JACKSON MAN SAYS HIS HOBBY IS HISTORY

Bernard Schaper was in charge of the restoration of the Oliver House from 1976-1982. The historical home is open for tours on Saturdays from 1-4:30 p.m.

Bernard Schaper's good times are history.

No, he hasn't been grounded or had his freedom taken away from him. Schaper's hobby is local history -- studying history, talking about history and helping maintain the things that help others get some insight into what area life was like way back when.

The retired owner and operator of Schaper's IGA in Jackson, Schaper is a lifelong resident of the Jackson area.

He is a member of the board of directors of the Jackson Heritage Association and has been active in the group since being asked to oversee the six-year restoration project that would end in the opening of the association's Oliver House.

In addition to serving on the association's board, he is the unofficial curator at the Oliver House and also maintains the group's photographic archives.

The Jackson man has had no formal education in history other than the required courses he took at Jackson High School and later at what was then Southeast Missouri State Teachers College.

Instead, he gained a love of history from his wife, an avid genealogist.

"I'm very interested in the past history of our area and I guess my interest was sparked by a hobby my wife had -- genealogy," he explained.

"I got very involved in helping my wife trace her family history and eventually became interested in tracing my own."

From that point, Schaper expanded his interest from genealogy to studying local history, eventually becoming a part of the Jackson Heritage Association.

His participation eventually led the group to ask him to be in charge of the restoration of historic Oliver House in 1976.

"What does a grocer know about restoring a house," laughed Schaper in recalling the event.

"Being recently retired, my friends gave me the job of being in charge of the restoration," he explained. "My co-workers said, 'We'll help you,' and we enlisted the aid of a young architect and began the project."

The exact date of the construction of the two-story, Federal-style Oliver House is unknown. Records show that a Cramer family lived there in 1847.

It was the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Ferguson from 1855 to 1881. In the early 1870s, their son, Bernard Ferguson established the first long distance telephone line in the state of Missouri by running a line from a building on South High Street in Jackson to another on Themis Street in downtown Cape Girardeau.

It was later the home of State Senator R.B. Oliver and his wife Marie Watkins Oliver. Mrs. Oliver headed up the committee which designed Missouri's state flag.

Schaper explained that in 1965, the house was set to be destroyed but the Jackson Chamber of Commerce and several interested individuals purchased the structure.

Civic organizations, along with the chamber of commerce and a few individuals undertook to restore the building but the task and structure itself were eventually turned over to the heritage association in 1976. This is when Schaper was asked to oversee the building's renovation.

"The house was in a state of disrepair," he said. "Termites had destroyed the lower floors and plaster was falling. Everything had to be renovated."

Schaper's many years as a businessman and resident of Jackson were valuable assets in getting the renovation started.

"Having been in business for so many years, I knew a lot of people and I knew who to call on for help," he said.

Schaper and other members of the heritage association were able to form a volunteer group of workers who began the job of removing wallpaper, scraping window frames and hanging wallpaper, among other tasks.

"Basically, we had two crews -- a day crew and a night crew," said Schaper. "The day crew scraped and removed wallpaper and the night group would come out after they got off work and did repainting and wallpapering."

Because the Oliver House was neither air conditioned or heated, crews worked as weather and work schedules permitted. After six years of work, the house was opened for tours, although some rooms had yet to be renovated.

"We had the initial opening in 1981," said Schaper. "We didn't have the whole home renovated so we concentrated attention on the parlor and furnished it.

"The rest of the home needed repairs but we were out of money so we had the open house and that helped show people what we had accomplished up to that point and also what needed to be done.

"After that, we had fundraisers and were able to work on other parts of the house," he said.

Today, the Oliver House is listed on the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Register of Historic Places and is open for tours each Saturday afternoon.

"[The renovation] was a Jackson project," Schaper said, proudly. "It was completed by Jackson citizens and everything was done with volunteers and donations."

Since the close of the main renovation effort, Schaper has continued his involvement in the heritage association by serving as the unofficial Oliver House curator and by maintaining the group's holdings of historic photographs of Jackson and the surrounding area.

"During the restoration, of course, we were given some old historic pictures and that sparked my interest," said Schaper, who soon began to collect other photos. Some were donated, he said, and others were simply copied with the permission of their holders.

"I became very aware of the importance of pictorial history," he said. "A lot of times, you can describe something to someone that happened many years ago and each person you tell will get a different idea of what you're talking about but if you show them a picture, they'll know exactly what you're talking about."

Currently, the association has about 250 historic photographs relating to Jackson and the area.

Many are of downtown Jackson and its schools, churches and noteworthy individuals. Others are photographs which are of area interest such as those of farm scenes, old musical groups, mills and other items of historical interest.

Having grown up, worked and made his living in and around Jackson and having always lived in the area, said Schaper, has helped maintain his interest in local history. He feels a part of the area.

"It does make me interested in the local history because my roots run deep here," he said. "My ancestors came from Germany and settled here and my parents had a rural upbringing in this area.

"In 1910, my dad started in the grocery business," he continued. "He came off the farm and began work and eventually became a partner in the McAtee Mercantile Store [in Jackson]."

Schaper's father went on to become a partner in a store at Cape Girardeau in 1922 and the family spent nine years of Schaper's childhood in Cape Girardeau.

"I grew up in a store," he laughed.

The family returned to Jackson and in 1934, Schaper's father began his own grocery store in downtown Jackson, in which Schaper worked throughout his young years and in college.

During World War II, Schaper served for four years in the military, rejoining his father in 1946. He became a partner in the store in 1947 and retired from the grocery business in the mid-1970s.