Cape Girardeau History and Photos

June 1, 2012April 10, 2021

Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee

You’ll be hearing a lot about Queen Elizabeth II this week. On the death of her father in 1952, she became Head of the Commonwealth and queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon. Her coronation service in 1953 was the first to be televised. Her Diamond Jubilee celebration starts June 2.

[I thought “regnant” was a typo until I looked it up. “A queen regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right, in contrast to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king.”]

How I got to shoot the queen

I was coming back from an assignment in Okeechobee, 60 miles away, when it sounded like someone was trying to call me on the company two-way radio. I knew there was an overpass ahead that would get me high enough to hit the office for about 45 seconds, so I checked in as I started to climb the bridge and told them to talk fast.

Between bursts of static, I thought I heard the boss ask “Do you have a suit?”

“Say again, ‘suit?'”

“Do you have a SUIT? We need somebody to cover the Queen and we think you may be the only guy on the staff with a suit.”

So, that’s how I got the assignment to go to the Bahamas in February of 1975 to cover Queen Elizabeth. It wasn’t because of my spot news prowess, my superior ability to shoot portraits or my ability to find unusual angles. It was because I was the only guy on the Palm Beach Post photo staff who owned a suit.

Is that normal?

Reporter Sally Swartz and I had just settled into our seats in the small plane that was taking us to Nassau when I took a glance out the window. I gestured for a stewardess to come over and asked her, “Does that appear to you to be an extraordinary amount of hydraulic fluid flowing back over the wing?”

“No, sir,” she replied in a calm voice. “That’s perfectly normal.” I was comforted until she took off in a dead run for the cockpit. Soon, the first officer was peering out the window. He went back to the cockpit, I didn’t notice any parachutes in the air and we landed safely in Nassau, so it must have been normal for THAT plane.

On the wrong side of the wrong side

The plane ride was the least dangerous part of the trip. A whole bunch of us journalists were herded onto a beat-up vehicle that was a cross between a van and a small bus. It was driven by someone who alternated between homicidal and suicidal.

It’s bad enough that people in the Bahamas drive on the wrong side of the road. This guy liked to drive on the wrong side of the wrong side of the road. Traffic was horrific, so when he came upon a slowdown on the two-lane road, he’d lay on the horn and pull out to pass the whole world. Either he figured he had a bigger horn than the oncoming vehicles or he didn’t care if he died so long as he could take a busload of journalists with him.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip

Sally and I checked in, got press credentials (more about that later) and a press packet with all kinds of Queenie goodies in it. If I root deep enough, I can probably find it, if anybody wants to put in a bid.

The good news I got at the press center was that photographers weren’t going to be allowed on the Royal Yacht; only reporters. That meant I didn’t need to wear my suit.

The Royal Couple arrived. I bet THEIR plane was better maintained than the one Sally and I flew over in.

Press herded and corralled

As soon as the Royal Couple got off the plane, anyone with a press credential was herded into a holding area where we would be controlled. I saw that the Royals were getting right up with folks, so I ditched my credentials and played tourist.

That worked for a short while. Then, two very tall, very big Bahamian policemen got on both sides of me, gently grabbed me under the armpits and half-carried / half-walked me back over to the press pen. They figured if they went to all of the trouble of issuing you a little piece of paper, you’d better wear it and you’d better go where they tell you to go.

Another photographer busted

My compatriot from a Miami paper didn’t take his ID off, and they nailed him, too. I love his “who me?” expression. (My cops were bigger than his cops.)

HMY Britannia

The Queen and her husband flew in, but left on the HMY Britannia, with lifeboats as big as some yachts. I bet it’s safe to say the rule is “Queens and Princes first, THEN women and children.”

Journalist Andrew Marr wrote in his book The Real Elizabeth that the British government planned for the Royal Yacht to serve as the Queen’s refuge in the event of a nuclear war.

The Queen does not sweat

She doesn’t even glow. I was soaked to the skin and I saw sweat running down faces in the crowd, but Queen Elizabeth II must have had all her sweat glands removed as a child. I watched her through a telephoto lens for an hour hoping to see a bead of sweat or a hint of moisture. Zip, nada, none. I don’t know how she did it.

Photo gallery of Queen’s 1975 visit to the Bahamas

Here’s a selection of photos from the Queen’s visit to the Bahamas. Time has caused some color shifts, but they still look pretty good. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

May 31, 2012May 31, 2012

Super Delicious Mustard Relish

It was a couple of minutes past midnight and I hadn’t started on Thursday’s blog. My only excuse is that I had been editing videos all day and just didn’t get around to it.

Wife Lila said, “Why don’t you just skip a day? You’ll get a bunch of comments on that.”

“No, because I’d get a call from Mother wanting to know if I was sick. As soon as she finds out I’m not, she’ll chew me out for not doing my homework. Now that she’s had an iPad for a year, she’s not buying that old excuse that the cat licked the story off the computer screen.”

So, in desperation, I started looking for something to put up that wouldn’t take much work. Clicking through directory after directory, I poked around in the MISCL folder.

It turns out I had taken 481 photos of Lila making mustard relish on July 7, 2010.

Jayne Payne’s Super Delicious Mustard Relish

Actually, Lila makes it, but she uses the Jayne Payne Super Delicious Mustard Relish Recipe. Jayne was the wife of Lou, my legally blind darkroom technician.

Despite that, Lou had a certain amount of job security

He was a nice guy, too nice to fire
He had been there forever
He was always prompt to answer the company two-way radio (even though he tended to forget he wasn’t on the CB in his truck: “Ten-Fer, Good Buddy, cum bak.”
He was willing to come in at 4 a.m. to process the film that bureau reporters had shot for the afternoon paper. The pictures were so bad to begin with that it didn’t matter that he couldn’t see to focus.
He was reliable. I never had to drag myself out of bed at 4 a.m. because he was a no-show.

Still, when he announced that he was taking early retirement to spend time fishing out on Lake Okeechobee, we threw him the second-biggest party ever held at the Steinhoff home. (I’m the distinguished-looking guy on the floor. Lila is in the center of the photo.)

How do you get from there to here?

If enough folks care and if I can persuade Lila to help me narrow down 481 photos to a reasonable number of steps, we’ll show you how to get from the picture at the top to the picture at the bottom. Or, you can share your own favorite mustard relish recipe.

(She pointed out that green tomatoes are a major ingredient in the Jayne Payne Super Delicious Mustard Relish Recipe, but my top picture doesn’t show any. I promised her that the OTHER 480 photos have tomatoes in them.)

By the way, if you haven’t checked out her gardening blog yet, you should head over there. She’s battling bugs right now.

May 30, 2012

Soc Assignments

This had to have been a Soc assignment – short for Society assignment. They usually involved going somewhere to shoot women pretending to do something. One thing you could count on was that your subjects had probably just come from the hairdresser.

Hair was a big deal in Cape. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the last baby born at the old St. Francis Hospital.

I have no idea what these women were doing. I thought they might have been at Southeast Missouri State College because I have a night shot of Academic Hall on the roll, but a closer look makes me think it might have been a building converted to a dance studio. The mirror on the wall is reflecting what looks like a garage-style door. You can click on the photos to make them larger if it’ll help you figure out what you’re looking at.

Where’d that guy come from?

Same place, different women. Where in the world did the guy come from? He looks way too exuberant.

You’re on your own on this one. I didn’t even know where to start searching for the story.

May 29, 2012January 18, 2022

Dutchtown Cemetery on Ridge

There’s an old cemetery atop a ridge overlooking Dutchtown that I feel compelled to visit every time I come to Cape. There’s no particular reason to go up there. We have no family buried there. I’ve never followed a hearse up the steep, narrow road to the burying ground, but something calls me.

Cemetery over 125 years old in 1967

A Missourian story about the closing of Dutchtown’s St. Edward’s Catholic Church said the cemetery was more than 125 years old in 1967. That would put it between 175 and 200 years old today. I’m going to take that with a tiny grain of salt.

The cemetery was located on the hill because much of the surrounding land was swamp.

The first St. Edward’s, a frame building, was built in 1898, but burned January 29, 1928. The first mass in church that served the community for 69 years was offered in 1928. A nationwide shortage of priests was given as the reason for the 1967 closure.

You can see the steeple of the church in the background of a Frony photo of Dutchtown that Fred Lynch used in his blog. Librarian Sharon Sanders has two stories about the church in her column.

Coffins carried at shoulder level

The Missourian story said parishioners recalled seeing pallbearers. sometimes walking in the rain, bearing coffins at shoulder level up this steep hill. It’s paved these days, but it’s still a tough pull in my car. I’d hate to think of carrying a coffin up there. [I was trying to figure out whether “coffin” or “casket” was the correct term and have to admit I didn’t know the difference. A coffin, I found, is defined as a funerary box with six sides, generally tapered around the shoulders; a casket is generally four-sided.]

Photographed for years and different seasons

These photos were taken over several years and in different seasons. This was taken Oct. 27, 2011.

Cemetery well-maintained

The fenced part of the cemetery is well-maintained.

Path leads to ridge

At the top of the narrow road is a small space just barely big enough to turn around. If you walk to your right up the hill and through a gate, you enter the fenced-in cemetery. If you go straight up, you’re taken to a trail that runs along the ridge. That’s the part I find most fascinating.

Tombstones scattered all over hill

As you walk along the ridge, you encounter a dozen or more tombstones scattered apparently randomly all over the hillside. Some of them are large; some of them mark the final resting places of whole families. It’s daunting enough to think of getting a coffin up there; I don’t know what kind of effort it would take to haul a tombstone weighing several hundreds of pounds that high.

Markers from before 1900

One small stone marks the grave of an infant who was born in 1896 and died “aged 11 M 25 D.” The inscription reads, “A little infant of ours so dear lies sweetly sleeping here.”

Find A Grave has some information

The website Find A Grave has some information about the site. It lists two “famous” internments:

John Lockee – a member of Company H for the Illinois Artillery. He was killed in the Civil War.
L. Jackson Summerlin – born 1845, died 1916. His property became what is known as Dutchtown Cemetery. His family plot is one that sits outside the fenced area.

Here is a partial list of other internments from Find A Grave. Here’s a more complete list compiled by an individual.

Photo gallery of Dutchtown cemetery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery. Please chime in if you know anything about the place. I haven’t found much information on it.