Stories from Sunday, December 19, 1993

Erma Lee Allen, 75, of 519 Amethyst died Saturday, Dec. 18, 1993 at Southeast Missouri Hospital. Lorberg Memorial Funeral Chapel is in charge of arrangements which are incomplete.

In 1991, Boris Yeltsin stood on the tank and thwarted the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Soon Gorbachev was himself discarded as damaged goods. Yeltsin was supreme hero, protector and guardian of all of Russia - as the other component parts of the old Soviet Union went their separate ways...

The new book, "Cape Girardeau: Images of the Past in the City of Roses" is simply a remarkable piece of work. You will want to own one and give others as gifts to friends and relatives, especially including former residents now residing in distant parts. We received the shipment of more than 2,000 hardcover books this past week, and selling was brisk beginning Thursday morning...

Herbert A. Holshouser, 75, of Cape Girardeau, died Friday, Dec. 17, 1993, at Southeast Missouri Hospital. He was born May 16, 1918, in Tamms, ill., son of John "Harry" Holshouser and Frankie Cauble Holshouser. Holshouser was owner/operator of Herb's Texaco on S. Sprigg for more than 35 years...

SIKESTON -- Fern Johnson, 74, of Sikeston, died Friday, Dec. 17, 1993, at the Missouri Delta Medical Center. She was born Mar. 16, 1919, at Canalou, daughter of Rubin R. and Sarah Ann Smith Brewington She was member of Canalou Assembly of God Church...

NEW MADRID -- Service for Mac "Tiny" Thompson, 76, will be held Monday at 10 a.m. at Richards Funeral Home in New Madrid, with the Rev. Tom Bray, pastor of New Madrid Baptist Church, officiating. Interment will be in Memorial Park Cemetery at Sikeston...

Luther L. Branch, 76, of Cape Girardeau, died Thursday, Dec. 16, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. He was born Nov. 22, 1917, at Fisk, Mo., son of Luther and Septa Crockett Branch. He is survived by his mother, Mrs. Septa Grugan of Cape Girardeau...

Carl Louis Hoefer, 95, of Doniphan, died Friday, Dec. 17, 1993, at St. Mary's Hospital in Centralia, Ill. He was born March 1, 1898, in Ripley County, Mo. He married Mazie M. Turner April 20, 1918. She preceded him in death on Nov. 12, 1986. He was a member of Brotherhood Railroad Trainmen, Masonic Order of Doniphan, and the Baptist Church...

CHARLESTON -- Dellon Evans, 72, formerly of Charleston, a resident of Holts Summitt, Mo., died Friday, Dec. 17, 1993 at his home. He was born Feb. 12, 1921 at Wolf Island, son of the late William Henry Evans and Helen Couch who lives at Anna, Ill. He had lived in the Jefferson City area since 1960, was a member of the First Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Jefferson Lodge 43 of Jefferson City and the Scottish Rite of St. Louis...

ORAN -- Oliver Scott McMillan, 89, of Oran, died Saturday, Dec. 18, 1993 at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. He was born March 8, 1904 at Oark, Ark., son of William Davis and Clarcie Nelson McMillan. He was a retired farmer and a life member of 61 years of the Oark Masonic Lodge 272...

SIKESTON -- The Rev. J. Carl Frame, 73, of Sikeston died at his home Saturday Dec. 18, 1993. He was born March 22, 1920 at Steele, the son of John Lafayette and Grace Buchanan Frame. He was a lifelong resident of Southeast Missouri, a member of the First United Methodist Church of Sikeston and veteran of U.S. Navy during World War II...

MOUND CITY, Ill. -- Paul Dennis Hooppaw, 49, of Dodge Center, Minn. died Friday, Dec. 17, 1993 in Owatonna Hospital in Owatonna, Minn. Local arrangements are incomplete and will be announced later by the Barkett Funeral Home in Mound City.

ADVANCE -- Glenn W. Rhodes Sr., 80, of Advance, died Saturday, Dec. 18, 1993, at St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. He was born Nov. 14, 1913 at Leora, Mo., son of Dollison and Ida Harwell Rhodes. He was a World War II veteran, serving in the Army Air Corp...

A firestorm of controversy enveloped U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders in recent weeks with her assessment that legalization of many drugs now illegal might be a viable consideration in curtailing the crime problem in this nation. Our concern is not with her joining a national debate by supplying an off-beat idea, though the off-handedness of her offering was disconcerting. Rather, we have trouble with the idea itself. Legalizing drug use is not in the best interest of America...

CHARLESTON -- Shellie Bankhead, 56, of Detroit, formerly of Wyatt, died Thursday, Dec. 16, 1993 at a hospital in Detroit., Mich. He was born Mar. 12, 1937, son of Alonzo and Maude Green Bankhead at Wyatt, Mo. He is survived by a daughter, Nora Key Boyce, of Charleston; brothers, Hubert Douglas Bankhead of E. St. Louis, Ill. and Joe Nathan Bankhead, of Wyatt; sisters, Laura E. Byrd of Merrillville, Ind., and Lelia E. Wade, of Virginia Beach, Va.; and two grandsons...

Arthur William Sharpe, 72, of Tamms, Ill., formerly of McClure, died Saturday, Dec. 18, 1993, at his home. He was born June 17, 1921 at Reynoldsville, Ill., the son of Ralph and Alice Groves Sharpe. He married Velma Johnson on Jan. 25, 1945 in Jonesboro, Ill. She survives...

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. James D. Blyze, 59, of Oklahoma City, formerly of Cape Girardeau, died Thursday, Dec. 16, 1993, at St. Ann's Hospital in Westerville, Ohio. He is survived by his wife, Sally; sons, Steve Blyze of Kansas City, Kan.; Scott Blyze of Westerville, Ohio; a daughter, Karen Paddock of Oklahoma City; sister, Alice Bruster of Boise, Idaho; and three grandchildren...

Andrew McCain, 85, of Cape Girardeau, died Saturday, Dec. 18, 1993 at Southeast Missouri Hospital. He was born May 18, 1908, at Neelys Landing, the son of Robert McCain and Bertha Hargraves McCain. He worked for the city of Cape Girardeau street department for a number of years...

JACKSON -- Sylvester Nothdurft, 82, of Jackson died Saturday at Chateau Girardeau in Cape where he had been a resident for five years. He was born Oct. 17, 1911 at Gordonville, the son of Samuel and Emma Wilkening Nothdurft. He married the former Marguerite Deneke Nov. 9, 1936 at Gordonville. She survives...

While we have been counting down the days to the Toybox delivery on Tuesday, the pace of the campaign is picking up. In fact, these last three days reach a hectic pace as volunteers work to make sure each needy child whose parents have asked for help will receive a special Christmas gift...

It was not a good year for farmers in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois. "Grain prices are at a higher level than in past years, but when you don't have anything to sell, prices don't mean much," says Terry Birk of the Cape Girardeau County Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) office...

City officials banned Christmas activities in Cape Girardeau 75 years ago ... as were Halloween parties earlier in the fall of 1918. Schools and churches were closed and public gatherings were prohibited in hopes of stemming the spread of the Spanish influenza...

JACKSON -- When Jackson High School chemistry teacher Rita Rees needs to use the school's physics and chemistry lecture-lab room, it means three other teachers and their students must switch classrooms. In order to prepare for her lab classes, Rees must come in either before school or stay after school on the day before...

My Christmas creche varies in its location from year to year. I suppose that, down through the years, nearly every flat-topped surface in my home, except the kitchen cabinet and stove tops, has been its site. I suppose, too, that the representative human and animal characters have never had the exact same spots around the manger. Another variance occurs in that each year I tend to zero in on the lives, both real and imagined, of the persons and animals assembled in the traditional stable...

Jane Grimm's favorite antique Christmas ornament is one she calls "The Little Girl." It is a glass head of a china-doll child with separate glass eyes that move with the gentle sway of the ornament. The little girl's round face and earnest eyes look almost adoringly at her owner...