August 3, 2022

            This post is about olden days, and I mean real olden days, back from the time I was born through about 7 years old.

            We lived in an area of Cape Girardeau Missouri, which at that time was considered as the poor part of town, it was named Smelter Ville. There were houses and there were at least three stores in the area, each of the stores were attached to a house, there was a bar behind my grandparents’ house, there was a church that I will talk about later, there was a BBQ place known as the blue hole, a meat packing plant, and just south of the area was the cement plant. 

            Most of the houses in the area were build several feet above the ground, as the Mississippi river would flood, and the entire neighborhood would be flooded. The street I lived on was Pine Street, it was one block long, the streets in Smelter Ville were all gravel.

            The entire area has been demolished, there are no longer any houses or people living there. I have two photos of the First Pentecostal Church, one is of the church during a flood, the other is after it was abandoned.

            When you see the church during a flood you can understand why most buildings were built 4 to 5 feet above the ground. Church services were on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night and Thursday night.

If you will look at the first photo there is two windows on the side of the church. My mom always sat in the seat next to the first window on this side of the church. The church did not have any air conditioning, they did have a fan in the attic, more or less in the center of the church, which would pull air out of the building and if you sat next to a window, the fan would draw air in through the window.

I was occasionally allowed to stand at the window, and I could get fresh air and see what was going on outside. Across from the window where mom sat, was a house and a wood working shop. The man that did the wood working was Jess Bolen. Jess built all kind of things which he would sell to the public. Jess would at time be running his saw while the church service was going on, yep it would get my attention.

Note, the air was fresh depending on which way the wind was blowing. If the wind was coming from the direction of the meat packing house, the air was not fresh. They actually killed the cows and pigs there, and I believe they dumped the leftover body parts into the Mississippi river. Remember, that was some 70 plus years ago.

 

Many years later in life after my father had passed away, my mom married Jess Bolen, the fellow who I would sometimes watch out of the church window. I learned that when they were kids, mom and Jess kind of liked each other.

Where we lived on Pine Street there was a house on the left side of our house, and that is where my uncle Jake Ford lived. On the other side of their house there was a railroad track. There was a path from the road up to the railroad track, and people crossed there a lot. I was told that you had to be 5 years old before you could go on the railroad track. That kept me off the tracks.

My sister Wilda and her husband lived on Pine Street also, they were on the other side of the street a couple houses away from us. Wilda and my mom were pregnant at the same time.

I guess that is enough of the ole memories for now, hope you have a blessed day!

What are your memories?

Senior person who got a coffee and a burrito this morning before writing, Don the Ford