Letter to the Editor of The Jimplicute, Scott City, MO 63754
Thursday, August 25
Dear Editor:
It was a big event! The year was about 1895 and as a child of five, I wanted to go to the big church campground meeting everyone was talking about. Nothing much had happened around me and this sounded exciting.
The religious meeting was interdenominational. Every one around us was talking about how great it would be to hear preachers from the different churches give their sermons. It was a big affair, people would be coming from all around and the meeting would last for two weeks. The place was in the rocky hills near the Marquette Plant, south of Cape Girardeau – a beautiful place to bring people to worship.
My mother wanted very much to go to the meeting. I wanted to go with her. Since we were the only ones in the family that wanted to go, we were happy when her nephew invited us to go with him and others in his wagon. The wagon had two long benches in the back which seated five persons to a bench and the driver with his parents rode in the spring wagon seat. The trip would take about two hours and the roads were rough. All of us were anxious to go and thought nothing about the hardships.
We began the trip early in the morning and when we reached the campground, I was surprised. It looked like a town. There were tents and people all over the place. There were tents for a kitchen, some with long tables and benches for dining and many tents people had brought to sleep in during the two weeks stay at the meeting.
There were other interesting things I saw there. People were selling and trading things with each other. You could buy or trade almost anything you could think of. Our driver bought a hunting dog. He tied him to the wheel of the wagon during the preaching.
My mother had not made the trip very well. It was a rough trip and it had made her sick. She did not get to hear many of the sermons. She went to the wagon to rest and there she had the company of the new dog who was not comfortable either, tied to the wagon wheel.
The preachers preached. One sermon after another went on until evening. As soon as one sermon finished another preacher of a different denomination would begin another one. Then about 10 o'clock our group got in the wagon and went home. It was about midnight when we reached our home.
That was the last big campground meeting of that type that I ever attended, and it is the last I ever heard of being held in the area.
Edna Drexler
[In 1895, Edna would have been 5 years old.]