Editor’s note: Wednesday’s Dash to the Past is included in this edition. We wish all our postal workers a happy Juneteenth holiday.
Today’s editions include diverse highlights like a 104-year-old farmer, a swimming pool swamped with health violations and a dramatic ax murder investigation.
Tuesday
100 years ago
June 18, 1924
• “Uncle” Tom Kemp, age 104, is believed to by the oldest man in the Poplar Bluff area. Today he smiled for a professional photograph at the studio of W.H. Kennedy.
Kemp is “unusually spry...and one would hardly believe him older than seventy,” said the Poplar Bluff Interstate American. He’s mobile, retains his eyesight and farms a property six miles northwest of town. Kemp tried out retire last year, but, “He says he is weary of inactivity and expects to do some truck farming again this year.”
Accompanying Kemp was his second child, Mrs. Amanda Rudicle, who’s in her fifties.
Sadly, his portrait wasn’t included in the paper.
75 years ago
June 18, 1949
• Poplar Bluff police are going off on gun violations. With school out and squirrel season open, young hunters are shooting rifles around and across the Black River in city limits, despite ordinances. One resident said his boat and house have been hit several times. Police Chief Lester Massingham and Sheriff Bill Brent announced violators will be arrested.
50 years ago
June 18, 1974
• The Poplar Bluff Parks Department is making a last-ditch effort to save the Municipal Swimming Pool at Hillcrest Park. The pool has failed to meet health standards since 1969, and recent inspection revealed a broken chlorinator, unsafe bacteria levels and extremely murky water.
The previous September, a Division of Health sanitary engineer wrote, “This pool had the dubious distinction of tying one other pool in the state for the worst bacteriological record.”
Parks Department Superintendent John Lawson told the board it would cost at least $25,000 to bring the pool equipment up to minimum health standards. The quote didn’t include needed renovations. The board decided to hire a full-time employee to apply chemicals for the rest of the summer while construction of a new pool is planned. They will also request the Division of Health test the water throughout the summer.
Wednesday
100 years ago
June 19, 1024
• A brutal ax murder has rocked Caruthersville. The victim’s wife and her boyfriend are the prime suspects, and evidence indicates the slaying was motivated by a “triangular love affair.”
The body of Ora G. Sanders was found in the woods by hunters, wrapped in a blanket and dressed in pajamas, with a severe ax wound to the head. He was dead for several days. Police arrested Claude Howard and Allie Sanders — Ora Sander’s wife — and Howard calmly confessed to the killing. He claimed the victim threatened him with a shotgun and he acted in self-defense.
Howard separated from his wife two weeks before Ora Sanders went missing, and moved in with Allie Sanders after the killing. Allie Sanders is suspected as an accomplice. Both are being held in the Pemiscot County jail.
• The Daily Republican reports the Poplar Bluff switchboard connects approximately 8,794 calls every day.
There are three peak call periods during the summer: 6:30-8 a.m., when businesses open; 10:30-11:20 a.m., when households place orders from grocers; and social calls from 4:30-8 p.m. The busiest days are Monday and Saturday.
All of these calls are fielded by 15 switchboard operators at the local Southwestern Bell Telephone Company branch.
75 years ago
June 19, 1949 — No issues available.
50 years ago
June 19, 1974
• Poplar Bluff’s sheltered workshop, Dogwood Enterprises, Inc., just received a federal grant of almost $40,000 from the Developmental Disabilities Council in Jefferson City. The workshop plans to purchase three vans to provide transportation to workers, a freight truck and a forklift, and to hire a driver-supervisor. Workshop manager Rick Jerrolds said the new equipment will allow Dogwood Enterprises to compete for more industrial contracts.
Dogwood Enterprises is a non-profit located on South Fifth Street.