A DECADE OF HARD WORK AND SIMPLE PLEASURES

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Charles Hood, although just a lad at the time, remembers the second decade of the century as a time when people in Cape Girardeau lived simpler, though not necessarily easier, lives.

Hood was born here in 1906 and has lived in Cape Girardeau his entire life. He was graduated from Central High School in 1923 and spent the next six decades in the construction business.

"I was born out on Perryville Road, which was about a half-mile-or-so outside of the city limits at that time," Hood said.

"I always felt I was real lucky being born in the country. I think boys miss something today. Being born in a country community, you learn a lot of things."

Hood said one of the first lessons he learned as a boy was how to work. It was a lesson familiar to many youths of the period.

During World War I, many of Cape Girardeau's young men, normally available as farm hands in the area, were fighting in Europe. Hood said he took advantage of the manpower shortage.

"For a dollar a day you'd work for these farmers, and, let me tell you, it was work," he said.

Hood said that at 12 years old he worked on a farm for $1 for a 10-hour day. But the hard labor was expected at that time, and there were opportunities for rewards.

Hood was reared in a home and a town where such demands were commonplace. He said Cape Girardeau was a bustling town where the Dutch-German ethic permeated all of life.

"My dad was a damn good carpenter and an excellent mechanic," Hood said. "The most he ever made, up until World War I, was 35 cents an hour."

Hood recalls with excitement what it was like as a young boy to make daily trips into town with his neighbor, a "gardener" who brought produce to the various markets in town.

"There were five brothers, the Vancil brothers," Hood said. "They lived across the road from our house." Hood said he idolized the oldest of the five, Charlie, and "went everywhere" with him.

Prior to the 1920s, the city consisted of three separate business areas on Broadway, Main and Good Hope. Good Hope was commonly known as Haarig, Hood said.

One store he remembers well on his trips in Vancil's wagon was at the corner of Broadway and Pacific, where Howard's Sporting Goods is now. "I would go in there and they had a lot of penny candy, penny licorice and penny marshmallows," Hood said. "The marshmallows were square and they had a marble in them, so we would buy them for a penny, hoping to get an agate, which was worth 2 cents."

Hood said a clear memory he has of the daily wagon trips to Cape Girardeau is the number of saloons here before prohibition.

"The first saloon on our side of town was on Broadway and Pacific and was called the First and Last Chance Saloon," Hood said. "You'd get your first drink there as you came into town from the north and your last drink as you were going out of town."

Hood said the city supported at least 13 drinking establishments during the "teens," including the First and Last Chance Saloon; The Pine Tree at Sprigg and Broadway; Charlie Rustler's at Broadway and Fountain; two saloons at Broadway and Water; two on Main Street; two in the first block of Water; three in one block in Haarig, and one near the Leming Saw Mill on Aquamsi.

At a time when the automobile was a wild contraption that most Cape Girardeau residents had little use for, the city had several watering troughs for horses.

Hood said he remembers well the first time he saw a truck; he was in the second grade at Broadway School in 1914.

"It had solid-rubber tires and two sprockets running the rear wheels," he said. "It was an International truck and I was amazed at the sight of it. I thought, `My God, what will they think of next?'"

The influence of horse and horse-and-carriage travelers also necessitated many blacksmith shops in Cape Girardeau. "They set up on streets where traffic was coming in," Hood said. "There was one on the north end on Big Bend Road, there were two on Broadway, and one where traffic also came in on South Sprigg.

"It hasn't been so awful long since our last blacksmith shop down on Spanish Street closed."

Because there was no need for smooth, asphalt streets, Hood said many of the city's thoroughfares weren't paved. He said the hill on Broadway, between Spanish and Lorimier streets, was paved with granite blocks, but, from about Lorimier to Frederick, the street consisted of wood blocks.

"The blocks were a real problem when it rained because they would swell up and they were slick as ice," Hood said. "I'd seen lots of horses slip and fall on that, so they finally had to get rid of them."

Hood remembers feeling very important when he rode into town on Vancil's wagon because he was given the responsibility of holding the horses' reins while Charlie Vancil went inside the various markets to barter with merchants.

"I'd get up on the wagon and hold the reins when Charlie was inside doing business," Hood said. "Of course, this was a very important job; that old horse, you could hit in the head with a two-by-four and it wouldn't move, but I thought I was doing a wonderful thing."

Hood said they would sell everything they could to grocers throughout town, then sell the produce to residents along the alleys and streets at half-price.

Hood said agriculture provided the city's primary economic underpinning. "Everyone was raised on a farm," he said. "There were cows right out there behind Central High School on Pacific."

Hood attended Broadway grade school in 1912, only six years after the school was built. The "modern" school featured indoor plumbing.

He said the boys' bathroom was on the east end of the school and girls' was on the west end. Although there were indoor bathrooms, there were no drinking fountains.

"They had two big crock jars with water in them, also placed on both ends of the school," Hood said. "The boys would drink out of one crock and the girls out of the other, but everybody drank out of the same cups. It was kind of strange.

"Where I was born, we didn't have any inside plumbing, water, lights or anything," he said. "So I thought it was a wonderful arrangement."

Like other boys his age, Hood said he trapped for furs to earn extra money. "You'd get a quarter a piece for a trapped rabbit because it wouldn't be shot up," he said. "I'd catch muskrats in the morning on what they now call Walker Creek, then I'd reset the traps in the evening to try to catch rabbits."

Hood also hunted raccoons, worth $6 to $8 each. "Hell, I'd have to work a week to get the money that one coon would bring," he said.

In grade school, Hood also "moonlighted" by helping the school janitors. Between working and attending classes, he was at school 14 hours each day.

He and his friends also "raided" the area that now is Dennis Scivally Park because it was rich with butternut, paw-paw and May apple trees.

"That was our fun," Hood said. "But the biggest thing for us kids was the creek (Walker Branch). Hell, we couldn't wait to jump in that creek in the summer. We had a lot of fun. We didn't think of ourselves as underprivileged."