Out of the past: Dec. 10

1995

A new doctor practicing with Dr. John Englehart in Marble Hill, Missouri, is Dr. Melody Armstrong of St. Francis, Kansas; she was born in Weisbaden, Germany, while her father was in the U.S. Army; Armstrong is part of the Cross Trails Medical Center, based out of Cape Girardeau, that purchased the Twin City Medical Clinic Oct. 2.

The value of 1995 construction contracts in Cape Girardeau will go down as the second biggest year in history; with a month remaining, it's not feasible that this year's totals will match the record year of $47.9 million in 1992; but after 11 months, the Inspection Services Division reports more than $42 million in new building and expansion permits have been issued.

1970

A life dedicated to the medical profession and highlighted by instrumental planning which paved the way for construction of Southeast Hospital here ended last night upon the death of Dr. Oda Lavinia Seabaugh; Seabaugh, 85, died at Cape La Croix Manor Nursing Home, where he had been admitted as the first patient of the facility two years ago; born near Patton, Missouri, he practiced medicine in Cape Girardeau 43 years before ill health forced his retirement in 1959.

Pickets went up at depots in Cape Girardeau and many other Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois communities early in the morning, but some of the pickets disappear by mid-morning as the nationwide strike by four major railroad unions begins tottering.

1945

The St. Joseph, Michigan, Baseball Club has approached Mayor R.E. Beckman relative to spring training facilities in Cape Girardeau; the club desires to spend two weeks here, May 1-15, and offers to pay its own expenses and asks nothing of the city; the club is owned by the mayor of St. Joseph, a wealthy manufacturer, and is an independent outfit not connected with any professional loop.

Jackson's public schools close at the end of classes, when a check of attendance shows 191 pupils of a total enrollment of 718 absent with influenza and colds; classes will resume Dec. 17 for a week before dismissing for the Christmas holidays; the Catholic school at Jackson closed yesterday, when 35 of 74 pupils were absent with respiratory ailments.

1920

L.M. Sweet, general manager of the Marquette Mill and Manufacturing Co. of St. Louis and connected with Matteson Paint Co., arrives here to put the paint mill in operation after a long period of idleness; Mrs. R.W. Matteson said the ochre to be ground in the mill will be secured from near Oran, Missouri; the Matteson mill is located near the Cape Girardeau Northern Railroad depot.

Mayor H.H. Haas is arranging to secure plans and specifications for a proposed Carnegie Library building in Cape Girardeau to send to the Carnegie Corporation, which has asked for the information in connection with the consideration of a request for $30,000 for the local institution; the question has been before the corporation since before the world war.

-- Sharon K. Sanders