Wolf Lake and Cape Girardeau Memories

Gerald graduated from Wolf Lake High School with sixteen in the class. Three years ago we celebrated their 60th graduation. Then Ermadell Eudy Elkins, a classmate noted for her spirit of service to others, started getting these classmates together for an informal supper down at Fox Hollow in East Cape Girardeau.

A truck bed used as a huge signboard at the entry road tells you that you’ve arrived, and the restaurant is spelled “Fox Hollow.” There is one small home-made craft-style sign inside more correctly spelling “Hollow” as “Holler,” which is what more folks enjoy calling this place, which is only open on weekends.

This is at the junction of Route 146 going south and the highway turning to the west to get to the Cape bridge. There are three or four somewhat picturesque storefront buildings, reminding me of a movie set for a western, that are used for a weekend flea market, althoughI’ve never been there when the market was open.
The eatery directly behind these distinct buildings, however, is about as nondescript and plain as a building can be. You walk in from the graveled parking lot through a tiny foyer. The kitchen is open in plain view of your left, and there are three low ceilinged rooms, one of which was reserved for us.

A local farmer, whose very beautiful large brick home is up the road apiece, owns and runs the restaurant, and he works extremely hard greeting guests and looking as if he enjoys this hosting/serving weekend occupation. I understand his nickname is Foxy, and that explains the inside mish mash of wall decorations that frequently feature foxes. This down-home establishment cannot exactly be described as rustic in any formalized way, but it does have a charm and excellent food that draws locals from both sides of the Cape bridge for Friday night fish and other specialties.

Seeing the regulars there makes any gathering a social occasion as much as an eating occasion. Often Gerald’s two Union County brothers and wives are there although they weren’t this particular Friday as Ginger was not feeling well. But there were others in the dining areas outside our reserved room that Gerald knew and enjoyed visiting with.

Not too long after Gerald’s 1948 class graduated, three small towns in the Mississippi
River bottoms consolidated their school systems. Wolf Lake, McClure, and Grand Tower High Schools became Shawnee High School with a new school building as well as new name. The date for Gerald’s class reunion came about because there is an annual reunion of the McClure School alumni and friends, and some of Gerald’s classmates regularly attend that reunion on Saturday night at Fox Holler. That was a much larger group as I understand it, so Fox Holler must have been full and running over the next night.

If not staying with relatives, many of the returning alumni sleep in motels in Cape and drive over for their reunion. We too drove over to Cape after our reunion, just as Gerald’s brother and wife always do when eating at Foxy’s. The cheaper Missouri gas cuts down on your traveling expense for the evening, and the new bridge is so lovely that going over it is an aesthetic joy. You are not only following one route of the Trail of Tears, but you are also in Lewis and Clark territory.

After we had filled our car with gas, we drove down to the river and enjoyed the wonderful paintings there on the river wall, which I never tire of viewing. It was still light and people were out strolling and visiting as well as viewing. We drove back through the former main shopping district close to the river. It is still an active district, but not with the name department stores of our childhood as they have moved to the new malls and shopping areas. The new riverside campus of Southeast Missouri University adjoining the old Catholic seminary buildings is quite lovely, and the brief drive near the river is replete with both historical attractions and personal memories.

Good Times and Good Memories

A weekend of memories and good times ended with worship last night and this morning at the 100th anniversary celebration of Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church in Urbana.

Friday night we met with ten members of Gerald’s high school class of sixteen plus several spouses and friends. The informal gathering at the rustic Fox Hollow at East Cape Girardeau to celebrate the Wolf Lake Class of 1948 brought back memories and many laughs. If Donald Johnson is one of your classmates, you will definitely have laughs. A natural comedian, who has not been hushed by age, Don cannot walk or talk without being funny. Gerald was able to crop the class photo to cut out Don’s hi jinks. But in real life, no one wants to eliminate the fun Don brings to any group. He has always made our lives richer and given us stories to tell and quips to repeat after any event he attends. Don and Ervina went to Cape and picked up “Doc,” the first classmate to need a walker, and I bet Don had Doc laughing all the way home while Ervina just shook her head and smiled as she has down through the years.

Saturday morning we were up early (early for me—not for Gerald) to meet up with his brothers and wives and others to celebrate his brother Keith’s birthday. After a lingering breakfast at the Old Home Place in Goreville, also with laughs and memories, some left to prepare for a roping at nephew Tim’s farm and Keith left to bail hay on his birthday. We came home to Woodsong to get ready to leave for our next weekend pleasantry.

During the one year that Gerald was in grad school at the University of Illinois, we joined Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church. When our son was in Urbana for Gerry to finish his degree after two years in local community college, he too became a member of the same church. (After Vickie’s graduation from Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s physical therapist assistant program, they were married and Vickie started her career in Champaign-Urbana and joined him at PABC.) When our youngest daughter, Mary Ellen, was a freshman at U of I, we went up and visited the church. We have kept in touch with many of our friends from that special year in our lives although many have now passed away.

The church was actually started in 1909 in a railroad car turned into a chapel. An area in town by the railroad tracks was without a church. A group brought in a car and parked it there for a chapel. Three years later, a congregation had emerged and the Herald of Hope Baptist Church was established in a small white stucco building. By the time we arrived in 1957, the crowded little building was black with coal dust, but the congregation was hard at work on a new building on Pennsylvania Avenue. During the week, the men of the church took turns working on the building, and I remember making cup cakes or some kind of food to carry in when Gerald helped. We were immediately welcomed by older members and other students our own age and we felt loved and cared for.

Don Dillow, a young man from Dongola was pastor, and he and his wife Helen Ruth were fresh out of seminary. They had been there long enough to have a second son, and Helen Ruth was a wonderful mentor for me as I coped alone with our first born Katherine. She provided emotional support for my parental uncertainties as well as practical advice, such as bringing Kathy in sleepers for the evening service, so she would be ready for the crib when she fell asleep on the car ride home. Without family in that area, I felt the social interaction and the teaching that Kathy had in their church’s nursery program was invaluable.

Don and Helen Ruth have now retired near a son in Texas, but they drove up for this celebration and typically their agenda included acts of service to friends and family along their way here and for their trip back home. Now in his 80s, Don preached last night, with all the vigor of youth and all the wisdom of his age. When he shared a favorite quotation about constancy of purpose, it stuck with me as a touchstone to use in my own life because I have observed how that constancy has brought about wonderful results in many lives as Don and Helen Ruth have ministered to so many of us as they shared the good news and teachings of Jesus.

Today we heard Nate Adams preach, and he emphasized the importance of our local church and the people in it as a vehicle for changing the world. We went home refreshed by beautiful music, the joyful singing, the heart-warming testimonies, the visual stimulation of signing by the group with hearing impairment, the stories of international students as we ate together in the fellowship hall, and the stimulation of observing the cumulative results of a church started in a railroad car a century ago.