EARLY GARDENS IN CAPE GIRARDEAU
(Unsigned notes from a historical program presented about 1935)
The flower garden mentioned first by all the ladies was the one at the Old Convent, on the corner of Spanish and Good Hope Sts. They all spoke of this with much admiration and affection. This lovely garden extended from the building east toward the river – where they had every kind of flower known in this town at that time. Roses and lilies were there in profusion. The girls were never allowed to go into the garden. In those days a high board fence surrounded the convent property. It was kept neatly white washed. Inside on the south and east sides was a very restful latticed arbor, white washed and covered with honey suckle and other vines. At about the center of the west side was a large round summer house used as a shrine to the Virgin and containing her statue. During May, every evening, all the girls would join in a May procession around the grounds and walks, singing the May chants and crowning the May Queen – the statue of the Virgin. At that time the only exercise the girls took was walking around and around arm-in-arm. There was no physical training, no athletic sports, the sisters were making ladies out of those girls.
Businessmen and rich farmers, besides educating their own daughters there, would send one poor girl and pay all her expenses. There were several hundred students there. Until about fifty years ago the gate was on the south side, even with the east side of the building and with the old Roehl home. It was then moved to the corner. The girls never were allowed to wear short sleeves or low necks. Mrs. Clark said she loved to go to school there. Later, when a school was established in the basement of the Old Presbyterian Church, Mrs. Clark was sent there. Everything was new and bar and raw – no ceremony – no ritual – no lovely garden – and she just hated it.
Mrs. Bahn was a pet of Sister Theresa who once shipped her a start of bleeding heart. In the next generation Sister Stanislans gave slips to Mrs. Bahn's daughter, Clara. The passion vine which now grows so profusely on the river bank in that part of town was set to the convent from France. I cannot vouch for the truth of this as the passion vine grows all over Southeast Missouri.
When Mrs. Bauhn attended the convent hoop-skirts were in style. Of course, the girls were anxious to wear them -- like grown up ladies. But the sisters could not quite stand for that. As a compromise, the girls, while not being permitted to wear then in the class room, might wear them on the playground, but must shed them on entering the building. In the halls you could see a girl's hoop skirt hanging on the hooks with her coat and hat.
The Wathan house, which was built in 1841, had a most gorgeous formal garden reaching from the house to the river. A row of tiger lilies bordered the walks from the house to the street. The beds were in geometrical shapes, outlined with shells, with gravel walks between. The summer house which was a feature of every well-regulated garden at that time, was in the midst of all. The usual large bushes were there -- roses, syringa, snow-balls, etc., with beds of lilies of various kinds, -- the tiger lily, Madonna, august and great beds of verbena, phlox, and petunias. This garden was unusually large with some fine trees at the outer edge.
Mr. Wathan went to New Orleans once a year to pay up his bills and lay in the year's supplies. He always brought back with him quantities of flowers for the home garden.
The Wathen place was adjoined on the north by the Reynolds place, now occupied by grandson, Don Grimm. These two properties comprised all the space from the show factory south to North Boulevard -- about two blocks. It was all a beautiful flower garden. The most conspicuous feature of the Reynold's garden was the red lilies that bordered the walk fro the porch to the street. They were a great rarity -- no one else had any of them. "There were no grass plots in those days," Mrs. Clark said, "This grass business is something new."
Another smaller but well remembered garden was on the S. E. corner of Spanish and Merriwether streets and belonged to the Siebencottons. For many years Mrs. Siebencotton had charge of the alter at St. Vincent's Church. She always had great quantities of Madonna Lilies and all other kinds. She always planted wheat in shallow boxes in the cellar in the winter time. It bleached out white and she used it for decorating the alter for Easter.
As the houses were all heated with fireplaces, in those days, there were no house plants in the winter; even later with wood stoves the houses were too cold for pot plants.
Fifty three years ago my father brought the first hard coal base burner to Cape Girardeau. These stoves soon became popular and with warmer houses, came a great fad for house plants, fish geraniums, rose geraniums, fuchsias, and heliotropes were among the most popular and many houses had lemon and orange trees. When these little trees bloomed the perfume was delightful and rsulting fruit a great curiosity.
About this time came the rage for round beds. Often the round bed was in the middle of the plot with the other beds conforming to the outline of the garden -- all formal -- but always the round bed with red geraniums and dusty miller, sweet alyssum, or pinks for a border. About this time what had been called pi-neys, became pe-o-neys, and now we have pe-o-neys.
One conspicuous garden belongs to St. Vincent's Church, where the Parochial School and its playground now are. The priests took care of it. The beds were bordered with private hedge. At certain times of the year various church processions and rituals were held in this garden. Don Louis Lorimer's house stood on the east end of this lot to the south in line with the east end of the church by the river. What is now the depot plaza and park has all been filled in since then. The house was a long frame building with a gallery on the west with a stairway on the outside leading to the upper story. Sometimes people came early to church and would sit on this gallery and talk instead of going inside the church to pray. This house later became a tenement house. Among families who lived there were the Sheridans and Arnolds.
Diagonally across the street lived Mrs. Emily Deane. She was the grandmother of Mr. Frank Burrough. This place was sold to the Van Franks and later to the Medleys and is now owned by John Kraft. This Mrs. Deane had a sister in Vickburgh whose family were florists. They would send flowers here in great boxes by boat to be sold by Mrs. Deane. The coming of these boxes was looked forward to as a great social event.
As everyone met everyone else there, all trying to be among the first to visit and enjoy the new arrivals and to procure the ones they most admired. The first green rose came among these shipments and was bought by Mrs. Cluley, mother of Mrs. Clark. All roses at that time were brought here from the south by boat, they could not be procured anywhere else. Some of them were: Giant of Battles, Lorraine, King of Pruss, Blush, Velvet or Spring Rose, common Yellow Spring Rose, Sweet Briar, something like a wild rose, Moss Rose, and Pink Daily. Mrs. Cluley had the first tea rose in Cape Girardeau. She was often called on for flowers for church and funerals. Mrs. Clark remembers especially two flower beds she loved most -- one on either side of the front walk -- one was Johnny Jump-ups and the other pansies. About this time there came a fad to plant a tree in the middle of every bed. Around the trees were flowers and then a border of the usual border plants. Mrs. Cluley lived ten years in the house on Merriwether Street where the Wednesday club in which she told about having been brought up in the south under antebellum traditions, where she was taught that a woman could work in her flower garden and still be a lady, but she could not be a lady and tend a vegetable garden. She remembers how surprised she was when she moved further north and found out that she really could be a lady and work in a vegetable garden. After the Cluleys left this house, Mrs. Klosterman came there as a bridge. She kept up the garden as long as she lived there.
From July 1986 Collage
Next to the Cluleys lived Mrs. Philip Deane, in the old Leon Alvert house. The garden at this place was just east of the house and some lower. There were roses, lilies-- Madonna and other varieties-- lilacs, burning bush, mock orange, snowballs and sweet shrubs --all in their turn filling the air with fragrance and making a real beauty spot. The big shrubs were planted along the fence, near the street. Then some made into regular forms with bricks set in corner-wise around the edges, with narrow walks up and down and around the edges. There was never a time from early spring till late autumn when a lovely bouquet could not be picked in this garden.
About ninety years ago Mr. Ed Deane built for Ben Herrel from New Orleans a beautiful home on South Spanish St. at a cost of thirty thousand dollars. About seventy seven years ago Singleton Henry Kimmel, grandfather of Miss Amy Kimmel bought it for ten thousand, and forty five years ago L. F. Klosterman purchased it for three thousand. Mrs. Klosterman has recently sold it to the Knights of Columbus. Grandpa Deane said he remembered when the place was a pond and deer came there to drink. Mrs. Clark said "Old Man Kimmel made a veritable fairyland of it." He put in the big round flower bed which remains in front of the stone steps leading up to the west gallery. He planted tulips and hyacinths for spring blooming and verbenas for later flowering. He liked these together as the verbenas did not take too much nourishment from the early bulbs. To the south of the dwelling was an extensive vegetable garden with current and gooseberry bushes around the fences and a peculiar strawberry bed built like the roof of a house, long, with a high ridge through the center and low on the sides. There were rose bushes bordering the walk all the way to the west gate, also jonquils, daffodils, and narcissus.
In alter years the large trees have made flower beds impossible. Some of the old trees are still standing, they are the hoble buckeye, cucumber, pine, cedar, and box. But gone are the fig trees, the magnificent locusts and the weeping willow. Two large calicanthus bushes are still there and two round rock bordered beds of lilies-of-the -valley. When I used to play there with my friend, Virgie Kimmel, our dresses were longer and fuller than little girls wear theirs now. We used to back up to the round boxwood bushes and spread our dresses over them and play like we had bustles, like our mothers wore then. Miss Amy says to her the glory of the old place was the rows of purple and white lilacs bordering the walk. But to me the glory of the place was the June apple tree that stood in the middle of the northwest yard. Another glory to all the children in this neighborhood was at the Bahn residence across the street from the Kimmel home. In the back yard they had a pig pen and over it grew a sweet apple tree. The roof was Made of long boards that bent and swayed with weight of a child or two and threatened to precipitate one into the jaws of those hungry beasts. But the flavor of those delicious sweet apples was sufficient to make any kid risk life and limb to obtain one.
Another glorious garden was at the old Lieut. Gov. Brown place located between the alley west of Lorimier street and extending to the alley between Frederick and Sprigg Streets, bounded on the north by Good Hope and on the south by Morgan Oak. This was later known as the Dr. Travis place. A grape arbor running east and west extended the full length of the garden on the south side and was a great rarity at that time. Mrs. Clark remembers attending a party there one night. The table was set in the arbor with Japanese lanterns making the scene a beautiful fairyland. Later Dr. Travis, a dentist, always used to give his patients bouquets-- presumably as a reward for enduring the awful pain he had put them thru. I remember especially tube roses and violets.
South Spanish St. was then a very stylish part of town and most all the houses had very beautiful gardens in the prevailing style of the day. There was Langlois place, the Burgess home, the Speaks, Mrs. Wm. Watson, where Morton Thompson now lives. Mrs. Lansmon lived just north of the old Bader home. She imported from St. Louis roses for sale about sixty years ago. The old Moore home on Spanish street had the most extensive boxwood garden in town. The beds were in all kinds of formal patterns, bordered with boxwood which was kept neatly trimmed to about three feet in height. There were no flowers in this garden.
On Spanish street just south of the Court House Square is the old Curry Watson place, later the Barney Carrol home. It was surrounded by a beautiful garden. He was a pilot on the river and brought from New Orleans many rare plants for the garden. There were two arbor vitae trees in the front yard, also red and yellow trumpet honey suckle. There was also a big apple tree in the front yard where all the neighbor children were allowed to come and eat.
On South Lorimier in the three hundred block adjoining my father's place as one of the dearest little places I can remember. It belonged to Miss Mary Claire Miles who inherited it from her Aunt, Miss Louisa Smith. Miss Mary Claire was a sister of Mrs. Bass Albert. This place was a regular little bower. There was a tiny little house surrounded by flower beds, bordered with whitewashed rocks. The tall shrubs met above the paths making the whole place shady and damp and cool. We children loved to play around here in our bare feet. In later years, when I learned about the Petit Trianon and the Jewel Box, they made me think of Mary Claire's little love nest. It was an ideal and romantic place for a maiden lady to live.
--by Florence Hartzell Oliver