Out of the Past 8/17/08

25 years ago: Aug. 17, 1983

Local representatives of the Communications Workers of America AFL-CIO say they expect to be out as many as six weeks in their strike against AT&T, which would make the present strike the longest since 1947, when telephone workers were out for seven weeks.

Area public schools will be going back to the classroom next week with school starting Monday in Jackson and Kelly, and Wednesday in Cape Girardeau, Scott City and Chaffee, Mo.

50 years ago: Aug. 17, 1958

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Harmon Field, a gift to Chaffee in the early 1920s from the Harmon Foundation of New York, is due for a face lift; a tax of 20 cents per $100 assessed valuation will fund the work, which will include construction of picnic shelters, multi-use courts for tennis, basketball and other games, and improved parking areas.

Gephardt Martin of Cape Girardeau has returned home after a 15-day trip to the land of his birth, Germany; he toured the country visiting his sisters, Marea Meller, Hilda Scholl, Theresa Martin and Emma Hercog, and a brother, August Martin.

75 years ago: Aug. 17, 1933

Dr. Walter W. Parker, new president of Teachers College, spends his first official day here amid the confusion of plasterers and painters, who are redecorating the college offices.

Harold B. Smith, 35, a farmer of near Whitewater, died last night at Southeast Missouri Hospital of injuries he sustained Monday when a tree fell on him while he was cutting timber; Smith was born in Bollinger County and spent most of his life there; he is survived by his mother, Mrs. Harry Smith; his wife, Esther; two sons and two daughters.

100 years ago: Aug. 17, 1908

P.A. Hoch, Cape Girardeau's progressive furniture dealer, has returned from Chicago, where he put one over on the furniture houses there, bidding for and landing the contract to furnish the Bellevue Hotel, one of the exclusive family hostelries of Chicago on Bellevue Avenue.

The judges of Scott County are evidently men who have families; they are putting the ban on rough-house saloons, and the good people of the county are rejoicing.

-- Sharon K. Sanders