The Jeffco Express bus service has helped Jefferson County residents get to where they need to go for a dozen years.
It also has become a place for residents to make friends, and recently a bus that runs the Arnold route reunited two former elementary schoolmates.
Pat Boyer, who turned 68 this month, and Mary Ullman, 67, frequently ride the Jeffco Express bus to shop at Walmart in Arnold. In March, the two realized they were friends 54 years ago in south St. Louis.
“We hear so many wonderful rider stories, but never one quite like this,” said Jill Stedem, administrative and development director for OATS, which operates Jeffco Express. “It’s wonderful two people were able to reconnect after so many decades while riding on the bus together. I’m glad Jeffco Express and OATS Transit played a part in their reunion.”
OATS, which is based in Columbia and provides transportation services in 87 counties in Missouri, took over the Jeffco Express nonprofit bus service on Dec. 1, 2019. The Jefferson County Community Partnership (JCCP) previously owned Jeffco Express, which has three routes in the county.
Two are cross-county routes, which mirror each other and do three loops a day. The blue route starts in De Soto and travels north to Arnold, and the green route starts in Arnold and travels south. Both routes have stops in Hillsboro, Pevely and Festus. The third is the Arnold route, which makes four trips around the city, with 30 stops.
The cost for a one-way ticket to ride one of the buses is $2 for adults or $1 for those 60 or older or with a disability, a spokeswoman at Jeffco Express said. Riders who use the blue or green routes may travel to Arnold and get a transfer slip to use the buses dedicated to strictly the Arnold route without paying an additional fare.
Boyer said the bus service is vital to her.
“I haven’t been able to drive for 10 years because of my eyes and heart,” she said. “This bus is amazing. It takes you anywhere in Arnold. It has been such a blessing. What a wonderful thing that is available to people.”
Reuniting
On one March day, Boyer sat in a different row than usual on the Jeffco Express Arnold route bus.
That simple shift led Boyer and Ullman to realize their past connection.
“She usually sat in the first row,” said Ullman, 67, who moved to Arnold from Affton about nine years ago. “If she didn’t move back to the second row, we wouldn’t have connected as much.”
Boyer and Ullman grew up in the Dutchtown area near the Bevo Mill in St. Louis. They attended grade school together at St. John the Baptist off Delor Street.
The two childhood friends had no idea about their past connection when Boyer first started taking the bus to Walmart after moving to Arnold in November 2020 from south St. Louis County.
Their conversations initially were limited to courteous hellos and inquiries about how each other’s families were doing, until one day they talked about where they grew up.
“We were almost to Walmart,” Ullman said, “and she said, ‘I grew up by Bevo Mill.’ I said, ‘So did I.’ Then she said, ‘I went to St. John the Baptist.’ I said, ‘So did I.’ She told me her last name was Flaherty. I said, ‘I had a grade school friend named Patty Flaherty.’”
“I said, ‘That is me,’” said Boyer, whose maiden name was Flaherty. “It was like, no way. You just ask the right questions and you get the right answers.”
Memories
Boyer and Ullman attended St. John the Baptist through eighth grade, leaving the school in 1967.
Since reconnection, the two often share stories about their teachers, especially the nuns who taught classes, Boyer said.
“They were strict sometimes,” she said.
Boyer and Ullman also reminisce about classmates, and have revisited their first communion photo taken when they were in second grade. Both women still have the photo, which was taken in 1961.
“We remember our first communion,” said Ullman, whose family moved to Rochester, NY, and then Dayton, Ohio, after she completed grade school. “In third, fourth, fifth and sixth grade, (Boyer) was really just a classmate, but in seventh and eighth grade, I remember her more as a friend. If we hung out, it was at the playground during recess or after school.”
Boyer said connecting with Ullman has led her to think more about her old schoolmates and what it was like attending a neighborhood school.
“We never had snow days,” Boyer said. “There were no buses. That is why people moved into parishes so you could walk to school. I have started to think about people I haven’t thought about in years, and now, I can look that person up on Facebook. We have looked up a couple of people.”
More connections
Boyer and Ullman said they have realized other connections.
Boyer’s father and two brothers worked on the Admiral river boat, when it used to cruise the Mississippi.
Ullman said her family knew one of the boat’s captains and they often rode on the Admiral.
They also realized they may have encountered each other on the Robert E. Lee, another old river boat people visited in St. Louis. Boyer was a hostess there, and Ullman’s family often took rides on that boat as well.
They also figured out that Ullman used to live on the same street in south St. Louis as Boyer’s granddaughter’s grandmother.
“It was like we knew all these people who connected us,” said Ullman, who never married and moved back to the St. Louis area in 1976. “The more we talked the more we were like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is too spooky.’ We found we had more connections as we talked about places and people.”
Boyer said it is exciting to reconnect with someone from her childhood.
“When people move away, you think I will not see that person anymore,” Boyer said. “You don’t think about it, and then it happens; you reconnect with a part of your past.”
“That is what I like about the Jeffco Express,” Ullman said. “You never know who you are going to meet. It is an amazing ride. We have fun. We talk to each other and care about each other like a family. Finding her is a true blessing.”