1 100 9 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/0814329076fb17c9b9a60e64d2441092.mp3 4d3afc70af6c37f5e5e08db488b666b7 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/d89fff5fd36fe539e5c1da44e20fcbd8.pdf 9c12d807cbfc067d407afae47676996f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Morris, Joseph Interviewee Groskey, Dick Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Dick Groskey Alternative Title Oral History, Groskey Subject Orlando (Fla.) Altamonte Springs (Fla.) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (U.S.) NASA Air Force World War II--United States Metalworking industries--United States Description An oral history of Dick Groskey, conducted by Joseph Morris on October 28, 2011. Born in Springfield, Ohio, Groskey migrated with his family to Orlando, Florida, in the early 1950s. In the interview, he discusses migrating to Florida, growing up in Ohio, how Orlando and Central Florida has changed over time, his experience contracting with various companies and government institutions, the metalworking industry, business taxes, his service in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, and his wife and children. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:22 Migrating to Florida 0:02:37 Starting own business0:04:13 Growing up in Ohio 0:06:43 Decision to migrate to Florida 0:10:31 How Orlando and Central Florida has changed over time 0:15:15 Contract work with large companies 0:17:39 Working with government organizations 0:20:25 Metalworking industry 0:22:38 Business taxes 0:24:14 Current state of business 0:27:50 Positive changes in Central Florida 0:30:15 Serving in the Air Force during World War II 0:44:00 Returning to civilian life 0:45:00 Wife and children 0:50:18 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Dick Groskey Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> in Orlando, Florida. Type Sound Source Groskey, Dick. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. October 28, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Orlando, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Orlando, Florida Altamonte Springs, Florida Walnut Hills, Dayton, Ohio Myitkyina West, Kachin, Burma Creator Morris, Joseph Groskey, Dick Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-10-28 Date Modified 2014-10-10 Date Copyrighted 2011-10-28 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 34.7 MB 211 KB Medium 51-minute, and 23-second audio recording 25-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Dick Groskey. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Antequino, Stephanie Gaub, and Tana Mosier Porter. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/783150094" target="_blank">Lost Orlando</a>. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Pub, 2012. "<a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/Links/wtour.pdf" target="_blank">Downtown Orlando Historic District Walking Tour</a>." City of Orlando. http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/Links/wtour.pdf. Rajtar, Steve. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70911136" target="_blank">A Guide to Historic Orlando</a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Transcript Morris It is October 28, 2011, and I am talking to Dick Groskey in his place of residence. I am Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Sir, could you tell us a little about yourself? Groskey What? Morris Could you tell us a little about yourself and your life? Groskey Well, what would you like, what would you like… Morris Well, where were you born, sir? Where were you raised? Groskey Springfield, Ohio. Morris And when did you come down to Florida, sir? Groskey Well, right after I got married in the early [19]40s. I got out of the service in ’46, and we got married the same year, and we came to Florida in the real early ‘50s. Morris Okay, sir. And did you move originally to... Groskey No. We—we were going to Miami, and I blew out a tire. It was over on U.S. [Route] 1, and we blew a tire out on the car, and it was late at night on Sunday. We stopped in a motel over on U.S. 1. The next morning, we got up and I asked where the local garage was, and they said, “Oh, it’s clear over in Bithlo. Over Dave Shaw’s garage.” So there happened to be a fellow there that was going that way, and so he took my tire, and we throwed[sic] it in the back of his truck, and he took me over Dave Shaw’s garage, which was right in the middle of no place. Well, Dave got the tire fixed, and one thing another. And in the meantime, while he was fixing the tire, I thought, “Well, I’ll look at the local newspaper.” So I’m just thumbing through it. There’s an ad in there: “Machinist wanted.” So I asked Dave Shaw, I said, “Well, where is this place?” “Oh,” he said, “That’s over in Orlando, which is short ways from Bithlo.” So I put a dime in the telephone—it was a dime at that time—and I called this man up, and he was from Youngstown, Ohio. And I told him, I said, “Well,” I said, “I’ve been a toolmaker all my life.” And he said, “I got a job for you.” He says, “Come on over!” So I said, “Well, wait ‘til I get my tire fixed, and I’ll come over.” So he gave me the directions, and I came over to Orlando, and I went down on Sligh Boulevard—and Tool Engraving on Sligh. It was Trade Tool Engraving— was the name of the place. And he said, “I’ll let you run a screw machine second shift.” I said, “Great.” [inaudible] easy. I’d run one before. So I went back to Titusville, told the missus. I said, “Well, we’re gonna have to stay here tonight, but,” I said, “tomorrow we’re going to Orlando.” And she said, “Well, what’s the matter with going to Miami?” I said, “I got a job.” She said, “You got a job?” I said, “Yeah. I go to work tomorrow night.” And I’ve never been out of work since. Morris Wow, sir. So, why were you going to Miami? Groskey I don’t know. I just thought that was a place where it was warm and there was a lot of something going on. Morris Got distracted by Orlando? Groskey And well, we got stuck here and been here ever since. Morris Then how long did you work at the... Groskey At Trade Tool? Morris Yes, sir. Groskey Only, well, best part of a year. And that’s when the Martin [Marietta Corporation] company came here, and I helped build the Martin plant. Then I went to work industrial engineering. And I stayed out there about a year and a half, I guess, and then I started my own thing, and been keeping it going ever since. Morris Okay. And how did you start your own business, sir? Groskey One tool at a time. Morris And how long have you been in business? Groskey Oh my gosh. Never [laughs]—I’ve always had a shop. We moved the shop down when I moved down from Ohio. Morris Oh really, sir? Groskey Yeah. Morris So you were doing this up in Ohio as well? Groskey Yeah. Morris The, um… Groskey I had a shop in Brookville, Ohio, and then we left Brookville to come to Florida, and I had our furniture in the shop in a—on a semi. We was gonna move it down here, and we moved, after we had the blowout over Titusville, and I got a job there, we went over here on [U.S. Route] 17-92 and rented a three-room apartment over there. And I had all the shop equipment come down then after we got established, and I rented a place over in Altamonte Springs. It was a little—about a four-story—I mean a four-office little building that Merris Walker—he owned the whole town practically. He built this building—just a little commercial building—and I rented one of the offices in there. We put all the machinery in there. And at that time, I was working at the Martin company, so we got our little shop going. So I went, quit the Martin company, went back out there, went to purchasing, I said, “I’d like to bid on your work.” And we’ve been going ever since. Morris Okay, sir. And could you tell me a little about the place where you grew up? I know it was in Ohio, correct? Groskey Mmhm. Morris Have you been back? Groskey Only when my dad died in 1966. I haven’t been back since. Morris Okay, sir. What was it like growing up out there? Groskey It was right prior to World War II, and things were tight, but it was a lot—a lot easier. Better times than what it is now. It wasn’t near as fast-paced. People had more of value than they do now. Smaller things meant more. Our—we lived in a middle-class neighborhood where everybody worked, and everybody went to school. Everybody had a car. And we played croquet at night in the backyard. We played football down at the local park. We played baseball at the local park. We played horseshoes. There was always something to do. The local park was just a matter of trees, a drinking fountain, and a shelter house, but there the city provided ball gloves and tennis racquets and things. So you’d go in there, sign your name and get a ball, go up and go play ball. Morris Okay. Groskey And that was kind of the center of activity of the whole community. We lived in what they called Walnut Hills. It was a very clannish type situation, because at that time, in that area—National Cash Register, General Motors [Company], Frigidaire, Dayton Rubber [Company], and those bigger companies—a job was something that there was nothing to be concerned about. That was something that your dad—your dad’s dad probably worked at these same companies over the last three or four generations, because that’s the way things were. You didn’t have to hunt for a job. Shop like I got now—a job shop—there was[sic] hundreds of them in that town. You’d pick up the phone call and say, “Hey, what do you got going? You got 30 days’ worth of work? I’ll be over this afternoon.” And you had another job. That’s job shopping. But if you wanted to go to the major companies like Dayton Rubber, Frigidaire, or one of the big ones—Master Electric, where they made motors—you’d go in there, hire on. They’re expecting you and your kids’ kids to work there. It was job security, which of you have none today. Today, it’s feast or famine. We get a job today, you finish it up two o’clock, goodbye. Go home. There is no security in jobs today, unless you create your own security. Morris Right, sir. Groskey There is nothing that—you can’t depend on the other man for anything. Morris Okay, sir. And how—so you left. You just wanted a change of scenery? You came down to Miami for that reason? Or you were on your way to Miami for that reason? Groskey No. I spent—like I said, I spent a lot of time over in China and Burma and India. And it was all hot weather. Very hot. We came home in February, and it was just kind of the tail end of the winter, but there was a lot of snow and ice on the ground, and after being in the tropics for that long, and coming in to snow and ice on the ground—and I got married, I told her when we got married, I said, “Look, we’re going someplace else.” I said, “I’m not gonna shovel snow.” I said, “I’m not used to this.” My later teens and then early twenties, I was overseas, and I said, “Boy, I’m not going home and shoveling any snow.” So we told her parents, we told my parents, and my dad says, “If you take her and them[sic] kids out of Ohio, I’ll disown you.” Which he did. We never got one dime from him, and he was a wealthy man. When he died, I got just exactly nothing, because I took her and came to Florida with the kids. Morris And that was your dad or her dad? Groskey No. That was my dad. Morris Wow. Groskey No. Her dad was more lenient. He was from Georgia, and was a farmer from Georgia. He had a pretty nice business going, and he said, “Well,” he said, “I can understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.” And he says, “If we can help you, we will.” But my dad was from the old school, and if it ain’t his way, it’s no way. It was that, but, he said, “You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re leaving the whole security and this and that and everything else.” I said, “No. I’m not.” I said, “Now I was in the service. I’ve been clear around the world.” I said, “I’ve seen other places. I’ve been other places and done other things. I’m not gonna sit here and shovel snow. I’m going someplace else.” “Well, if you do, you’re disowned.” And he did. Morris What did your dad do for a living? Did he work in one of these... Groskey He was vice president of the [International] Typographical Union. Morris Okay, sir. I can definitely see why, after going to the tropics, that Miami might have come to mind. Groskey That was the only—Orlando—it was just a wide spot in the road, like Kissimmee, that was just a few cars walking up and down the road. But Orlando did have a name, but it didn’t have a name like Jacksonville or Miami. Now, my wife’s from Georgia, and some of her relations—her dad, or her uncle—was warden of the Duvall County farm up there. So we came down—prior to moving, we came down here and visited, and we talked to her uncle at great length, and he was a very, very, very knowledgeable man, and he knew basics of life right here in Florida. So I asked him a lot of pointed questions. He gave me the answers. He says, “It’s gonna be up to you.” He said, “There’s[sic] opportunities here. It’s up to you to make them.” He said, “You can go out there and hustle around.” He said, “You’ll make them.” He said, “Florida’s growing.” He was born and raised there. I figured, “Well, you know what you’re talking about.” So that changed our opinion on going to Miami. After talking to people who had been there and back, and one thing another, salesmen and people who had went down there to live, and got out of the Little Havana area—whatever—they said, “Stay up in Orlando area.” Been here ever since. Morris Okay, so after you moved here, you were still thinking about going down to Miami afterwards? Groskey No. Morris Just talking to these people. Groskey No. That was it. That cancelled that out. I only went to Miami one time since we moved to Florida. We had a subcontract on the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] building in Miami, and we supplied a lot of the high-pressure ductwork down there. We built it. And we had to get down—as owner of the shop, we had to get down to physically see that our work was in that job. It was a government job. Our work was in that building and that contract—blah blah blah blah blah. And I had to go down there about three different times. Other than that, I never went back. Morris Okay, sir. Groskey That’s where Miami and me[sic] ended. Morris That’s where you and Miami have just parted ways? Groskey Yep. Morris Okay, sir. Well, how has Orlando changed from when you moved here to now? Groskey They have ruined Orlando. Morris Really, sir? Groskey Yeah. Morris In what way? Groskey Due to the fact that the people that were responsible—once Orlando was established as a town, and the multitude started moving into that town—the way Orlando was originally set up was a farm town that was easygoing and whatever. As soon as it started to grow with a vast amount of people, which happened in the ‘50s, it really blossomed, and when it did, they lost reality with what Orlando was all about. When we moved here, you could drink the water out of Prairie Lake. You could go along, there was water along the ditches on every main road out at the main area of the town here. There was[sic] fish in these ditches. People would be along the side of Route 50<a title="">[1]</a> fishing, and water wasn’t that deep, but there was fish in them. I worked at the Martin company, and when I’d come home at night, I’d take the boys, and we’d go over to Lake Monroe and sit there on the seawall, and in an hour’s time, I’d have a bucket so full of fish you could hardly pick it up. Where’d they all go? Where’d the mullet go? Where’d the blue crabs go? Everything has been polluted. They ruined Central Florida. Now we’ve got crime. A lot more. A shooting in Central Florida back in the ‘50s—unheard of, unless it was a hunting accident. Somebody pulled out a gun and shot his own foot. It was unheard of. Now it’s an everyday occurrence. You go to Pine Hills today and somebody’s gonna shoot somebody before you can drive through it. They have ruined Central Florida, because that is the element that follows growth. There’s that type of person that will follow growth, and try to reap what they can off it, and they have ruined Central Florida. Central Florida—I won’t even go to the coast. You used to be able to go anyplace up and down the east coast. You could pull off the side of the road, cross the dunes, and go fishing. It’s all barricaded off. Chain-link fence. “Keep out.” Don’t come here, don’t go there. When we first moved, when we first got ourselves established in Altamonte Springs, I went to a council meeting, and several of the management meetings Downtown—city of Orlando. And most of the people down there—a lot of the people down there were from Baltimore[, Maryland]. Baltimore entered big in Central Florida, because the Martin came here. Martin company came here. They brought all their people with them. And come to find out, most of the people that came with the Martin company from Baltimore were the odd falls they wanted to get rid of anyway. And that’s how the Martin company started here. Well, I went—I helped build the building, then I went to work in it, and I know firsthand. But, at any rate, I had a shop in Altamonte Springs. I had the first screw machine in Seminole County. So I went to one of these meetings down there, and I got a chance to speak my voice. I got up and I said, “Well, you fellows don’t have any manufacturing base here.” I said, “You got high-acreage use plant.” I said, “You got two or three big packinghouses. One Blue Goose [Growers packinghouse].” And I said, “You’ve got another packinghouse over in Maitland, but,” I said, “you don’t have anything that’s making anything. You don’t produce any. You don’t have any sawmills. You don’t have any manufacturing, no welding shops, no nothing. Why?” “Because we’re tourist-oriented.” That’s the famous saying: “We’re tourist-oriented.” And still to this day, they’re still leaning away from manufacturing. They don’t want any manufacturing in Central Florida. I tried to explain to them how the economy in Cincinnati and Dayton was based on all these little job shops that was doing something. Now what have you got? Blacks running up and down the ladder picking oranges. That ain’t gonna help the economy. Not one nickel’s worth. The grove owner’s gonna make money, but you and I aren’t. I said, “You have to have diversified activity in that community.” And you know, they said, “Well, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea, but we don’t wanna hear no more.” And that’s where they shut it off, and I said, “Well, to hell with you. Goodbye.” And it’s still today the same situation. They want tourists. Get them in, fleece them, send them on a plane back home. They don’t want nothing here permanently. Go downtown. What have they done for the people who live here? If you go someplace, you’re gonna pay money dear for it, because you’re gonna pay just like a tourist. They don’t give the local people anything. They don’t say, “Hey, show me your driver’s license. You come in for two bucks.” “Hey, it’s $28.00? We might charge you $30.00, because you live here.” Uh-uh. I’m soured on [inaudible]. Believe me. That’s why we’re out here on our own little domain. I have nothing to do with them. Morris Okay, sir. So, um, this kind of might be a little bit of a weird question, then—so you’re not a—you don’t go to—or have you ever gone to any of the theme parks that attract the tourists? Groskey I have never. I have done work for [Walt] Disney World and Universal [Studios Orlando] and everybody else, but it’s always on a bid-item basis. The only reason I will go there is to take a job out, give them a purchase order, and hope I get paid. That’s the only way. As far as spending my money to go to their park, I wouldn’t spend a dime. Morris Yeah. They are expensive, sir. Groskey I wouldn’t spend a dime. Morris When you say “hope” you get paid, have you ever had a problem with receiving payment from these companies? Groskey Martin company and Disney started out the same way. Thirty days on invoice, 60 days on invoice, 90 days on invoice. Martin company got 120 days on invoice. I took the last invoices right down to personnel, right into payroll. I said, “I want to get paid for these.” “Well, we’re a big company, you know. It takes time.” And I said, “Now, you’re not that big.” I said, “I’m a little guy. We started out 30-day invoice, okay. 60, I can live with. 90, I’m hurting. 120, I can’t do it. Anymore work we do from you, COD [Cash on Delivery].” Now I’m a little guy talking to a big guy, and I said, “That’s it.” They needed us at that time more than we needed them, because there was nobody else except Martin [inaudible] out here that had a shot. Morris Okay, so they kept trying to put you off? Groskey That’s right. They kept stringing us out, stringing us out, and stringing us. “Well, we’re a big company!” I said, “Yes, you ought to be able to do it twice as fast. Because you have more facilities than we do. You ought to be able to make your pay the same day.” Morris Right, sir. Groskey So, I said, “C.O.D.” Morris So your business work with these companies has not been the—all you wish they could be? Groskey Well, the Martin company, as you know, right now is one of the largest defense contractors there is in the United States. And had we—at that time, had we had somebody on our side that could go internally there, today we’d probably be a multi-million dollar corporation. Because they made some big companies out of what happened at Martin company throughout the United States. Morris Okay, but because you couldn’t get anybody, or you didn’t have anybody to work with you there... Groskey We—as an outsider, we had nobody on the inside. Morris Gotcha, sir. Groskey Now, when the shuttle’s arm<a title="">[2]</a> came up at the Cape [Canaveral], when the shuttle’s arm came up, the robotic arm, we were doing NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] work at the time. So I went out to procurement, and I said to them, I said, “Well, we’d like to bid on this robotic arm.” And he said, “Okay, fine.” He said, “You’re qualified. You’re DoD [U.S. Department of Defense] and checked out and everything. Fine.” We got a set of drawings, we come back, and we figured it out. We could make the complete thing except the one base had a milled slot about 12-14 feet long. We couldn’t mill it. I had a friend in Winter Haven that had a big Niles Planer [Machine]. He could do it. We submitted our bid. We were second—number two. Now, we’re a little shop, and that was a big job. There was only, I think, four of them to start with, and they were over a period of two or three years. The man out in IOA [inaudible] got the job. We went out and protested. He don’t have enough money in his bid to buy the material to do the job. The purchase agent out there on that contract was a woman. She said, “Well, Mr. Groskey,” she said, “I’ll tell you. We can’t control where he gets his material from. He may have a warehouse full.” That’s the only out I got. He may have a warehouse full. We had to buy it. He had a warehouse. I said, “Okay.” Less than 30 days, they came back and said, “We want you to pick up the contract. He went bankrupt.” I says, “Goodbye.” That’s what I told NASA. I wouldn’t touch it. Morris Oh really, sir? But you worked with NASA afterwards, right? Groskey Yeah. Morris Just not on that contract. Groskey Not on that one. Nope. We dropped that one right by the wayside. They wanted us to come back and pick up the ball, and clean up the mess, and sweep the dirt. I said, “No dice.” We don’t get it going in, we don’t want any part of it. Morris Okay, sir. Could you tell me more about the work you’ve done with NASA? Because that does a lot for the local community and the local area. Groskey No. The only thing that we got out there was small stuff that they couldn’t buy it for here [inaudible]. Onesie-twosie things that, like certain types of bearings and special screws, and just little nit-picking stuff. Nothing big. Morris Oh, okay, sir. Groskey Nothing big. No big contracts. Nothing. Biggest contract we had was from the Navy over here—the [Orlando Naval] Training Center. And we did Navy work, but there was too much red tape in all that work. I’d rather have work off the street. The last Navy job we had, they made four change orders on it. They went through a nuclear submarine. And there was[sic] four change orders. And after the second or third change order, the fourth change order went right back to the first change order, and that—we’d already scrapped it. We had to do it all over again. They don’t know what they’re doing. Morris Gotcha, sir. So, um… Groskey We’re very, very, very selective if we take work out that we don’t know the people that we’re gonna do it for. I would rather do a hundred percent commercial work. 100 percent. But right now, the customers we’ve got—we’ve got all the good customers in Central Florida—that they bring work to us. If we take something out to one of those customers, and it’s not according to what maybe they think they want, or they really need, they’ve already given us okay to do it, or purchase orders behind it. We make it, we fab it, we take it out, and if it’s not exactly what they want, it goes right in the dumpster and we get paid for it. Because that’s the way we do business. This is what you wanted, and this is what you got. Now, if you can’t use it, that ain’t my problem. You got what you ordered. And that’s the way we do business. Morris Gotcha, sir. Okay. Could you tell me a little more about the business here then? I know we discussed earlier, but could you tell me more about what kind of work you do, and who you do it for? Groskey Well, we do sheet metal work, welding, and machine work, general machine work for the complete population. No matter what industry or what kind of a business they have going, we make. We’ve made everything you could possibly think of. We’ve made parts for outboard motors, typewriters, telephones, fishing equipment, hunting equipment, dies, jigs, drill jigs, fixtures, screw machine parts. You name it. If it was made out of metal, we made it. We make high-pressure ductwork, sheet metal ductwork. We make low-pressure ductwork. We make all kind of turning veins, fittings, the whole gamut. Whatever there is in small metalwork, we do. Morris Okay, sir. And, could you tell me how… Groskey We’ve only been stymied once or twice, and that was when we had something that was a—it was more of a compound angle, and we didn’t have facilities to do it with, but I have a friend out in Apopka that’s got a water jet machine. We took it out there to him, and he water-jetted it, and we went merrily on our way. So we have an out. We take them all. Morris Gotcha, sir. Okay. Can you tell me how your business has changed over the years or grown? Groskey The business—we try to—according to the tax structure—the way it’s set up—we’re allowed a tax deduction to amortize a piece of machinery over a five-year period. And I understand [Barack] Obama has allowed small businesses to amortize that machine in one year. And I like when we bought our big boring mill down there, that’s a $12,000 machine, we could take a tax write-off in five years for that machine for the $12,000. Well, if you happen to have a good year, that $12,000 would mean a lot if you could deduct it, but you can’t deduct it except for in a five-year period. So you wind up paying more taxes for spending more money, and that’s not right. If you’re spending more money, you should be able to deduct it. Morris Okay. Groskey If it’s shop equipment, it’s capital equipment. But now—I think they got it set up now to where you can deduct that in one-year or two-year period, rather than a five-year period. Morris And you said “amortize,” right? Groskey Yeah. Morris What does that mean, sir? Groskey The government would only allow you to deduct off of your taxes—say I bought something for $1,000—a piece of machinery for $1,000. Every year I could get a $200 reduction on that piece of machinery. Morris Okay. Groskey A tax write-off on that machinery. And at the end of five years, I had a tax write-off of that $1,000. Then that machine could no longer be amortized anymore. That machine was a dead piece of equipment in that business. It was part of the business, it made the business worth that much more, but as far as taxes go, you’re done. There’s no more relief on taxes for it. Morris Okay. So, well, I know we talked about this a little bit earlier, um, how is business doing these days? Groskey Very bad. Our little shop down there was doing great up until 2002, and I could see then it was starting to slide, because we’d have customers the whole gamut of Central Florida. We’d have everything from photographic shops to big truck manufacturers, truck garages, and the likes of that. The whole gamut. We made parts for everybody. And all of them now have started slowing down, slowing down, slowing down. Because I’m interested enough to ask, “Well, Bill, how’s it going? Is your business going?” “Yeah, we’re up about 10 percent.” “We’re up 15 percent.” And it’s this way across the board. There’s only one person that’s got a business in Central Florida that’s got more business than he can handle, and that’s the auctioneers. Now, Don [M.] Dennett in Sanford—[D. M.] Dennett Auctioneering—has been a friend of mine since he was in high school, and Don is running a very good business today. We went to a sale last week over here in Casselberry. [inaudible], a multi-million dollar company, a beautiful shop, bankrupt, up for sale, it went on the auction block. I said to Don at the sale, I said, “Don,” I said, “Why in the world would something like this happen?” He said, “There’s no volume.” There’s no volume of work. He happened to have an Air Force contract that kept him going for the last two or three years. When that contract ended, he was done, because he had so much invested in big equipment, nothing to do. He had to sell out. Don says, “I could have a sale—an auction a day, if I wanted to. There’s[sic] that many people going bankrupt.” But he only has one a week, because the market will only handle so much. Otherwise, you’d have people there buying shares for a dime and the likes of it. He waits until the smoke clears, then he’ll have another auction. Morris Okay, sir. Groskey But he is busy all the time, believe me. Right now he’s ready for two more auctions. I talked to him yesterday. He got two more shops that went out, and a bunch of restaurant equipment again. A couple more restaurants went broke, and he’s gonna sell them at the auction. But he has got more work than he knows what to do with. Because that’s people’s downfall that he’s advantaged—he’s taking advantage of. Morris This is not a problem you’re having though, sir? Groskey No. We’re sitting tight. We’re solid. We don’t owe a dime to anybody. We have one thing. We buy steel on a30-day basis. We buy sheet, plate, angle, and beam, and bar from three different companies. We pay our bills at the end of the month, every month, religiously. Every 30 days, we pay our invoices up and they’re done. We run no credit with nobody, pay cash for everything. Morris Okay, sir. The proper way to run a business, right? Groskey And 90 percent of the people—I’d say 95 percent of the people that we work for appreciate that fact, because their paperwork don’t carry over month to month to month to month. When they deal with us, and come out, if we don’t have a prior agreement of 30 days on invoice, they pay cash and bring a check with them, because that’s the only way we’ll work. We won’t chase any money. You can’t spend your time chasing bad debts. And over the last 40 years, I don’t think we’ve lost a hundred dollars, and that’s because somebody died, and there was no heirs. That’s the only reason. Morris Gotcha, sir. Well, I know you said that they ruined Central Florida. Groskey Yep. That’s right. Yep. Morris Would you say there’s anything good in Central Florida, anything that—I mean, you discussed what had gone wrong. Would anything in your mind have gone right? Groskey Well, sure. What Florida did, by them having all of their eggs in one basket with tourism, they’ve helped other industries and other things grow with them. The motel industry grew, the restaurants and the stores, the retailers and one thing another. A lot of those people now have picked up to where they rely on all of these people that’s coming in. But when people come out of the airport, and they go to Disney World, they’re more or less captive at Disney World. Now, most of them are here say two days, three days a week, something like this. their money is limited to what they can do, and when they have to spend $75 to go up to that gate, they’re gonna think twice about having to go outside to buy something. Disney’s smart enough to know this. That’s why they’ve got them captive. Restaurants, hotels, motels, the whole nine yards. Get them in the gate and keep them. But there’s[sic] still a few people who want to see Central Florida. They want to get out and look around. “We haven’t come out here.” But that—Central Florida in that respect has grown along with all the tourists, and it’s helped the people that did stay here by giving them more of an opportunity to do things. Bowling alleys, and your arts, and a lot of your museums have grown. Your arts and science have grown. Everything has helped the local people, and I consider myself to be part of the local people. But they have given us an opportunity of more things which weren’t here. Morris Okay, sir. Groskey So you can give them the benefit of the doubt. They—their finances and their establishment created an environment that people wanted. So it kind of rubs off on us local people. We’re able to go take advantage of it too. Morris Okay, sir. That’s a—I was going to say, that’s a very interesting perspective, because you never go to those parks. You never do any of those things. Groskey No, no. Morris But the benefit—the side benefits they bring with them… Groskey Right. Right. Morris Gotcha, sir. I know before you mentioned you were, that you had served in the military. Groskey The military? Morris Could you tell us about that, sir? Like what branch? Where? When? What were you doing? Groskey Well, I was in the military prior to—oh, what the hell they called it? Well, when the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. Morris Okay. Groskey And I was in Fort Knox[, Kentucky] in the regular Army before the Japanese hit Honolulu and Oahu[, Hawaii]. Now, when I went into Fort Thomas, Kentucky—I went from there to Fort Knox. I went to Fort Thomas, Kentucky, there wasn’t enough of us in that barracks to keep the fire going at night. We had to take shifts to keep the fire going at night. They declared war. The next day, they were standing in the hallways. They had to have so many people pouring into that place. There was a mobilization overnight. Believe me. Well, when I enlisted in the service—I enlisted, I was never drafted—I enlisted in the Air Force. There was[sic] no openings. So I left Fort Thomas, Kentucky, and went to Atlantic City, New Jersey, for basic training. Well, when we got out there, of course the wartime conditions and everything—blackout at night and the whole story, everything was all window-curtains [inaudible] and the likes of it, no headlights and everything. Well, I left there and went out to Chanute Fields,<a title="">[3]</a> Illinois, and joined the Air Force. They had an opening, so I got transferred from the Third [United States] Army into the Air Force, which I had enlisted for to begin with. I wanted to get in the Air Force. So I went out there to Chanute Fields and went through tech school, graduated from tech school, and got assigned to a regular Air Force unit, and was with them for quite a while. And then, well, we stationed in California, and stationed in Texas, and stationed in New Mexico and quite a few places. And then, as the [World] War [II] progressed, they took our unit and broke it up into four units, and made air combat cargo units out of them. So what we done was to air-drop supplies, ammunition, and equipment to the troops that were on the ground. That was our main—we were a transfer. I’d say an airborne trucking outfit. But on our mission, whenever we took what we had there, if there was another outstanding hospital in the area, we went to that base and haul a load of wounded back. “Litter patients,” we used to call them. So, we’d take a load of supplies over wherever we were going, and bring a load of litter patients back to the next general hospital. And that was our total obligation. And I did that in China, Burma, and India. Now, when the war ended, we were flying into Chongqing[, China] when the war ended, from Myitkyina [West], North Burma. That was our last big U.S. air base in that part of the world. And when I say “big air base”—it was a grass, dirt strip with landing mats, but that was still—in that part of the world, that was a big air base. We flew [Douglas] C-47 [Skytrain]s, [Curtiss] C-46 [Commando]s, and [Douglas] C-54 [Skymaster]s. And when the—when the Japs—we had moved out of Myikyina and went down to Bhamo, Burma right at the war’s end. And we were flying in into Saigon[, Vietnam],<a title="">[4]</a> and when the war ended, then our orders—the way our orders were written that, at the war’s end, we will be dis—our organization, equipment, will be disbanded by the most expeditious means. And our colonel, who was Colonel Scannel[sp] [inaudible], was a 36-year-old [United States Military Academy at] West Point man and a full-command pilot. Now that’s a hard nut to crack. That’s as good as you can get in the Air Force. We were all sitting down at what they called the “bomb crater.” We had a movie that night. Just a big bombed-out hole in the ground. We was all sitting around. They suddenly flashed the lights on the camera, and he says, “Boys, it’s all over.” And it took about a minute for it to sink in—the fact that the war was over. And it was. And then two days later, we pulled out of there, loaded our planes, we went back down into Tasgaon, India. But when we left, all the tents, all the equipment, the toolboxes, everything that was left on that strip, was either given to the hill tribes or was destroyed in the fire. We closed the base up, and that’s the way we left. Now, one story that vividly sticks in my mind was at Myitkyina—that’s M-Y-I-T-K-I-N-A<a title="">[5]</a>—Myitkyina, North Burma. Before the war, it was a big town. Well, the Japanese, in order to go on their route from Japan—through China into India—that’s what their object was. They’d already just about taken over China, and they were into India pretty deep. Well, our object was to see that they didn’t get any further. We were kind of stopped dead [inaudible] in the middle. MARS Task Force and Merrill’s Marauders [inaudible] were the ground troops, and we’d get everything they had—ate, fed, shot, and whatever—we supplied them—air-dropped whatever to get to them. Well, one day, on the south end of our strip, was[sic] two fighter groups that supported us as air cover while we were flying and dropping supplies—the 82nd and 93rd fighter group. There was [North American Aviation] P-51 [Mustang]s and [Republic] P-47 [Thunderbolt]s. Now, most of these fighter planes, they were bombing down at the—in the Mekong valley [inaudible], and they were down around the bridge over the River Kwai.<a title="">[6]</a> That was one of their last bombing missions. Well, the line chief and I were standing alongside the strip, and we was[sic] watching it. They’d take off about five, six, seven planes at a time. They’d fly together as a group, low-altitude bombing on these targets, like roads and bridges and commercial buildings that was of value to Japanese. So, Master Sergeant Hinky [inaudible] and I were standing there with a hot—typical hot day—and we was watching these P-47s take off, one right after the other. Well, when a fighter plane’s carrying a thousand-pound bomb under the belly of it, they got a load. Well, they would start up there at the end of the strip, and they’d tow [inaudible] them. They were full-throttle. By the time they got halfway up the strip, they’d be just about off the ground. And at the end of the strip was rice paddies and jungle. Well, we watched these planes—one, two, three. And the third one coming down the line on all of a sudden, he went straight up in the air. And line chief said to me, said, “Well, look at that damn fool.” And I said, “Yeah, but look at there.” And a thousand-pound bomb had let go of the bottom of that plane, and here he was coming down the middle of the strip tail first—a thousand-pounder. So Hinky looked at me, and I looked at him, and I said, “We better duck.” And we went under the first thing that was there, and it was a big truck, and we went under it. Well, that bomb went right at the end of the strip, went right out in the rice paddy, and just settled down as nice-you-please and didn’t explode. It went “poof” right in the mud. We crawled out from the trunk and Hinky said to me, he said, “Damn, that was close.” I says[sic], “Too close.” And I said, “Yeah, but look where we were.” And we were underneath a tanker full of hundred-octane gasoline. Oh, boy. That was a nice experience to have. That was just one of the little things that happened throughout the war. Morris When did you, what age were you signed up, sir? Groskey My 21st birthday. I was in combat. Morris Okay. When did you, uh—but you said you signed—you enlisted prior to World War II, correct? Groskey Yeah. I was 18. Morris Oh, okay. And did you enlist right after high school? Groskey Yeah. Morris Okay, sir. And, um… Groskey Matter of fact, about—I went to trade school. Morris Oh. Groskey That’s how I got my start to shops [inaudible]. I was going to trade school, and we had just finished. The way our school worked—it was called Dayton Cooperative High School. They had—well, all the instructors were professional people. They were professional in their trade. Well, the shops is what I was in basically, and of course, all of the instructors were master toolmakers. Well, when the war started, my class was just about ready. We went to school two weeks and worked two weeks. That’s the way co-op[erative] was set up. You had to carry a[sic] 80 average to go to school. If you didn’t maintain your class grades, as well as your shop grades, you got pulled out. You had to go to a regular school. You could no longer become a craftsman. You had to be interested and have a know-how to what you wanted to do. You had to want to know what you were doing. Well, at that time—that was in—oh, I think we graduated in December that year—and I went into the service September, just prior to that. And I’d say 90 percent of our class—males in our class—all went in about the same time. The whole class of ’41 just about all went in the military just about the same time. And I don’t think—of course, we lost track of all of them—but I don’t think after graduation—that year after graduation—it wasn’t more than a handful that even graduated after that because they all went in the service. Morris Was that very normal at the time, sir? Groskey Yes. Very much so. Morris Oh, okay. Groskey The patriotism was extremely high. They had—Japanese had submarines out off the East Coast, they had submarines off the West Coast. They were at our back door. Morris Hm. Okay, sir, and you said you served for five years? Groskey Mmhm. Morris And did you—was that when the war was over, or... Groskey Yeah. Yeah. Morris And you came… Groskey I was in the 1348th air combat—air drop unit. And, when that—our orders were cut in North Africa before we left Algiers[, Algeria], when we was sent into the CBI (China-Burma-India] Theater, the general that wrote our orders for our outfit said that, “You will be there for the duration plus six months.” Now that’s just like a life sentence. How long will it last? You gotta be there, and six months more. But luckily, when it ended, we was gone out of there off of our former base in two days—three days at the most. We went what they called “down the valley” into India, then we stayed there to be “disoriented”—is what they called it—to be re-civilianized. We had to turn in our guns, and all of our grenades, and all of our fighting equipment, and try to be civilians. Well, that didn’t—took longer than that to do. But anyway, we stayed there, I’d say, for a period we was in Tasgaon, India—for about a month. And then we got on the [USS] General [M. B.] Stewart and came home. We came home first-class on a big general ship, which was a well-relief. We could have hot meals. You had a bed to sleep on. I mean, you wasn’t[sic] sleeping on the ground. I mean, we’re civilians now. Yeah. This is really living. Well, anyway, we got back into Camp Atterbury, Indiana, which was a discharge center. And the man in charge of the center—our whole outfit was there. We had 1,300 men and officers with our whole complete unit. All of our pilots were drafted civil pilots—Delta, Eastern, all of them were commercial pilots. They hated the military. Between them and us, the ground people, we got along fine, because we didn’t like it either. We got along great. Well anyway, when we got into Camp Atterbury, we got all the shots and all the rest of the stuff, and turned everything in, and got all the paperwork done, the commanding officer of that base had our commander, General Scannel—or Colonel Scannel—stand up, and he said, “Colonel,” he said, “we want to offer you people, your outfit, 1,380 men, all an increase in rank, one rank, with a one-year contract.” The Colonel says, “I would like to speak for our men, in behalf of them.” He said, “We have 1,500 hours, most of us, of combat flying.” He said, “We want to go home and stay there. It’s your baby. We quit.” And that’s the way it ended. There wasn’t one man re-enlisted. We had it. Morris You had your fill? Groskey We had it. Don’t want no part of it. But I’ll tell you still today—still today, there’s[sic] things at night flash through my mind of what we had done and what we did. Morris Well, thank you for your service. Groskey It sticks in your mind. At that time, and the way the elements, and the way everything was, you don’t forget things like that. No, I don’t care how old you get, you will not forget them. You try to, but there’s[sic] things that always come back, like things that got blew[sic] up, and things that got burnt out, and stuff. You don’t forget it. I don’t care what you do. I’d be down running lath, and sometime you remember that time or something like that. We changed an engine [inaudible], and we used to call him “Tokyo Joe.” There was a zero. He used to come over about two o’clock every afternoon, and he’d drop what they called cluster bombs. Small, little ones. Just enough to worry you. Well, one of them hits your tent—boy, you got a mess. Blow everything up. Tokyo Joe would come out every afternoon two o’clock, and he’d drop a few cluster bombs, and back over the mountains he’d go. Well finally, one day, we had a [Lockheed] P-38 [Lightning] group that was going into Saigon. And this one pilot, he said, “Well, you know,” he said, “I’m gonna get that S.B.” He said, “I can fly higher than he can.” So here come old Tokyo Joe over one afternoon right after chow, and we seen[sic] this boy fire that P-38 up and he went straight up in the air, and Tokyo Joe knew something was happening. He turned tail and started to run, and before he got over the base of the Chin Hills, he blew him out of the sky. That was the end of the Japs. That was the last time we had him. Morris No more Tokyo Joe? Groskey No more Tokyo Joe. Morris Well, what would you do with your afternoons after that, then, sir? Groskey Oh, we worked, we worked round the clock. We had them—our planes flew seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Morris Okay, sir. How long after you got back before you moved to Florida? How long did that take? Did you have to shovel snow for a winter? Groskey No. it wasn’t too long. A couple years. Yeah. Morris Oh okay, sir. Groskey Well, I was just feeling things out to try to become a civilian again, and decide which way I wanted to go. I knew I wanted to be into metalwork, but I didn’t know how I wanted to approach it. I didn’t know exactly how I wanted to do it—how I wanted to really get things started. And then, as we got married, and we had a couple kids, and one thing another started, I said, “Well, I gotta get my own business going. That’s all there is to it.” I just can’t—I can’t work for somebody else, because he’s not only going to take the cream of the crop, and I’m going to do all the dirty work. I want to be in a position where I can do the dirty work, take the cream of the crop, and try to establish some new business. Try to build a new product. Try to do things. Morris Makes sense, sir. Groskey Without being a number in somebody’s shop. So that was the way it started, that’s the way Reg Co. came about. Morris Okay, sir. Can you tell me about your family? Groskey Yeah. Morris Like who they are, how old, what year were they born? Groskey Okay. Well, we got married in 1946. And Larry [Groskey]—Larry is the oldest one. He come along a year later. And Ronnie [Groskey] was the next son born, about a year or two later. Then the twins came along about two years later. Morris Two boys? Two girls? Groskey Karen [Groskey] and Sharon [Groskey]. And then Rusty [Groskey] came along about a year after that, and then that was the end of our family. We had five children. Morris And what’s your wife’s name, sir? Groskey Mary Ann [Groskey]. Morris Oh, okay. And what are your children doing now? Groskey Well, the oldest one, Larry, is up in De Leon Springs. He’s got a rat farm. He raises rats commercially. These people that have reptiles and all kinds of weird people—they—he’s got a steady stream. He’s got quite an operation going, many buildings full of these rats. And he sells them all over the world. Now, there’s that many kooks out there, but he’s got a real good business going. Morris Okay, sir. Groskey Now, the other son, Ronnie—he’s got a drywall business. He does drywall work and painting. The girls—Sharon, my one daughter, is a schoolteacher over in Sanford. Karen is an expediter for Fed Ex downtown. And Rusty works in the shop with me. Morris Oh, okay, sir. And, do you have a—how did you meet your wife? Groskey Well, that was a long story too. At—we both worked at National Cash Register. When I came out of the service, I went to work for National Cash Register, because my dad had worked there all his life, her dad had worked there all his life. So it was just a simple matter of walking in, getting a job, because that was where you—if you decided to work there, you had a lifetime job. They didn’t hire people and fire them the next day. There was enough business in that company. It was self-sustaining. When they made National Cash Register, they went all over the world and there was boxcar loads of material coming in every day. It was its own entity. When you went to work there, you quit looking for a job, because if you couldn’t make it one department, they’d transfer you to another department. There was 38,000 people working in that building—in that factory. They could find something for you to do. They had a huge restaurant. So at noontime one day, the fellow that I was kind of running with at the time—he was a Navy man. We got along real good. He was running screw machines. So was I. So one day at noontime I said—well Friday, they always had fish fry, and boy, it was good fish. So Friday we’d go to the mess hall and eat lunch. Well, while we were sitting there eating lunch, Annie and her girlfriend—she worked up in Building 4. It was assembly—some kind of assembly job. Well anyway, her and her girlfriend was down there eating too. One of them had dropped a spoon on the floor. And I don’t know whether Mike picked it up or I did, but one of us picked it up, and we handed it to them, and we got to talking, and that’s how it started. Morris Okay, sir. Something as small as a… Groskey It was obscure as obscure can be. So I said to her, I said, “Yeah, my name’s Dick.” She said, “My name’s Ann.” And she said, “I work over in Building 4.” I said, “Well, we work in Building 27.” And we got to talking there for a few minutes, just at lunch period, and I said, “Well,” I says[sic], “where do you live?” She says, “I live out off of Smithville Road.” And I said, “Well, I live out in Walnut Hills”—both parts of east Dayton. And, I says, “Well, what are you gonna do Friday night?” She said, “I don’t know.” I said, “Well, you want to go bowling?” She said, “Sure.” I got her phone number, and that was it. We started going together. We got married, and she got laid off, because at NCR, you couldn’t have two people in the same family unless they were married, and once they got married, you couldn’t hire them. Two people can’t work there. Morris Okay. Groskey She got married. She got laid off. Well, that’s how it started. So we got married, she got laid off, and I went out, I bought a little piece of property, and I started building a house, and over a period of about two years, I got the house built, and we had all the children then. Well, most of the children then. And one thing led to another, and we outgrew that, and we went out in the country, and I bought five acres and built a house out there, and when all the children were in school, that’s when we came to Florida. Things got real bad up there, up there in the ‘50s. You couldn’t buy a job. It got the same way here, except it was localized. And I went to Indiana, went to Kentucky, I went all over. There was[sic] no jobs. Nobody was hiring. So I said, “Okay.” I said, “We’re not shoveling more snow.” I said, “We’re loading up and we’re leaving.” So I hired a local trucker. I said, “Now, I want you to move my shop.” We took just the prime equipment out of there, just enough to know we could make a living. Drills and saws, a couple laths, and one thing another. Everything else, had a public sale. Sold the house, the farm, everything. We got in the truck and we moved, come to Florida. Been here ever since. Morris Had a lot of reasons to come to Florida. Groskey Yep. And like I say, when I went to work at Trade Tool Engraving, we’ve never gone out of a job since. I went back to the motel in Titusville, I said, “I wanna pack a sandwich and a couple apples or something.” I said, “I’m going to work tonight.” She says, “You’re doing what?” I said, “I got a job over in Orlando.” She says, “You kidding me?” I says, “No. here’s the paper.” And looked at it, and she said, “Well, I’ll be damned.” Been working ever since. Morris Well, there you go, sir. Do you feel like there’s anything we haven’t talked about that you’d like to talk about? Groskey No. We’re just about as plain as you can get. Everybody in this part of the world knows us and knows what we do. We’ve got a reputation for doing a good job quick at a fair price. We—I don’t think we’ve had more than one or two disgruntled people that needed something done, and that was the fact that they were the type of people that nobody could satisfy. They have never come back, and I’m glad of it. Now, as you see, we have no advertisement whatsoever, yet we’re busy all the time. That speaks for itself. We do good work on time at a good price. And people always come back. Morris The ones you want to come back [laughs]. Groskey And they will tell somebody else. I always give them a business card. I said, “Now, your neighbor wants something done, here it is.” That’s the only advertisement we got. Morris Okay. Well, thank you, sir, for taking the time out today. Groskey I’ll show you one of my cards here. Yeah. There you got them right there. <div> <div> <a title="">[1]</a> Florida State Road 50. </div> <div> <a title="">[2]</a> Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), also known as Canadarm 1. </div> <div> <a title="">[3]</a> Chanute Air Force Base (AFB). </div> <div> <a title="">[4]</a> Present-day Ho Chi Minh City. </div> <div> <a title="">[5]</a> Correction: Myitkyina. </div> <div> <a title="">[6]</a> Khwae Yai River. </div> </div> Altamonte Springs Atlantic City, New Jersey auctioneering Bithlo Brookville, Ohio Canadarm 1 CBI Theater China-Burma-India Theater contractors D. M. Dennett Auctioneering Dave Shaw Dayton Cooperative High School Dayton, Ohio Dick Groskey Don M. Dennett Florida State Road 50 Fort Knox, Kentucky Fort Thomas, Kentucky Historical Society of Central Florida Japan Japanese Joseph Morris Karen Groskey Larry Groskey Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project little patients Martin Marietta Corporation Merris Walker metalworking Miami Morris, Joseph Museum of Seminole County History Myitkyina West Myitkyina, Myanmar NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Cash Register orlando Orlando Naval Training Center Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Reg Company Ronnie Groskey Rusty Groskey Sharon Groskey Shuttle Remote Manipulator System Springfield, Ohio SR 50 SRMS tax taxes Tokyo Joe tourism Trade Tool Engraving U.S. 1 U.S. 17-92 U.S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Navy U.S. Route 1 U.S. Route 17-92 USS General M. B. Stewart veterans Walnut Hills World War II WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cf9a90938dac133de27d27af11cd8516.mp3 2e13c1253097ad7b2c897e42380c20bc https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/197874e145d3b17058cf363f3eab755d.pdf 8d026f907c6ee3fab4872f80183b7f5e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Morris, Joseph Interviewee White, Garnett Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Garnett White Alternative Title Oral History, White Subject Sanford (Fla.) World War II--United States Navy Real estate--Florida Celery Citrus--Florida Description An oral history of Garnett White, conducted by Joseph Morris on October 13, 2011. Born in St. Augustine, Florida, White moved with his family to Sanford at a young age. In the interview, he discusses attending Southside Elementary School during World War II, running a paper route and riding bikes around Sanford, his experiences as a real estate broker, Sanford's celery industry, the history of Chase and Company, Red Hill Groves and the citrus industry, his service in the U.S. Navy, his civic service, and his family. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:42 Education 0:05:58 Riding bikes around Sanford 0:11:12 Experiences as a real estate broker 0:13:32 Celery industry and citrus industry 0:22:54 Growing up in Sanford 0:24:01 Running a paper route 0:27:51 Working in a grocery store and as a golf caddy 0:29:24 Serving in the Navy 0:32:27 Community involvement 0:37:17 Wife, children, and grandchildren 0:41:03 Farmers in Sanford 0:43:36 Growing citrus 0:48:35 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Garnett White Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> in Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source White, Garnett. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. October 13, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage West 10th Street and South Laurel Avenue, Sanford, Florida Triple S Groceteria, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Lake Monroe, Sanford, Florida Chase & Company Washhouse, Sanford, Florida Red Hill Groves, Orlando, Florida Creator Morris, Joseph White, Garnett Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-10-13 Date Modified 2014-10-30 Date Copyrighted 2011-10-13 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 493 MB 174 KB Medium 48-minute and 51-second audio recording 16-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Garnett White. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.redhillgroves.com/#!our-story/cqi7" target="_blank">About Red Hill Groves</a>." Red Hill Groves. http://www.redhillgroves.com/#!our-story/cqi7. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank">Sanford</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Transcript Morris This is an interview with Garnett White. This interview is being conducted on October 13th, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Sir, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? White Well, yes. I was born in St. Augustine, Florida. My father was a butcher—or meat-cutter, I guess we would call it. We moved to Sanford when I was maybe three years old. I remember when I was four years old going to a birthday party to a neighbor girl—and as I’ve over the years have tried to think when that was. I believe I was about four years old. We lived on [West] Tenth Street in Sanford, and my father worked as a butcher—meat-cutter—and he moved here from southwest Georgia—called Pelham, Georgia—and he went to work here for a man from Pelham, Georgia, named Bluitt Stevens. We lived on Tenth Street until I was in about second grade, and my father had a house built on Tenth and [South] Laurel Avenue, and he still worked for Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens owned a store in Downtown Sanford where the Colonial Room Restaurant is now, and it was called Triple S Groceteria—the red front store, and that time is about the time I started school, and I went to Southside Elementary [School], where my first grade teacher was a Mrs. Jacobs, and the principal was Mrs. Harrington. And I remember those times. I went up through the fourth grade. And in the second grade, Elizabeth Wigham was my teacher. And the third grade, was a lady named Bobbi Goff. And the fourth grade, was a lady named Bobbi Goff. And this was only about three—maybe four—blocks from my home, and back then, of course, you didn’t have buses like that, and I remember walking to school when I’m six years old, and of course today, they don’t allow that type of thing, but it was not out of the ordinary at all. One memory I have of that is that the lunch. The lunches cost 11 cents. You got a blue ticket for five cents, and that gave you the food—a roll usually, amongst other things—and milk was six cents. That was a yellow ticket. And I think you could get all five for 25—all five of a week for 25 cents, as well as I remember. But most people brought their own lunches. They did buy milk for six cents. And that was kind of interesting. This would have been in about 1940 or ’41, and the Second World War started in 1941, and I remember big piles of metal, particularly aluminum, and rubber. This was to help the war effort, with aluminum to build airplanes out of—and I don’t know what they did with the rubber. But that was my first recollection of playing baseball—or softball, I guess it was—was at Southside Elementary. Then we, uh—my grandfather was from Athens, Georgia, and he had his arm taken off. He had cancer, and my mother went up there to take care of him for about six weeks, and I, of course, went with her, and so I went to school for that six weeks in Winterville, Georgia. Of course, coming back to Sanford, continued with school at—we called it [Sanford] “Grammar School,” which is now the Student Museum on Seventh Street and Elm Avenue in Sanford. They’d talk about it being so old, and so on. Of course, that was 70 years ago almost, but it doesn’t look any different today than it did back then. And they’d talk about it being old, and so on and so forth. Didn’t mean anything to us. You know, you had a seat and that was it. You know, scribbling all over the desks with knives. So on. So, you know, times—it just did not mean anything to us, as far as how new something was, and apparently nowadays you got to have a new school, or they don’t—or the children don’t accomplish as much, I guess, is a word [laughs]. But then—about when I was 11 years old, I got a paper route. Remember, this is during the war—the Second World War. And I got a paper route delivering The Florida Times-Union, which is the Jacksonville paper. They weren’t—the Sanford paper came out in the afternoon, and it was very hard to get newspaper or newsprint, and presses would break down, and I delivered The Sanford Herald also, about that time, and they had brown paper. It looked like the brown paper that’s used by butchers to wrap meat in, and that was kind of odd. And I’ve talked to people in the last few years, and they remember the paper being printed on that brown paper. But something that is really kind of interesting is, over the years, I have talked and had coffee with Senator Mac Cleaver, and we would always talk about our paper routes. He was older than I was, but it never changes. And we would talk about who lived in certain houses, and where they would leave the money for the newspaper, and they still—me being eight years younger than Mac—they still left it at the same place—on the banister, on the porch, that type of thing. Of course, after that, we went to Sanford Junior High School, which was over on Ninth Street and Sanford Avenue, and I guess that’s when we started growing up a little bit, and getting around town on our bicycles more than we did when we were very young. But we would ride our bikes down to the lakefront—which is Lake Monroe, down where the motel is now—and we’d jump off the seawall. It was there at that time. We’d jump off. We’d swim out to one of the beacons or markers out in the water. Another time—me and another fellow—we swam across the lake all the way to the power plant, and truthfully, we walked most of the way. It was very shallow out in the middle. We didn’t really walk. We just kind of touched bottom, and my father picked us up on the other side at the power plant on the north side of Lake Monroe. But those were good times. It was not out of the ordinary to go downtown and walk around. Go through the alleys and see what people—or I’m talking about stores—had thrown away and did we want it, and that sort of thing, you know. It was—I really remember one time we went behind a place called [B. L.] Perkins. That was a men’s store. And there was a book of swaths of material that you could pick out what you—the men—would want their suits made out of. And we thought that—they were little old things about three by three inches, about three inches—and we thought that was a big deal. We took those home, and I think our parents threw them away. Anyway, as time goes on, in high school, went further from home, and went through all of the things, I guess, that happen in high school. And immediately after that, I joined the Navy and spent my hitch on board a fleet OR, and this would have been in 1950-51. But going all over town with paper routes, you just got to where you saw things you would never have seen, or people that you talked to or knew—you knew who they were, uh, if you didn’t have a paper route. And then, as time goes on and I got out of the Navy, I got my—went to the real estate—school of real estate law—and, uh, got my broker’s license. And shortly thereafter, I met my wife, my now-wife. And we got married and had three children. As far as the real estate business is concerned, that was 50—I still have a license—and that’s 56 years ago. That’s a long time. I actually made a living at it. Only way I’ve made a living, up until about 6-7 years ago. And I’m 78 now, so it was time. But in the meantime, there’s quite a bit of property—not houses, but I never was much in the house business—that I’ve sold over that period of time three different times. There was one piece of property I sold three times. All three times were to people named Hall, and that they had never known each other, of course. Morris Of course. White So it’s interesting. And land would sell for—I can remember appraising. I did quite a bit of appraisals for the banks in Sanford and the First Federal Savings & Loan, and that really got me back into going to places that you normally wouldn’t go if you weren’t in the real estate business. As time goes on, I was handling acreage, as I said, and they pretty well quit farming in Sanford. Uh, farming as they knew it at that time, which was produce—which was celery. You know, at one time, they said that Sanford—Seminole County I guess—was the celery capital of the world. And it was actually a picture in one of the school books that said “harvesting celery in Sanford.” I remember that. But after the war, they—the farming kind of petered out, because it all went to the muck, and the muck means that you don’t have to spend as much money on fertilizer. And the type soils that we have around Sanford—the farming areas—was good to hold the roots in place and that’s all. And that’s come from the farmers that said, “No, you got to fertilize.” So muck farms in Zellwood and down in Lake Okeechobee pretty well had an end to the farming in the area. It’s my understanding from the owner of Chase and Co[mpany], which was a very large company—probably the largest farmer in Central Florida back in the ‘20s and—but the last celery grown in the Sanford area was in 1975. Now that came from the owner, president of Chase and Co., and his name was Sydney Chase—Sydney [Octavius] Chase, Jr. His father<a title="">[1]</a> and his father’s brother<a title="">[2]</a> are the ones that started Chase and Co. Something really interesting is that, of course, all of this product had to be shipped by railroad. You know, you didn’t have trucks like you have today. You just didn’t put things on a truck, haul it to New York. It all had to go to—through the railroad, and so most every packinghouse—that type of thing—was located where it could be sent by the railroad. And celery—and cabbage, cucumbers, all of those things—required refrigeration. Well, if you’ll think back to 1925, you didn’t have no refrigeration. But they was able to make ice in big 300-pound “slabs” I’ll call them. Chase and Co. had an icehouse out on the east side of Sanford. There was another one in Ransidey[?], which is in Monroe, Florida, just west of Sanford on the railroad. And you had railroad cars called “reefer” cars, and that stood for “refrigerator.” And they would put these big 300-pound slabs of ice in these railroad cars. They were all painted yellow, and during the summer, there was a siding going—railroad siding going from Sanford Avenue out to the Chase washhouse, which is on Cameron Avenue. And that’s a long ways. And they would store these reefer cars all summer long, because they had no use for them except to ship produce, and of course, you didn’t grow produce in the summertime. Come summertime, in like May or something, would be the last that they grew until next fall and next winter. But I remember all those yellow reefer cars there, and I’m sure many other people that was[sic] out in that area remember just sitting on the siding and waiting on the next year. But there was a lot of—another thing is interesting is it seems as though to me that the people that owned automobiles—and their kids went to school with me—they were farmers. And other people didn’t have automobiles. My father did not have an automobile until 1946, which was right after the war, and things became available to sell, particularly meat products. But all of that—getting back to the real estate business, I would come across and I knew a lot of people in the citrus business. And as time went on, I sold some citrus groves, and I bought some citrus groves, and I leased several citrus groves. And our—my wife and I’s—two children kind of grew up knowing what citrus was, and you could go on the Internet under White’s Red Hill Groves and read about us, and it’ll tell you all you need to know about our family and the citrus business. But it’s been 29 years now since we purchased a gift fruit packinghouse called Red Hill Groves. So we have set out new trees and taken care of old trees, and picked and packed, and shipped citrus all over the United States. I would say there’s not a state we haven’t shipped fruit to. But times have changed considerably, since probably 1985 and things started booming—this is because of Disney—and started booming. And another thing that’s kind of interesting here is that when I went to high school, Seminole High School had a hundred people in each class. And Crooms Academy had maybe 30, and Oviedo [High School] may have 15, and Longwood, which is called Lyman High School, may have 15. And look at it today, there’s what? Eleven high schools, each one of them got three thousand in that school. So that’s really what started happening during those years, and those of course, just kind of bloomed. Really interested—I was very active in the civic things in the city—Chamber of Commerce, the Jaycees,<a title="">[3]</a> and that type of thing. As time goes on, I think I’ve been through four—they call them—they don’t call them “depressions,” whatever they call them. Morris Recessions? White Recessions. And I’ve been through four of them. And I can remember trying to sell houses for a hundred dollars down and making a commission. There ain’t much left to make a commission out of. But times would get better, and then you’d start selling again. People would start buying again. I guess time is going to tell about the one we’re in now in 2011. But anyway, it was a good life that I lived in Sanford. It is much different. Traffic, as everybody knows, gets on your nerves. But all three of our children live in Sanford, while our packinghouse is in Orlando. The boys go back and forth every day, and our daughter works for Bayer Corporation in the animal health division. So anyway, we—my wife and I—both feel that our time growing up in Sanford, and spending our entire life here, except for those maybe three years, has been good, and as good as any place we could have settled. I don’t know that we ever considered moving from Sanford, neither of us. But I guess that’s pretty well the story. Morris I have a couple questions, sir. White Sure. Morris Okay, sir. You talked a great deal earlier about the paper route you ran as a kid. White Right. Morris Was that a great experience for you? Because you spent a lot of time discussing how you met and saw a lot of things. White Oh, well, sure! There’s a little story that goes along with that, was we delivered The Florida Times-Union, and we had about 11 or 12 paper boys. And you’d go up and down. Each one of us had about a hundred customers. Morris Okay. White And you’d go up and down the streets, and there was a policeman that walked the streets at night named Harriet. And Mr. Harriet had a dog that went with him, because Mr. Harriet walked up and down the alleys, and all the way generally throughout the whole downtown area. Well, a friend of mine who lived four or five houses from me had a dog, and the dog would go with him on his paper route. Well, it seems as though Mr. Harriet’s dog would jump on him and bite him and all of this sort of stuff. So my friend bought a collar that had, oh, pieces of metal like a nail sticking out the side—sticking on it. Well, he sharpened those up. And we’re all sitting there one morning, waiting for him to come with his dog. He’d always come around this corner—First Street and Oak Avenue—and he would come around that corner. Well, we’re waiting to see Mr. Harriet’s dog jump on this dog’s neck with those sharp barbs, and he did and he went off just howling. And Mr. Harriet came out. There was a bakery there, and everybody—paper boys—we would go in there five o’clock in the morning and get day-old donuts, and so would Mr. Harriet, and he come out of there just raising Cain about who hit his dog. But that was interesting. And I guess when I was a senior in high school, I had a car route, and I went to Monroe, Paola, went all the way to Wekiva River, and back up through Monroe. And a man named Bass—he was the last one on my route. And he was a farmer, so he told the paper manager that I was just getting there too late, that if I couldn’t get there five o’clock in the morning, that he wasn’t going to take the paper no more. So I had to rearrange my route so I could get him first instead of last. But that was interesting in that too. And the people—there’s still people around that deliver papers. We talk about it, every now and then, when you see somebody. But that was good experience, really was. Morris And you did that from when you were younger all the way through high school, sir? White Not all that time, no. But I got a paper route when I was 11 years old, so that’s gonna put me in the fifth grade. And I remember having a paper route in the seventh grade. I don’t think I had any until I was senior, from the seventh until that time. Morris Oh, okay, sir. White Because like, a lot of—something very interesting. I worked in a grocery store. Morris Okay, sir. White And you worked Thursday morning from about four o’clock in the morning, and Friday afternoon, and all day Saturday, for four dollars and something. Well, a friend of mine was caddying at the golf course, and he said, “Oh,” you know, “I don’t work but 4-5 hours and I make more than that.” So I went out and started caddying. So I caddied for several years. Morris Oh, okay, sir. White Because you made more money. You carry those bags around. If you did it twice, they called it “double looping,” you made more money than you would at the grocery store. But anyway, I think everybody sooner or later worked in a grocery store. Morris I don’t think that’s changed much, sir. White Huh? Morris I don’t think that’s changed much. I’ve worked in a couple grocery stores. White No. No. I see the kids in there now, and they’re—course we didn’t stay there until all night long like they do now. They put up stock now at night, and we didn’t do that. Anyway, it was good. Good times. Morris All right. You mentioned you were in the Navy, sir. How long were you in the Navy for? White I was in the Navy for one hitch. I was a quartermaster. Morris Okay, and one hitch is, uh... White One hitch is when I was on something called “minority cruise,” and that you means you join after you’re 18 and you get out when you’re 21, instead of a flat three years—four years, whatever it is. And I joined when I was a senior in high school, and this wasn’t too long after the war. This would be in 1950. Morris Okay. White And the war was over in ’45. So anyway—but I was a quartermaster. A quartermaster is someone who does signals and navigation, that sort of thing. And a fleet oiler is different than a tanker. A tanker hauls fuel from one place to another, and a[sic] oiler refuels ships at sea when you’re both underway—you’re both moving. And that’s what an oiler is. You still have oiler today, and always will, because you need it in the middle of the ocean just as you do alongside a dock. And I liked that—and I may have stayed in longer except the ship was going on Operation Deep Freeze, and that was in Antarctica, and I wasn’t going there, ‘cause I’d heard the stories about it before. Everything’s full of ice and all of that. Anyway, that was my military experience. Morris Did you travel anywhere on that, at that time, sir? White Oh yeah, sure. We went—first time when I went on board there, we went to New York City, which of course, here I am. Never been to New York City. We stayed there for like two days. Then we went to the Caribbean [Sea], down to South America to the Azores. Just that type—wherever. Maybe just sit out in the middle of the ocean waiting on a convoy to come that needed fuel. I mean, that was our job. Morris Right, sir. Did you enjoy your time in the military—the Navy? White Sure. Morris Just didn’t want to go to Antarctica. White I didn’t want to go to Antarctica, and probably if I’d have stayed in longer than that, I’d have stayed. I would have stayed to retire. But I didn’t, and not been disappointed in that at all. Morris Okay, sir. You also mentioned you worked with civic duties for a while. So tell me a little more about that. White Well, 1963, I started civic-type stuff. Well, I was a Boy Scout. And I’ll have to go through the Boy Scouts [of America] first. But the Boy Scouts—I was a[sic] Eagle Scout, and I worked at summer camp as a waterfront director-type person. I guess I was 16 then, maybe 17. Sixteen and seventeen. I worked two years, one at Camp Wewa over in Apopka. The other one was Camp La-No-Che. Excuse me, Camp La-No-Che wasn’t open then. See, that’s 50 years ago, and most people never heard of Doe Lake [Recreation Area], and Doe Lake was in Ocala [National] Forest. And that was a Boy Scout camp and I worked there at that time. But I was a[sic] Eagle Scout, and that was a big deal to me. And we didn’t have many Eagle Scouts around here. Well, around anywhere. That was good. Morris I’m sorry, sir? White Yeah. You asked a question before that. What was that? Morris Your civic duties, sir. White Oh. Well, in the Boy Scouts, believe it or not, we actually did a lot of things civic-wise. But I was president of the Sanford-Seminole County Jaycees<a title="">[4]</a> in 1963, and the Jaycees were very active at that time. Morris The Jaycees, sir? White Junior Chamber of Commerce. Morris Gotcha, sir. White Okay. [laughs] And—very active. Had maybe 150 members, and had maybe 150 projects. These were things that, uh—and that was a big time in my life. For instance, we had a Christmas parade that we sponsored and worked. That was the big project for the year—the Christmas parade. And the year I was president, we had 11 bands, and nowadays, if you have one, you got a bunch of them. We had a hundred people working, doing whatever it took to make the parades. But it was always that way. And I have paperwork to that. So—I say “paperwork”—we made booklets of our projects. Some of them. I don’t have all of them. But it was a[sic] active time for people up to the age of 36. When you were thirty-six, then you were no longer… Morris Junior. White Invited, I guess, to be a Jaycee. And then, I was president of the Seminole County union of the American Cancer Society, and I was president of the Greater Sanford [Regional] Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, it was the Sanford-Seminole County Chamber of Commerce, and I was a director for 25 years of the Chamber. So, you know, there were those. I was a bank director for 15 years. Served on the board of Seminole State College, as vice-chairman of the board for however many years. I don’t remember. So that was civic-type stuff. Morris Okay, sir. Sounds like you were very busy. White Yeah. I was busy. I was busy. Knew a lot of people. Most of them are dead now, but, uh, and I’ll join them before too many years. Maybe tomorrow [laughs]. Morris That’s why we’re getting this down today, sir. White Get that out today. Okay. Morris Could you tell me a little bit about your family? Your wife’s name, how you met her, and then your children’s names. White Yes. I’d gotten out of the Navy, and just got out really, and me and another fellow went to Leesburg High School—to a football game. This was in September, before—after—I had gotten out of the service in August, I guess. Anyway, this girl was a cheerleader, and had black hair. And afterwards, you always used to have dances always—and out of town also. And back then, the girl cheerleaders would always go to the dance, and so me and this fellow went also. And I met her, and then—from then on, had a few dates with her. And anyway, three or four years later, we got married. We have two sons. One’s 54, one’s 53. Have a daughter about 44—something. And the boys run the packinghouse. Have for 20. I say “running” —that’s only partially, mostly. They’ve—that’s 29 years. And a daughter that works for Bayer in the animal health division. Anyway. I guess that’s it. And got grandchildren [laughs]. Morris How many grandchildren, sir? White Well, three. Three boy grandchildren. And one of them works for the city in Palm Coast, and the other one works for the car place—Gibson [Truck World]—down here, and the other one’s thirteen. He goes to school. Morris Okay. Is it okay if we get your wife’s name and your children’s names? White Paulette. Paulette. My wife’s name was Paulette Casen. It’s Paulette White, of course. And the children are Ed [White], Ted [White], and Judy [White]. And that’s their names. Morris Ed, Ted, and Judy? White Yes. Eddie, Teddy. [laughs] Yes. Ed, Ted, and Judy. Morris Do they still respond to Eddie and Teddy? White Oh, yeah, sure. Sure, sure, sure. Matter of fact, people their age call them Eddie and Teddy. But, you know, they have a lot of friends, since they’ve lived here. Morris Their whole lives, sir? White Yeah. They’ve lived here except when they went to college. Eddie graduated from Stetson [University]. And Judy graduated from [University of] Florida. One of the grandsons graduated from Florida and has a degree in architecture. I was telling a story to a fellow about architecture, and I was telling him I knew nothing about computer[sic]. I do know how to turn it on. But I said I have a grandson that has a degree in architecture, and he has never picked up a pen or a pencil. It’s all down on the computer, every bit of it. It’s kind of hard for people my age to think that—that you’re actually gonna draw a plan for a building with a computer, instead of a pencil [laughs]. Morris I gotcha, sir. White Yeah. Morris The, uh—one of the things you mentioned earlier that really caught my attention was you said a lot of farmers had cars. Is that—do I remember that correctly? White That’s correct. Morris Were a lot of the farmers well-off, or was there... White During certain periods, they were well-off. Yes. And it was told to me that a farmer in the late ‘30s could make a living on ten acres of celery, and that’s not very much, but he couldn’t do that today. Same token. I’ve sold—I’ve sold property to people that owned an orange grove and did all of the work their self, and they had 20 acres, and they made a good living. They had a car, and made a good living on 20 acres. But they did all the work their self. They didn’t have somebody else doing the work. Morris Right. White And so, you know, there’s[sic] certain jobs that—if you’re cut out for it. Not everybody’s cut out to be a farmer. A lot of people are going to have to start thinking about it though, because somebody’s got to grow food to eat. Morris Sir, and I do like to eat. White And everybody likes to eat. Morris Yes, sir. White And the truth of the matter is there’s a lot of fussing going on now. People don’t like—well, one thing is dust. They don’t like the dust that farmers create when they plow their field. That’s the EPA—Environmental Protection Agency—and they want to stop that. Well, I don’t know how you’re gonna eat if you stop farm dust. But I’m talking out of bounds here. Morris Still interesting to hear, sir. White But that’s the way farmers feel. Although we consider ourselves farmers, we’re not farmers in the cattle business or corn business. We’re in the citrus business. But I guess you could say we could be in the citrus business without growing any of our own. We could buy it from somebody else, and pack it, ship it, and that would work, you know. But we do it all. Morris Okay, sir. My last question, if it’s all right with you, could you just give me a brief overview of how you actually grow citrus—the process for it. White Well, you plant a tree, and you grow it, and it ends up and blooms, and has fruit on it. That’s about it. It’s, you know—it’s just like any farming, and I think that’s what you’d have to say. It’s, you know—you’ve got to prepare the soil, if you want to call it. In the citrus business, you plant small trees—three feet tall—and after about five years, they have some oranges on them. Not very many, but enough, considered that you’ve got some fruit. And the maximum is about 20 years. And during this period of time, you fertilize them, and you prune them, and you just generally take care of them like a baby. And things change in the business, such as—used to plant them 35 feet apart, and 35 feet in all directions, because the way that you get the weeds down was with a disc or harrow. So you went up and down the rows in one direction, and then across the rows in another directions to kill the weeds. And nowadays, you don’t do it that way. You plant them 10 feet apart in a row, and then you use chemicals to kill the weeds. And you also hedge them, because you don’t have that 35 feet. You have 10 feet. And you got big machines with big, round saws on it—three foot—and they’re spinning, and you go up and down the rows and make a hedge out of it. And that’s what’s really changed in the citrus business in the way that you grow citrus. Plus, used to—you didn’t have very many ways to keep the fruit clean. Everybody wants to have a blemish-free piece of fruit. It don’t work that way. A friend of mine who used to disc and take care of the growth—first one I ever had—named Carl McWaters. His family was in the business, and he was a caretaker. He said, “Well, Mr. White,” said, “You know, my father worked for that packinghouse over there in Umatilla.” And whenever they had a—one of the diseases—not a disease—one of the bugs that you have. It’s called a “rust mite.” And a rust mite makes fruit look rusty. And he said, “Whenever we’d have a bad rust mite year, we’d go ahead and ship them up north anyway, and called them ‘Golden Rusty.’” Which made them sound a whole lot better than a rusty piece of fruit. So that was kind of interesting. Because they didn’t have any way to kill those rust mites. And nowadays, you know, it’s an entire—oh, I don’t, what I want to say it. Crop protection, whether it’s citrus or other crops. It’s a whole world of taking care of those problems. In the United States and the agricultural business, the idea is to get rid of a problem instead of live with the problem. And that’s true with a lot of things, not just citrus. But, you know, if you got rust mites, you know—“Well, let’s get rid of those rust mites.” So you got 50 different companies out there trying to have chemicals to get rid of them. In a lot of countries that grow citrus, they don’t do that. They just live with it. And I see nothing wrong with that. But that’s kind of interesting too—how that kind of thing works. But, you know, the companies—some of the largest companies in the world are agricultural chemical companies. Morris Okay, sir. White Anyway. Morris That was it for my questions, actually. Did you have anything else you’d like to say? White No. Not really. I may have said a whole lot more than I should have, to start with. But, uh, anyway… Morris Well, sir, it’s all great. Thank you very much, sir. White All right. Nice to talk. <div> <div> <a title="">[1]</a> Sydney Octavius Chase, Sr. </div> <div> <a title="">[2]</a> Joshua Coffin Chase. </div> <div> <a title="">[3]</a> Junior Chamber of Commerce. </div> <div> <a title="">[4]</a> Sanford Junior Chamber of Commerce; </div> </div> Has Format Original 16-page digital transcript by Savannah Vickers: White, Garnett. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. October 13, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. 10th Street 7th Street 9th Street aluminum American Cancer Society automobiles B.L. Perkins' Store bass bicycles bikes Bluitt Stevens Bobbi Goff Boy Scouts of America butchers Carl McWaters cars celery Chase and Company citrus citrus groves Crooms Academy of Information Technology Downtown Sanford Eagle Scouts Ed White Elizabeth Wigham Elm Avenue farmers farming First Federal Savings & Loan Garnett White Golden Rusty golf caddies Greater Sanford Regional Chamber of Commerce Hall Harriet Harrington high schools Historical Society of Central Florida icehouses Jacobs Jaycees Joseph Morris Joshua Coffin Chase Judy White Lake Monroe Laurel Avenue Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Lyman High School Mac Cleaver metal drives mites Monroe motor vehicles muck muck farms Museum of Seminole County History newspaper routes newspapers Ninth Street oilers Operation Deep Freeze orlando Oviedo High School packing houses paper boys Paulette Casen Paulette White Pelham, Georgia quartermasters railroads railways Ransidey real estate real estate agents real estate appraisal real estate brokers real estate licenses recessions Red Hill Groves reefers refrigeration rubbers rust mites Sanford Sanford Avenue Sanford Grammar School Sanford Jaycees Sanford Junior Chamber of Commerce Sanford Junior High School Sanford-Seminole County Chamber of Commerce Sanford-Seminole County Junior Chamber of Commerce school lunches Seminole County Seminole High School Seminole State College Seventh Street Southside Elementary St. Augustine Student Museum Sydney Octavius Chase, Jr. Sydney Octavius Chase, Sr. Ted White Tenth Street The Florida Times-Union The Sanford Herald Triple S Groceteria U.S. Navy war effort Winterville, Georgia World War II WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/c741bc5f6c2648318f23aacaa85f207c.mp3 7c1f1cdaf7ec8709fa5c61cbb7dfa653 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/3d3ed1ec1df0d1ca45f92097b1a27947.pdf a22798835294f07a40c62f3cf5b20abd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Wilt, Ashley Interviewee Singleton, James Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of James Singleton Alternative Title Oral History, Singleton Subject Altamonte Springs (Fla.) Libraries--Florida Wastewater Description An oral history of James Singleton, conducted by Ashley Wilt on July 21, 2010. Singleton has served as the Deputy Director of Facilities Fleet and Urban Maintenance for the City of Altamonte Springs, Florida, since January 1976. In this oral history interview, he discusses the history of the Altamonte Springs City Library, the establishment of an Information System (IS) for the city, the library's Mobile Information Center (MIC), the youth area for the library, library patrons, his career with the City of Altamonte Springs, and Project APRICOT (A Prototype Realistic. Innovative Community of Today). Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:46 History of the Altamonte Springs City Library 0:06:37 Establishment of an Information System (IS) 0:09:43 Public computers at the library 0:12:04 Mobile Information Center (MIC) 0:15:48 Youth Library Area 0:20:43 Library patrons 0:24:12 Altamonte Springs Civic Club 0:27:15 Retirement 0:28:12 Appreciation for the library 0:35:25 Project APRICOT (A Prototype Realistic. Innovative Community of Today) 0:38:37 Managing Fleet Facilities and Urban Beautification Abstract Oral history interview of James Singleton Interview conducted by Ashley Wilt at the <a href="http://altamonte.mysurpass.net/" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs City Library</a> in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Type Sound Source Singleton, James. Interviewed by Ashley Wilt. July 21, 2010. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Altamonte Springs, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Altamonte Springs City Library, Altamonte Springs, Florida Altamonte Springs City Hall, Altamonte Springs, Florida Creator Singleton, James Wilt, Ashley Contributor Dombrowski, Diana Date Created 2010-07-21 Date Modified 2014-10-10 Date Copyrighted 2010-07-21 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 435 MB 167 KB Medium 43-minute and 6-second audio recording 14-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Provenance Originally created by Ashley Wilt and James Singleton. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference "<a href="http://altamonte.mysurpass.net/" target="_blank">Welcome to Altamonte Springs City Library</a>." Altamonte Springs City Library. http://altamonte.mysurpass.net/. "<a href="http://www.altamonte.org/" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs, Florida</a>." Altamonte Springs, Florida. http://www.altamonte.org/. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/49963391" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 1999 Transcript Wilt This is an interview with Mr. James Singleton at the Altamonte Springs [City] Library. This interview is being conducted on July 21, 2010. The interviewer’s name is Ashley Wilt and I’m representing the Museum of Seminole County History and the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Mr. Singleton, you are Deputy Director of Facilities Fleet and Urban Maintenance for Altamonte Springs. That’s a very responsible position, which shows you have achieved quite a bit in your years with the City of Altamonte Springs. We thought you might be able to tell us some interesting things about the city’s library, its growth and development, and about some of the interesting people who have been involved over the years. You probably have some very interesting stories that you can relate. Singleton Yes, I do have some interesting stories. When I first came to work here in Altamonte—1976 of January—the library was run by the Altamonte Springs Civic Club. And Miss Anne Van Allen Klein was the one that donated the first books to this library, and in doing so, it started. We have to reflect back even beyond that. It started in a small house that they had, and they had the books there. Out of that house, they sold newspapers and other goods to earn money to pay the light bill and take care of all the other bills. Well, city employees at that time would help them, because they would carry the newspapers to sell, and then would bring the money back to them. Well, as time progressed, like in the [19]60s—early ‘60s—then they really picked up what they were doing, and they built the building here. The north end of this building was the part that they built. It was an almost 3,000-square foot building. Well, out of that building, they started to grow and develop a bigger collection. So about ’76, when I came, they were still selling newspapers and they had a little gift shop of things that they would sell so they could pay the bills and keep the library going. So it was a very interesting time. And along with Miss Klein, we have a lady named Sidell Pate, and over time, I came to know Miss Pate very well. As a matter of fact, she would call myself and Bill James her sons, because we looked out for her so very much over the time. Well, as she grew older, we didn’t like for her to drive across [Florida State Road] 436. So we had her, she would go to the post office. So we bought a mailbox and put it in her yard so that she wouldn’t have to go, for her own safety. Well, she lived near here, just about a block away, so we felt good for her to drive from home to here, because she didn’t have to cross any major streets. She was a very delightful person. We loved her very much. So when she passed, she left an endowment to the library for books and so forth, so that we could carry on the traditions here. But along with that, over the years, the library in 1985—October of 1985—was when the library came under my supervision. At that point in time, we had—the library director was Karen Potter. So Karen worked here with me for a number of years, and then she had an opportunity to go to the Maitland [Public] Library, and she became the library director there. But during that period of time, we started to do some things. We wanted to have a network here. So we did. So the only other place in the city that have a network was up in [Department of] Public Works, and Building and Light Safety. Well, [Division of] Building and Light Safety had a more extensive network than Public Works, because we had a gentleman here by the name of Phil McMann, who was very computer literate at that time. So we—and when I say we—the next library director that came in was Richard Miller. We wanted a network here. So we got with Phil McMann, and laid out what we wanted to do, and the City allowed us to purchase the equipment, and we started a network here. Which allowed us to do, at that time, so automation, because, you have to realize, programming, at that point in time, was not where it is now. So we started out with a network, and we put our collection on, and then we had some things we could do. We could track patrons, and different things like that. So it was a wonderful. It was wonderful time. It was an exciting time, because we were growing. Along with that, the [Altamonte Area] Chamber of Commerce was here. They built the south end of this building. And they were here for a number of years. And they outgrew the space, so they went to another location in Seminole County for they could operate and have the space that they needed. At that time, the City of Altamonte Springs purchased that end of the building, and just incorporated the whole library together, which gave us all the space we have now. So then we had the opportunity to move and expand, and we continued to build our network, and the programming that we have, which just made things so much easier at that point in time. So as we grew, the needs of the city changed. So they started IS [Information System]. And Steve Long was the gentleman that first headed up the IS department. So at that point in time—when I say “the city”—[Altamonte Springs] City Hall—they started IS and they started a network system. Well, everything like at Keller Road, which is where our main treatment plant is, all the information came from there to the library and then it was phoned to the system at City Hall. The other part, the west side of town, came through my network that was in my office, because I controlled all the west side of town at that point in time. So then, as they grew, they developed the dome, which houses all the computer equipment here. You know, the mainframes and so forth. And slowly, we moved all the individual network servers and everything was packed into there. So, extensive cabling had to be done, and then as time went on, they started putting in fiber optics. It was so funny, the first fiber optics we had was at City Hall. Between City Hall and the [City] Annex. And we knew how much information it could carry, so Phil McMann and myself—we spent a couple days gathering enough material that we could send, because it would just be a blip, and we wanted to see that blip. And it was new to us too. And we got to see that blip, and it was just wonderful, you know. It was just so exciting for us to see those things. So out of that, IS has grown. It manages the whole city, and a lot of things you don’t see. It’s like they have a mirror of the dome at West Altamonte for the IS system[sic], so if this system went down, it would be like a blip on your screen, because the one at West Altamonte would pick up and continue. They have redundancy, like where the main cable comes in, they have another area where the main cable comes in. So if the backup were to cut one cable, the system would never go down, and they have the redundancy all over the city for that. So it’s set up very nicely so that we would never be at a loss for moving our data throughout the city, back and forth. We’ll go back to the library. In 1985, you know, it was like a fledgling still, and then with Karen leaving, and Richard coming in, Richard brought—Richard Miller—brought fresh, new ideas and things he wanted to do. Richard, being very computer-literate, was an asset too. So a lot of things we could do, and get things going. So in the beginning, all we had was a few computers for the people that worked here—for staff to use. We had no computers for public use at that time. So we got in touch with Bill [& Melinda] Gates Foundation, and Bill Gates Foundation donated six computers to this library back in the late ‘80s, around late ’88-early ’89. And then we were able to set up this kiosk that you see out there, where it had six computers that were donated to us. We got those up and going, and then that was the beginning of having public access to computers, so people could do what they needed to do. So that was—that was very exciting for us here at the library. So since then, you can see, we’ve grown. We have about 16-18 out there that we use, and they stay busy. Over time, it got so busy. In the last two or three years, we had to put time limits on them. So, you know, because people would come in and want to stay all day, but in order to try and meet the needs of our customers, we put time limits. So once you start your session, it comes up in the screen, it starts a little clock, it lets you know how much time you’ve used, how much you have left, so when that time is up, then you leave, and it makes way for someone else to come in. And so they did use a computer. So all those things have been very exciting. Let’s go back in time again. We started a Mobile Information Center, which was a bus, and we named that bus “MIC”—M-I-C. And it had a computer with legs on it. It was running. MIC was an acronym for Mobile Information Center. And we set it up, because the library’s here on the east side of town, and then the thinking of the city fathers—city managers and so forth—was how could we help our citizens—the older population—so they didn’t have to travel so far to come here and get books. So we created that program. And now, you talk about funny. When we—we brought MIC out, we had a little grand opening, and we had Mayor Dudley Bates here, and so we were going to christen it. We had this bottle of champagne. So when it was time to christen it, Mayor Bates swung the bottle of champagne, and it bounced back. So he did it again, and it bounced back. So he really had to lay into it. Finally the bottle broke, and MIC was christened, and ready to go on the road. And so that was a very delightful program they had, because we were not just the west side of town, but the east side too, and it had handicapped access, so we could bring a handicap person on. They could get in. The bus was designed for that reason, so we could service our patrons. We went to the nursing care facilities, and people would come on. They could check out books. They could actually come on and pick out their own books, check them out. And then we would go back, and they could come back on the bus again, and return their books, and get other books to read. So this was a very successful program. Same thing was done on the east side of town. They have nursing facilities over there—west side—and nursing facilities over there, and we accommodated those people over there also. Well, as time went on—you know, the recession that we’re in—the amount of money—operating funds for everybody—changed. So, we did away with MIC—the bus—because it cost money to operate it, but we didn’t do away with the program. We still deliver books to people that are incapacitated throughout the city. So that they can have the books they need to read. So that’s one of the things that I really enjoy about working for the city. You see the slogan on the paper—they use pencils that say, “We are people that care about people.” And you can really see it. They did away with the bus, but not with the program. So people get what they need to read, we get back and pick the books up, and carry them different books, and it’s just a wonderful arrangement, especially for people that are limited in their means of having transportation to go back and forth. Another thing here, where we’re sitting here today, is the Youth Library Area. At one time, we did not have this. You know, we had youth books, but not a designated area for these ones to come sit, and do things, and have the books that they really liked to read, and enough of them. So this was one thing that we created. It took a number of years to do so, but slowly and surely we did, and this area is used by young adults. And it’s summertime now, so it kind of slows off, but when school starts, they come, they do their homework projects here, they have the ability to do research, and so that worked out real well. I guess the thing that I was most pleased with: when the Chamber of Commerce moved, they gave us the area for the children’s library. They gave us an opportunity to develop that area. And having a few kids myself, I really appreciate the area. I have eight kids, and so as we develop that area—when we finish, you may take a look. It’s designed just for kids. The rugs, all them things in there, the decoration is for kids, and make them feel at home. And they don’t have to hear anybody say, “Shh!” They can be a kid, enjoy the library, and so that was just a wonderful addition. And I think that area, for checking out books and so forth, it accounts for 40 percent of the books that are checked out of the library. So we have a deep interest in kids. And in the summertime, we have kid’s programs. They do things like—we bring in from the Sanford zoo,<a title="">[1]</a> they’ll bring animals in, and they’ll have programs for the kids, maybe the parents, some of the things, and then they have the kids. I’ve seen 60-70 kids in that area for that program. We’ve done other programs in—like we bring beekeepers in to help them understand about bees, the things that they do. And then when school’s going on, we bring tutors in to help these young ones with their lessons and so forth, if they have a problem in math. And so some of the schools work with us in that regard. And some of the teachers will come, and volunteer their time, so we can help these kids. Some of those kids have really improved, and I don’t know if I should say this or not, but the Chinese restaurant on the corner—China First, I believe it is—their kids that needed help reading. It was a result of the program that we have here that the kids greatly improved in reading. So one thing leads to another. They have a writing contest here every year for eighth graders. So we give prizes and we also publish the book of all the writings of everyone that entered something in. And so winners—first, second, third—will go to their school, will present their school with a copy of the book, and also, the student that wrote the winning entry will get a copy of the book. Well, they’ve been very generous at the China First, of helping the library with the prizes and things that they give away. Because that’s how they show their appreciation for how much they helped their kids. So it’s a lot of good stories that I know about, and probably some that I don’t, because even when I’m not here, they continue to do good things like that. So it’s so many good things that come out of this library that even Seminole County has come over and observed our programs—Seminole County Library System<a title="">[2]</a>—So I’m very proud of it, and if I had to do it all over again, I would gladly do that. Wilt That’s amazing. Those are great stories. Have you ever experienced any interesting or colorful patrons? Singleton Yes. We had a gentleman that used to come over from St. Cloud, and always wanted to watch pornography, he always wanted to pull up pornographic pictures, so one day I told him, I said, “You cannot do that here.” And he said, “Well, I have freedom of speech.” And I said, “Well, I have these young kids here, and I have all these ladies work here. I will not allow it.” He said, “Well, I’ll sue you.” So I said, “You do that.” I said, “The lawyer’s at City Hall. I don’t handle lawsuits. I maintain this library.” So he said, “I’m going to watch what I want.” So I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. First of all, I’ll open the door with your head, and then I’ll skin your nose on the asphalt as I throw you out. You will not observe this in here while these kids are here.” He said, “I’ll see you in court.” I said, “I’ll be there.” And I told him—I said, “Well, if this is what you like, buy your computer, set it up at home, and you can watch it yourself. Won’t bother anyone.” But, you know, most—all ladies work here, except one person. So you just couldn’t have that. And the kids come and out. I’d always be in the area in which, you know, that’s really designated for them, they come with their parents and things like that. So you have to look out for things like that, and I probably was just a little bit off the right path, but that’s how I felt about it. But he never came back. And he never sued. So it worked out just fine. Wilt Have you, over time, seen patrons that came back and enjoyed the child’s room, and now they’re bring their children? Or they’re migrating into the Young Adult room? Singleton Yes. There are people that come here and bring their kids that were patrons here prior to that. And they’ve—they watched the progression of growth in the library, so now they come in. And see, what’s interesting about us being small, it’s more personal when you come here. And sometimes if you come down in the kids’ room, they know these kids by name basically, their parents, and so forth. So it does a couple of things. It makes the people feel very welcome here, and it’s a warm atmosphere, but also, it creates a very good atmosphere of safety, because, like, if you came in, and you know they don’t belong with this kid, because they know basically who the people that come here. And then some of our senior patrons, they come here for the same reason. And I think that that’s been the focus of this library, almost from the beginning, our senior patrons, although we cater to all groups of people. It’s just really a marvelous arrangement that we have here. Wilt That is great. Now, you were telling me how the library was first established, or first run, by the Civic Club. Do you know if the Civic Club just joined together, and bought the house, and wanted to have this library—have a library? Do you know how this began? Singleton The house really originally was a gift, and so they started working out of that. And like I said, Miss Klein—she donated her collection, and that actually started the library over 50 years ago. And then that was the beginning of the library. As I said earlier, they would sell newspapers, and they ran a thrift shop, so that they could pay their bills and so forth at that time. Wilt That’s great. When you first came—you said you came in 1976—did you come to works specifically with the library? To work with the city? How did you get involved personally? Singleton Well, when I first came to work here, I was in charge of all the heavy equipment and everything that went underground. I worked heavily with the Water Department, and the Wastewater Divisions.<a title="">[3]</a> I worked there from ’76 until October ’85. They had a—they started a program in Wastewater for reclaimed water. And so it was such a big focus on that that—that Fleet Facilities and Urban Beautification, which was at that time buildings and grounds—there was like—they needed to move those and they started another division. So at that time, I applied for the job of the division manager of those divisions. So they moved that out of Public Works. Those sections were in Public Works, they moved them to Leisure Services. So that they could focus on developing the regional reclaimed water system that we have here. So, when that happened, well, the library was in [Altamonte Springs] Leisure Services. And so that became one of the things that I was assigned to oversee. And that’s when Karen Potter and myself[sic] came together, and then we started working together, taking over some of the other things mentioned previously. Wilt Wow. That’s really neat. Do you think after your retirement you’ll still stay involved with the library? Singleton Absolutely. Wilt More on a patron-base? Singleton No. when I retire, I’d like to come back, volunteer, and I would like to work in the children’s room, as I have for many, many times. I sit in on many of the programs, the readings, and so forth. I’m going to continue to enjoy that. It’s been very therapeutic to me. So I will continue to do that. I will also continue to work with the disabled population that Vinnie Coon oversees. I’d like to come in when they have their functions and cook. Help to cook, prepare the meals. My son comes with me. That’s something we like to do. Wilt Are there any stories that you can tell us specifically about the library and yourself that—how the library has helped you? Like you said, the children’s room is therapeutic to you. Singleton Yeah. Well, the library itself—I mean, I like to read too. But it’s helped me to understand the workings, and when I went to school, when you went in the library, everything was tight-lipped, you know. But just to see now—I mean, you don’t come in dancing and singing, but you can talk. And they see everything loosen up some. But the thing I’ve enjoyed, as Mr. [John] Batman was telling you about, the little history room, some of the buildings. Well, the [Altamonte Springs City] Commission has supported some of the things we have here, like the domes that protect the little buildings. In times past, they have authorized money to the Historical Society [of Central Florida] so they can buy the domes that protect the buildings and things like that. I’ve had such great support and the things that we’ve done here in the library, from the city fathers, because they recognize the need for the arts and the cultural things that are here at this location. And so this has been very rewarding to me. And so I can go in and say, “Well, I need a new set of reference books.” And they could very well say, “Well, what’s wrong with the old ones?” But they don’t say that. They see the need and they help keep up. They’ve helped us keep pace with what’s going on in technology and so forth. So those are some of the things that overwhelm you sometimes. Wilt Are there any stories that you would like to convey to the people of the library? Maybe about its building, or maybe the contents in the library? Even the city itself? Singleton Yeah. I would just like to say that people should really appreciate this library. For several reasons. It’s local. And it has easy access. And I know they have a—right up the street, they have a [Seminole] County [Public] Library branch,<a title="">[4]</a> just on the other side of [U.S. Route] 17-92. But the city still maintains this library, because it benefits the local residents. And when you see—if you could just go out sometime, which I have done many times, to these individuals and they get the books, because they like to read, and they get the books, and you know, it’s not a lot of hassle for them. You come back and pick them up and carry new books. They really appreciate that. It just gives you a warm feeling all inside. And so I’ve been working here, I’m in my 35th year. And the city has always been so progressive. I appreciate that as much as anything—how they are progressive, and that they also would give you empowerment to do things. I mean, within reason. And so we can make changes, like to change the layout of the library so we have a better traffic flow, and things like that. We didn’t have to get a congressional approval of that. Those are things that we can do. Like painting, and so forth. We can change the color schemes, because, you know, they need to be changed. And they’ve always allowed those things. And I would imagine, as time goes on, they will still do that, because I think this is the most progressive city in all of Seminole County. As a matter of fact, I know it is. I’ve been very proud to work here. I’m pretty sure when I leave, I’ll probably get up one morning and come to work before I realize I’m not coming to work. But I appreciate those things. And then, they just work with us, hand-in-hand. He called over here one day, and asked about some information that he wanted. Well, when he got over here, they had it all laid out for him. So they’re good at things like that, and so that’s what they do. They disseminate information, and if you need something, they will get it for you. Myself and Bill James—we’re working with the Winwood Group, which is the neighbors next door here. They were working with the school over there, [Seminole-]Rosenwald [School]. You familiar with Rosenwald schools? Wilt Yes. Singleton Well, they wanted some space in there, because they’re closing the school down at the end of this year. And they’re moving all those students to another location. So there’s a need over there for some of the things, for seniors, and other youth programming things like that. So we help them in that regard, and we also help them appreciate that the kids and adults in that area are coming to the library. And if you notice when you first came in, the computer section was full. Well, that was a computer class that they teach before the library actually opens to the public. So we made that available, most specifically, to the seniors, because there’s so many things they could do at home on their computer rather than trying to get a ride to Social Security [Administration Office] or wherever they need to go. They could do it at home on a computer. And we also made arrangements with some of the people in the neighborhood that were computer-literate—had computers. They’ll work with those individuals so they can come to their home, do their paperwork and stuff right there, without having to secure a ride to go to Sanford and things like that. So the library, you know—we reach out. Not just to the city proper, but we’ll help our neighbors too, also. So those are just some of the things that the city does and allow us to do, because they are futuristic in their thinking. Wilt Wow. That is just great. Now, you were talking about the admiration you have for the city and its progression, and the way it adapts to progress. Have you seen any city changes that—like you were just explaining? But progress that you haven’t seen in other cities or in other areas of Central Florida? Singleton Yes. I have. We were talking about the reclaimed water system. It’s called Project APRICOT [A Prototype Realistic. Innovative Community of Today]. That’s the name of it. It started off Project APRICOT, and so, at the time, when the city started Project APRICOT, Don Newnan was here. He was the project works director. The only other place in Central Florida area was St. Petersburg. They were doing on a limited basis, recapturing some of the water that was coming out of the septic tank systems and processing it and so forth. But this was the first city to do a complete system city-wide of reclaimed water in the state of Florida. And so, when it first started, you know, they hired a young lady named Allison Marcue, and she had the job of selling wastewater, so to speak. But it’s not really wastewater when it’s all cleaned up. You know, there’s some affluent, and it’s all cleaned up. And I’ve seen—if you go out to the plant where water comes out, they have this pool. And the bottom of it, it has this apricot logo. And you look down in, it’s clear. It’s just as clear as glass. And I’ve seen, people can actually drink the water. I mean, it’s that clean when it goes out. And I remember DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] fined us one time, because the water we were putting in the river, was cleaner that the water in the river. I never really understood that, but they fought it, and they wouldn’t rescind the fine, but they did reduce it. So you would think, we’re putting a better quality of water in, then they were taking out, everything was there. So as a result of that, you know, we have—our system is contained now. We don’t really pump any in. We use it for our citizens to get them a way to water, and maintain their plants and yards, and it costs less. So we don’t put anything into the streams in that regard. So it’s just a lot of innovation. A lot of innovative things the city has done. Wilt Wow. That is just amazing. Well, I would like to know if there’s anything that you would like to discuss or touch on that we haven’t—that I haven’t asked you—that we haven’t gone over. Is there anything special to you that you’d like to convey? Singleton Yes. I would. Like I said, I’ve managed Fleet Facilities and Urban Beautification. And you drive down through our city, and you know, in the medians, you see beautiful plants and everything. It’s sad to say, we have people that come through here that don’t live here, and although we trash the main areas daily, because we want everything to look all nice. And even when we have holidays, like September 6th will be Labor Day—it’s a long weekend. Well, somewhere during between that Friday and that Monday, we’ll come down 436, the main areas, and we will trash. We’ll pick up all the trash, so the place will look good, just as though we were working here. So I appreciate things like that. And even, we had a hard winter. And things froze like you wouldn’t believe. And people would actually call City Hall and told Mr. Pendleton how good things look. And we would laugh, because they didn’t look that good to us. When I say us—Urban. It just looked better, in our opinion. But if you looked around, everything here looked better than everything around us. But we were still working, because we wanted—we have a set level, a standard that we like—that we were trying to achieve. And I think we’re about there now, but we continue to work. And we’re allowed to do that. And I appreciate that. If you would look at Fleet Maintenance, you look at our vehicles, we have one of the cleanest fleets that’s here. And sometimes, if you have a moment, if you could come out to Fleet Maintenance, I’d just like to you to look at the facility. You don’t see a dirty place. You don’t see junk or anything like that. The building is always clean. Every day, it’s cleaned before they go home. So a lot of times people will come and say, “Do you actually work here?” Well, just because you work on a car or a truck, it doesn’t have to be a filthy, greasy place. And so we try to maintain that so if, like if any other commissioners like Mr. [Jon] Batman or anyone came out, they’re not worried about getting their clothes dirty or anything, because the shop’s not dirty. That’s a mainstay for us. But if you look at the vehicles going up and down the road, they’re nice and clean, they’re all well-maintained, and so forth. We sent our vehicles to the auction. If you ever have a chance to go, our vehicles sell for a higher price than any other government or municipality around here. Because they’re clean, everything works when they go over there, and they always run. So that’s how we’re able to recoup monies to go back into the general fund, and so we take a great pride in that. And then the facilities, well, you can just tell here. Even in the children’s room, you might think—well, you should see fingerprints on the wall and things like that. We don’t see that, because we maintain the facilities in a way that we will always want it to reflect the highest quality in the City of Altamonte Springs. Wilt That is amazing. And I thank you so much for your time. I greatly appreciate everything we talked about. Would you like to give me and Mr. Batman a tour of your museum, of the hall of history, or the children’s room? Singleton I’d be delighted to do so. Wilt That’d be wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. I greatly appreciate it. Singleton You’re welcome. <div> <div> <a title="">[1]</a> Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens. </div> <div> <a title="">[2]</a> Correction: Seminole County Public Library (SCPL). </div> <div> <a title="">[3]</a> Division of Water, Wastewater, and Reuse. </div> <div> <a title="">[4]</a> Jean Rhein Central Branch. </div> </div> Has Part Original 14-page digital transcript by Diana Dombrowski: Singleton, James. Interviewed by Ashley Wilt. July 21, 2010. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. A Prototype Realistic. Innovative Community of Today Allison Marcue Altamonte Area Chamber of Commerce Altamonte Springs Altamonte Springs City Hall Altamonte Springs City Library Altamonte Springs Civic Club Altamonte Springs Department of Public Works Altamonte Springs Division of Water, Wastewater, and Reuse Altamonte Springs Leisure Services Anne Van Allen Klein Ashley Wilt Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill James China First City of Altamonte Springs computers Don Newman Dudley Bates Facilities Fleet and Urban Maintenance Florida State Road 436 Information Systems IS James Singleton Jon Batman Karen Potter libraries library Linda McKnight Batman MIS Mobile Information Center Museum of Seminole County History Pendelton Phil McMann Project APRICOT reclaimed water Richard Miller Seminole-Rosenwald School Sidell Pate SR 436 Steven Long Vinnie Coon wastewater West Altamonte Wilt, Ashley Youth Library Area https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/1e3d6a8903fd876f397fb8e874e95303.mp3 fcc6d527a46d56948c35456b7a21f329 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/d3db22861b20e15022993b037d91af11.pdf 7fa2aef6d827b83921203af64caa1714 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Morris, Joseph Interviewee Whittington, Charles Location <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Charles Whittington Alternative Title Oral History, Whittington Subject Sanford (Fla.) Celery Agriculture--Florida National Aeronautics and Space Administration (U.S.) Army Air Force Description An oral history of Charles Whittington b. 1938), conducted by Joseph Morris on November 18, 2011. Whittington was born in Sanford, Florida, in March of 1938. In the interview, he discusses his childhood in Sanford and Charleston, celery and gladiola farming, his father's service in the U.S. Navy, his mother and sister, how Sanford has changed over time, his employment history, his world travel experiences, his activities after retirement, his work with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),his wife and children, his service in the U.S. Army and in the U.S. Air Force, and the Apollo 8. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:56 Growing up in Sanford and Charleston 0:04:33 Father’s gas station 0:05:13 Celery and gladiola farming 0:09:55 Working on a farm 0:14:07 Father’s service in the Navy 0:19:29 Parents and sister 0:23:04 How Sanford has changed over time 0:25:44 Employment history 0:29:05 World travel experiences 0:34:06 Retirement 0:37:15 Working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 0:40:11 Wife and children 0:45:25 Serving in the Army and the Air Force 0:55:04 Apollo 8 0:57:01 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Charles Whittington. Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> in Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Original 58-minute and 16-second oral history: Whittington, Charles Interviewed. by Joseph Morris. November 18, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Sinclair Oil Corporation Gas Station, Sanford, Florida Charleston Naval Shipyard, Charleston, South Carolina Sanford, Florida Anchorage, Alaska Creator Morris, Joseph Whittington, Charles Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-11-18 Date Modified 2014-10-10 Date Copyrighted 2011-11-18 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 451 MB 197 KB Medium 58-minute and 16-second audio recording 22-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Charles Whittington, and trasncribed by Savannah Vickers. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank">Sanford</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank">A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</a>, 1975. Transcript Morris This is an interview with Charles Whittington. This interview is being conducted on the 18th of November, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Sir, could you tell us about where and when you were born? Whittington Yes, I was born in Seminole County, in Sanford, at the old Fernald-Laughton Sanford Hospital, and that was in March of 1938. The building is still standing, and the last time I was by there, it was used as a—I believe it was a halfway house of sorts. I’m not really sure, and I’m not well-informed on that, but that was my understanding. But it is still there. It’s across from the old Sanford library. Morris Okay, sir, and can you describe the place where you grew up? Whittington Yes, my dad owned a Sinclair [Oil Corporation] gas station on the corner of [South] Park Avenue and [East] Second [Street], and we had a little home on Oak Avenue. When World War II broke out in 1942, my dad was offered a job as a machinist in the Navy shipyard<a title="">[1]</a> in Charleston, South Carolina. And we moved up there, and my dad worked in the division of the shipyard that later became the test bed for our first nuclear research into nuclear-powered ships. And it was highly classified and very structured, and he didn’t understand why at the time. and I didn’t either, until later, realized that no wonder was it top secret—I mean, because this was our first involvement in nuclear research for, you know, powering anything. And then, in the latter part of 1943, my dad had saved enough money to come back here and buy a farm. We bought a little 13-acre farm on Richmond Avenue, and moved down there. And my dad—it was sort of a lifelong dream for him—went into farming. And at that time, primarily we grew celery, and corn and cabbage, other crops that could be shipped up north. But the days of the small farmer in Seminole County, toward the end of that decade—the end of the ‘40s—was starting pretty rapidly to come to an end. The soil was worn out, and much of the farming had moved to the Everglades, to the area around Lake Okeechobee. And my dad hung on, and tried to make it, and he finally realized that we were going under, and this just wasn’t going to do it for us. And we sold the farm, and moved to Pasco County, down near Tampa, and he got back into the poultry industry there and did, you know, quite well. But I hated to leave. I loved Sanford. I loved being raised on a small farm, and it was a big disappointment for me to leave Sanford, especially in my sophomore year in high school. The two schools were just as, you know, much different as night and day—the high school here and the high school down there. The one down there wouldn’t come anywhere near the quality of what we had here in Sanford, and I missed that very much. And I come back to Seminole County as often as I can, and that’s why I’m here today, for this interview and also to meet with some former classmates. And I still feel like this is my hometown, but it’s also, if anyone asks me where I’m from it’s always Sanford, not Zephyrhills. Morris Okay, sir. And you said your dad, prior to World War II, he ran or owned a... Whittington A Sinclair gas station. Morris A gas station. What happened to that when he moved to South Carolina for the machinist job? Whittington Okay. He sold it to someone else, and the station now is the office of Edward Jones Investment Agency, and Bill Kirchhoff had that, and I believe he has been here and talked to you folks. And he and I are good friends. Matter of fact, I’ve got a tractor radiator cap for him. I’ve got to get to him after our interview. Morris Okay, sir. Whittington But his dad was involved in the overall agricultural structure of Seminole County during the time that we had the farm on Richmond Avenue. He raised gladiolas in Florida and also in New York, and I think he even had some farms on the West Coast, and he would, you know, follow seasons. And also there was a problem with a little microbe in the soil here called a “nematode” that was not present in the soil of New York, because, you know, the soil freezes up there in the winter and kills these things. And here it doesn’t freeze, and these little guys do pretty well, and they really wreak havoc on both celery plants and gladiola bulbs. Morris These were nematodes, you said? Whittington Nematodes. Right. It’s a little microbe, and they attack the roots of the young plants. Morris How did you counter those when you were farming? Whittington You would flood the area. You would dam in a little area of the farm that would be the area for the seed beds, where the young celery plants were growing, and flood it for about two and a half weeks. And just keep, you know, a couple inches of water on it, with the well running in there, you know, all the time, and keep the water in there for about two and a half weeks. And that would kill the nematodes in this area, and you would raise your young celery plants in seed beds in this area. And once the plants caught up to, you know, a height of like three or four inches, they could deal with these little bugs. But it was the little bitty plants that they would go after. Morris And when they were the little bitty plants, that’s when you flooded, or did you flood and then plant? Whittington No. You flooded, then planted. Morris Okay. Whittington You would flood, drain it, and form the seed beds, and plant those. And I’ve got pictures I’ll send you too. You had to put muslin covers over the seed beds, because when the plants first came up, they were very sensitive to sun. So you had to keep them covered during the hot part of the day, and in the afternoon you would open the side of the cover, along all the way, halfway through the field, and let air, fresh air and sunlight in, with the sun over here, and in the morning, you would open, you know, the back side, other side, west side, and get air and sunlight in there. But not direct sunlight, because they were very, very—a celery plant is a very tender little guy when it’s, you know, when it’s an inch high. Morris Okay. And the sun would just be too strong for it early on? Whittington If you just opened it up, they couldn’t handle it. Morris Did you have to do that when they, when the little celery grew up, or... Whittington No. Once the celery got to a height of maybe two or three inches, then you could take the cover off, and it was okay then. But it was just when they were first starting, first coming up, that they were so sensitive to the sun. Morris Okay. What other kinds of problems did you have while raising celery, other than the sunlight, and other than the microbes? Was there any other kind of difficulty that you found out about? Whittington Well, the main difficulty would be weather during the, you know, winter months, when you planted celery—typically wasn’t an issue. But the real issue was the market price of the celery when you harvested it. You know, if it was good, why, you did okay. And if it was bad, you know, it was just another bad year. Morris What affected these—what would change from year to year that would make it a good year or a bad year for selling celery? Whittington Well, just the market price in New York. That was where we shipped. We shipped from the Sanford [State] Farmers’ Market, usually to New York and that—you know, the New England area. And it was just the price of celery up there that, you know, was whether you made it that year or not. And we had too many of the had-not years. Morris Oh, really? Whittington Yeah. Morris Okay. And what was your involvement? Like how old were you when you moved to the farm? And what was your involvement while you lived there? Whittington Well, I was five years old when we moved there, and we started farming. We started farming with a pair of mules. [laughs] Now this is how far back it goes. We used mules for plowing and discing and so forth. And after this, we bought a Model F Fordson tractor. I’ve got a picture of this, and there are several online now. And my dad would let me drive it, but it was so hard to steer, until I was about 12 years old, I could not turn it around at the end of the row. It took that much power to turn the steering wheel. And also, I didn’t weigh enough to push the clutch in. The clutch was the lever that stuck out of the transfer case, and you had to press down on it, and I could stand on it, and it wouldn’t go anywhere. [laughs] So, obviously, I couldn’t operate the Fordson by myself. Morris Right. Whittington We later got rid of that and got a Model 8N Ford, and that’s the radiator cap for the one I have in my car, and it was, you know, had power steering and the hydraulic lift in the back, and so forth. And so, I did a lot of plowing, and discing, and running the tractor. That was, you know—10 years on, I did a lot of it. That was my part of helping. Morris No planting or harvesting necessarily? Whittington No. We—for harvesting the celery crops, we usually used crews of labor that we would hire locally. And they would plant the celery, and also cabbage or couple other plants that required—you know, physical planting—and then they would also do the harvesting and packing. And you contacted a crew leader, a team leader, and contracted with him to do the harvesting in your field. And we were just responsible really for, you know, making certain that the celery—if it was celery, or whatever the crop—was sprayed, in case there was any kind of a blight or a fungus, or some sort of an insect problem, that we sprayed it with the proper spray, and that we fertilized it, and also cultivated the rows to keep the weeds down, and it was a very labor-intensive occupation. And I was very upset with my dad, especially in the later years, because he could’ve stayed on forever. He already had his foot in the door in the nuclear—the government nuclear involvement in the Military, and he didn’t even know it. I mean, he knew he was under a very tight security environment, but he didn’t know why. But he was an excellent machinist. He was moved up shop chief in no time at all, making good money, but his dream was always to come back to Sanford and own a farm. And, I mean, it was quite obvious by the end of, you know, the ‘40s, that the farming here was in trouble. And, you know, in later years, I thought, “Why couldn’t you have just stayed in Charleston with the Navy?” And, you know, gotten a civil service retirement. And we wouldn’t have, you know, been in the situation that we found ourselves in here. Although, like I say, I do really love Sanford, and loved growing up here. Morris Okay. A little bit of a catch-22. Whittington Yeah. That’s a very good comparison there. Morris Now, you said you moved here—you moved to Sanford when you were five. Whittington Uh huh. Morris How long was your dad a machinist for the Navy? Because I know when he moved up to South Carolina, you must have been only a couple years old. Whittington Right. Well, I was born in ’38, and we moved up there in ’42. Morris Okay. Whittington And he worked for about 18 months, and put everything aside. And that was enough to buy that farm, and so we came back. And that—and plus he had sold the gas station by this time, and he had some income from that, and so he put it all in that farm and getting some equipment, and… Morris Mules. Whittington Yeah. Mules. He had mules, and then the Fordson and then the Model 8N Ford, which I’m trying to find—got a couple leads on it—but I’d like to learn how to get some pictures of it. Morris Okay. So I’m kind of surprised, because when you moved to Sanford, World War II was still going on. Whittington Right. Morris And they didn’t have a problem, coming from a very heavily secured area, and during World War II, an able-bodied man—I’m surprised they just—that he was able to leave his job and become a farmer. Whittington That’s an excellent point, and I would be surprised at it except that farming was a fairly high-priority occupation, as far as the government was concerned, because you were feeding, you know, you were feeding the population, and providing some foods that could be used in preparation of foods for the—you know, our military. So that was effective. We came back here, and we’re going into farming wasn’t a problem. And he had—my dad had served in World War I in France. Morris Oh, okay. Whittington And he was past the draft age. So that was something else too. I mean, he was too old for, you know, for required military service. Morris Okay. And what was the cap at this time for age? The age cap before you could no longer be drafted? Whittington Joe, I don’t remember exactly. I think somewhere in the 30s—like 35? Morris Oh, okay. Whittington I believe that was it. I’ll do some checking, get back to you on that. Morris All right. Thank you, sir. Whittington I believe that was in, you know, mid-30s. Morris I was a little surprised they’d let such an excellent machinist, you know, leave so easily. Whittington Well… Morris Unless they put up a fight trying to entice him and keep him to stay. But it just seemed, during World War II, to let him go to farming—I mean, maybe they didn’t have any say in the matter, as well. That’s just where my question was going. Whittington Right. And I really wish that, of the many things you want to go back and ask your parents, something I’d really like to talk to my dad about is why you left. I mean, was farming that important to you, that you would leave, you know, a high-tech, high-paying, secure job like that, and go back into something that, you know, almost going in it was a known gamble, because there was problems with weather, insects, and, you know, always the market fluctuations? Morris Did he like his career as a machinist? Whittington Yes. He did. I mean, he liked that very much, but it didn’t have the pull that, you know, being his own boss in farming did. Morris I guess maybe it could have been just his own culture growing up, attached significance to farming and independence. Whittington Right. Well, he was raised on a farm in North Carolina. Morris Oh, okay. Whittington So, you know, that was his—where his roots were. He wanted to get back into it down here. And, of course, you know, in the ‘30s, Sanford couldn’t produce enough celery. I mean, it was the celery capital of the world. Morris Right. Whittington And some of that aura sort of hung over for quite some time, that, you know— “Oh, get a farm and get celery growing. You’ll get rich.” Well, that didn’t always work out that way. Morris Shoot. Whittington But, anyway, that was… Morris How long did your family own the farm? Whittington We sold the farm in 1950, and he leased another farm, and we stayed on ‘til 1953, and at Christmas that year, my sophomore year in high school, we left and went to Zephyrhills. Morris So how long did you live, then, in Sanford, from the first farm up until that, 1953? Whittington Okay. I was born here, and we lived here until we left in 1942, and then—the early part of 1942—and then toward the latter part of 1943, we came back. So I was only gone, like 18 months. Morris Okay. Whittington And then we stayed here until 1953, and I was a sophomore in high school at that time. Morris Okay, sir. Then, I know we talked a little bit about your father. Could you tell me more about your parents and any kind of siblings? Whittington I had one sister that was 17 years older than I was, and she graduated from Florida State [University], which was Florida [State] College for Women back then, with a degree in education. And she went to Melbourne and got a teaching job there, and when World War II started, the City of Melbourne offered her the directorship of the USO that they’d built in Melbourne for the, mainly the sailors, because there’s a lot of Navy and Coast Guard. You know, all these war activities at that time in that area. And so, Melbourne built a USO and offered my sister a job to run that, and she took it and did that until the war ended. And my dad had a couple years of mechanical engineering at NC [North Carolina] State [University], and that’s why he did well at Charleston, because he had that—already had some college training in, you know, the math end of mechanical engineering. Well, it’s primarily math. But, the, you know, his roots in North Carolina—being raised on a small farm—just were too strong, and he wanted to go back to it. Plus, he just—he had the problem that a lot of folks have of not wanting to work for somebody else. That’s why he ran the gas station is because, you know, he was his own boss there, and, you know, he could hire somebody else to help him, but he didn’t report to anybody else. He was his own station, and he ran it the way he wanted to. Morris Okay. And what about your mother, sir? Whittington My mother helped my dad a lot. I mean, farming was sort of a family thing that you got into, because, I mean, there was just so much work to be done, that my mother frequently would help, not only, you know, taking care of running the home, but she would actually physically help with some of the labor on the farm itself. And I didn’t like that. It just seemed wrong that a woman should be, you know, having to make ends meet, to have to work, you know, on the farm. Even though it was not really heavy labor work. It was the fact that she still had to chip in and help us to make it. That bothered me. But she did, and never complained about it. But it was, you know—it was something that many families here did. The whole family was involved in farming. And I didn’t mind, you know, running the tractor at all. I liked it. I mean, that was [laughs]—especially the Ford that I could handle, not the big Ford, but the little one that was newer. Morris Well, sir, how has Sanford changed over the years, from… Whittington Sorry? Morris How has Sanford changed over the years? Whittington How’s it changed? Morris From when you grew up to how it is now, sir. Whittington Oh, okay. Well, the change that I noticed when I first came back was the decline of the downtown area, which is so typical of many small towns. The shopping moves out to shopping centers in the suburbs, and that has happened to me—that Downtown Sanford’s the perfect example of it. Because we had, downtown, we had a Firestone store and a JCPenney, and Lerner Clothing Store, and a McCrory’s Five and Dime [Store]—I can’t think of—two hardware stores, some regional area chain department stores, and two banks. And it was just, you know, it was a very functional little downtown area. And you could see that starting to go. You know, stores would close and be empty, and then somebody else would try something else in it. It wouldn’t make it. Now, it’s a lot of antique shops down there, and that’s about it. I mean, that’s that whole main street, is antique shops. And I didn’t like to see that. The old telephone company was over the JCPenney store. There was an old manual switchboard with operators on the second floor of the JCPenney building, and then there was the Thudson[?] Drugstore on one corner, and the Roman Anderson[?] Drugstore on the other. There were no Target or pharmacy or CVS, any of those. You know, there were none of the chain stores. The Eckerd chain was the first one down here—Eckerd and Walgreens. But, you know, during my growing up years, those two were places that you hung out, and you could get a hamburger and a malt, or, you know, whatever. And, also, there was a pharmacy there. And I hated to see those go, because that was, you know, that was just a very active part of Sanford. Morris Okay, sir. And where have you lived over the course of your life? Whittington Well, after I got discharged from the hospital following that jet accident in the Air Force, I immediately went right back to the Cape [Canaveral] and applied to NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] and got on. This was during the Gemini program.<a title="">[2]</a> I got on at the flight simulator over at the Cape. And I worked the NASA contracts. I was at Houston[, Texas] twice. I was in Ecuador for one time, and then a tracking station in the Smokey Mountains, and was there through, well, after the end of the Skylab program. When that ended, and the shuttle program wasn’t yet, you know—we’d gone to the Moon and done that thing with the Apollo series, and the shuttles weren’t flying it, so there was a massive layoff. I got caught in that. And I got into the telecom industry, and followed that all over the country as a contractor. And I found that I could—of course, you weren’t building any pension or retirement—but I found that I could make more money than a company employee. I could make more money as a contractor if I was willing to move around. And you just had to discipline yourself, and put aside what otherwise would have been your retirement from the company. And I did that and did all right. And I liked to travel. But I ended up in an ISP [Internet service provider] Internet hosting outfit in Seattle[, Washington], and was doing that when I retired in 2001. You know, the travel and, you know, the change, the challenges of new jobs, and being able to go to a new area and move into the new company and a new job—that part of moving around was attractive to me. Morris What kind of places did you move, sir? For example? Whittington Okay. I was in San Francisco[, California], and was there during the earthquake, and was in Los Angeles[, California], and then in the Seattle area for about 10 years. and then, prior to that, I had moved around just for, like, a few months at a time, in various places all over the U.S.—Indianapolis[, Indiana] and Chicago, Illinois]—you know, for like maybe six weeks or two months at a time on just a contract job. And, it was interesting, but I was single then, and just pull up and move without any real concern. It was okay. Morris You said you liked to travel, sir. Have you ever traveled outside of the country? Or—vacation travel? Whittington Yes. Yes. I have. I’ve traveled to, well, the South America travel was mainly as a function of the Military and NASA time. But I’ve traveled to England, and done the Hawaiian Islands, was in Israel in Tel Aviv for five weeks for a company school. And that was an eye-opener. That really was. I mean, I got a good look at the Holy Land. It was [laughs]—it was a lot different than I expected. It really was. Morris How so, sir? Whittington Well, those people have got an unreal—I’m talking about the Israelis—have got an unreal work ethic. I mean, if they are asked to work 24 hours a day, and there’s a need for it, they’ll do it, and no griping. You don’t find that very much in the U.S. I mean, they are very, very much—uh, I can’t really express myself here—loyal to Israel, and to their faith, and to the country. I mean, just, you know, they’ve got a country, and they’re going to hang onto it now. And the [laughs], the guys around them had better not mess with them. I can say that from being there, and being in the technology. I know what they’ve got. And they can—the guys around them can end up a big smoking hole in the ground over there, if, you know, they push Israel too hard. Morris All right, sir. WhittingtonThey might hurt Israel too, but they’ll come out the losers. Morris And have you travelled anywhere else, sir, for work or vacation? You said South America. What countries in South America? Whittington Okay. I’ve been over a good bit of England, and I was in Alaska, and was in the Army up there. I liked that, but I’ve been back just as a tourist with my wife, and took my in-laws up there. And the Hawaiian Islands several times. I’ve not done China. I’d like to see China. I really would. And that’s kind of the feeling I got, because there was a contract. The Chinese were going to completely replace their aging landline system with a… Morris Towers? Whittington With a tower network. Morris Okay. Whittington Yeah. With towers, and cell phones. And several different companies had some pretty good contracts over there, if you’d go and stay for as long as you could take it. But, some of the places I heard about, you know, they were all right, and some were pretty Spartan—I mean, food and accommodations. And you having been there, you probably would validate some of that. I don’t know. Morris Some of it, sir. When was this going on? When were these contracts for landlines or... Whittington Okay. The contracts for China were, like, in the mid-‘90s. Morris Okay, sir. Whittington There was some openings there, and that kind of moved around. It would change a lot, and I never could get somebody to, you know, sit down with me and say, “Okay,” you know, “here’s what we can offer you, and here’s when you leave.” And I never was able to find it at that point. Perhaps it’s a good thing. But anyway, I’ve not been there. I’ve met a good friend my wife worked with in San Francisco and Seattle that is from Ethiopia—not Ethiopia. [sighs] Can’t say it. Starts with “E,” and it’s part of the Soviet Union. Oh, fiddle. Morris Is this in Africa or Asia? Whittington No, it’s in… Morris Oh, is it Estonia? Whittington Yeah. Estonia. [laughs] Morris Oh, okay. Whittington I couldn’t say it. And he’s gone back to Russia several times, and the pictures and so forth. And the stories I got from when I would talk to him afterwards, I don’t really have any desire to travel in Russia. And that’s not one of the things I want to do. I want to do Europe first, and really work it over really good, and Hong Kong and Japan. Those are ones that I really wanna [laughs]… Morris They’re both very nice. Sir, are you still working right now? Whittington No. I’m retired now. Morris Okay. How long have you been retired, sir? Whittington I retired in 2001. Morris Okay. And what have you been doing to, you know, kill your time since then, sir? Whittington Okay. I’m very much into researching my ancestry—into genealogy. I’ve got a solid trace back to, now, I don’t if you’ve ever heard of this, the story of Dick Woodington and his cat. Morris No, sir. Whittington But this was a guy who was Lord Mayor of London four different times. And anyway, he was a far-distant cousin, and I’ve gone 200 years past him, with a solid trace back, and that was a lot of fun. And I think I’ve got my own family tree built now. I’m working my wife’s, and just anybody else that pops up. I thought, “Well, let’s just see what,” you know, “theirs looks like.” That’s a lot of fun. I’ve been in ham radio for, since, well, it was 11 years old, and that technology keeps advancing. I mean, we were digital before digital phones were, you know, the thing. We were bouncing, you know, signals off the Moon, communicating that way. We’ve got a whole bunch of satellites up. Not our satellites, but we’ve got ham radio, we would piggyback on a lot of satellites that are up there. So you can send up with a little handheld and talk to somebody on the other side of the earth. And that, to me, is fascinating. So that’s been something that’s kept me really busy with my time—is ham radio. And my wife and I like to travel, and, you know, if we get a few days that we can see we can get away to do something, we get in the car and go. And that’s, you know—we had a great big map when we were in California, a huge, plasticized, ceiling-to-floor map of the whole state. And when I was there, I was able to take off, you know, and be gone for a week at a time, with no charge against any vacation time, because I was on-duty 7 by 24 out there. They didn’t require that much support, but I had to be there. So if I wanted to leave, they’d fly one of the managers out there to watch my equipment, because it was a little vacation for him to San Francisco, and we’d take off. And we went to little towns that we’d just find this map and say, “Let’s go there this weekend.” And we’d go to little towns in California that the average Californian had never heard of, and go spend the night, or sometimes not spend the night. Just go, come back. The travel was a big thing out there, especially in the mountains. Of course, California’s got a lot of them, and that was an interesting thing. Morris Okay, sir. Whittington I was involved in the Voyager aircraft project that flew around the world, non-refueled, nonstop. It was the bird [Burt] Rutan designed. Canard, weird-looking airplane. And I worked on that for about two and a half months, or two and a half years, as a volunteer on the staff for the world-record flight, and they wanted me for my NASA background, because I knew how to solder without putting a lot of weight in the airplane and solder. Because they proved that if you improperly—if the crews that built the big Saturn [inaudible] spacecraft that we used to go to the Moon—they used too much solder—you could end up with five tons of solder in the spacecraft, that it would never get off the pad. And, so there’s a very finite point in soldering where you can, you have just barely enough but not too much solder, and I had instructors for hand-soldering for, you know, air space flight hardware. And the Voyager crew wanted me for that reason, because I could keep the weight down. We put something in the plane in the wiring—in the way it’s hooked up. Morris And when’s this again, sir? Like, can you give me a time frame? Whittington This was from, like, ’84 through, the plane flew in ’87. It was those years. Morris Okay, sir. Whittington And they were up for just under 10 days, but they flew all the way around, you know, nonstop, from Edwards Air Force Base, back to Edwards Air Force Base, in California, nonstop and non-refueled. Morris Did you enjoy working for NASA and with NASA projects? Whittington Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was very much into that, and I also enjoyed the work when I was assigned to Patrick [Air Force Base] over at the Cape, because we were supporting the NASA effort, and we were right on the cutting-edge of everything there. And that was extremely, extremely fascinating and challenging. And it was the kind of a job you’d go into early, not to be on overtime—‘cause you couldn’t just go clock in arbitrarily—but just to be part of it. And I worked the midnight shift, and a lot of times I’d still be over there at noon just hanging around, watching stuff. You know, just to be part of it, and, you know, you’d realize, “Hey, I’ve got to go home and get some sleep.” And sometimes they’d run you out, when there were too many of us hanging around, but it was extremely fascinating. Morris And, sir, you mentioned your wife. How long have you been married, and who is she? Where did you meet her? Whittington Okay. My first wife I met here locally. She was from Plant City, and we were married 16 years, and got a divorce. I was divorced 12 years, and I met my second wife in Zephyrhills, and she was with a company in California that provided mortgage insurance—was part of this thing. It kept the housing bubble sort of going, because it allowed you to buy a home with mortgage insurance instead of a much larger down payment. And it was a good concept. There was nothing under-handed about it. But anyway, she had 20 years with them, and she was in charge of a team that would go to the various offices around the country and underwrite, you know, maybe 500 loans at one time. They’d be there a week, and as such, you know, they flew constantly, and we always had a whole stack of frequent flyer tickets on the dresser. And we flew to England, to Ecuador, to Hawaii, to Alaska twice, on frequent flyer passes [laughs]. And took her folks to Alaska. And she enjoyed her work and enjoyed the travel, and I enjoyed being able to grab those tickets and say, “Let’s go to jolly old England.” [laughs] Morris That must have been very convenient. Whittington It was. Morris And do you have any children, sir? Whittington Yes. I do. I have a daughter and two boys. And my daughter lives in Brooksville, and the boys are in the Atlanta[, Georgia] area. Morris What are their names and ages, sir? Whittington Okay. My daughter is 46 now, and the oldest boy is 44, and the youngest one is 37. So they’re getting up there. Morris Are they all from the first marriage? Whittington All from the first marriage. Right. Morris Okay, sir. And, okay. Are they doing anything similar to what you did? Whittington No. My daughter worked as a—she did hematology studies for Smith Klein Beacham in veterinary medicine. And I thought she was going to stay with it, because it was, you know, an excellent field, and she got out, and got into, of all things, running a business, and she’s got a fairly large one. But have you noticed on the freeways, you’ll see a large load being hauled on the freeway, and there’s a truck ahead of it with a flashing light? Morris Mm-hm. Whittington Called a pilot car? Morris Yes, sir. Whittington Well, she has a pilot car operation in Brooksville, and she’s the biggest company east of the Mississippi. And she covers the whole country, because she’s got contract drivers for her all over the country. That one driver can take the load from here to there, and then somebody else picks it up and goes on. And she even had a contract with NASA to escort those solid rocket boosters from the West Coast to the Cape. [laughs] And, you know, this was—she said, “Well, Dad will be proud of this.” And I was. And she asked—they would always—when they would ship these boosters back, they would send two engineers from the plant with them, because they were very critical insofar as temperature and pressures and so forth went, even though they were solid fuel. And one of the engineers told her one time, he said, “If you see smoke coming out of the casing for one of those boosters, run.” And she said, “Right, sir! But let me ask a question: which way?” [laughs] And I thought her sarcastic humor was a little bit funny, because, really, which way is it gonna go if it pops, you know? But, anyway, she does that. And the oldest boy, regrettably, had a stroke a couple years ago, and his, you know—he won’t be working anymore. And the young one works for a granite quarry in Atlanta—the north side of Atlanta—and is driving a truck, a dump truck. [laughs] So… Morris Very eclectic. Whittington Yeah. But he’s still—even in this economy, he’s still staying employed. So, you know, more power to him. [laughs] Morris Definitely, sir. Could you tell us a little about your military experience? Whittington Military experience. The first one—I was in the Army, and they sent me to Indianapolis for court reporter training, and I thought, “Wow,” you know, “A court reporter!” And after four months there, learning to transcribe, you know, court proceedings, they sent three of us to Alaska, and we got up there, and they had civil service court reporters and no need for us. So they assigned me to the Army dock in Downtown Anchorage[, Alaska], and it was one of those dream tours that you get one of in the service. There were seven of us assigned there. There was a captain, and two NCOs [non-commissioner officer], and the rest of us were enlisted. And during the summer months, when the port was open and—you know, real busy, you’d work sometimes 36 hours straight, and during the winter months, when it was froze up and closed, you’d pull secure watch for 24 hours and, you know, you were off 48. Well, it wasn’t missile science for us to get together and say, “Hey guys, let’s pull it for a week straight and take two weeks off.” [laughs] So I lived to ski though. I did. I loved skiing, and during winter months, you know, I’d work my week and then that was it. They wouldn’t see me again until two weeks’ time went by. Morris You would have to be awake for a week straight, sir? Whittington Oh, you wouldn’t have to be awake. You’d just have to be on-duty there. The place was closed up and frozen over really. And you just had to be there and answer the phone. That’s all. Morris Okay, sir. Whittington And also pull fire watch, and whatever. Morris No. I understand. Whittington But you didn’t do anything. There were only two TV stations in Anchorage at that time. [laughs] Morris Got a lot of reading done, sir? Whittington Yeah. You did a lot of reading. Morris Caught up on world events? Whittington [laughs] But anyway, I should have stayed in. I mean, I was—I made E[nlisted Rank]-4 after 18 months. and I had my private license at that time, and if you had any college at all—I had one year at Southern—Florida Southern [College]—you could apply for the warrant officer program, go to Fort Rucker, Alabama, and get helicopter training. And I always wanted a rotary wing rating. I mean, I wanted a chopper rating. But some little voice said, “Don’t do it.” Because if I had, I’d have been one of the first Huey pilots in [the] Vietnam [War]. Morris Yeah. Whittington One of the first, ‘cause this was in 1959, and I would have gotten through warrant officer school and flight training by about 1961, and Vietnam was just starting to stir about then. And a good friend from high school here was the first commissioned officer killed in Vietnam, Terry Cordell. First one killed over there. And I knew Terry. He was our football captain, and he was a senior, and I was a freshman. Just a real nice guy. But flying an observation plane, got shot down. That was the end of Terry. Morris And then you got out of the Army. What after that, sir? Whittington Went out of the Army in 1959, and enlisted in the Air Force in ’62, and was in there until July ’64, when I got the medical discharge. And I was actually [laughs] —I don’t even like to tell people about it, but in—when I saw the end of the NASA thing coming, the Army had a program at that time called “Stripes for Skills,” and they offered me an E-5 and choice of assignment, which I took Denver, Colorado—but based on my NASA background. They wanted somebody that had some satellite experience, and so the deal was that I go through a little three-week refresher basic, and then would be assigned to Denver, Colorado, as an E-5. And they enlisted my wife at the same time. This was my first wife. She had court reporter experience, and they would put her through the same program, and she would have to go through the full wide basic, but they would assign us to both to go to the same base, and as much as they could, you know, in the military, would keep us together. But at that time, I’d had a medical discharge, I had three kids, I was overage, I had all kind of disqualifiers. And a retired general and old-timer [inaudible] there where I was working for NASA, said, “Go to the Pentagon.” And, like a dummy, I climbed in the car, and we headed off to the Pentagon, and got there at eight o’clock in the morning, and got in with the crowd that, you know, was going into work, and I fell in with this bird colonel, and he said, “Where are you going?” And I said, “Well, I need to see the Army G2.” And he says, “Oh, yeah?” [laughs] He couldn’t believe this—me and my wife and three kids. I mean, it blew him away so badly, that he took us and signed us in, and he says, “Stay right here.” And finally, somebody from that office came down, and saw all of us kind of sitting there, and he said, “What do you want?” I said, “I want a waiver for the disqualifiers that are keeping me out of the Minuteman program.” And I talked to the guy for about an hour, and I’ve got the letter that waives my disqualifications to go back in the Army. [laughs] You know, this was after a medical discharge, three kids, and overage. But anyway, I went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, went through this little basic training, which was kind of fun—learning the new weapons and new techniques and stuff. And then, everybody else left, and no assignment. Another guy and I were by ourselves in the outfit, and just the cadre people were still there, and finally, they came through and they said, “We hate to admit it, but the Army has enlisted about 10 people in that career field for every slot we have.” And he said—this was the [inaudible]—said, “We can’t offer you Denver, Colorado.” Or Fort—can’t think of the base there now—but he said, “We can offer you Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and E-3, and no concurrent assignment with your wife.” And I said, “Or what else?” And he said, “Or a discharge.” And I said, “Let’s go with plan B.” [laughs] So, I mean, I had a very short second enlistment in the Army. Morris After all that trouble. Whittington After all that trouble, you know. Morris Shoot. Whittington But I didn’t really like the changes I’d seen in the Army either, at that time. I just don’t know. It just—there was a change in discipline, and attitudes, and stuff, that I would have had trouble with, because of coming from the Army of the late ‘50s to the Army of the mid-‘70s. And, I mean, there were guys, even in the training barracks, sitting in the dark smoking pot, and it was—I mean, I’m not that much against pot, but it was against Army regulations and against common sense. And to think like that, I was just this lad, and it didn’t work out, because I’m sure that would have gotten me in trouble, complaining about it—those kind of issues later on. So it’s just as well that I didn’t end up in that. Morris Okay, sir. And was that the end of your military experience then? Whittington That was the end of it. Morris Okay. Are there any historical events that come to mind, over the course of your entire life, sir? Like anything in your life that you felt like stands out or was, you know—that just changed your world, I guess I could say? Whittington Well, being on the biomed[ical] council at Houston for the flight of the Apollo 8, the slingshot flight around the Moon, that to me was, it was just sort of a highlight in my life, because I was part of something that it was a first for us, for the U.S., that we were going to the Moon, and I’ll be in a small part. I was part of it. And I was just so impressed with the guys in the spacecraft. I was watching all their, you know—their biomedical functions, and I had no medical training at all. I was there being able to feed the biomed data that was being stripped out of the calorimetry to anyone in mission control that needed it for any reason. All they did was call me and say, “Give me biomed.” And I could patch that data to them, and I had to keep the equipment that stripped it out of the calorimetry downstream, had to keep that up and running, and it was real fussy stuff, because it was built very hurriedly. But, I was watching all of their, you know, their vital signs, and Frank Borman—Colonel Frank Borman—the mission commander’s pulse at T-2 was 80, and mine was way over 100. I mean, I was wound up. We’re going to the Moon! And, here he’s up there, “Okay, let’s—gonna go?” You know. And I was—I thought, Wow. The ultimate test pilot. You know, the thing could blast into a million pieces. You know, he was ready to take a chance on it. Morris Okay, sir. That’s interesting. Whittington That was, that’s sort of a highlight, and the time in Israel was, that too was a definite attitude-adjuster for me because, you know, seeing the way those people live, the way they felt about their country, and their faith and everything, it just—and I felt that every American Jew, really—they can’t now, because of the mess over there—but I felt that back then, they should spend some time in the Holy Land and see, you know, where they came from, and get an experience with the people who still lived there. The attitudes over here are a lot more lax and whatever than they are in Israel. Morris Definitely, sir. Is there anything you’d like to discuss that we haven’t covered? Whittington That’s about it. It’s been a real pleasure discussing this with you. Morris Thank you, sir. It’s been a pleasure. Whittington And, you know, if you can send me a CD or something, I’d love to have it for the record. Morris I will definitely do that, sir. Whittington Okay. <div> <div> <a title="">[1]</a> Charleston Naval Shipyard. </div> <div> <a title="">[2]</a> Project Gemini. </div> </div> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/1e3d6a8903fd876f397fb8e874e95303.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of Charles Whittington</a> 2nd Street agriculture Apollo 8 Army Bill Kirchhoff celery Charles Whittington Charleston Naval Shipyard Charleston, South Carolina court reports Dick Woodington Downtown Sanford E-4 E-5 Enlisted Rank 4 Enlisted Rank 5 farmers farming farms Frank Borman gas stations genealogy gladiolas ham radios Historical Society of Central Florida Israel Israelis Jewish Americans Jews Joseph Morris laborers Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project machinists Model 8N Ford Model F Fordson Museum of Seminole County History NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration nematodes New York nuclear power Oak Avenue Park Avenue Project Gemini Richmond Avenue Sanford Saturn Second Street Seminole County Sinclair Oil Corporation Skylab Stripes for Skills Tel Aviv, Israel Telecommunications Terry Cordell tractors U.S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Navy Voyager Program World War II WWII Zephyrhills https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/fec9b77921e0994cce5dab2f6ab481bc.mp3 79c9c935661a1087d3454d4d4b43b337 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/44775ef5866d17ab7d73a7196eb445c7.pdf dfd59d2b2064be8b457d5917c8fff8b3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Morris, Joseph Interviewee Cook, Arthurene Wilson Location <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida Bit Rate/Frequency 1411kbps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Arthurene Wilson Cook Alternative Title Oral History, Cook Subject Sanford (Fla.) World War II--United States Great Depression, 1929 Railroads--Florida Description An oral history of Arthurene Wilson Cook (b. 1930), conducted by Joseph Morris on October 4, 2011. Cook was born in Orlando, Florida, in 1930, but migrated to Sanford around 1942. In the interview, Cook discusses life in Sanford, her employment experiences, her husbands and children, growing up during the Great Depression, prosperity in the post-World War II era, her husband's career in the railroad industry, her children and grandchildren, and her battle with cancer. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:04:15 Working at the Wilson-Maier Furniture Company 0:07:21 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:07:22 Working at the Wilson-Maier Furniture Company 0:07:48 Working at Florida Fashions and the Family Loan Company 0:07:48 Getting married, divorced, and remarried 0:12:32 Life in Sanford 0:14:11 Growing up during the Great Depression 0:14:11 Post-World War II prosperity 0:16:31 Greater Orlando area 0:17:59 Working for the tax collector 0:21:54 Walt Disney World 0:26:50 Working at the Sanford Civic Center 0:28:28 Husband's career in the railroad industry 0:35:19 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:35:19 Husband, children, and grandchildren 0:38:49 Battle with cancer 0:43:54 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Arthurene Wilson Cook. Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> in Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Original 44-minute and 42-second oral history: Cook, Arthurene Wilson. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. October 4, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Orlando, Florida Sanford, Florida Columbus, Georgia Wynwood, Sanford, Florida Magic Kingdom Park, Lake Buena Vista, Florida Sanford Civic Center, Sanford, Florida Creator Morris, Joseph Cook, Arthurene Wilson Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-10-04 Date Modified 2014-09-14 Date Copyrighted 2011-10-04 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 451 MB 146 KB Medium 44-minute and 42-second audio recording 15-page typed digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Arthurene Wilson Cook. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank">Sanford</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Transcript Morris It is October 4th, 2011, and I am talking to Arthurene Wilson Cook at the Museum of Seminole County History. I am Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Could you tell us about yourself? Cook Well, I was born in Orlando in 1930, and we lived there until I was about eleven years-old, right after Pearl Harbor, so I would say, we moved into Sanford about 1942. And, um, I have a very clear remembrance of Pearl Harbor, because I remember being out in the yard. And my parents had company, and I went in, and they were all listening to the radio. And they were talking about the Japanese were attacking Pearl Harbor. And the next day when we went to school, they called us into the chapel, and we listened to FDR [Franklin D. Roosevelt] declare war on Japan. So I can remember that very clearly. We moved to Sanford, and we lived on Celery Avenue. And across the street from us was the Department of Agriculture. Had their, their farm, where they raised the various types of vegetables and things, and they tested them and all that kind of stuff. And my brother and I were absolutely enthused, because right up the road about two blocks—and after our house the blocks became long—they[sic] were farms, and they had all this tilled land where the artesian wells flooded the fields and watered them from beneath, rather than on top. And you could reach down there and the artesian wells flowed all the time. Well, we thought all that sulfur water was wonderful. Then we had to live in a house that had sulfur water, and it was not wonderful. Smelled awful. [laughs] But we thought that this was new. We had never lived in the country. We had lived in town—in Orlando—so we were not used to being out, but we went all up and down the fields and cut onions out of the agriculture people’s farm, and made onion sandwiches, and were just carefree, barefooted kids having a good time. And, then when we moved to Sanford, I was I think in the fifth grade, and we were here for several years. And then, this is the middle of World War II. And my dad had been in the Army before, and had gotten out when he married my mother in 1927. So, he was drafted. And they were not drafting fathers, but they drafted him. And we did not own a home at that time. We were renting. And so we went back to Georgia, to Columbus, Georgia, and lived with my grandparents during World War II while he was gone. And, Georgia was—at that time, had graduated in eleven grades. So when the war was over, I was a senior in high school, and my mother and dad and my brother moved back to Daytona [Beach], and I stayed in Georgia and finished high school. So, I came back, and I didn’t want to go to school another year, so I had already finished. So, and at that point, I went—I had gone to a commercial high school, so I had typing, shorthand, bookkeeping, and how to behave like a young lady in an office and all that kind of stuff. Cook So I went to work. And Mom and Daddy, at that time, they had moved over to Sanford. My dad was running a furniture store for another man, called Ted Davis Furniture Company. It was right on East First Street, and part of the downtown area now. And as time went on, the man that owned it offered my dad a partnership, which he took, and this took care of—as time went on, and after we were grown and married, my brother and I bought into that, and we owned the Wilson-Maier Furniture Company. Morris Okay. Cook But, um, I can remember we lived out on the lakefront, which—there’s still a bar out there, but it was down. It was the home of the people that owned the bar, and it was a real nice home, right on the lakefront, going toward DeLand. And when the hurricane came, they were advising people to get out of places that were, you know, dangerous to stay in, because it was coming right that way. So we went down to the store and I can remember, I got up on a stack of mattresses and put something down and went to sleep. So the hurricane went right over me. I had no problem. [laughs] But I remember out West First Street, which is now that main road [State Road] 46, that goes out to the mall. And all the businesses are out there—that was all agriculture, completely, I mean fields and fields and fields of it. And, um… Morris What were they growing? Cook A lot of celery, and cabbage, and broccoli, and onions, and all that kind of stuff. And a lot of oranges, grapefruit, tangerines. I remember, I was sort of full of myself, riding with my dad one day out West First Street, and I said, you know, “This is a highly agricultural area.” He says, “Yeah, they do a bit of farming, too.” [laughs] So, but, uh, it was just a neat place to grow up in. The class that I would have graduated from—with—in Seminole High School, when I came back, since I had been here for several years with them, they sort of just wrapped me into that class, so that I had to go to all, everything, just like I had gone to school here. So it was a nice place to grow up. And—stop for a minute. Morris Sure thing. Please go on, ma’am. Cook All right, well after high school, I went to work for my dad in the furniture store, and, um, I was not very businesslike nor did I feel like it was—I just did not do well, so he fired me. [laughs] Morris Your father fired you? Cook My father fired me. And I went to the employment agency and they sent me to Florida Fashions, which was right there on First Street in the 300 block. And it was a mail-order company for all kinds of clothes, and it was something to where everybody and anybody that could type had a job there. You just sat down and you typed out all—the order and who you will send it to. And it wasn’t much of a job, but anyway, you typed all day and it was downtown, and you know you could—at lunch, you could go downtown and have lunch, and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, I finally went to work for, um, it was the sporting goods people. That was downstairs from Florida Fashions and I was their bookkeeper, and this was right across the street from our store. So, um, I was working and waiting on people when I wasn’t busy doing keeping books, and the owner came in one day and he told me, he said, “Arthurene, I’m going to have to let you go.” And I said, you know—my first thought was, “What have I done?” He said, “There is no fault of yours. I will give you a very good recommendation.” Well, he said, “My brother-in-law has moved down here and I have to give him a job, and I can’t keep both of you.” So at that, I went back to the employment agency, and I got, they sent me to Family Loan Company. Well, I went up there and they wanted to know if I could take shorthand, and I could, and type and books and wait on the customers there. And I worked there until my first child was born. And that was about three years later. And, um, I married in 1950, and I had two little boys, David and Dan. And, in the process my husband came home one day and said he wanted a divorce. And, um, so, as time went on—didn’t take very long. Back then if you agreed and he agreed and they were going to do whatever, you could have a divorce in nothing flat. So I had my two little boys, and I had moved home with my mom and daddy. And I got a job at the courthouse with the tax collector’s office, and I worked there for a number of years. And I always said when I got out of high school that it didn’t matter what kind of job I would get, but just something that didn’t have anything to do with money. So every job I ever had had something to do with money. [laughs] And, then, a friend of mine whose husband worked for the railroad, I had been best friends with her ever since she had come to town. And I went over and a guy that I knew from high school, just very briefly—matter of fact, I was dating his best friend, and I really didn’t know anything about him, and he asked me out. And I said, “Well, you”—he said, well, you know, like going to the beach or going to the movies, or something. We went out to dinner and all, and I said, “Well yes, I would like to go, but,” I said, “I can’t always get a babysitter. There will be times that I would have to take my two boys with me.” He said, “Well, that’s not a problem. I like children.” So we started going together, and we went to the beach, and he reached over and put his hand on my leg, and I said, “Move your hand.” And he said, “Well, somebody thinks that I was their daddy.” I said, “I don’t care what they think. Move it.” [laughs] Anyway, we went together for a year, and we married in 1955, and we have been married a little more than 56 years. So I think it’s going to take. I think it’s going to. [laughs] Morris Crossed fingers? Cook Yeah. [laughs] So, but, to go back to our, um, what it was like around here. There was a division of the black and white communities. And there were only three really big companies that people could go to work for, and feel like, that they could probably retire from that. And that was Chase & Company, who—they raised all sorts of things, and vegetables of all kinds, celery being the main crop. And—but they did fruits and all sorts of vegetables, and cabbage, and carrots. You name it. The fields were everywhere. Matter of fact, when we lived out on the lakefront, the field behind us was—well, as far as you could see back toward First Street. Whatever they had was growing there, the man would always—there was some man that he rented the fields out to other people that actually didn’t own a farm. But they would—this was big, you know, large farming, a lot of it. And they would always say to my mother, “Whatever you need out of here, take it.” So if it was green beans, we had green beans. And if it was cabbage, you know, whatever, we had. And to go back just a little ways, but—probably never get this transcribed. When I was growing up during the [Great] Depression, I was never aware of being poor, or not having anything, because nobody had anything to speak of. People didn’t own—very few people owned their own homes. Everybody worked. And, I mean, like my parents when the Depression came along—they had a thousand dollars in the bank. They got a penny. And, I mean, you know, but, I remember I got a bike, and I knew my daddy had redone a bike, you know, a secondhand bike, but it never bothered me. I got a bike. I didn’t care. But, it was, after the war, there was a lot of boom going on and building houses and things, so there was lots of work for people. And I know when Walter [Cook] and I got married, we actually bought a house. The Navy was leaving here at that point, or they had gotten—they had built houses in the Wynwood section off 25th street, between there and 46 going toward the east coast. And in that area there, they had two lots of houses that they had built to rent to Navy people. And they quit renting them, redid them, and we bought one of them, where we lived for 31 and a half years. And we built onto it in every direction, but we lived there for a long time. But, you know, the downtown was just about all there was. When you got off as far as French Avenue—that was almost getting in the country. And like I said about coming from Orlando, you would run into Maitland, and see a sign that said, “Ye Town of Maitland, County of Orange.” And I always thought at—so quaint. I just looked for it every time. And then when you got to Longwood, it was just a crossroads with filling station. I mean, there was nothing out there, absolutely nothing. Morris Not even agriculture? Cook I don’t remember much in that area, and of course, I didn’t do a whole lot in Longwood at that point. Never did. And you know, whatever shopping we ever did, you went to Orlando to buy it. When I first got out of high school, this friend and I—both of us worked, and we worked Saturday morning, and then the office closed at noon. And we would get on the Greyhound bus and go to Orlando, and do our shopping right there on Orange Avenue, have lunch, and then we’d get on the bus and come back home that night. And didn’t think a thing about it. We even went to Jacksonville one day and visited a friend that had gotten married, and went early on a Saturday morning and came back Saturday night. You know, the bus was the way to go. But, uh, I was still working at the courthouse when Walter and I got married. And he was working for the railroad, and he worked at night. And back then I worked in the tax collector’s office, because they hired me because I was a fast typist. And I did all the—typed up all the tag numbers and who they belonged to. So then, when all the tax bills were written out—handwritten—the legal descriptions, the whole nine yards was handwritten. So up when it was time to do like tags for Chase & Company—which they would have hundreds, because those little trucks that go back and forth across the highway, they have to have a special tag that they cross the highway. And we would have boxes full of Chase & Company things, and we did them at night. So we’d go back and we’d type all those and wait ‘til about 10 o’clock, and then I’d go home. And we had to write out all the tax bills. And for the big companies—when I went to work in the courthouse in 1953, I was, uh—the big books, that had all the tax rolls in them, had Sanlando Springs. They were valued on the tax roll, I will say that. You could—on a tax roll, they were valued at $10 a lot. Why I didn’t buy out there for those lots, or well, uh—Sanlando Springs was a beautiful place to swim when we were growing up and going there. You could go in and they had this wonderful place to swim and you had picnics, and everything for years. And then when it started growing up, the whole place is businesses, and restaurants, and mortgage companies, you know, it’s just solid. And if you get there under I[nterstate]-4 now, prepare to tear out your hair, because traffic is horrendous. [laughs] But back then, that was just uh, right up the road. But I worked until we paid my daddy off for the furniture we bought for our house, because we bought a house before we got married, and then we came back home and signed the papers on it that we, you know—so it would be in both our names. So it was all furnished and all before we got married, and I worked at the courthouse until about the late part of ’56. And my husband said, “One of us has got to raise the boys, and the other one has got to make a living, and I think I can do better than you.” Well, I knew that he could make better money than I was, because I wasn’t making but $25 a week. [laughs] Morris Okay. Cook So I went home and stayed home, and in about 18 months, or two years, we had a daughter. So I was very busy being a mother and a wife, and doing a lot of church work. I’ve been a member of First Baptist Church of Sanford since 1947. I’m still there, and I’ve done a little bit of everything there. But, um, you know, back before [Walt] Disney [World], it was just a whole different thing. When my daughter was in high school, somebody told her that she could—if she was cute she could get a job at Walt Disney World, on the main gate of the Magic Kingdom. So she went down there and applied with a bunch of girls, and she worked there all through high school, and all through college, on every, uh—summers, Christmas, anytime they were off for any period of time, she worked down there. So we got in free, which was wonderful. And we got to see, you know, the Main Street Parade, when the fireworks went off for the Fourth of July, all of that stuff. And, you know, they drove back and forth. I know very few people that work at Disney World anymore, because of the traffic between the two places. It’s just not happening. [laughs] But, um, I worked at the, um—I went back and forth to the courthouse. Shortly after—before, I had my daughter, they called me in and said they were going to go to—I can’t remember what it was—but what they said we had to do was type the entire tax roll into a metal plate, that they were going to print off this metal plate. And they were going to print tax rolls. So we had to do the legal, the name of who owned it, and all this, on, uh—and we were in the—this was the old courthouse. We were in the basement, and this thing, I mean—you know what metal cutting into metal would be. “Whoom whoom whoom.” Morris Yes. Cook [laughs] It was really crazy. But, um, I remember Dottie Anthony—who was Dottie von Turbulis[sp] at that time. And she and I spent several—about a month or two working down there. Every time they had something that they needed, they’d call me in. And for years a friend of mine, Louise Austin, and I would go back and we would work when, um—there were twin sisters in one office, and when they left, they had to have somebody cover for them in the clerk’s office. And I worked down there many, many summers until they went to computers. And then I knew nothing about computers, and it was fast. And the [Seminole] County, by then, was growing so fast, they had, uh, you know—two people being out, it was nothing. Morris Oh, I understand. Cook You know, they, uh—but back when you do it all by hand, it was, it really was something. But, um… Morris So these were all jobs after you were married? And you would stay home with the children, but they would call you in occasionally for help? Cook Right. Right. Morris Okay. Cook Yeah, I’ve even—they’ve called and said, “Will you come in and do the docket for us?” I would, you know, go in at one o’clock, sit down and type for four hours, and get up and leave. And they offered me a job and said I could come when I wanted to and leave when I wanted to, if I would just do it. So I told my husband about it, and he didn’t say much. So the first day I left him at home, I told him, “Now, the boys have homework. They need to do the homework. And they need to do it.” Well, he didn’t do anything. And I said, “I don’t know how you could expect me to work if you’re not going to help me.” He said, “I did not ask you to go to work.” He didn’t want me to go to work. [laughs] But, uh, and then I did many, many years of, uh, when the voting—I was clerk of one of the precincts, the court, the [Sanford] Civic Center. I was down there first as just a helper, and then I was the clerk for a number of years. And that was, it was always a lot of fun, because you got to see everybody in that whole precinct. But by the time I was in my seventies, getting up at 4:30 and working until seven o’clock that night lost a lot of its luster. [laughs] Morris Oh, I can imagine. Cook But the last election, we did early voting out at the office there on the airport. And I said to the gal—she was, you know, telling—complaining about it. And I said, “I used to work the elections.” “Would you like to work now?” And I said, “No, thank you.” [laughs] But, um, let’s see now who we—well, I’ve covered my job, and my family, and, uh… Morris Well, how about your husband’s job? What kind of work did he do? Cook Railroad. We didn’t cover the railroad. Uh, he was working for the railroad when I started dating him. And he had—they would call me and say—he’d be off on a run and they would call me and say, “He’s going to have to go straight through to Tampa. Will you have a set of clean clothes and something for him to eat when he comes through?” So you go out, and the train comes in, and you hand him this, and hand him that, and off he goes. And then we had been on train trips where the railroad would do a lot for their employees. And one time they took us all the way on the train to Rainbow Springs, over in—up around the Gainesville area. A day trip. And out to, uh, there was another springs that we went to one time. But, um, it worked a lot better that, you know, that I was at home and him working at night. Because in the beginning, you know, if you’re starting at the bottom, you work whatever. But like he says, they always were on time paying you, and you never had to worry about the check not being any good. It was a busy thing. And not everybody can live railroading. That is a whole different lifestyle, because they are gone probably 75 percent of the time. And you never know day, or if they work the extra board, you don’t know day or night, where they’re going. When the telephone rings, that’s when you go to work. And I know, I guess about the worst thing that ever happened to him on the railroad, was, um, he came home one morning, and he was pretty shook up. And we were eating breakfast, and he told the kids that he had ran over a little girl that ran in front of the train. Morris Oh, no. Cook And, uh, he had about three different people, that, uh—he was coming out of Tampa one time, and a lady looked up at him and walked right in front of the train. And then, of course they put on emergency brake, you know, you can’t stop a train on a dime. Morris No. Cook I mean, if you get stopped in a mile, you’re doing good[sic], and that’s with air brakes and the whole business. And he said the woman came up and asked, he said, “What happened?” And he said, “Well, there was a young lady stepped in front of me just as I got to her.” And he said she said, “What was she wearing?” And Walter told her, and she said, “That was my daughter.” And, uh, he had about three of those, and they always—I mean, it’s hard. It happened to my son, too. When my oldest son, David, became old enough, he worked at the store for my daddy and all of us. And he went out to SCC [Seminole Community College], but he was not a student at all. He wouldn’t even let us pay for his books or anything, he said because, “If I don’t do good[sic], then you won’t say, ‘Well, I paid for all this.’” He said, “I paid for it myself.” [laughs] So every Wednesday when he got off, he would go to the railroad and ask them about a job, and this went on for quite some time, but he got a job and went to Jacksonville. So that happened to him. But when you work on the railroad, that it was one of the things. People, cars, things run out in front of you and there’s no way to stop. And you just never know. But it’s a well-paying job, and the benefits were great, and we just adjusted. Morris Okay. Cook We just adjusted to the whole thing, and didn’t have any problem. And then when, right before he retired, we, on our 40th wedding anniversary, we took a train from Sanford to Los Angeles[, California], and then we rented a car and went up to Portland, Oregon. And we went space available, which is like half-price if you’re on another railroad. And we stayed there a couple or three days. Portland is a wonderful city to visit. And he got up about three o’clock in the morning, and he said, “I’m going to call and see what they can do about getting us going home.” And he came back in a few minutes, and he said there’s a young lady, she says, “I can get you home, not the way want to go, but I can get you back home.” And he says, “All right, we’ll take it.” And she said, “It’ll take five days.” [laughs] And we had to go back to L.A., and up to Chicago[, Illinois], and over to Philadelphia[, Pennsylvania], to Richmond[, Virginia] to Sanford. [laughs] But we had bedrooms all the way, so that was not too bad. Morris Oh, okay. Cook But the clothes that I wore on that trip—I don’t think I ever had on again. I was so tired of them. Oh, let’s stop a minute. Morris Sure thing, ma’am. Ma’am, would you tell us a little more about your family? I know you mentioned your son in the railroad business briefly. Cook Uh, well, there was my husband Walter, and we had the three children. David was born in ’51, and Dan in ’53, and Sherry [Cook] in ’58. And now we have 10 grandchildren, and we have seven great-grandchildren. And just this past spring, in less than two months, we had three little girls born. Morris Triplets? Cook No. It seems that all of these children had finished college, gotten married, and they were all fairly close between the families, so all of them started having babies all at one time. [laughs] Morris Okay. Cook So we had four, and then all of a sudden three more. So we don’t have anything to even think about right now. [laughs] Morris Rushed up [inaudible] a horde of great-grandchildren. Cook Yes. So that has kept us very, very busy. My husband has been retired 16 years. And up until a few years ago, we spent part of every summer in North Carolina. And then we thought, after a while, that we had—well, when we first started going up, you know, there were a lot of people from Sanford, and we had our own little Sanford in North Carolina. And we would spend the summer up there and do all sorts of things, and then, you know, they had to move back home. They might have died, went somewhere else, and all of a sudden none of those people are up there anymore. So it has made a difference. But my oldest son David lives in The Villages, and that’s a very busy lifestyle and a whole lot of different way of living. Everybody travels in their golf cart, and if you want to be busy, there are a gillion[sic] things you can do. My son Dan died nine years ago, and my daughter Sherry lives in Carey, North Carolina. She works for the State of North Carolina. She spent nine years in the Marine Corps, and in that time married a Marine. Morris Oh, okay. She was in the Marines, then. Cook Yep. And she says, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” So she and her husband have four children, and David and his wife had four children, and Dan and his wife had two. So that was our 10 grandchildren, and trying to keep up with all of them wasn’t a problem when I was younger, and the older I get, the harder that is to do. And back in 2001, I—well, let me go back. Back in ’96, I had a total knee replacement. When I woke up, they told me I had a blip in my blood protein that had to be investigated. Well, I had no idea what a blip in my blood protein could mean to me. So finally, I said, “Well, what do I have to do?” “Well, we’re going to X-ray every bone in your body, and if you have holes in them, we will start treatment today.” I thought, “Wow.” Well, I had the X-ray, and there were no holes in my bones, so they said, “Now you have to have a bone marrow transplant.” No, not—bone marrow biopsy. And if it is clear, you just need to have your blood checked every six months.” Well, I had the biopsy, and I had my bones checked every six months. And they did the blood work, and every time, they said, “If you don’t hear from us, we’ll see you in six months.” This went on for five years. At the end of the fifth year in 2001, they called me back, and they said that they needed to do some testing. And after about the third test, I said, “Is it cancer?” And he said, “Without a doubt.” Morris What type of cancer was it, ma’am? Cook Multiple myeloma, which is a blood-borne cancer. But if it is let go, it causes the bones to crumble. And so they told me that if you did not treat it, or if it was not diagnosed and, you know, nothing—you had no symptoms or you didn’t go to the doctor for years, you could be walking along and you could break your arm, your leg, your neck, back, whatever. So they told me that I was very fortunate that I had been checked for five years, and so mine had just become to the point where I had to have, uh—take care of it. So I started on the chemo[therapy]. And I lost all my hair, which is always a big shock to women. But, uh, anyway—and then some of the medicines they gave me, years down the road, after you’d been taking them a while—four years—I discovered that one of the medicines had destroyed my jawbone. So I had went to a doctor in Miami. He was the only one in the world—he found out about it, he worked on it. He went in the lab and did the pharmacology and all. And last October, I have a titanium jawbone from my ear to the middle of my chin. Morris Titanium? Cook Titanium. Morris Chewing will never be a problem for you, ma’am. Cook [laughs] No. So, I’ve been in remission now about four years. Morris Okay. Cook And, uh, there’s no cure for multiple myeloma, but I’ll take remission. [laughs] And that’s where my energy went. [laughs] Morris Oh. Dealing with all the grandchildren got a little hard after that? Cook It got really difficult. So I wrote them a real sweet letter last year, and told them that I loved them all, that I would love to have them visit and all that, but I was going to, uh, I said, at Christmastime, I’ll always do the same thing. But all these birthdays and all, when you’re married, you know—we went from 10 to almost 20 real quick. And then they started having children. So I said, “I’m doing the great-grand[kid]s.” I will do those. And so far, none of them have complained. But, yeah, I kept asking the nurses when I was first diagnosed, oncology nurses, I said, “When will I get my energy back?” They said, “Some time you never do.” But I have been very blessed, because when I got on the computer and looked at what multiple myeloma was in 2001, I did not expect to be here. So I am very blessed. Morris Congratulations, ma’am. Cook And, so our family has grown. And Sanford has grown like you wouldn’t believe. And in every community—all the places where the mall is—was all agriculture. And, used to, you would go for miles and miles between Orlando and Sanford and see nothing. And now there’s not as bare space between the two. [laughs] So there has been a lot of change, not all of it for the better, but there’s a lot of blessings too. And I thank you. That was it. Morris All right. Thank you very much, ma’am. 1st Street Anthony, Dottie Von Turbulis artesian wells Austin, Louise bookkeepers cancers Carey, North Carolina Celery Avenue Chase & Company Columbus, Georgia Cook, Arthurene Wilson Cook, Sherry Cook, Walter courthouses divorces Downtown Sanford drafts elections Family Loan Company First Baptist Church of Sanford First Street Florida Fashions French Avenue Great Depression Historical Society of Central Florida hurricanes Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Longwood Magic Kingdom Maitland Morris, Joseph multiple myeloma Museum of Seminole County History Orange Avenue orlando Pearl Harbor, Hawaii railroads railways Sanford Sanford Civic Center Sanford, North Carolina Sanlando Springs Seminole High School SR 46 tax collectors Ted Davis Furniture Company The Villages trains Von Turbulis, Dottie voting Walt Disney World Wilson-Maier Furniture Company Wilson, Arthurene World War II WWII Wynwood, 25th Street https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/728e65523012d71068a9e389e9b7eddf.mp3 bf9cd47354a8b83b6a6107c6d59ec522 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/dfd1142290a11b6982aee5ee6fe60a5e.pdf d0527f01a610d68ad14544a29105a1c5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of John Louis Salsbury Alternative Title Oral History, Salsbury Subject Sanford (Fla.) Tampa (Fla.) Air Force Photography--Florida Space Shuttle Program (U.S.) Titusville (Fla.) Astronauts--United States Baseball--Florida Description An oral history of John Louis Salsbury, conducted by Joseph Morris on September 9, 2011. Salsbury was born in Tampa, Florida, but he has spent much of his life in Sanford. In the interview, Salsbury discusses his family's history, Port Tampa during the Spanish-American War, his service in the U.S. Air Force, photographing Space Shuttle launches and astronauts, how Sanford has changed over time, and the Florida Aviation Historical Society. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:21 Family history 0:01:52 Port Tampa and the Spanish-American War 0:04:15 Family history 0:08:17 Serving in the Air Force 0:11:31 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:11:32 President Richard M. Nixon 0:13:28 Moving to Sanford and photographing shuttle launches 0:17:17 Moonshiner’s shoe 0:20:22 Moving to Sanford 0:20:46 Photographing space shuttles and astronauts 0:32:49 Family history 0:45:10 How Sanford has changed over time 0:45:54 Grandparents and great-grandparents 0:58:02 Closing remarks 0:58:37 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:58:38 Florida Aviation Historical Society Abstract Oral history interview of John Louis Salsbury Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at Salsbury' home in Florida. Type Sound/Podcast Source Original 1-hour, 4-minute, and 54-second oral history: Salsbury, John Louis. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. September 9, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage South Park Avenue and West 9th Street, Sanford, Florida Port Tampa Dock, Port Tampa, Tampa, Florida Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, California Naval Air Station KeflavÃk, KeflavÃk, Iceland Homestead Air Reserve Base, Homestead, Florida John F. Kennedy Space Center, Titusville, Florida Disney-MGM Studios, Lake Buena Vista, Florida Creator Morris, Joseph Salsbury, John Louis Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-09-09 Date Modified 2014-09-10 Date Copyrighted 2011-09-09 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 665 MB 194 KB Medium 1-hour, 4-minute, and 54-second audio recording 19-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and John Louis Salsbury, and transcribed by Savannah Vickers. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.floridaahs.org/" target="_blank">Welcome!</a>" Florida Aviation Historical Society. http://www.floridaahs.org/. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank">Sanford</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Norman, Robert, and Lisa Coleman. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47770675" target="_blank">Tampa</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2001. Duggins, Pat. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/122701571" target="_blank">Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program</a>. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007. Transcript Morris This is an interview with John [Louis] Salsbury. This interview is being conducted on the 9th of September, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Mr. Salsbury, could you tell us your name? Salsbury Yes. I would like to do this as a means of preservation of my family history, and I hope I can do a good job. Anyway, I’d like to start with the year of 1893, when my great-grandparents and my grandfather moved here from Portsmouth, Ohio, by train. My great-grandfather was a master carpenter, and he lived here—the family lived here—on the corner of [West] Ninth Street and [South] Park Avenue—the southwest corner—for about two years. My grandfather [Louis Salsbury] was 19 years old, and he was employed as a railroad telegrapher at the Sanford Railroad Station on the west end of Ninth Street. In 1895, which was the year they moved away, my grandfather participated in a professional bicycle race—a 25-mile race that began in Downtown Orlando, when Orange Avenue was a dirt road, and ended there. My grandfather won the race. And after that they moved to Port Tampa, where my great-grandfather became a building contractor and was commissioned by Henry [B.] Plant to build a passenger terminal at the end of the railroad line there in Port Tampa, near Tampa. And steamships—the Mascotte and the Olivette—transported passengers from South America and Cuba to the United States. And they ported—they landed there at the docks. And the terminal building that my great-grandfather built was in use up until that passenger line ceased to operate, but the building remained to 1955. Also, just a year or two before the building was commenced, that terminal, Teddy [Theodore] Roosevelt, his Rough Riders [1st U.S. Volunteer Calvary] and officers, were among the soldiers and troops that were encamped in the Port Tampa area en route to the Spanish-American War. Teddy Roosevelt and his officers were hosted and remained in my doctor’s—in the Salsbury family doctor’s—home, which was located about a block from my grandparents’ home, and where my great-grandfather built. My grandfather joined the Army and participated in the Spanish-American War, and following that war, my great-grandfather was commissioned to also build a very famous wooden hotel in Bartow-Clearwater area, over near Clearwater. It’s still in use. It’s the Belleview Biltmore Resort. It’s a large wooden hotel, and it’s still in use today. Okay, after that, my grandfather married—and he was a telegrapher—and on the west coast at Palm Harbor, Florida, near the Gulf [of Mexico], and between Clearwater and Tarpon Springs, he married Rose Tinny—Rosalind Tinny. And my father [John Wright Salsbury, Jr.] was born in Port Tampa. My great-grandfather had built three homes there, and after my father graduated from high school in the year 1926, he found this moonshiner’s shoe. It was uncovered by a fire that had burnt some palmettos. My father found that—and they determined it belonged to the moonshiner. His name was Herndon, who was killed by the troops when he tried to steal corn from the soldiers encamped there for the Spanish-American War. Well, anyway, the left shoe that I have in my possession is in the Smithsonian Institution, and this right shoe I still retain.<a title="">[1]</a> Okay, in 1914, just before this—at the age of 12—my father and his sister, Mary, at age of five, flew on the world’s first passenger, scheduled passenger airline from St. Petersburg to Tampa. As a member of the Florida Aviation Historical Society, I’ve been through a lot of this and photographed a lot. I’m their photographer. Well, anyway, in 1914, my father and my aunt flew with Tony Janus, or the line pilot, from St. Petersburg to Tampa. This airline was in operation for three months and flew 1,205 passengers, and is actually on record as being the world’s first scheduled airline. My dad moved to—my dad and my mother—I was born in 1931 in Tampa, and my father and mother separated in ’41, and in 1941 we moved to Sanford and have resided in Sanford since. At least I have. My father was a railroad engineer with the Atlantic Coast Line [Railroad]. He had roomed with Cara Stenstrom, the mother of Douglas and Julian and Frank and Herb and Ruth Stenstrom—my stepbrothers and sister. Well, that year, or year around that time, the early 1940s, I recall having met Red Barber, the famous sports announcer’s father, there on the front porch. Okay, Red Barber, who actually went to school in Sanford and graduated from Sanford High School, went on to become the most famous sports announcer in baseball, football. All right. I went into the Air Force in 1949, upon graduating from the Seminole High School. I was a radar operator, and while in the service, I served in Alaska, Newfoundland, Iceland, and West Germany. But some of the highlights of my service, while I was—after I returned from Alaska in 1951, I was able—stationed in Norton Air Force Base in the Air Defense Control Center there. I was able to see many movie stars: Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball, Lana Turner, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Gregory Peck. I really enjoyed my time there at Norton, because I met all these people, and not only that, I made sure that I worked within the Air Control Center—gave me a ride, or I flew as the co-pilot in a twin-engine bomber trainer called a T-11. And while we were in operations, he was filing his flight plan—I was standing next to a tall gentleman at the counter, where he was filing a flight plan, and on this parachute he had draped over his shoulder was the word “Yeager. So I actually got a chance to see the famous Chuck Yeager, who broke the speed, the sound barrier. And outside was an experimental jet bomber, XB-43,—I remember they called it—and he was probably flying that at the time. Anyway, after we took off in this T-11, the major took control of the aircraft ‘til we went over Edward’s restricted area, or Edwards Air Force Base. And then he showed me how to use the radio compass, and I honed it in on Palmdale, where the space shuttles were built. Well, anyway, I took control, and he let me fly the T-11 up over L.A.—Los Angeles—Laguna Beach, Long Beach, all along the coast. And then, when he said we had to go back, he asked me if I thought I could find my way back, and I said, “I believe so.” So I honed in on the mountains there—San Bernardino right there at Norton—and headed back to Norton. And that was one of the most memorable flights I’ve ever taken. I really enjoyed that. All right, uh, upon—you may pause it just for a second. Morris Good to go, sir. Salsbury Okie doke. Another thing I’d like to comment on about an experience I had while in the Air Force, stationed in Iceland, President [Richard M.] Nixon stopped over there on the way to Russia, in Keflavík Air Field [Naval Air Station (NAS) Keflavík] in Iceland, and being in radar, I knew about it. So I was down there with my camera—my movie camera—and was able to get some shots of Admiral [Hyman G.] Rickover as he walked out of the plane—walked by. Nixon didn’t get out of the plane, nor did his wife [Pat Nixon]. Okay, then, when stationed—before my retirement in 1969, I was stationed at Homestead Air [Reserve] Base in South Florida, in radar again. I was electronic warfare NCOIC [Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge], and President Nixon was inaugurated and flew right into Homestead AFB [Homestead ARB] the next day, and I took my son and my daughter over to see him. Well, lo and behold, we were only, right at the front of the fence there at the tarmac there at Homestead, and the President walked directly to us and shook our hands, and it appeared on the front page of The Miami Herald the next morning. So I had a—we had a wonderful experience of meeting Richard Nixon and shaking hands with him. And then I retired shortly after Neil Armstrong put foot on the moon. Salsbury And I came—we moved back to Sanford, and bought a new home here in Sanford, and I became employed as a postal clerk over in Orlando for one year in the sectional center, and then transferred to Sanford, where for 16 years I was a letter-carrier. Riding a bicycle and a jeep, carrying mail in Sanford. Well, while in Sanford as a letter-carrier, I had been taking pictures of the first space shuttle launch from Titusville and the ones following that, and I was taking my film to Eckerd’s drugstore to have it processed. Through a questionnaire that I filled out, the Eckerd’s marketing management and headquarters in Clearwater called me one day. They asked if I would appear in a TV—television commercial for them. And from that, I was titled “The Shuttle Photographer,” and Eckerd’s produced and ran for a year and a half a commercial introducing their one-hour photo service. That helped me, in a way, get my foot in the door as becoming a press photographer at [John F.] Kennedy Space Center, to shoot the space shuttle launches up close. So from the end of ’91, I was credited as a press photographer with The Sanford Herald editor sponsoring me. And throughout the shuttle program, I served as a press photographer at the Space Center, covering the 30-year shuttle program. Just recently, in July—in July the 21st—the [Space] Shuttle Atlantis landed, and I was there on the end of the runway, and I captured the landing and the tow back of the space shuttle for the last time of Atlantis. Atlantis just happens to be a particular launch vehicle that I took in 1994, November the 3rd, that turned out to be my most successful space shuttle photograph. It hangs in the NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] Media [Resource] Center. A 30 x 40. It hangs in the Viera VA [Veterans Affairs] Hospital entrance. It hangs in museums, and it’s been purchased by a number of people over the years. So the STS-66 launch turned out to be my most successful space shuttle picture. And now that the shuttle program has ended, I devote my future photography Endeavors towards shooting wildlife. And here in Lake Mary—close to Sanford—I have some blinds set up, and I have wood duck nesting boxes, and I have been very successful in photographing Florida birds here, and will continue doing so. Thank you, Joe. Morris Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Salsbury. I have a few more questions if that is okay. Salsbury Fire away. Morris Okay, Mr. Salsbury. Earlier you mentioned about the shoe that your family member had found previously? Salsbury Right. That was my father. Morris Could you describe that? Yes, your father, sir. Could you tell—could you describe that for us? And then tell us what purpose that shoe was being used for? Salsbury Well, sure. I’d be glad to. Morris Thank you, sir. Salsbury Joe, this shoe that I’m showing you has a tin foundation, or a base, to it, and nailed to the bottom of this piece of tin are two wooden replicas of cows’ hooves, out of wood, carved by this moonshiner. And what the moonshiner would do—he—he was able to attach this to his shoes and conceal his tracks as he went to and from his still, which was located near my family home in Port Tampa, Florida, Hillsborough County. And a fire had really exposed this to my father. It was wrapped—the shoes, the pair of shoes—were wrapped up in a newspaper and was charred, but was exposed when the fire burnt these palmettos along the roadway, which is now in Trask Avenue in Tampa, Florida. T-R-A-S-K. Anyway, when my father opened the package up, here was this pair of overshoes used by moonshiner by the name of Herndon in Port Tampa, to go to and from his still. This moonshiner was later shot to death when he attempted to steal grain—sacks of grain—from the soldiers camped in the area, or en route to the Spanish-American War from Port Tampa to Cuba, where they embarked from Port Tampa. They determined—they found out they were having sacks of grain stolen from them, or missing, so they set up a trap. And actually they caught the guy, and they shot him. But apparently he wasn’t wearing these shoes, and he had these hidden just to go to and from his still. And that’s how come I ended up—the right shoe I have, and I’m showing you at this time. The left shoe, in 1926, was given to the Smithsonian Institution and appeared in The St. Louis [Post-]Dispatch with a picture of it telling that it’s in the museum. I have been unable to locate that copy of The St. Louis Dispatch that I had. I don’t know what happened to it. But anyway, I do know that one shoe was in the Smithsonian Institution. Morris Well, thank you. That’s a very interesting piece you have there, sir. Salsbury Thank you. Morris Another question I have is—you said 1941<a title="">[2]</a> you moved to Sanford? Salsbury 1941.<a title="">[3]</a> Morris Who did you move with, sir? Salsbury My father, my sister, Rosemary [Salsbury], and I. The three of us. Morris Okay, sir. And your sister, is she currently living in Sanford, or... Salsbury No, she lives on the west coast, over near Tarpon Springs. Morris Okay, sir. And you said, you were describing earlier your experiences working as a press photographer for The Sanford Herald. Salsbury Right. Morris Do you have any more experiences that you’d like to share about that, any kind of experiences working at the—as opposed to just taking photographs… Salsbury The only experiences I have—and one is very interesting ‘cause it deals with Seminole County. As a press photographer, I was given quite a lot of extra photo possibilities. There was a launch of [Space Shuttle] Endeavor—and I don’t recall just what mission it was at the time—but when I boarded the bus to go with an escort to go there to photograph it with my telescope, she handed out a sheet of paper that listed the dignitaries—the important events that was gonna be there at this event site that I had wanted to shoot from. One of them was Alan Shepard, who was the first American astronaut to go into space. All right. She told—I asked her if she’d point him out to me or help me find him. I wanted to get a picture of him. She said, “I could do better than that. I could have your picture taken with him.” So she did that, and they used my camera. And I sent the photo to Houston[, Texas]—to him—and he autographed it and returned it to me, and in turn I gave—I left one with him. But I told him in the letter something very interesting that I found out. My classmate in 1949, Bettye Ball [Deadman] from Lake Mary, lived a short distance from Alan Shepard’s grandparents. Alan Shepard used to spend his summer vacations from Connecticut or New Hampshire in Lake Mary. He spent him out there, in his vacations, and his grandparents. One day he was missing, and they couldn’t find him. He was found on the Ball—Bettye, my classmate’s family’s—dining room table eating a banana. And so I told him about this in the letter, and he got a charge out of it. But anyway, my stepbrother, Doug Strenstrom—Douglas Stenstrom—is the one that told me first that Alan Shepard had a connection with Lake Mary and Seminole County. And then, when I found that out, I was talking to Bettye Ball and she told me about the banana incident. And so, it so happens that Alan Shepard enjoyed a lot of his school summers, if not most of them, right here in Lake Mary, Seminole County. So, anyway, I got a chance to meet him. Not only that—another thing I want to tell you, an interesting thing happened. I wasn’t a press photographer at the time but I had an eight-inch telescope, and I took this with me to shoot from Titusville the first launch of the space shuttle—STS-1 [Space Shuttle] Columbia. And the picture I took, turned out I shot into the sun, but I got a fairly good picture. For a color picture, it turned out black and white. But anyway, I got a good picture. Well, The Orlando Sentinel team saw me, and they took a picture of me with my nephew, Troy Hickson, from Lake Mary, as we were photographing with my telescope. And this was published and in The Sentinel. Well, there was a time when I wasn’t—later on, when I wasn’t a press photographer, but I was shooting from the NASA Causeway with my telescope, and the gentleman told me I needed press credentials to get up close and get better pictures. So little wheels started turning in my head as to how I could bring this about. First thing I thought about doing was calling this photographer that had photographed me at the first launch over in Titusville at The Sentinel in Orlando. So I called, and they couldn’t use me in Orlando on the team, but he suggested something that really did it for me. And he suggested that I get a hold of the public affairs people at NASA, at Kennedy, and request a freelance pass—a pass as a freelance photographer. Well, I did this, and that allowed me to start getting passes to put my camera up remotely. I’d put my camera out right next to the shuttle, and using another man’s trigger at first—and finally I knew how to do it and I finally bought the equipment and did it on my own. But anyway, the sound after the solid rockets are fired triggers your camera, and you’re nowhere near it. You’re sitting there anchored down, but it’s up close to it. So that’s how I got my best pictures was in that manner. Okay, after that first launch on the 12th of April of 1981, there was an air show. It went to Sanford Airport. And I took my son out there, and I had my camera along to shoot the show. And a friend of mine who had a shoe store in Sanford, Donald Knight—well known in Sanford—and he was a flight instructor and a pilot, and he was at front of operations prepping a Cessna for flight. And I walked up and commenced talking to him this day. This is after the launch of the shuttle. And he said, “Do you know whose plane that is next to me?” And I said, “No.” He said, “That’s Neil Armstrong.” I waited until Neil Armstrong came out and his family came out of the operations and got in their plane, and took pictures of this, and got some good pictures of Neil Armstrong. He left there and nobody, of all these people there—the thousands of people at the air show—knew he was there, I think. He taxied out and took off before the air show. So I got pictures of Neil Armstrong. Another incident, having been with press credentials and having put my remote cameras out for the launch of John Glenn—STS-95—I was able to get a picture and he posed for me. And this was Buzz Aldrin, who stepped on the moon. And I also got pictures of several of the other astronauts, the one in STS-13—I mean not STS-13—the Apollo 13. And Gordon Cooper. Now, not only that, over the years, I was able to meet and become friends with different astronauts, but one of the highlights of my time over there too took place when I was working part-time at [Walt] Disney World, [Disney-]MGM Studios.<a title="">[4]</a> I purchased a little lapel pin of Buzz Lightyear. Well, I had a taken a nice shot of the STS-61 launch of [Space Shuttle] Endeavor, that Story Musgrave was mission specialist of, and did a spacewalk to repair the Hubble [Space] Telescope. Well, my pictures came out so good. I made Christmas cards out of them, put “Merry Christmas,” “Happy New Year,” and all that on them, and I sent them to each one of the crew members in Houston, so when they landed, they would get Christmas card greetings at their launch. Well, I got responses from Kathy Thornton and different ones with autographed pictures of all of them and all that. But six months later, I get a telephone call from Story Musgrave—Dr. Story Musgrave—who did the spacewalk repair on the Hubble telescope and was on the mission. He commented to me, he said, “That’s the best night launch picture I’ve seen. Would you make transparencies for me so I can use them in my lectures?” And he called me back later and asked me how much it was and all that. He wanted to pay for it. I didn’t want him to pay for it, but he sent me a check and paid for it. I asked him, I said, “Story, would you take a little Buzz Lightyear pin in space for me in your next mission coming up in September?” Or November. And that was STS-80. He called me back later and said, “Send it on.” He had room. He could take it. So Story Musgrave took a little Buzz Lightyear pin for me on the STS-80 mission of Columbia that ended up being the longest space shuttle mission flown, 17 days. When they returned, it took me two years to get it back. But I got it back, and it was still packaged and in the plastic, and it was accompanied by a certificate of authentication signed by Story Musgrave, telling that “this space,”—oh, “this lapel pin of Buzz Lightyear,”—or something to this effect—“was carried aboard Columbia for John Salsbury,” and so on. So I got this wonderful document to see that by. So that kind of sums up some of the most important things that I remember as highlights doing my space shuttle photography over 30 years. I was able to meet a lot of the good ones, and one of them was Tom Jones, and I’m still in touch with him. Most, many of these pictures I have, like the one of STS-96—it shows shooting into the rising sun and everything, Rick Husband, who was killed when the Columbia exploded, he was the pilot of that one. And I’ve got a beautiful picture of that, autographed by the pilot, Kent Romminger. So, a lot of my pictures, even the one with John Glenn’s launch, turned out. I sent it to him. He autographed it for me. I’ve got the picture of John Glenn going up autographed. I’ve got all these autographs on my pictures over there. And my room looks like a museum itself. Morris Sir, that’s impressive. Salsbury Thank you. But that’s about it, in a nutshell, I think. Morris Well, sir, could you tell me a little bit about your family? Salsbury Well, I think I told you, let me, my great-grandfather’s name was John Wright Salsbury I. He was married to Addie—A-D-D-I-E—Burke Salsbury, and they moved here with their son, my grandfather—later grandfather—Louis Salsbury, to Sanford in 1893, as I mentioned earlier. My dad moved up here upon my mother and father’s separation in 1941. We moved to Sanford from Port Tampa, and that’s when I joined the Stenstrom-Salsbury family, or we were joined, and of course, Douglas and Julian are well-documented in their contributions here in Seminole County. And Frank, he married Henry Took—Harry [Patricia] Took—excuse me, who was a millionaire that owned a lot of groves. And he took care of the groves, my stepbrother did, Frankie. And then Herb was a realtor. He was the other stepbrother, and Herb passed away a young man due to lung cancer. But he married Carolyn Patrick, and the Patricks own a packing—a fruit business of citrus and citrus-packing groves and so forth. And my stepsister, Ruth, she married a young man that was—became a—he was an umpire in baseball—professional games, but then later became a—they moved to Cocoa Beach and he was on the City Council and he was a postmaster over there at Cocoa Beach, about the time when the Apollo program was going on. And Ruth—no, Julian, was a sports announcer and writer for [The Sanford Herald], he announced for Red WTRR Sanford, a radio station, and he wrote for the columns for The Sanford Herald. And he wrote a lot of them about “Way Back Then”—they titled it—and I have copies of those. He had a wonderful memory and recall of sports. He mentioned—he brought a light that Buddy Lake from Lake Monroe, in Sanford—and Lake Mary, in the Sanford area—a ball player, ended up in the hall of fame from Julian’s efforts. He found out that Buddy had led hitting and pitching at one time, and this was something that hadn’t been done before. This was back when he played for Florida State League. And Julian also brought out the fact that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier here in Sanford at the Sanford ballpark when he was playing for the [Brooklyn] Dodgers. Julian and I—well, Julian became an official in the Southern Baptist brotherhood out in California, in Bakersfield, and I was stationed at Norton Air Force Base in the ‘50s. He and I attended a professional spring training ballgame between the Cincinnati Reds and another team I don’t recall. And Julian and I were sitting on the third base bleacher line there in the stands, and I was sitting maybe ten feet away from a gentleman with a cigar in his mouth. And Julian asked me if I knew who that was. He said, “That’s Branch Rickey.” So Branch Rickey is one of the two people that Red Barber dedicated his book, Walking in the Spirit, to. A great book. It’s in the museum in Sanford. It was given to Julian by Douglas. Anyway, Red Barber mentions—no, Julian wrote an article about Red Barber that I have as well too, and it was published in the Sanford paper, telling about Red Barber’s ball playing and his living here in Sanford. So, I can’t think right offhand of a lot of the highlights that Julian brought out. But anyway, they’re well-documented and covered in articles he wrote for the paper while he was there. Oh, another thing, myself and my younger stepbrother, Frank, and my classmates, John Keeling and Richard McNab—Keeling just passed away and he was a retired colonel in the Army. Worked in the Pentagon. And Richard McNab—retired colonel—Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, who flew B-47 reconnaissance aircraft. He’s living in Ocean Springs right now. And we all were on the American Legion baseball team in 1948. On March the 16th of 1948, Babe Ruth came to Sanford. Julian was the announcer, the master of ceremonies. Carl Hubble was there, John Krider, and Julian, and the mayor, Mayor Williams. Julian introduce a number of the people there, but the mayor actually introduced Babe Ruth. And I was there, and my other members played on the American Legion we had at the time. Babe Ruth signed baseballs for all of us, and we were given these baseballs signed by Babe Ruth. Well, anyway, the wonderful thing happened was that Julian and all of the commentary and all the narration or the talking that was done, even Babe Ruth’s voice, was recorded on a recorder—on a platter, a record, by someone. Well, Julian, my stepbrother, ended up having a copy of that, and he found it before passing away. And we transferred that over to an audio tape, from there to a VHS tape, and now I have it on DVD. We have Babe Ruth’s actual voice, which was eight months to the day before he died, when he was here in Sanford and honored in Sanford. So that about covers everything, Joe. Morris How about your immediate family? Salsbury Oh, I’m sorry. I have two children. My wife was from Lake Mary. Her name was Yvonne Eubanks, and she passed away five years ago today, on September 9, 2006, here in Sanford Hospital. She had diabetes and her kidneys gave out on her. We have two children. My son is a lieutenant in the fire department, Lake Mary, and my daughter has moved to Tennessee. She was married to Bill Von Herbulis and had a daughter then. And her daughter, Jessica [Frana], well, anyway, later married. But before that my daughter remarried Steve Frana. His father’s friend owned Tube Tech. It’s a stainless steel plant here in Sanford. And there’s a connection. My son-in-law, Steve, actually made all the space shuttle hinges for their payload doors right here in Sanford. So it goes back to the space program. But anyway, Steve’s father’s passed on now, but my daughter and Jessica—her daughter by her first husband—they all moved to Tennessee, and have a 45-acre farm up in Tennessee, real nice farm. And Steve had already had four children, two boys and two girls. So then—well, anyway, the total grandchildren I have now are nine, seven by my daughter and two by my son, and I have four great-grandchildren up in Tennessee. And, well, I’m living alone now. And in my latter years, I’m trying to get my family history together, and what we’re doing today, Joe, will help out very much. Morris Well, we definitely appreciate it, sir. Salsbury Thank you. Morris Just one final question, just ‘cause we’re greedy for history. Salsbury Did I mention my daughter’s name? Morris Ah, just in case, repeat, sir. Salsbury I don’t think I did. My son’s name was Terrence Wade Salsbury. He’s the Lieutenant in the Lake Mary fire department. My daughter’s name is Gale—G-A-L-E, not G-A-I-L, but G-A-L-E—Salsbury Frana—F-R-A-N-A. And, oh, one thing I failed to mention is very important. My daughter’ s first child, Jessica, she’s graduated from Wake Forest [University] and from University of Tennessee. She married a Pete Exline, who was a captain in the U.S. Army. Pete was a graduate of [The United States Military Academy at] West Point. His home was Jacksonville. Pete was sent to Iraq for a year, and upon returning from Iraq, he was put in the university, or Georgia Tech [Georgia Institute of Technology], for nuclear physics training, schooling. And from there and today, he has already started. He is an instructor at West Point, instructing nuclear physics. So my grandson-in-law, whatever, my grandson is teaching nuclear physics at West Point right now. So now you got my end of it. [laughs] Morris I do, sir. Can you describe the differences from Sanford and the local area now, than it was when you saw it in your earlier days, sir? Salsbury Well, from what I remember mostly, you couldn’t go to a restaurant or practically anywhere without running into people you knew. It was a tight area here, and we knew so many people. And I enjoyed growing up here in Sanford. Throughout my life, oh—there is something I want to mention. Morris Okay. Salsbury My grandmother—her great-great-grandfather—now because she married, her father was a Tinny in Clearwater, and they were very wealthy, and the family had owned most of what is Downtown Clearwater right now, at the time. Well anyway, her mother was a daughter of a Anna Frank Bellamy. Now, her grandfather was a William Bellamy, the son of Abraham Bellamy, who was one of the first legislators of the state of Florida when it became a state. He was on the committee that wrote the first Florida constitution, and is a signatory of the first Florida constitution, which was, hell. And my grandmother’s uncle, who was a Bellamy—John Bellamy—he paved a road between Tallahassee and St. Augustine, and parts of it is still there with his name on it. And one of the Bellamys also had paved the way for the first railroad line between Port St. Joe in Tallahassee before the other railroad lines in Florida. And the Bellamys owned a plantation. Plantations were among the wealthiest people in the state of Florida at the time, and Madison County, up near Tallahassee, is where they’re buried. But the Bellamys are distant ancestors of mine through my grandmother. Morris Wow, sir. Salsbury I didn’t want to miss that because I wanted to get that in there somewhere. But my grandmother’s—one of my grandmother’s sisters—well, I’ll go a little further. One of my grandmother’s sisters, she was blind in her old age, but she married a Leslie Evie. Her name was Ebie Evie, and she was a Ebie Tinny Evie. Anyway, she and her husband owned what ended up to be a sort of a hotel later, but it was a boarding house and a post office and a waiver point for ships going down the west coast of Florida. And they stopped in there for provisions and so forth—before Tampa was a Tampa, before St. Petersburg was a St. Petersburg. Back in those days, it was one of the big stops along the way. So my aunt—my great-aunt, Ebie—she even hosted a Russian hierarchy woman that was in the hierarchy of the Russian—in the Russians. Anyway—but when she was a little girl. They were born—my aunt, grandmother, and her sisters, my great-aunts—they were born in a log cabin at Curlew, on Curlew Creek right there next to Dunedin, between Clearwater and Tarpon Springs in a little town called Dunedin. Curlew’s where they were born in a log cabin. Well, as a young girl, my grandmother’s sister was farmed out to live with a surgeon at Fort Brook in Tampa—before there was a Tampa—the fort there. So this surgeon and his wife raised Ebie as a little girl there, before she got married, anyway, for a number of years. So Fort Brook, in now-Tampa, was involved in all this. And then, another sister of my grandmother’s, who was a Tinny—born over there at that log cabin, Ira Wood. Ira Wood was her name, after her married name—Ira Tinny Wood. She and Ebie are two people that are very dear to my memory, because I would spend my school years in Sanford, all my summers over there swimming and scalloping and fishing at my grandparents’ there in Ozona, where they lived. And I spent an awful lot of time at their house. My Aunt Ira, her kitchen always smelled like a bakery, or had smell of those cookies, or something baked in there. I’ll never forget it. And then Ebie, she always sat on the front porch at 1981 High Alder, right by their house, and she’d sit on the porch since she was blind. But so many people, and I’m one of them, enjoyed just sitting there talking to her on that screened porch over the years. And, now, Aunt Ira, who was one of the sisters I was telling you about, of my grandmother, she had a son named Duane—William Duane Wood. That was the name of her husband, but this was William Duane II, and we called him Duane. He and my father were very close, and they grew up together, and he was a naval pilot in World War II. And after he got out of the Navy, he wasn’t a fighter pilot, but he was in the Navy, and he gave me a ride in a Piper Cub he had with floats, there in Ozona. Gave me my first sea plane ride. But anyway, he was hired by the Department of Interior—United States Department of Interior—to oversee Sanibel, the island down there. He lived by the lighthouse, and they provided him an airplane and a launch, and he protected the island from the turtles that, you know, nested there, and different things. He flew up and down the coast and provided samples of water. Anyway, before he died—and I was with him when he passed away over in Tarpon Springs, with my aunt—now that was my aunt that flew in the first airline. But anyway, my uncle<a title="">[5]</a>, Duane Wood, he contributed and helped build the flying model, the Benoist model XIV, which was the air boat that Tony Janus flew in 1914. And then our president—remember I’m in the Florida Aviation Historical Society—and our president’s gone now, but he flew in 1984, he flew over the same route—this re-model, flying model of the original airplane that flew back in 1914. He flew it over that route, and it’s all documented. And afterwards, it ended up in a museum near Clearwater, and Russell [St.] Arnold, who was a director in the Florida Aviation Historical Society and the primary person responsible for building this flying replica, is the one that gave me my membership and introduced me. I happened to be over showing some videotapes of air shows at Daytona and around to my uncle, Duane, while he was bedridden in Tarpon Springs before he died. Russell [St.] Arnold was there, called him over, and I was able to meet him. And I found out that Duane was instrumental in helping build, or contributing money, contributing something, I don’t what he contributed to the building of this air boat. Now, in 1991—I think it was, ’90 or ’91—before he died, Russell [St.] Arnold invited myself and my aunt to go see this flying model in the museum. And it was sitting on the floor at the time, and Russ said, “John, get in.” I said, “I can’t do that. That’s a museum piece.” He said, “Well, it’s mine. I guess you can!” I got in there, and he took a photograph of me standing next to it with my aunt standing beside it, and I have a good picture of that. So now, today, the model—that flying model of the Benoist model XIV flying boat—hangs in the museum in St. Petersburg, at the million dollar pier right there at their historical museum, and they’ve got mannequins in the cockpit up there. But not long ago, a Nicole Stott, who was from Clearwater, flew on the space shuttle as a mission specialist. She carried the banner that flew on the first Benoist model XIV, or on that flight—first flight—with Tony Janus in 1914. She took that aboard the space shuttle, and it’s been returned, and now, if you looked at the airplane hanging in the museum, you’ll see that banner up there that she flew in the space shuttle. Not only that, there’s another connection if you want to hear it, about that. Morris Of course, sir. Salsbury Okay. I didn’t know it, but being a member of the Florida Aviation Historical Society, I knew Ed Hoffman[, Sr.], who was a man that started our society, and was instrumental in building this too, and all that with our president. He passed on here a while back, the day before he was supposed to be inducted into Florida Aviation’s hall of fame. And, anyway, his son, Eddie [Hoffman]—Ed was an architect in San—uh, Tarpon Springs. And he did the interior decoration for the famous—world-famous—Pappas [Riverside] Restaurant. It was over at Tarpon Springs. But anyway, his son, Eddie, is a pilot and he has his own plane, and he’s an architect, and he and I are in communication with each other. And he sent me an e-mail a while back. And it so happened that Nicole Stott and her father—or at least the family—were friends of the Hoffmans—my friends. And Nicole Stott’s father was an aerobatic pilot. He liked flying aerobatics. Well, he took up one of the Hoffman’s flying boots[?], and somehow it crashed into a seawall and he drowned sometime back. And so, uh, that was a tragic ending there. But Nicole Stott, his daughter, ended up being a, uh, shuttle mission specialist, and flying a mission—a few missions back. So I just wanted to mention that. Morris Ah. Thank you very much, sir. Do you have anything else you’d like to discuss before we wrap things up? Salsbury You know, things were out of context and not chronologically spoken. But I’m glad I remembered the things that I did, and I only want to close by saying that photography has meant so much to me now, and I’m enjoying my days now using a digital Nikon camera that I use for the shuttle and getting wonderful wildlife pictures here in Seminole County. Morris Thank you so much for coming today, sir. Salsbury Okay. Morris Really appreciate that. Salsbury Thank you. Morris Okay, go ahead. Salsbury Okay. Something I want to add. In early 1994, Florida Aviation Historical Society’s president, Ed Hoffman, Sr., asked me to get together photographs of the Cape [Canaveral] area—Kennedy, Cape Kennedy—to go in Florida Aviation History in Pictures. It’s going to be made into an exhibit for the Florida Aviation Museum [Florida Air Museum] in Lakeland. And he gave me the assignment of handling the Cape. So, I had contacted Washington[, D.C.] and Houston and obtained the transparencies I needed to have prints made. And I—well, later—and this was on April the 11th of ’94—the SUN ‘n FUN air show was going on, and they closed the museum there at Lakeland [Linder Regional] Airport to have a dedication ceremony for our exhibit that the Florida Aviation Historical Society put on—Florida Aviation in Pictures. And so, I attended that, and I had my camera, and I was photographing our president, Hoffman, as he was at the podium, and the director of the SUN ‘n FUN started identifying celebrities or people in the crowd. And he mentioned Curtis Brown, and I lit up and knew immediately who it was. I turned, and I went straight, I left the podium and went straight to him, and I asked him if he would pose for me in front of the exhibit I put together on the Cape, there in the museum. And he did. He posed with me and the president in there, and I didn’t know at the time, but Curt Brown also carried aloft on his mission, STS-66, later. A few months later, he carried aloft a decal and a document from the museum, the SUN ‘n FUN museum. Now it’s the Florida Aviation Museum. So, as it turned out, I got a chance to meet him and talk with him, and he recalled getting a picture from me of one of the launches when he was at CAPCON, one of the controllers of a mission at Houston. Okay. I told Astronaut Brown that if I got good a picture at his launch, I would send it to him and ask him to autograph it, and so forth. As it turned out, November the 3rd of that year, it was the best picture I’ve ever taken. And I set up two cameras, same location, just to be—to try to get a good picture, and it turned out that way. It’s done very well for me. In fact, a 30 x 40 is hanging in that Florida Aviation Museum now, in Lakeland, as well as in the Viera Hospital, Viera Hospital over here on the coast, near Kennedy. And then the Kennedy Space Center Media Center, and different places. Anyway, Curt Brown later was the commander of the mission that flew John Glenn back into space. And, well, I want to back up just a few days, because that dedication ceremony took place on the 11th of April of 1984. On the 8th of April of, just a few days earlier, STS-59 Endeavor was to launch on the 8th. And I was out at the fire training tower in the boonies, which was actually about four miles from the pad where the shuttle was. I was out there getting ready to photograph the launch, and up these metal stairs came Ronald Howard, Opie [Taylor] of The Andy Griffith Show, and now a director, producer—anyway, a movie star. His wife and daughter, along with Tom Hanks and his wife. And NASA escorts had brought them up there right beside me, to where I was shooting from. Well, I had a very powerful pair of binoculars—ten power—and they only weighed about nine ounces—Pentax—and I decided to let them use them to look at the shuttle from where we were. And that was the 8th of April, and that day, the shuttle was scrubbed and didn’t go up. But the next day, Tom Hanks couldn’t come with his wife. They had to go back or they couldn’t make it, but Ron Howard walked up to the stairs with his wife and daughter, came straight to me, and said, “Your binoculars are on the front page of The Orlando Sentinel this morning.” Here Tom Hanks is with my binoculars, looking at the shuttle. Well anyway, I let Ron Howard have my binoculars so they could use them to look at the launch. Well, I photographed it, and he let his daughter use them, and they stood right next to me as the shuttle actually launched on the 9th of April. Well, I told Ron Howard—in fact, I brought the picture of him next to me, I brought that up and he autographed it right on the spot. But I told him that I knew the pilot, Curt Brown—no, Kevin Chilton, I want to back up there. The pilot then was Kevin Chilton. I knew the pilot and I would have an autographed picture sent to him for his daughter, and I did that later. I got a NASA photo, 8 x 10, and had Chilton autograph it, and I sent it to Ron Howard. But, having a chance to meet Ron Howard and Tom Hanks and everything there, for a launch, was a highlight that I don’t want to forget. You can pause if you want to. <div> <div> <a title="">[1]</a> Note: These are “over shoes.” Two wooden shaped cow hooves attached to a metal base that would appear to leave cow hoof prints. </div> <div> <a title="">[2]</a> Correction: 1942. </div> <div> <a title="">[3]</a> [3] Correction: 1942. </div> <div> <a title="">[4]</a> Salsbury worked at Disney-MGM Studios from 1995 to 2000. </div> <div> <a title="">[5]</a> Correction: cousin. </div> </div> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/files/original/728e65523012d71068a9e389e9b7eddf.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of John Louis Salsbury</a> 1st U.S. Volunteer Calvary 9th Street Abraham Bellamy Addie Burke Addie Burke Salsbury Addie Salsbury Air Defense Control Center Al Shepard Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. Alan Shepard American Legion Anna Frank Bellamy Apollo 13 astronauts Babe Ruth Ball, Bettye baseballs Belleview Biltmore Resort Bettye Ball Bettye Ball Deadman Bettye Deadman Bill Von Herbulis Brown, Curtis Buddy Lake Burke, Addie Buzz Aldrin Buzz Lightyear Cape Canaveral Cara Stenstrom Carolyn Patrick Carolyn Patrick Stenstrom Chilton, Kevin Chuck Yeager Clearwater Curlew Curlew Creek Curtis Broke Disney-MGM Studios Donald Knight Douglas Stenstrom Dunedin Ebie Tinny Ebie Tinny Evie Eckerd Ed Hoffman, Sr. Eddie Hoffman Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr. Florida Air Museum Florida Aviation Historical Society Florida Aviation in Pictures Fort Brook Frank Stenstrom Gale Frana Gale Salsbury George Herman Ruth, Jr. Harry Took Henry B. 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S. Air Force Walt Disney World Walter Lanier Barber William Bellamy William Duane Wood, Jr. William Duane Wood, Sr. Wood, Ira Tinny WTRR Sanford Yvonne Eubanks Yvonne Eubanks Salsbury Yvonne Salsbury https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/3c62ab5226c0162840778fca22563c72.mp3 8b8bac30d1abdbc765005669668d9dcf https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/523e8a6a70e534b3685c4e331f44e28a.pdf 2224edda291f25627abc520209bde702 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Morris, Joseph Interviewee Morgan, Charlie Location <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida Bit Rate/Frequency 1411kbps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Charlie Morgan Alternative Title Oral History, Morgan Subject Sanford (Fla.) African Americans--Florida Oranges--Florida Citrus--Florida Agriculture--Florida Segregation--Florida Construction Race relations--United States Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Celery Civil rights movements--United States Description An oral history of Charlie Morgan, conducted by Joseph Morris on September 21, 2011. Morgan was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1940, but migrated to Bookertown, an African-American community in Sanford, Florida. In the interview, Morgan discusses life in Bookertown, working in the agriculture and construction industries, segregation and race relations in Sanford, moonshine, civil rights, serving in the military during the Vietnam War, how Bookertown and Sanford have changed over time, and Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955). Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction and Bookertown 0:02:26 Working on farms 0:05:24 Segregation in education and sports 0:08:03 Farmers in Georgia 0:11:11 Picking oranges 0:15:08 Working in construction 0:16:12 Parents and sister 0:16:49 Bolita and moonshine 0:18:07 Race relations in Sanford 0:22:49 Personal hygiene 0:24:51 Potbellied stoves 0:27:42 Television 0:29:46 Civil rights 0:33:34 Spirituality in the African-American community 0:34:48 Race and socio-economics 0:36:22 Picking apples and cherries 0:39:40 Military service and the draft 0:55:12 Life after military service 0:56:20 Wife and children 0:56:20 Community involvement and civil rights 1:01:56 Charlie Carson 1:03:41 Plans for the future 1:04:15 How Bookertown and Sanford have changed over time 1:11:15 Mary McLeod Bethune 1:13:48 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Charlie Morgan Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Type Sound/Podcast Source Original 1-hour, 14-minute, and 22-second oral history: Morgan, Charlie Interviewed by Joseph Morris. September 21, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Albany, Georgia Bookertown, Sanford, Florida Ace Theatre, Sanford, Florida Ritz Theatre, Sanford, Florida Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Vietnam Creator Morris, Joseph Morgan, Charlie Date Created 2011-09-21 Date Modified 2014-09-14 Date Copyrighted 2011-09-21 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 750 MB 212 KB Medium 1-hour, 14-minute, and 22-second audio recording 23-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Charlie Morgan. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank">Sanford</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Flewellyn, Valada S. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/320804616" target="_blank">African Americans of Sanford</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009. Transcript Morris This is an interview with Charlie Morgan. This interview is being conducted on the 21st of September, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Would you care to tell us about yourself, Charlie Morgan? Morgan Well, I was raised in the Lake Monroe area—a little community called Bookertown. It was established in 1926 by three white men and one black preacher. At that time, we couldn’t live among white people. We lived on the back side of the farms, in the little shanties. We didn’t have doorknobs. We had just a wooden latch to close the door. We were so poor that we didn’t have anything to steal. You had a little one room shack, and you took a sheet and made two rooms out of it. You had a wooden stove. You had to chop wood daily to cook our foods with. We had a little oven in the wood stove, and we had lamplight. We had wooden windows to the little shanty. We had to walk maybe a thousand meters to get water to heat up on the stove so we can take a bath. And we had to carry water for to drink, and water in—we had it in a bucket to keep. And we didn’t have a refrigerator. We had what they called an icebox, where you get about 25, 50 pounds and put it in there. It’ll last about a day and a half, two days, to put our foods on, our perishable foods. So those days we would have to hunt wood. The bottom—the roots of a pine tree, we called it lighter knots. And it’s the sap coming out of the bottom of the wood, and it would burn fast. And that’s what we’d start the fire with. And had oak wood to keep it going. So—and then, our parents would work on the farms, and we thought it was just farms all over the world. It’s just all we knew—farms. You know, we’d need us a cabbage, we’d go out in the backyard and get a cabbage. There’s a field right out there. Corn. And this one white guy was—he was trying to, you know, live a little bit better. He had him a cantaloupe farm. He got me to work with him, and so I worked with him. And he had to go somewhere while I picked the cantaloupes, and when he got back, I gave him the time I had worked. And he didn’t—I knew he didn’t have much money before, from the way he told me. He said, “Oh, no. That’s too much time. Too much time.” I said, “You told me to keep the time.” “Too much money. Too much money.” And I knew that he was trying to make it, like a, you know—but I couldn’t tell him that, because I wanted to make the little money. We wasn’t making that much money. We’d work on the farm, and the kids would get 40 cents an hour, and the ladies would get 50 cents an hour, working on the farm. And the men, if they were driving the tractors and stuff, they’d get 60 cents an hour. So, I wasn’t much of a farm boy. You know, they had okra and cabbage and stuff to cut out. I mean, I could—after they packed the bags, I could throw them on the trucks, something like that. But cutting the okra, you know, I tried to cut it with one hand. That’s the way they used to do it. And I was cutting the tops out the okra. [laughs] He told my mom—said, “Send him home. I won’t have no more okra if he’s cutting all the tops off.” [laughs] So those are some of the things that we went through. And there was a gentleman who we rented the house for $6 month—the standard little shanties. And we’d go up to their house. He had a big, nice house. He had lights in it and all this, and said to myself [?], “They’re rich,” you know. He had—he was a tall, slim, lean white guy, had a big brim hat, and he was—well, we said, “Mr. Buchanan.” We called him “buck-cannon.” “Mr. Buchanan, can we get some of those tangerines?” He said, “Yes. Get you a couple and go.” [laughs] We said, “Okay, thank you!” [laughs] I’d get a—they gettin’ more [inaudible], I got more than a couple. He was looking. He said, “Get along, now! Get along!” [laughs] I guess he didn’t want me to get them all at one time. So those were the days, and then we had—going to school—across the farm was a white school. Well, you know, it was segregation at that time. We had passed the white school walking, and we’d come going over to Bookertown from in the area of the post office. We had walked through there and go through the woods. And they had cows out there, and some time the cows was running, and you had to run through there and through a pass. But they tore down all the woods to build I[nterstate]-4, and so there’s no more evidence of that now. So a black man had probably about 21 or 22 acres. The Briar construction [Briar Team] bought that, and tore down all of those woods, and his intent was to build a complex, but it never materialed[sic] yet. But those were the woods we used to go through, and this black guy had a black baseball park there. People would come from Orlando and Daytona, Apopka. You know, all the black players, you know—we’d get out there. It really wasn’t that good, but, you know, those guys could throw that ball. Some of those guys were Puckwood[?] guys, you know. You know what Puckwood[?] guys are? Morris No, sir. Morgan Well, they cut trees down, and had a certain method. They’d load them onto a truck. Those guys had muscles almost big as my head. You’d get some of those guys to pitching—that ball looking like an asteroid [inaudible] coming. [laughs] I didn’t never want to be a catcher. And I was a young guy, I was about 16 back in 19—was I 16 or 17? Somewhere in there. Morris What year were you born, sir? Morgan 1940. Morris Okay. Morgan Yeah. I was born in Albany, Georgia. My mother brought me down here when I was one year old, you know. That’s when they—most the people would come and they’d tell the other people, ‘cause they wasn’t getting that much money in Georgia. So the white farmers down here were recruiting some of the peoples out there, but not telling the white farmers in Georgia. And what they would do—get their big truck, and they’d be communicating, and they’d come in two or three o’clock in the morning and load up these black people. And the thing was, they said, they’d steal one of the white man[sic] pigs. [laughs] And when they’d get by the white man’s house, said seemed like the old truck put to cranking more than ever, and said they’d hold the pigs off, until he—so he wouldn’t make any noise, and they hit the road. The next morning, white man get up, he don’t have no more help. [laughs] They’re on their way to Florida. They were making more money. Morris Farmers stealing other farmers’ workers? Morgan Help. Yeah. [laughs] Morris Oh, man. Morgan And some of the older guys said, “Well, we can’t go back to Georgia. We stole that white man’s pig.” [laughs] He said, “Now, that many years—the man probably dead now.” [laughs] So they’d get down here, you know—and in Lake Monroe, that’s where a lot of celery, cabbage, and everything, done out there. Sanford was called “Celery City,” because of all the celery. Seventy percent of the celery was grown out there in the Lake Monroe area, and they had the, you know, black workers from Bookertown, Goldsboro, Midway, and Oviedo. They would get big trucks and haul them in, and they’d do the work. And they had pride in their work, you know. When they were planting the celery plants—cabbage plants, anything like that, you know—they would brag about how many thousand they set. You know, that was a big thing. And now, if the white farmer would have a tractor, and they drove that tractor, oh, man, it was like they were riding in a Cadillac. They loved it. They’d go down to the end of the row. I don’t know how they did that. You know, I never was—I never did learn how to drive a tractor. And those guys would get to the end of the row of a field and they would spin that thing around on one wheel and be ready to go down. I just looked at it. It was amazing to me. I never knew how to drive a tractor. [laughs] And then, uh, you know, in the ‘60s, there was a lot of orange picking. Around in this area, there was a lot of oranges. And I tried to pick some oranges, but those thorns was hitting me so hard, and I tried to put it out of my mind, but by the time 11 o’clock, I couldn’t put it out of my mind no longer. Those thorns, they didn’t just tear your shirt all up. You know, it’d be this fight trying to pick those oranges. Morris You’re talking about 11 A.M., sir? Morgan Yeah, 11 A.M. I mean, I’m just trying to pick those oranges. Trying to, you know, get a lot of boxes, you know. Just going, man, but those thorns was hitting me from everywhere. I couldn’t take it no more. I had to rest a little bit. Suck me a few oranges. Morris Did they pay you by the day when you were doing oranges, sir? Or did they pay you by the box? Because you said you were trying to… Morgan Pay you by the box. Morris I see. You were trying to… Morgan Yeah, you were trying to, you know, get a lot of boxes. Morris Gotcha, sir. Morgan And so, I got by my dad one day, and he went out early. He was gonna really make him some money. We had to finish up a grove, and he was there about six o’clock that morning. And he had him a bunch of boxes, a few of them when we got there about nine o’clock. And I said, “I’m gonna get him to work today.” So I got beside him and then went to working, and when we got through with that grove, he didn’t have but one box more than me. He looked—well, he loved the competition. He didn’t want nobody to beat him, especially me, not his son. So, next we went to another grove. So, I said, “I’m gonna have me some fun today.” I put my ladder in the orange time we’d got there, and he throwed[sic] his up there too, and I ran up that ladder—I mean, just literally run up it with my orange sack. And just—I mean, I was just throwing them on through them orange limbs and leaves, with this flying. And he was going at it too. So I got a half a sack, and I went down and dumped them into my little bin. And he looked around. He thought I had a whole sack. He said, “Lord, Jesus!” [laughs] “Lord, Jesus!” There he was. He was picking and picking and I went, I ran up the ladder again, and come down with a half a sack again, enough to—oh, he was really—he was really fighting then. He thought I was really beating him. He said, “Lord, Jesus!” He was picking real fast, and he caught a cramp in his right hand. And he took his left hand, and tried to, you know, unfold it, and the left hand caught a cramp. [laughs] Both of them. Both his hands was all cramped up, and he couldn’t pick. He said, “Well, I’m not gonna kill myself,” and he went down. He had to be careful about holding the rungs of the ladder. And he got 90 cent down there without coming down with a half a sack again. [laughs] He went up that ladder with the cramps. [laughs] Oh, man. He beat me by one box. He beat me. He was not gonna be denied. He wasn’t gonna let his son beat him. Morris How old were you at the time, sir? Morgan I was probably in my twenties, at that time. Morris How long did you pick oranges for? Morgan Just between construction jobs. I worked construction jobs. I started them when I was in high school, because I wanted to make more money. I worked for a guy called B. Edwards[?]. He was on Third Street in Sanford, and he had a stucco crew. And we was doing a lot of stucco out in Sunniland. And I was learning how—starting, you know—some of the guys would teach me how to help those guys they called “plasters.” They would be stuccoing the inside of the house and the outside. And you had to mix the mud with the concrete with a hoe. You didn’t have a mixer then. Morris Oh, okay. Morgan Oh man, my back would be so tired, but I had to survive. It was just me and my mom, then. Morris Your father had passed away, sir? Morgan No. They just weren’t together. Just me and my mom. My sister—she couldn’t take it any longer. She got married and left. She said she wasn’t working on those farms. [laughs] So she went to Jacksonville. She met her husband there, and he was one of these guys—I mean, he was thrifty. I mean, he didn’t mind a little chasin’. He’d sell those numbers, what they called “bolita” I don’t know whether you ever heard about that. Morris No, sir. Morgan They just didn’t do that in Cuba, and they would—you could hear it—Cuba [inaudible]. They knew they was doing that stuff. But it was supposed to be illegal here, but you had the police department, everything, you know. You didn’t give them a tip, then they’d carry you to jail. But so, they’d come by, and you’d give them their tip, they’d go head on. The same as they would with moonshine. They’d make moonshine in the woods out there, Bookertown. And you didn’t get the police. The chief, you know, he would come in and get you. And then the Feds come around. They didn’t want the Feds to know that they was getting money on nothing. They’d let you know when the Feds comin’. And they would let you have a little bit of moonshine, there, then they’d come in and confiscate with the Feds and, you know, make the Feds think they’re doing their jobs. When the Feds leave, they’d bring you up there, they’d take you and your moonshine back out there. [laughs] Oh, man, it was a lot of things and all[?]. And we loved it. We’d go to town maybe once or twice a week. And we’d walk to town. It was fun for us. We didn’t mind walking it. From Lake Monroe, we’d walk down [State Road] 46 all the way into Sanford. And we walkin’ and talkin’. And there was a movie called the Ace Theatre. It’s a vacant lot there on Third [Street] in Sanford Avenue. I don’t know have you been by there. But anyway, that vacant lot was where that Ace Theatre was. That was for black people. And the Ritz Theatre was for white people. The white people sat downstairs, but they wouldn’t let the black people go upstairs. You know how kids is[sic]. They’d go, you know—white kids would yell something, and black folks would throw some popcorn on them or else our drink. [laughs] And then, they had a—one of these—had a black guy that was supposed to be in control of the black kids and so, if he’d catch you doing that, then he’d put you out the movie. So, you know, I guess they was kinda integrating a little bit. [laughs] And then we, you know—if we’d be uptown on Saturday, oh man, we’d come up and see the streets and everything, I mean, oh, it was—we was glad to see uptown, you know. We’d go up and go to the ice cream parlor, and get some ice cream. But if you want a hamburger or something, you have to go to a window with a hole cut in it, and you couldn’t go inside there, you know. Only the white people could go inside. And we’d get a hamburger. They just seemed like they was some good-tasting hamburgers. [laughs] But that’s the way it was. And the later years, you know—I think it was 1959 or ‘60, somewhere in there, the black kids said, “We want to integrate this[?].” And they’d go out down to the [Sanford] Civic Center. They didn’t like the black people going to Sanford Civic Center there. And so, they went in anyway. They called the police, and they go in and run the black people out of there. And they—one of my friends—he’s a professor now in Atlanta—he said, “I will return!” He sounded like General [Douglas] MacArthur. “I will return!” And they did return, and there the police was[sic] too. You know, they didn’t—as far as I know, they didn’t beat them up or nothin’. But they tried to keep them out, and they kept protesting ‘til they built a little center over in Goldsboro called the Boys & Girls Club. I don’t know whether you know where that is or not. But they got that for the black people, but the black people still wanted to go downtown, too. [laughs] They originally wasn’t letting the black people go downtown. And you couldn’t drink out of a fountain that a white person drank out of. You know, you drank out that fountain, if that fountain said “white only”—oh man. Once on Park Avenue, a black guy—he was gonna drink out that white fountain anyway. He drank that, and it was something like a little service station. They had a drink box with the water on the side. He came out with his rifle and hit that black guy—the little young—probably about 17, 18—hit him in the mouth with that rifle and knocked a few teeth out, and he said that fountain was contaminated. Morris Ugh. Morgan “That’s contaminated! You contaminated it—that fountain!” So, same way it was with the outhouse. You couldn’t go in there if it had “white only.” Morris You can “contaminate” an outhouse? It’s contaminated anyway. Morgan Yeah, you contaminate that outhouse if a black person go in there. White man wouldn’t wanna go back in there no more. He probably scrub it and scrub it. He probably get a black person in there. Scrub it with some bleach. Morgan Well—and then they had what they called “octagon soap.” You would—you’d kill a hog and get the grease, and put lye in there, and you would cook this grease. And I don’t know what all they put in there, but they had it on a big, round, black pot. And it cooks a long time, maybe putting wood up under there, cooking it. And when it’d get cold, be in big cakes, and you’d cut out chunks for soap. Some of us bathed with this. Oh man, you’d be—with that lye in it, it wasn’t too good. [laughs] Morris You’ve had better soap, sir? Morgan Oh, yes, I’ve had far better soap than that. But back then, you just didn’t know. And then, you know, we used to bathe in a big tub, you know, tin tub. You didn’t have bathrooms. You’d get in this bath, in this thing, put some wood in the stove and heat up some water. And I was a little boy. My sister used to bathe me. And it was cold, man, and I was in that tub and I just kept moving, you know, ‘cause it was cold, and she was bathing me, and the warm water’s all right, but the house was cold. Didn’t have a—you could see the studs in the wall holding the house up. And then they’d get cardboard from the railroad, where that old icehouse used to be. That’s where everything was shipped out from. They’d throw the cardboard out, and we’d get it, put it in there for drywall. You know, like they do for drywall. Until the rats eat it up, then we had to get some more. So, then, sometimes we had these potbellied stoves to keep warm with in the wintertime. This root of the pine tree was full of sap, and it was easy to get started—to put the oak wood on there. And we’d put it in there—it was cold. I got up and we’d have about five or six quilts on there trying to stay warm, and I put too much of that fat lighter in there. And man, we had a stove pipe, you know, that comes up and then goes out the wall of the house. And man, that’s— the pressure couldn’t get out quick enough of that old stove. It was really red. You could see—was glowing, man. And when it got too much for the old stove, it was coming up off the floor, you know. It was, “woof, woof, woof.” The feet was actually leaving the floor. And then the stove pipes come off. Oh man, we had to scuffle to try to get some rags and put the stove pipe back on there. The whole house was about to catch a-fire. It would have burned down about two minutes if we hadn’t a got it started. And so, we got them put back on there. So, we didn’t put that much in there before. That taught us a lesson. So, in 1960, I was tired of cutting wood. I told my mom, I said, “Mom, I’m not cutting wood no more.” Because the stove—the wood stove—had went bad. After cooking on it so long, where you put the wood in—in the wood stove had been—well, maybe, I don’t know what you call it—rotted away, something. And it fell back on some bread we had in the oven. Ashes all over itself. Said, “Throw that away,” and then we cooked some bread on top of the stove. And I said, “Mom, I’m not cutting any more wood.” I was working a little bit then. I said, “We gonna get a gas stove.” She said, “Oh, no! Oh, no! That food won’t taste right with no gas stove.” [laughs] I said, “Mama, I ain’t choppin’ no more wood.” [laughs] I finally got her to get a gas stove. We got the gas stove. We didn’t have a TV. So we finally got a TV in 1953. And we was the last people living in the little quarters. They ran some poles down there, and brought electric down there too. And we got a TV. Oh, man. I felt we had something when we had that TV. That was something. We said, “Oh, yeah. We got a TV now.” Yeah. We loved to watch The Lone Ranger and Tonto. That’s—oh, man. We’d get brooms and, you know, we’d be Lone Ranger, we’d be riding those brooms. [laughs] But we didn’t know how poor we was, and it didn’t bother us. We just adapted to the situation. Made the best of it, and kept moving. Not that we didn’t try to prepare for a better future, but we didn’t have time to worry about how poor we are. Our mind was on the future. And a lot of us did live a little bit better. And I lived a little better. I worked hard. And it wasn’t a problem—working hard—because you knew where you wanted to go, what you wanted to do. And that’s what stayed on our mind. Not that we wasn’t getting that much. But we punished this body. It was the mind that we were thinking about. We didn’t worry about maybe our children can do better. This is what we were concerned about. Then, we were taught, not—I know the people I knew—not to hate nobody[sic]. So we in charge of ourselves. Even though we’d been oppressed, we’re not gonna worry about the people oppressing us. We gonna do what we know to do, and keep going. Somebody will see our problem. And just like, back in the Northern states, it was more people, you know, integrated than it was in the South. So, they was having problems, and this white lady named Mary [White] Overton—she got with the black people in the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], ‘cause they had a movement called the Niagara Movement with the other blacks, so they can be treated better, you know. Because a lot of black people were being hung lately, in 1909. So, they named after Mary Overton, got it in folk [inaudible] form for the blacks and they called it the NAACP, National Advancement[sic] for the Advancement of Colored People. And so, all those, that’s what started the civil rights advocates came in, Martin Luther King[, Jr.] Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson—a lot of those guys, you know, fighting for freedom in a lot of places. And most people resisted change. And so the white people didn’t like—clearly, said, “It’s not time to change.” And black people coming out there. And the police, they didn’t like that either. They’d get the dogs, sic the dogs on you. They’d be biting you. They’d run the fire hose on you, and slide you down the street—that fire hose. [laughs] And so, you know, sometimes you have to suffer through things to get better. So, if you didn’t accept things just the way they are, and don’t fight for it, sometimes you gonna—some people gonna die, and some gonna get hurt, but you got to resist being treated bad. And don’t think of hating nobody. You think of giving them all the love you can. That’s loving them so they can’t do you no wrong. [laughs] And so, with that attitude, there was a change in heart and a lot of white people, they were seeing what was wrong. It’s a lot of white people didn’t like the way blacks was treated. It’s a lot of them. But they couldn’t do it, because the government had this thing set up. So the people in high echelons could get rich, and they kept all the black and white people fighting while they got all the money. And we knew that, because a lot of white people helped black people back then. But they had to be careful how they did it. They had to do it undercover, because it’s some white people didn’t like it either. They would come beat them up, because they would call you a n—well, a[sic] “N”-lover. [laughs] Morris Gotcha, sir. Morgan So these are some of the things that people have to think, and mostly where we come through was the spiritual thing. We believed in Him—God—and we trusted Him, what the Bible say, and stuck with it. And, just like they said—they always tell you—prayer changes things. And it does. I had experiences. Prayer changes things. You don’t do evil for evil. Some people, you know—some people don’t know that they’re doing wrong until they’re proven that they’re doing wrong. Only thing people was[sic], you know, having a hard time. They was looking out for number one—their family. Said, “The heck with you! My family got to be all right.” [laughs] But then some people looked at that better. Said, “Well, I can be better.” And they can, too. But then, the way the world is, and the way the governments do it all over the world, they want somebody to be on the little—on the totem pole below them, so they can take care of those that greedy after that money. So somebody have to work, and go through these things. Well, the blacks was the low on the totem pole at that time. They’d bring some Puerto Ricans, and some people from Bahamas, different islands and stuff, and they’d work and they’d get them together some crops. But then when so many minorities start coming in, then the blacks started getting moved up a little bit, and so they had to be the one that worked, just like the Mexicans and the Puerto Ricans now, you know. They mostly be picking our oranges and picking their apples in New York. ‘Cause those apple and cherry farmers would have black people a long time ago picking their apples. You go up there and, oh man, well, you making a lot of money up there, more than they was up here. That was big money, you know. I’ve picked some apples and cherries, and [inaudible]. We’d be going after ‘til I went to a private place. They paid a little bit more. It was hard too—picking them. You had to be careful how you handled those apples. If you squeezed them too hard, you could bruise one of them. So, you learn all of that. But when they brought the people up on old school bus from down here, you couldn’t stop eating at the restaurant and eat. You had to go in a—maybe a convenience store or something—back then, and get you a little of some bologna, and moon pies or something, and a soda. And they wouldn’t let but so many blacks come into the store. They wouldn’t be able to watch you. Said, “They might steal something.” And then you didn’t have no bathroom to go to. You had to stop by a wooded area and go out there in the woods somewhere. This is rough. When you get up there, I remember one place. You seen a chicken coop? Those big chicken coops? Where you can stand up and walk in them? Well, they partitioned that off and made rooms for the people to stay in that time that they was up there. And you would work by what they called the “piece.” You’d get so much a box for certain things, you know, like apples, or cherries, or onions. And they had one guy would be over the rest of them. They called him the “crew leader.” And once they took us up there and the work wasn’t ready, you know, for us to go to work. And so they went around into this Italian restaurant, and got this old hard bread. This stuff that the people didn’t eat and stuff. Gathered it up, and they put it in a[sic] old pot, and one man brought a bunch of bullfrogs over there. And they skinned those bullfrogs up. And, man, I didn’t want no bullfrogs. [laughs] They said, “Come on,” and the man said, “Come on! Come on! Come on, and let’s eat this. Eat some of this.” They called it the son of a—son of a “B.” “Come on, get some of this son of a ‘B’!” And he was just boiling and bubbling in there. Had all some of everything—little steak, little, some all kind of little meats, and it was cooking in there. It was bubbling. Man, I don’t want none of that. That’s, I gotta leave here. [laughs] Morris Well, sir, I know you also mentioned earlier, before the interview, that you worked in the military. What time did you, uh—why did you join the military? When did you do that? Because I know you said you were working these other odd jobs—construction, a lot of agriculture. What prompted the move? Morgan Well, I didn’t join. I was drafted. Morris Oh, okay. Morgan They was drafting people at that time. I had went to Philadelphia[, Pennsylvania] to live with my sister, because I wanted to make more money. And my mother was here, so I had to send her money home to her—to help her. I was making about $80 a day up there doing that construction there. Oh man, that was big money. And I was 23 years old. I thought the draft people had forgot about me. I said, “They have forgot about me.” And I was working, and I wanted to get me a trade. I said, “Well, I wanna do automatic transmissions.” I said, “That’ll be a good trade for me.” So I went up in there, they had this sort of thing for free. And they got—when I approached them about it—about the application— he said, “Well, by the time we get you trained, Uncle Sam will be calling you.” And he wasn’t lying, ‘bout two weeks later I got a letter. “Greetings from Uncle Sam!” [laughs] So I didn’t want to go from up there. I wanted to see my mom before I go, and so I came home. And we went downtown there to the bus station, and they—you know, the guy—was calling the names off and everything, and we got on the bus and went to Jacksonville, you know. They’d check you out. You know, sees[sic] you, in case [inaudible], you know, you’re physically ready. And so by the time they get through with us, the bus had gone that was gonna take us to Fort Jackson[, South Carolina]. So they told us to wait ‘til October the 17th. And I was here, I walked down to the Cape with the construction, where they were shooting those rockets off of pad thirty-nine, and the VAB building. I seen all of that. And then October 17th, got ready to catch the bus, and we caught that bus. That bus driver was late, and he was driving. I had dozed off to sleep, and he had waken me when he drove off the road. Was trying to—he was driving. I said, “This man gonna kill us before he get us there.” [laughs] I got—we got—there to Fort Jackson, and we got off with our duffel bags. Well, we didn’t have the duffel bags at that time. We just was in civilian clothes. And then those guys had been there for a while—we was getting off the bus—said, “You’ll be sorry! You’ll be sorry!” Oh, and there was bald head sergeant running upside the bus before it even stopped. I mean, time you’d get to the door, he’d snatch you off. [laughs] Man, it was scaring me, ‘cause he had a bald head and everything. And then—“Get off, you ‘D’-heads! You will hate me before you leave here!” Oh man, they was really—and so, we went through the reception center, went there, and we went to Fort Benning[, Georgia,] they had our duffel bags there. And time we got there, it was worse then. Those drill sergeants and all, they just run up to that bus. He was looking wild and crazy. The guy was in front of me, he had on his hat, like this one—like that—he had on this hat, you know. And coming in there, the hat was too big for his head. They always give you clothes too big for you. Morris Yeah. Morgan And he grabbed that guy, snatched him off the bus, and snatched his hat from him. He snatched him from under his hat, and his hat fell on the ground. That guy had a heart attack. [laughs] I don’t know did he die or not. So, I had the chance to get on off. He didn’t get a chance to grab me. And them[sic] boys was saying the same thing. “You’ll be sorry!” And, you know, we—some of the guys—would be talking and everything, and later that night, we wasn’t used to having bed check, you know. Ten o’clock, you gotta be in bed. He’d come in, you’d be in there and have them lights on. They’d come in there, man, and get you out, two or 2:30 in the morning, drilling you. “You gonna hate me before you leave here!” [laughs] And so that was a good experience, you meet guys that you had never met before. And you meet, you get to mingle with the white guys, the Puerto Ricans, all different races of people. Of course, I had had experiences. In 1953 and 1954 I went to school with white people in New York—in Port Byron, New York—and Lyons, New York. You know, it wasn’t a big thing. People was just people, far as I was concerned. I had enjoyed it, you know, because they really treated me nice. Man, we’d go out there every night having a good time, you know, playing and everything—the kids, you know. And they—when I got ready to come home, they didn’t want me to come home. I said, “I gotta go with my parents.” [laughs] Morris “You’ll be sorry.” Morgan Yeah. “You’ll be sorry!” Then we got to AIT [Advanced Individual Training]. And they was training. They was—these people said basic training, but basic training wasn’t nothing to AIT. Oh man, we had to do 144 exercise. And you started off running two miles, then we got ready to go to Vietnam, we was running eight miles. And do 144 exercise, run eight miles, come back do 10 pull-ups, then you go to breakfast. After you come from breakfast, you go in there and shine those floors, and buff it. Then you get out for your daily training, a 20-mile road march, and after you do that, you do squad tactics. It’s a way to fight. We was in 2nd or 23rd infantry at that time. We was mechanized. And they had, you know, big deuce and a quarter, stuff like that. So, as the Vietnam War was going on, they had a few advisors in Vietnam. And they was taking some of them. And as the war got worse, they sent the colors from Korea to be exchanged there because the KF couldn’t come back to the station until they were winning colors. So, I was honor guard there for a minute at that time. They do shiny helmets and all, and they exchanged the colors and they got us ready for Vietnam. Became a chopper outfit. Used to fly choppers just about every day, repelling from those choppers on ropes, just like those Navy Seals did. We started that. And they had thousands and thousands of choppers. A lot of them was falling because the blades would spit. They didn’t know anything about why those blades were spitting, so they sent us a vehicle mechanic up, and he found out what was going on, and radioed back to the ground and told them that the blades was spitting, but that chopper crashed and he got killed. So, they modified the blades and we did a lot of flying, and we had operation in the Carolinas called Hawk Tower 3. We were 17,000 strong. And Colonel Moore—he was a colonel at that time, who was in charge of the KO [Contracting Officer]. He was a guy—he wouldn’t keel to the devil in hell. Oh man, he didn’t play. And we was men [inaudible] to Carolina, they had the [Lockheed] C-130 [Hercule]s. That plane would—at ankle-deep it would take off in mud. It’s a troop-carrier. It would carry a little over 41 men. The same as that helicopter that looked like a hot dog. It’d carry 41 men. Morris I know what you’re talking about, sir. Morgan Yeah. And we was all over the Carolinas—North and South Carolina. And we had called us—we was training. We’d call in a jet from Jacksonville, and they’d be there in five minutes. Boom. Dropping bags. It sounded like they were bombing down there. And then sometimes the guys would get so aggravated, they’d be wanting to fight war. They’d be angry. Tired, tired of doing this. They’d wanna— “Let’s go to it!” And I said, “Oh, I don’t wanna go to it.” [laughs] And when they got ready to go to Vietnam, it was—we’d get out every morning running eight miles, singing this song: “Watch out, VC [Việt Cộng]. Here we come. Watch out, VC. Here we come.” And I always liked to start something. I said, “Goin’ home. Too much. Here it come.” And it was sergeant, he didn’t know who had said it. “Returning home? Who is the damn wise guy?” Nobody would tell on me. [laughs] Morris If you wanted to keep friends… Morgan [laughs] And so, it started us off again. “Watch out, VC. Here we come.” I said, “Going home, VC. Here I come.” “Who is that damn wise guy?” And then no one would tell on me. I said, “I better stop, before somebody have to tell.” [laughs] Morris Wise decision, sir. Morgan Oh, yeah. And so, I didn’t have that, you know. October the 15th was my ETS [Expiration of Time and Services]. And so, I was with a bunch of the guys, they had a month to go longer than me. And those were the guys that was in that big battle, and I was with them when we got ready to go. I felt so bad, because we was[sic] more—we was training better than they was[sic]. But they put up one hell of a fight. I mean, they killed over 2,000 VC. That was an area that you didn’t supposed to come out of, and they fought good[sic]. I learned how to fire everything. I fired a 3.5 rocket launcher, a 5DM 60 machine gun. I fired the M16 [rifle]. I was expert on everything I fired, ‘cause I wanted to know how to do everything. I didn’t know what I’d have to use. Of course, they train you that way anyway, but I wanted to be good. And I had metals with expert levels for sniper. I fired in there. I was a door gunner in the choppers at times, but that’s when they’d be trying to get that door gunner. They’d be able to shoot that door gunner. [laughs] I didn’t realize that was a dangerous place to be. Morris Sir, door gunner? Come on, you’re sticking your head out there! Morgan Man, see, you got that M16 machine gun—550 rounds per minute. Man, you—they gonna want to get that man out of there, ‘cause he can kill up a lot of people, that door gunner. ‘Cause you firing that thing, you don’t know what you’re gonna hit. When that chopper is, you know, shaking, you just hope you hitting something. Somebody said I was good at it. You don’t know what you’re gonna hit. And I could be sitting close to, you know, a foot away from you in that chopper. I couldn’t hear a word you saying, it made so much noise. And we a-flew a lot of those choppers, man. Sometimes they killed—it was so many—it was 17,000. They could not keep up with us. Sometimes we’d be a day and a half trying to get food. And we had [Type] C-rations sometimes. We had some that were back in 1945. You know, it was vacuum-packed. It was good, man. [laughs] Morris Well, “good” is not the word I would use. Morgan So some of the guys— “I can’t eat that junk!” I said, “Give it here.” [laughs] They called me the “eatin’-est man” in the battalion. Man, I never did get sick out there. And so, if we training, and it’s going to raining, you’re not gonna stop training. Used to be a saying, “It don’t rain on them. It rain in them.” [laughs] You keep—after we get soakin’ wet, and it still rainin’, they said, “Find the driest place and go to sleep.” And man, you’d be so tired, I just fell over the puddle of water, went to sleep. Morris I can imagine, sir. How long did you stay in the service? Morgan Two years. Morris And then what’d you do afterwards? Morgan I came out and I started back doing construction work, getting a dollar and a half an hour in Deltona. We were building—Michael Brothers was building those houses. And that was all we could do. And you know, after I left there, I went down to the Cape. There again, working down there, so I was getting three dollars and 90 cents an hour. Oh man, that was big money then. So, we’d ride down, which was all about 70 miles riding one way. But to get three dollars and 70 cent compared to a dollar and a half—oh, we took the trip. [laughs] And I stayed in construction, and I joined the union and all them, Labor Local 517. And they was, they had insurance and everything. And by that time, my oldest kid was born. And, uh… Morris When did you get married, sir? Morgan I got married to Josephine. She was Josephine Morgan at that time. And then we separated, and she got married again. So, I still stayed in touch with my daughter, and me and her are still friends today. And my daughter’s grown, she got me some grand[kid]s, and I got some great-grand[kid]s. [laughs] Morris What’s your daughter’s name, sir? Morgan Pamela. Name Pamela [Morgan] Brown. It was Pamela Morgan. And then I got another one was born 10 years later. Morris Another daughter, sir? Morgan Yeah. The one when I was 10 years married out there working in Lake Mary. Morris Oh, okay, sir. With a new, a second wife? Morgan Yes. Morris And your second wife’s name? Morgan Name Jeanette [Morgan]. Morris Okay, sir. Morgan And the last daughter was named Belinda—was Belinda Morgan. She’s married, and her husband’s an insurance adjuster. She— =they are both very aggressive, and they try to live better. And they all checks[sic] on me. Checks[sic] on old man. You know, gotta make sure he’s all right. I said, “Papa ain’t what he used to be. Come see about him.” [laughs] So, I just worked all the time. I said, “I’m happy to punish this body to help my kids, so they won’t have to go through what I went through.” I want them to be a[sic] good citizen[s]. America is a good place to be. I never been out of the [United] States, but I see it on the movie. All those different places. And I know I wouldn’t—even when we was oppressed, we were living better than them people over in those other countries. They didn’t hardly have food to eat. We wasn’t never hungry. We had clothes and shoes. So, we were better off than most people was in different countries. We didn’t complain. We knew what we had to do, and we did it, and we was rewarded for it by being a good citizen. Now I just, I—after I got hurt, in construction scaffolding fell on me. And then I’d already hurt in the military too, playing football. And so I just, I said, “I gotta do something for mankind.” I joined the, I joined the NAACP, and I fight for justice. And then I joined the historical society uptown there. That’s where I met Charlie Carlson. And, you know, a lot of the people felt the NAACP was against white people. And it’s not that. A lot of white people join the NAACP. And they did this fight for injustice, you know. And you know, you’d be surprised, the companies that are in the NAACP. [Walt] Disney [World], they give money, 10, 20 thousand dollars a year. Florida Power & Light [Company], a lot of these banks. Because it’s nothing, you know. You don’t treat people wrong. This is what they’re fighting for. They see what they’re doing, and a lot of people see that just like, you know, you got the Ku Klux Klan and Black Panthers, and all that. They don’t go for no wrongdoing, whether it’s the Black Panthers or not. They’re not gonna do that. They’re for justice. And then I got to be a representative for all Seminole County for helping people in need. Then I worked with the police department. They was having festivals out there in Bookertown. They brought the honor guard out. And I was in the paper just about every week. Oh, man. Everywhere. And I wrote these books, and man, the people got jealous, and said I was out there [inaudible]. They got jealous. They thought I was going to get rich, man. I said, “How can I get rich? I ain’t get but $6 for a book. I had to pay almost $3 to get it done.” [laughs] And you know, they wanna say, “Well, this didn’t happen, and this didn’t.” I said, “Oh, yes, it did. You told me that. I can’t do anything unless you tell me, and I wrote it down.” Oh, they got jealous, and they got jealous about the festival, about me being in the paper every week. Charlie Carlson was helping me, you know, with the—he told me about his [inaudible]. He was doing some books, too. He did a lot of books for the society, and he did some out here too. And right now Charlie Carlson is big. Well, he been all over the state, everywhere. Barnes & Noble got him. And he got agents, and I haven’t been able to see him that much. [laughs] Occasionally. I said, “He’s big time now.” Morris Doing what, sir? Morgan Writing books. Morris Okay. And what does he write about? Morgan Some of everything. He wrote about strange Florida. He told me one time, said he like to got ate up by a panther out there in the woods. [laughs] But he didn’t mind going all over in the woods. Can’t eat you out there. And I was raised out there in the—those woods. He said, “Charlie, there’s[sic] snakes out there, man.” [laughs] He walked up. But I went on out there. We got some history and everything. So some of the writers from The Orlando Sentinel come over to the house. I guess like you and me are doing. And it’s a lot of people they interviewed. They went out there, as I told you, to the UCF [University of Central Florida]. And I spoke out there, and I sold about 30 of these books. You know, just giving them away, just getting my history out there. I wasn’t making no big time money. Morris Okay, sir. Morgan What I want to do, though, at some point, is get some videos and talk about it, what happened at different areas on the farms where we used to live at, and all that kind of stuff. And I think that would be good for people that like to sit back and look at that on a CD, you know. So, I haven’t got to that point yet. So, I’m planning on do it. Morris I hope for you will, sir. Morgan Yeah, so.... Morris So where do you live now? In, uh… Morgan Yeah. I live in the same little place out there where we went to school, that historical little old black community. And I got two houses out there. This little place—at the beginning, most of the streets were dirt streets. You couldn’t—two cars couldn’t hardly pass. And you had little saw palmettos was[sic] out there. You know, you had to walk through little paths to go to another house. And it was snake-infested out there. And people worked hard, and you know, get these grubbin’ hoes and dig up those palmettos at the elephant place out there now. And the old school that I went to—the elementary school—is still out there, but it, you know. Nobody’s going to that school. They use it for the Civic Center. And they would, you know—the county would bring us—at Christmastime, they would bring us some candy, and some apples, and some oranges, and stuff, you know. And oh, we’d be happy about that stuff, man. But man, we’d do some things that we shouldn’t, and teacher would come and get us, and bring us in and tell us to bend over the seat. Said, “We gonna put you on the hot seat. Put your hands in your pockets and pull your pants tight, and bend over.” And they’d take some of those long palmettos, you know, with the stickers on them. They’d trim the stickers off. And get that red, man. They said, “If you get up, that’s gonna be some more licks added!” [laughs] And so we didn’t have any lunchroom. We just had, you’d bring your little greasy bag. You know, peanut butter and jelly. And had an icebox, but didn’t have any ice in it. You put it in there. You had a little bench on the outside. When you get ready to eat at lunchtime, and you go and sit outside and eat. And we just—it was just—we had an old cowbell out there. You rang that thing, “boing, boing, boing,” for, you know, recess. You go out there in a few minutes exercise, play a little ball, and then they rang it again, “boing, boing, boing.” You go back in. And it’s a two-room building. They had a divider. First, second, and third in one room and fourth, fifth, and sixth in the other. So, they had—our principal—he was the teacher, and they another teacher on the other side. That’s the way we learned. And then when we would get to the seventh and eighth grade, we’d go to Crooms [High School]. That’s where everybody would meet up, from—all the black people from Oviedo, Goldsboro, Midway, Bookertown, Altamonte [Springs], they’d all meet up at Crooms and go to high school. That’s the way they did it. And a lot of the kids were very smart, because those teachers didn’t play. You was[sic] gonna learn. And you was[sic] gonna learn. They said, “You gotta be twice as smart as the white man.” Said, “You got to learn.” And that’s what motivated, you know. If you get the same job that white man got, said you gotta be twice as smart. And one black girl won The $64,000 Question, and oh, that motivated the black people, ‘cause it was on TV. Morris Oh, yeah? Morgan Yeah, oh, man, she—black people start studying, man. They was really studying. And a lot of those kids come along and some of them are professors, some of them work at the White House, are mathematicians. I mean, this was a lot of smart people coming out of the area. Where we was. ‘Cause they had something to motivate them that looked. They tried—they had a goal. They tried to do better in life. Morris Right. Morgan And see, the white people were competition. [laughs] Competition is good. And, you know, they, you know, some of them now seem like they done lost their motivation. Maybe they need to pick someone out to have competition with. [laughs] ‘Cause a lot of our black kids is[sic] dropping out of school. Maybe they don’t got[sic]—they say they get things so much, they’re not motivated. So I’m trying now to get the [Seminole] County, along with the other guys out there, to redo that school and try to educate some of those kids who said that we can’t [inaudible], and try to pull some of those kids out the street and show them there’s a better life than drugs, you know. Morris Right, sir. Morgan I mean, it’s just a lot of white guys be comin’ out there too. They be buying the drugs. And white girls, I mean, you know—it used to not be no white people living out there in Bookertown. Man, there be a lot of white people out there in Bookertown. [laughs] They all be[sic]—a lot of them be[sic] on them drugs. And it’s a—my cousin was married to a German woman. And it’s another black guy, he was married to a white woman. And she was real smart. She, you know—he knowed[sic] how to do automatic transmission. He taught her, and she’d do it. But he passed away. Me and him grew up together. We, you know—a lot of black and white people be out there. Hispanics—they get babies and stuff. [laughs] Morris Well, sir, we’re about to—we have to start wrapping up. Morgan Yeah. Morris Is there anything else you want to make sure you mentioned before we conclude? Anything—like anything you remember, any circle of events, or any kind of memories from your childhood, or any kind of—something you just forgot about earlier? Morgan Oh, yeah. I remember our teacher was very influential, lady called Miss Hogan. And her friend, I mean, yeah—well, her friend that taught her in college was Miss Bethune, and she came out to our school one time when I was little, but I didn’t think that’s somebody, you know. This, you know, you remember Mary McLeod Bethune? They got the [Bethune-Cookman] University over there in Daytona [Beach]? Morris Okay, sir. Morga Yeah. She came to Crooms out there and talked to us one time. And, you know, that’s a lot of history. Did you read her history? Morris No, sir. Morgan Oh, man. She came there from [South] Carolina. It was a dollar and a half. And they had United Methodist Church. They helped her. And she started a learning place in a little old broke-down shed. She started helping a lot of people, and then you heard some white people started helping her too. And the United Methodist, some other companies. And they dealt—they had her speak at the—what the name of that college? Oh, Rollins [College]. At first, they didn’t want her to speak there, because she was a black woman, but they find out how smart she was, and they let her come back the day she had spoke. [laughs] And she was a president advisor. And see, she scold the president one time, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt. [laughs] Morris Oh, okay. Morgan It’s a lot of history. It’s good to read about her. Morris Sir, she came to your school and talked to you? Morgan Yeah. Well, I was a little boy. I can vaguely remember. I was a little fella, but when she came to Crooms, I remember her then. I remember her. But I just figured she was just educated, that’s all. I didn’t, you know—little country boy, didn’t know nothin’. You know, only thing I knew about was cabbage, corn, and celery. [laughs] Morris And okra. Not to cut the top. Morgan [laughs] Yeah, okra. And killing squirrels and rabbits, you know. And turtles. We ate those, ate those turtles, man. We ate so many turtles out there. Morris Well, it’s because they’re not gonna get away from you very fast. Morgan Oh, man, no. Morris You see a turtle, he’s toast. Morgan Yeah. You know, we had—we could have had and used him [inaudible], with the shells. [laughs] Morris Well, thank you, sir for coming out today and sharing all this with us. Morgan Okay. Anytime you need me. I’m glad to come in and be of service. Morris Appreciate that, sir. Thank you. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/3c62ab5226c0162840778fca22563c72.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of Charlie Morgan</a> 3rd Street African Americans African-American community agriculture apples B. Edwards Belinda Morgan Bookertown Briar Team Buchanan cabbage cantaloupe celery Celery City Charlie Carlson Charlie Morgan cherries cherry citrus Civil Rights Movement construction Crooms Academy Crooms High School Downtown Sanford farming farms Hawk Tower 3 Hogan honor guards Jeanette Morgan Joseph Morris Josephine Morgan Labor Local 517 Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Mary Jane McLeod Mary Jane McLeod Bethune Mary McLeod Bethune Mary White Overton Michael Brothers Moore Museum of Seminole County History NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Niagara Movement octagon soaps okra oranges Pamela Brown Pamela Morgan Pamela Morgan Brown potbellied stoves race relations Sanford Sanford Avenue Sanford Civic Center segregation spirituality Sunniland televisions Third Street TV Viet Cong Vietnam Vietnam War https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cd78f4769e8e45b85bf170fe15b385fe.mp3 036b6fb8889d3948ab83bbc221626ffd https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/fb392c0b83df25923e43be9519172c45.pdf 5309e3142adec2c181f0860cfedd036d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Morris, Joseph Interviewee Clonts, Rex, Jr. Location Rex Clonts, Jr.'s home in Florida Bit Rate/Frequency 1411kpbs Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Rex Clonts, Jr. Alternative Title Oral History, Clonts Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Celery Agriculture--Florida Zellwood (Fla.) Citrus--Florida Cattle--Florida Ants--United States Description An oral history of Rex Clonts, Jr., conducted by Joseph Morris on November 2, 2011. Clonts was born in Orlando, Florida, but he was raised in Oviedo. In the interview, Clonts discusses his family's work in agriculture, celery farming, how Oviedo has changed over time, the effect of Walt Disney World and the University of Central Florida (UCF) on the region, the citrus and cattle industries, the relationship between the Oviedo community and the Naval Air Station Sanford (NAS Sanford), and fire ants in Florida. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:40 Family background in agriculture 0:11:32 Celery farming 0:12:06 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:12:07 Celery farming 0:20:23 Bleaching celery 0:25:34 Childhood memories of mules 0:29:13 Working in the fields 0:31:01 How Oviedo has changed over time 0:33:13 Arrival of Walt Disney World and the University of Central Florida 0:38:11 Evolution of the citrus industry 0:42:27 Central Florida weather 0:43:28 Cattle industry 0:45:19 College education 0:45:46 Plane crash near Oviedo High School 0:48:58 Relationship between the Oviedo community and the Sanford Naval Training Center 0:50:40 Fire ants in Florida 0:55:06 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Rex Clonts, Jr. Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at Clonts' home in Florida. Type Sound Source Original 55-minute and 16-second oral history: Clonts, Rex, Jr. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. November 2, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Oviedo, Florida Zellwood, Florida Black Hammock, Oviedo, Florida Mitchell Hammock, Oviedo, Florida Oviedo High School, Oviedo, Florida Naval Air Station Sanford, Sanford, Florida Creator Morris, Joseph Clonts, Rex, Jr. Date Created 2011-11-02 Date Modified 2014-09-09 Date Copyrighted 2011-11-02 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 557 MB 151 KB Medium 55-minute and 16-second audio recording 18-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank">Oviedo, Biography of a Town</a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank">Around Oviedo</a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. Transcript Morris It is November 2, 2011, and I'm talking to Rex Clonts[, Jr.] at his residence. I am Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Mr. Clonts, could you tell us a little about your life? Clonts Well, I was born in 1949 in the hospital, in Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando, to Rex Clonts, Sr., my dad, and my mother, Thelma Lee Clonts. I'm gonna talk a little bit about their life, if that's okay. Morris Perfect, sir. Clonts My dad came to Oviedo riding in the lap of his mother—he was one year old, age of one—in a Model A Ford, from north Georgia in 1937, I believe. And my mother was born here on Lake Charm in Oviedo. They both passed on rather recently. They—so, basically, both lifelong residents of Oviedo. And after the war [World War II] they married, and I'm the oldest of their five children. Four of us still live right here in Seminole County, and have one sister who lives in Cartersville, Georgia. Morris What kind of jobs did your parents do while they lived in Oviedo, sir? Clonts Their families were in agriculture. Oh, let me start over. Let me start back just a little bit. My mother's family had—her grandfather had moved down here in the 1880s, and her father—my grandfather—C. S. Lee, was born here on Lake Charm in Oviedo. And his dad was in agriculture, taking care of citrus trees. And so my grandfather was always in the citrus, vegetable, and cattle business. And so my mother was familiar with all those endeavors coming up, and it was natural that she married a farmer—my father. His father also had begun farming shortly after arriving in Oviedo. Morris Same type of farming, sir? Clonts Both of them were vegetable farmers growing celery. Morris Okay, sir. Clonts They grew some other crops from time to time, but specialized in celery farming. And so—growing up here—that's what my family did. We had some orange groves, but the majority of the family focus was on the vegetable farming operation. C. R. Clonts Associated Growers was the company that my grandfather started in the early 1940s, and at one time we farmed over 200 acres of celery right here in eastern Seminole County-Oviedo area. You got a mosquito on your cheek. Got him. Morris Thank you, sir. Clonts Celery farming was extremely profitable, lucrative during the early '30s and '40s. Sort of the heyday of the Oviedo celery industry. So their timing was good. But over—after the war, when all the boys came home from the war, and a lot more celery was being grown in the United States, markets went down. Prices went down. The small farms here in Oviedo weren't as easy to operate—weren't as efficient. And so my father and grandfather purchased land in Zellwood—in the Zellwood muck area on Lake Apopka. And they did that in anticipation of needing to be having a more modern, large, contiguous farm. So they purchased that in the year I was born, in 1949. So when I grew up, we were farming both places. My father was farming both—multiple small farms here around Oviedo—Black Hammock, Mitchell Hammock, the Slavia area—and we were raising vegetables at our Zellwood farm. And that was 650 acres. And as a child, I remember going over, and every year they would clear up another portion of that farm. So they started by farming just 40 acres, and then over about another 10 or 12 years, they cleared the rest of it so that they could farm all 650 acres over there. When I went off to college, I specifically—I went to school so that I wouldn't be a farmer. I could have stayed home and been a farmer. So I was planning on working in the business world, and just before I graduated realized the one business I could control was coming back here, taking over the family farm. And so I came back and joined actively working full-time in 1971, when I got out of college. And I moved over to Apopka and ran that Zellwood farm. We grew celery, lettuce, carrots, sweet corn, occasionally onions and parsley—several crops over the years, but the staple was always celery, sweet corn, and carrots. And in about 1978, we closed down our last Oviedo farm. Up until that time, we'd been farming both places, but we closed that down, and the last farm land that we were actively farming is now—is in Mitchell Hammock—is now a sod farm along Mitchell Hammock in between Mitchell Hammock and Chapman Roads. So, no longer used for vegetables. Family still owns the land, but we don't farm vegetables anymore. Morris Okay, sir. So your family's no longer in the farming business, but they were in the farming business up until 1978? Clonts Well, we still were in business here in several ways. We always had orange groves here. Morris Okay, sir. Clonts And we have cattle ranches. Morris Those were my follow-up questions. Clonts Yeah. You know, you'd find most people that had been multi-generational in the vegetable business in Central Florida also have had orange groves and cattle, because the three just naturally go together here. And you can, if you're successful in one, you're able to be successful in the other, usually. Morris How come they go together like that, sir? Clonts Well, vegetables are very seasonal, so, you know, you've got a fall crop and a spring crop, but you got time on your hands during the other portions of the year. So orange grove tends to be more year-round work, but is not as intensive as vegetable farming, so you can sort of work the two together. And then if you've been successful in the vegetable business, usually you reinvest in land, and very often the best use for that land is cattle. Only certain types of land are good vegetable land, but cattle you can graze just about anywhere in Central Florida. Morris Okay, sir. Could you give us a little insight into how you grow vegetables—celery in particular, citrus in particular—like the methods of how you would go about it? Clonts Celery's, in nature, celery grows, um—stop it. Morris Sure thing, sir. Morris Okay, sir. Would you like to continue? Clonts Yeah. Celery in Central Florida is—the seed is planted in the fall, and it’s planted in seed beds so that you can grow a large number of plants in a small, controlled area. You can herbicide them. You can control the irrigation. And as those seeds—because celery seeds are a very difficult seed to sprout. It’s not much larger than a large fleck of pepper, and takes a long time to germinate to get any substantial size, and so we would start planting seed in August. But because that seed is so tender, we would oftentimes cover those plants. First of all, laid burlap out as soon as you rolled the seed down out on the ground, and let the seed actually germinate under the burlap where it would be cooler and moister. You kept the ground moist with subsurface irrigation, and actually surface irrigation between the beds to keep that environment just right for those little seeds to germinate. And then you would remove the sacks after the green—after the seeds germinated and started to show the first leaves. And we would grow them in the seed bed for about four months, and then we would transplant those plants, pull them up by the root, knock the majority of the dirt off the root, and pack them in boxes, take them to the production field. And we used a New Holland transplanter, which is a fairly simple machine that, as it’s pulled through the field, opens up a furrow, and it has a wheel with a set of fingers on it, and you can put the plants one at a time in the notches in the wheel, and as it goes around and puts the root in that furrow, it releases that plant. And we would have a bank of six of these wheels on the back of a tractor-drawn machine, and go through the field and transplant—we called it “setting”—the celery plants in the field. And from that point, they got immediately irrigated with overhead irrigation so that the ground got packed good[sic] around the roots, and they got a good start. Then it took anywhere from 75 to 90—and if the weather was cold, maybe 100—days to produce that crop. So growing celery’s four months in the seed bed, and three months in the field. It’s a long cycle, especially when you consider that in the off-time you’re having. Someone usually would gather seed from an arid region like Utah or California. Had our seed grown. So between the production of seed and the planting of seed and the growing of the crop, was just about a year-round endeavor. And we did all our harvesting in March, April, May, and June. Morris Why did you transplant it from the seed bed to the production area? What was the difference between—is it soil? Clonts No. Well, yes. It did happen to be different soil, but you could take ten acres of seed beds and grow enough plants for 200 acres of field production, and so was much less expensive to take care of that—to do the fungicide, and the weeding, and keeping the insects off of it on ten acres. And then you—when you pull those plants and spread them out where they would get to a large stalk, planted them at the right distance apart, you could have 200 acres of celery out of that. You only had three months to take care of that 200 acres. Morris Oh, okay, sir. So it was easier to guard and protect them when they were younger that way? Clonts Yeah, much easier, much less expensive to protect them. The transplanting operation was expensive, but it was not nearly as expensive as it would have been trying to put those plants—to put those seeds directly in the field and take care of them the whole seven months it took to grow that. And you could, also when that—the seed beds—that ten acres that that seed bed was on… Morris Mosquito’s trying to—he’s gone. He’s just scouting you out, sir. Clonts The ten acres that seed beds are on is very—you intensely farm that, and one of the preparations of doing that intense farming—this will keep the mosquitoes out—is that you level that land meticulously. You tried to—you ran a very intricate irrigation system all tile-drained, and you used—your seed bed land was your most prized possession in the celery business. That seed bed—a good seed bed—plot that was the right consistency of soil and the right ability to not only hold moisture, but to get rid of moisture when you had too much rain—to get rid of excessive rainfall—was very important. So celery farmers did a lot of work to try to get their seed bed just perfect and have the right plot of land to do that with. Morris So that was pretty common then, between celery farmers? Clonts Yeah. Every celery farmer in the state had their own seed beds. And now seed—most celery seed or a good portion of it—is grown in greenhouses. It’s grown in plant trays—in the trays of plants in greenhouses. So it’s got much more of a controlled environment to grow in now, than when we were growing them outside. But still the best plants are the ones grown outdoors. It’s just a lot tougher, a lot more work. Morris Okay, sir. Did you ever bleach the plants—whiten them? Clonts That was a practice that kind of came to an end in the mid-1940s. Until then, yes. They took the boards and put down the sides of celery, at least a portion of it, and they would bleach it. I remember them doing that as a child—I shouldn’t say that. I remember them talking about it, but I don’t actually remember seeing it. Morris Okay, sir. But why did they do that? I personally don’t understand. Clonts It was a practice that—I don’t know this for sure—but I think that it allowed celery to be harvested, and stored in root cellars, and carried much longer through the year, than if celery were left green and packed away and stored. You know, a lot of the original celery growers were Upstate New York and Michigan. In the North, when they grew celery, they grew it in the late summer, harvested it, and stored it, and shipped it out little by little during the wintertime. And so people would traditionally take celery, put it in a root cellar back in the—back before refrigeration. And it was very important to try to preserve that as long as you could before so that you had vegetables, and if you stored potatoes, and everything that you harvested in the fall, you stored and ate on it as long as you could. We’re not used to that nowadays. Nowadays you go to a supermarket and they got, you know, just about every vegetable year-round, but that’s just happened in my lifetime. Prior to that and prior to refrigeration in the early part of the 1900s, vegetables were very seasonal. And so you had an excess—you had an abundance at harvest time—you tried to store that as long as you could. And bleached celery would store better than green celery. Morris Okay, sir. Clonts That’s the reason. That’s the long-winded explanation for bleaching. And because it traditionally had been bleached, even after refrigeration came along in the early part of the 1900s, celery was—had always—people were used to eating bleached celery, so that’s the way it was done. That was phased out, and my understanding is that the military, right before World War II, came out with a report that said green celery was better for you than bleached celery—was more nutritious. And that one report was sort of the tipping point. They had been up until then, for the few years before that, they had been growing bleached and unbleached celery, and after that, bleached celery became a thing of the past. Morris Okay. Well, thank you, sir. Clonts All right. That’s the long-winded explanation. It’s kind of like, you know, why did all citrus juice come from a frozen concentrate can a few years ago, and now it’s available in a not-from-concentrate carton in the refrigerated section of the store? It’s sort of the same thing. It’s an evolution of technology and what people are used to. And you can’t—people don’t change their habits overnight. It takes a while. Morris All right. Gotcha, sir. Clonts But all the celery starting in the late ‘40s then, was not bleached celery. Morris Did your—so I’m understanding—well, you didn’t grow it that way, but your father and grandfather each did? Clonts Grandfathers definitely did. Yes. Morris Okay. Well, how, you said earlier that one of the stories you remember—hearing them talk about bleaching the celery. Do you remember any other childhood memories popped into your mind? You know, whether’s[sic] it in agriculture or just at school? Clonts Well, when I was—I do remember my father’s—excuse me—my grandfather’s mules. He had obviously started—mules were used a lot, exclusively in the 1800s, and quite a bit in the early 1900s, because in Oviedo most of this celery farming was grown on muck, and that soft, organic land, the heavy tractors of the day wouldn’t stand up. They’d do fine out here on the sand land, or where they were mostly used in the Midwest, but that muck soil was, you had to have good flotation. And they would even take the mules’ hooves and wrap them in sacks, and tie around the hooves to increase the footprint of the mule so that he wouldn’t bog up as much when he went through the field. And at the end of the day, untied those sacks off the bottom of the mules’ feet. And the next day, if it was still soft and wet out there, they’d retie them. That would keep him from bogging up. He’d only sink three inches instead of sinking eight inches. Morris And the mule accepted this. Clonts The mules accepted it. And you know, back then, if you were going to be a farmer, you had to be able to have a good—you had to know your mules, and be able to train them, and be able to work them. And it was an art to have a good team of mules. So I remember as a kid, the conversation between my dad and my grandfather, where my dad was saying, “What in the world are you doing keeping those mules? You haven’t plowed a field with them in five years now, and we’re not gonna ever use mules again. I don’t know why you’re fooling with them.” And my grandfather saying, “They’re my mules. I can’t just get rid of them.” So until those mules died, which was probably—I was probably six or seven years old—he still had a barn right on the end of Lake Charm at Florida Avenue. Along Florida Avenue there, he had a barn with two mules in it. But I’ve never seen them work the field. I’ve seen pictures. I’ve got pictures of it. In fact, I’ve got pictures of my grandfather with his mule team and his first tractor in the field, and he’s smiling. I think he’s more proud of the mules than he is the tractor. Morris He had two mules? Is that like a normal amount, or... Clonts Oh, well, they generally used a mule team. They generally used two mule teams farming here. Now, I have no idea how many total teams he had, but probably, you know, two or three teams of two. Morris You said your grandfather had worked the fields. Did your father also work as a farmer? Clonts Yeah. Yes. Morris And growing up, did you do the same? Clonts Well, I worked summers, you know, but—so when school got out in the summer, I’d go work with Dad, and work all summer long at the farm. But my dad always told me that, you know, he wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be. You know, don’t—he didn’t expect me to come back to the farm. If I did, it was going to be my decision. He wanted me to make that decision on my own. Morris Okay. Clonts So as I said, when I went off to college, I went so that I wouldn’t be a farmer, but ended up coming back. Morris When you came back, sir, did you work mostly the administrative? Or did you also go back and work the fields as well? Clonts No, I worked the fields. I mean, you know, times had changed, but we had a crew of tractor drivers and—but I was the farm manager. I oversaw not only decisions on what we were gonna plant and where we were gonna plant it, but when the planting times were gonna be, and how we were gonna try to space the crop out, what personnel we needed for packing, and shipping, and selling. Morris Okay, sir. Can you tell us how it’s changed over the years, like Oviedo and the areas you’ve lived in? Since you were growing up, I’m assuming there’s been a lot of changes between then and now. Clonts Well, Oviedo in the 1950s was an agricultural economy. Between the citrus and the vegetables that were grown, the basis for all the economy and all the services here was built around agriculture. That started changing in the late ‘50s, as some of the new equipment that was available had opened up new farming areas in the United States, and competition. For instance, in South Florida, the Belle Glade area opened up, and it was more economical in a lot of ways to grow products down there than it was up here. So, these farms tended to fall on harder times, and the more marginal farms and marginal farmers dropped out, sometimes bought up by other farmers, and sometimes that land was just taken out of production, never to be put in. There was lots of small pockets here in Oviedo that I remember having vegetables in them, that have not have been farmed in thirty years now. Morris Now, that started occurring the ‘50s, you said, sir? Clonts Well, late ‘50s. And with the, you know, two things things happened about the time I started to go to—I graduated from high school and left to go to college. One is [Walt] Disney [World] opened up, and the other is that UCF [University of Central Florida] was established in our backyard here. And Disney really was the beginning of Orlando being a tourist destination. It had been a wintertime destination for a hundred years, almost, but it had not been a year-round tourist destination until [Walt] Disney established Disney World here. UCF, being so close to Oviedo, changed Oviedo in that it brought in not only the teachers, professors, but all of the services that a large university requires, and, of course, the students. And so, it makes Oviedo a little bit more of a bedroom community to that college—doesn’t make it—Oviedo’s not the classic college town, but it is definitely a bedroom community to UCF. My perspective, because I left for college and didn’t come back to Oviedo—I lived in Apopka after that to run that farm, and just moved back fairly recently. I lived in Apopka for 35 years, but had lots of interests here. My family was here so I was, you know, monthly I was in Oviedo. And so I could see Oviedo change without being part of that change, you know, sort of being distanced from that change. Morris Okay. Clonts And really, not easily described, but a very constant growing and getting less and less dependent on agriculture, more and more dependent on the high-tech industries and moderate. You know, medium manufacturing, light manufacturing, and of course, tourism. Morris As a farmer, did you see UCF and Disney World as problematic for your business or for your community in Orlando? Clonts No, no. You know, you don’t try to rail against progress. It is—and you adapt to it. So, our family’s operation adapted as needed to those, and one reason why we closed the Oviedo farms down and just concentrated on our Zellwood operation was because that was the more modern farm of the last part of the 20th century, and the Oviedo farm was the farm of the first half of the 20th century. Morris Okay, sir. And since then both have farms have been closed down, correct, sir? Clonts Yes. We sold our Zellwood farm to the State of Florida as part of a restoration project to clean up Lake Apopka. Morris Okay. And that was 1979? Clonts No. No, we shut that down, sold that in 1998. Morris Oh, okay, sir. And have you been working elsewhere since then, or traveling, or… Clonts Yeah. We had citrus groves, and we expanded those after selling out the vegetable operation, but basically downsized. I said I retired when I sold the vegetable operation, because I work so much less now than I did back then. But I still stay busy and enjoy growing oranges. You know, even the citrus business has evolved. When I was on the outside, I didn’t think the citrus business changed very much in, you know, my whole lifetime. And then once I got involved in it, I realized it is evolving. So it’s an interesting business to be in. I really enjoy it. Morris How has it evolved? Clonts Well, we were, once again, especially around Oviedo, there were lots of small orange groves. You could send a man on a tractor down the road. If your farm was right here, you could send a man out on over to Casselberry or up to Lake Mary on a tractor pulling an implement, have him do work that day, and drive back in the evening to do work on a ten-acre grove. Now, the liability exposure of putting a tractor on the road, you wouldn’t do—you know, you couldn’t make enough money on a ten-acre grove to just cover the liability exposure. So, groves now tend to be large blocks of a hundred acres, 75 to 500 acres. Anything less than that is pretty hard to caretake. Irrigation systems—groves weren’t irrigated except by portable aluminum pipe. In real dry times in the spring, you would hook portable irrigation pipe to a pump and irrigate down that row—and for two or three hours—and you would shut the pump down, move that pipe through the grove, and reassemble it, and water another strip. Now everything is micro-jet, where there’s a sprinkler under every row, under every tree, year-round, a permanent micro-sprinkler. The irrigation’s mostly done by a timer and moisture sensors in the ground so that you don’t—nothing’s ever touched once it’s installed out there. Morris Oh, okay. Because all I ever see of the orange trees, sir, I don’t get to see underneath the ground. I didn’t know what changes had occurred. Clonts They’ve all got a sprinkler underneath them now. Morris Okay. Clonts And we’re planting much closer than we used to. Trees used to be planted on a 25’ x 25’ spacing. Now, generally, you plant on a 12’ x 24’ spacing, so there’s a lot more trees to the acre, and everything’s worked one way down a row instead of two ways, like they used to do it in a grove. Used to be able to drive down two ways. It’s starting to rain. Do you believe that? Morris No. Clonts Did you leave your windows down? Morris No, sir. Clonts Okay. Morris No. It must be that one random cloud, right there. That’s the one catch about Florida. You never know when it’s gonna rain, even with the sunny skies. Clonts Wow. I’m so surprised at that. I can’t—I wouldn’t have thought it’s gonna rain today, as cool as it was this morning. Morris On the plus side, it doesn’t snow randomly. Clonts Nah. Well, not very often. Morris I think I’ve seen it snow in Florida one time. Clonts Yeah. Morris But the snow disappeared before it hit the ground, and that was in the late ‘80s. Clonts Yeah. Morris Have you ever seen it snow in Florida, sir? Clonts Yeah. Yeah, about three different times I’ve seen where snow stayed around. Morris Really? Clonts Yeah, but not—the Christmas freeze of 1983. Snow stayed in shady spots for two days. Morris Wow. Would not have expected that from Florida. Clonts Yeah. Morris You said you still have the citrus industry as the business. Do you still do cattle, or ... Clonts Well, the Clonts family never was in the cattle business, but we owned pasture land. Morris Oh, okay. Clonts And so, we’ve never been involved directly in the cattle business, but we know it well because we’ve always had land that we leased to my cousins and to other cattlemen who ran the cows, kept up the fences, and paid their lease for all that. Morris Okay. Clonts So, was a way of having a ranch that was active cow ranch without having to be hands-on day-to-day in the business. Morris Okay, sir. And I’m assuming that made it a lot easier, then? Clonts Oh, yeah. Basically, you’re just a landowner. In the cow business, we’ve just been a landowner and landlord to the cattlemen. Morris Okay, sir. Clonts And it’s my mother’s brother, Robert Lee, was very involved in the cattle business all his life, so they leased most of our land. Morris Okay, sir. Jumping off subject, you mentioned when you went to college. You were old enough to go to UCF, were you not? Or was UCF ... Clonts I could’ve gone to UCF, and instead I chose to go to University of South Florida down in Tampa. Morris Oh, really? I didn’t even realize that university was as old. Clonts Yep. Morris So you’re a Bulls fan, then? Clonts That’s right. Morris My best friends would love to hear that. I, however, went to Florida State [University]. Clonts Oh, yeah. Well, that’s another good school. Morris It’s a good school. Are there any particular historical events that come to mind, when you think over the course of your life, sir, that stick out? Clonts Hm. You know, thinking back into my childhood, I remember one that was—and I don’t remember what the year was, probably was about 1961 or ’62—a jet aircraft flying a training mission out at what was then Sanford Naval Training Center [Naval Air Station Sanford], crashed just a few hundred feet from the edge of what is now Lawton Elementary School, but it was the Oviedo High School, which had all twelve grades at that time. And being in class, and hearing that crash, and all the flames and all the confusion afterwards. The pilot died in that crash. You know, one of those things you never forget. But I have forgotten the year. [laughs] So I guess I do forget it. Morris Oh, okay. But you remember the event though, right, sir? Clonts I remember the event. Morris What grade were you in at that time? Clonts It seems like I was in about seventh or eighth grade, something like that. Maybe I was younger than that, because my memory’s still pretty fuzzy. But still it was—I remember the confusion. Morris And was it over by the next day? Did you return to classes normally? Clonts Oh, yeah. And, you know, it was the talk of the town for months and months, but things got back to normal fairly quickly—not, you know. Military jets were still, at that time, you know—it was the new technology. Morris Right. Clonts So it wasn’t—we heard jets flying, but, you know, you didn’t see that many jets back then. Morris Unless they crashed right outside your school. Clonts Unless they crashed next to your school. Morris Then it’s hard to miss them. What kind of relationship did the community have with the military—the base—right there? Especially the farmers. Clonts Oh, I think it was a good relationship. You know, Florida was—a lot of people who were in the military during World War II, when they got out, ended up coming back to Florida, because Florida had been such a good place for military bases in the ‘40s. Got the climate where you can train year-round, you know. It’s a whole lot better being stationed on a base in Pensacola than it is in upstate Michigan in the wintertime. So Florida had lots and lots of bases that trained soldiers of all types in the 1940s. As I said, a lot of those people got a taste of Florida, and once they were out of the military, and maybe got married, and—you know, said, “I know where I want to go.” And they moved back to Florida. Morris Can’t blame them. Clonts Nope. It’s been happening ever since. Morris It has, sir. It has. It’s still, I think—it’s still known for its military bases being more preferable to work—train—here. Because you have some of them in Jacksonville, some still down in Tampa. Clonts Sure. Morris Yeah. Is there anything we haven’t covered, discussed today sir, that you wanted to make sure we got to? Clonts No, I didn’t have any agenda, and I don’t think I’ve done a very good interview. I think I’ve done a pretty average job at this. I remember when fire ants had first gotten into Texas—because fire ants are not native to Florida—and, so fire ants in the mid-‘60s were getting into the state from the coastal states, but they had originally come in in Texas and then spread from there, and the [Douglas] DC-3 airplanes would fly on ant bait over the whole state. They would take a grid of eight miles by eight miles, and they would systematically fly at about three or four hundred feet high, dropping ant bait on a hundred percent of the ground surface. Morris Ant bait was ... Clonts Well, the ant bait was to try to kill fire ants that were coming into the state. Obviously was not successful. Morris Obviously. I didn’t even know they weren’t native to Florida. I just kind of figured they were native everywhere. Clonts No. [laughs] They seem like it now. Morris Yeah. Clonts You know, that’s something that I don’t think you’d see happen today. I mean, there’s new pests now coming into the state of Florida, but at the rate of two or three a year. And you know, we’ve got pythons in the Everglades—that the idea of trying to eradicate an insect like that once it’s got established in the state is probably never going to happen again. Morris Probably not, sir. Did that cause any kind of panic or worry with the farmers? If they took it seriously enough to be spraying the entire state to try to get out fire ants? Clonts Well, fire ants had been—fire ants are a pest, but you just learn to live with them. I mean, fire ants can kill a newborn calf if that calf gets born in the field, and the mother cow drops that calf in an ant pile. I mean, fire ants cause damage to livestock right now. They can kill a newborn calf, but that’s not a high rate of mortality, because it doesn’t happen too often, so it’s not something we try to eradicate anymore. But there was a time when there was a very organized war on fire ants. Morris Who organized this war? Clonts Well, it was at the request of citizens, but it was the government and Ag departments [Department of Agriculture], and so on. Morris Okay. When you say fire ants, you’re talking about the red ones? The black ones had already been here, correct? Or did they both come at the same time? Clonts There’s lots of species of native ants here, some of which bite and some which don’t. Morris Okay. Clonts But the fire ant is the one that, you know, when you step in the mound, you just get swarms of them. Morris Right. There’s one in my front yard. Clonts Yeah. I take those out every time I see one. I get the ant bait out and kill it. But I don’t try to eradicate them all over the state. Morris That would be a little extreme, wouldn’t it? But, is there anything else, sir? Clonts No. Morris All right, sir, this has been invaluable. I really appreciate it. Thank you for letting me come over and talk to you today. Clonts You bet. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cd78f4769e8e45b85bf170fe15b385fe.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of Rex Clonts, Jr.</a> agriculture ants Apopka Black Hammock C. R. Clonts C. R. Clonts Associated Growers C. S. Lee cattle cattle ranch cattle ranches celery Central Florida Charles Simeon Lee citrus Clonts, Thelma Lee farmers farming fire ants Florida Avenue Historical Society of Central Florida irrigation Joseph Morris Lake Apopka Lake Charm Lawton Elementary School Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Mitchell Hammock mules Museum of Seminole County History NAS Sanford Naval Air Station Sanford OHS orange groves Orange Memorial Hospital oranges orlando Oviedo Oviedo High School Rex Clonts, Jr. Rex Clonts, Sr. Robert Lee Sanford seed bed seed beds Seminole County Slavia Tampa Thelma Lee Thelma Lee Clonts tourism UCF University of Central Florida University of South Florida USF Walt Disney Walt Disney World Walter Elias Disney Zellwood https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/86033523f981064a0922ad0e246b8783.mp3 26845587f8da7187a0919d6c05f52dd6 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/039b8944840a95bb0f9dc82e9b951544.pdf ed15271af023f637e575c4d90777c13a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection Alternative Title Linda McKnight Batman Collection Subject Ocala (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Port Tampa (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Titusville (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Description Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics. Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank">Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010. Contributor <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> Coverage Seminole County, Florida Ocala, Florida Oviedo, Florida Port Tampa, Florida Sanford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Titusville, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Morris, Joseph Interviewee Yarborough, Ima Jean Bostick Location <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough Alternative Title Oral History, Yarborough Subject Ocala (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Cattle--Florida Horses--Florida Agriculture--Florida Description An oral history interview of Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough, conducted by Joseph Morris on November 10, 2011. Yarborough was born on August 2, 1935 in Ocala, Florida, but spent much of her adult life working in the cattle industry in Geneva. In the interview, she discusses her childhood in Ocala, how Ocala has changed over time, living in Oxford, the cattle industry, life in Geneva, the 4-H program, and her husband's military service. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:26 Growing up in Ocala 0:03:34 How Ocala has changed over time 0:06:09 Living in Oxford 0:06:29 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:06:30 Living in Oxford 0:08:24 Family and occupational history 0:11:34 Meeting her husband, Edward, and moving to Geneva 0:14:10 Husband, children, and grandchildren 0:20:44 4-H 0:22:49 Cattle industry 0:36:58 Markets and butcher houses 0:40:31 Relationship between ranches 0:41:53 Improvements in the cattle industry 0:42:29 Tracking cattle 0:42:29 Family involvement in the cattle industry 0:48:49 Husband’s service in the military 0:50:15 Female figures in Yarborough’s childhood 0:54:29 Declaration of World War II 0:59:45 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough. Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> in Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Original 1-hour and 56-second oral history: Yarborough, Ima Jean Bostick. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. November 10, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Creator Morris, Joseph Yarborough, Ima Jean Bostick Date Created 2010-06-30 2010-07-06 Date Copyrighted 2010-06-30 2010-07-06 Format video/wav application/pdf Extent 649 MB 168 KB Medium 1-hour and 56-second audio recording 24-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough and transcribed by Savannah Vickers. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> External Reference Cochran, Oladel, Letha Fowler, and Arolyn True. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/15199699" target="_blank">A Bicentennial History of Geneva, Florida, 1976</a>. Geneva, Fl: Bicentennial Committee, 1976. "<a href="http://www.lakemaryhistory.org/History.htm" target="_blank">Geneva's History</a>." Geneva Museum, Geneva Historical Society. http://www.lakemaryhistory.org/History.htm. Transcript Morris This is an interview with Ima Jean [Bostick] Yarborough, and this interview is being conducted on November 10, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Ma’am, could you tell us about where you were born, and when? Yarborough I was born in Ocala, Florida, on Sanchez Street, August the 2nd, 1935. Morris Okay. And could you tell us a little bit more about where, what kind of environment you grew up in, house, and... Yarborough Yes, this is a two-story home that my mother was living in at the time with her in-laws, and we went back later and purchased the home, but I was around ten years old at that time. So she lived there for about a year and a half with me. This home is still standing. When I go to Ocala on business or pleasure, I go by and look at it, and have wonderful memories there, because it was across the street from a city park called Tuscawilla Park. That was very close to a logging company that was in Ocala at that time, and they used the ponds to float the logs in. So it was a wonderful place for a child to grow up and play. We could fish the pond. We could wade the pond. And there was tennis courts all around that one particular pond, so we just had a wonderful playground right there as we were growing up. That was way before television, and not many radios. Morris Okay, ma’am. The community—was it a very sparse community, or very condensed? Yarborough It’s a large, it was a large community, because that’s very close to Silver Springs, which is a beautiful, a natural spring, and the Seminole Indians were there for quite a while. And there was a big reptile collection [Ross Allen’s Reptile Institute] out there that people could pay to go and visit. That was originally started by a gentleman by the name of Ross Allen, and he played with alligators and milked rattlesnakes for the venom, for medical purposes. So people could go out there and pay to watch all that. It was an entertainment place. But as children we, the city took a bus out each year during the summer, each day, and you could have swimming classes out there. So we were very fortunate to learn to swim early, and enjoyed that particular area. Now it has grown into a home place for horses, especially racehorses and quarter horses. Morris At Silver Springs, ma’am? Yarborough No, Ocala. Morris Okay. Yarborough Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t switch right. But Ocala has continually grown out, and it’s quite a large city. Morris Can you tell me more changes that might have occurred from when you were growing up in Ocala and now how it is today? Like what kind—when you go there, what differences stand out to you the most, ma’am? Yarborough More people, [laughs] more people. Of course, everything was centrally located uptown at that time. There was a town square in the center of town, which is still there with a bandshell. At that time, it had a bandshell on it, and a bandshell is used to—for a band to play music while people sit around and enjoy it, like a park atmosphere. There’s a lot of shopping centers, of course. Most towns have those now. But everything was built around that square, and just evolved out from it like a star. Yarborough There’s a lot of horse enthusiasts, and horse breeders and racers up in that country, as I said earlier, now. So they have large statues of horses all around the square at this point. Morris Okay. Yarborough So it’s grown, typically, like every other city in the state of Florida. MorrisAny particular reason the horse training took off in Ocala? Yarborough They’ve got a lot of lime rock up in that area, and that helps to grow very strong grass, and you need good grass for cows and horses. And it was—some people were already growing horses in the area, and they had a race horse that had won one of the very important races, that was raised from that area. So it just, after he won the race, they just started coming to that area to raise their animals and winter their animals. Morris Oh, better climate? Yarborough Better climate. Morris Gotcha, ma’am. How do you feel about the changes that have occurred from when you were growing up to now? Do you—positive, negative changes, anything? How do you feel? Yarborough Oh, I guess most of it’s positive. I want to feel that way. I try to find something positive in everything I encounter. Sometimes it’s harder than others. Morris And any examples of that, ma’am? You knew I was gonna ask. Yarborough [laughs] Oh, goodness. I’ll think on that one and come back. Okay, Joseph? Morris Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. Yarborough We’ll put that at the end. Okay. Morris And so, after that, where have you lived? Have you always lived in Ocala, ma’am? Yarborough My mother went to work, and I lived with my grandmother in Oxford. Morris Okay, we’re back, and we were discussing where you’ve lived over the years, ma’am. Yarborough Yes, Oxford is a little town in Sumter County on the west side of the state, south of Ocala, and that’s where my mother was raised. And I lived the first year before school and the first grade. I lived with my grandmother. And I had a sister, Nadine, who was about three years younger than myself. And back then, we carried our lunch to school in little brown bags or maybe like a little syrup can, whichever you had. But our grandmother always made sure that I had an apple in my lunch every day, and there wasn’t always an apple left for my sister, Nadine, to have when she wanted it, under those particular circumstances. So one morning, Grandmother—we called her Granny, Granny Olberry—was packing my lunch, and my sister, Nadine, asked for an apple, and Granny said, “Nadine, you know that Ima Jean’s got to take that apple for recess.” And Nadine got very disturbed and started crying, and she says, “When I get big and go to school, I’m going to slap recess’s face for taking Ima Jean’s apple.” So that has always been a laugh, a laughing situation in our family. Recess, of course, was time out in school to play outside. Not every kid even knows what recess is, ‘cause now it’s usually called break or gym… Morris P.E. Yarborough Something of that nature. Morris Right, ma’am. What kind of jobs did your family have, and that you had, also, ‘cause I’m... Yarborough Okay, my mother’s people were in the cow business. Her brothers and her dad were. And my mother’s mother passed away at her birth, so she was adopted by the Olberry family and moved to Oxford. And the couple that adopted her were just good old salt-of-the-earth people. Granddaddy was a[sic] what we would call jack-of-all-trades. He was a repairman. He repaired people’s cars. He repaired their equipment that broke down. He repaired their shoes. He just was a good fixer-upper. And of course, Granny stayed at home and canned, and took care of the garden and the family. Morris And what about your... Yarborough My mother worked as—she was in charge of the waiters and waitresses at a big hotel in Ocala. That was her night job. Her day job was cashier for a Piggly Wiggly, which was a strand of grocery stores at that time, that later became Winn Dixie, that we know today. She worked Winn-Dixie for 20-something years. Morris Okay, ma’am, and how come—your grandparents, you said, worked in cattle? Yarborough Yes. Morris But your mother did not? Yarborough No. Morris Did she not have an interest, ma’am, or... Yarborough No, by being adopted out, she wasn’t where the cattle were, so she went straight from school to getting married, and then working at Winn-Dixie and the hotel. Morris Okay, and when did you start working, ma’am? Yarborough I started working as a freshman in high school, and I worked for the Winn-Dixie meat—in the meat department—making hamburger, cutting up chickens, weighing out the meat and wrapping it to go into the case to be sold. And I would work on weekends and at holidays. Morris And how long did you have that job for, ma’am? Yarborough Four years of high school, and about a year afterwards. Morris Okay, and what did you do after high school, ma’am? Yarborough My husband and I got married. Morris Okay. Yarborough And he went into the service, and I went back and worked at Winn-Dixie for a while, ‘til I could go to Oklahoma whenever he was transferred to Oklahoma after basic training. Yarborough But let me go back into when I, how I met Edward [Yarborough]. Morris Okay. Yarborough In October—in fact, October the 26th, 1949, my mother moved to Geneva. She had remarried, and my stepfather was coming down to help his brother work his orange grove and cattle over in the Chuluota area. So we moved to Geneva, because there was a good school there. And Mother went to work at the Piggly Wiggly, which is now the Goodwill store here in Sanford on Palmetto [Avenue]. And at that time we moved into a lovely home, and that afternoon, we had some heavy furniture to be moved. And Miss Pearl Yarborough was the lady who owned the home, and she said that when her son came in, he would help move the furniture for us that afternoon, along with my stepdad. So later on we heard him—what we know now was a cow whip—making a noise coming up the road, and it was my—it was Edward and his uncle coming in from work. And their habit was to crack the cow whip all the way up the lane, and that was just to give them practice, as well as let them—Mr. [W. G.] Kilby’s wife and Edward’s mother know to put dinner on the table. “We’re coming home.” So anyway, that’s how I met Edward. And he had graduated from high school in June of that year, and we were moving in October. So we didn’t begin dating, because I wasn’t old enough to date for another year, year and a half. Morris How old were you at this time, ma’am? Yarborough I was 13. Morris Okay. Yarborough So, he had to wait on me to grow up. [laughs] That’s what he had to do. And he did. But that’s the way I met him. Morris Okay, ma’am. Can you tell us a little more about him, and then the rest of your family? Yarborough Mmmhm. Morris Because I know you mentioned that he was in the service, and that’s why you moved to Oklahoma for a while, ma’am? Yarborough Right, the draft was still very active in 1954. Morris Okay. Yarborough That’s whenever a young man turned 21, he could be drafted into the service for two years. So we had been dating probably three years by that time, and we knew that Edward was going to be drafted in January or February. He wanted to get married so that I could go with him after basic training to wherever he went. So that’s what we did. We got married December the 26th, 1954, and he went to the service in February. And after he had boot training, he was transferred to Little Rock, Arkansas, where I joined him for a couple of weeks, and then we moved everything out to Oklahoma. And we finished his two years out in Lawton, Oklahoma, at Fort Sill, and then came home, and he went back to work for his uncle, W. G. Kilby, on the cattle farm, cattle ranch. And we’ve been there ever since. We raised four children, two girls and two boys, and the two boys have stayed on the ranch. They’ve got side jobs. Bo—or W. E. [Yarborough]—is the oldest boy, and he has a trucking business where he hauls cattle from one market to another out in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Florida base. He doesn’t do that all year. There’s just certain times of the year that that goes on. Otherwise, he works on the ranch, and he’s got a little place in Alabama, a ranch up there. So he’s back and forth. J. W. [Yarborough]’s stayed here and stayed on the farm all the time, and he’s got a fertilizer business where he puts fertilizer out on large areas, large pastures and groves. So that’s his side job. Otherwise, he’s on the ranch at all times and manages it. Our oldest was Lynn [Yarborough]. She became a learning disability teacher, and has worked in—we’ve had the pleasure of starting three different private schools for learning disability children, through our years. J. W. had quite a learning disability problem whenever he was first started school, and there was none in Seminole County to take care of those problems, so we finally found a wonderful teacher, Mary Dunn, who helped us start PACE School. And the problem J. W. had was seeing upside-down and backwards, and glasses could not help that. You just had to retrain the mind, somehow or another, and it takes a lot of training to get that done. So in the process, as I said earlier, we had started three schools, and we got three wonderful schools. And Lynn has been a teacher. In fact, she retired this past summer. She’s taught 33 years in learning disability. Our youngest daughter, Reba [Yarborough], lives in Sumter County, and her family has cattle over there. So, in Lynn’s retirement, she’s helping the boys on the ranch now. She works with them whenever we mark and brand. And both of the boys’ wives help give shots and some of them, and they ride a little bit too. Yarborough And I’ve got three grandsons: Robert [Yarborough], J. K. [James Kilby Yarborough], and C. W. Yarborough. Morris Are they all from the, have the same parents, or... Yarborough No [laughs]. Morris Which grandkids go with which kids? Yarborough Okay, Bo has a son named Robert. Morris Okay. Yarborough He’s probably 26 now, and he works for the forestry service on Snow Hill Road, and he has a little girl, six years old, Gracie [Yarborough]. And they’re expecting a second child around December the 21st. It’ll be a little boy. Morris Oh, do they have a name picked out already, ma’am? Yarborough They do, but I can’t tell you right now. [laughs] Morris Okay. Yarborough Anyway, they have, then J. W. has two sons, James Kilby, which, who we call J. K. And right now he’s doing his junior year at Gainesville, in college, and a double-A student all the way across, I’m proud to say. Then C. W., who was born with a slight problem similar to his dad’s, and he’s in Bridges Academy now. That’s one of the schools that we started and is doing real well. He’s 15 years old and about 6’2”. He’s a big fellow. Morris Playing football? Yarborough He’s not playing football right now, but he does ranch rodeos. Morris Okay. Yarborough Yeah, he has played football, but prefers the rodeos. Morris I gotcha. Yarborough They’re all interested in 4-H. J. W.’s wife is Francis Yarborough, and she is a teacher, and she is our 4-H leader, also. So we’ve got a wonderful 4-H group out our way, about 43 kids in the group. They show animals at Central Florida Fair every year. Morris And what does the 4-H stand for, ma’am? Yarborough 4-H is to teach the children about agricultural. Head, heart, health, and hands is[sic] the 4 H’s. Morris Ah. Yarborough And they raise steers, pigs, chickens, rabbits, sheep, goats. They also plant gardens. You can do just about anything that you’re interested in through the 4-H program. Morris And how long has the program? Is it like a summer program they do for a certain amount of time? Yarborough No, it’s round-year, year-round. Morris Okay. Yarborough Well, if you’re doing an animal, you don’t have to feed that animal all year, but you do about six months—six to eight months of it—of feeding the animal. Then it goes to the fair, and it’s shown and auctioned off to the highest bidder. And they buy the animals. Some people butcher the animal and eat—has it for food. Some people give it to, like the Methodist Children’s Home, for them to eat, or to the Russell House. We’ve got quite a bit of food like that donated down through the years. Morris Oh, okay. Yarborough Then they get money back to pay for the feed that they put in the animal. Morris And—oh, by the way, thank you very much for the—I got everybody in your family here written down. But the, um—you worked in the cattle industry, correct, ma’am? Yarborough I’m sorry? Morris You worked with the cattle as well, right? Did you start working when you came back from Oklahoma with your husband? Yarborough Oh, yes. Morris Did you go back to Piggly Wiggly for any amount of time, or did you go straight into the cattle industry, and have you stayed there the entire time? Yarborough No, no. I stayed home at that time, because there was[sic] quite a few older people in Ed’s family that needed to be looked after, and the only place to buy groceries back then was Sanford, which was twelve miles from Geneva, so I did the little chauffeuring back and forth of about five different older people in his family, and just helped—helped where I was needed. If we had a garden planted, I always picked the vegetables—helped pick the vegetables and can them. Back then we didn’t have too much running water, so Mondays were wash day. I’d fix a fire under the big old wash pot and heat the water, put it in the washing machine for Edward’s mother to wash clothes. Tuesdays was days to iron. You used your wash water to mop the floors with, being as conservative as we could be with the water. And Wednesdays we did other things around the house, but Mondays was always wash days, and Tuesdays was always iron day. Morris Did you not have indoor plumbing in your house at that time, ma’am? Yarborough We had both. Both. Morris Okay. Yarborough The outdoor was there because that’s what had been there to begin with, but they had put indoor plumbing at Edward’s home about five years before. Morris Okay. Yarborough Before we got married. Morris And when did you get involved with the cattle industry, ma’am? Yarborough With the cattle? Morris Yes, ma’am. Yarborough That was started in our area and in Ed’s family by his grandfather, E. H. Kilby, who came here from Pensacola as a young man, way back in the late 1800s. He stayed with a man by the name of C. S. Lee from Oviedo, lived in his barn and worked orange groves ‘til he got enough money to buy a little piece of land. And then after he got married and had a family of his own, the boys grew up and W. G. [Kilby], his second child, stayed with him, and they hunted hogs, wild hogs, on the St. John’s River area, and would butcher—would feed them out, and butcher them, and take them to the Piggly Wiggly and sell them. And they accumulated enough money to buy some land and buy some cows, by hunting the wild hogs. Then in 1949, Florida passed a law that all the animals had to be fenced in. So up until then, they roamed free, anywhere on the land that was in the area, and of course you wanted to keep them close to the river, because that was where they could get their water, and good grass too. So Mr. Kilby focused on purchasing land adjacent to the St. John’s River, where—so he could have water, as well as grass. And that’s what they did. They had land in Volusia County, and then he came over and bought some from Mr. C. S. Lee, along highway [Florida State Road] 46 and the St. John’s River, bordered by Snow Hill on the west side. And altogether, at one point, we had about 12,000 acres that was under fence. So, a lot of fences to keep up, ‘cause you did them different pastures for the cows to live in, and you’d circulate your cows. You don’t leave them on the same pasture all the time. Morris Okay. Yarborough So that’s just part of the, part of the way you work cattle. Morris And why would you rotate the cattle to different fenced areas, ma’am? Yarborough Well, they eat the grass down, and you have to give it time to grow back. And you leave them on that same place too long, they just pull it up by the roots, and then you don’t have any grass at all. Morris Okay. Yarborough So you rotate them about every 28 days. Morris Oh, that frequently? Yarborough Mmhmm. You can leave them a little longer, but just really depends on the weather. [laughs] Everything with farming and ranching depends on the weather. Morris So if it was rainier weather you’d keep them there longer, and drier weather you’d have to move them faster, because the grass wouldn’t grow as much, ma’am? Yarborough That would be safe to say, pretty well. Yeah. But warm nights is really when grass grows. That’s why grass grows so good down here in Florida. But the dirt—the sand is very porous, so you have to really fertilize it, and back then, they didn’t fertilize much. They didn’t know that back then. It was always native grass, but now we’ve got what’s called “improved grass.” So you fertilize the improved grass. The native grass, like on the river, grows on its own, because the river and the high water fertilizes the native grass. Morris And what is improved grass? Yarborough Argentina[sic] Bahia is one, and there’s a Pensacola Bahia, and that’s the two grasses that we use the most in our cattle ranch. Morris Okay, ma’am. Yarborough There’s a lot of different grasses, though, Joe. Morris Right, I just didn’t know if there was native grass in other areas… Yarborough Yes, there is. Morris Or if they had been, like, tinkered with. Yarborough No, we’ve cleaned—down through the years, we’ve cleaned up a lot of land, and made what’s referred to as “improved pastures.” That’s on the higher land. And so, you fertilize these places. We’ve made them into hayfields. Some of them are hayfields, and some of them are just regular pastures. But you always have to fertilize the improved pasture. Morris Okay. Could you tell me a little more about cattle raising, as is? Yarborough All right. We have what’s referred to as cow-calf operation. Morris Okay. Yarborough That means you raise the calf to about between six- and eight-hundred pounds, and then take it to market. Several years ago, we had cattle markets in Ocala, Webster, Kissimmee, Lakeland, and Okeechobee. We also had butcher houses at different parts of the state, but we no longer have but one butcher house, and that’s Center Hill over in Sumter County, close to Bushnell. The Ocala market is still open, and Webster is still open, and Lakeland and Okeechobee are still open. But the market that we would go to every week with our cattle was Kissimmee. That was the closest one to us. That closed about 20 years ago, now. So now we use mostly Lakeland, but we also—let me back up just a little bit. We lost Edward in the year 2000. Morris Okay, ma’am. Yarborough And there was a little bit of changing in the way that we do our cattle. As I said earlier, W. E. has two trucks that he hauls cattle out west with, so we would take our calves in his semi[-truck]s to markets out in Texas and sell them. And we continue to do that today. We had done that a little bit before Edward passed away, but not on the big scale, like the boys have changed the operation a little bit. But the cow-calf operation means that you raise a calf and sell it, and breed the cow back. So you buy registered bulls, and put them—and we have a mixed herd. Our main stock are the Brahmas[sic], because they get along so well here in Florida. They’re very tolerable of the mosquitoes and the hot weather and the rain, and such. But we have brought the English breeds in through the years, the Black Angus, and the White-Faced Hereford, and the Charolais, which is a cream-colored cow. And you cross that with the Brahmas[sic], and that makes for a good, good mama cow. Morris Okay. Yarborough So a good breeding cow is pretty good to raise calf for about 12 to 13 years, with good grass and good feed. A bull is probably good for maybe three to—they start breeding at three years, and they’re good for three to five years, so you have to keep bringing in new bulls. Each year, you bring in a certain amount of bulls. One bull can service about 35 cows, so you have to go according to your largest herds, to see how many, to see how large your herd is, to see how many bulls you need. A good bull would cost you between two- and three-thousand dollars. If you buy a bred heifer, which is a young cow, that will cost you between five- and seven-hundred dollars. But, if she has a calf in the next six months or so, then it’ll take six months to get that calf up to—which will put you into a year—that calf will bring back what that mother cost. Meanwhile she’s gotten bred again. Ready to have another calf. And that’s the cycle that you work through. Morris Okay, ma’am. And what would be the size of your herd? You said there’s one bull for every 35 cows, correct? Yarborough Yeah, you want it something pretty close to that. Morris Okay. Yarborough We’ve got about 1,000 head. Morris Okay, ma’am. Are you still using—do you still have the 12,000 acres? Yarborough No. Morris Yes, ma’am. Yarborough Down through the years, for inheritance tax purposes, we’ve had to sell land. We sold everything that we had in Volusia County. And we’ve sold—we sold 9,000 acres to the State of Florida, which has been turned into a game refuge and parks. It’s overflow land that’s not really a buildable property for homes. It’s real low. But an old cow can get along real well on it, so we’ve got 1,400 acres left in the family now. Morris Okay. Yarborough We have leased the 9,000 acres back from the state to use for the cows. We have to pay for that lease, so much an acre, and also keep up the fences and keep up the roads, and there’s a lot of responsibility there. Morris Oh, okay, ma’am. I noticed you mentioned, before that, at one point in time you had this many markets and this many butcher houses. How come that number has decreased over time? Were they personally yours, or were they... Yarborough No. No, no, no. They were, those were the ones that we could take our animals to. They were not ours personally. Kissimmee closed because of the management, and so many people started moving into the area around Kissimmee, and Orlando, and up our way, and the cattle, the little cattle ranches, were just not existent anymore. They were building homes. We could, a farmer could make more—and a rancher could make more selling his land than he could make with the cows on the land. Does that make sense to you, Jeffrey[sic]? Morris It does, ma’am. Yarborough All right. He could sell his land, and at that time put it at interest, which was 12 percent, 8 and 12 percent interest for a number of years, years ago, and could live—could live on that, and not have to work as hard. And the real estate was paying five and six and a whole lot more for land, an acre, see. So they could have that a lot easier. So, numbers were down. Numbers were down, and that’s why markets have to close. Same with the butcher houses. Same, same thing. Morris Okay, ma’am. That makes perfect sense to me, sounds like supply and demand. People kind of got squeezed out with the increase in population. Yarborough That’s right. That’s right. Morris Gotcha, ma’am. Yarborough Now, going back into the ‘50s here in Seminole County, there was about six families that made their living on cattle, all around in Seminole County. Right now—and for the last ten years—there’s three families that make, that make their living on cows. There’s a lot of people that’s got 20 head, or 10 or 20 or 40 or 60, or 150 head of cows, but they do something on the side to make a living. They work in a grocery store, or they’re a mechanic, or something else to help them make a living. But there’s only three families that’s just made their living on the ranch, and that’s the Robert Lee family of Oviedo, Betty [Yarborough] Schlusemeyer, who is Edward’s sister in Geneva, and our ranch, Ed Yarborough Ranches, in Geneva. But they all kind of congregate around the St. John’s River. Remember I said we needed the water? Morris Yes, ma’am, I do. Yarborough So the land adjacent and joins the Econ[fina] Creek and the St. John’s River. All of these three ranches go around into that area. Morris And do the ranches ever, do you communicate with the other ranches often? Yarborough Oh, yes, definitely. Morris In what ways, ma’am? Yarborough Right now, by phone [laughs]. Morris Well, I asked for that. I should have known that was coming, ma’am. Yarborough That’s okay. Morris I meant in what capacity? Is it like a very positive relationship? Do you help each other? Yarborough Yes, yes, definitely. If one group might be marking and branding, and need a little help, or they might be cutting hay, and their tractor’s breaking down, they come over and get our tractor. Or one of our boys will take the tractor and go over and bale for them. And they do the same for us. Morris Okay, so... Yarborough Yeah, it’s a very congenial atmosphere. We have a very active cattlemen’s association [Seminole County Cattlemen’s Association] in the county, and you don’t have to be a cattleman to join it, because everybody wants to—every young boy wants to be a cowboy. [laughs] But nevertheless, this is a group that is also a state group, and we get information from the University of Florida about feed, fertilizer, medicines, and all, that help us raise the cattle to the better level that it is today. Morris So the business has improved over time? Yarborough Very much. Very much. Yes. See, the cows were brought here back in the 1500s by the Spanish people. Morris Mmmhm. Yarborough And they were what we refer to now as “scrub cattle,” because they lived in the scrubs, the woods, and they were all horns and bones. They weren’t very fat. But now we have to put meat on their bones, so the steaks will turn out good. So the taste is there. Morris Yes, ma’am, and I do love a good steak. Do you know where your cattle end up eventually? Do you know if it’s sold in Florida, or... Yarborough We do have that possibility of tracing every cow where it goes to, now. That is fairly new in our particular business world, I’d say five years or so back that all of this started. That is a health precaution, because if you have some tainted meat for some reason or another, it could go back to the owners, to find out if the meat was tainted at the ground level, so to speak, before it was butchered, or at the butcher house, or in transit to the grocery store. Morris Right. You gotta find it. Yarborough So you got to find that, that situation, and so we do have that facility to do now. Morris Do you keep track of where your cattle go? Yarborough Yes. Morris Do you know, do they usually end up—because I know you said they transfer a lot to Texas. Do... Yarborough They do, and they feed them out, out there. Then they get sold again to stores and such. Morris Do they end up all over the place, ma’am? Yarborough All over. All over. Morris Oh, okay. I didn’t know if there was a concentration. Okay. Yarborough No. Morris The Yarborough more cows tend to be in Massachusetts, where they end up in. Yarborough Yep. Morris Okay. Yarborough But we do have buyers. They buy ours sight unseen, because they know from experience that we use the good bulls, and we use the right feed and medicines and everything to keep them well. So they, they even, there’s a group that bids on ours, sight unseen. Morris Is that a good feeling, ma’am? Yarborough That’s a very comfortable feeling. Morris And how long has the family been in this business? How far back does that go? Yarborough Okay. My children—Ed’s and my children—are one, two, three, are fourth, fifth generation. Morris Okay. Yarborough Fifth generation. And the grandchildren, C. W., J. K., and Robert, are next generation. And Gracie and her little brother will be the sixth generation. So, that’s the way it goes. Morris So you’re covered for now? Yarborough Right now. Morris Okay, ma’am. Yarborough It’s like a baseball team, almost, but you got to have help. [laughs] That’s one of the things that I take great pride in, is Edward coming through and working the kids, and working the ranch with the children, and one other man, all the years that they were growing up and all. They had to work hard, and they still do. It’s not an easy life. Morris It doesn’t sound easy, ma’am. Yarborough You don’t get just—close the gate and go on vacation. You have to, you have to stay close by. Morris There’s work involved? Yarborough There’s a lot of work involved. Have you ever dug a fence hole? Morris Yes, ma’am. Yarborough Fence post hole? Morris Yes, ma’am. Yarborough You ever strung barbwire? Morris Barbwire? Yes, ma’am. Yarborough You know what barbwire is? Morris Yes, ma’am. Yarborough Okay. Morris I’m in the military. We have our fair share of sharp pieces of metal that we set up. Yarborough Okay. Well, see, we have to grow our grass for the cows to eat. You got to provide them with water. You got to keep an eye on them, because they get sick just like we do. Morris Yes, okay. So it’s a very family-oriented business. Yarborough Very. Morris Not a lot of outside help, a lot of... Yarborough No, but we got people that we know, that if we need help, we can usually call on them. We have one hired man that works five days a week, so. Morris Okay. Yarborough Of course our boys, C. W.—no, J. W., and Bo—ride through all the time. They’re out there, pretty much. Morris Yeah, it definitely sounds like it can be a tough job. Yarborough It is, but it’s an interesting job. It’s rewarding. It’s rewarding in many ways, Jeff[sic]. You see that when there where the grass starts greening up after you’ve had a hard winter, and the frost has killed it and everything’s brown, and you’re feeding hay every day, and you’re feeding corn, and the ingredients that it takes to make the different types of feed we use, by the bagfuls, and spring starts coming, and the grass starts turning greener. The rains start to come. And you can smile again. But you always know it’s God’s country to begin with. You’re just the caregiver. That’s the attitude that I’ve tried to teach, and firmly believe in. Morris It sounds like it’s done a great job. Yarborough We’ve done well. We’ve been blessed. Morris And, I know you said one of your grandkids is 26, I think—one of the older ones? Yarborough Yes. Morris Will he be working in the cattle industry as well? Yarborough Oh, he helps. Yes. On his days off, it’s, and fortunately, his office is right across the street from our largest set of cow pens where we go in, off of Snow Hill Road. So, he can come over every now and then, and check on things. But on his days off, he can help us. Morris I thought he was a student at... Yarborough No, that’s the second, second one. This is the oldest one. Morris Gotcha. Oh okay, ma’am. Yarborough This is Robert, the oldest one, that works for the forestry unit. Morris Oh, okay. Yarborough And usually Mondays are his days off, because he’ll work weekends. And so, we plan to do a lot of pen work or have him riding on Mondays, when we got Robert a lot of times, ‘cause he’s a, he’s a good, big, strapping boy. Morris I have a question from a while ago. I just didn’t want to interrupt at the time. It was a—actually it goes even farther back, way back quite a ways, actually. You said earlier on that your husband had drafted into the service, correct? Yarborough Correct. Morris And this is in the early ‘50s—1954, I believe. Yarborough Yes, actually, it was ’55. Morris Oh, ’55, okay. Is that, was that a common occurrence at that time? Yarborough It was. Yes, you had the general, the boys, when they turned 21, they had to register. Or might have to register at 18, but they had to go about 21. Morris Definitely you get your draft card at 18, ma’am. That has not changed. Yarborough Oh, it hasn’t? Okay [laughs]. Morris No, I have my draft card. Yarborough Okay, hut he—he had to go. Morris Okay. So most, almost all males at that time... Yarborough Back then, yes. Morris Oh, okay. I didn’t realize that that was still occurring after the end of World War II. Yarborough Yes. Morris Okay, I just wanted to make that clear. I didn’t know if there was an exception for him, if it was a... Yarborough No, no. In fact, they did make exceptions. It’s called hardship [exemption]. If a family did not, did—a lot of agriculture families did get excused, because they needed the boys on the farms. Morris Couldn’t afford it. Oh, okay, ma’am. But that family could, or he chose to do it regardless of... Yarborough Well, no, he, they didn’t give him a choice. [laughs] Morris Oh. Oh, the military. Okay, ma’am. I’d like to do some more general questions about your life. Yarborough lease. Morris Do you have any, any stories or childhood memories that come to mind, that you’d like to share—have recorded, ma’am? Anything that you find hilarious, or that was really important during your life as you were growing up, or even past that? Yarborough I was very—I have always felt I was very blessed having people in my life that would take the patience to teach me many of the things they had learned in life—older people. And my mother working, as I said earlier, I stayed with my grandmother in Oxford. I also had the opportunity to stay with a great-aunt on my mother’s side, Grace Bevel, in Bushnell. She never had children, but she accepted me as hers, and Mother let me stay with her quite a bit in my younger years. And she was a very—she was a learned person, and most willing to teach me how to crochet, how to cook, how to be good to others, and a lot of Bible verses, and rhymes. Because in her day, a lot of the teaching was done by voice, from one to the other, and singing it or either telling the stories is where doing it like the history and such. But she taught by repeating rhymes and songs and things. And states and capitals, multiplication tables. There was a railroad track right next to her house, and we had to—for me to get to play on the railroad track, between trains, I had to learn to spell certain words, big hard words, and then I could go over and walk the railroad tracks. Morris Okay. Yarborough And that was—like I said, we didn’t have TVs or radios, back then. We invented our own playtime and playthings. But I had Aunt Grace, and I had Granny Olberry, and my mom. Those were the close ladies in my life until we moved to Geneva, and then Edward had an aunt, Catherine Kilby, who was his Uncle W. G.’s wife. They had no children, neither. But she took a liking to me, and was just like a mother in teaching me, because she too was a schoolteacher. And then Edward’s mother, Pearl Yarborough, was like a mother to me. We called her Mama Pearl, especially whenever the children started coming. Ed and I were married four years before we had any children, because we didn’t want to live in the house with his folks and raise children. So we waited ‘til we accumulated enough money to build a house, and we were given the piece of property by Mr. Kilby to build right there between his mother and him. They put the young couple there to help the older people, is what I was told. [laughs] And we did. We worked together beautifully as a family. But go ahead. Morris Oh, I was going to say, are there any historical events, even international or domestic? Yarborough I remember the day that that Second World War was declared. I had broken my arm. I was in the third grade, doing something very foolish—the seesaws. The seesaws at school were built up about three feet high, and the boards were about twelve foot long. And I was acting like Tarzan. I was standing up on one end, and there was five girls on the other, and they would bounce me up. They would hit the ground hard with their end, bounce me up, and I’d come down, and supposed to hit the board. And I was pretty good at it, ‘til I fell one morning and broke my arm, my shoulder, right in the shoulder. And the doctors wanted to remove my arm because gangrene set in. They could not set it. At that time, Second World War was going on. Morris Okay. Yarborough And all the good doctors had been taken to war, so it was just a group of older doctors in Ocala. No surgeons, and my mother was pregnant with my third sister. And she just begged the doctor not to, not to take my arm off. Girls couldn’t get along without an arm. And this is—this will show you how God works. God sent up a surgeon home to Ocala, Dr. Davis, and he was home for two weeks, because they were going to ship him overseas. And Mother’s Dr. Ferguson heard that he was home, and he called him up and told him about my arm, and he said that, told him that we’re going to have to cut it off, unless he thought he could do something. He said that he didn’t have any idea what to do, but he would try. So they fashioned some type of plate to fit around the bone, because it was broken in the joint, so to speak, where the arm joints the shoulder. And it had four screws in this plate, and the operation took six hours. And that was a long operation, back then, especially. And they said I could use that plate for about a year, but then they’d have to go in there and take it out, because my bone would still be growing, and they, it wouldn’t stay properly. But it would probably never be a working arm. But, during all of this, Mother had had the baby, and she stayed home with me, and they didn’t have physical therapy that much back then, but Mother would rub this arm and exercise it, and I wasn’t let ride a bicycle, or skate, and I was a very active sports person. But today I have use of my arm. Morris That’s fantastic, ma’am. Yarborough Because of the doctors. And they did the surgery the next year, took the plate out, and I’ve got about a 14 inch scar on the arm that doesn’t bother me a bit to show. I’m proud to have the arm. But that’s, two of them—oh, and to getting back. I’m regressing. During this time, I said I remember the day that they... Morris World War II. Yarborough World War [II] was declared. I remember reading in the Bible, as a youngster, that God said He would destroy the earth the next time by fire. The first time He destroyed the earth by water. Morris Yes, ma’am. Yarborough And they talked about the atomic bomb. Maybe it wasn’t war declared. It was when they did the, dropped the atomic bomb. Morris At the end of the war. Yarborough Yes, whenever they did that, I said, “Well, that’s what’s going to have a part in God’s next coming, is the atomic bomb.” That was just my mental perception. Morris That stuck out to you? Yarborough Yes, yes. Morris Okay. Yarborough But that could have changed my whole life, too. I could have lost my arm on that deal, had Dr. Davis not come home. Morris That’s definitely a memory that would have stuck with me too, ma’am. Do you—we’re about to wrap up. Do you have anything you’d like to share before we go, ma’am? Anything that you feel that we overlooked or bypassed? Yarborough I think you’ve done a marvelous job, Jeff[sic]. I just feel it a great privilege to have had the opportunity to grow up in the little community of Geneva. Geneva is made up of a lot of older people that have retired from businesses, but they are willing to work with youngsters down through the years, through the school systems and the different community groups that we have out there, through the homemakers and the 4-H, and through the [Rural] Heritage Center and churches. I just feel very fortunate to have been put there for a reason, and I’ve tried to repay it in every way that I could by working with the youth as much as I can, all through the years. So I feel very blessed to have been there. Morris Thank you very much, ma’am, for coming in today. Yarborough Thank you. Coverage Geneva, Florida Oxford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Tuscawilla Park, Ocala, Florida Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/show/3671" target="_blank">Oral History of Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough</a> 4-H agriculture Argentine Bahia atomic bombs Betty Schlusemeyer Betty Yarborough Bevel, Grace Black Angus Bo Yarborough Brahman Bridges Academy bulls Bushnell butcher house butcher houses C. S. Lee C. W. Yarborough Catherine Kilby cattle cattle breeding cattle ranch cattle ranches Center Hill Central Florida Fair Charles Simeon Lee Charolais Chuluota conscription cow-calf operations cows Davis E. H. Kilby Econfina Creek Edward Yarborough Ferguson fertilizers Florida State Road 46 Fort Sill Francis Yarborough Geneva Goodwill Grace Bevel Grace Yarborough Gracie Yarborough Historical Society of Central Florida horses Ima Jean Bostick Ima Jean Yarborough improved grass improved grasses improved pastures J. K. Kilby J. W. Yarborough James Kilby Joe Morris Joseph Morris Kissimmee learning disabilities learning disability Lee, Robert Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Little Rock, Arkansas Lynn Yarborough Mary Dunn Methodist's Children's Home military drafts Morris, Joseph Museum of Seminole County History native grass native grasses Ocala Oklahoma Lawton Olberry Oviedo Oxford PACE School Palmetto Avenue pastures Pearl Yarborough Pensacola Pensacola Bahia Piggly Wiggly Reba Yarborough Robert Lee Robert Yarborough Ross Allen Ross Allen's Reptile Institute Rural Heritage Center Russell House Sanchez Avenue Sanchez Street Sanford Seminole County Seminole County Cattlemen's Association Silver Springs Snow Hill snow Hill Road special education SR 46 St. Johns River Sumter County Tuscawilla Park University of Florida Vickers, Savannah Volusia County W. E. Yarborough W. G. Kilby White-Faced Heifer Winn-Dixie World War II WWII