Stories of Sprigg: Neighborhoods a matter of 'taking the good with the bad'

Between Lexington and Southern Expressway, scattered between schools, churches, businesses and industrial sites, Sprigg Street is dotted with homes and apartment buildings. With the exception of a few blocks between Broadway and William Street, Sprigg is lined with trees.

There's no such uniformity among the people who live on the street, who reflect all ages and incomes as well as a mix of educational and ethnic backgrounds.

College students have populated North Sprigg, and so have a few professors. Dave Reinheimer bought his home, just north of Cape Place Apartments, at 1964 N. Sprigg in 1999. He was the first to purchase in the then-new development and he had one reason: "It takes four minutes and 36 seconds and two turns to get to my office."

Reinheimer is a tenured English professor at Southeast. He liked the location -- "no one bothers me" -- which looked out over hilly, wooded terrain across the street. One day he came home and noticed the biggest hill was gone. Now standing in its place is the city's newest fire station. Reinheimer doesn't mind that one bit.

"Dude, there is no way this place is burning down! They don't even have to get the trucks out. They can just pull the hose across the road," he said, laughing. On a more serious note, he said the firefighters have been good neighbors; he's never heard the sirens.

Though he doesn't know most of his neighbors well, Reinheimer is familiar with their routines and has made friends with the neighbor whose backyard abuts his. He shrugs off a few irritations, such as the mail being delivered to a set of boxes in the subdivision rather than to the mailbox in the front yard; and of the few neighbors who persist in parking on Sprigg Street rather than in their driveways.

A student's perspective

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Father Tom Kiefer, center, talked with parishoners Saturday, June 7, 2008, as they exited St. Mary Cathedral following the 4 p.m. mass in Cape Girardeau.

Parking is the least of Sydney Cheek's worries. The 19-year-old Southeast student has rented an apartment in the 600 block of North Sprigg for nearly a year. She chose her new home because it's close to her classes but isn't fond of trying to angle her car onto the busy street.

"I've seen more accidents on Sprigg Street than any other street in my life," she said, pointing to a hill that forms a blind spot for drivers. The city has installed a flashing yellow light, but it hasn't made a huge difference. Still, her second-floor balcony is a gathering spot for friends. She keeps a small barbecue grill in one corner and has lined the patio with potted plants. It is relaxing, she said, to sit outside and visit with friends, including downstairs neighbor Whitney Durrant, 20, or schoolmates Di Gunzenhauser and C.J. Hoffman, both 19, or just sit and watch the cars go by.

Cassandra House moved into a private North Sprigg Street home, a few doors north of Alta Vista, just two weeks ago. She'll share the place with five other women, all Southeast students. She was glad to find a place so close to school and her two jobs.

A "good mix"

Her next door neighbor, Chris Moore, bought his home in 1988, when most of his neighbors were homeowners as well. Now, he can name just two: the man next door and a retired college professor across the street.

Starting in the '80s and '90s as older residents moved away, investors bought the homes and turned them into rentals. It makes sense, he said, because the area is walking distance to Southeast.

"In a sense, it's about economic advantage. It's still a fairly nice neighborhood," he said, noting a "good mix" of college students and professionals. When classes are in session during the fall and winter months, traffic is heavy until midnight. Sprigg Street is the only clear north-south downtown route. And the apartments across the street from him seem to get weekly visits from the police and monthly visits from the fire department. Moore has only called police to report car accidents, though.

Problems with crime

Teresa Wren, 47, can't say the same. She can stand on the porch of her South Sprigg Street home and point out three homes where she says there is constant drug-related activity. She's called police, but says it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get a response. Sometimes she just doesn't call.

As she talks about the neighborhood, the air reverberates with bass sounds of hip hop music blaring from passing cars. She has planted pink and white impatiens in a small plot in her front yard and in a round planter on her porch, but doesn't expect the flowers to survive the season.

"This block is like a zoo," she said. "It's hard to keep flowers in your yard. You can't leave anything out."

Last year, her daughter Baylee, then 7, received a bike for her birthday. Two weeks later it was stolen from the yard. But a few weeks after that, Wren said, police recovered it during a crack house bust two blocks away.

Wren has lived in South Cape her whole life and plans to stay. The derelict home across the street once belonged to her grandmother. Wren's mother, two sisters and two nieces all have homes on South Sprigg. It pains her when friends say they are too afraid to come to her neighborhood to visit. She wishes the city would channel some of the money and attention being spent downtown on South Cape.

"But I love it here. You have to take the good with the bad anywhere you go," she said.

"Making the best of what we've got"

Eldon Nattier and James Coley understand her passion. They bought a vacant, falling-down home in 1995 for its "good bones" but couldn't do any serious renovation for three more years. Today the Rose Bed Inn is a showcase bed-and-breakfast at 611 S. Sprigg St. and Highway 74. The couple owns the four other homes on their South Sprigg block, but not the vacant lot -- though they're trying to buy that, too.

Nattier and Coley have immersed themselves in South Cape community life, but not always with the best results. Coley recalls an early failed effort to get a neighborhood group together. Nattier recently left his job as a member of the board of directors for the Family Resource Center so he could be the not-for-profit's project manager. He beams when talking about the structural improvements, the new windows and the upcoming fall fundraiser to put cash in the center's bank account.

"We're making the best of what we've got. We're praying for the best, and if the ripple effect starts, then, yay!" Coley said. They know their neighbors, and many people beyond those across the alley or beyond their own block.

But they haven't met Tonya McKee, 27. Yet. She moved to the 1200 block of South Sprigg in February. Within days, three of her four sons helped her meet four other families. The children walk to school together. McKee's eldest is 8; her youngest is five months old. She said her street is quiet, sitting, as it does, between Great Dimension Church and the Family Resource Center.

"I guess they're all good people here," she said. "On this block."

Watching the changes

Not too far away, at 1501 S. Sprigg St., Joe Seyer lives in a rambling brick home, as he has since age 6, when his parents bought an old house and expanded it. When he married Frieda and brought her to the home 52 years ago, there were neighbors and little shops. The newlyweds lived upstairs at first, and after Joe's parents built a home at 517 S. Sprigg St. the couple raised eight children, sending them to St. Mary's school, just a mile north on South Sprigg Street.

Joe Seyer's face lights up when he talks about the house being filled with children and littered with toys. It's not unusual for holidays to draw a crowd of 30 or more family members -- which include 27 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Last Thanksgiving, 42 relatives arrived for dinner.

Now 75, Joe Seyer says with some glee that his next stop will be "a nursing home or a funeral parlor."

Meanwhile, he's walking around the city for 30 minutes, five days a week, with his wife, watching as many baseball games on television as he can, and picking up the trash that periodically accumulates along the roadside grass.

He and his father ran a hauling business, moving feed, groceries and sometimes coal, taking advantage of Sprigg's easy connection to Highway 74, made even easier when Southern Expressway was built alongside the Seyer property.

"I've had two different addresses and never moved!" he said, laughing.

For 30 years, he drove a truck, most times getting home every evening. Looking back, he's thankful for never having lost work to injury or illness.

The Seyers have lived long enough on South Sprigg to remember the toll house and the little shops that operated in the once-upon-a-time community of Smelterville, a poor neighborhood eventually bought out after repeatedly being flooded by the Mississippi River. The Seyers' home has never flooded. He said many of his neighbors moved a few blocks up Sprigg Street, many of them renting homes.

The Seyers' neighbors now are industrial. Two auto shops are across Southern Expressway. Buzzi Unicem is just south and TransMontaigne, an oil company, is just northeast. Across the street is an empty lot, overgrown with brush.

He doesn't worry about crime the folks a few blocks north do.

"There's nothing left for crime down here," he said, adding that nothing has ever been stolen. But his wife offers a gentle correction.

"Remember the truck?" she said.

He nods, recalling the day the couple went out for the day and returned to find his truck missing. Some boys from Kansas took it for a long joyride. Another time, someone stole a car battery. Both incidents happened years ago.

On any given day, the Seyers don't see too many visitors. But they have learned to expect the irregular sound of cars using the driveway behind the house to turn around because the drivers are lost and need to backtrack.

On Sunday, there was little room for such aid. Instead, the space was filled by family members' cars.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127

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