MINUTES OF THE DOGTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

July 10, 2004

CALL TO ORDER -- Vice President Virginia Lopez, in the absence of President John Corbett, called the meeting of The Dogtown Historical Society (DHS) to order at 10:10 a.m. at the St. James Rectory.

Fourteen people were in attendance: Nina Bryans, Bob Corbett, Didi Gardner, Tom Haller, Mildred Hefele, Rose Kennedy, Virginia Lopez, Bill Miller, Gerry Miller, Kurt Odendahl, Kay Richard, Sally Sharamitaro, and guests, Betty Hodapp and Dorothy Tarne.

MINUTES for the June Meeting were read by Sally Sharamitaro. There were no corrections. The minutes were approved.

TREASURER’S REPORT: No Report

GENERAL BUSINESS

  1. Living History Committee

    Nina Bryans reported that last week John Corbett and Virginia Lopez interviewed Rose Kennedy at the home of John Corbett.

    Three interviews are scheduled for August with interviewees; Wilma Messel, Sister Marie Lee and Betty Astroth. Tom Haller will be joining the Living History Committee members for the Messel and Lee interviews and Didi Gardner will be joining the members for the Astroth interview.

    Bob Corbett relayed the information that his brother John has completed the transfer of the videos to DVD for the DHS archives. Virginia Lopez stated that she has made several copies of the videos for the archives.

    Nina took the opportunity at that time to present a donation from herself and Duke McVey on the Muegge Family History. The donation is a collection of letters and papers found about 50 years ago. The mother of Mrs. Howard Shebley was settling the estate of a friend, Matilda Koch. Among the various papers found were the writings of Miss Koch’s sister Jane Stubbs, who appeared to have been compiling notes for an article regarding the history of her family. Mrs Stubbs was the granddaughter of August Muegge of Cheltenham, who lived and operated a family grocery business with his brother Fritz, in a brick building at Tamm and Manchester Avenues during the last half of the nineteenth century.

    Mrs. Shebley of Oakland, California, sent the writings, some of which are in German, to the Missouri Historical Society in April 1984. Daniel McVey and Nina Kassing Bryans donated a copy of these papers to the Dogtown Historical Society on July 10, 2004.

  2. Speakers Series Committee

    Sally Sharamitaro reported that preparations are in progress for the next Speaker Series program. “The History of Dogtown Soccer”: a panel discussion, moderated by Bob Corbett whose father, Bob Corbett, was a member of the St. Louis Soccer Hall of fame. The panel is to be made up of the following: DHS member and Soccer Hall of Famer; Duke McVey, his brother Bob McVey, Henry Herbst, Bob Corbett and possibly Irv Shurwan.

    Mailing: A copy of the St. Louis Soccer Hall of Fame mailing list has been received and flyers will be sent to each member. Special thanks to Duke McVey for acquiring the mailing list.

    Microphones: Bill Kennebeck has been contacted about the possibility of multiple microphones for the panel members.

    Videotaping: Webster University has agreed to videotape the presentation.

    Other: Bob Corbett has agreed to provide his computer and a projector (Webster Univ.) Bob will also coordinate the display of DHS and Soccer memorabilia.

    Set Up: The decision has yet to be made as to the physical set up for the panel discussion.

    Tom Haller asked if all Dogtown soccer teams are to be included in the program, and Bob stated that the panel would discuss mainly the Dogtown Senior Men’s Soccer Teams and Players and the structure of their Muny and other leagues.

    Copies of the flyer will be available to all DHS members for distribution to friends and organizations at/before our DHS meeting on August 14th.

    The next Speaker Series event “The History of Dogtown Soccer” will be held on Sunday, August 29, 2004.

    The Speakers Committee did not meet in June.

    For the 2005 Speaker Series Schedule: Thanks go out to Rose Kennedy for a contact at the St. Louis Zoo. Sally will follow up. Tom Haller reminded the members that Doug Garner is willing to come back for an encore of his Forest Park Highlands program in 2005.

  3. Century Home Committee

    Bill Miller announced that we have received the first Century Home plaques from Webster Tile Co. However, no instructions on installation have been received from the tile company. The decision has been made to deliver the plaques without instructions, but with information on how the homeowners may contact the Webster Tile Co. It will be up to each home owner to determine how they want their plaque to be displayed on or in their home.

    Bill also informed the members that according to the contact person at the tile company, the minimum order is now for batches of 20 plaques. Bill and Bob have orders for 9 more plaques as of this date.

  4. Civil War Days in Cheltenham

    John Corbett, Committee Chair was out of town but left a report which was read by Virginia Lopez.

    It seems that the DHS lost an opportunity to work with Emmett Taylor when he was rushed off to Iraq to fight a real war. John was unable to find a replacement contact for Mr. Taylor and therefore he had to cancel the plans for October 9th and 10th.

    John was able, however, to contact Stan Pratter, who he met at the Hibernians’ Irish Fair last July in the St. James schoolyard. He was convinced that a civil war reenactment was a great idea but on a much smaller scale for our first time. They worked out the details and the following is the result of their discussions:

    The date is Sunday, October 17, 2004. It is the only date Stan and his actors have available. The troops will arrive in early morning so they can set up camp and then attend the 10:00 am mass at St. James Church. After mass the troop of about 15 actors will go back to their camp in a grassy lot on the 6550 block of Dale, just down from Tech Electronics.

    The raid will take place soon after the final mass so all parishioners can attend. Afterwards the actors will go to the camp and do a “living history” of civil war events.

    Stan Pratter also has a Cannon he can fire (after proper permits have been secured) and there are weapons that can be discharged during the raid.

    John has spoken to both the owner of Tech Electronics and the owner of the grassy lot and secured permission to proceed on October 17th.

    DHS members are invited to “play” civilians in the reenactment. Clothing is available that can be worn at the event.

    After the raid and the campground events are over, everyone will retire to Pat’s Bar and Grill’s party room for a party to celebrate the first civil war reenactment in the City of St. Louis.

    Other details will follow.

  5. Archives/Donations

    Bob again brought the members up to date on the frame orders and the donors for the photos and the frames. The current photos being framed are: the 1916 Baseball Team Photo, the Clayton Tamm photo, a Gratiot School photo and several of the oldest St. James graduation photos.

    Nancy Phelan, a 1954 graduate of St. James, agreed to enlarge the 1916 Dogtown Baseball Team Photo, and has informed Bob that she would be happy to take additional photos to her office for restoration. She did say however, the DHS would need to pay a $1.00 per photo charge. Bob said he would be happy to work with Nancy and plans to meet her maximum number of 2 photos per week. He did explain that her office is a long distance from Dogtown.

    Karen Battaglia has turned over the St. James Alumni Association’s collection of class photos. The box of photos contained surprisingly few original photos. There were more Xerox copies than originals in the collection. Bob plans to create a spreadsheet of all the photos received from the Alumni Association, and indicate which photos are originals and which are copies.

    Bob will work with Nancy on the Alumni photos that are in need of restoration, they include a very long, rolled photo of the 1925 alumni banquet, two photos of the 1937 Anniversary of St. James Parish and a 1912 photo of the convent.

    Bob again thanked Rose Kennedy, who volunteered to sew some sturdy cloth bags to hold the framed photos. He reported that currently all large and small framed pieces have their own storage bag.

  6. Unfinished Business

    Bob Corbett relayed information from Henry Herbst who reported that new material on the Taylor City Belt Line Railroad had been found recently by some researchers who are interested in St. Louis area railroads. They plan to share that material with him and Henry hopes soon to up-date his own story on the Taylor City Belt Line.

  7. New Business

    Bob shared with the members his conversation with the librarian at the Schlafly branch of the St. Louis Public Library on Euclid. He had given a lecture a month ago on Haiti, and had been invited back to do another lecture in the fall.

    Following a format that the library is using in July, Bob offered to do a two day lecture/letter reading program in the fall on Dogtown and will use the information he gathered for his “History of Dogtow” lecture, and the “Letters From Dogtown” book. He plans to invite the authors of the book to join him if they are agreeable.

    Kurt Odendahl brought and passed around a publication from the exhibition “Brick by Brick: Building St. Louis and the Nation” which is showing through July at St. Louis University’s O’Donnell Hall. The exhibit presents an abbreviated history of the brick industry from 1850 to the mid-20th century.

    Nina made a motion that the DHS buy a copy of the publication for the archives and Bob seconded the motion. The motion passed. Bob will follow up.

    Bob then announced that since last meeting, he and John collected a piece of Winkle terra cotta, donated by Julie Columbo. Bob reported that it’s a very lovely piece and will be in his back yard for anyone who would like to view it.

    In fact, Bob said he plans to eventually move his entire brick collection to his backyard for public viewing.

Meeting adjourned 10:55 a.m. Next meeting will be August 14, 2004 at 10:00am in St. James Rectory, 6401 Wade Avenue.

Respectfully submitted,
Sally Sharamitaro
Secretary
Dogtown Historical Society

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