The two articles below appeared in the Neighborhood News of March 25, 1987
By Robbi Courtaway journal staff writer
Neighborhood Journal
March 25, 1987
St. James the Greater School, in the heart of Dogtown at Tamm and Wade avenues, was decked out last Tuesday for Dogtown's new honorary mayor.
One wall of the school was lined with construction-paper cutouts of smiling potatoes, sporting pipes and top hats. Shamrocks and other St. Patrick's Day standbys greeted throngs of parade-goes from the corridors.
And in the gymnasium, packed with spectators decked out in green and eating green food, sat the new mayor himself-George Shaffrey-and his wife Ina. Both wore green top hats and impressive Irish garb-George carried a wooden cane.
Shaffrey, 83, has been a Dogtown resident all his life. His wife Ina, 75, has lived in the neighborhood since she was 12. Both have long been active in the community and in St. James parish.
Lifetime Dogtown resident George Shaffey, 83, was named Mayor of Dogtown at last Tuesday's Ancient Order of the Hibernians parade.
"Oh, pretty good," Shaffrey said simply when asked how he felt about his election.
Despite qualms about not hearing too well, Shaffrey was elected the neighborhood's fifth honorary mayor by members of the Clayton-Tamm Community Association in February, said Bob Scannell, vice president of the association.
"He said, `I can't hear too well,' " Scannell recalled Shaffrey's response to the announcement. "I said, `You don't have to -- Reagan is the president, and he can't hear, either.' "
Shaffrey initially declined his nomination because of his hearing loss, but community association members were adamant, Ina Shaffrey remembers.
"They would not take his name out of the nominations, so he was elected," she said. "He thinks it's great now; he's just thrilled."
George Shaffrey, a retired carpenter and 62-year member of Local 47 of the Carpenters' Union, lately has taken to making grandfather clocks for his children and grandchildren.
"So far, they all have one," Ina Shaffrey said. "He loves doing carpenter work; he's busy all the time doing something."
Ina and George will celebrate their 60th anniversary this May. The coupe has three children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Both are half Irish and half German in national origin, and though some of their descendants have moved out of Dogtown, five generations of Shaffreys still live there.
"God has been good to us," Ina Shaffrey said. "I think it's wonderful."
By Robbi Courtaway journal staff writer
Neighborhood Journal
March 25, 1987
Pink cotton candy, hawked at strategic street corners of Dogtown during the Hibernian St. Patrick's Day Parade, was about the only thing in the community March 17 that wasn't green.
Meghan Cleary Adamovich, 2, and Allison Adamovich, 1, wave to the parade from a parked car.
More than 2,000 parade-goers turned out in their best Irish finery-including plastic headbands with shamrock antennae and metallic green wigs-to watch the Ancient Order of Hibernians parade, the second annual one to be held in Dogtown.
The parade started at, the south entrance to Forest Par about and traveled south on Tamm Av to Manchester Road, a 1.5 mile distance.
About 40 different floats, fire trucks, cars containing family clans and groups of marchers participated -- about 300 people in all, said parade chairman Jim Mohan, a member of the Hibernians.
Participants ranged from a vintage fire engine, complete with stuffed Dalmation to a colorful float, featuring a park bench and flowers, staffed by Operation Brightside officials.
A float from St. James the Greater Church and School in Dogtown received a trophy for the best parade float, said Jim Murphy, an 8th grade teacher at the school.
The winning float featured a classroom scene from 1902, including old desks, an apple and a dunce cap. School principal Sister Suzanne Laughlin and church pastor Father Thomas Flynn rode the float, while more than 50 school children and parishioners marched behind.
Watching from their homes up the street from Tamm, and from street corners along Tamm, spectators showed a St. Patrick's exuberance equal to that of the participants.
Jack Keane, special assistant to Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. and past national president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, served as grand marshall of the parade.
"It was our biggest one, and I think it was our best," said parade official Con Riordan of Ballwin, a Hibernian who was born and raised in Dogtown. "We're getting more and more enthusiasm (from the public. ) "
Mohan agreed.
"Our parades have actually grown over years, even though we've moved later the week," he said, noting that parade organizers have received many compliments the last two years and no complaints.
Local Dogtown business people, staff from St. James the Greater Church, Clayton-Tamm Community Association members, 24th Ward alderman Robert Ruggeri, and Danny Liston, owner of Seamus McDaniel's bar, all pitched in to assist with the parade, Mohan said.
Another group of Hibernians also "organizes the big St. Patrick's Day parade held downtown -- this year on March 14-Mohan said. Four years ago, some of the Hibernians decided they'd like to have a parade on St. Patrick's Day, rather than on a more convenient Saturday, he said.
The first year, Division 3 Hibernians held their fledgling parade in Clayton; the next, in Hazelwood. Both locations were successful sites, but organizers decided that the Dogtown neighborhood, which was first settled by the Irish in the 1850s, was an ideal spot to focus on a celebration surrounding St. Patrick.
"Probably next to Kerry Patch (downtown), it's one of the oldest Irish neighborhoods in St. Louis," Mohan said. "We think this is the best site for it; we hope to stay here."
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