When Jo Ann Vatcha initially started the news of neighbors’ column for The Paper, The Times of Skinker DeBaliviere’s original name, this column was titled Vicissitudes.
Category: September-October 2026
Although summer has yet to officially come to a close, we are beginning to see ads for back-to-school sales that remind us that fall is right around the corner along with more structure and less daylight.
Did you know that by City Ordinance property owners are responsible for maintaining their property from the center of the street in front to the center of the alley in back?
The Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood, the city of St. Louis and this newspaper lost a champion with the death of Jo Ann Vatcha, a longtime resident of the 6100 Westminster Place block.
“That is a tetanus shot waiting to happen,” is how one toddler’s parent described the Four-Corners Playground before renovations this past spring.
Some of my earliest memories of DeBaliviere were when we lived at 5650 Clemens [around 1930].
