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100
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https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/2bca9f886cd7f48ed94fe8e02c1e5686.pdf
01843f1fd8a2b1c52a97b9fce648a676
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
Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection
Subject
Museums--Florida
Schools
Elementary schools
Grammar schools
Sanford (Fla.)
Description
The Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection encompasses a broad range of materials and items ranging from the late 19th Century into the present. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, documents, videocassettes, and other historical records pertaining to the history of the Sanford Grammar School, the Sanford community through the years, and the history of teaching and learning within the United States from the 19th century to the 2010s.
The Student Museum has collaborated with the University of Central Florida and established the UCF Public History Center (PHC). All of the Student Museum's collections are presently housed at the PHC. The goal of the PHC is to promote access to history through ground-breaking research connecting local to global, provide cutting-edge hands-on educational programs for students and visitors, and to engage the community in contributing to and learning from history.
Contributor
Student Museum
UCF Public History Center
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida
Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida
Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida
Student Museum, Sanford, Florida
UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida
Contributing Project
Student Museum
UCF Public History Center
Curator
Marra, Katie
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
Public History Center/Student Museum
External Reference
"Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida.
"Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx.
Alternative Title
Student Museum and PHC Collection
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida.
Has Part
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
Glasshoff, Jesse
Interviewee
Muse, Shirley
Location
UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida
Original Format
1 DVD/DAT recording
Duration
23 minutes and 33 seconds
Bit Rate/Frequency
141kbps
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 Shirley Muse
Alternative Title
Oral History, Muse
Subject
Oral history--United States
Sanford (Fla.)
Museums--Florida
Archives--Florida--Administration
Archivists--United States
University of Central Florida. Department of History
Sanford, Henry Shelton, 1823-1891
Description
Oral history interview of Shirley Muse, collection cataloger for the UCF Public History Center, located at 301 West Seventh Street in Sanford, Florida. Muse was born in Corvallis, Oregon, on May 16, 1936. She was raised in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1958, Muse married her husband while attending Florida State University in Tallahassee. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Library Science that same year. She worked in the Florida Public School System as a Librarian/Media Specialist for 20 years until 1999. Following her retirement, Muse began volunteering at the Student Museum and Center for Social Studies. This interview was conducted by Jesse Glasshoff at the UCF Public History Center on October 12, 2012.
Table Of Contents
00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:48 Student Museum Collections Manager<br />0:02:47 Museum visitors<br />0:03:50 How the museum has changed over time<br />0:06:23 Exhibits<br />0:12:29 How the museum has impacted visitors<br />0:15:23 How the community has impacted the museum<br />0:16:34 How the museum has impacted Muse’s life<br />0:19:14 Most memorable visitor<br />0:20:54 History Harvest and future projects<br />0:23:00 Closing remarks
Abstract
Oral history interview of Shirley Muse. Interview conducted by Jesse Glasshoff at the UCF Public History Center, in Sanford, Florida.
Type
Moving Image
Source
Muse, Shirley. Interviewed by Jesse Glasshoff. UCF Public History Center. October 12, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, 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="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida.
Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Has Format
Digital transcript of original 23-minute and 33-second oral history: Muse, Shirley. Interviewed by Jesse Glasshoff. UCF Public History Center. October 12, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida.
Coverage
Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies,Sanford, Florida
UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida
Creator
Glasshoff, Jesse
Muse, Shirley
Date Created
2012-10-12
Format
video/mp4
application/pdf
Extent
99.9 MB
161 KB
Medium
23-minute and 33-second DVD/DAT recording
9 page typed transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Civics/Government Teacher
Geography Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Jesse Glasshoff and owned by UCF Public History Center.
Rights Holder
Copyright to this resource is held by the UCF Public History Center and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only.
Accrual Method
Donation
Contributing Project
UCF Public History Center
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
UCF Public History Center/Student Museum
External Reference
"Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida.
"Exhibits." Public History Center, University of Central Florida.
"Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools.
"<a href="http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank">Seminole High School</a>." Seminole High School, Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/.
Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003.
Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website)
<a href="https://youtu.be/JOXJPIjHHPU" target="_blank">Oral History of Shirley Muse</a>
Transcript
<p><em>Shirley Muse</em></p>
<p><em>Interviewed by Jesse Glasshoff October 12, 2012</em></p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Okay, we’re on. So—let’s see. Today’s date is October 12<sup>th</sup>, 2012, and it is 10 AM and we’re here at the [UCF] Public History Center in Sanford, Florida—formerly the Student Museum. Uh, my name is Jesse Glasshoff. I’m a graduate student at the University of Central Florida, and I’m interviewing Shirley Muse. Do you want to introduce yourself, Shirley?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Good morning. I’m Shirley Muse. I’m the collections person in charge of the collection, and I’ve been here for 13 years—almost 14—and loved every minute of it.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>All right. Well, we’ll go ahead and jump right into these questions. So how did you—how’d come to be working at the museum?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, Serena [Rankin Parks] Fisher, who was the director of the museum in 1999, um, asked me if I wanted to volunteer, ‘cause we were both media specialists together, and I worked at Sanford Middle School, and I knew a lot of the old timers here and their children, and I’ve enjoyed it very much, because I could follow it up over here and see pictures of the grandparents and etcetera [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So what—what has been your involvement in the museum? You said you’re the Collections Manager right now. Uh…</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>I have been doing all the numbering of the pictures, cleaning the glass, putting them back with new labels, trying to make the print larger so that older people can read it without having to get right up to it, and then if they want a copy of it, they’ll tell me, or if they can identify someone in the picture that is not identified, then they will get in touch with me, make a note, and take the number down, then we go get the picture, and then I take it apart and put in the identity of that person that we didn’t have, and it helps a lot, and they’ve identified family members, and they’ve identified classmates from way back when, and it is really very, very satisfying to do.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Now, is that—is this the same job you’ve always had here?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Or have you done…</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>I have done only that, because I was the only one that[sic] knew about cataloging, because I’m a retired media specialist. So it’s all gone into the computer and we are getting there…</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Eventually, to the end, I hope.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Okay. Well, it sounds like a pretty big task, and it sounds like you’re the right person for it.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>I love it. I love it.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff <br /></strong>I think everyone else agrees, because you’re the person doing it.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Uh, so what—what kind of people—since you’ve been here, what kind of people do you see visiting the museum?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, we have visitors to the area, especially those that may be putting their car on AMTRAK to send back up north, or to pick up their car from the trains, and then they come into town and want something to do, and we are listed, I believe, at the [Historic Sanford] Welcome Center, and also maybe at the Amtrak Station. Then we have the old-timers that want to come back and look at the pictures and think about the old days, and then we have students.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>So we have quite a…</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So tell me a little bit about the students.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>The students—we have mainly K[indergarten] through—well, we mainly have fourth- graders, ‘cause we are with the fourth-grade curriculum.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>And we teach to that, but then we have a lot of other students that[sic] come in for the events that we have, and they like to look at the pictures that go into the rooms and peruse what we have on display.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So—since you’ve been here for quite a while—you have been volunteering for quite a while…</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>What would you think—what would you say has changed in the museum since you’ve been with them?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, for many years there wasn’t much change, but now that we have UCF [University of Central Florida] as a partner, things are changing for the better, and they are just doing a tremendous job, and I can see that it will go on and prosper and, I think just get better and better, and we are changing things now that we didn’t have the people to do it before, ‘cause there was only like a handful of us volunteers—maybe five or six that worked in the building, teaching the classes, and all of that, but I was the only one doing the cataloging, but then there were the gardeners, and they strictly stayed out in the Pioneer Gardens. So it’s been so many more people helping now, and we can see a real difference taking place now.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Okay, what was it like when you first got here?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>It was very quiet. We didn’t have many visitors. Well, we first had quite a few visitors for a while, but then when fourth grade would come, we were not allowed to have visitors at the same time, because we couldn’t have them intermingle with the students at that time, and that was, uh, school law to keep the children from wandering off or talking to strangers and everything, and we had to always abide by that.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So…</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Just to make sure I’ve got it clear: when you first started, fourth-graders weren’t coming in, and then, shortly thereafter, they were?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>No, they’d been coming in for years.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Oh, they were?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Yeah, I misstated that.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Yeah, yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>That’s all right. I misunderstood you.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Yeah, but they’d been coming—that’s the main thing—the main that, uh, we did.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Was with them, but then as soon as they left, it was open to the public, but then when the economy went down, we had to close down, and only had three days, we had to cut if off early, uh, so…</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Okay, when was that?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>That was I think about three or four years ago. We had to start closing at 3, which didn’t give you much time, ‘cause the children were here until 1:30, and that was only an hour and a half, and a lot of people would have liked to come in, but we couldn’t allow them to come in until 1:30, but many-a-times—I will say—the director stayed until 4 and 4:30 on their[sic] own, to let those people go through and give them a tour. So I—I had to hand it to them.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>[inaudible].So kind of in line with that, who do you—who would you say the exhibits are targeted towards? What are the goals of the exhibits?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>I—I think most of the goals of the exhibits are the fourth-grade curriculum, and the geography of Florida is included in that, and the history of the Native American, and also the pioneers—the early people that settled Florida, and—and that[sic] was[sic] the main ones, and that fit into the curriculum at that time, and I think now it’s been broadened more, since we have other people coming in, and we’ve got new ideas, which we needed, and I think we also have welcomed it, because you get a little stagnant if you don’t have new blood brought in, and I think that’s been very good.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>And it, eh—so would you say since you’ve been here, the exhibits have generally been the same?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>They have generally been the same. There’s[sic] only been a few small changes when we got something that was really pertinent to that room, then we set up a little bit of a—a new part to that room, but that didn’t happen too often, because we weren’t really on the map that well. We didn’t get the publicity that we’ve gotten now.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Can you give me an example? You said that every now and then, maybe one little part would change?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, um, they were talking about, um, fossils, and one of our, um, gardeners was very interested in fossils and came from a part—a place in Georgia that they’d a lot of them. So when he went up there, he brought back a whole lot of them, and then they put this sand box in and then they put the fossils into the sand so the kids could take little rakes and find them, like they would out in the desert, you know, when looking for things. So that was a new one that was nice at that time, and I can’t tell you exactly when it was.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>That’s okay.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>That's why we write things down [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So what do you think they’re meant to teach, uh—these exhibits? What—they’re directed towards the students?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, the Pioneer [Exhibit: Before the Settlement of Sanford] room showed how they lived, and how big of space—because we have a small, pioneer, log cabin. We have the cooking utensils that they used at that time in there. We have, uh, like, um, the—the pots that they used on the fire. We have, um, certain clothing. We have an old, pioneer-time nightgown that was actually donated, uh, just about—oh, about a year ago. The lady had two of them, and they’re really tattered and torn, but we washed them, and we hung them up in—one in there to show that they wore a long-sleeved, uh, long nightgowns and long to the floor, you know, and then they, uh—we put one also into the, uh, Grandma’s Attic. Yeah, so it was very neat, because the kids didn’t ever think about what they would sleep in [laughs].</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Right[?].</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>But it—it was fun, and the kids got a big kick out of it. Yeah, and if they just learn a few things, you know, and then they go home and tell their parents. Usually, they come back with their parents and their sisters and brothers to see it on their own.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>It’s nice, yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Well, what, uh—through all the exhibits you’ve seen—and you’ve seen all of them really, since you’ve been here—which exhibit was your favorite?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>My favorite was Grandma’s Attic.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Grandma’s Attic?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong> ‘Cause I had a grandma that[sic] had an attic like that.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>What was it like?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, the Grandma’s Attic—it used to have wallpaper, but they’ve since taken that down, and they’d pictures on the wall, but they were crooked, just like they would be if Grandma had put them up there to store them, and they got crooked. Grandma didn’t go up there to clean it. They just let them hang, and they were just out of the way, and then there was[sic] toys in the attic, and you would know which ones were yours to play with, and they saw that, and then they showed, uh, cooking utensils that Grandma used in the kitchen area, at that time. They had, uh, the irons that you used to heat on the big, uh, stoves that had coal in it or wood-burning stoves, and then they have the iron that they would have to put the coals in the iron and do it, and, uh, they had a coffee grinder there. They ground the coffee to let the children see that. They made candles also, so the kids could see how to make the candles, and everybody got a turn to dip it, but we had to be careful of that—and you might get burnt. So we had to take that out, much to our discouragement, but sometimes you’ve to do that for safety problems. Yeah, but it—it was just fascinating, because there were instruments that were hung from the ceiling on wires, just to keep them out of the way, you know, ‘cause Grandma stored all of that stuff up in the attic, you know, but it—it looked like a real grandma’s attic. Yeah, and everybody—I think the majority of people liked that one. It brought back a lot of memories. You had the old-fashioned toys—the ones that were made of iron and they were very heavy, but the kids still played with them, you know, but, uh, we had a little bit of everything, and we always let them play with the toys. We had, um, the old, um, wood toys that you could—I forget what they were—but they had this—pieces of wood—it was called something. I cannot remember what it was, but you always had to get it back together and it clicked. It was really neat, and the kids had never seen something like that. I should have brought one with me. Yeah, but I didn’t think about it. Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>[inaudible].Thinking about the exhibits and the changes through time, which parts of the museum do you think had the most impact on the children that have visited—the K through 12[<sup>th</sup> grade] children?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>I think the Geography [Lab: Where in the World Are We?] room, because the map of Florida is large enough they can walk on, and then they have to learn the names of the cities and where they’re located, and then they have kind of like tops—there's holes driven in the actual map, and you have to take the top that has the name written on it. Pensacola—they learned that it went up in the panhandle. Um, Tallahassee was up north—part, and then there was Miami, and there was Orlando, and they’d to put the right one—the answer— in that position, and they loved doing that, because it was big enough they could walk around it and look, you know, and then actually put that in themselves, like they named it, and they felt real good about that in fourth grade.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>And then I the second best was Grandma’s Attic. They liked the interaction, because they always gave them time to play with the toys and pick them up and touch things, because that’s how we believe, that you should be able to touch things.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Mmhmm. So aside from the children that have visited, uh, how do you think, uh—how do you see that the museum has had the most impact on the larger community?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, I think Sanford citizens that have been here for years love to come back and reminisce, and they see the houses that they used to walk by on their way to school, because they are still here in the pictures the same. A lot of them in Sanford have been restored and that’s just beautiful thing, but they can come back, and they find people on there that[sic] they haven’t seen in a long time, and it brings back memories, and if you get two or three of them from the same class, they start talking, and they really enjoy it, and they end up spending several hours here many-a-times, particularly the older people, because they are just so excited to be back in their element of time, you know? Yeah, and that toy with the blocks was the Jacob’s ladder, and I know a lot of people would know exactly what I’m talking about. Yeah, there.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So the decisions to make changes in the, um, museum that have happened recently—and through the time of the museum since you’ve been here—how do you feel that the larger community has impacted the goals and the direction of the museum?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Um, that’s a good question, because not many changes were made for many years, ‘cause we didn’t have the people to do—to make the changes, and we didn’t have an assessment of what we needed. We didn’t have time to do that, and it’s something we are working on very diligently right now, and I’m very pleased about how it’s going, but at the time, we were so shorthanded, and we weren’t all professional museum people, and that makes a big difference, ‘cause you don’t realize exactly what goes into making a museum meaningful to that community until you start studying it like we are now, and it's really, I think, had a big impact on everybody working here, and I find we all are working together as a good unit, and that’s—makes me feel real good [<em>laughs</em>]. I really do.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So how has the museum affected your life?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, my husband passed away, um, in 2007, and I find if I don’t get here to work at least two days a week, I get down, because I meet all the people here, I have something that's purposeful in my life, and I’m seeing things coming to fruition, and that makes me feel real good, but I’ve always liked detail-work, and I always feel like anything that has to do with books and pictures and things that have to do with one particular area has got to be a good situation to present to the public. I really do.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>And how has it—how has it affected the way that you understand Sanford?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>I find the people are so friendly and so happy to know that we treasure them and their city as something very worthwhile, and has been very, very, um, very instrument—instrumentally with the—sending things from Jacksonville, the transportation, the steamships all here, and then it's disseminated out along the—the coast—the east coast, the west coast of Florida, and it’s been very interesting for me to learn about it, and they, I think, are proud that we are studying this and keeping track of all the pictures and everything, so that we can look back and see it, and General [Henry Shelton] Sanford—he lived right here in Florida, right at the top of the hill here for many years, and he has a real connection to this city, and I’ve been amazed at how many people have visited his grave up in Connecticut, and we have pictures of that downstairs on the Sanford, uh, bulletin board right outside the office, and the man came and brought me the pictures all on a CD, and I made copies of them with his permission, and I—I thought it was very exciting, and then when people come in and see it, they’re even—they say, “Oh, that’s new,” you know, and I say, “Yeah, we got those by him giving them to us,” and it was wonderful. Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So kind of moving in a different direction now [<em>laughs</em>]—you’ve worked here quite a while, and you’ve seen a tons of people come and go. Uh, who do you think was the most memorable person to you that has come to visit the museum?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, I think, Mr. Douglas Stenstrom, who was born here in 1921, and he passed away in 2010. He was a fantastic person, and he—he was in the World War II in the South Pacific. He attended the University of Florida, the University of Virginia, Stetson College.<a title="">[1]</a> He was a county judge, he was a state senator, and he did many more things than that, and he would come and sit and talk with us when we had an event, and he’d sit for an hour or two, and when he left, he always left a check for us to put into the—the—the bank for keeping this place going, because he was very attached to it—both he and his wife, and they were lovely people, and with all that education and everything, he always found time to stop by, and we just really delighted in him, and I think everybody did, because you couldn’t walk by him without saying something to him, ‘cause everybody knew him. Yeah, it was wonderful. He was a wonderful man. Plus he has a school named after him out in Oviedo, Stenstrom Elementary. Yeah, he[sic] a very generous gentleman.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>So kind of moving away from that, uh—do you’ve any people in mind that[sic] might have gone to the school here that we could contact for future projects at the museum?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, to tell you the truth, Jesse, I gave a whole list of them to Dr. [Rosalind “Rose” J.] Beiler, and they are a lot of the people—the Stiffys—and they are local people that have been here for years and donated their time in many schools and for many activities, and then, um, there’s, um, Bill Robinson. He’s a local person that lives here, and he is just as friendly and happy a man as I’ve ever known, and he went to school here, and his picture’s down one of the bulletin boards downstairs. Plus there is a number of other ones, but I—I can’t remember them all, but I did give her a long list of them with phone numbers, and how to get a hold of them.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>That’s good news [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] In fact, you could get that list, if you’re interested, from her. I’m sure.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Do you’ve any ideas about spreading the word about the history harvest?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Well, I think one of the best ways we could do it is to get <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em> columnists—there’s, I think, a Kay—Kay Richardson or—or something. I can’t remember her name, but there’s[sic] several columnists that[sic] do stories on this, and also <em>The</em> <em>Sanford</em> <em>Herald</em>, and if they would do a piece on it and tell ‘em we’re looking for people to bring in things for this, um, um, history harvest, I think it would get out real quick that way, because most people take that <em>Sanford Herald</em>, and if—if they don’t get <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>—I know friends do, and they pass it around the neighborhood, but I’m sure there would be a lot of people that would be interested in it if they explained what it was and what they want to do. I think it would be great, and I’m excited about it. I really think it will be great.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Well, thank you for doing the interview. I think that’s[sic] all the questions I have.</p>
<p><strong>Muse <br /></strong>You’re quite welcome.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Is there anything that you wanted to say—that you wanted to add?</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>No, I’m just so happy with the partnership that we have. The people that are coming to work and help are so good, and they are doing a tremendous job, and it makes me feel so good that it’s going to be carried on for years to come, really.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>Yeah, I really am.</p>
<p><strong>Glasshoff<br /></strong>Okay. Again, thank you for doing the interview.</p>
<p><strong>Muse<br /></strong>You’re quite welcome.</p>
<p><em>Shirley Muse</em></p>
<p><em>Interviewed by Jesse Glasshoff October 12, 2012</em></p>
<div><br /><div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Present-day Stetson University.</p>
</div>
</div>
7th Street
Amtrak
archival collection
Beiler, Rosalind
collection cataloger
collections manager
columnist
county judge
Florida State University
fossil
FSU
gardener
general
Geography Lab: Where in the World Are We?
Glasshoff, Jesse
Grandma’s Attic
Historic Sanford Welcome Center
History Harvest
Jacob’s Ladder
librarian
Library Science
media specialist
Million, Shirley
Muse, Shirley
Orlando Sentinel
Panama Canal Zone
PHC
Pioneer Exhibit: Before the Settlement of Sanford
Richardson, Kay
Robinson, Bill
Sanford Herald
Sanford Middle
Sanford Middle School
Sanford MS
Sanford Welcome Center
Seventh Street
South Pacific
state senator
Stenstrom
Stenstrom Elementary
Stenstrom, Douglas
Stetson College
Stetson University
Stiffy's
Student Museum
The Orlando Sentinel
UCF
UCF Public History Center
UF
University of Central Florida
University of Florida
University of Virginia
UV
volunteer
-
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>
<div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Erika Mattfeld.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: Germany.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[3]</a> Richard "Rick" Lynn Scott.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[4]</a> Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[5]</a> Robbie Harkey.</p>
</div>
</div>
African Americans
Airport Boulevard
Altamonte Springs
Amtrak
Antoinette Jennings
Apopka
ATF
Atlanta, Georgia
Beverly Harkey
Bill Gorman
Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre
Bob Egan
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
campaign coordinators
campaigns
Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play
Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens
Channel 24
Channel 9
Charlotte, North Carolina
Cheryl Harkey
church
churches
city commissioners
claims adjusters
Claims Department
Claude R. Kirk, Jr.
Claude Roy Kirk, Jr.
CNA Financial Corporation
Creative Sanford, Inc.
CSX Transportation
Dick Quentin Harkey
Downtown Orlando
Downtown Sanford
Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
Erika Mattfeld
Eustis
Florida Central Railroad
Florida Hospital Health Village
Florida State Road 417
Florida State Road 441
Florida State Road 46
Fort Lauderdale
Gainesville, Georgia
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush
Governor of Florida
governors
Great American Insurance Group
Harvey LeRoy Atwater
hospitals
Hugh Walker
ILC
IMA
insurance
Intracoastal Waterway
IOC
Isaacson
Jackson Port
Jacobs
Jeanie Austin
Joe Montesanto
John King
John Luigi Mica
John Mica
John Street
Kirk Douglas
Lake Mary
Lake Nona
Lake Nona Medical City
Lawson Lamar
Lee Atwater
Lockhart
Longwood
Magic Kingdom Park
maids
Maitland Civic Center
Manatee Port
Marianne Harkey
Mark McCarty
Maxwell House
Methodists
Mount Dora
New York City, New York
Nicky Bernstein
Orange Blossom Express
orange county
Order of the Elbow
orlando
Orlando Regional Realtor Association
Orlando Utilities Commission
OUC
Pam Beach
Panama Canal
Peace Tree Hills Road
Peggy Spagler
race relations
railroads
railways
Republican National Committee
Republican Party of Florida
Republicans
Retan
Rich Crotty
Richard Lynn Scott
Richard T. Crotty
Rick Scott
RNC
Robbie Harkey
Robert Egan
S Line
Sand Lake Road
Sanford
Sanford City Commission
Sanford Welcome Center
Scott Vandergrift
segregation
Spagler, Peggy
SR 417
SR 441
SR 46
state representatives
state senators
SunRail
Taft
Tavares
Terry Griffin
The Help
The Sail Club
Toni Jennings
Toni Jennings Public Service Award
Trish Thompson
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
University of Georgia
US Railcar Company
Wall Street Crash of 1929
Walt Disney World
West Palm Beach
WFTV
William D. Gorman
Winter Haven
Winter Haven Integrated Logistics Center
WMFE-TV
Young Harris College
Young Republicans
YR
-
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/90feb8ab39e4a2fec50679cbd193b838.pdf
ea92387fc069eaaebe2a80aee776dd81
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
Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play Collection
Alternative Title
Celery Soup Collection
Subject
Sanford (Fla.)
Community theater--United States
Theater--United States
Description
The <em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection encompasses photographs, artifacts, and oral histories related to the production of Creative Sanford, Inc.'s and Celery Soup's play <em>Remade - Not Bought</em>, performed at the Princess Theater in 2013. Many of the items in this collection were collected by Dr. Scot French's Tools in Digital History Seminar Graduate Class during the Fall 2013 semester at the University of Central Florida.
Contributor
Dingle, Cathy Lee
Delgado, Natalie
Fedorka, Drew M.
Ford, Nancy Harris
French, Scot A.
Kelley, Katie
Lee, Luticia Gormley
Maliczowski, Linda Lee
Maples, Marilyn
Miller, Mark
Reisz, Autumn
Thompson, Trish
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play, Sanford, Florida
Creative Sanford, Inc., Sanford, Florida
Princess Theater, Sanford, Florida
Contributing Project
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</a>
<span>Dr. </span><a href="http://history.scotfrench.com/" target="_blank">Scot A. French</a><span>'s Tools in Digital History Seminar Graduate Class, Fall 2013 at the </span><a href="http://www.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">University of Central Florida</a>
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.
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/" target="_blank">About: History and Purpose</a>." Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/.
"<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.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
Reisz, Autumn
Miller, Mark
Interviewee
Thompson, Trish
Location
Sanford, Florida
Original Format
1 audio/video recording
Duration
45 minutes and 42 seconds
Bit Rate/Frequency
876kbps
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 Trish Thompson
Alternative Title
Oral History, Thompson
Subject
Sanford (Fla.)
Seminole County (Fla.)
Oral histories
Community theater--United States
Theater--United States
Theater managers
Colquitt (Ga.)
Orlando (Fla.)
Race relations--United States
Playwriting
Description
Oral history told by Trish Thompson, Vice President of Creative Sanford, Inc. The interview was conducted by Autumn Reisz and Mark Miller on October 11, 2013 and focuses on Thompson's experiences with Creative Sanford and Celery Soup. Other topics include adapting the Swamp Gravy model to Celery Soup, how Creative Sanford and Celery Soup have evolved over time, the oral history interviewing process, partnering with the African-American community, the effects of the George Zimmerman trial on Sanford, adapting oral histories into community plays, goals of Creative Sanford and Celery Soup, community involvement and feedback, fundraising and the Celery Ball, production costs, preserving the legacy of Creative Sanford and Celery Soup, and maintaining community involvement. <br /><br /><p>Creative Sanford, Inc. is a non-profit organization created to manage Celery Soup 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 <em>Touch and Go</em>, which took several years of planning. The play focused on how the people of Sanford overcame obstacles throughout their history. Some of these stories include the fall of Sanford's celery industry, the Freeze of 1894-1895, and the closing of Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford in the 1960s. Richard Geer and Jules Corriere, partners from Community Performance International, were in charge of assessing oral histories, converting them into scenes for the play, and writing original songs. Director Geer also used an all-volunteer cast from the local community, many of which were not experienced actors.</p>
<p>During the process of producing the show, Creative Sanford decided to rehabilitate an historic building, the Princess Theater, which was 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. As of December 2013, the Executive Board for Creative Sanford included President Brian Casey, Vice President Trish Thompson, Treasurer Linda Hollerbach, Secretary Dr. Annye Refoe, and Founder Jeanine Taylor. The Board of Directors consisted of Cheryl Deming, Juanita Roland, Wendy Wheaton, and Dr. Connie Lester, a professor of history at the University of Central Florida. Honorary Board Members included: Glenda Hood, former Florida Secretary of State and Mayor of Orlando; Valada Flewellyn, a local poet, author, and historian; and Jackie Jones, a local entertainer and arts advocate.</p>
Table Of Contents
00:00 Introduction<br />00:12 Thompson's biographical information<br />00:41 Celery Soup and Creative Sanford, Inc.<br />01:46 Mission of Creative Sanford and Celery Soup<br />02:28 How Celery Soup was founded<br />03:50 How Celery Soup adapted the Swamp Gravy model<br />06:29 How has Creative Sanford and Celery Soup evolved<br />11:36 Conducting oral history interviews<br />13:01 Gaining acceptance from the African-American community<br />16:26 Themes of oral history interviews<br />17:45 How to adapt oral histories into plays<br />20:07 Working with professional playwrights and directors<br />23:41 Using volunteers and employees from the community<br />24:45 Role of the Executive Board<br />26:43 Success in achieving goals<br />30:09 Importance of community involvement in plays<br />34:48 Biggest surprises<br />36:01 Fundraisers and the Celery Ball<br />37:36 Production costs and ticket sales<br />39:33 Preserving the legacy of Creative Sanford and Celery Soup<br />41:26 Maintaining community engagement<br />43:40 Advice for communities creating similar projects<br />45:29 Closing remarks
Abstract
Oral history interview of Trish Thompson. Interview conducted by Autumn Reisz and Mark Miller at the <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Offices</a> in Sanford.
In an interview on October 11<sup>th</sup>, 2013, Trish Thompson, current vice president and former president of Creative Sanford, Inc., discusses the inspiration for, creation of, and the development and evolution of Creative Sanford. Thompson also discusses some of the financial and other challenges that Creative Sanford has faced. Creative Sanford is a community organization that collects group oral histories from Sanford residents and uses portions of these interviews to write, produce, and perform plays for the community.
Type
Moving Image
Source
Thompson, Trish. Interviewed by Autumn Reisz and Mark Miller. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a> Offices, Sanford Welcome Center. October 11, 2013. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida.
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Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
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Digital transcript of original 45 minute and 42 second oral history: Thompson, Trish. Interviewed by Autumn Reisz and Mark Miller. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a> Offices, Sanford Welcome Center. October 11, 2013. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida.
Coverage
Creative Sanford, Inc., Sanford, Florida
Celery Soup, Sanford, Florida
Swamp Gravy, Colquitt, Georgia
Creator
Reisz, Autumn
Miller, Mark
Thompson, Trish
Publisher
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
Date Created
2013-10-11
Date Modified
2014-01-06
Format
video/mp4
application/pdf
Extent
287 MB
227 KB
Medium
45-minute and 42-second audio/video recording
20-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Geography Teacher
Humanities Teacher
Theater Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Autumn Reisz, Mark Miller, and Trish Thompson, 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://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a>
Dr. <a href="http://history.scotfrench.com/" target="_blank">Scot French</a>'s "Tools in Digital History Seminar," Fall 2013 at the <a href="http://www.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">University of Central Florida</a>
Curator
Cepero, Laura
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">WHO IS CREATIVE SANFORD, INC?</a>" Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about.
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/" target="_blank">About: History and Purpose</a>." Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/.
"<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.
"<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-10-20/entertainment/os-celery-soup-sanford-20101020_1_oral-histories-swamp-gravy-celery-soup" target="_blank">Tales of Sanford's resilience are the stars of 'Touch and Go'</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, October 20, 2010. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-10-20/entertainment/os-celery-soup-sanford-20101020_1_oral-histories-swamp-gravy-celery-soup.
"<a href="http://mysanfordherald.com/view/full_story/12128828/article-Young-dancer-helps-put-spark-in--Touch-and-Go" target="_blank">Young dancer helps put spark in 'Touch and Go'</a>." <em>The Sanford Herald</em>, March 2, 2011. http://mysanfordherald.com/view/full_story/12128828/article-Young-dancer-helps-put-spark-in--Touch-and-Go. "About Us." Swamp Gravy: Georgia's Official Folk-Life Play. http://swampgravy.com/about-us/.
"<a href="http://swampgravy.com/about-us/" target="_blank">About Us</a>." Swamp Grave: Georgia's Official Folk-Life Play. http://swampgravy.com/about-us/.
<span>Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a><span>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003.</span>
<span>Flewellyn, Valada S. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4497409" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a><span>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009.</span>
Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website)
<a href="http://youtu.be/nJSla2r-d3g" target="_blank">Oral History of Trish Thompson</a>
Date Copyrighted
2013-10-11
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>
Transcript
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>My name is Autumn Reisz, and I’m here with Mark Miller, and we are asking the wonderful Trish [Thompson] a few questions today about <em>Celery Soup </em>and Creative Sanford[, Inc]. Um, if you just want to take a second and introduce yourself and we’ll get started on the questions.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Okay. I’m Trish Thompson and I am, um, former president of Creative Sanford for four years now, and vice president, and theater manager. Um, when we do our interviews we tell where we are and what the atmosphere is. So I’ll say we’re in my office and, um, the atmosphere is quiet and we only have an air-conditioner going that could possibly interrupt.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So I’m ready when you are.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Alright.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Start asking!</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, thanks. Okay, um, what is <em>Celery Soup</em>?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Okay. <em>Celery Soup </em>is <em>Florida’s Folk Life Play</em>. It’s a story that is comprised—a play, excuse me—that is comprised of story gathering which we have done, which is a lost art, and we, uh, get them from the citizens of Seminole County[, Florida] and hire a playwright. They put the stories together and that becomes <em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play </em>and we’ve done three performances, um, with the first one being <em>Touch and Go, </em>the second one being <em>Made - Not Bought, </em>and the third one being <em>Remade - Not Bought. </em>And, um, there—it went over so well, we’re—we’re just—we’re real happy with it and we’re already in—working with the playwright to get another one on the road for next year. So, uh, Creative Sanford is the umbrella organization. We are the producers of <em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Oh, very nice. Um, uh, what is the mission of <em>Celery Soup</em>?</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Uh, the mission of Creative Sanford—now you’ve got to know that we are the 501(c)(3) —Creative Sanford is. The, uh, actual production is <em>Celery Soup</em>—that’s the branding—is <em>Celery Soup</em>. It’s always <em>Celery Soup. </em>Every year the name of the play will change, but when they say, “What’s happening with C<em>elery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em>?” You know, then you tell ‘em whatever the new thing is that’s happening. Um, I’d have to read you our mission.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Oh, alright. That’s fine. No, that was excellent.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Yeah. So, um, how did the idea for <em>Celery Soup </em>develop?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Okay, the idea for, um, <em>Celery Soup </em>was, through our, um, person—the—the people that we knew in Colquitt, Georgia. And so Jeanine Taylor, our founder, went up there, met the people, saw the show and, um, and decided to bring it to Sanford when she moved her, uh, business here. And it was to help the economy and, uh, that was the first thought was that, you know, it was going to be an economic driver, bring people to Sanford, and of course help her business and other businesses in town. And she got the mayor and other people interested and they went up, saw the show, said, “Yes. This would be great for Sanford,” and that’s how it came to be in Sanford.</p>
<p>Then we spent three hard years with interviewing people and getting the community to understand what we do. We hired, uh, uh, <em>Celery Soup</em>—I mean, excuse me, <em>Swamp Gravy</em>—to come to Sanford and teach us how to do the interviews. Uh, they gave us the booklet that we use and, uh—just on a side note—uh, Freddie [Roman-Toro] who is—was our intern this spring, he rewrote it and updated it and got it where, um, it would fit in more with the RICHES [Regional Initiative for Collecting the History, Experiences, and Stories of Central Florida] Mosaic Interface that we’re gonna be using with UCF [University of Central Florida]. [<em>phone rings</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Alright. How did you change the <em>Swamp Gravy </em>model to fit the needs of Sanford?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>You know, that’s really interesting, because they’re—was that your question?</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>No. That’s not.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Alright.[<em>laughs</em>]</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>But Mark [Miller] really liked it.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yes. Okay. Now when you’re interviewing, you know, you might not want the subject to know that you [<em>laughs</em>]—so you’re gonna learn along with me, um, the um—we been—what was the question again? I’m sorry.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Um, how did you change the S<em>wamp Gravy </em>model…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>To fit Sanford’s needs?</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Thompson<br /></strong><em>Swamp Gravy’s </em>model—2,000 people—very small town, very isolated—and they had to draw from churches and, uh, they went way outside the area to bring people in and they had to bus them in to, uh, to come to the play. And everyone in the community was involved in it, because, you know, 2,000 people and you’re puttin’ on a production with a hundred people, you know, that’s—that’s almost everybody in the town, at one point or another, has been in the play.</p>
<p class="Default">So for us, we’re in Central Florida. we compete with [Walt] Disney [World], the I[nterstate-4 corridor. um, we wanted to reach out to The Villages. that’s very difficult to reach out to The Villages, because they already have so much, um, entertainment and what have you that it’s right there at their fingertips. And they don’t come to Orlando very much. We found that out through the United Arts [of Central Florida], uh, president at that time, Margot Knight, that it was very tough to get The Villages, and so we’ve made so inroads into that and we do have one person who brings people in from there, but it’s, you know—that is, —that is harder.</p>
<p class="Default">For us, we’re more sophisticated. Um, the area there was—you could do just about anything for, you know, nothing, because there were no regulations and no, you know—the city didn’t make ‘em do this and that. So when we started, we had a lot of legal and financial, um, and city rules and regulations that we had to comply with. And I would suggest to anybody who is gonna to do something like this: do not cut corners on your legal and your—those kind of responsibilities in— in getting your, um, work-up with your city, so that your—you know, you’re not gonna get, quote, “a free ride,” but, you know, you’ll have a good working relationship with the city, if you comply with what they want done. So…</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Um, how has how has Creative Sanford and <em>Celery Soup</em>—how has it evolved from when you first started the program?</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh my goodness. It has really evolved. When we first started we wanted to put on a show, Okay? One production a year and we were gonna—oh, someone was gonna give us a building. We’ve gotten a whole big song and dance of, you know, where you were gonna put it on. Well, we couldn’t find any place that would allow us to put it on. And the one theater that was in town, it was: number one, 500 seats 450 to 500 seats. And it had the fourth wall, which of course we didn’t know anything about, but it—the fourth wall was an invisible wall between the audience and the cast. and so, um, the community theater, one of the things that they require is that it is community involved and, you know, so it’s, um—it’s theater in the three-quarter is what we have. We don’t—we ended up renting a space.</p>
<p class="Default">So number one, we have rent now and it’s not a free space. And so when we rented it, we had to sign a lease. And when we signed a lease, that changed—I mean, it was like the before and the after. The before lease and after lease. [<em>laughs</em>] Because then we became a theater, and the theater has to support itself. So you can’t have one play in the fall and the spring maybe—two plays—and maintain a theater. You know you got your rental. You got all your utilities you’ve got to pay. So we had to have other shows.</p>
<p class="Default">So we first started with a group that wanted to have a home and they were called “The Princess Players.” And so they put on five performances during the year and, you know, we produced them. And so we did make money through that and were able to pay the rent, but so now after three years, since 2010, we made another big leap in that we realize that the theater was as important as <em>Celery Soup</em>. If we don’t have the theater, we’re in the same boat as everybody else, with searchin’ for a place to put your thing on and it’s gonna cost you a tremendous amount of money to be that little person who’s begging for a place to have a show. And after being in the theater, we didn’t want to go back to being in a gymnasium or someplace like that.</p>
<p class="Default">So we co-op the theater and we have three organizations that co-op with us and they own the theater for those periods of time. So that helps pay the rent. Phew, there’s something here. So that pays, you know—that gets our rent paid.</p>
<p class="Default">So then as time goes on, in the next year or two, we will be able to do some of the other things in our mission that we are not able to do now and, uh, the—the quantity that we would like to do and that helps other organizations that don’t have money that give them a place to showcase their art. Um, we’ve done art openings. We’ve done, uh, concerts. we’ve done, uh, with the Humanities Council—with the <em>Dreamers and Schemers </em>and they’ve asked us to come back in 2014 and do it again—standing room only—uh, we do <em>The Holocaust </em>with the Holocaust and Interfaith Council. So we’re making all these organizations that are becoming partners with us—that they’re doin’ it this year, that maybe next year, you know. and we’ll find places for ‘em to rent the theater to them for a minimal amount of money—cover the expenses—and they’re able to put something on and we’re able to provide the community with different kind[sic] of art— all different types of art.</p>
<p class="Default">So we’re doin’ <em>Celery Soup </em>now. They’ll be doin’, uh, <em>Sleeping Beauty </em>and <em>Grease</em>, <em>and</em> the co-op people are doin’ these things. One of them is a school, so they do things through the summer. and then in August, I believe it is, we’re goin’ to do <em>Spam-A-Lot. </em>So it will be our first time to do, um—produce a Broadway show. And it’s a Tony Award-winning and that’s what we want to do. So we’d like to do <em>Spam-A-Lot </em>one year and whatever the next one, as soon as the rights open up. We want to do the most recent, like I believe next year <em>Wicked</em>, off-Broadway—you know, from Broadway—will be open.</p>
<p class="Default">So this is a goal that we want to bring quality entertainment that people can afford to go to Wash—New York [City, New York] or Washington[, D.C.] or wherever. They can see really quality work, right here in Seminole County. They don’t have to go to Orlando. They don’t have to go to the arena, you know, and all that kinda thing.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Excellent. Um, so how do you collect the stories for the plays?</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Okay. Uh, we advertised. We had the Swamp Gravy Institute come down and we had a whole group of people come in and learn how to do the interviews. and then they’d ask their friends, “Can I interview you?” So it started out friends of the people who are to interview and moved out from there. We went, um, Serenity Towers, which at that time was called Bram Towers, and we did practice interviews with the older ladies and gentlemen and—and, uh, the—it was kind of a learning experience for everyone. And then we also, um, then put ads in the paper.</p>
<p class="Default">And when we first got started we did a thing called, uh, <em>Talks from the Stalks</em>, is what we called it—like a stalk of celery. And, uh, the newspaper<a title="">[1]</a> was nice enough that we would put in little excerpts from interviews that we’d done. And so they’d do a little blurb—we’d hopefully have a picture of the person that spoke—and then a little piece out of their story. And then it would be the quote advertisement call to tell your story. So that’s how— that’s how we got started, with just grass-roots, asking your friends, and moving out into the community.</p>
<p class="Default">And the most difficult part was being accepted by the black community, because there was a lot of, um, [<em>sighs</em>] negativity in both directions, in that, um, the black community was told that we were exploiting them by some people, who, for some reason didn’t understand what we were doin’. There’s a fly in here<em>. </em>Um, and then there was some on the other side that didn’t know how to relate to the black community. So it was a give-and-take and over the last six years.</p>
<p class="Default">This year we were invited to Hopper Academy. Um, this was the first year we had been so lucky to have two reunions” The Hopper [Academy] and then the Crooms Academy [of Information Technology] we’re going to do in December. So that’s the, that’s a real plus for us to be able to have made the inroads into the black community—that they trust us.</p>
<p class="Default">And, uh, if you know anything about Sanford, we’ve just gone through an awful trial<a title="">[2]</a> that brought up a lot of really bad memories from a lot of people—black and white. And, uh, it’s just, uh— it’s just a miracle that we’re such a good community that we overcame the outside pressures and didn’t succumb to anything that they wanted to [<em>laughs</em>]—they wanted us to have a riot or something. I don’t know what the media wanted, but, uh, they didn’t get it, because we’re not that kind of a town. We’re a good town. We’re—we’re working together.</p>
<p class="Default">And I think we have helped over the last six years to help the community realize that, you know, all that outside stuff that made ‘em appreciate that we really are a closely knit community, much closer than was realized and yet there’s still a lot of—a lot of energy and a lot of negativity that—that is like post-traumatic stress disorder. You know, it’s—you think of the worst thing that ever happened you think—you in your life. It flashes [<em>snaps</em>] to you immediately. You know exactly was the worst thing in your mind that ever happened to you. And that may be, this—this—this trial just triggered. That throwback to that worst feeling of inadequacy and—and negativity that they ever had. So, you know, we—we have to appreciate that and realize it.</p>
<p class="Default">And I’ve talked to people who have said, “Oh, why don’t they just get over it?” And I say, “What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?” “Oh, that I lost my child,” or, you know—I mean that’s horrific. And I say, “Well, get over it.” Whoa, did they get mad at me? But, I say, you know, you’ve got to understand—and it was somebody that wanted to interview, but they didn’t have the empathy or the sympathy or the—the feelings that were needed to be an interviewer in this organization. So, when you’re doin’ this, I’d say to anybody: be sure that the people who are interviewers have an open mind and/or can keep their feelings under—you know, under the radar—under the cover.</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, that brings up a question of when you’re asking the stories, what sort of themes—you ask for themes? Or how do you go about…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, we’re…</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Pitching the story.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>We started with a theme that was, uh, perseverance. And this was in 2010, and so our first story was about, uh, how Sanford and the community had overcome all sorts of natural, um, disasters. We had floods, and we had, uh, fires, and we had—the weather froze—and, I mean, uh, the weather was very cold and the fruit and vegetables and the trees froze. You know, so it changed the whole economy of things. The, uh, Navy left Sanford. Big, big, big, big problem. and Sanford’s overcome and actually gotten better from all the different changes that have happened. So that was what—it was perseverance, and we used as a sub thing, openin’ a can of worms [<em>laughs</em>]. So we—we just—“So what is,” you know, “What were you mad about? What did you not like? What did—what did ya get over on somebody?” You know, we had all kinds of questions that we tried to pull out of people that were deeper than just—“Who are you? Where did— where did you go to school and what do you do? “</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, you did something like, uh, what you’re, um, talking about, perseverance and…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>You know, can of worms. How do you integrate that into the play?</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, that is what you have your playwright for. Now we’re, uh, setting up now and working with UCF with this, um—we have, um—May, um—what do ya call ‘em? With, uh, the keyword—keywords. So it might be perseverance. It might be love. It might be hate. it might be alligators or animals, or, you know—so, you’ll have keywords and the, um—um, the—the writers can key in that word, and then up comes the transcription from the play of that—of that—that might fit that story—may might fit that thing.</p>
<p class="Default">So, uh, next year’s going to be a comedy. and so we’re, you know—we’re gonna have a theme that’s going to be outta—we don’t know yet—outta, uh—that hadn’t been decided. Uh, that’s how you do it is you decide on your theme and you go to your playwright and say, “I want you to write about this theme and here are your keywords and you can go to all these different” —so maybe when we do an interview—the interview usually lasts an hour and a half, um—in that hour and a half, you might get 10 good stories or 10 stories, you know. It depends on how fast they talk or, you know, what—what you could pull out of ‘em. Some of ‘em in an hour you won’t get one that’s worth anything. But, uh, it might be able to use in backgrounds somewhere. And some of ‘em you could use every single story in, you know—that they tell. They’re all just—oh my gosh. This is great.</p>
<p class="Default">And we have several of those families that have done that and one is Uncle Dieter and one is Mr. [Elmer] Baggs. Both of them have just fabulous stories that they tell and we’ve used them in all of our productions. We’ve used stories from them and we go back, like you said—we go back to them to, you know, harvest more stories from them and ask different questions and—you know. Some of ‘em are just so funny. You know, that you, you forget that you’ve to get in to some of these power depth things too.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Have you encountered any challenges working with a playwright that may or may not be from the Sanford area? is there any challenge to that?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>We—yes. We have had that challenge. Um, the one that the professional group that we used, they came and taught us a lot, and they were not from our area. So they had to do a lot of historical research at the libraries and, um, the historic society, so they got a lot of input there. Though it was very good for them, but also they would say things that we would say, uh, “Stop. We can’t use that. We—this—it’s not correct.” It’s, you know—or it’s too—it’s still too politically, um, explosive. That—that we don’t want to bring that to our town at this point. Later we’ll—we’ll delve into that, but right now we can’t do that.</p>
<p>And, uh, and one of ‘em is about—and it—it—it’s about, uh, ah, the [Mayfair] Country Club. And the—the playwright wanted to put that in there and I said, “We cannot put this in there. They are going to court. This is a lawsuit. It has not been [<em>laughs</em>]—you know, we can’t put something that’s an ongoing thing that maybe somebody would be a juror on that trial that saw our view of this. No, no, no, no, no. we can’t do that.” So it’s a perfect—it’s a perfect example of— of havin’ to help, you know, keep things in the right frame that we want to.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Have you, um, always used, uh, a playwright to produce your plays and a professional director and have you guys done any of that on your own?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>We’re in the process now of doing that and we hired—we’ve hired, um, people who have professional—have had professional experience, but are for—we only use the professionals the first time, ‘cause that was like $125,000 and so we had to raise money for a long time to—to get that together. And that was the year that we signed the contract with the theater. So, you know, all of this and financial part of it all mixes together.</p>
<p>And you realize, once you start this, you are a theater. You know, you’re not just—unless you’re going to keep it on a low key, not very large, but if you want to go big, you’re going to have to be a theater. And we want to go big. We’ve—want to go to the [John F.] Kennedy Center [for Performing Arts] in—in, Washington. We’re already set to be at the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. We’re working with Central Florida, uh, uh, Community Arts and they’re gonna do a Christmas that’s gonna be the same show, or similar to the same show, that they put on at Christmas at Disney. So it’s the candlelight, uh, service that you pay 80-90 dollars for and you’ll pay 10-20-15, you know, for this show here. Because we want community to be able to see what we’re doing. And, and, uh, that is—that’s part of our mission, to bring the community together.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Um, so the professional—that’s the direction that you guys are going to go in going forward is using, uh, not necessarily, um, director per se, but definitely a professional playwright and things like that? you going to keep that?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, no. we’ve brought the community on the playwright too. As a matter of fact, um, even I helped write [<em>laughs</em>] a little bit of the play that we’re doing right now. So I can’t call myself—I call myself an editor, not a playwright.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, that was one of the questions, that, um, regarding—do you have any employees?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>No. we’re—not yet.</p>
<p><strong>Miller <br /></strong>You were talking about having some professionals...</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Uh uh.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>So, um, you hire people as you need them? Or…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>The way they—yes. and the way that works, um, is that they would get a stipend. Um, you would be for, um, a director, you might pay 750-1000 dollars, something like that. It’s not big money. And they have to work for six or eight weeks before the show to get it ready. I mean, that’s a lot of work for, you know, that kind of money.</p>
<p>Uh, but a lot of community theater only pays the music director. Everybody else is volunteer. And we have thousands and thousands hours of volunteer hours, because we have no paid staff. We do have some[sic] paid artist, but not any paid staff. And nobody and—none of the actors are paid.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>So you draw your expertise from the community also?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Right. and that is a lucky thing that we have. That we have so much theater and, um, entertainment in Central Florida, and people who want to do theater. And they’re tied into day to day jobs that, um, you know, stifle their creative—and, and they do it for free. They do it for the love of theater.</p>
<p>Which I didn’t understand. I’m a businessperson. I came out of, you know, owning my own business for many, many years and my husbands a, uh, CPA [Certified Public Account] and ran an insurance company. And, oh my gosh. You know, everything is the bottom line kiddo [<em>laughs</em>]. So that’s kinda where I fit in. And t’s a little difficult for me to learn and having to learn. And most of the other people on the [Executive] Board are businesspeople. And they—it’s—it’s—it’s somethin’ to learn how to do this.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, what—you brought up the board. What role does that—the board play?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Uh, the board makes the decisions on where the money goes, and—and where the fundraisers and, um—we do all the—all the grunt work that has to be done. We do the marketing. We do the, uh, advertising. We do the, uh, um—um, the Celery Ball, which is our main fundraiser.</p>
<p>We reach out to all community to—to get the word out and speak to groups and make connections wherever we can with the politicians, in, uh, um—you know, just have to reach out to every single facet. And it’s—it’s—it’s a miracle. It’s wonderful. It is wonderful. And I love working this class that’s a very diverse class, with older, younger, men, women. It’s great. You know, I going to learn so much from you all [nods].</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>How, um, how is—how is Creative Sanford and <em>Celery Soup</em>, how have—how have you been successful in achieving your goals?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, we’ve put on three shows. Yes. We’ve brought in community who have done playwright—playwriting—who have done music, who have done directing, that are from the community, that were paid a small stip—small stipend. And, um, you know, this is—this is the goal. is to bring the community together. We’ve brought people together who would have never have met.</p>
<p>Um, one lady who’s a very prominent, uh, poet, and she was in our show and she helped write a little bit of it. And, um, she was afraid of one the—of one of the people in the show. It was a young black guy and she was an older black lady, but she wasn’t raised in any of the—so she had a whole generational plus economic—there wasn’t a reason to be afraid of this young person. But she was—she was fearful. And so she really learned. And the—and the young person learned too. How to be more respectful and so that’s—that’s a goal is—you know, I think people call it bullying and all of that, but it’s really—it’s learning how to love each other and work with each other, and um, and blend into to, uh, international, you know, family.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>You mentioned earlier that there was a couple of things that, um, you hadn’t achieved. You know, you want to do more outreach with other community groups and things like that?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Is there anything else you—that Creative Sanford would like to do, but you haven’t been able to do yet?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, yes. We’d like to, um—we’d like to have a performing arts center. and we have talked to, uh, Congressman [John L.] Mica about that. um, preliminary, stages, of maybe having an arts council—not an arts council. We have the Seminole Cultural Arts Council, but um, to work with them with Creative Sanford to have our theater in a building, to have uh, um, uh, galleries in the theater, and have gift shops, and have, uh, study areas, and training areas, and studios. I mean, we’ve got a big group of ideas and that would—that would involve all the arts. And that’s one of the things that, um, is real—real difficult to get off the ground on no money. So that’s where you’re going to look for federal grants and that’s where you need your politicians to help you. And Seminole Cultural Arts Council and ourselves are working together to, uh, work with Congressman Mica and—and see if we can get one in Seminole County. You know, there’s a lot people, there’s a lot of money in Seminole County. It’s all going south. So we want to bring some of it back to Seminole County and let them realize that, not only are we a bedroom place, but also a great place to—to just enjoy life and make your whole—whole area more livable.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Um, why is it important—in particular in Sanford, of course—but why is it important that these plays are produced by the community for the community?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, that goes right back to, um, people learning each other, meeting each other, uh, getting together, and becoming friends and, um, meshing as a team. And they go out when—when we have done this, um, the group says, “Hey, I know a place that we need to go.” So emails go back and then we just get together, we go out, maybe put on a performance or—not a whole show—but do vignettes, maybe do a little bit of Uncle Dieter maybe do a little bit of, um, Elmer Bags. Just, you know, somethin’ funny or, er, poignant, or somethin’ like that.</p>
<p>We’ve done one called <em>Generations</em>,where the woman tells the story of how her family came from Africa and, you know, where they landed, and you know, how her history came about, and now she’s the last one in her line. And she says—at the end, she says, “Who will remember me? Will you?” And it just—oh, it just gives me cold chills right now. It’s just—it just tells people—opens their eyes and minds and hearts to, you know, what’s going on in the rest of world and how other people are feeling and, um, we always want to do more of that.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Uh, you had mentioned earlier that—that the—that Creative Sanford and <em>Celery Soup </em>in particular had been really well received by the community?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Um, how have you integrated community feedback into your projects and the things that you’re doing, besides just the interviews?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, that is—that is one of the big things that we do. When we have the play and getting it ready, okay? We have a day, that we have—invite all the community to come to the theater and we do a run through of the play. And if they have feedback, “Oh that—that story wasn’t there. That story is over on Eleventh Street.” “Oh, this is wrong,” or “I don’t like this,” or, oh—they don’t laugh or, you know, they think something’s offensive. And we take that all into consideration. We’re very much attuned to what—it’s like what we tell the playwrights, sometimes we say, “Hey. Something we already know politically you can’t do that. They’re already in a—they’re already in a lawsuit.” But it is the same thing with other peoples’ feelings. And, um, we had one lady who got up and said she loved this part and the other lady got up and said that, “This isn’t the way it was where I was.” And it was complete opposite, so it was like, “Okay. Well, we’ll tell this story here and let’s interview you and get your story for the next time.”</p>
<p>So it’s—you know, we’re going to tell our stories as much as we can, but we want to—we want to be fair to everybody, but that is what we do. That’s part of the community—that we learned from the professionals. It’s that you have—when you start your cast, you—you have a day that you talk about, um, being compassionate and—and working with your other cast members and all of that sort of thing. And, um, that kind the way it starts and then, you know, we get this real tight group going and people know you now.</p>
<p>For me, see, I am known as the “ticket lady,” because I was always down there working the tickets and, you know, all this. They didn’t know I was president. they didn’t care who I was. I was the ticket lady. That’s the one they saw every night. But now they’re seeing me in a completely different role, because I’m in the play. And I have just a small—I have three small parts, but, you know, one of ‘em is absolutely just as silly as all get out and so they’re seeing, “Oh, the ticket lady does something besides” [<em>laughs</em>], you know, “sell the tickets. She might have some other good things that she can do.” So they’re seeing me in a different light and I think we see everybody in a different light. That—that whatever they perceive themselves to be, we’re seeing them in a different, more human light.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well you’ve been with the project from the beginning, um…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Just about.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, what—what are your biggest surprises about this?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, all of it. All of it. I had no idea how much work it was gonna be, how much fun it was gonna be, how enlightening it was gonna be. It’s just been—it’s just—it’s been like [<em>sighs</em>] renewed youth of somethin’. You know, you’ve thought,<em> Oh, well, my identity is a restaurant owner. This—I’m the Rib Ranch</em>, you know. Well then you retire and I got all involved in this and—and, uh, now I feel like, “Well, hey. This, this is rejuvenated me.” and, you know, put your brain in gear again and you have all these new goals, because I’d already completed all my goals. I was the best restaurant that sold barbeque in Seminole County and, you know, where do you go from there? So this was a new goal and set new things. So age never matters. Grandma Moses became famous in her 80s, so maybe I’ll become famous in my 70s [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Ah, what are some of the challenges in creating and maintaining a project like <em>Celery Soup</em>?</p>
<p><strong>Thompso<br /></strong>Financial. There you go. That’s the bottom line. That’s the big problem, is getting’ the money. Yup.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, um, you mentioned fundraisers.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>And you have a Celery Ball.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Do you want to describe that a little bit and some of the other fundraisers?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Okay. What we’ve done—and, of course, this has evolved too. When we first started we had the Celery Ball, we had a king and queen. And the king and queen raised money—the king and queen candidates raised money—and, um, the first year we raised over $30,000. The second year about $30,000. The third year about $25,000. And the fourth year $10,000. Okay. economy. There you go. The economy’s going down, people didn’t have money to do all this, so that next year it was—we had a lot of silent auctions. We did not have, and we’re not having this year, a king and queen.</p>
<p>So we feel like—okay. We’ve kind of burned that out. it’s got a life of about four years and then you’ve got to go to something else. So we’ve moved the play—we’ve moved it to a different location. It’s gonna be a <em>The Great Gatsby </em>themed, so it’s gonna to be ‘20s-‘30s. Gonna be a lotta fun and, uh, um—and we have silent auction and trips and things like that, that we’re gonna be putting out to—to raise money instead of having—it was real easy when you had kings and queens and they’re all out having fundraisers and, you know, they’re doing all the work and you’re raking in the money. But it doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way for the whole thing.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Alright, um…</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>[inaudible]</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Yeah, uh, what are, um, some of your production costs? And in that the price of your tickets and stuff?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Mmhmm. okay. We price our tickets at $15—well 20 and 18 at first—and then we moved it down to 15 and 12. And, ah—again, it’s to meet the mission of bringing things and the quality—best quality we can—to the community. And these are bad times. I don’t know how you guys are seeing it, but, you know, everybody is working one or two, you know—working extra jobs. Still not, you know, cuttin’ it with the way things are going with businesses, where they’re cutting people’s hours back. “Oh, we’re only going to give you 26 and we’re never gonna give you more than 32, so you can’t be a full-time employee, so we won’t have to pay you benefits.” Da, da, da, da, da.</p>
<p>So we look at all of that and, uh, we decided on our price, and because we’re not usin’ the professionals. We’re back—we give just the small stipend—we do a production, is about 10,000, mkay? Is what it costs us to put on a production. and a lot of it is borrowing from different places in the community. Oh, and now that we’re a co-op we can say, “Oh, do you have some lights we can borrow?” Whereas we may have had to spend 10,000 on lights the first year, which we did. We had to rent ‘em. That, you know, now we can get lights and—as a matter of fact, we just had two people who gave us lights just in the last week. So, you know, we’re getting the lights—we don’t still have as much lighting as we need, and that’s one of the things that we’ll get a grant to help us get lighting and sound equipment and, you know, these kinds of things that we need. But, um, yeah. that’s it. Financial.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Um, much of what <em>Celery Soup </em>has been doing is preserving the history of and the stories of Sanford.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>How are you preserving the legacy of <em>Celery Soup </em>and Creative Sanford itself?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, we have two ways. Uh, Alicia [Clarke] at the, um, Sanford Museum has asked us for copies of everything. So they’re going to archive the beginnings and all of our—as time goes by, they’ll do it. And so I’m keeping double records of, you know, two pieces of paper and so we’ll keep one and give one to her. And of course, we’re expecting that a lot of our archiving is going to go up on RICHES, so we’ll have that as part of our archival process.</p>
<p>And we, um—you have to have a disaster program, you know, and so we have disaster programs and we have things backed up with—on the flash drives—or we have them backed up on secondary computers. We have, um, fireproof safes that we keep things in. and we keep things off, um—out of the office. I don’t—I can’t think of what the word is. but somewhere else that, um, we keep things—the financial things and the historic things—um, backed up. So that’s how we have to do it. And—and the things like this, I’m really happy that if anything happened to this little dress, um—this was the dress that was worn by the little two and a half year old little girl, who was in our very first production—Kalayla. and, um, so definitely want pictures of that. And that’s—that’s an archival thing. If this rotted, we wouldn’t have it. So…</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Okay. um, how do you keep the community engaged in <em>Celery Soup</em>, uh, especially long-term?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>That’s a problem. You have to keep moving and especially when we have to look two ways: the economy and wearing yourself out, you know, with asking people over and over again for help. And, uh— so the engagement—we just try to broaden and not to go back to the same wells every time. That if there’s 54,000 people in this town, and if 2,000 people are helping us, we need to get to the next 2,000 and the next 2,000, and the next 2,000. And we’ve reached, um,—as a matter of fact, just last week we were given a check for $250 from an organization that had never helped us before. So here we are. We’re getting into that outer ring and so we’ll just, slowly but surely, we’re just gonna reach out all through the whole area and get some of these people.</p>
<p>Mercedes[-Benz] helped us and then they kind of backed—backed away with what they were doing and so we’re going to different places to make this thing work. And we’re on David Maus’ [Toyota’s] jumbo-tron out there, which we’ve never been on there before and so, you know, that’s a first for us. So we just keep moving ou.t and we’ve never had any kind of TV advertising or never had any TV that supported us, and so this year, uh—this 2014, we’re really gonna put a push on getting sponsors of, um, in kind or whatever we can get from the, uh, major stations. We’ve had radio. We’ve had, um, um, public and NCR<a title="">[3]</a> and public broadcasting, but we want to get more into the mainstream too.</p>
<p class="Default"><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Um, I know that we are getting tight on time, so we have one last question that we’d like to ask you, before we release you.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Okay. Mkay.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Uh, but what advice would you give another community thinking about beginning a similar project?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>The advice that I would give them is to contact everybody that has ever done one that you can find and ask them the questions that you’re asking. How do you do it? How much did it cost? We had a group that came in and asked us those questions and we answered them and, uh, and it was very interesting. We had—they came down and visited us and it was a very interesting time.</p>
<p>But, um, whatever the people tell you it’s going to cost, figure it’s going to cost at least 50 percent or a third to 50 percent more, okay? It’s much more expensive than you think it’s gonna be. Uh, some people think, “Oh, well everything be given to us.” and that’s what we were told” Oh, people would just reach out to you and they’re gonna give you this and they’re gonna give—let me tell ya. in a big market like this, they don’t do that. Maybe in very small towns, yes. You can get that kind of immediate help, but in a big, big area like we’re in it’s not the same process. And that’s where we differ with <em>Swamp Gravy </em>too, in that, you know, we have a very different financial field back and forth there.</p>
<p>So, yeah. It’s, um— it is—it’s mainly financial, legal. Be sure if you write contracts, if you go with professionals that, you know, you get a good tight that you’re protected and safe. And we went to an entertainment attorney and had her look over the contract and make changes and things to protect us a little bit better. So those are the things that you’ve got to have.</p>
<p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Well thank you very, very much. We greatly appreciate it. Um, we really appreciate it. And then we’ll probably come up with some other questions. If you think we missed anything, let us know. We’d be happy to ask about it.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>And we…</p>
<div><br /><div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> <em>The Sanford Herald</em>.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> <em>State of Florida v. George Zimmerman</em>.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[3]</a> Correction: National Public Radio (NPR).</p>
</div>
</div>
11th Street
1st Street
501(c)(3)
Bagg, Elmer
Baggs
Bram Towers
Broadway
Celery Ball
Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play
Central Florida
Central Florida Community Arts
Clarke, Alicia
Colquitt, Georgia
community theater
Creative Sanford, Inc.
Crooms Academy of Information Technology
David Maus Toyota
Disney
Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center
Dreamers and Schemers
Eleventh Street
First Street
fourth wall
Generations
Grandma Moses
Grease
Great Gatsby
Holocaust and Interfaith Council
Hopper Academy
Humanities Council
I-4
Interstate-4
John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts
Kalayla
Knight, Margot H.
Made - Not Bought
Maus, David
Mayfair Country Club
Mercedes-Benz
Mica, John L.
Miller, Mark
Mr. Baggs
oral history
Orlando, Florida
Princess Theater
race relations
Reisz, Autumn
Remade - Not Bought
Rib Ranch
RICHES Mosaic Interface
RICHES of Central Florida
Roman-Toro, Freddie
Sanford
Sanford Museum
Sanford Welcome Center
Seminole Cultural Arts Council
Serenity Towers
Sleeping Beauty
Spam-A-Lot
Swamp Gravy
Swamp Gravy Institute
Talks From the Stalks
Taylor, Jeanine
The Holocaust
The Princess Players
The Sanford Herald
The Villages
theater
theater manager
Thompson, Trish
Tony Award
Touch and Go
Uncle Dieter
United Art of Central Florida
Wicked
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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
Seminole County Centennial Celebration Collection
Description
The Seminole County Centennial Celebration Collection contains digital items related to the 100 year celebration of the creation of Seminole County. Items include ephemera distributed before and during the celebration, photographs, and other digital items.
Seminole County will turn 100 years old on April 25, 2013. This centennial benchmark is being commemorated as Seminole Celebrates A Century of Success with a 100-day celebration beginning January 16, 2013, and will conclude with a community-wide Centennial Festival planned for April 20, 2013.
Seminole Celebrates will highlight the county Points of Pride and is designed to celebrate Seminole County's heritage while embracing its future. Collaboration among the business community, faith-based organizations, art and historical societies, civic groups, and educational institutions will provide our residents with numerous fun family oriented events and activities over the 100 days of celebration.
Contributor
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
<a href="http://www.goldenrodhistoricalsociety.com/" target="_blank">Goldenrod Historical Society Museum</a><a href="http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<a href="http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/" target="_blank">Goldsboro Historical Museum</a>
<a href="http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/" target="_blank">Historic Sanford Welcome Center</a>
<a href="http://www.lakemaryhistory.org/" target="_blank">Lake Mary Historical Museum</a>
<a href="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/fl/county/seminole/Geneva/museum.htm" target="_blank">Museum of Geneva History</a>
<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>
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>
<a href="http://www.ruralheritagecenter.net/" target="_blank">Rural Heritage Center</a>
<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a>
<a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>
Alternative Title
Seminole Centennial Collection
Subject
Seminole County (Fla.)
Goldenrod (Fla.)
Sanford (Fla.)
Lake Mary (Fla.)
Oviedo (Fla.)
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/30" target="_blank">Seminole County Centennial Celebration Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Creative Sanford, Inc., Sanford, Florida
Goldenrod Historical Society Museum, Goldenrod, Florida
Goldsboro Historical Museum, Goldsboro, Sanford, Florida
Historic Sanford Welcome Center, Sanford, Florida
Lake Mary Historical Museum, Lake Mary, Florida
Museum of Geneva History, Geneva, Florida
Museum of Seminole County History, Sanford, Florida
Oviedo Historical Society, Oviedo, Florida
Rural Heritage Center, Geneva, Florida
Sanford Museum, Sanford, Florida
UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida
Contributing Project
<a href="http://apps.seminolecountyfl.gov/centennial/index.aspx" target="_blank">Seminole County Centennial Celebration</a>
Curator
Marra, Katherine
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
<a href="http://apps.seminolecountyfl.gov/centennial/index.aspx" target="_blank">Seminole County Centennial Celebration</a>
<span>Francke, Arthur E. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39871004" target="_blank"><em>Early Days of Seminole County, Florida</em></a><span>. [Sanford, FL]: Seminole County Historical Commission, 1988.</span>
Website
A resource comprising of a web page or web pages and all related assets ( such as images, sound and video files, etc. ).
Local URL
<a title="Historic Sanford Welcome Center" href="http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/" target="_blank">http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/</a>
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
Historic Sanford Welcome Center
Alternative Title
Sanford Welcome Center
Subject
Seminole County (Fla.)--History, Local
Museums--Florida
Sanford (Fla.)--History
Description
According to its website, "The mission of the Historic Sanford Welcome Center is to enrich the Sanford experience by serving as a communications hub; operating as a welcome center to provide education and information marketing Sanford as an arts, culture, recreation and historic destination."
Creator
<a href="http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/" target="_blank">Historic Sanford Welcome Center</a>
Source
Historic Sanford Welcome Center
230 East First Street
Sanford, Florida 32771
Format
application/http
Medium
Website
Language
eng
Type
Website
Coverage
Sanford, Florida
Spatial Coverage
28.811863, -81.266245
Temporal Coverage
1877-09-29/2014-12-31
Accrual Method
Deposit
Rights Holder
The <a href="http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/" target="_blank">Historic Sanford Welcome Center</a> holds all rights to the items housed within the institution as well as those items represented digitally on <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>. Contact the Historic Sanford Welcome Center for the proper permissions for the use of its items.
Contributing Project
<a href="http://apps.seminolecountyfl.gov/centennial/index.aspx" target="_blank">Seminole County Centennial Celebration</a>
Curator
Marra, Katherine
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/" target="_blank">Historic Sanford Welcome Center</a>
Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website)
<a href="http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/" target="_blank">http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/30" target="_blank">Seminole County Centennial Celebration Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
External Reference
"About Us." Historic Sanford Welcome Center. http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/?page_id=11.
External Reference Title
"<a href="http://www.sanfordwelcomecenter.com/?page_id=11" target="_blank">About Us</a>"
Mediator
History Teacher
Economics Teacher
Geography Teacher
1st Street
Arts District
Downtown Sanford
First St.
First Street
Historic Downtown Sanford
Historic Sanford Welcome Center
RiverWalk
Sanford Welcome Center
Seminole County Centennial Celebration