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100
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https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/68de2783eb584748a93b583d1e213e1a.pdf
6bb211a768d0527e7d8fe33ef8bc5857
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
Oviedo Historical Society Collection
Alternative Title
Oviedo Historical Society Collection
Subject
Oviedo (Fla).
Description
The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015.
The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history.
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Oviedo, Florida
Contributing Project
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>
<a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/.
Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979.
Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012.
"<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68.
"<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3.
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 Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan
Alternative Title
Oral History, Reagan
Subject
Oviedo (Fla.)
Education--Florida
Description
An oral history interview of Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan, conducted by Rebecca Schwandt on April 2, 2015. Born January 27, 1934, Reagan is the granddaughter of Andrew Aulin, Sr. (1843-1918), who is credited with naming Oviedo, Florida. In this oral history, Reagan discusses growing up in Oviedo, attending school at Oviedo High School, the great technological advances that have occurred during her life, segregation and integration, her hopes and aspirations, and her family life. She also tells stories about her grandfather and talks about the history of the Aulin family, as well as the Lawtons and the Wheelers. Finally, Reagan discusses her career as an artist.
Table Of Contents
0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:00:37 Childhood memories <br />0:03:46 Childhood games and entertainment <br />0:07:29 Friends and pets <br />0:11:46 Siblings and childhood aspirations <br />0:14:27 Favorite books <br />0:17:18 Mary Alice Powell Aulin and sewing <br />0:22:17 Childhood homes <br />0:24:56 RECORDING CUTS OFF <br />0:24:59 Community events <br />0:29:36 Car accident and the local doctor <br />0:35:02 Teachers and discipline <br />0:39:19 School pranks and memories <br />0:42:05 Integration and race relations <br />0:47:30 Graduation <br />0:49:41 College education and first job <br />0:53:26 Husbands and children <br />1:02:35 History of the Aulin family <br />1:09:08 Closing remarks
Abstract
Oral history interview of Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan. Interview conducted by Rebecca Schwandt at Reagan's home in Lake Mary, Florida, on April 2, 2015.
Type
Moving Image
Source
Reagan, Bettye Jean Aulin. Interviewed by Rebecca Schwandt, April 2, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida.
Requires
<a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a>
<a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a>
<a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Has Format
28-page digital transcript of original 1-hour, 14-minute and 19-second oral history: Reagan, Bettye Jean Aulin. Interviewed by Rebecca Schwandt, April 2, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida.
Coverage
Oviedo, Florida
Sanford, Florida
Lake Mary, Florida
Creator
Reagan, Bettye Jean Aulin
Schwandt, Rebecca
Publisher
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
Date Created
2015-04-02
Date Modified
2016-01-20
Date Copyrighted
2015-04-02
Format
video/mp4
application/pdf
Extent
482 MB
270 KB
Medium
1-hour, 14-minute and 19-second audio/video recording
28-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Julia Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan and Rebecca Schwandt, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>.
Rights Holder
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
Accrual Method
Item Creation
Contributing Project
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
External Reference
"<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6207" target="_blank">Joseph Lawton, October 18, 1753 - March 1815</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6207.
"<a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=69149825" target="_blank">Andrew Aulin</a>." Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=69149825.
"<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-01-13/news/9301130107_1_oviedo-sanford-grandchildren" target="_blank">MARY ALICE AULIN, 83, Myrtle Avenue, Oviedo, died Tuesday...</a>" <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, January 13, 1993. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-01-13/news/9301130107_1_oviedo-sanford-grandchildren.
Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979.
Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website)
<a href="https://youtu.be/6kRa494ENww" target="_blank">Oral History of Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan</a>
Transcript
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>This is an oral history of Bettye [Jean Aulin] Reagan. The interview is conducted by Rebecca Schwandt at Bettye Reagan’s home in Oviedo, er—Lake Mary, Florida…</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>On April 2<sup>nd</sup>, 2015. Could you please state your full name and birth date for the record?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Okay, Bettye Jean Reagan. Uh, January 27<sup>th</sup>, 1934. Uh, born actually in Sanford in the hospital, which I was the first one in my family to be born in the hospital. Everybody else had been born at home, [<em>laughs</em>] which was in Oviedo, and, um, that’s where I was raised.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And what is one of your earliest childhood memories?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>My earliest childhood memories was[sic]—we lived, uh—I don’t know the name of the road. It goes, uh—it goes beside the Lawton House—where the Lawton House, uh—there’s one that goes towards Winter Park and the other one that comes beside it. We lived down that road, across from where the [Oviedo High] School was. That was in a big ol’ two story house there, and one—I guess I’ll never forget this. When I was—we moved out of that house when I was six years old, but, uh, one day my little brother<a title="">[1]</a> and I decided to go for a walk out—and you went through the back—we had a—a garden and we had an orange grove. If you kep’ on goin’, there was a great big ditch there, you walked over, which was scary. We could go all the way to where the cemetery is today. It was there then, through the woods, and we decided we just go for—and we went, which we—unheard of. Today, it would be terrible they would have called the police [<em>laughs</em>], but—and we’re out there wandering around in—in the cemetery, and this lady, who knew who we were, came and got us and took us back home, and another time, we went down there, and—and I was gonna fix it so my brother, who’s two years younger than I am—he had to be—if I was six he had to be four—and I made him a fishing pole out of a stick, a piece of string, and I don’t know how I did it, but I took a straight pin and bent it. We got some bread and we tied that string on there, and we went down there to that ditch that we had to cross over, which is really what it was, but it had water in it—to fish, and my little brother fell in head first, and his—there—and his feet are sticking up and I pulled him out [<em>laughs</em>]. He’s covered with mud [<em>laughs</em>], but that was a sca—I used to have nightmares after that about that incident.</p>
<p>It scared me so bad, and another time, at that same area, where my daddy<a title="">[2]</a> had planted all the strawberries, I took the bucket one day and I picked every strawberry in the patch, and they were all green, so we didn’t have strawberries that year [<em>laughs</em>]. That’s[sic] my first memories [<em>laughs</em>], but then, I swear I started school in first grade, and I got to go to school a year early. I went when I was five. My birthday was in January, but you were—but—and you weren’t supposed to go to school, but, uh, a man from Oviedo, Mr.—Mr. Gore, was a—on the school board, and, uh, his son was Frank—Frankie D. Gore, and he’s a school—well, I guess he’s not now, but he was a school teacher—grew up to be a school teacher. He got to go—his birthday was the same as mine was. So my Mama<a title="">[3]</a> said, “Well, if you[sic] can go to school—well, if he can go, you can go.” So they had to let me go. So I got to go to school when I was five and get out early, and those are some of the first things I remember [<em>sniffs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And what kind of games did you play as a young child?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>We, you know—we made up our games. We did things—I guess we couldn’t say we—we, uh—I remember that, uh, we took the—we—We lived in another—we moved two more times, and we lived up where the—we were surrounded by orange groves, and every year, when they got ready to pick the oranges, they would come out and they would dump all the orange crates. If you know what an orange—old-fashioned orange box looks—it’s got a division in the middle and they would stack them, and we would make a great fort. Me and my brother would get out there and make this great big fort and, uh, play in that.</p>
<p>Then, we would also fix a, uh—a little thing in the back yard and play storekeeper, and in those days, you—what you did with you garbage—you didn’t have garbage collection. You dug a great big hole in your backyard somewhere. you put all the—your trash that you had and we put it in the hole and then—and you tried to burn it, if you could, and then you’d fill the hole in, and then you dig another hole, but we would get anything that came in a carton, a box, and we would save all those and we would put them up on the table, and we would play like we had a store, and y—anybody came to the store, and we would pull the—we got in trouble for this—we pulled the leaves off the orange tree. That was our money. We made out like that was dollars, and we would do that, and we would, uh, play cops and robbers, and we—we would get a little saw, which my daddy had—we weren’t s’posed to use, and saw out little—just a little thing that look like a—a pistol, but of course, it wasn’t. It was just a little thing, and we would run around and chase each other, and then another time, we decided we would go find Indian mound[sic]. We had a wild imagination, I guess, and we went out with a shovel, and we found a little mound way away from the house. I don’t know how we got away with all that, and we would dig and dig. ‘Course, we never found anything [<em>laughs</em>], but we—but we spent a lot of time doing that sort of thing.</p>
<p>We—you just came up with your own ideas, you know, but as far as havin’ a lot of toys, we didn’t, but we—we made, uh, treehouses. We’d climb a tree, and put boards up on it and climb up, and we didn’t really have a house, but we would put a couple boards up there—make out like we did. Or we would do another thing. We would cut off palmetto[sic]—big, uh, palmetto[sic] palms, you know, and we would put them around some trees, and we would have a little house, and that’s the kinda thing we did growin’ up, but as far as havin’ a lot of toys or anything, we didn’t. We didn’t do that. Not like today, and of course, there was no TV, of course, and you listened to the radio at night. That’s the only time you listen to it.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Do you remember any radio shows?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes, uh, <em>The Lone Ranger</em>. Every—we always listened to <em>The Lone Ranger</em>, and, uh, something else came on. Um, cowboy show came on—another one. I can’t think of the name of that one. Trigger—who was<a title="">[4]</a>—he had the horse named Trigger? Uh, anyway, we—we did listen to those kind of sh—and then, uh, <em>Grand Ole Opry </em>came on Every Saturday night. We listened to that, uh, but—and everybody just sat around the radio.it was quiet and you listened to it.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Who were your childhood friends?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, some of the—the same people that I started out with in the first grade. I—they were still with me when I graduated [<em>laughs</em>], and I don’t know how many people were in the first grade, becau—but probably 20 or so, and, uh, when I graduated there were nine, but most of ‘em, I had started out with in the first grade, and, uh, some—a couple of ‘em lived close to me, and we would go to each other’s house n’ play, but—or, actually, a lot of times, we went to the school ground and play. They have swing sets there, and, uh, they had a field to play baseball and all that, and—and then, another thing, we had a cow, and—to get—for milk—and every day, my daddy would take that cow with a chain on it and go across the road to the school grounds [<em>laughs</em>], which had some woods on it—a little bit of woods, and he would stake the cow out there on—and the cow would eat the grass on the school ground, and then we’d bring it in every night, and that was—nobody thought there was anything wrong with that. That was just what you did, and it’s crazy. Things change so much, but today, you couldn’t think of doin’ something like that [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p>Another thing that we would do when we got a little bit older, um—where the school is, the railroad track ran right behind the school, and we would be watchin’ the ball game on Sunday afternoon, which everybody in town went, and there would be s—just a bunch of people get up a game—you know, choose up, and then they would play baseball, and everybody would be there to watch it, and these boys would figure out how to let…</p>
<p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Some of the air out of the tires on the car and get it on the railroad track, and they would—we would be sitting her watching the ball game and way out there past the field, there goes the car down the railroad track, and that was the highlight of the thing [<em>laughs</em>]—of the day. I don’t know how they did that. Sometimes, they’d get off and it’d go, “Bump, bump, bump, bump” down there too [<em>laughs</em>]. Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Did you have any other animals besides the milk cow?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. Well, we had, uh—we had a dog. I had two dogs I’ll never forget. Uh, the first one we got—well[?], we—we got this white Spitz, and we had that dog for 14 years. His name was Troubles, and, uh, he—he was, uh, just a lifelong pet, and, uh, then one time, my daddy brought home a little, black puppy. Uh, when he was workin’ with—for Nelson and Company, which was Wheeler’s.<a title="">[5]</a> Uh, he was, uh, a man who checked the fruit. He was a fruit tester, and when they would go to pick oranges in the groves, he had all this equipment and he would, uh—slice the fruit and put the juice in, and he knew how to measure to see how much solid it had, how much sugar it had. They had to do that when they picked the oranges to know what kind of thing it was. Anyway, while he was—was gone one day, somebody gave him a little puppy. He brought it home, and we already had that other dog, and my mother said—and I thought it was my dog. It was my dog. Uh, I called her Black Beauty, ‘cause I had just read that book, <em>Black Beauty</em>, and I had that that dog for a couple weeks. My mother kept sayin’ all the time, “You can’t keep that dog. You can’t keep that dog.” Well, I kept it three or four months, and one day, I came home from school and the dog wasn’t there, and my mother had given it to somebody who was walkin’ by and saw it, and she asked if they wanted that dog. She—we couldn’t have two dogs. She gave my dog away, and I was very, very heartbroken [<em>laughs</em>] about that, but, uh, Anyway, we knew who had it and we used to go down and see the dog all the time, bum, but that was—that was the only pets we ever had was those two dogs and the cow, of course. [inaudible]. That was it.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>How many siblings do you have?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>I had, uh—I had two sisters and two brothers, and I still have one sister and one brother. The others are all passed away.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And how did you get along with your siblings?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /> </strong>Good. Well, there was a big, uh—there was seven years difference between my older—my older sister, <a title="">[6]</a> who’s here, and, uh, I had a—my older sister was 10 years older than me, and then [Alice] Kathryn [Aulin Bunch] was next to her, and then I had a brother<a title="">[7]</a>—was seven years older, and then there was me and my younger brother, who’s two years younger, who still lives in Oviedo, and, uh, so, we were, uh—my sister will be the first to tell you that me and my brother were spoiled, because we were younger, then there was seven years difference, and by the time we came along, we—we didn’t have to do all the work that they had to do, and she says we got by with a lot of stuff, which not true [<em>laughs</em>], but, uh, ‘cause they grew up and they left home. We were still at home, you know, for seven more years, but, uh—and[?] today she lives in so[?] close to me now. She used to live in Orlando most all her life and now she lives here.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What did you want to be when you grew up?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, I wanted to be, uh, a teacher, and I wanted to teach English and literature, which I loved, and, uh, P.E.,<a title="">[8]</a> and the reason I wanted to teach P.E.—one reason—cause I loved sports and all that. We used to have these girls in our P.E. class, which we would go, eh—different times of the year, you did different things. We had basketball. We actually didn’t have a lot of sports, but we played basketball and softball. That was the only two sports that girls played, and, uh—but those girls—so many of them were la—lazy, and they would just say, “Oh, um, you know, I’m havin’ my period and I can’t play,” and so they’d sit in the gym, you know, and just sit there and not do anything, and that wasn’t true. They[?] just lazy, and I always said, “One day I’ma be a P.E. teacher and nobody’s gonna be sitting in there on the bench, ‘cause I’m gonna give them a trashcan and they’re gonna walk around the school yard and pick up the trash, if they can’t do anything else.” That was my goal, but I didn’t get to do any of those things [<em>laughs</em>], ‘cause I didn’t get to go to college, as much as I wanted to, Uh, but, uh, it all turned out okay anyway, but that’s…</p>
<p>I loved school. I loved school. I would go to school—as soon as I was old enough to be able to do this—the teachers always came to school in those days—two weeks before school, the teachers would be at school gettin’ their classrooms ready, and they always stayed for two weeks after school was out, and I would go to school and find my teacher that I was gonna have, and I would ask her what I would do to help her, and I would stay there, because I just loved going to school, and I was always not happy when school was out every year. I loved school.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What—you mentioned you wanted to be a—a[sic] English teacher. What were some of your favorite books?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, gee [<em>laughs</em>]. Uh, I remember <em>Heidi</em>, when I was little. <em>Heidi</em>, you know? if you ever read that book, and, uh, then, um—oh, after I got older, I remember books I read, but I can’t think of any right off the—oh, I’ll never forget, I’ma tell you a funny story about this book. We had this little book that somebody gave us on the life of Abraham Lincoln, and it was a child’s book. You know it had pictures of Lincoln and it was written so a child could understand. Well, you know when you get up in the high school, you got to write a book report. You gotta read a book every six weeks—well, we did then—and you gotta bi—write a book report on it and turn it in. Well, we had this book. I didn’t do this, but my brothers did. They got the Abraham Lincoln book, which you could read in 15 minutes if you were an adult, you know, and they would almost copy it word for word and turn that thing in for a book report, and got by with it, but I [<em>laughs</em>]—I always remembered that, but I used to, uh, uh—we had—in Oviedo, actually, they had, uh—we had a drugstore, which was the place. The number one place in Oviedo was the drugstore. They also had a section down there where they had like library books—new books that were written today, you know—modern books, and you could go check ‘em out, and, uh, I would go down there and check books out there, and I had a teacher, um, uh, her name was Miss Walker, and, uh, she got married later her name was Ms. Anderson, but she told me about these books and she would recommend a book for me to read, and I would go down to the drugstore and check it out and read those books, and then after I got married and had kids, eh, hardly had time to read, but every day when they took a nap after lunch, I would—I was a member of a book club and I would my—I’m still reading today.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Uh, in an earlier conversation you mentioned your mother was a seamstress.</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Can you elaborate on some of the things she did[?]?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes. Um, my mother, uh, was—oh, she—she packed oranges for 25 years for Nelson and Company. I remember that well, ‘cause we would go down there sometimes after s—we’d have to go down there and see her about something, but, um—but she also was a seamstress, and she learned to do this on her own. My mother came to Oviedo on the train from Sanford. She only got to go to school to the eighth grade, and she loved school. That was another thing. She lived over here in Sanford and she came out there to operate the telephone service—the—be the telephone operator, and, uh, that’s where she met my father, but, um, I don’t know when or how she learned to sew, because I know that she was young, uh—maybe 16, 17 years old then, when she came out there, and, uh, I never heard about her mother sewing so I—I—I didn’t ever know how she ever learned, but she was very good. She made all our clothes. Never had a bought dress. Never had anything bought, until one day she did get me a big coat. I have a picture. It’s in one of my books. That—it was a—really a store-bought coat. It looked like fur. It wasn’t, but it was—I—I—there’s a picture of me in that book in school, standing there in that big old coat [<em>laughs</em>], but she made, uh—she made all my clothes, and, uh—and my—my sister’s too, and she made—she sewed for other people. They would come to the house, uh, she made clothes for them too, but she made me a—something I’ll never forget—she made me a red coat. It was like a red, wool coat—bright red—and in the inside was satin lines. It was full-length, you know, like a—I was only about 10 years old, and I thought that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I wanted to wear it to school, but she said, “No, that was to wear to church,” you know, that was special. I finally remember I got to wear it to school, but I never forgot that, and to this day, not too long ago, I learned a song that Dolly Parton wrote, my—<em>Coat of Many Colors</em>. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard—are familiar with that. Anyway, that always made me—we weren’t that hard up. It wasn’t made out of rags, like her coat was, but every time I heard that song, I think about my red coat that my mother made me.</p>
<p>So that, uh, and she sewed everything, and then what happened years later—I always said—every night my mother would sit there by the sewing machine and sew, and we’d be sittin’ listenin’ to the radio, and she would sew ‘til late, and I said, “There’s one thing I’m never gonna to do. I am never gonna sew,” ‘cause I thought it was just too much work. Well, got married. my husband gives me a sewing machine for Christmas, plus lessons over in Orlando, so I’d go take lessons, and so I did that, and low ‘n’ behold, I—liked it, and I can—I made my kid’s clothes, and I have pictures—Easter pictures where everybody’s—even my little boys’ coats. we all had dresses that—just alike, and we all had hats and gloves, and we would go to church, and—I mean, some of them are little kids, and we got movies of all this, and we would go to church, and then—especially on Easter and Mother’s Day, we went to Morrison’s Cafeteria after church, the only time we ever went out to eat, and we would go there, and then we would go to Lake Eola in Orlando to the Easter parade, and go up on the platform at—at Lake Eola, and walk across there with our Easter outfits on, and the last thing I made was, uh,—my daughter—one of my daughters got married, and I made her, uh, all the dresses for that, and it was like a Southern Belle-type thing, and the wedding was here at our yard, and, uh, I made all the dresses for that, but I haven’t made—and I made all my kids little—they had a band, uh, that they played. They had guitars and all that, and we had—all of them played, but the—the four younger ones were playing in a little group that started out doin’ it for school, and it got—they got good, and we played it, eh, for Doctor’s Day, for Fourth of July. So I made them outfits alike, you know, vest-like things to wear for that, and that—I really enjoyed being able to do all that. It was neat [<em>taps on table</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Um, in an earlier conversation, you mention several different houses you moved to…</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Throughout the years. Uh, could you describe them?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes, the first house we lived in, it was called “The West House,” ‘cause Mrs. West owned it—was the one—was across from the school, and then we moved—I’ll never forget that, because we didn’t have electricity at that house. We had lanterns, like oil lanterns, and, uh, Then I remember when we moved, and my mother was so excited, because that—the house we moved in is still there, and, uh, it’s—you go by the Lawton House and go on down, through that red light, up the hill, and it—it’s on the left. It sits up on top that hill there still. It’s funny—it doesn’t look near as big as it did, when I was growin’ up. Everything looks smaller, but, uh, we moved in that house, and—electricity, running water. We had—the house we lived in had a pump outside. You pumped the water and brought it in—before. Now, we had water. You turned the faucet on. You could take a bath in the bathtub. That was a big thing for us. That was our first time to do that, and, uh, so that was—we really liked that house, and my mother wanted to buy it. We didn’t—we were renting, and, uh, the lady sold it to somebody else, so we didn’t get to buy it. So we—we had to move.</p>
<p>So we moved down back into town into an area that—the house is not there today, because it’s the parking lot of First Baptist Church [of Oviedo]—where the house was. It was real small, but then there were only—all my brothers and sisters—the older ones—Just me and my little brother were still home, so it was okay, ‘cause we just needed—and we actually slept on this sleeping porch—bunk beds. I slept on top and he slept on bottom, and then a lil’ later, when I got a little older, they moved me into the dining room, and they opened the couch up every night and slept on it [<em>laughs</em>], but, uh, that’s where we lived, until I left home, and—and then after my mother got sick, uh—she had a, um, Parkinson’s [Disease].</p>
<p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>And she stayed there as long as she could, and, uh—very independent person—very. Always wanted to take care of everything herself. Never wanted any charity from anybody—very independent, and, uh, so, um, she was nur—in the nursing home in Orlando—in Winter Park, and—and then eventually, she ran out of money, and she had to stay there, ‘cause she cou—and she still had her house, and, uh, she—she took the money, and sold the house, and used it to pay her hospital bill until.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Were there any community events that you would attend regularly?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, actually, very few, um, community events. Most everything centered around either school or church, and, uh, that[sic] was[sic] the activities for—and the other thing though, in the summertime—very important—the swimming pool. Oviedo had a pool. No—Sanford didn’t have one, Longwood didn’t have one, and there weren’t any in people’s homes, in those days. They didn’t do that, but there—Oviedo had a swimming pool—a good, big, record[?]-sized pool, and then they had a baby pool next to it. Everybody came from Sanford and everything out there. My daddy ran the pool, and so, every day in the summertime, we’d go to the pool. Every day, after lunch, you’d go to the pool, and then, also, they had a dance floor and an old juke—juke organ, you know, and, uh, so that was a very popular place people went, in the summertime. You’d go all the time, and, uh, that was very important part of our life in those days. That and—actually, we didn’t do much else.</p>
<p>We rode our bikes a lot. That, we did. Uh, walked everywhere. We didn’t have a car. In fact, most—a lot of people didn’t, uh, and at—at school, there would be three—maybe—kids that drove a car to school, when they got in high school. The other cars belonged to the teachers, and these boys usually were from Slavia, and the reason they got to do that was—as soon as school was out they could go home and start workin’ out in the farms there, but, uh—and you walked everywhere. We walked all the way from my[?] house down to the pool, and the crazy part was, eh, we’d do it at night. I would be 15 years old, and I’d be walkin’ home with another friend, and she lived somewhere else, and she’s goin’ to her house and I’d wa—we’d walk all the way home in the dark at 10 o’clock at night. Nobody thought anything about it.</p>
<p>Today, you wouldn’t do that at all. I wouldn’t think of letting my kids to do that, but in those days, it was not a problem, ’n you didn’t lock your door at our house. If you—Mama did decide to lock the door. The windows that went from the porch into the hou—[<em>laughs</em>] to the living room—all you had to do was raise it up and go in. I mean, anybody could com—there was—no one broke into houses. There was not any of that. You hardly ever heard of anybody stealing anything. That didn’t happen, in those days. You just didn’t have like we have today. Uh, it is so different. Everybody took care of everybody else, uh, but as far as, uh, entertainment and all, we rode our bikes to Lake Charm. That was a big thing. Get on your bike and ride out from Oviedo to Lake Charm—you know where that is—and ride around the lake. That was what we did. My brother would catch fish, and he’d sell it to the people that he went by there homes on his way home, and he stopped and sell his fish stock[?]. Yeah [<em>taps on table</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>As I understand, you attended the First Baptist Church of Oviedo?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan</strong>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Uh, what’re some memories of services or events?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, they had, uh, uh—like when you were real little, they had what they called Sunbeam Band, When you were little. I remember going to that, Sittin’ in the little red chairs, and learnin’, uh, little songs that I’ve never forgot. I could sing them for you to this day, and they learned them in Sunbeam Band, and then, as you got older, they had a girls’ organizin—organization called GAs—Girls’ Auxiliaries somethin’—and—and that was extra that you—so it gave you something else to go to, and you learned all kinds of scripture verses, and you learned so much, and then you got promoted up to another level, and all of that, and the boys had something called RAs—Royal Ambassadors—and they did that, and, uh, you had, uh, the Christmas program, and, uh, that was always a big thing every year—the Christmas program in our Church, And, you went to Church, uh, every Sunday morning and at—Sunday night, and that was what all the teenagers did.</p>
<p>And then, uh, I’ll never forget this, uh—when—my mother would always say, “Come straight home from church.” This was where we lived, right—we lived next to the church almo—within a block of the church, and this was—I was a senior in high school, and, uh, this particular night, [inaudible] my friend—girlfriend lived right down the street from me, and these two boys ask us if we wanted to go for a ride, and, uh, I didn’t particularly want to go with this guy, but I knew she did, so I was going to help her out, and, um, we said, “Okay,” and I knew I was supposed to go home, but I didn’t. So we got in the car with them and we went from Oviedo out to Slavia. You know where that is? Turned down a little dirt road that’s now right where the, um, nursing home is out there. Now, there’s a dirt road that went down there, and got down there, and this guy’s gonna park, and I said, “Nope.” I said, “I want to go home.” So he was not happy. Meanwhile[?], this other couple’s in the back seat.</p>
<p>So he takes off and tears down the road, and we get to the hard road—the road that goes to Winter Park today, and he instead—he goin’ too fast, and he turns and rolls the car. Rolled it over two or three times. I went through the windshield, landed on the—on the railroad track. The railroad track went by there, and the car—I looked and I was alright. The car is upside down, the wheels are still goin’ around [<em>laughs</em>], the lights are on. We had a friend that lived right down the road from there. They heard it, and they came up, and, uh—but in the meantime, a car with a lady in it from Oviedo came drivin' by. She saw the accident, and anyway, it scared them, because they didn’t know where—I wasn’t in the car. They thought maybe I was under the car, but I wasn’t, but the—I di—I lost my shoe—one of my shoes. Couldn’t find it, but anyway, this lady knew me, knew my parents, and she said, “I’ll take you home,” and this was about 10 ‘o clock at night.</p>
<p>So I had to go home, and go in there and wake up my parents. They were already sleepin’—with one—the whole thing that was bothering me was the fact that I lost my shoe—couldn’t find it [<em>laughs</em>], ‘cause I didn’t have but one pair of loafers, you know, and I had to wear ‘em to school the next day. <em>What am I gonna wear to school? </em>Anyway, I had to tell her we—that had[?]—that happened, and I’ll never forget. It Totaled the car. Totaled it—messed it all up, and the—the guy who was driving—his—nobody got hurt really, luckily. I did have to go in a cou—I got dizzy in a couple days and I had to go over and get x-rayed, and I had a slight concussion, but that was never any more to that, and, uh—but anyway, I felt sorry for the boy that was driving the car, because his mother was pregnant, and they were—she had to have that car to go to the doctor in Sanford. So he was in big trouble. That was a memory I remember[?] [<em>laughs</em>] well. Anyway…</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>In a prior conversation, you mentioned the town’s doctor. Could you tell me any stories you have of him?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>The town doctor? Dr. Martin, yes. Dr. Martin was the town—and he did everything. He pulled teeth, and, you know, anybody got anything wrong with them. What you hardly ever—I—I don’t remember going to him, uh, eh, but just one time. um, my mother—I came—came in from somewhere, one time, and my daddy was washing dishes, and that was unheard of, ‘cause I had never seen him wash a dish in my life, or do anything in the kitchen, and he was washing dishes, and I said, “What is goin’ on?” I was a teenager, and, uh, he—my—my mother had been doin’ it, and there was a knife in the water and she had cut her hand real bad, and he had to take her over to Dr. Martin and get it sewed up, and I remember that, and then, another thing that happened, um—Dr. Martin and his wife, Miss—Mrs. Martin, were very active in our church. Mrs. Martin…</p>
<p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Taught Sunday school and all that. They—the—this doctor’s office was right next to the church, a little bit behind it—right next to it, and they had a bell out there by the office—doctor’s. The office was right by the home, and if somebody came while the doctor was in church, they would ring the bell and he would hear it, get up and go out of church, and One Sunday that happened. Somebody had done something to their leg, was layin’ on the back of a truck, with no sides on it—just a wooden back—and he goes over to take care of it, and he took that guy’s leg off—the rest of it, while everybody—Of course, as soon as we could get out of church, we all went runnin’ over to see what’s goin on, and we’re all standin’ around watchin’ Dr. Martin take a—saw this guy’s leg off, while he’s layin’ on the back of the truck [<em>laughs</em>]. Yeah, he was a character. Yup.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And also, um, in an earlier conversation a—about school, you mentioned, uh, the disciplinary actions of certain teachers.</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What are some experiences that stuck out to you?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, well, I’m not gonna tell you that story I told you last time, ‘cause I don’t want to get in trouble about that one, but, uh, uh, most of my teachers, uh—it—I’ve always said this, and I’ve probably—you probably know this. Everybody does. You always have certain teachers that are really good teachers and you’ll never forget ‘em. I mean, they—I have—I can remember certain teachers that were just good, and then there were some that, you wonder why they’re doing this, you know, uh, but um, I—we had this one teacher and [<em>clears throat</em>] she was hard to get along with, and she wa—she never had a smile on her face. She was just real sharp, and is always getting on everybody for every little thing, and she taught the fourth grade, and I was getting older by then, you know, ‘cause all the grades, one through 12, went to same school. You walked down the hall and—and this was something that I—I was bad sometimes at—I must have been seventh grade, ‘cause junior high is really the bad time [<em>laughs</em>]. I—if you look at my—I have every report card, and I can—you could pick out the ones I had when I was in seventh and eighth grade, uh, and anyway, she was just always mean to the kids, I thought, and so, she left her door open. She’d be in there talkin’ and you can walk down the hall and you’d hear her or see her in there.</p>
<p>So one day, when we were ki—talking out there on the—before you walk into the main building—on the porch, and, uh, so I said—there was a box—an old cardboard box out there, and I said, “I’ma walk down the hall. I’ma throw it in her room. See what happens.” So they bet me I wouldn’t do it, so I did it. I walked in, threw it in there, and ran on down the hall. She caught me, and she took me up to the office, and the principal there knew me, of course, and he knew that she—also that she was a little bit difficult to get along with, and all he did to me was—after she left, he said he’d take care of it, and, uh, he gave me a poem to learn. He says, “Now, just sit here and learn this poem, but don’t do that anymore,” [<em>laughs</em>] but we had some, uh—we had another teacher, who had been there for many years and taught my older si—you know, that was another thing. The teachers you got—they had already had your older sister, who was a brain.</p>
<p>You know, you’re supposed to know as much as she did, and, uh, they always compared you, as you went down the kids, but, uh, we had this teacher, and she could be—she was a good teacher, but she—she didn’t really—I don’t think she had children of her own. I don’t think she ever had children, but she would do things that, uh, would hurt people. Like we had this one girl that lived across the railroad track—her home was right over there—and she’d walk to school across the railroad track every day. Nicest person in the world, and one day she did something, and this—this teacher criticized her so badly in front of the whole class, and the girl did not deserve it. She didn’t do anything. Oh, she was a little bit late, I think, and I think she was late, because the train was across the track, and she got all over her or bein’ late to class and made the girl cry, and she did that to another girl in my class, and I just—it just really—I never, ever forgot it. Even though she was a good teacher, she—she would ridicule students sometimes, and, uh, I thought that—and—and it was embarrassing for that student, in front of the other kids, uh, and so you just remember certain people for certain things, but most of my teachers were good.</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, and I gotta tell you one more school story. Right next to the school, lived—there was some houses, and one of these houses was Mr. McCulley’s[sp] house. Charlie McCulley was my—I went to school, first grade through 12. I wish I knew if he was still livin’ today. I would love to see him. uh, but anyway, they had chickens—chicken yard, and one night, uh, some of the high school boys got Mr. McCulley’s chickens—three or four—and brought them over, and—and for some reason, we were able to get in and out of the school. I don’t know what it was, but they knew how to open—pick the lock or something, then go in there, and so, they got these chickens and they had this teacher that was a retired military. His name was Mr. Bayton[sp], and Mr. Bayton was vague. He shouldn’t have been teaching history. I mean, he was like—he didn’t even know the subject, you know, and he didn’t—nobody cared for him, but he was just kinda dumb, and so they put these chickens in his room and shut the door and left them in there [<em>laughs</em>] all night. The next day, he came to school and had all those chickens in there, and another time, they took somebody’s old “Model T,” and put it in the hall—put it in the hall, and every Halloween, they put a metal trashcan on top of the flagpole, upside down. Nobody ever figured out how they did it, but they—that was—you knew it would be there the next mornin’ [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p>Another thing though, when I went to school, what we did every day—they—they had the [American] flag, it stayed in the office, and they had certain people that did this, and they would take the flag out, unfold it, put it on the flagpole, and put the flag up, and that was—and if it rained, you ran out there and took the flag down. You never let the flag stay up there in the rain. You never let it stay up overnight. That was the way it was always. The whole time I was at school, it was that way.</p>
<p>We always had what we called chapel every S—every Friday morning, everybody in the school went to the auditorium and there was a program. A lot of—once a month, you had a pastor of one of the churches came and talked, and it’d be a different one each time, and today, that could never happen. You always had the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before class, and you always said the Lord’s Prayer. You did those two the whole time I was in school. Now, things have changed.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>I have read that, uh, Oviedo High did not become integrated until the 1960s. Growing up during segregation, do you recall any incidences where you recognized the separation of races?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, when I was growing up—I remember when integration started, ‘cause we were livin’ here, and I had kids in school, and I remember the first day, uh, that it—that the schools were integrated, and my kids were in high school, at that time, but back when—when I was growin’ up, it—everything was segregated. Blacks were—rode—if they got on the bus, they had to ride in, uh, like the—we had a bus that came from Orlando to Oviedo. It was called Orlando Transit, and if you got on the bus, all the black people had to sit in the back. They loaded back to front, but this was another thing. They did have buses that went—went out to get kids to go to my school, but blacks didn’t have a bus. They—they had to walk to school, and they lived past where I lived up on the hill that—what we called “The Negro Quarters.” they were called “The Quarters.” They lived—a lot of ‘em—there were different places, but there was a group down there. They walks by our house, and they had to walk all the way across town to the black school, and of course, there was—it was no—no integration at all, and, uh, it even, uh—it was just unheard of for, uh—for people to mix up, or—or even—they was[sic] just two separate entities, and, uh, it—gradually, it got better.</p>
<p>I remember like when my daughter, who, uh, just passed away this last summer—when she was a senior in high school, she was yearbook editor, just like I was yearbook editor when I was in school, and, uh—but, uh—and the two years before that, we had integration. it started when my oldest son<a title="">[9]</a> was still in sch—still in school, and, um, so there were some black[sic] on her, uh, editor—on her, uh, staff to do the yearbook, and when they got ready to have the ye—the party, there was a big discussion about whose house they could have it at, because that meant black people—kids were gonna come.</p>
<p>The same way with my daughter, uh—my younger daughter, Julie [Karin Reagan], who‘s a nurse, uh, now. Uh, when she was a cheerleader, uh, we had some black girls that were cheerleaders with her, and, uh, lot of people—it was hard for a lot of people to get used to that. They didn’t like it, and—but I remember I took ‘em, um, ‘cause the parents—the white girls’ parents worked too. I was a stay-at-home mom, and, uh, all the other parents of the cheerleaders worked, and so they never went to anything, and then every—the cheerleaders needed to go to cheerleading camp. I drove ‘em over there, picked ‘em up. I made their uniforms, and—and I took the black girls too, you know, and somebody would say, “Are[?]—are you gonna do that?” I’d say, “Yes,” and I can remember that, and then I remember when my oldest daughter—the one that was a yearbook editor—went to Miami, she trained at, uh, Jackson Borough School for Nursing, and she had to watch a[sic], uh, autopsy. They had this group[?]. they watched up looking down from this glass to watch it, and that was part of her nurses training, and it was a black girl they were an autopsy on, and she said, “You know, Mom, when you open up somebody, they’re the same on the inside as you are,” and she said, “A lot of people need to think about that,” and, you know—and that was just wha—what she figured out on her own, and I said, “That’s[?]—that’s right,” and right now, two or three doors down here, my best friend is a black girl who’s 50 years old, who was married to a white man, who just passed away, and she and I walk every—two days a week, and we have a ball. She is more fun than—anyway, uh, that is certainly not a problem today, but I remember when it was a very big problem.</p>
<p>I can remember when the guy who was the—the de—the she—the, uh, constable or the police chief of Oviedo—the only—only one policeman—I can remember how he mistreated black people that he put in jail. He hit ‘em. He had a billy stick and I remember hearing how he hit ‘em in the head with that, and, you know—I mean, they were mistreated. They were bad. It was bad. I can remember some bad things that happened. I’m certainly glad that part is over. Uh, hopefully, it’s over.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What year did you graduate at Oviedo High School, and what was the graduation ceremony like?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, I—1951. Nine people in my graduatin’ class. In those days, you always had a—a baccalaureate service. I don’t know if they still—don’t still do that, but they always had a, uh—a, uh—and they had it at the school. It was just like a graduation thing, but They had it like a—on a—two or three days before graduation, you had baccalaureate, and they would, like, preach a sermon, or they would do a—it would be a talk on how you—to live your life and all that sort of thing, but it was a different, and every year, they’d have a different pa—we had a Methodist and a Baptist and a Lutheran ch—church. Those were the three main churches, and they would take turns, uh, doin’ the baccalaureate service.</p>
<p>So you always had that first, and then you had graduation, and at the same time as grad—graduation night, you also—they gave out any awards that—now—now today, my kids—they have an award night for different things, but in the—they did all the awards the night of graduation, and, uh, I got—I’ll never forget this, because my older sister got a bunch. S when I came along, I did too, except…</p>
<p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>One. She got one that I didn’t get, and my mother said—as soon as she walked out of that thing, the first thing she said was, “How come you didn’t the”—I forgot what it was—“American Legion Award” or somethin’. I said, “That’s alright. I got best all-around athlete award. My sister didn’t that,” [<em>laughs</em>] but I got the history award and, uh—and the, uh, leadership award. I forgot what—it’s another name for it, but, uh, I’ll never forget that. She didn’t know how come I didn’t get that one, so—but that—we had award’s night the same night, as we did that [<em>taps on table</em>]. That was about it.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And where did your life take you after high school?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, not very far. My whole thing was to leave Oviedo. Both of my sisters had left and went to work at a bank in Orlando. uh, my older sister went first and she got—she worked at Florida State—it was called Florida State Bank in Downtown Orlando, right down the middle of town, and then when my sister graduated, my ol—other sister had talked to ‘em and got her in the[?]—she worked in the bookkeeping department. So they both went to Orlando to work in the bank.</p>
<p>Well, I didn’t want to work in the bank. What I wanted to do was to go to college, and I did not get to go, and Mr. [Thomas Willington] Lawton—T.W. Lawton—you’ve heard of the Lawtons? Uh, he was a cousin of ours, and, uh, he knew how much I wanted to go, and[?], uh, so I was supposed to go over to—with him, right? ‘Cause he—he drove to Sanford every, uh, day to work at the—down at the courthouse—was where his office was, and, uh, they were gonna have a test for scholarships. You could take these tests to try to get a scholarship to go to co—FSU.<a title="">[10]</a> In those days it was a women’s college,<a title="">[11]</a> and, uh, so I was all set to go. My principal had fixed it for me to go, ‘cause—‘cause I was valedictorian, and—and I was kinda’ smart, and I[?] thought I could pass—get maybe—maybe get a scholarship, and I was gonna go, and Mr. Lawton—and I was—and I already made arrangements with him. I didn’t tell my mother anything about it, ‘cause she had said, “We can’t afford to send you to college,” you know, “We don’t have the money,” uh, and—but so I thought, <em>If I can get a scholarship, you know I can do this</em>, and, uh, so doggonnit, if, uh, Mr.—somebody from sch—one of the teachers called and my mother answered the phone, and she said, “Well, tell Bettye when she goes tomorrow to take the scholarship test” —she didn’t know I was goin’. I didn’t tell her, and, uh—but Mr. Lawton knew, ‘cause I had already contacted him. He was goin’ take me, and so she says, “What is this all about?” And I told her. She said, “We can’t do that.” So she called Mr. Lawton and told him not to come—not to pick me up, ‘cause I couldn’t—even if I got it, it was just—they couldn’t afford all the stuff they still have to do for me to go, and he called back, and he said, “Listen. I will help her go. I will help her financially [inaudible],” but my mother would never take any money from anybody.</p>
<p>So that, I did not get to do, but—so then, I get on the bus, after I get out of school and I [inaudible]—my senior year, I worked for—Mr. Teague, who was the principal, I worked in the office half a day every day, ‘cause I had all the subjects they had. I took [inaudible] instead of st—study hall, I took a subject. So there wasn’t[sic] any subjects left for me to take. So he asked me to be the school secretary, work in the office half—half a day, and I did that all that senior year, and tough—and then after I graduate, I’m—I’m goin’ to Orlando riding the bus, trying to walk around, find a job, which I hadn’t found. I come home one day, and my mother says, “Well, you got a job. I got you a job. Mr. Teague called and wanted to know if you wanted a full-time job being a school secretary.” <em>Oh, jeeze.</em> I wanted to leave. I wanted to get out of Oviedo, and go do somethin’ different.</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>So I was home for a year, and then I got married and moved to Sanford, and then, uh, I was married for three years. I had—we built a house. City of Sanford would give you a lot—give you a lot, but you had to build a house within a year. We built the house. We cleared the lot. I can show you that house today. We built the house—I mean, laid the blocks, poured the floor, did the whole thing in one year. He<a title="">[12]</a> worked for the railroad and we did this when he wasn’t working. We built the house. We laid blocks—all that stuff—and we were able to move in within a year. it wasn’t finished, but we moved in, and, uh, anyway, he was, uh—I had two kids, and when I had a year-old baby<a title="">[13]</a> and a three-year-old son, <a title="">[14]</a> and he was killed, uh, in a train accident, working—he was a railroader—train accident, uh, and then, I met my husband<a title="">[15]</a>—I have today, uh—eight months later, which everybody thought was too soon [<em>laughs</em>], at church, and, uh, we’ve been married—we—we just celebrated, uh, Monday, our 58<sup>th</sup> wedding anniversary. So [<em>taps on table</em>] it worked [<em>laughs</em>], and we had four more kids.<a title="">[16]</a> That’s six.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>After your first husband died, for those eight months, before you met your—how did you survive?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, well, uh, Social Security [Insurance], uh, and he had some insurance and, uh—the other thing though we had done—we had bought—borrowed money and bought, uh, I think it was 4,000 dollars—bought 80 acres—now, 80 acres in Osteen, uh, found a road that if you took it—took you all the way to Oak Hill. It was a back road. It goes through there. We bought 80 acres, and we got these cows from the dairy, and we were—we were raising cows out there. We were doin’ that too. So when he died, I had that 80 acres and about seven or eight cow, uh—calves. I had to go feed ‘em on a nipple bucket, and I was goin’ out there every day doing—in fact, that’s where I was when they came out and found me to tell me what had happened, and, uh, so anyway, uh, I had that when I married Don—he was in, uh, TV business—and, uh, so we—he went out there and got some more cows and played cowboy [<em>laughs</em>], and we had that, and we were eventually able to sell it for [$]16,000, which when—in those—that was a long time ago, back in the—we’re talkin’ about the [19]60s, and, uh—and we bought another five—bought 10 acres out here near the airport, and put our cows out there and we had that.</p>
<p>Then we had a chance to buy this place, and, uh—we lived in town, and he had a really nice, big house. I mov—sold my house out there and moved into his house, and, uh—but we had a pool we added on to the house by the time we had a bunch of kids. We had to keep addin’ onto the house, and we had a pool, which was—new at those time[sic]. Not too many people had ‘em. So every day, I had not just my kids. I had everybody’s in the neighborhood’s kids at my house, and it got to be a zoo. I said, “We gotta move.” So he was out here fixin’ these people’s tel—television set, and he saw this place. He said—and they wanted—there was an old couple—they wanted to move into town. Well, we owned another house across the street that was a rental, and, uh, so they—we almost swapped ‘em, and Of course, we had to work on this one for a year to make it so we could—this—this, uh—this was outside the house. This wall was the outside, and that brick in that fireplace—there was a—fireplace right here. We chipped all the brick out of that. that’s the same brick that were[sic] in the fireplace, and we added this room, and we added another bathroom and put—what was a porch, we made that into bigger bedrooms, and we moved out here with six kids, and, uh, it’s been a great, great place to live, and then we got a lot o—I’ll show you my studio, before you go. It’s outside.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And how did you meet your—how did you meet Don, your second husband?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>My husband now? At, uh—it was a put-up job [<em>laughs</em>]. It really was. Um, he—he came here in the Navy, and, uh, he was—he got married and he was married. He was divorced, when I met him, um, and he was at the church. Anyway, One day, after my husband had passed away, I called. I had the two little kids, and I was still—I was going to church down there, but—and I had gone to church all my life, but I was so, you know—I was totally—I was just kinda’ down, and I called the—the church, and they said—the assistant pastor came out, and I told him—I said, “I’m goin’ to church, but I’m not gettin’ anything out of it.” I said, “I’m just not”—I was miserable, and he said, “You know what? You need to be—you don’t need to be sittin’ in a class, uh, with you kids anymore[?]. You need to be teaching class,” So he said, “We have seven year olds. We need a teacher for seven year olds. Would you”—and so I said, “Okay.” So I go—first Sunday, I go in this—we had 30-somethin’ seven year olds and there were four or five teachers. He was a teacher, and I was a teacher of Sunday school of seven year olds. They put us both in the same room with a little thing in between, and it didn’t take very long, and, uh, so we got—that’s where I met him—was there. We been together ever since [<em>taps on table</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What are some fond memories you have raising your children?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh [<em>taps on table</em>], great memories, and the good part about it was we had a movie camera. Took movies of everything we did—every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every birthday, all events. Oh, you should see our kids, going to Lake Eola, lined up where the flowers are, where all the little kids with—all the little girls had white gloves on, hats, frilly dresses. Boys had on ties and coats and—and, uh—gettin’ out of the car, going to church, [inaudible] watchin’ ‘em tryin’ to get in and out of the cars and all that, and, uh—and then going on vacations, camping. That was the only way you could go—take that many kids on vacation is to go camping, and that’s what we did. We went camping. We started up[?] in Florida, ended up in the mountains, and they still go camping to this day, but, uh—and then, I—I enjoyed my kids.</p>
<p>Uh, I never missed a—any program that they were in, and, uh, of course when you got that many, they’re in different things, you know, uh, and that—and this one daughter—she tickled me, because if I was gonna have to go to school for, uh—drive a car for, uh, you know—take the kids somewhere—trip, or something—she would tell me—pick out what she wanted me to wear. She wanted you to look good, you know? [<em>laughs</em>] She would come in there and say, “Mom, this is what I want you to wear,” but, um, I really—and I never missed a PTA<a title="">[17]</a> meeting, and I remember going, and I have two or three kids in one school, and you went to each one of ‘em’s class, and I’m trying to go to all of ‘em’s class, and change classes and do this, but I always did—kept up with what was going on, and, uh—and they all did good in school—pretty good in school, and never really had any major problems with ‘em. Uh, all did school, all—all graduated good[sic], and, uh, have great memories, and then I have all these—and used to be the movies were on film, and then—‘till now. You know, now, it’s entirely different, but my daughter that—the one that you went to her house—she took those, and I dunno how long it took her, she’s finally—still got something to do, and put ‘em all on DVDs, and, uh—and we have ‘em all today. A lot of nice ones. We don’t have anything on TV we want to watch, we sit and watch the kids all growin’, when they were little all the way up. So that—we have those, and I—I tell ‘em today—I said, “Y’all have all these things on camera”</p>
<p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>“Now you need to be makin’ sure you—you have these things. Don’t just let it get taken off of there, ‘cause we have a record of everything. Y’all aren’t going to have that.” I’m just gonna let that go.</p>
<p>[<em>answering machine</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>I understand that your great-grandfather Andrew Aulin[, Sr.] founded Oviedo.</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What are some stories about him or other founding families, like the Lawtons or Wheelers that you…</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh…</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Remember being told?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Well, he passed away before I was—was born, and, uh, the, uh—the way that, uh—he came down here—a lot of those people who were Swe—he was Swedish—came over here from Sweden, and he didn’t come the way so many people in this area did. The Sanford area is all—a lot of Swedes over here, and they came over, uh, to work the citrus groves, and the—and the people who owned the groves here would pay their way on the ship, if they’d come and work a year. That’s how a lot of them came, but he didn’t come that way. He came up at, um—on the East Coast in New York or somewhere like that, and he came down through Georgia, and then eventually, into down here, and, um, he, uh, uh—at first, Oviedo—the settlement was out on, uh, Lake Jessup, and they called it White’s Warf—was the name of it—little settlement, and then they sor—sort of moved into O—into what is Oviedo today, and, uh, he was one of ‘em that moved in there, and he became—he was the first postmaster, and they had to come up with a name, and, uh, he was—when they named it, and he was also a schoolteacher…</p>
<p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>And he spoke ‘bout four or five languages. He was very smart, and the reason he named it O—it should be pronounced <em>Oh-vee-ay-do</em>—was he traveled, uh, before he came over here, and then he even went back over to Europe several times, and he had been to Oviedo, Spain, and he thought since Florida was a Spanish word, he thought we’d name it Oviedo, and he called it <em>Oh-vee-ay-do</em>, and at, uh, one time, it—it was—it was in Orange County. You know, that used to be all Orange County all this part of it, plus this was too, and—and it was, uh, uh…</p>
<p>[<em>train whistles</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>So then, he—and he opened a store. He had a store there also, and they—and I heard a, uh—different things people have written about him and said that they’d go in their store, and he’d be so intent on reading something. he was very intellectual, and he liked to read all the time—that they’d have to ma—make him quit reading to wait on him, ‘cause he was into that, and [inaudible] when he passed away, he didn’t have a lot of money, but what he had, he game to Rollins College. It was just starting, and he was one of the people that gave what he had to Rollins College, because he wanted to see that college be there. So he was—I wish I had known him. He was—I was—he gone before I came along, and his wife<a title="">[18]</a> was a Lawton.</p>
<p>So that’s how we got involved with that, and, uh, then, it’s—it’s crazy, because when we started going through different history things, I found out that [inaudible] the Lees in Oviedo, which are—that’s all involved—the Lawtons, Lees, and the Wheelers—all [Lee] sisters all married those people. They were sisters and one married a Lawton,<a title="">[19]</a> one married a Lee[sic], and a Wheeler,<a title="">[20]</a> and all that, and, uh, so when—my—on my mother’s side, who came from Sanford, there were some Lees. Her sisters married the Lees, and—and I al—al—I asked a couple times—I said, “Ya’ll kin to the[?] Lees in Oviedo?” Said, “No, no.” Well, they are, uh—they got this book on the Jacobs family and I started reading it, and the Jacobs family, involved with both Lees there, Lee’s here. So way back, if you wanted to go by marriage things, my mother was actually—her people were ancestors with my father’s people, way back and by marriage, and I thought—I just found that out not too long ago, and I bet that they—I’ll tell ‘em. They don’t know it [<em>laughs</em>], but that was, uh—and, uh, another thing—when—when my husband—my first husband—he was Catholic, and, uh, when we—when he went and talked to my daddy about us getting married, and he said, “Well, there’s one thing I want you to do. I don’t care which church you go to, but both of you go to the same one,” because—and Oviedo’s known for that. The Lawtons and the Wheelers and the Lees—the Whe—Frank Wheeler—big in the Baptist church—his wife was big in the Methodist church. Same things with the Lawtons. One went—husband went to one church and the wife we—and my daddy said, “I don’t want to see any more of that.” You—but that was—was one of the things that they did out there too, but they were all related. Yup.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Do you have any family heirlooms that were passed down that you held on to?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, no, uh, I don’t. I have some pictures, but I don’t have any—anything else that—I wish I did, and that is why I[sic] makin’ a point to save everything that I have [<em>laughs</em>], and—Like that bell that’s—there’s a big bell hanging outside. That’s my husband’s family. His father had that bell on the farm in Mississippi, and we were able to get that, and he re—redid it and painted it and all and put it up there, but—but that’s one of the few things we have from his family, and, um, we—so our kids are—that’s the one thing—you don’t get rid of that. that stays in the family, you know, and it’s very, very—it’s made in 1800-somethin’ is what—the date is in it, but, um, no, uh, I don’t think there’s—there’s much left, uh, physical things, you know, um, just some pictures, which I try to keep up with, and I have pictures of my father and his father together, and, uh, things like that, but, uh, no, uh, I don’t—can’t think of any—any artifacts, really, that I have.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Is there anything you like—you’d like to cover that we haven’t addressed?</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>No, uh, well, one thing I want to say about Oviedo today, is, uh—it must be a great place to live, because here a few years ago—well, quite a few years ago, when I was starting, uh—doing a lot of painting, and, uh, I—I did a whole thing—a lot of pic—paintings, uh, about Oviedo, and, uh, I went out there and just drove around, went down to where the pool used to be, which they covered it up. it’s not there anymore, but there’s a park down there—children’s park and things, and, uh—and I went down there to—just to take some pictures and look around, and there was[sic] some women down there playing with their kids, and, uh, I—I told them— I said, “Do you mind if I take some pictures?” ‘Cause I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I was going to do some series of paintings on Oviedo, and they said, “Yes.” it was okay, and—and I said, “Would you mind telling me”—‘cause they—they weren’t from there, and I said, “Why did you move here?” And they said, “Well, we researched before we moved”—they came from out of state—”And this just was the best place to move to raise your kids.” They checked it out. They said, “This is a very family-oriented town. They have a lot of things for kids, and it’s—it’s, you know—it’s just a very—it’s the ideal place to raise a family.” I thought, <em>Well, that’s great. </em>So then, I go to another place in Oviedo, another place like that. There’s some more families there. I asked the same question, got the same answer. I said, “Now, isn’t that amazing?” That—that’s sayin’ a lot for Oviedo. It is, and another thing—the Townhouse Restaurant—are you familiar with that? Which they’re fixin’ to move, you know?</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>But, uh, we go out there every now and then just to eat there, but, uh, I remember when it wasn’t the Townhouse, and up above it, there used to be a doctor’s office above that place, but, uh, that corner there—the—the red light—the whole time I was re—growin’ up, that was the red light. the only one in town for many, many years, and I kinda hate to see ‘em do what they’re gonna do there, but that’s progress, and, uh—but, uh, I have very fond memories of Oviedo, but, you know, when you’re growing up, you always think somethin’s gonna be better somewhere else, but, uh, my daughter lives out there, and right down the road, you know, comin’ from—back to Oviedo from her house, there’s a new subdivision that’s called Aulin[‘s] Landin<em>g</em> or something they’re building. That’s got the Aulin name in it. There’s just—new. They just started building it. So that’s something too, and of course, they got Aulin Avenue, you know, out there by the cemetery. So yeah, it’s a—good memories from Oviedo, and I need to get back out there, ‘cause I have—still have people out there that I know. Um, how are you—how—how much more are y’all doing? Do you have more people you’re going to interview? ‘Cause I know somebody would be good to interview [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Oh, I’m sure other classes…</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Like I said, you know, which—which—every new semester, because we’re just…</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>To get as much…</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Of Central Florida’s history as possible. So…</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>If you wanna…</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, the Wards, uh—there’s a, uh—Bob Ward. Uh, his brothers passed away, but Bob Ward—Bob and Joanne Ward. I would recommend, uh, talking to—to them. Uh, they live out there close to where I lived, right across the street from the Wheeler House. The—we used to call Mrs. Wheeler—Mrs. B. F. —Frank Wheeler “The Queen,” and, uh—and she was like a queen, you know? She didn’t speak to you. You speak to—I’ll never forget. One time, since I’ve been—when—after I moved to—to, uh, Sanford, we had a drug store downtown called Tusta’s[?] Drugstore. In those days, it had a soda fountain. just like Oviedo had a soda fountain. Had a soda fountain in it, and I was down there one day, sittin’ in a booth, and, uh, Ms. Wheeler came by, and I recognized her and she recognized me, you know, and she walk right on by and didn’t speak, and goes on down and doggone, if every booth wasn’t full, of course, and so she comes back and then all of the sudden, she remembered who I was, ‘cause she needed a place to sit [<em>laughs</em>]. I thought that was—that was—that was pretty good. That was the way it was. They were a little bit—little bit that way—a little bit that way. Uh…</p>
<p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Well, thank you so much for your time.</p>
<p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Mmhmm, you’re welcome. I enjoyed it.</p>
<div><br /><div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Andrew “Andy” Aulin III.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[3]</a> Mary Alice Powell Aulin.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[4]</a> Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye) in <em>The Roy Rogers Show</em>.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[5]</a> Wheeler Fertilizer Company.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[6]</a> Mary Leonora Aulin Bartlett.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[7]</a> Charles Warren Aulin.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[8]</a> Physical Education.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[9]</a> Daniel Lee Reagan, formerly Daniel Lee McGill.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[10]</a> Florida State University</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[11]</a> Florida Female College, later Florida State College for Women.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[12]</a> Joel Edwin McGill.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[13]</a> Kathleen Ann McGill, now Kathleen Ann Reagan.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[14]</a> Daniel Lee McGill, now Daniel Lee Reagan.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[15]</a> Donald Thomas Reagan.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[16]</a> Debbie Lynn Reagan, Julie Karin Reagan, Andrew Schott Reagan, and Patrick Kelley Reagan.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[17]</a> Parent-Teacher Association.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[18]</a> Emma “Lona” Leonora Lawton Aulin.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[19]</a> Charlotte "Lottie" Lee Lawton married Thomas Willington Lawton and Lillian Della Lee Lawton married Winborn Joseph Lawton, Sr.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[20]</a> George Lee Wheeler married Benjamin Franklin Wheeler.</p>
</div>
</div>
Abraham Lincoln
Alice Kathryn Aulin Bunch
American flags
Anderson
Andrew Aulin III
Andrew Aulin, Jr.
Andrew Aulin, Sr.
Andrew Schott Reagan
Andy Aulin
art
artists
Aulin Avenue
Aulin's Landing
awards
B. F. Wheeler
baccalaureate services
Baptists
Bayton
Benjamin Franklin Wheeler
Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan
Bettye Reagan
bicycles
bike riding
bikes
Black Beauty
Bob Ward
book reports
books
bovines
busing
camping
canines
car accidents
cattle
chapels
Charles Warren Aulin
Charlie McCulley
Charlotte Lee Lawton
church
churches
clothes
clothing
Coat of Many Colors
coats
cops and robbers
cows
cycling
Daniel Lee McGill
Daniel Lee Reagan
Debbie Lynn Reagan
desegregation
discipline
doctors
dogs
Don Reagan
Donald Thomas Reagan
dressmakers
dressmaking
drugstores
Easter
education
educators
Emma Leonora Lawton Aulin
First Baptist Church of Oviedo
flags
Florida State Bank
forts
Frankie D. Gore
fruit testers
GA
games
George Lee Wheeler
Girls’ Auxiliaries
graduations
Grand Ole Opry
gym
Heidi
high schools
immigrants
immigration
integration
Jackson Borough School for Nursing
Jacobs
Joanne Ward
Joel Edwin McGill
Joel McGill
Julie Karin Reagan
Kathleen An Reagan
Kathleen Ann McGill
Lake Charms
Lake Mary
Lee
Leonard Franklin Slye
Lillian Della Lee Lawton
Lona Lawton Aulin
Lottie Lee Lawton
Martin
Mary Alice Powell Aulin
Mary Leonora Aulin Bartlett
milk
milking
Morrison’s Cafeteria
Nelson and Company
novels
oranges
orlando
Orlando Transit
Osteen
Oviedo
Oviedo High School
Oviedo School
Oviedo, Spain
P.E.
painters
painting
Patrick Kelley Reagan
pets
physical education
physicians
postmasters
pranks
RA
race relations
radios
Rebecca Schwandt
Rollins College
Roy Rogers
Royal Ambassadors
Sanford
school bus
school buses
schools
seamstress
seamstresses
segregation
sewing
Slavia
spitz
spitzen
storekeepers
strawberries
strawberry
Sunbeam Band
Swedes
Swedish
swimming pools
T. W. Lawton
teachers
telephone operators
The Roy Rogers Show
Thomas Willington Lawton
Trigger
Troubles
Tusta's Drugstore
W. J. Lawton
Walker
weddings
West
West House
Wheeler
Wheeler Fertilizer Company
White's Wharf
Winborn Joseph Lawton, Sr.
-
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/6a82568db5bb07ee8caf1a9b812a0f4f.pdf
d467a57870f16365bd090a56a642e91a
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
Oviedo Historical Society Collection
Alternative Title
Oviedo Historical Society Collection
Subject
Oviedo (Fla).
Description
The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015.
The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history.
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Oviedo, Florida
Contributing Project
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>
<a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/.
Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979.
Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012.
"<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68.
"<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
Schneider, Sarah
Interviewee
Aulin, Julia Nadine Davis
Location
<a href="http://www.ocls.info/locations/Alafaya/alafaya.asp?from=vurl_alafaya" target="_blank">Alafaya Branch Library</a> in Orlando, Florida
Original Format
1 audio/video recording
Duration
50 minutes and 6 seconds
Bit Rate/Frequency
941kbps
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 Julia Nadine Davis Aulin
Alternative Title
Oral History, Aulin
Subject
Oviedo (Fla.)
Description
An oral history interview of Nadine Davis Aulin, conducted by Sarah Schneider at the Alafaya Branch Library of the Orange County Library System in Orlando, Florida, on March 13, 2015. Born in 1945, Aulin grew up in Orlando and migrated to Oviedo as an adult. Aulin married Andrew Aulin, the grandson of a founding member of Oviedo, the eldest Andrew Aulin, Sr. (1843-1918). Interview topics include growing up in Orlando, migrating to Oviedo, how Oviedo has changed over time, the history of the Aulin family, and the founding of Oviedo.
Table Of Contents
<br />0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:01:38 Oviedo in the 1960s <br />0:07:44 How Oviedo has changed over time <br />0:12:06 Mary Alice Powell Aulin <br />0:18:24 Oviedo’s Centennial <br />0:19:37 Andrew Aulin, Sr. <br />0:28:45 The Lees and the Lawtons <br />0:33:18 Alice Aulin, Andrew Aulin, Jr., and Oviedo during World War II <br />0:39:25 Colloquial expressions and historical artifacts <br />0:46:10 Closing remarks
Abstract
Oral history interview of Nadine Davis Aulin. Interview conducted by Sarah Schneider at the <a href="http://www.ocls.info/locations/Alafaya/alafaya.asp?from=vurl_alafaya" target="_blank">Alafaya Branch Library</a> in Orlando, Florida, on March 13, 2015.
Type
Moving Image
Source
Aulin, Julia Nadine Davis. Interviewed by Sarah Schneider, March 13, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida.
Requires
<a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a>
<a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a>
<a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Has Format
30-page digital transcript of original 50-minute and 6-second oral history: Aulin, Julia Nadine Davis. Interviewed by Sarah Schneider, March 13, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida.
Coverage
Oviedo, Florida
Creator
Aulin, Julia Nadine Davis
Schneider, Sarah
Publisher
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
Date Created
2015-03-12
Date Modified
2016-01-14
Date Copyrighted
2015-03-12
Format
video/mp4
application/pdf
Extent
232 MB
Medium
50-minute and 6-second audio/video recording
30-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Julia Nadine Davis Aulin and Sarah Schneider, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>.
Rights Holder
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
Accrual Method
Item Creation
Contributing Project
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=69149825" target="_blank">Andrew Aulin</a>." Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=69149825.
"<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-01-13/news/9301130107_1_oviedo-sanford-grandchildren" target="_blank">MARY ALICE AULIN, 83, Myrtle Avenue, Oviedo, died Tuesday...</a>" <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, January 13, 1993. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-01-13/news/9301130107_1_oviedo-sanford-grandchildren.
Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979.
Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website)
<a href="https://youtu.be/jbZLM5i5vB8" target="_blank">Oral History of Julia Nadine Davis Aulin</a>
Transcript
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Alright, so we’re here with, um, Ms. Nadine [Davis] Aulin, conducting an oral history interview. Um, the interview is conducted by myself, Sarah Schneider, at the Alafaya [Library] Branch of the Orange County Library System, um, in Orlando, Florida. It’s Friday, March 13<sup>th</sup>, twe—2015, and, um, the interview will cover topics about Oviedo’s history and the Aulin family’s history, and, um, this is being done for the UCF [University of Central Florida] Public History introduction class, um, for their project on Oviedo’s history. So welcome. Thank you for talking with us today.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I’m glad to be here.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, and so could you start off just introducing yourself, um, to the camera. So tell yourself a little—tell us a little bit about yourself, um, where you grew up, and how long you’ve been in Oviedo.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Okay, I, um, was born and raised in Orlando. Um, remember Orlando from when it was, uh, 75,000 until now. uh, I married my husband<a title="">[1]</a> in 1965, and prior to that, I had been to Oviedo many times. my grandparents lived in Chuluota, uh, but I wasn’t, you know, didn’t really know people from Oviedo, but, uh, my husband, uh, went to Vietnam in 1965 through ’66, and during that time, uh, I lived with his aunt, who was, uh, Nettie [Dorcas] Jacobs Aulin. She was married to, uh, Theodore Aulin, who everybody called “The Judge,”, because he was Justice of the Peace.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Ah.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, in addition to that, my mother-in-law,<a title="">[2]</a> at that time, was living and she lived in Oviedo, and we had a close relationship.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, great, um, and so what was life like in or—in Oviedo when you moved here—in the area?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, it was sorta cool. Um, the big events happened through the [First] Methodist Church [of Oviedo] or the [First] Baptist Church [of Oviedo]. uh, anything that was going on it was either through that or the—or the [Seminole County Public] Schools. Um, people—it was a big deal to go into Orlando out to eat. You know, you didn’t just do that willy-nilly. You, eh—it was an occasion.</p>
<p>Um, what I loved about that time is, uh, Oviedo had one police officer, and that was, um, George Kelsey, and his family had been here I think as long as the Aulins, uh, and he, uh, took care of the town. He, uh, would sleep, I think, in the early morning and then be around 18 hours a day doing his job, and he did it well. I don’t think we had too much crime. Uh, one of the things is, uh—Aunt Nettie—when I was living with her, we had an armadillo that bothered us, and she called Mr. Kelly[sic]—Mr. Kelsey to, uh, come get rid of that armadillo, and he says, “Well, Aunt Nettie, I’ll—I’ll be there as soon as I can. I just got in bed,” and she said, “Well, he’s out in our yard now, you need to come by now.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So he did. He came, and, uh, he says, “Okay. Well, I’m here. Where’s the armadillo?” And we—of course, the armadillo was gone by the time he got there, and she says, “Well, just hang around. you can shoot it,” and he says, “I don’t think I’m gonna be shooting armadillos, Aunt Nettie,” and—because, you know, everybody called everybody “Aunt” or “Ms.” or—you know, it wasn’t just first names, and she was, uh—one of his best friend’s son, er—her son was one of his best friends, and so, of course, he wanted to accommodate her, but he didn’t [<em>laughs</em>]—he wanted to be shooting armadillos in Downtown Oviedo. We lived right across from the Baptist church.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So that wouldn’t have gone over very well, but that’s just sorta how Oviedo was back in those days—is that everybody knew everybody, and, uh, like the mayor of the time was, uh—oh, gosh, what was his name?<a title="">[3]</a> He was so nice. Um, it’ll come to me, but anyway, he used to go to the post office every morning and bring me my mail. You know, you’re not supposed to let somebody have somebody else’s mail, but he would bring me my mail, because my husband, being in Vietnam, he would write to me every day, and so this mayor would, uh—gosh, why can’t I think of his name? Um, he would bring me my mail, and, uh, it was just sorta, you know—sorta like, uh, small town, uh, neighborly kinda things that went on, back in those days.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Great, great, and did you mention, um—what year did you come to Oviedo?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I was, uh…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>I’m not…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>We got married in ‘65, and he soon left to go to Vietnam right after that. So, yeah, ’65.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And I was working at the Townhouse Restaurant, and it was like a year old</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>When I started to work there.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Wow, uh, huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And so it’s been an institution…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>For many years now.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, Um, and what kinds of people—what kinds of jobs did people have in town around that time?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, most everybody worked at either the packin’ house or in the groves, and you know, of course, there was the insurance companies, and there was real estate, uh, people back, at that time. Oviedo was beginning to build up, because the [Florida Technological] University<a title="">[4]</a> was in the works…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And people were moving out this way and buying houses, and, um—but farming and, um, the citrus was[sic] the main jobs, uh, I think, uh, at the time. At some point in time, I went to work for Citizens Bank [of Oviedo],<a title="">[5]</a> and at that time, it was like the, uh, only—the—the next largest business that wasn’t, uh, uh, the packin’ house…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>You know, and, uh, I think it was the only building, at that time, that had an elevator, and it may still be.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I don’t know. I can’t—I don’t know if there’s any buildings in the actual town that has an elevator, besides that. Maybe they do. I don’t know, but that was sort of a big deal that they had an elevator...</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>To [inaudible], uh, but yeah. There was one—I—I I’m trying to think if there was any other major jobs. Uh, there was your, uh—you know, you had school teachers and that kind of thing, but mostly it was farming.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Something to do with farming.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, and you mentioned people going to Orlando. that was a special treat. What other kinds of things did people do for fun in town?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Oh, back then they, uh—ball games. They were really into, um, the different ball games, so like baseball, football. The Oviedo, um—had just—the [Oviedo] High School had just started over, at, uh, Career Field, and, uh, they had their first football game—a team for the school’s in 1964—maybe ‘63—but it was a very good team. By 1965, they had, uh, uh—were winning a lot of games, and people really supported them, and, eh, little league and—and all that. people were really into that. I remember [<em>laughs</em>] when we came home from, uh, our honeymoon, the—after we took our luggage to his mother’s house—we went to, uh, a baseball game.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>You know, who does that?</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] But, eh, you know, it was the community thing, I think, uh, maybe because the community was so small, but people were active. If, um, you—even if you didn’t have children playin’ ball, you still wanted to go to support them and be there, and, uh, it was just, like I said, small town U.S.A.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, great. Um, and so what is Oviedo-life like today? What…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well [<em>laughs</em>]...</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I—I think that, um—I, uh, think that it’s still very neighborly, but more secular. Uh…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I think there’s, uh—you know, people who live out on this side of town sort of do their kind of thing with their kids and their schools, and on the other side of town, the same thing, you know? I think that, uh, it—I—I think Oviedo still sort of has a reputation of being friendly and has that small town atmosphere kind of thing. Um, I don’t know if you’ve looked on the website. There’s an Oviedo community web—website, and people…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Go in with their gripes and—or their happy things, or…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>You know, whatever. So it’s still, uh—technology’s sorta caught up with us, and...</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But I don’t think in a negative way. I think that’s sort of a good thing.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Great, um, and has—is there anything else that has changed in Oviedo since you’ve lived here that you—that you’ve noticed?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Oh, I’m sure they’re lots of changes that I, you know—of course, they’re building new buildings and tearing down old buildings. Um, citrus has not gained or even [inaudible].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] and citrus is leaving us, and so is, uh, when—when we were first—when I first came here to Oviedo, um, out in Black Hammock, there was celery growing and cabbage and onions, and there was always something growing out there, and Now, there’s really nothing. There’s palm trees, but with the building industry not being too hot, they’re just growing and growing. They’re not being sold, uh, and I don’t even see much sod being sold. Um, uh, we, uh—all that has changed. It’s just not agriculture any more, and, uh, you know, then, uh, it’s modern times. I think people are, um, you know, since we’ve started here, there’s been integration, and so, that’s a big difference in Oviedo. um, people working together of different races and things like that, and I think it’s going pretty well.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Um, so…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay, great. Um, so do you have any other stories—memorable stories about your time living in Oviedo, um, while you’ve been living there?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well [<em>laughs</em>]…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>There’s been like the—I think it was, uh, one of the packing houses out on, uh, [Florida State Road] 46 caught on fire. This was in the early maybe 70s—maybe late 60s…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, that was a huge deal. I mean, everybody, uh, was going out to see that fire….</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, but, uh—and of course, there’s been, u, funny things that’s happened, and I—right now, I can’t think of any[<em>laughs</em>], but, uh—you know, personal things—but, uh, eh, Just the change and the times, and the university, like I said, started it all. Uh, people started moving out here and then, because there was now new bedroom communities. Uh, then other businesses, that catered to that, have moved out here. I mean, we’ve got so many food, you know, restaurants and places to get food, and, uh, we don’t—and, you know, we’ve got a [Oviedo] Mall. Who would’ve ever though Oviedo would have a mall, and all these different places? Uh, It’s, uh, a very—like if—if you think back—1965 and today—it’s like two different worlds…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Until you get down to the nitty gritty of it and start talking to people that actually live here. They still—still, I think, sorta have the same mindset.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I think.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh. Um, alright. So what family stories have you heard, uh, about Oviedo’s early history? So before you lived here.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, my, um, mother-in-law, who I, uh, learned so much from, she, uh, came here when she was I think 17—maybe 18 years old—from Lake Monroe, Florida, which is right outside of, uh, Sanford. Uh, she came out here because there was a lady that was running the hotel in Oviedo, that was right where the main red light is, um, in Oviedo. It was sort of east, uh, or south of that, and, uh, since then, of course, it’s burned down, and—but, uh, she came out to actually take care of the lady’s children while the lady ran the hotel. The [?] t turned into—she became like the telephone operator there, and, uh, I think she is noted as the first telephone operator in, uh, Oviedo, because, you know, that was a big deal back then too, and she, uh—that’s where she met her husband.<a title="">[6]</a> Uh, he worked across the way at the packing house with his, you know—his—the people who owned the packing house were relatives of his. Not that—I—I don’t think it was nepotism that he had a job there. It’s just there were not many other places to work, but, um, she met him there, and she learned how to pack fruit just by sittin’ around. I guess that was their courting days, you know?</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>“Here, let me show you how [<em>laughs</em>] to pack fruit.”</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But, uh—and she used to tell me, um, or she told me once that, uh, she—when they courted, uh, her husband’s, uh, cousin, would loan him his car, and it was a roadster, and I never quite got the concept of what a roadster is, but I do know that, uh, one of the cars that they rode around in had the rumble seat in the back</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Ah.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And when they would double date, she and her husband always had to be in the rumble seat, but when it was just the two of them, they would—a big date would be him taking her to Lake Monroe to visit her parents [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So—but anyway, they, uh—they—she used to tell me stories about how they dressed, and, you know, her husband, um, was sort of dashing. I think he wore this straw, Panama hat or somethin’, and, uh, she was a great seamstress, so she made all her clothes, and she was seamstress for Oviedo. She, uh, made so many wedding dresses for people, and, uh, I think she sewed for about—oh, gosh. I want to say about 40 years…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And she was really great. Uh, she would make you clothes that—as a matter of fact, there was one person in Oviedo that used to take her to, uh, Winter Park, and they would sketch out the dresses in the windows…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then she would come back and make them for this person, and, you know, for hardly any money at all, and in Winter Park, it would cost like, 20 times whatever she charged…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Because they were very nice dresses, but, uh—and she did that up until she was in her ‘60s.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, everybody loved to have her make them a dress, and she always was—loved to do it, because it was like her calling. It was her art. It was her thing, and, uh, she really enjoyed that very, very much, and, uh, of course, it was the different people that would come there. She had these, um—what do they call them? Dress models?</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, and she had one that was—one lady that was sort of heavy, and that’s what she called it—by this lady’s name, and, um, I’m not saying their names, ‘cause their families all—still are here.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then there’s another one that the lady was quite tall, and she called it that, and then finally she got this little short, fat, one and she called it Nadine [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And she used to make me my clothes, even when we were stationed in Germany or wherever. She’d send me, uh, my clothes, and they would be perfect every time. So, um, she was very, very talented at that, and I, uh, think that, uh—like I said, I think that it was her art, and she enjoyed doing it, and I think a lot of people, uh, of that era enjoyed working. I don’t think you see that so much anymore.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And I think people, uh, of my father’s age and, uh, Andy’s parents, they just sorta took their job very, very seriously, and it was their thing. It was, you know—they had pride in what they were doing. It wasn’t just—and of course, they had to earn money, and they didn’t earn that much for whatever they were doing, but still it was their—their art. It was their art.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So there’s, um—some of the funny stories would be, uh, Andy’s uncle, eh, Theodore, who they all called Fifi, um, he didn’t [<em>laughs</em>] believe in change. So like, if they put in a traffic light or a stop sign where they never had had one before, he never paid—after he got old, he never paid any attention for—to it.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, he was just—and George, the policeman, would just say, “Well, that’s Uncle Fifi. We just have to watch out for him.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And there was other people like that. there were what you call “characters” around the town, and—and that’s what people did—is they just sorta said, uh, “Well, that’s who they are,” and, you know, you just have to watch out for them, and I think that’s where the lovely—lovely thing about Oviedo and small towns everywhere, I’m sure.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And so, uh, don’t know what else…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, that’s great, um, and you mentioned the—being a telephone or switchboard operator. Um, so what were the name—what was her name? [inaudible]…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Her name was Alice.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Alice?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Mary Alice Aulin.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Um, yeah. Uh, she did that, and, uh, as a matter of fact, when they did the centennial here, I, uh—they recognized her for that, and, um, it was very nice, um, and that was a nice thing too. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you got information about that, but that centennial thing was really a nice thing that Oviedo did. Uh, brought everybody together, and then people that were new got to know more about what was going on. uh…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>There was, like, memorial celery vase.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Have you heard that or seen that? Uh…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>I haven’t seen it. no.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, uh, most of us have one that were around at that time, uh…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And that’s when, um, Mr. Neely’s book<a title="">[7]</a> came out.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, or Miss [Donna] Neely’s. I guess it was Ms. Neely’s. Uh, Dr., uh—what was his name?<a title="">[8]</a> Doesn’t matter.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That’s okay. Uh, [inaudible] another one of those things that will come to you, but, um, that all sorta gelled at the same time for the centennial, and It was a big celebration, and, um, it was very, very, very nice.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm, nice. Yeah, um, and have you heard any family stories about Andrew Aulin?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Oh, yes, he…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>That you’d like to share.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Was, uh—now, the first Andrew Aulin? You know, there’s…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>The first Andrew Aulin, and then there was my husband’s father, Andrew Aulin, and my husband, Andrew Aulin, and none of them have middle names, and, uh, [<em>laughs</em>]…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So it’s just…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Confusing.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, but anyway, the first one, uh—it’s was my understanding that he traveled a lot before he settled down and came to Florida, but, um, one of the places that he traveled to or was in was, um, Oviedo, Spain. There was a big University [of Oviedo] there, and evidently, he was a scholar, and he had gone to, uh, [Uppsala] University in Uppsala, Sweden. he was Swedish, and, um—so when he came to Oviedo and they decided they were gonna make a town, and as a postmaster, they had him choose the name, he chose Oviedo, because this area reminded him of that town—city—I guess it was—and, uh—so therefore, he named it Oviedo, because—and—and also it had the Spanish name and Florida has a Spanish name—is a Spanish name. So he all thought it all sorta fit.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, um, it’s also my understanding—and this is sorta—I’ve heard people sorta joke about it—that he really cared more about reading and his books and doing scholarly things that, uh, he didn’t really care much about his business. He—he had a business, and I heard someone say—I think it was Mr. W. A. Ward’s father, uh, Bill Ward—said, um, that he would like—and maybe it wasn’t Mr. Ward—but anyway it doesn’t matter—it was somebody from that era—said that, uh, you would go into the mercantile store and say, you know, you wanted—I don’t know, um—seven yards of material or whatever, and he’d say, “Well, it’s back over that way,” and he’d go right back to his book [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh—so whether people paid him or not he wasn’t real [<em>laughs</em>]…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But I’m sure they all did pay, because it was a different era, again, at that time, but, uh, they said that they[?]—they would often see him sittin’ outside his—his store—just sittin’ there reading a book…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, he—it’s also my understanding that he, uh, taught, was one of the first like little school situations here. Not that it was really a school. I don’t know about that. I just know that he taught people whatever he taught them, I don’t know if it was Greek or, uh, some, uh—something more than just grade school kind of things. I’m not sure about that. I just know that, uh—that was, uh,—has been told to me several times—was that he, um—and it may be even—there’s a letter written by, uh, Steen Nelson, uh, who…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Nelson and Company.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, in that letter, there’s a descript—description of, uh, Andrew Aulin, and, uh, I think in there, he mentions him being a scholar, and, um, his store, and naming the town, and—and those kind of things, and I have—I just thought of it. I think I have a copy of that letter that I’ll try to provide for you, if I can find it. Uh…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, that’d be great.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, then there’s[sic] other people in town that have a copy of it too, so I’m sure that we can locate it, and that’s sorta interesting too. I don’t know much about Steen Nelson, other than Nelson and Company was originally his business.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I don’t know if he became a partner with Mr. [Benjamin Franklin] Wheeler[, Sr.], or if the Wheelers just bought it out, or what.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I don’t know that, but, uh, yeah. that’s, uh, how it all started with him.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, and do, you know, anything about, um, Andrew Aulin’s role as sort of an entrepreneur or stockholder—I think was the word. That I think he was involved in some entrepreneurial ventures with those people. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about that.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, he probably was…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I mean, because he was very much involved in the very beginning of Oviedo, and if you look at the land, uh, plats from that time, his name’s everywhere.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So I, um—that part though I don’t really know, but I…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Do know that once upon a time, he owned a lot of land in Oviedo, and then I think, by the time he passed, there—he had sold it or, uh—I know that my mother-in-law used to talk about, uh, there were boom times and not-boom times, and, uh, in the boom times, everybody had money and had high hopes, and then it would all crash, and—but that’s all throughout history. You know, they…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That—early 1900s, and on, and in 1929, and then on and on, and so…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>People would have stuff and then they’d have nothing.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And—but, fortunately, back in those times, if you were a farmer, you could always grow your crop, but—as long as you didn’t have a dust bowl, like they did out West, and that kind of thing, but—yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay, um, and have you heard about anything in terms of Andrew Aulin, uh, growing citrus? Have you heard any…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Stuff about that? Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>He did. He grew, um,—he had orange groves, um, and I—he had, uh, different properties around. I know that on the, uh, south side of town, uh, he had properties, and then down—what we now call Downtown Oviedo, uh—I think he had properties down there that he grew not oranges on. I think it was, um, other kinds of crops. Uh, I’m thinking strawberries and celery. I don’t think celery was the big thing particularly, at that time. I think celery came along a little later, but, uh, yeah, uh, he did, and I—I that part—I’m sorry to tell ya—I haven’t ever delved into it, but I have always liked to hear the character stories, ya know?</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, um, and have you heard anything about him as a postmaster, beyond what you were saying? Have you heard any stories about that, or…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Nothing other than him naming the town.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I don’t know how it came about that he was the first postmaster. Uh, I do know that, uh, prior to that, everybody got their mail from, um, White’s Wharf, but, uh, then I guess they decided they needed a post office in Oviedo.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, great, and, uh, you mentioned earlier, uh, the Swedish background of the family. Um, do you know anything more about that?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, no, other than they’re from a place, um—it’s a big— it’s a big town in, uh, Ov—I mean Spain, uh—Sweden. Um, it’s right on the—the ocean. I, uh, don’t[?]—I have all this stuff at my house, because, um, I have sort of like a history, but I can’t think of it now. Uh, it’s called “getting old.”</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Did you say before Uppsala? [inaudible]…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, Uppsala was where he went to university.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay. That was the university. [inaudible]…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Yes, he went to school there, and, um, I can’t think of the name of the town where he was born, but that’s as far back as, uh, we’ve been able to go in his genealogy is to that town. Um, it starts with an M. I can’t think of it, but anyway, uh, he—I think it was a relatively young age when he left Sweden. I mean, um, not as a child, but [inaudible] probably in his early, early 20s, and then he traveled, and I think he even lived for a time in, uh, Ohio, and then, um—but it wasn’t until he came to Oviedo that he met his wife,<a title="">[9]</a> who was a Lawton, and, uh, her, uh, family was one of the main fam—founding families of, uh, Oviedo.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, the Lawtons, uh, and Wheelers, and, uh, Aulins—they were sorta—and they sorta—and the Lees—the Lees also is another…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Name. Speaking of Lee, my mother-in-law, when she was a child, went with, uh, her uncle and her father on a, uh, river trip to Rockledge to get some—her uncle was the grocer. So they went on a skiff. She’s always called it that. I don’t know a skiff—from Lake Monroe to, uh, Rockledge, er, you know, by the coast, and, uh, I didn’t even know that the waterway would—would go that far, uh, on the St. Johns [River], but, um, back then, it did for sure, and she talked about how they camped on the way, and—but another person in their party was a gentleman named Thee Lee. I’m thinking his name was Theodore Lee. Uh, uh, I don’t know, but anyway, uh, we called him Thee Lee, and, um, he was a young man and he was—I guess knew her father or the uncle or somethin’. Anyway, he went on this trip with them and he would kill duck or whatever for their supper, and then she would always laugh and she says, “And then, 10 years or so later, I met him, because I was gonna marry his cousin.” So he was…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Andrew’s cousin.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, um—so I—I just thought that was so neat. She was just she had to be under 11 years old, because her father, uh, got killed on the railroad when she was, uh, 11. So she had to be pretty little kid when she went on that trip, but she remembered so much about them killing the geese and roasting them on the fire at night.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And isn’t that an adventure for an 11-year-old? I mean golly.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, wow.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, sounds so cool [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, awesome. Yeah, and what else have you heard about the Lawtons, and, uh, Lona Lawton, and everybody?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, um, I just know that, uh, there was a Mr. Lawton, uh, here in Oviedo that, uh, when he—he found out that I was married to—and I worked in a bank—when he found out that I, uh, was married to an Aulin, uh, his wife would send me cookies every once in a while.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Aw.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And also Andy’s cousin’s wife lived there, uh—worked there, and so they were all—they were very kind to us, uh, just because of the relationship, I guess, and, um, I just thought that that was so cool that he would, uh—that she would do that, and now, I can’t remember which Lawton they were, because, uh, at that time, there was[sic] several older Lawtons living in Oviedo.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh—but that was so cool that he—that she would send us those cookies just because we were [<em>laughs</em>]…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Aulins. It was just this family ties, I guess, but, um, the—I’m trying to think of some of the—there was, um, a lot of Lawtons. Uh, I think there was like—it was of two different mothers, but there was like a bunch of ‘em. I—I’m wantin’ to say eight, or maybe even more than eight…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Children, and, um, so they, um, settled here in Oviedo, and then, uh, I’ve since learned that there’s some Lawtons of that same group that live up in, uh, Northwest Florida.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I’ve been in contact with their, um, great-grandchildren, um, but, uh, they—they were big farmers, and, um—then also, I think they, uh, were teachers, and, uh, I know that, um, another one of my husband’s aunts was a teacher, and she, uh, married a gentleman and they lived out—and went out to live out in Texas, and that’s where the original Andrew Aulin died. He was in Texas. that’s where he’s buried—is in Texas, because he was living out there with his daughter, and, um—but yeah, they—I think they sort of have a—a legacy of teaching and farming.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm, yeah. Um, have you heard anything about, uh, Lona Lawton as—and her role as a switchboard operator after the [World] War [I]?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Lona Lawton?</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Or Alice Aulin?</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, I believe it was Lona Lawton that they mentioned in the book.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Nah, I…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Maybe.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>What war?</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, I said after World War—World War I?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, that would have had to have been Andy’s mother,</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Alice.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Mary Alice Aulin.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Because Lona Lawton…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Was, um, Andrew’s mother.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And she died before, um, Andy’s mother met him.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So I—she met him, um, around 1920.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Something like that.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Um, maybe twe—even ’22—something like that, ‘cause she was, uh—well, she was born in 1904, and, um, so she was only like 18 in ’22, so yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So Lona had—had died…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Ah.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Before then.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, and she, uh—I think way before then. I think in the early 1900s.<a title="">[10]</a> Uh, Andy’s father was the youngest child, and he was born in like 18-something.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Like, uh, 1893, I’m thinking—somewhere in that area.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So, yeah, she had been dead a long time.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm, mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Um, so it wasn’t her. It was Andy’s mother, and I don’t remember, um, I mean it was after World War I that she, uh, did that because, uh, she was like 18 when she started.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then, at one point, uh, she got married and—but then, at a later time, they came and put the switchboard in her house.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Ah.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>They lived on Graham [Avenue].</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then she ran it from there, and then, um, another time, when she lived on Myrtle Street, they’ve[sic] moved it there, and she—but she had the—it, like, blew up in her ear, or…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I don’t know what you’d call it. Uh, it had a short somehow and it made her, uh, almost deaf in one ear from doing that, and that was—I think that was like in the ‘30s…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>When that happened.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>And have you heard anything about Andrew Aulin’s experience in World War I, uh, so [inaudible].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Yes, I know that he was, um, uh—now, this is Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay, sorry.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, Andy’s father—my husband’s father.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>He was, uh, in, um, France during World War I, and he was, um, gassed. He got injured, uh, or, you know, not wounded, but, uh, harmed or disabled, uh, somewhat, by having, uh, gas, because, you know, that was the war when they did the—did that. he was in the trenches, and one of the funny or odd things, I think, is, um, they don’t eat—eat potatoes very much in the Aulin family, uh, or that part of the Aulin family, because all he got to eat when he was, uh, overseas was potatoes, and he said he hoped he never saw another potato, so…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Andy’s mother cooked rice every day, and, uh, when I got married, I cooked rice every day for many, many years, and then I finally taught my husband that, you know, life will go on without rice, so [<em>laughs</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] [inaudible].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But, uh, rice was the big thing. They ate rice instead of potatoes, and another thing, because of his, uh, eating habits, or lack of, when he was over there, uh, he wouldn’t eat gravy that was white—you know, made with milk.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Because that was just—that’s all they got over there—was white gravy. Er, he thought it had no taste. So Mrs. Aulin—even if the gravy didn’t come out dark enough, she would put like instant coffee in it or somethin’ to make it dark.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And that’s a good trick.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>It makes it taste better, if you just put a li’l coffee in it.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That’s one of the tricks I’ve learned from her, uh, but yeah. I don’t know of any, uh—I just know that he went over there, uh, and got more or less wounded, and, uh, that whole family, I think, is, uh, been in World War—his—my husband’s oldest—older brother<a title="">[11]</a> was in World War II and in the Korean War. My husband was in, uh, [the] Vietnam [War], and, um, so they’ve all, you know, served their country.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And I, uh, think that’s sorta something that most of the people in Oviedo did. I mean, there was a lot of people in Oviedo that, uh, served in World War II, and, uh, even some of the people that weren’t in the military, they served by, uh, manning the—they had a tower that they watched for…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Airplanes and what have you, like a civil defense kind of thing…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I know that Andy’s sisters did some of that and the, uh, other girls in town, uh, volunteered to do that, and there was—the tower was downtown, uh, by the red light too…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>h huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>From what I understand. I think that’s where it was. Have to ask somebody who was here then, but I think that’s where it was from the stories...</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>They tell.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm, um, and you mentioned some of the founding families of Oviedo. What—is there anything else—any other stories you know about them, or, um—besides [inaudible]…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I do know that, uh, it—I think this is sort of funny. Uh, When I came and I was living with Andy’s aunt and she would mention someone or I would mention someone, and she would say something like, “Oh, they’re one of the new people.”</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And I would say, “Oh, when did—when did they come to Oviedo?” And she says, “Oh, I think they came in like the 20s.”</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And—she—her family was the Jacobs, and they—her father settled on—at—at Lake Pickett…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Way back in the 1800s. Uh, his brother settled on Lake Mills.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then his sister was married to, uh, a Kilby, I think, and they settled in, um, Geneva on Lake Harney.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So it—out of the same family, they all settled on lakes, and then Aunt Nettie married, uh, an Aulin, and so she was like from first—a first family of two different places, and, uh, she used to say—and not only she—when I would first come to Oviedo and I’d be like at my grandmother’s, somebody would say, uh, “Oh, we’d better get back to Oviedo before the creek rises,” or if you were in Oviedo, uh, they would say, “Well, we’d better get back to Chuluota before the creek rises,” and Aunt Nettie explained to me what that was—is that once upon a time there was a—a low bridge, where the regular bridge is going from Oviedo to Chuluota, but it was a low bridge, and if the water got high, you couldn’t go across it, because you couldn’t see the bridge, and, uh, so it was true that if it was raining or something like that and the bridge got overflowed, then you were stuck. You had to…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] stay there. So that’s why they said that. They—and they still say it as far as I know, to this day, “If, you know—if the creek rises, we’d better,” just as a sort of joke or whatever, and, um, I [<em>laughs</em>] always thought that—well, I liked it when I found out what it—what it meant, and there was something else I was gonna tell you around those lines, but, um, every little town has its—its little sayings, and funny things, and, um—but I can’t think of what else I was gonna tell you. Anyway…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh [<em>laughs</em>]. So tell me about, um, you mentioned some of the artifacts that you had, um, so tell me a little bit about what those were or if you have any stories about them.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I don’t really have any artifacts. I have some copies of things that…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, have been handed to me, because of my interest in genealogy.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, I have, uh, copies of some pages out of a Lawton, uh, Bible that, uh—these people I’ve met in Northwest Florida—and it has, of course, the names of people that were here, you know, like, uh, Lona, and Narcissa [Melissa Lawton], and those, um, Lawtons, and, um, then I have, uh, different, you know, writings, and newspaper clippings, and, um, things like that. I had some, um, things that belonged to my husband’s, um, father, but I sent them to, uh—or had his grandmother send them—send them to her son—her grandson in Tennessee, because he was interested in that stuff…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And not many people, you know, really are, and so…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I thought that would be a good thing for him to have, but as far as, uh, actual hold-it-in-your-hand kind of thing, other than copies and—and writings, I don’t— I don’t really have anything.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, and what were some of the things that were sent? what were some of the, um…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, well, I’ve got, uh—we have a copy of, uh, Nar—Narcissa’s diary.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>A portion of it that she did</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>In World War…</p>
<p>[<em>child cries</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I mean in the Civil War.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, and that’s very interesting.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Wow.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And I mean it really takes you back in—in time.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And there—one of the things she writes about is, uh, having to make, uh, shoes for, uh, some of the people that worked there, and she didn’t—obviously, they were slaves, but she didn’t call them that.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>It was “our people,” you know?</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And she had to make them some shoes, and, uh, she talked about the war, and, she, you know—she heard bad news that would come down from Virginia, and she was in, uh—right outside Thomasville, Georgia, is where they lived at that time.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, it’s really, really a treasure having—having that, uh, but it’s, uh, a copy of it, and it’s, uh—I don’t even know who’s got the original. Oh, I do. I[?] happen to be—the original, uh, got washed away in a flood they had out in Texas, where…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Where it was—where it was kept, uh, which is regrettable, ‘cause, I mean, now it’s gone, but fortunately, we all have—or not all of us—but a lot of us have copies of it.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Wow[?].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So that’s really, really another treasure.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, then I have these like—I think I had already told you—these copies of that—pages out of that Bible, where they note the family happenings—you know, deaths, births—that kind of thing—weddings, Um, and like—like I said, the Steen, uh, Nelson letter. I’ve got, I think, probably, uh, all the books and things that were written, and—and I have treasures from the, um, centennial, and newspaper clippings, and things like that.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Awesome, very cool. Um, so are there any other stories that you want to share about—in general, that you’ve been thinking about? Um…</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I, you know—I can sit here and tell you stories, uh, about, uh, my mother-in-law [inaudible], but I don’t know if they would have any interest to, um—I mean, it’s just—you would just be interested if you were her granddaughter or something like that, you know? It’s just sorta family things.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But, um, Aunt Nettie, uh, as I said, you know—she—her husband was the one they called “The Judge.” he was the Justice of the Peace, and, um, she, um, also had, uh—it wasn’t a boarding house, but she had extra rooms in her house, and there was a time when the railroad people were working here or whatever, uh, and, you know, Oviedo used to be really busy with all of the fruit, vegetables being shipped in and outta here—or being shipped out of here.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, um, so she would, um, let out a room to these people that work for the railroad, and, uh, she used to tell me little saying—like one of ‘em would, uh, put cheese in his coffee, and [<em>laughs</em>]…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I’ve never heard of that before, and then she would always say, uh—she was a swe—sweet, old lady. She was so precious, and she would say, uh, “Nadine, you want some cheese in your coffee?” I said, “No, Aunt Nettie. I don’t want any cheese in my coffee.”</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That’s what the man would say. He would say…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>“I want some cheese for her coffee.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Just little stories like that…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>You know, that doesn’t mean anything to anybody, but…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Just, uh, you had to know the people. You had to be there, you know, sort of thing. So…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, great, and, um, so do you have any last words about maybe what impact that your relatives and—have had in the town in the early history or just any other thoughts about Oviedo’s history in general?</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I [inaudible]—I think that Oviedo has a, uh—a good history, you know? You don’t really think of too many bad things happening in Oviedo. I don’t know—don’t know that I recall anything bad. I did[?]—I know that there’s been some, uh—there used to be a prison camp out on the way to Winter Park, on that road.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I think there was an escape, uh—escape there, and I think, uh, that’s when Mr. John Courier[sp] got hurt. Now, this you’re gonna have to talk to other people about, because I don’t really know, but I do know that there’s been things like that that have happened…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That are tragic.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But, um, I—I don’t know any firsthand information about that, and—but as far as Oviedo is concerned, I think that, uh, like I said in the beginning, the—the churches is[sic] what it was all based on, and I think pretty much, it still has that, uh, heritage, that rock, that—that keeps it sorta held together, and I think all that’s important. Uh, we have a lot more churches now than just the Methodist and the Baptist.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, the, uh, church that’s, uh, mainly black people on the, uh, way out of town…</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, I think that’s been there for years and years and years and years, and, uh, I noticed the other day, it’s growing like gangbusters, just like the other churches.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And that’s really great, and that’s really a good foundation, and I think that they’ve—we’ve maintained that foundation.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So that’s a good thing.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Great, alright. Well, thank you so much for talking with us. this was really helpful.</p>
<p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Oh, well, thank you. I hope that it was. I, uh, enjoyed it. Sorta nice bringing those memories back. Sorry I couldn’t remember some things.</p>
<p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>No, no. It’s—that’s great.</p>
<div><br /><div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Andrew Aulin III.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> Mary Alice Powell Aulin.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[3]</a> Lee Gary.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[4]</a> Now the University of Central Florida.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[5]</a> Now the Citizens Bank of Florida.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[6]</a> Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[7]</a> <em>Oviedo: Biography of a Town</em>.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[8]</a> Richard R. Adicks, Jr.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[9]</a> Emma “Lona” Leonora Lawton Aulin.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[10]</a> 1904.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[11]</a> Charles Warren Aulin.</p>
</div>
</div>
American Civil War
Andrew Aulin III
Andy Aulin
armadillos
automobiles
Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, Sr.
Black Hammock
Career Field
cars
Charles Warren Aulin
Chuluota
church
churches
Citizens Bank of Florida
Citizens Bank of Oviedo
citrus
cops
Donna Neely
Downtown Oviedo
dressmakers
dressmaking
elevators
Emma Leonora Lawton Aulin
Fifi
football teams
George Kelsey
immigrants
immigration
Jacobs
John Courier
Kilby
law enforcement
Lee Gary
Mary Alice Powell Aulin
motor vehicles
Nadine Davis Aulin
Narcissa Melissa Lawton
Nelson and Company
Nettie Dorcas Jacobs Aulin
OHS
orange groves
oranges
orlando
Oviedo
Oviedo High School
Oviedo: Biography of a Town
police officers
post offices
postmasters
rice
roadsters
rumble seats
Sarah Schneider
seamstress
seamstresses
sewing
spiders
sports
spyders
Steen Nelson
Swedes
Swedish Americans
switchboard operators
The Judge
Thee Lee
Theodore Aulin
Theodore Lee
Thomasville, Georgia
Townhouse Restaurant
White's Wharf
World War I
World War II
WWI
WWII
-
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/197874e145d3b17058cf363f3eab755d.pdf
8d026f907c6ee3fab4872f80183b7f5e
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cf9a90938dac133de27d27af11cd8516.mp3
2e13c1253097ad7b2c897e42380c20bc
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
<span>Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank"><em>Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</em></a><span>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010.</span>
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"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003.
Transcript
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>This is an interview with Garnett White. This interview is being conducted on October 13<sup>th</sup>, 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?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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 [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p class="Body">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 <em>The Florida Times-Union</em>, 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 <em>The Sanford Herald</em> 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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Of course.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.”</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Recessions?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I have a couple questions, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Sure.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Okay, sir. You talked a great deal earlier about the paper route you ran as a kid.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Was that a great experience for you? Because you spent a lot of time discussing how you met and saw a lot of things.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Oh, well, sure! There’s a little story that goes along with that, was we delivered <em>The Florida Times-Union</em>, 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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And you did that from when you were younger all the way through high school, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White <br /></strong>Because like, a lot of—something very interesting. I worked in a grocery store.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Oh, okay, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I don’t think that’s changed much, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Huh?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I don’t think that’s changed much. I’ve worked in a couple grocery stores.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>All right. You mentioned you were in the Navy, sir. How long were you in the Navy for?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>I was in the Navy for one hitch. I was a quartermaster.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, and one hitch is, uh...</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did you travel anywhere on that, at that time, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right, sir. Did you enjoy your time in the military—the Navy?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Sure.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Just didn’t want to go to Antarctica.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. You also mentioned you worked with civic duties for a while. So tell me a little more about that.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I’m sorry, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah. You asked a question before that. What was that?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Your civic duties, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>The Jaycees, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Junior Chamber of Commerce.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Okay. [<em>laughs</em>] 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…</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Junior.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. Sounds like you were very busy.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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 [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>That’s why we’re getting this down today, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Get that out today. Okay.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Could you tell me a little bit about your family? Your wife’s name, how you met her, and then your children’s names.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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 [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How many grandchildren, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. Is it okay if we get your wife’s name and your children’s names?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Ed, Ted, and Judy?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yes. Eddie, Teddy. [<em>laughs</em>] Yes. Ed, Ted, and Judy.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Do they still respond to Eddie and Teddy?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Their whole lives, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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 [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I gotcha, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>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?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>That’s correct.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Were a lot of the farmers well-off, or was there...</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Sir, and I do like to eat.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>And everybody likes to eat.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Still interesting to hear, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body">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.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Anyway.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>That was it for my questions, actually. Did you have anything else you’d like to say?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>No. Not really. I may have said a whole lot more than I should have, to start with. But, uh, anyway…</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, sir, it’s all great. Thank you very much, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>All right. Nice to talk.</p>
<div><br /><div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Sydney Octavius Chase, Sr.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> Joshua Coffin Chase.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[3]</a> Junior Chamber of Commerce.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[4]</a> Sanford Junior Chamber of Commerce; </p>
</div>
</div>
Has Format
Original <span>16-page digital transcript by Savannah Vickers: </span>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/7186274496a92a2c204a62c071c1ef36.pdf
8d96ba9401b0d6568c989b5224e5087e
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
Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection
Alternative Title
Creative Sanford Collection
Subject
Seminole County (Fla.)
Folk plays
Sanford (Fla.)
Description
<span>Creative Sanford, Inc. is a non-profit organization created to manage <em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em> community theater productions. The original idea for the Celery Soup project came from Jeanine Taylor, the owner of a folk-art gallery on First Street in Sanford, Florida. Their first production was </span><em>Touch and Go</em><span>, a play focusing on the people of Sanford and their determination to overcome various obstacles, including the Freeze of 1894-1895, the fall of Sanford's celery industry, and the closing of Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford in the 1960s. In the process of producing the show, Creative Sanford decided to rehabilitate an historic building, the Princess Theater, which is located on 115 West First Street and owned by Stephen Tibstra. The Creative Sanford offices are housed in the Historic Sanford Welcome Center, located at 203 East First Street.</span>
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Historic Sanford Welcome Center, Downtown Sanford, Florida
Princess Theater, Downtown Sanford, Florida
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">WHO IS CREATIVE SANFORD, INC?</a>" Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about.
<span>"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/" target="_blank">About: History and Purpose</a>." Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/.</span>
"<a href="http://www.communityperformanceinternational.org/sanford-florida" target="_blank">Sanford, Florida: How do you make Celery Soup? Add stories, then stir</a>." Community Performance International. http://www.communityperformanceinternational.org/sanford-florida.
Contributor
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
Thompson, Trish
Interviewee
Harkey, Dick Quentin
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 Quentin Harkey
Alternative Title
Oral History, Harkey
Subject
Ft. Lauderdale (Fla.)
Orlando (Fla.)
Theme parks
West Palm Beach (Fla.)
Republican Party--United States
Insurance--Florida
Railroads--Florida
Sanford (Fla.)
Description
An oral history of Dick Quentin Harkey (b. 1942). In 1942, Harkey was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the fifth child in his family. In 1957, his family moved to Gainesville, Georgia. Harkey attended Young Harris College and the University of Georgia, graduating with a degree in psychology. He worked first for Great American Insurance in the Claims Department and married a woman that he met at the University of Georgia. After living in Atlanta, Georgia, for some time, Harkey was transferred to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1967. He moved back to Atlanta for a couple of years after getting divorced, but later transferred to Orlando, on March 25, 1971. Harkey met a schoolteacher, Cheryl Harkey, through the Young Republicans in April 1973. The couple married in December and had their daughter, Marianne Harkey, on February 11, 1978. After working for Great American Insurance, Harkey went to work with IMA and then later for CNA Financial. In this oral history, Harkey discusses the story of how his family came from North Carolina, stories about when he worked for Channel Nine, and stories about his time as a lawyer for insurance policies. He was active within the Republican Party and discusses the political and economic implications of the SunRail for Sanford and the surrounding areas. He also speaks briefly about racial tensions.
Type
Text
Source
Harkey, Dick Quentin. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. 2009. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford, Florida.
Requires
<a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida.
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Is Format Of
Digital transcript of original oral history: Harkey, Dick Quentin. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. 2009. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida.
Coverage
Charlotte, North Carolina
Atlanta, Georgia
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Magic Kingdom Park, Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, Florida
West Palm Beach, Florida
Sanford, Florida
Florida Hospital Health Village, Orlando, Florida
Creator
Harkey, Dick Quentin
Thompson, Trish
Contributor
Román-Toro, Freddie
Date Created
2009
Format
application/pdf
Extent
184 KB
Medium
17-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Civics/Government Teacher
Economics Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Trish Thompson and Dick Quentin Harkey.
Rights Holder
Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</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
Contributing Project
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a>
Curator
Román-Toro, Freddie
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a>." <em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em>. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/.
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Florida Federation of Young Republicans</a>." Florida Federation of Young Republicans. http://www.ffyr.org/.
"<a href="http://rpof.org/" target="_blank">Republican Party of Florida</a>." Republican Party of Florida. http://rpof.org/.
Taylor, Tate, et al. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/748435864" target="_blank"><em>The Help</em></a>. Burbank, Calif: Touchstone Home Entertainment, 2011.
Transcript
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Tell me about where you’re from—where you were raised.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, I was born in North Carolina—Charlotte—and I’m the youngest of five, and my middle name is Quentin. The reason my mother named me Quentin is because, in Latin, “Quentin” means “the fifth.” That’s how I got my middle name.</p>
<p>My father was a regional sales manager for a big national food company. my mother was a social worker. When I was 15, my father got transferred to Gainesville, Georgia, so we moved there. It’s about 50 miles north of Atlanta[, Georgia]. My first year, I went to Young Harris [College] and then I transferred to the University of Georgia. In fact, the senator from Georgia was a professor there. I got my degree in psychology. and after, I went to Atlanta and walked the streets trying to find a job.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Where’d you end up?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>You get discouraged. And I finally went to one of these personnel agencies, and this guy had a connection with insurance companies, and I ended up getting a job with Great American Insurance [Group] in the Claims Department. I went to work for them as their trainee, and they had a class in New York City[, New York], at their home office at 99 John Street, so I went up for that. There were about 15 of us, and I ended up being number one in the class. They decided to transfer me to Fort Lauderdale. This must have been in the summer of [19]67.</p>
<p>And while I was at the University of Georgia, I met a young lady and got married and she was from [inaudible] Georgia. We moved to Atlanta, and we rented a place on Peace Tree Hills Road. And our real estate agent was Johnny Isaacson, and now he’s the Senator from Georgia. Actually, I was in [Washington,] D.C., and taking a tour of the White House, and I ran into him. And he says I still own that house—the one on Peace Tree Hills.</p>
<p>I moved to Fort Lauderdale and was there for a couple of years. Unfortunately, I got divorced, moved back to Atlanta, and was there for a couple of years, and said, “I want to go back to Florida.” I transferred back to Orlando in ’71, and I’ve been here ever since.</p>
<p>One of the interesting claims I handled was when the tower for [WFTV] Channel 9 collapsed in [inaudible]. I found out that they were going to install a cable for [WMFE-TV] Channel 24, and apparently they took out a cross member at the lower level of the tower. and in doing so, they caused it to collapse. It killed three or four people. I remember taking a statement from a farmer. He was out farming on his tractor and saw the thing come down—sort of telescope down—and it went so far and it fell over like a tree. But you had these [inaudible] wires that had been holding it up, and they were the size of a man’s leg. They were pulled out of the ground and several of the people working out there were pushed into the ground when it hit the building. Channel 9 was off the air for about three days, and then they brought in a temporary tower to get them back up and running. That ended up being a very expensive loss for—I was working for IMA at that time.</p>
<p>Over the years, you have very interesting cases—when I was in Fort Lauderdale. Once this couple was from Michigan, and they had a [inaudible] where they had their horses. And then they were going to build a place in Fort Lauderdale around [inaudible] Mile, and they had rented an apartment while their house was being built, and it was on the second floor of this apartment house. It was around Christmastime, and she had gone to the bank to get her jewels [inaudible] out of the vault. Apparently, these guys were following her. On this particular evening, her 13-year-old son went downstairs and opened the door to get a drink out of the Coke machine. They were watching, so they came in, went upstairs, and said, “We want your furs and diamonds.” They said, “What are you talking about?” And they said, “Don’t give us any lip.” and they started pistol-whipping her with the gun. They said, “Our son’s coming back. please don’t shoot him.” Anyway, she looked like Natalie Wood and he looked like Sebastian Cabot. All we had was a [inaudible] homeowner’s policy. And when I was taking their statements, he had these gold coins from Rome[, Italy] he had converted into cufflinks, and she had a $50,000 diamond ring. And this was back in 1967. and these furs—the most we could pay was $10,000, but I took the statement from the husband outside of the [City of] Fort Lauderdale Police Department in her Rolls-Royce, and she had her initials on the side “SAS.” They hired a bodyguard to protect them and [inaudible] said, “Hey, what’s going on here?” She went in with the bodyguard to look at mug shots while I took the statement from the husband. That made the newspapers.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did they ever find the guy?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>I don’t remember. It was two or three guys.</p>
<p>I had another case where this couple was from Vancouver[, Canada]. And they’d come down to Fort Lauderdale in the winter, and they had a place right on the Intracoastal. They were about six floors up. and they put in a claim, because their jewels, watches, and wallet had been stolen one night. We came to find out that one of these cat burglars had come across the Intracoastal, and had a grappling hook and pulled himself up to the first balcony. And here you are—if you’re overlooking the Intracoastal, you don’t think about locking your sliding glass door. Basically, what he did was go from one condo[minium] to the next all the way to the top. Apparently, he had some kind of aerosol spray, because when they woke up they felt nauseated. He sprayed something to sedate them so they wouldn’t wake up. All he took was the watches, diamonds, and jewels. And when he got to the top, he left with his gunny sack full of goodies. He had some accomplice waiting for him waiting on the street.</p>
<p>I had a case where this woman had been an actress on Broadway from about 1910 to about 1920 or ’25, and she had been a friend of Fannie [inaudible]. She was telling me the story of how Nicky Bernstein beat her up. And she told me the story about how her husband was a rich furrier[?] in New York City. And when the [Wall Street] Crash [of 1929] happened, he had such a loss that he went to commit suicide. He tried to do that in New York City, and he jumped off the building. And I forgot how many stories she said it was, but he hit the canvas canopy and slid off. And the doorman went to help him, and he said, “No. don’t help me.” It didn’t kill him. And she said he went to Chicago[, Illinois] and found a taller building and did himself in.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I shouldn’t be laughing, but you’d think he would realize that God had a different plan for him when he jumped off a building and didn’t die.</p>
<p>Tell me—I want to hear stories about you when you were young. Stories about Central Florida and what you remember of how things have changed.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, I moved here March 25<sup>th</sup>, 1971. And I can remember going to the grand opening of [Walt] Disney World in October of ‘71. I can remember I was standing there, and they had all the dignitaries walking towards the Magic Kingdom [Park], and here comes Claude [Roy] Kurt[, Jr.], the Governor [of Florida]. And these women that I was standing next to said, “That’s Kirk Douglas.” Another one called him another famous actor, but it was Claude Kurt. So I thought that was interesting that these women thought he was Kirk Douglas. He was a women’s man. He was a lady-killer. He was on his second or third wife when he became governor. Remember, he married this woman<a title="">[1]</a> from Argentina<a title="">[2]</a> that was quite a looker.</p>
<p>When I lived in Fort Lauderdale, I dated this girl that was from Palm Beach. And she was a schoolteacher. And they were more like ordinary people—not rich or anything. She invited me up one weekend to go to a wedding, and they had the wedding on the other side of the canal in West Palm [Beach] and then they went to this place called “The Sail Club” on the north end of Palm Beach. And they just had food and booze flowing, and I can remember the couple. They went through the regular routines of a wedding reception afterwards, and they walked off onto the dock. And I guess they got into their parent’s cabin cruise, and sailed off into the sunset. And I said, “Now, that’ the way to get married, and have that type of reception, and then cruise off into the sunset on your honeymoon.” That impressed me.</p>
<p>I got involved in Young Republicans [YR] when I came here. This was in 1973. This was where I met my wife-to-be, Cheryl [Harkey]. And I met John [L.]Mica, Rich[ard T.] Crotty, [Antoinette] “Toni” Jennings, Jeanie Austin—who’s now dead and gone, but she was a real leader in the Republican Party. Her history was fascinating. She was from Oklahoma, got married when she was 14, had her first kid when she was 16. When I met her, she was in her late-thirties and was running for president of the YRs. I was running for treasurer that year, so there was a slate of us running for office that year. I became the treasurer, she became the president, and she was working as a secretary at Western Electric [Company]. She ended up working her way up to being the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, and she ended up raising more money than any other state chairman. Then when George [Herbert Walker] Bush became president, [Harvey LeRoy] “Lee” Atwater was the chairman of the Republican National Committee [RNC]. She ended up becoming co-chair of the RNC, so considering her start, she really had a successful…</p>
<p>In fact, our club was voted the number one club in the country, and we became the biggest club in Florida. I can remember we had a casino night, and a couple of guys—years before that—had made up this casino equipment. And we raised—we had a budget of $14,000 in 1973 for our club—and we raised about $3,000 on casino night. From there, I became a claims adjuster and had interesting claims, like the ones I’ve mentioned before.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>When did you all get married?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>In a fever. We met in April and got married in December. so it was love and heat at first sight—love and passion. Then we had our daughter. She already had a little boy from her previous marriage—Greg. Then Marianne [Harkey] was born in February 11, 1978, so we brought her home on Valentine’s Day. I thought that was appropriate. Valentine’s Day for a little girl.</p>
<p>Over the years—I was with Great American for six years. Then I went to work for IMA for a while. And then I went to work for an insurance company for [inaudible], and I ended up with CNA [Financial Corporation]. And in ’92, when Mica ran or office—he had been state rep[resentative] in ’76, and I was his campaign coordinator. And he was up there for four years—’76 to ’80—and then in ’80 a guy by the name of [William D.] “Bill” Gorman, who had been a state senator for Orange County, decided he wasn’t going to run again, because Ken [inaudible], who was the Clerk of the Court, decided he wasn’t going to run again. so that left open that state senate position, so Mica ran on that against Toni Jennings, so of course, Toni Jennings won by about 500 votes. He was quite successful and had a very illustrious career.</p>
<p>A little side note is that about three years ago, I went to the Orlando [Regional] Realtor Association. They give out an annual award recognizing a person in public service, and they named the award the Toni Jennings Public Service Award. So they invited Mica, and he wasn’t able to come. so I went to receive his award, and I said, “Let me tell you the rest of the story. Mica and Toni Jennings ran against each other years ago, and now it’s kind of ironic that he’s receiving the Toni Jennings Award for Public Service.”</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>But I want to hear personal stories too. I think you started a good one with—you got married in a fever. That’s like the old song. Where’d you get married?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>We got married—oh, let me tell you another story. In YRs—in the Young Republicans—when I met her and John Mica and all the others, we were meeting at the Maitland Civic Center. We had this thing called the “Order of the Elbow.” and the “Order of the Elbow” was—drink. What we would do is, we would meet once a month and set up a little card table, and usually we’d have someone sitting there selling the tickets. Well, Peggy Spagler was selling the tickets that night, and we got raided by the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives]. And they accused us of selling liquor unlawfully, because you’d buy a ticket, go over to the bar, and get your drink. We thought we were legal. we found out we weren’t. Anyway, they arrested her since she was the one selling the drinks. They didn’t arrest the guys pouring the drinks. she was the one who was taking in the money. They arrested her and took her to jail, and we finally bailed her out about five o’clock in the morning. We ended up having a trial. Lawson Lamar was a young prosecuting attorney at the time. John King was a young judge and then Terry Griffin—he was an attorney in the YRs, so he was the defense attorney. One of the people that was in the YRs at the time was Scott Vandergrift[?], who was the Mayor for Ocoee for years. So we all went in and we testified. and after that, Terry moved or a directed verdict and he told Lawson Lamar, “You know what? You’re barking up the wrong tree.” [Robert] “Bob<br /> Egan was the state attorney at that time, and when he heard he had lost that little case, he razzed Lawson Lamar., and one time, I saw Lawson years after that night and kidded him about it and he said, “Yeah. Bob Egan razzed me about losing that case.”</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So you were saying that that’s where you met your wife and then you got married. Now, did Cheryl work?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Yeah. She was a schoolteacher. When I met her, she was teaching. I said I always wanted to marry a schoolteacher. I just thought they were the greatest. She was my dream come true. We have two granddaughters. Kelsey’s 15. Morgan’s 11.</p>
<p>And then Cheryl’s parents live here in town. He’s a World War II veteran—got a Bronze Star [Medal] and in the Italian Campaign. And they’ve been married for 68 years this November—quite a few years. Her father’s been having problems. He had a near-death experience about a year and a half ago. He had colon cancer, so they did the surgery. He just about didn’t make it. We thought he was going to die a couple of times. He’s managed to keep getting stronger and stronger. He’s an amazing character. He’s from “The Greatest Generation.” They’re tough. So Cheryl’s over there helping her mother take care of him and she needs assistance.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>What’s the biggest change you’ve seen since living here since ’71? It’s been 40 years.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>The overall growth of the area and the population is not going to stop growing. The SunRail, to me, is going to be a great connector for our community. I was talking with—who heads up the [Central Florida] Zoo [and Botanical Gardens]?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Joe Montesano[?].</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>He’s looking forward to where these school kids can hop on the commuter rail and visit the zoo. And people hopping on it to go to a [Orlando] Magic game, and the other thing is that the new Lake Nona [Medical City] that’s being built there on Lake Nona. The Veterans [Affairs] hospital there will be opening next fall, and they’re anticipating a million visitors a year to that facility. Assuming the Governor<a title="">[3]</a> makes the right decision tomorrow.</p>
<p>Once we get in that initial footprint for SunRail, there’s a spur that goes over to the [inaudible] OUC [Orlando Utilities Commission] utility plant right there in Taft. It goes around to the underbelly of the [Orlando-International] Airport, and then it goes over to the—well, if you look at [Florida State Road] 417 and where the new Medical City is—on the north side of 417—right in that area is the tracks. And half a mile away is the new Medical City. The beauty of it is that Orlando has a hundred foot [inaudible]. You know, you see almost the tracks. Now these coal[?] trains[?] are a 100-125 cars long, so they’re quite lengthy. And they have four coal[?] trains[?] a week that come here, so all they’ll have to do is do enough double tracking do they can pass. Eventually, they may get them out of here, but I’m not sure when that’s going to happen. but that’s the beauty. Once we get this thing up, then all these veterans will be able to hop on that commuter rail and—phase one is the one we’re looking at right now. that would just be 31 miles from [inaudible] to Sand Lake Road. We get that in, and it looks like it’s going to be the spring of 2014. They’ll be able to take a bus to the new VA [Veterans Affairs] facility, but eventually it’ll be where they can take a train.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, the train will stop in Sanford, right?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Yeah. We’re going to have four stops in Seminole County: Sanford, Lake Mary, Longwood, and Altamonte [Springs]. We’ll all have our own station.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And it’ll be right at the same place where…</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, the Sanford station is actually going to be on the north side of [Florida State Road] 46, right where [West] Airport Boulevard comes into 46. So it’s not going to be at the auto train location and it’s not going to be where the old station used to be. That’s been torn down—the old Amtrak station.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So Airport and 46—that’s right there before you go over the…</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>It’s just a little east of where [the] Wayne Densch [Performing Arts Center] is. That’s where the station’s going to be. In fact, I think there’s some electrical transformers close to that area. I was talking with Mark McCarty, the new [Sanford] City Commissioner…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>He’s a real friend of Creative Sanford[, Inc.] and Celery Soup. He built our snowman.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>In fact, I saw him last week. And they had the groundbreaking for the new performing arts center<a title="">[4]</a> in Orlando, and he’s talking about putting together a trolley from Downtown Sanford to go over to the new station once that’s built.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, we have a shuttle that comes from Amtrak, and it comes right here beside the [Sanford] Welcome Center. And people bring their suitcases in, and leave them here, and then they can spend the day.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Oh, so they were currently doing it—these are the British tourists that come in here?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, no. it’s whoever comes in on Amtrak—usually Americans. They bring whatever their baggage is off the train.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Oh, so you already have a little shuttle service. I didn’t realize that. That’s the excitement of the commuter rail. In fact—this was about two weeks ago—the Congressman met with people from northwest Orange County and Lake County, because there’s the Florida Central Railroad that goes from Downtown Orlando—you know where the Bob Carr [Performing Arts Centre] is? Behind the Sheraton [Orlando Downtown] Hotel are some tracks, and those tracks come right into the CSX [Transportation] tracks and they go out over to [Florida State Road] 441 and sort of parallel go up through Lockhart, through Apopka, up towards Mount Dora, Tavares, Eustis. So those tracks are there, and they’re looking forward to creating their own Orange Blossom Express.</p>
<p>We had a nice meeting about two or three weeks ago where the Congressman brought down the chairman of the board for this company called US Railcar, and they used to be called Colorado Railcar. and those were the vehicles we were going to get for our railroad, but they went bankrupt. Well, a company out of Columbus, Ohio, called US Rail purchased them, so now they’re still making the same vehicles out of Columbus. So the people over on the Florida Central would be looking at using those vehicles to provide that commuter rail service and they say eventually the people from The Villages could come over.</p>
<p>They would go as far north as Eustis and Tavares on this proposed commuter rail service they’re talking about. Eventually, we can have service going over to the airport, and to the new Medical City, and Apopka, and Tavares, and Mount Dora—in that area. This SunRail system—once it gets going, it’ll just keep migrating out and it’ll provide our community with opportunity. Florida Hospital is planning on having a “health village.” They’ve got 80 acres down, and it would be where people would live there, and they’d have a complex where they’d have offices, shops, dry cleaners, restaurants, etc.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>For the families of people who are living in the hospital?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>No. It’ll be for the workers there. They’ve got 17,000 employees. I think Lars Holman[?], who’s the CEO of Florida Hospital, said the [Florida Hospital] Health Village is going to cost about $250 million. They’re planning of doing a development in that blank area between the courthouse and LYNX [Rapid Transit Services]. It’s just vacant. It’s going to be developed into quite a complex, so there’s a lot of economic development coming with this SunRail.</p>
<p>I’ve been approached by people from outside—from the Northeast saying, “When this happens, here’s what we want to do.” The other ripple effect of the SunRail is the $432 million that Florida is paying CSX. they’re reinvesting it all back into Florida. They’re putting $40 million into upgrading the Jackson Port and the S Line, which runs down the center of the state. They’re upgrading that. And then they have this [Winter Haven] Integrated Logistics Center [ILC] in Winter Haven that they’ll be building, and when it’s fully developed it’ll employ about 8,000 people.</p>
<p>The other thing is that the Panama Canal is being expanded and will be completed so they can have these super cargo ships come through. CSX has a line that goes over close to the Port of Manatee that they can extend to dockside, and that would become a major harbor for exporting and importing in the IOC. And Winter Haven will become a major distribution hub, not only in Florida, but for the entire east coast. It’ll take the big truck traffic off of [Interstate Highway] 95 and [Interstate Highway] 75 because of this. This is the ripple effect of how that money is been reinvested by CSX into the state to create more jobs. So the naysayers aren’t really doing their homework. they’re just looking at the cost and saying, “We can’t afford it.” Hopefully, the governor will make the right decision there.</p>
<p>This would have been in 1955, and one of my older sisters was going to Appalachian College in Boone, North Carolina, and she met this football player and they married. They’re celebrating their 50<sup>th</sup> wedding anniversary several years ago. He was from Hollywood, Florida, so we decided to go down to Hollywood, Florida, for vacation that summer. This was in 1955, before we had the interstate. Gosh, we started out, and we were going into South Georgia. All of us were in the car, except my oldest sister. she was already married so she didn’t go on the vacation with us.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So it was your mom and dad and four kids?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>My father was, like I said, the regional sales manager, so he was actually in Miami working. so it was five of us driving down in the car. We got as far south as Folkston, Georgia. And my brother was driving, and I remember it was raining, and he was going too fast, and there was this car up ahead. I remember it was a 1952 Ford, and there was an African-American couple in there that had stopped, because a herd of sheep had gone across the road. and he misjudged his speed and we ran into the rear of them. Luckily, it wasn’t a bad crash, but it did bend in our right front fender, so we did have to go to a shop and have that pulled back out. But otherwise, we kept moving. We spent the first night in Jacksonville, and then we got down to Fort Pierce. My oldest brother and older sister were taking turns driving, so they got into Fort Pierce. And we had a ’53 Buick at the time—straight [inaudible]. And we came up to a traffic light and my mother decided to change drivers. So as they’re rolling over each other, my mother forgot to put it in park, and one of them put their foot on the gas. we shot out into the middle and there came a ’51 black Buick and we broadsided it. That stopped us, and, of course, Beverly [Harkey] got the ticket.</p>
<p>We called up my future brother-in-law’s parents and told them what happened. Well, he had an old ’49 [inaudible]. Well, he got in the car and came to pick us up. And I didn’t think he was going to ever get there, and I didn’t think we’d ever get back to Hollywood. but we were there for the week and my father spent his time going up to Fort Pierce checking on the car. Luckily, they got it fixed within the week. He had had to go up to Fort Pierce to get it down to Hollywood, so we could drive it back home. On the way home, we didn’t stop and we didn’t go back U.S. [Route] 1. We took [U.S. Route] 27—right through the center of the state.</p>
<p>We actually stopped in Orlando. And we had a big discussion, because one of my mother’s aunts lived in Williston, and she wanted to go over and see her and it was mutiny. “No, no., we’re not going over to see Aunt May. We’re going home.” Finally, she said, “Okay.” We were in Orlando probably around Park Lake or someplace like that, when we pulled over to have our mutiny, and the mutineers won. I thought I wasn’t going to live to make it home. Until I started driving—this was 1955, so I would have been 13 at the time—I was afraid to go anywhere, because I didn’t think I would make it back alive.</p>
<p>In ’57, when we moved from Charlotte to Gainesville—we moved in the summer—and my brother was going to be in 12<sup>th</sup> grade. He didn’t really want to move, because it was going to be his last year in high school. Since it was going to be his senior year, he was thinking of living with somebody, rather than moving to Gainesville. That Christmas, he and my oldest brother went back to Charlotte for Christmas parties. My oldest brother had been out to California with some friends, and they had worked out there, and just gotten back. And this one guy, who was a friend of my oldest brother,<a title="">[5]</a> had too much to drink. So this guy at the [inaudible] said, “I’ll take him home.” but he didn’t realize we had moved and my older brother didn’t think about it. The house we had over there on Kingston [Avenue]—the people we had sold it to—they had taken in these boarders. so when—and back then, you didn’t lock your door/ so he just went in through the front door, went upstairs, and put him in bed. The next day, he woke up and saw this guy on this other bed across the room and he said, “This looks familiar. Where am I?”</p>
<p>The guy said, “You’re at 715 East Kingston Avenue.” He said, “Oh my God.” He got up and ran out front door. He was so embarrassed.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And he never told him who he was?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>I think the lady we sold the house to was laughing, because it was so funny.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It sounds like you had some wild brothers. Now, how many boys and how many girls?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Three boys and two girls. It was girl, girl, boy, boy, boy. I was the youngest. Robbie became an attorney. He went Emory [University] undergrad and Emory Law School. And he was with Delta Air lines, Inc. for 35 years and was very successful, and lives in a very big, expensive house out there in Atlanta.</p>
<p>My other brother was a lobbyist, and he lives on the [inaudible] outside of Charleston[, South Carolina] and he had a scare when Hurricane Hugo hit there. His house, luckily, was spared, but he’s only about a block away from the ocean there.</p>
<p>One of my sisters stayed in Charlotte—the oldest. When they put through I[nterstate Highway] 85 years ago, she married one of five brothers. And when the parents died, the farm was divided up, and I-85 went right through the farm. She has 23 acres on the northwest quadrant of Mallard Church Creek Road and I-85, which is not that far from NASCAR [,National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing]. so she’s sitting on a gold mine and she has four kids.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And it hasn’t been developed?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>It’s coming out that way. It just keeps growing that way. My other sister lives out in Helen, Georgia, which is about 75 miles north, and they have an Oktoberfest up there. What they did is they turned Helen into a Bavarian village. Years ago, these businessmen from Gainesville, Georgia, were in Bavaria[, Germany], and they came up with an idea and said, “Let’s go back to Helen and ask all the owners if they’ll convert their storefronts into a Bavarian type of…” So they all agreed and it’s now a resort. They have tubing there and we went up there in [20]07 for my sister and her husband’s 50<sup>th</sup> wedding anniversary.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did you have any stories around racial lines? Around integration? Anything like that?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, I can say that when we were growing up, we had maids in the house. In fact, Geneva was part of the family, and my mother paid her $7 a week. She would come over and cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She was a great maid that we had. My parents were always very accepting. They weren’t bigoted types. My mother, like I said, was a social worker for 40 years.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I was talking to somebody about the book titled <em>The Help</em>. and the people in the book say that the employers wouldn’t allow their black help to use their bathrooms. I never heard that before.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>No. When I was growing up, I knew that either you were black or white. Water fountains were segregated.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>But in your home when she worked for you, she used your bathroom?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Of course.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>You see, I had never heard that either, because our Ovella was like a second mother to us. We had an amazing story. I’m down here in Florida, and she lives up in Knoxville[, Tennessee]. And I hadn’t seen her in a year or two, but for some reason, I just started thinking about her and thinking about her. and I said, “I’ve got to send her some money.” I talked to my husband and I said, “I’ve been having these dreams about Ovella and I want to give her some money.” He said, “Well, how much money?” I said, “I want to give her $5,000.” I had never given her more than $100 at any other time. Maybe at Christmas, if I was up there, I’d give her $50 or $100. I didn’t call her or say, “Money’s coming.” I just wrote her a little note telling her that I loved her and put in a check. and she called me and she said they had been praying for a new roof on their house. That was what they used the $5,000 for.</p>
<p>My point is that somebody—not your family, not your close relative—you’ve got such a close connection that their prayers came to me for some reason. Luckily, we had the money and we could spare it. I had never heard of this and a bunch of us are going to go watch <em>The Help</em> when it comes out.</p>
<p>Gino had said they had hired a lady and she kept going out to the garage or someplace. And he said, “Why are you doing that?” And they said, “Well, we can’t use the bathroom in the house.” He said, “What do you mean you can’t use the bathroom in the house? Of course you can use the bathroom in the house.” That must have been a common thing—maybe Deep South, because I had never heard of it living in Tennessee.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, my final story will be when I got burned as a kid. I was eight years old. It was in May of 1950. And the Retans lived down the street from us, and we had this thing of cleaning our bicycles—you know, the sprockets—how to get them oily. We had decided to clean all of our bicycles. Take the rear wheel off, take the sprockets off, and clean them with gasoline, put them back together. We had these little Maxwell House coffee cans, so we did it and cleaned them off. We were eating supper, and then Robbie and I went back down to the Retans’, and somebody left a book of matches on the back steps. So, for whatever reason, I went over, opened the matches and struck it, and then I just tossed it without noticing where I tossed it. Then I turned around and walked over and was looking down into the [inaudible] when it exploded. It was like a cannon, and this gasoline shot out my left leg, and caught me on fire, and I started screaming. Luckily, we had a hose that was set up with the pistol grip, and so my brother—he told me to roll and he put it out.</p>
<p>I was in the hospital for three months and I underwent eight skin graft surgeries. Initially, it was just my baby doctor who was treating me. They had just put this gook on me. My mother said, “This is not going to work. Something’s got to be done.” The doctor apparently thought she could handle it, but my mother went to the nurses and said, “You know, you need a specialist.” so they brought in Dr. Jacobs. He was a World War II doctor and had seen a lot of war injuries. and so he’s the one who did the skin graft surgeries on me.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>With all those parts, I was afraid you were going to tell that, when it exploded, the parts were like shrapnel coming out of there. They could have injured you too.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>It was the gasoline that blew up, not the parts themselves. And luckily, it was below the knee. They said if it had been over the knee, it would have probably crippled me. It was third-degree burns. That was the traumatic event of my life. It changed me a little bit.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, what made you afraid of driving until you started driving? Were they just such wild drivers?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>I just wasn’t in control and I didn’t trust anybody. Once I started driving, I didn’t have that fear, because I started driving.</p>
<p>Wait, there’s one more story I’ve got. This was at the [inaudible] Methodist Church there in Charlotte. And we were about a block away from the church and me and Hugh Walker—he was the youngest of five—he just had one brother and three sisters. We hung out and we were in the [Boy] Scouts [of America] together. The church usually had Wednesday night supper, and they had these big five gallon size peaches that they would use and throw the cans out back. Well, we saw those and said, “Those would make great tom-toms.” so we started beating them. And we went over to where the choir director had his teenage group practicing, and we were outside beating on those things. My mother and both of my oldest sisters were in the choir, so he knew them real well. When he heard us beating on those things, he came out chasing us. Well, we ran out to the back of the church, around to the north side of the church, between the pastor’s [inaudible], around the front of the church. He was closing in on us, but he had on these wing-tipped leather bottom shoes. and then we got to this area of the sidewalk where it had a thin layer of sand. As soon as he stepped on that sand with those wing-tipped leather shoes, his feet came out from under him and he just busted his rear end. My friend Hugh Walker—I call him “Wookah.” I said, “Wookah, should we go back and help him?” He said, “Hell no.” My mother said he never mentioned it to her, but he was probably so embarrassed that he busted his rear end.</p>
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<div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Erika Mattfeld.</p>
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<p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: Germany.</p>
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<p><a title="">[3]</a> Richard "Rick" Lynn Scott.</p>
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<p><a title="">[4]</a> Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.</p>
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<p><a title="">[5]</a> Robbie Harkey.</p>
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