Members of Diamond Club anticipate another bridge walk

On a bright September day in 1928, 5-year-old Virginia Kimbel strapped on new patent leather shoes her mother had purchased especially for the occasion and was among the first to look down at the mighty Mississippi from atop Cape Girardeau's new bridge.

"That's what I remember most. All the way across that bridge and all the way back my feet hurt from those shoes," said Virginia, whose last name is now Heckrotte. "But I did it."

Heckrotte of Cape Girardeau is among some 70 people who have signed up for the Diamond Club, established just for those who attended the dedication ceremony of Cape Girardeau's first permanent connection to Illinois.

The club members, most of whom are at least in their 80s now and still live in Southeast Missouri, aren't about to miss today's dedication of the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.

"I'm very excited about it," said Helen Bryant, who was 9 when she, four siblings and her parents loaded into the family touring car and drove across the current bridge on the day it opened.

"It was awesome, but it was kind of scary too," Bryant said. "Just going across a bridge was something in those days. I was afraid we were going to fall in."

Now, at age 86, Bryant has a special reason for attending the dedication ceremony of the new bridge. During the first years of the bridge's construction, which began in 1996, Bryant would drive her husband, Sammie, down to the river every day to watch the progress.

"He wanted so much to live to walk across the new bridge," said Bryant. "There wasn't a day went by that we didn't go down there. I tried to tell him that there wouldn't be much difference in a day's time, but we had to go anyway."

Sammie Bryant died three years ago. Helen Bryant and her family plan to attend in his honor.

"The whole ceremony is going to be special," said Bryant. "It will be a special day."

cclark@semissourian.com

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