Top Row: Top Row, left to right: Forrest Messel (coach), Joe Williams, Jim Merod, Bill Luechtefeld, Michael Maguire, Mick Moore
Bottom Row, L to R: Charles Haller, Bob Ode, John "Butch" Haley, Ronnie Sifford, Tom Haller.
Not pictured: Don Allen, referee
Added: March 31, 2006
From Tom Haller
Bob, I have some updated information on this Congo's basketball picture on your Dogtown website. I found another copy, an original, of the picture with dates and actual autographs of the folks on the photo. The photo was signed by all members of the Congo's team shortly after the season in question ended...April 11, 1958. So the date quoted on the Dogtown website is incorrect. It is not the team from 1956 but instead is the 1958 team.
Additional information on the photo is that this is a basketball team sponsored by the old Memorial Congregational Church, United Church of Christ (UCC). It was located at Victoria and Graham in Dogtown. As of today, March 30, 2006, the building is still there but it is now a non-denominational church. Memorial Congregational Church folded and united with Christ United Church of Christ in Maplewood around 1997. As a side note their original building built around 1890 still exists. It is a small white wooden church building one half block west of McCausland on the north side of Manchester. My great grandmother, Anna Kies, of Kies Bakery fame, attended there shortly after she immigrated from Germany. This was when the church was the UCC predecessor church, the German Evangelical Church of Christ. They later relocated to their currently location a few blocks east and evolved to the Christ United Church of Christ.
Robert Messel points out that the MRH on the photo is the Maplewood-Richmond Heights league.
Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu| HOME | DOGTOWN |
| Bibliography | Oral history | Recorded history | Photos |
| YOUR page | External links | Walking Tour |