Out of the past 11/13/06

25 years ago: Nov. 13, 1981

Proceeds from tonight's Harlem Globetrotters' appearance in Cape Girardeau will go toward a $150,000 capital improvements fund drive for the Cape Girardeau Civic Center, 201 N. Spanish St.; the current gymnasium, a converted truck repair garage, will be replaced by a new facility designed for basketball, weightlifting, exercise classes and other activities.

A Cape Girardeau meat-packing firm is shutting down after more than 34 years in business, a victim of the changing times in the industry; Central Foods Inc. on South Sprigg Street shuts its doors, laying off about 70 employees.

50 years ago: Nov. 13, 1956

Cape Girardeau yesterday paid tribute to the veterans who have served in all the nation's wars and heard a past commander of the Missouri Veterans of Foreign Wars, Primus F. Majda of St. Louis, plead for remembrance of those in Veterans Hospitals; the tribute drew a crowd of about 100 to the memorial column at Capaha Park.

Using the First Psalm as his text and the words of Valiant in Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" as epilogue, the Rev. Bernard A. McIlhany eulogizes George A. Naeter, co-publisher of The Southeast Missourian, as a modest man "who went about doing good" in the funeral service at the First Presbyterian Church; Naeter died Saturday night.

75 years ago: Nov. 13, 1931

Mary M. Knaup, 65, wife of William Knaup and a native and lifelong resident of Cape Girardeau, died last night at the family home, 118 S. Pacific St., of a complication of ailments; she was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Frelinghaus, pioneer immigrants from Germany.

The shaft for a monument, which the United Daughters of the Confederacy will dedicate to Confederate soldiers of this district, has arrived in Cape Girardeau and is being mounted on its base on the Morgan Oak Street plaza.

100 years ago: Nov. 13, 1906

Three officers of the Roberts, Johnson & Rand Shoe Co. of St. Louis arrive in Cape Girardeau at noon to carry out their arrangements to meet with the Commercial Club committee and further discuss the suitableness of several proffered sites for the construction of a big shoe factory here.

Charles Reynolds is chosen by the county court to succeed I.H. Poe as superintendent of the Cape Girardeau County poor farm, out on the Jackson gravel road; Reynolds is a son-in-law of Poe.

-- Sharon K. Sanders