Charles Eugene "Gene" Ellis was born March 31, 1929, in Harviell, Butler County, Missouri, the son of Kerry Lee and Ethel Mae Yount Ellis. Some time following the death of his mother in 1935, Gene and his father moved to Bollinger County, Missouri. By 1940, they can be found on the federal census living in Whitewater, along with Kerry’s second wife, Della May...

As I pulled together the various elements of this blog in May, I anxiously awaited word of my application to join the Daughters of the Revolution. Big Sis and I filed our applications and supporting documents back in March, and we have just received our official notification of membership...

When my mother passed away in February 2004, I became my family's memory keeper. I inherited the big Tupperware container filled with family photos, the strongbox with various legal and personal documents, and a shoe box containing my Grandma Clara Glaus Stehr's five-year diaries, beginning in 1939 and continuing through her death in the early 1970s...

Almost 10 years after Missouri artist Thomas Hart Benton completed his Social History of Missouri mural at the state capitol in Jefferson City, the Neosho native paid a visit to Cape Girardeau in the spring of 1944. The controversial painter lectured to a "well-filled" house in the Little Theater at State College the evening of May 9, and the next morning gave an "assembly talk" at the college...

I decided several weeks ago NOT to write another blog on the Cape Girardeau tornado of May 21, 1949. But I couldn't let the 70th anniversary of that tragedy go by completely unmentioned...

On May 4, 1919, Cape Girardeau was abuzz with plans to welcome home the 140th Regiment. The same citizens, who saw train car after train car of young men depart from Jackson to take up arms in the defense of their country, were preparing to welcome home the soldiers of the 140th, many of them hometown boys...

Louis Houck, in his undated manuscript "Reminiscences," included two more descriptions of Cape Girardeau's residential streets as they appeared when he made this town his home in April 1868. They were published in 1969 by the Southeast Missourian as a way to mark the centennial of Houck's arrival here...

In last week's blog, we noted the arrival of Louis Houck in Cape Girardeau in 1869, 150 years ago. Marking the centennial of the Great Man's arrival here on April 21, the Southeast Missourian began publishing excerpts from his undated manuscript, "The Reminiscences of Louis Houck," on that date in 1969. The daily offerings continued through 52 installments...

Attorney, railroad-builder, regent, author... The descriptions of Louis Houck could fill a whole blog. But in 1869, "newcomer" would describe the man who would become one of Cape Girardeau's most influential citizens. After an early life that included a stint as a printer, attorney Houck put down roots here 150 years ago this month...

Last week, as I searched for details about the 1919 fire that destroyed a building at the northeast corner of Main and Themis streets in Cape Girardeau, I found a photograph of that corner showing the buildings affected by the conflagration. (A cropped version of the same picture is above.)...

This rather tattered photograph is the only image I could find of the northeast corner of Main and Themis streets in Cape Girardeau taken before the March 1919 fire that destroyed the corner building and damaged the structure north of it. (Southeast Missourian archive)...

My great-grandmother was Katherine Bullinger Stehr of New Hamburg, Missouri. She had a sister, Clara, who was the housekeeper for the Rev. Martin Scherer, when he was pastor of St. Lawrence Catholic Church in New Hamburg. Orphaned at a young age, my great-grandmother was raised in the parish rectory under the care of her sister and as a ward of Fr. Scherer...

Years and years ago, I'm guessing when I was in eighth grade or a freshman in high school, I remember going on a tour of Kent Library on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University. I remember being impressed by Jake Wells' magnificent mural overlooking the front lobby of the library, the shelves of books that seemed to go on forever, and G. Owen Bonawit's stained glass panels. But, bibliophile that I am, what impressed me the most on that tour was the rare book room...

A 1956 article in the Southeast Missourian notes that the Cape Girardeau chapter of the American Red Cross was established on May 28, 1917, almost 36 years to the day after Clara Barton founded the Red Cross. According to the story: "The Red Cross chapter has two primary responsibilities that it must carry on to fulfill the basic obligations of the congressional charter. These are (1) service to servicemen, veterans and their dependents... and (2) disaster preparedness and relief..."...

The Nancy Hunter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution rented the New Broadway Theater for two days, showing "The Frontier Woman" and "Daddies" as a fundraiser in June 1924. In addition, the Daughters displayed family heirlooms in the windows of the Union Electric Light and Power Co., next door to the theater. (Southeast Missourian archive)...

Continuing from where we left off in last week's blog, here are four more family histories composed by members of the Nancy Hunter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution...

Last week's blog featured a story about a motion picture showing in 1924 that raised money for the Nancy Hunter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Along with the movies, the DAR ladies typed up their families' Patriot stories, and they were published in two issues for the Southeast Missourian. This blog continues those family histories, courtesy of such prominent Cape Girardeau women as Amy Kimmel, Mrs. R.B. Oliver and Mrs. Louis Houck...

In the spring of 1924, the Nancy Hunter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution organized a benefit at the New Broadway Theater: A two-night showing of the motion picture "The Frontier Woman." It was billed as "a true drama of the Old Southwest." Along with that movie, patrons also got to view "Daddies," the screen version of a play by John Hobble, starring Mae Murray and Harry Myers...

This ad, published in The Southeast Missourian on March 6, 1919, caught my eye recently. And it made me wonder if it could have been the first gasoline filling station in Cape Girardeau...

For just the second time in the short life of Harris Field, the World War II Army Air Forces flight training facility that is now Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, the gates of the base were thrown open to the public in February 1944. The first open house was on June 27, 1943, roughly six months after training began at the field. Around 2,000 people toured the base...