NAMES ON THE WALLS

From the tower window of Old St. Vincent's College, visitors have an expansive view of the Mississippi River. This is not just any room with a view: It's a room with a history.

On the concrete walls are the names of former students. Each one is written in chalk. No one knows exactly how they got there, but as the story goes, students would write their names on the walls before graduation.

The Rev. Rich Lause of St. Henry's Church in Charleston doesn't know where his name is on the wall, but he knows it's there.

"Sometime within the course of four years, you put your name or initials up there," said Lause, a student there from 1964-68. "It's just tradition, not part of any ceremony."

Some of the names written along the walls were removed during renovations and remodeling in the late 1970s, said the Rev. Alphonse Hoernig, a former student.

However, the students didn't contain themselves to just the bell tower. The projection room above the theater is also cluttered with names and dates painted across its pale blue walls.

Another part of the tradition was carving your initials onto a tree on the grounds, Lause said. It was always known as the Initial Tree.

The names on the walls are another part of the seminary's history, said Diana Steele, vice chairman of the board and director of public relations for the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation.

As one of the oldest buildings in Cape Girardeau, the seminary has been blessed with a great history. But it's one that few people know about. The public rarely visited the grounds until an annual open house began in 1964.

In 1971, the college asked to be included in community activities and events. The Rev. Robert E. Lamy, then-college president, said, "We would like the opportunity to do something for the community." Not many people know about the college or its purpose, he added.

And 25 years later, the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation is facing the same problem -- not many people know about the seminary's history or its importance in the city.

Steele wants to collect stories about seminary life from former students and faculty members and eventually publish them in a book about the seminary.

Studying at the seminary was unique because it wasn't just a school, Lause said.

"I'm still friends with a lot of the people I went to school with," he said. "It was a fully accredited high school but because it was also a boarding school and we lived together, we got to know each other better. We enjoyed each other's company."

The college started operating in 1843 as an overflow for the St. Vincent's Male Academy. The last class graduated in May 1979.

"The seminary had its own language in a way," Lause said. "If we had a snack in the evening, we used to call it a scoff; that was our name for it. And everybody knew what that meant."

As new students entered the college, they had to learn the new language, Lause said. But learning the new meanings weren't as difficult as going through an initiation.

"It was all done in fun," Lause said. "But you only had to do it once. The next three years you were on the other side."

The biggest initiation rite was a shell boat race between classes. Each class would race across the river and the class with the fastest time won, Lause said, adding the racing tradition was non-existent.

"We made all this stuff up," he said. "We'd get together and decide who got to use the boat first -- and the freshmen always went first."

The next day, usually a Sunday morning, the classes would gather outside to do warm-up exercises for the races.

"Then they had to go to the bell tower and pull the ropes to get the boat out, which was really silly because they'd be pulling the boat onto themselves," Lause said. "Actually all they'd pull down were buckets and wastebaskets full of water, eggshells and coffee grounds. They'd get sloppy-dirty, but then everyone was laughing."

On Halloween, the older students also liked to joke with the freshman class. "It was built up and then nothing happened or it was less than they anticipated," Lause said. "They were petrified that we'd beat them up."

The freshmen were told to go outside and hide. The upperclassmen would come looking for them later. "They'd be hiding out in the cold and we'd be inside dying laughing," Lause said, adding that the fun always ended with a bonfire.

Hoernig doesn't recall many stories about his two years at St. Vincent's; he studied there from 1945 to 1947. He became a faculty member in the late 1960s and again in 1974 to 1985.

Hoernig, who now lives at St. Mary's Seminary in Perryville, does recall stories about floods, tornadoes and the seminary's history.

"They used to talk about the handball court and that a cannon shot through there," Hoernig said. "It looked like it was damaged and that was the reason given for the hole in the wall."

Many stories that explain happenings at the school are based on at least some truth, Lause said.

A crooked staircase is easily explained by a story about a river boat explosion. It's a true account. The Sea Bird, filled with 1,500 kegs of gunpowder, couldn't travel up the Mississippi River because of ice floes so it moored below the seminary. Sometime during the night of Feb. 4, 1849, the boat caught fire and exploded. The force of the explosion raised the roof, shattered windows and cracked plaster at the college. A staircase remained intact -- but slightly crooked -- after the blast.

The staircase is another relic that Steele wants to preserve. "I love this building," she said. "I'd probably move in if they let me."

In the future, the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation hopes to open the site as a cultural center or museum.

JoAnn Ruess, chairman of the board, has offered to turn over her dance studio to the foundation as a source of revenue. She operates the Academy of Dance Arts.

Other plans call for the seminary to be used for Civil War re-enactments, parties and art exhibitions. An honors fraternity at Southeast Missouri State University will clean up the basement and paint rooms Friday. The following day a wedding reception is planned.

Timeline of St. Vincent's College History:

-- 1625, St. Vincent de Paul, an apostle, begins a seminary in France. The Vincentian fathers derive their name from this order.

-- 1816, Bishop William Bubourg visits Europe to request more priests and laymen for the diocese in the Louisiana Territory.

-- 1838, the Rev. John M. Odin founds the St. Vincent's Male Academy.

-- 1842, stone quarrying to be used for the buildings begins.

-- 1843, cornerstone of first building was laid.

-- May 1844, students at St. Mary's of the Barrens in Perryville are transferred to St. Vincent's College in Cape Girardeau.

--1844, Mississippi River flood destroys the college's farm crops.

-- 1847, Angelo Navarro of San Antonio, Texas, is the college's first graduate.

-- 1849, The Seabird, a river boat loaded with gunpowder, explodes. No injuries are reported.

-- 1850, tornado rips through the area and kills the school's gardener.

-- June 1859, St. Vincent's College stops operating as a secular college.

-- September 1859, school begins operating as a theological college.

-- 1861-65, Civil War; the college remains open.

-- 1865, St. Vincent's begins accepting students for a classical education.

-- 1865-1893, Perryville seminary students are transferred to St. Vincent's. The college begins offering both classical and ecclesiastical courses.

-- 1893, theological department is transferred to St. Louis.

-- 1893-1910, St. Vincent's offers both secular and theological courses.

-- 1979, last class graduates in May; seminary closes.

-- 1989, Provincial Administration of the Vincentian Fathers of St. Louis announce seminary is for sale.

-- 1991, Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation forms.

-- 1993, foundation makes two offers to buy seminary but both are refused.

-- 1995, Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation agrees to buy the seminary for $700,000.

From information gathered by Sharon Sanders, Southeast Missourian librarian.