Southeast Missourian's contemporaries recall horse-and-buggy days

Clothing, methods of transportation, entertainment and people's attitudes have changed over the years the Southeast Missourian newspaper has existed. Who knows that better than someone who's been around for a hundred years or more?

"I started out in the horse and buggy days," said Mary Drake, who will celebrate her 101st birthday Dec. 7. Drake was raised in Charleston, Mo.

Her great-grandfather, Joseph Moore, settled and farmed in the Matthews Prairie area about 1835. "That was before cotton," said Drake. "Wheat and corn were the main crops." Moore decided he liked the area so much he wrote his brother Charles and promised that if Charles would join him, Joseph would name a town in his brother's honor. "He went and that's how Charleston got its name, but I doubt if many people know that," Drake said.

She says the world was nicer when she was young. "The world was at peace the first 15 years of my life," she said. Difficulty with reading forced Drake to give up the newspaper, but she still listens to the television.

"I don't like where the world is headed today," she said.

She likes it that women have more control of their lives today but thinks people have become too casual.

Drake was referring in part to clothing. "Women always wore hats and gloves to church," she said. "Men wore suit coats if it wasn't too warm."

She thinks people should dress up more, "especially since we have air conditioning."

Drake remembers crossing the Mississippi by ferry and recalls the thought of a man walking on the moon as just "crazy."

She was an avid traveler as long as she was physically able. Drake got her first car, a Buick, when she was a sophomore in college. "There weren't many cars back then," she said.

If her reactions were faster, Drake would be behind the wheel today. Giving up driving was one of the hardest things she had to do. "It was like I'd lost my arms and legs," she said.

In the mid-1930s, Drake's husband, Harvey, worked in the advertising department at the Southeast Missourian. With war on the horizon, he realized his job probably would be in jeopardy and returned to Charleston to farm. "His heart was always in farming anyway," Drake said.

Drake has lived at Chateau Girardeau for the last 25 years; she remembers the area being farmland when she and her husband first came to Cape Girardeau. In her room, a portrait of her two daughters that hangs beside her bed. It isn't easy being 100.

"Every day there's a new ache or pain," she said.

One of the worst things is that all her contemporaries are gone. "I had a lot of friends when I first moved here," she recalled. She moved to Cape Girardeau 25 years ago.

Frances Feigenspan, 102, was born in Fulton, Mo., and spent much of her youth in Jefferson City. Although she grew up in the city, Feigenspan lived a simple life. Her father worked as a guard at the state hospital and later at the state penitentiary. Her mother packed lunches for school. "We always had cracked eggs for lunch," she said. Cracked eggs is the farm term for hard-boiled eggs.

Because the family butchered its own meat, there was always plenty of sausage.

"I was always running away when I was little," Feigenspan said. "My mother was afraid they wouldn't be able to keep me in school."

That wasn't the case. School seemed to be the one place she liked. "I would always go right to school and come right home afterward," she said. Feigenspan went on to graduate from high school and furthered her education in Warrensburg. After only one year of college, a local superintendent called three days before the start of the school year to ask if she would teach second grade.

"I told him I had only had one year of instruction and didn't have a certificate, but he told me not to worry about that," she said.

Teaching full time didn't turn out to be for her. She requested a substitute teaching position instead. Feigenspan taught for about three years before the school administration discovered she was married and forced her to seek other employment. Married women were not allowed to teach in those days.

Feigenspan's first brush with aristocrats came on one of her exploits away from home. "I was wandering down the street and came to this very big house," she said. "A black horse and carriage pulled up in front, and a man came out and got into the carriage."

That man was Herbert S. Hadley, and he was on his way to be inaugurated as governor of Missouri. Feigenspan also remembers when lightning struck the Capitol building. "We could see it burning from our house," she said.

The 1911 fire destroyed the Capitol.

Feigenspan, a resident at Ratliff Care Center in Cape Girardeau, wouldn't agree to having her picture taken. "I don't even like to look at myself in the mirror," she said. But her real reason is almost 100 years old. "When I was about 4, Mother dressed us up to have our picture taken. The photographer put this black hood over his head and held up a torch. There was an explosion, the flash, I guess, and I was scared."

Fanny Kjer was born in 1901 and spent the majority of her life in Illmo. Her father, who immigrated from Denmark, first settled in Gordonville before moving into the Scott City area. Her mother died when she was only 16, and the care of younger brothers and sisters was shared by Kjer and her father.

Kjer has spent her whole life "trying to do what's right." She is well known in the Illmo area for being someone anyone could call on. "They'd say, 'Fannie, we need some help,' and I'd be there."

She also worked at the Jimplicute, a local newspaper that started in the early 1900s and continued publication for about 70 years. Kjer recalled a day when Mr. Percell, one of the owners, opened the door and fell down dead.

"Now that stopped the presses," she said.