12-30-07: I was Director of Fr. Dunne's Newsboys Home in St. Louis from 1980 to 1998, and came to know several of the men who lived there in the teens and twenties. Briefly, Fr. Peter Dunne rescued several homeless boys, who survived by selling newspapers, from the streets of St. Louis on February 6, 1906, and went on to start the Newsboys Home, which cared for homeless and troubled boys for 100 years (it was recently merged with three other children's homes and programs by Catholic Charities of St. Louis, and is now called Good Shepherd).

If you are not familiar with the history of Fr. Dunne's Home, it's one that you would surely find of interest. The movie, "Fighting Fr. Dunne," starring Pat O'Brien, and produced by RKO in 1946, presents a Hollywoodized version of that history. A factual book was published. (Editor’s note: History of Father Dunne's News Boys' Home and Protectorate, by J.W. Gormley.)

-Bill Donley, MSW

12-30-07: I am a native St. Louisian. My father was a newsboy, probably around 1916 (he was born in '06). I hope that conditions were better by that time but have no proof of that. He was born on l9th & Benton in St. Louis, and his name was John Henry Kruse.

The name John came from his maternal grandfather John who died before the new century. His life had been ruined by the Civil War, as he was from Virginia and served in the Confederacy, was taken prisoner, and had to serve in the Union Army. He migrated west and served in the US Cavalry, fighting the last of the Indian wars.

My father’s middle name, Henry, came from his paternal grandfather, whose death also preceded by father's birth. Henry Kruse came to St. Louis from Germany in 1835, as a child of 13, and worked a series of jobs until he was apprenticed to a tailor in St. Louis in his late teens. He subsequently had his own tailor shop on Franklin Avenue here in St. Louis until 1895. So that tells a lot about the family into which my father came in 1906, the last of four surviving children.

My father left school after the fourth grade, and went to work selling newspapers. He was a kind and gentle man who worked hard at every job he ever had. By the early 1930s, he was hauling and delivering new refrigerators. He cared for his mother, crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, until she died in 1932. He went to work for an electrical contractor that year and never left that position. He married my mother in 1935. She was the love of his life.

In 1936, I came along, and he loved me dearly as well. I was to be an only child because times were rough back then and small families could do better. And we did. By the time I graduated from high school, things were starting to go well. My father said he would send me to any school in the country that I fancied, and he meant it!

I had lots of catalogs from prestigious schools including Washington University here in St. Louis. I ended up at the University of Missouri at Columbia, which really wasn't so bad and Daddy was so proud, as was Mama. They kept their fingers crossed that I would finish, and I did. I loved learning just about as much as they did, though it had been denied for both of them. And they were so capable! Anyway, they saw their dreams enacted as I gained another degree and yet another (a Ph.D. from St. Louis University).

I went on to become a full professor at So. Illinois University at Edwardsville. Now I am retired and I thought you might enjoy hearing about one old newsboy who taught his daughter that education was everything and more. And yes, I married and have four sons, the first two of which my father lived to see. One of those sons is named John, of course!

-Gloria R. Perry