Out of the past: Jan. 9

1999

In the wake of opposition from the Missouri attorney general, the board of directors of Saint Francis Medical Center has voted to cease merger discussions with Southeast Hospital; 13 of 14 board members attended a meeting called after Attorney General Jay Nixon announced Thursday he opposed the hospitals' merger; the Saint Francis board unanimously agreed to end merger talks.

Freezing rain and drizzle closed schools and left motorists and pedestrians skating on thin ice yesterday; the storm closed the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport at 8:43 a.m.; Public Works crews in Cape Girardeau and Jackson spent the day battling ice.

1974

Cape Girardeau city employees will find a 5% salary increase in their checks Jan. 15; the increase will not only help offset the rising costs of living, but also keep the city's pay scale comparable to that for similar jobs in the labor market here.

A Jackson man suffers minor burns and smoke inhalation and his 2-year-old daughter is unharmed in an escape from their burning home at Bainbridge and Old Cape roads early in the day; William L. Schaefer, 27, who with his daughter was asleep in one of the two bedrooms of the old frame dwelling, breaks out a window with his fist and jumps with the child to safety.

1949

A meeting is held in the afternoon at Vanduser for the purpose or organizing a softball league to be known as the Southeastern Missouri Softball League; only representatives from five towns -- Cape Girardeau, Bell City, Kelso, Vanduser and Chaffee -- are present, so another meeting has been called for Jan. 23 at Vanduser in hopes that additional towns will be represented; it is hoped to organize a league of eight, 10 or 12 teams.

Dies, Ella S. Drum, 65, wife of former Cape Girardeau Mayor Edward L. Drum, at a hospital in New Rochelle, New York, after an illness of 18 months; she was born in Cape Girardeau and resided here all her life; she was the former Ella Sherwood Morris, daughter of James P. and Addie Wall Morris, who died when she was a child; she was reared by an aunt, the late Ella Wall Rodney.

1924

Funeral service for the Rev. J.R.A. Vaughan, for 50 years an active minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who died yesterday at the home of his son, professor A.W. Vaughan, 1208 Highland Ave., will be held tomorrow morning at Centenary Methodist Church; the service will be brief and simple, following the request of the aged minister; Bishop W.F. McMurray who was to have charge of the funeral, will be unable to reach here in time.

While drilling in the new rock quarry of the Marquette Cement Co. near Kingshighway in South Cape Girardeau last evening, an explosion of a hidden charge of dynamite was set off, killing one man and injuring three others so seriously their recovery is considered doubtful; dead is Delbert Cooper, 20, of Stoddard County; injured are Jess Baker and J.S. Stafford of Cape Girardeau and Vernon Garrison of Illmo.

-- Sharon K. Sanders