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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
Bob Corbett
corbetre@webster.edu