Out of the past: Nov. 27

1996

With its bell ringers and red kettles greeting holiday shoppers outside area stores, the Salvation Army has raised $10,000 toward its goal of $160,000 in its annual Tree of Lights campaign; for the second year in a row, the actual Tree of Lights will stand in front of West Park Mall; the money raised will help the less fortunate in Cape Girardeau.

At 2 in the morning, with a wind chill factor of 9 degrees outside, today's early Thanksgiving dinner at Saint Francis Medical Center doesn't seem too traditional; but as Cape Girardeau police officers drift in from their beats and on-duty nurses and medical technicians gather in the hospital's cafeteria for a turkey dinner, the spirit of Thanksgiving comes alive.

1971

Despite a hectic schedule, Santa Claus still found time to make his annual visit to downtown Cape Girardeau yesterday afternoon; Santa arrived here by speedboat at the Themis Street gate of the floodwall; he and his helpful elves handed out a bag full of "sweet treats" to scores of boys and girls who had eagerly awaited his arrival.

Show biz goes to the dogs as 955 canines, some veteran hams and some ingenues, take center stage for the Southeast Missouri Kennel Club's 26th All Breed Dog Show and Obedience Trial at the Arena Building here; the dogs represent nearly every state and 85 of the 116 breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club; Best in Show title goes to a Doberman pinscher, Ch. Dolph Von Tannenwald, owned by Mr. and Mrs. George West of Muttontown, Illinois.

1946

The Frisco southbound passenger train is delayed five hours getting into Cape Girardeau from St. Louis early in the morning, when it is halted south of Wittenberg, Missouri, after a freight train preceding it strikes a stalled truck at a crossing two miles south of the town; the freight strikes a two-ton truck owned and driven by Ernest Pepmiller of Perryville, Missouri, who abandons the truck when it stalls at the crossing and he sees the train approaching.

Klenn Trunnell secures a city building permit to construct a one-story brick structure at 2114 Broadway, to be used as a retail heating appliance store; the building, to cost $8,000, will be 30 by 84 feet in size.

1921

The lifeless body of an unidentified man is found hanging on a fence a short distance south of Allenville and is brought to the Cape County Milling Co.'s wheat house in Allenville, where it will be held for the coroner's inquest; the man may have drowned in the recent flood that swept through that area, his body deposited on the fence by the overflow of Whitewater River.

Three locations to place the memorial tablet having the names of the men from Cape Girardeau County who fought in the Revolutionary War, which is to be purchased by the Daughters of the American Revolution in Cape Girardeau, were discussed at a meeting of the chapter yesterday at Leming Hall; those spots are the lobby of Academic Hall, the assembly room of the Carnegie Library under construction and the Federal Building on Broadway; no decision was made.

-- Sharon K. Sanders