Sanders compiles the information for the daily Out of the Past column. She also writes a blog called “From the Morgue” that showcases interesting historical stories from the newspaper. Check out her blog at www.semissourian.com/history.