New Lorimier Cemetery Archives

January 6, 2014April 15, 2021

St. Mary’s Cemetery

When people talk about cemeteries in Cape, I think of Old Lorimier, New Lorimier, Fairmount and Memorial Park. I didn’t have any contact with St. Mary’s Cemetery until Wife Lila’s Mother, Lucille Hoffman Perry, was buried there in 1998.

There’s plenty of information on the city’s web site about the first three city cemeteries I mentioned, but all I could find in a quick search was that St. Mary’s is a Catholic cemetery that was founded in 1903. It is located on the west side of Perry Avenue where it turns into Perryville Road. The aerial was taken April 17, 2011. (Click on the photo to make it larger.)

The bright driveway at the bottom of the photo wasn’t paved in 1998. It was just a rutted lane then.

Find a Grave

The Find a Grave site lists 953 internments (but not Lila’s mother) and says it has 38% of the grave markers photographed.

UPDATE

After the story was published, Sharon Sanders, Missourian librarian and the keeper of Judy Crow’s flame, emailed me with this new information:

Thanks for doing this blog. I had never seen an aerial of the cemetery. I can point to exactly where my parents are buried.

The land was purchased for the cemetery in 1903 by the Rev. Eberhardt Pruente, longtime pastor of St. Mary’s Church. He borrowed the money from his sister, who was also his housekeeper, to pay for the land. Pruente, as well as his sister, are buried in the crypt under the crucifix in the center of the burial ground. The land was part of the Wenzel Hauptman farm. Mr. Hauptman is also buried at St. Mary’s.

Many years ago, my late writing partner and I updated her earlier book on St. Mary’s Cemetery. It lists all those buried there, pertinent dates, who they married, who their survivors were, etc. It’s still available through the Cape Girardeau County Genealogical Society for $50.

July 9, 2013

‘BINGO!’ ‘Oh, BLEEP!’

Someone asked a foreign visitor what he had done the night before. “I played BINGO OH BLEEP,” he replied.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a game where a man reads off a bunch of letters and number until one person yells, “BINGO!” and everybody else shouts, “Oh, BLEEP!”

That’s what I was thinking about when we cut through Fairmont cemetery after cruising through New Lorimier. As soon as we crested the hill, we couldn’t believe how many cars were parked at Bingo World. The lot perimeter was parked two deep and the street in front had cars parked for at least a block in each direction. More cars were pulling in all the time.

In 2010, the Bingo folks were concerned that the new Isle Cape Girardeau Casino would siphon off their business. Looks to me they’re holding their own.

How’s the casino doing?

We decided to swing by the Casino to see what its parking lot looked like. The Missourian had a June 12, 2013, story that said that attendance had dropped off sharply – 42% – in May from a peak of 123,000 in March. Not only was attendance down, but the average stay per patron was shorter.

The parking lot in front of the main entrance sure had a lot of empty spots.

Look to the left

They have huge parking lot, so maybe I didn’t capture the part where the cars parked. Here’s a view to the north lot area. Not exactly packed.

Look to the right

How about to the right? There were a few more cars on the south side. And, to be fair, I counted about 13 cars to the right of the frame in another photo.

Still, I have to ask myself, how many of those belong to employees? I would bet it takes a whole lot more people to staff a casino than a bingo hall.

I wonder if we can get the shoe factory back?

Earlier Casino / Shoe Factory stories

November 27, 2011May 1, 2014

Old Notre Dame High School

Brother Mark, Mother and I were taking a short cut through New Lorimier Cemetery so we could see if the flowers were still on Dad’s grave. They were. Instead of cutting through Fairmount Cemetery and coming out near the library, I whipped a left to get a mug shot of the old Notre Dame High School. I knew I had some photos of some school plays and other activities, so it would be good to bag something new to go along with them.

As it turned out, the light was really nice on the building this afternoon. What surprised me when I was half-way to the entrance was all the graffiti on the front of the building. And, it looked old. Surely this wouldn’t have been allowed to stay there when I was in school.

On closed examination, though, it was a mural or artwork. The drawing styles were different, but the line thickness and spacing indicated they had been done by the same artist. I did a quick Google and Missourian archive search, but didn’t come up with anything that would tell when it was done or who the artist was.