Feelin’ Run Over

SEMO football player c 1966I’m rushing to get a bunch of stuff done before I pull the plug and start loading the van to head back to Cape Thursday. I feel sort of like this mud-covered football player- run down and run over.

I think he’s a SEMO player, but there was nothing on the back of the print to identify him. Click on the photo to make it larger.

I have Road Warriorette Shari with me for this trip. We’re going to take mostly back roads through Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, so I’m sure there will be adventures along the way. I’ll bag a couple of quickie subjects in case we end up someplace that communicates with smoke signals instead of digital 1s and 0s.

I understand Southeast Missouri State University just razed a landmark building and has another one in its sights. I hope there is some Cape left in Cape when I get there.

13 Replies to “Feelin’ Run Over”

  1. The Greystone estate is gone. Next up is the Shivelbine house next door. By the time you get to Cape it will probably be nothing but freshly leveled and seeded land. Think Dinos!

  2. Well damn. I hate that the houses I remember as the Phalen and Shivelbine homes meant so little to the university and/or the city.

  3. I had the good fortune to spend time in each of those houses and this post just triggered the memory that I learned to tie my shoes on the steps outside the Shivelbine home. I was too young to recall why I was there or with whom, but remember the joy of finally doing it myself. Had a few dates with Molly Phalen along the journey and both families were solid, decent and great citizens of Cape. Good memories.

    1. I was born and raised in Cape. Now live in Katy, TX after living in Belleville, MI for 19 years. But Cape will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart. The old Cousin St. neighborhood is beyond dangerous. Sunny Hill Restaurant, where I worked, has alot of memories. But it’s not the same. SEMO and their Board Regents love tearing things down for no reason! I remember Molly and Meg Phalen. Wonder what ever happened to them.

  4. Safe travels, my friend. Yes, Ken, our old neighborhoods are disappearing. Out with the old, in with the new. Some people call it progress. I call it sad.

  5. Semo is on a roll, with a steamroller, with tearing down landmarks around here. Remember the handball court at the river campus? Gone. They may teach historic preservation, but their practice is the antithesis. The on line petition to save these two beautiful homes had hundreds of signatures.
    But at least the fraternity boys will have some new ugly buildings to live in.

  6. I read with sadness the disappearance of two great landmarks. I do not put this in the same category of a deteriorated handball court! The university owns the property and has the right to do as it sees fit. I only hope the souls who dwell in the buildings which replace these, do it justice and with respect to others!

  7. I was greatly saddened when the house we rented during our Senior year, 444 N. Pacific, was torn down less than a year after we moved out. It provides a very small number of parking places for the Grauel Bldg.

    Just within the past few months, I learned that the house was once home to Miss Sadie Kent, longtime librarian for whom Kent Library was named. If anyone could possibly find a photo of that building, I’d be VERY grateful.

  8. I remember Greystone when it was the Oliver home. Libby Oliver was an active Girl Scout leader and she would have swimming parties for the senior scouts working as counsellors at day camp. Greystone was a beautiful home.

  9. Thank you, Ken, for posting this. Greystone is completely gone; the site is being graded. I am pretty sure that the leaded glass windows and original doors were NOT salvaged. Sally, do you know when the Oliver’s moved to Greystone? I am trying to determine a timeline for it. I would appreciate any details you (or anyone else) can give me about the home. My mother tells me I went swimming there with her as a child when Libby owned it, but I do not remember it, and have no memory of the interior. J. W. Gerhardt was my step-grandfather, and I am trying to gather as much information as I can about this home and other buildings that he built. Thank you!

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