An original letter of correspondence between Sydney Octavious Chase and Cary D. Landis, Esq. Topics discussed in the letter include a Ku Klux Klan demonstration in Sanford, rumors that the H. R. Stevens campaign was mobilizing African-American voters, and a satchel found in front of the Chase & Company office the evening of the demonstration.
Chase & Company was established in 1884 by brothers Sydney Octavius Chase and Joshua Coffin Chase. The company sold insurance and later invested in storage facilities and fertilizer sales. Chase & Company was known mainly for its agricultural interests and maintained a series of citrus groves throughout Central Florida. The company was based out of Sanford and became one of the city's largest employers into the early twentieth century. Randall Chase joined in the family business soon after his brother, Sydney Chase, Jr., did in 1922. Randall became the president of Chase & Company from 1948-1965.
The Ku Klux Klan was first organized by ex-Confederate soldiers in in Tennessee in 1866, but was disbanded by the first Imperial Wizard Nathan Bedford Forest in 1869 in order to avoid government sanctions. The second Klan was reformed in 1915 by William J. Simmons. Although the KKK deteriorated nationally during the Great Depression, it still flourished in Florida until a $685,000 lien was filed against the national Klan in 1944 for back taxes from the 1920s. In 1948, Dr. Samuel Green of Atlanta revived the KKK in Georgia, which spread to Florida and other states. In 1951, the Florida KKK responded violently to the activities of Harry Tyson Moore's Progressive Voters' League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during a period dubbed "The Florida Terror." As of the early 2000s, the Florida KKK remained to be on of the more active Klans in the country.
Morris
This is an interview with Ima Jean [Bostick] Yarborough, and this interview is being conducted on November 10, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Ma’am, could you tell us about where you were born, and when?
Yarborough
I was born in Ocala, Florida, on Sanchez Street, August the 2nd, 1935.
Morris
Okay. And could you tell us a little bit more about where, what kind of environment you grew up in, house, and...
Yarborough
Yes, this is a two-story home that my mother was living in at the time with her in-laws, and we went back later and purchased the home, but I was around ten years old at that time. So she lived there for about a year and a half with me. This home is still standing. When I go to Ocala on business or pleasure, I go by and look at it, and have wonderful memories there, because it was across the street from a city park called Tuscawilla Park. That was very close to a logging company that was in Ocala at that time, and they used the ponds to float the logs in. So it was a wonderful place for a child to grow up and play. We could fish the pond. We could wade the pond. And there was tennis courts all around that one particular pond, so we just had a wonderful playground right there as we were growing up. That was way before television, and not many radios.
Morris
Okay, ma’am. The community—was it a very sparse community, or very condensed?
Yarborough
It’s a large, it was a large community, because that’s very close to Silver Springs, which is a beautiful, a natural spring, and the Seminole Indians were there for quite a while. And there was a big reptile collection [Ross Allen’s Reptile Institute] out there that people could pay to go and visit. That was originally started by a gentleman by the name of Ross Allen, and he played with alligators and milked rattlesnakes for the venom, for medical purposes. So people could go out there and pay to watch all that. It was an entertainment place. But as children we, the city took a bus out each year during the summer, each day, and you could have swimming classes out there. So we were very fortunate to learn to swim early, and enjoyed that particular area. Now it has grown into a home place for horses, especially racehorses and quarter horses.
Morris
At Silver Springs, ma’am?
Yarborough
No, Ocala.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t switch right. But Ocala has continually grown out, and it’s quite a large city.
Morris
Can you tell me more changes that might have occurred from when you were growing up in Ocala and now how it is today? Like what kind—when you go there, what differences stand out to you the most, ma’am?
Yarborough
More people, [laughs] more people. Of course, everything was centrally located uptown at that time. There was a town square in the center of town, which is still there with a bandshell. At that time, it had a bandshell on it, and a bandshell is used to—for a band to play music while people sit around and enjoy it, like a park atmosphere. There’s a lot of shopping centers, of course. Most towns have those now. But everything was built around that square, and just evolved out from it like a star.
Yarborough
There’s a lot of horse enthusiasts, and horse breeders and racers up in that country, as I said earlier, now. So they have large statues of horses all around the square at this point.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
So it’s grown, typically, like every other city in the state of Florida.
MorrisAny particular reason the horse training took off in Ocala?
Yarborough
They’ve got a lot of lime rock up in that area, and that helps to grow very strong grass, and you need good grass for cows and horses. And it was—some people were already growing horses in the area, and they had a race horse that had won one of the very important races, that was raised from that area. So it just, after he won the race, they just started coming to that area to raise their animals and winter their animals.
Morris
Oh, better climate?
Yarborough
Better climate.
Morris
Gotcha, ma’am. How do you feel about the changes that have occurred from when you were growing up to now? Do you—positive, negative changes, anything? How do you feel?
Yarborough
Oh, I guess most of it’s positive. I want to feel that way. I try to find something positive in everything I encounter. Sometimes it’s harder than others.
Morris
And any examples of that, ma’am? You knew I was gonna ask.
Yarborough
[laughs] Oh, goodness. I’ll think on that one and come back. Okay, Joseph?
Morris
Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.
Yarborough
We’ll put that at the end. Okay.
Morris
And so, after that, where have you lived? Have you always lived in Ocala, ma’am?
Yarborough
My mother went to work, and I lived with my grandmother in Oxford.
Morris
Okay, we’re back, and we were discussing where you’ve lived over the years, ma’am.
Yarborough
Yes, Oxford is a little town in Sumter County on the west side of the state, south of Ocala, and that’s where my mother was raised. And I lived the first year before school and the first grade. I lived with my grandmother. And I had a sister, Nadine, who was about three years younger than myself. And back then, we carried our lunch to school in little brown bags or maybe like a little syrup can, whichever you had. But our grandmother always made sure that I had an apple in my lunch every day, and there wasn’t always an apple left for my sister, Nadine, to have when she wanted it, under those particular circumstances. So one morning, Grandmother—we called her Granny, Granny Olberry—was packing my lunch, and my sister, Nadine, asked for an apple, and Granny said, “Nadine, you know that Ima Jean’s got to take that apple for recess.” And Nadine got very disturbed and started crying, and she says, “When I get big and go to school, I’m going to slap recess’s face for taking Ima Jean’s apple.” So that has always been a laugh, a laughing situation in our family. Recess, of course, was time out in school to play outside. Not every kid even knows what recess is, ‘cause now it’s usually called break or gym…
Morris
P.E.
Yarborough
Something of that nature.
Morris
Right, ma’am. What kind of jobs did your family have, and that you had, also, ‘cause I’m...
Yarborough
Okay, my mother’s people were in the cow business. Her brothers and her dad were. And my mother’s mother passed away at her birth, so she was adopted by the Olberry family and moved to Oxford. And the couple that adopted her were just good old salt-of-the-earth people. Granddaddy was a[sic] what we would call jack-of-all-trades. He was a repairman. He repaired people’s cars. He repaired their equipment that broke down. He repaired their shoes. He just was a good fixer-upper. And of course, Granny stayed at home and canned, and took care of the garden and the family.
Morris
And what about your...
Yarborough
My mother worked as—she was in charge of the waiters and waitresses at a big hotel in Ocala. That was her night job. Her day job was cashier for a Piggly Wiggly, which was a strand of grocery stores at that time, that later became Winn Dixie, that we know today. She worked Winn-Dixie for 20-something years.
Morris
Okay, ma’am, and how come—your grandparents, you said, worked in cattle?
Yarborough
Yes.
Morris
But your mother did not?
Yarborough
No.
Morris
Did she not have an interest, ma’am, or...
Yarborough
No, by being adopted out, she wasn’t where the cattle were, so she went straight from school to getting married, and then working at Winn-Dixie and the hotel.
Morris
Okay, and when did you start working, ma’am?
Yarborough
I started working as a freshman in high school, and I worked for the Winn-Dixie meat—in the meat department—making hamburger, cutting up chickens, weighing out the meat and wrapping it to go into the case to be sold. And I would work on weekends and at holidays.
Morris
And how long did you have that job for, ma’am?
Yarborough
Four years of high school, and about a year afterwards.
Morris
Okay, and what did you do after high school, ma’am?
Yarborough
My husband and I got married.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
And he went into the service, and I went back and worked at Winn-Dixie for a while, ‘til I could go to Oklahoma whenever he was transferred to Oklahoma after basic training.
Yarborough
But let me go back into when I, how I met Edward [Yarborough].
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
In October—in fact, October the 26th, 1949, my mother moved to Geneva. She had remarried, and my stepfather was coming down to help his brother work his orange grove and cattle over in the Chuluota area. So we moved to Geneva, because there was a good school there. And Mother went to work at the Piggly Wiggly, which is now the Goodwill store here in Sanford on Palmetto [Avenue]. And at that time we moved into a lovely home, and that afternoon, we had some heavy furniture to be moved. And Miss Pearl Yarborough was the lady who owned the home, and she said that when her son came in, he would help move the furniture for us that afternoon, along with my stepdad. So later on we heard him—what we know now was a cow whip—making a noise coming up the road, and it was my—it was Edward and his uncle coming in from work. And their habit was to crack the cow whip all the way up the lane, and that was just to give them practice, as well as let them—Mr. [W. G.] Kilby’s wife and Edward’s mother know to put dinner on the table. “We’re coming home.” So anyway, that’s how I met Edward. And he had graduated from high school in June of that year, and we were moving in October. So we didn’t begin dating, because I wasn’t old enough to date for another year, year and a half.
Morris
How old were you at this time, ma’am?
Yarborough
I was 13.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
So, he had to wait on me to grow up. [laughs] That’s what he had to do. And he did. But that’s the way I met him.
Morris
Okay, ma’am. Can you tell us a little more about him, and then the rest of your family?
Yarborough
Mmmhm.
Morris
Because I know you mentioned that he was in the service, and that’s why you moved to Oklahoma for a while, ma’am?
Yarborough
Right, the draft was still very active in 1954.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
That’s whenever a young man turned 21, he could be drafted into the service for two years. So we had been dating probably three years by that time, and we knew that Edward was going to be drafted in January or February. He wanted to get married so that I could go with him after basic training to wherever he went. So that’s what we did. We got married December the 26th, 1954, and he went to the service in February. And after he had boot training, he was transferred to Little Rock, Arkansas, where I joined him for a couple of weeks, and then we moved everything out to Oklahoma. And we finished his two years out in Lawton, Oklahoma, at Fort Sill, and then came home, and he went back to work for his uncle, W. G. Kilby, on the cattle farm, cattle ranch. And we’ve been there ever since.
We raised four children, two girls and two boys, and the two boys have stayed on the ranch. They’ve got side jobs. Bo—or W. E. [Yarborough]—is the oldest boy, and he has a trucking business where he hauls cattle from one market to another out in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Florida base. He doesn’t do that all year. There’s just certain times of the year that that goes on. Otherwise, he works on the ranch, and he’s got a little place in Alabama, a ranch up there. So he’s back and forth.
J. W. [Yarborough]’s stayed here and stayed on the farm all the time, and he’s got a fertilizer business where he puts fertilizer out on large areas, large pastures and groves. So that’s his side job. Otherwise, he’s on the ranch at all times and manages it.
Our oldest was Lynn [Yarborough]. She became a learning disability teacher, and has worked in—we’ve had the pleasure of starting three different private schools for learning disability children, through our years. J. W. had quite a learning disability problem whenever he was first started school, and there was none in Seminole County to take care of those problems, so we finally found a wonderful teacher, Mary Dunn, who helped us start PACE School. And the problem J. W. had was seeing upside-down and backwards, and glasses could not help that. You just had to retrain the mind, somehow or another, and it takes a lot of training to get that done. So in the process, as I said earlier, we had started three schools, and we got three wonderful schools. And Lynn has been a teacher. In fact, she retired this past summer. She’s taught 33 years in learning disability.
Our youngest daughter, Reba [Yarborough], lives in Sumter County, and her family has cattle over there. So, in Lynn’s retirement, she’s helping the boys on the ranch now. She works with them whenever we mark and brand. And both of the boys’ wives help give shots and some of them, and they ride a little bit too.
Yarborough
And I’ve got three grandsons: Robert [Yarborough], J. K. [James Kilby Yarborough], and C. W. Yarborough.
Morris
Are they all from the, have the same parents, or...
Yarborough
No [laughs].
Morris
Which grandkids go with which kids?
Yarborough
Okay, Bo has a son named Robert.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
He’s probably 26 now, and he works for the forestry service on Snow Hill Road, and he has a little girl, six years old, Gracie [Yarborough]. And they’re expecting a second child around December the 21st. It’ll be a little boy.
Morris
Oh, do they have a name picked out already, ma’am?
Yarborough
They do, but I can’t tell you right now. [laughs]
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
Anyway, they have, then J. W. has two sons, James Kilby, which, who we call J. K. And right now he’s doing his junior year at Gainesville, in college, and a double-A student all the way across, I’m proud to say. Then C. W., who was born with a slight problem similar to his dad’s, and he’s in Bridges Academy now. That’s one of the schools that we started and is doing real well. He’s 15 years old and about 6’2”. He’s a big fellow.
Morris
Playing football?
Yarborough
He’s not playing football right now, but he does ranch rodeos.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
Yeah, he has played football, but prefers the rodeos.
Morris
I gotcha.
Yarborough
They’re all interested in 4-H. J. W.’s wife is Francis Yarborough, and she is a teacher, and she is our 4-H leader, also. So we’ve got a wonderful 4-H group out our way, about 43 kids in the group. They show animals at Central Florida Fair every year.
Morris
And what does the 4-H stand for, ma’am?
Yarborough
4-H is to teach the children about agricultural. Head, heart, health, and hands is[sic] the 4 H’s.
Morris
Ah.
Yarborough
And they raise steers, pigs, chickens, rabbits, sheep, goats. They also plant gardens. You can do just about anything that you’re interested in through the 4-H program.
Morris
And how long has the program? Is it like a summer program they do for a certain amount of time?
Yarborough
No, it’s round-year, year-round.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
Well, if you’re doing an animal, you don’t have to feed that animal all year, but you do about six months—six to eight months of it—of feeding the animal. Then it goes to the fair, and it’s shown and auctioned off to the highest bidder. And they buy the animals. Some people butcher the animal and eat—has it for food. Some people give it to, like the Methodist Children’s Home, for them to eat, or to the Russell House. We’ve got quite a bit of food like that donated down through the years.
Morris
Oh, okay.
Yarborough
Then they get money back to pay for the feed that they put in the animal.
Morris
And—oh, by the way, thank you very much for the—I got everybody in your family here written down. But the, um—you worked in the cattle industry, correct, ma’am?
Yarborough
I’m sorry?
Morris
You worked with the cattle as well, right? Did you start working when you came back from Oklahoma with your husband?
Yarborough
Oh, yes.
Morris
Did you go back to Piggly Wiggly for any amount of time, or did you go straight into the cattle industry, and have you stayed there the entire time?
Yarborough
No, no. I stayed home at that time, because there was[sic] quite a few older people in Ed’s family that needed to be looked after, and the only place to buy groceries back then was Sanford, which was twelve miles from Geneva, so I did the little chauffeuring back and forth of about five different older people in his family, and just helped—helped where I was needed. If we had a garden planted, I always picked the vegetables—helped pick the vegetables and can them. Back then we didn’t have too much running water, so Mondays were wash day. I’d fix a fire under the big old wash pot and heat the water, put it in the washing machine for Edward’s mother to wash clothes. Tuesdays was days to iron. You used your wash water to mop the floors with, being as conservative as we could be with the water. And Wednesdays we did other things around the house, but Mondays was always wash days, and Tuesdays was always iron day.
Morris
Did you not have indoor plumbing in your house at that time, ma’am?
Yarborough
We had both. Both.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
The outdoor was there because that’s what had been there to begin with, but they had put indoor plumbing at Edward’s home about five years before.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
Before we got married.
Morris
And when did you get involved with the cattle industry, ma’am?
Yarborough
With the cattle?
Morris
Yes, ma’am.
Yarborough
That was started in our area and in Ed’s family by his grandfather, E. H. Kilby, who came here from Pensacola as a young man, way back in the late 1800s. He stayed with a man by the name of C. S. Lee from Oviedo, lived in his barn and worked orange groves ‘til he got enough money to buy a little piece of land. And then after he got married and had a family of his own, the boys grew up and W. G. [Kilby], his second child, stayed with him, and they hunted hogs, wild hogs, on the St. John’s River area, and would butcher—would feed them out, and butcher them, and take them to the Piggly Wiggly and sell them. And they accumulated enough money to buy some land and buy some cows, by hunting the wild hogs. Then in 1949, Florida passed a law that all the animals had to be fenced in. So up until then, they roamed free, anywhere on the land that was in the area, and of course you wanted to keep them close to the river, because that was where they could get their water, and good grass too. So Mr. Kilby focused on purchasing land adjacent to the St. John’s River, where—so he could have water, as well as grass. And that’s what they did. They had land in Volusia County, and then he came over and bought some from Mr. C. S. Lee, along highway [Florida State Road] 46 and the St. John’s River, bordered by Snow Hill on the west side. And altogether, at one point, we had about 12,000 acres that was under fence. So, a lot of fences to keep up, ‘cause you did them different pastures for the cows to live in, and you’d circulate your cows. You don’t leave them on the same pasture all the time.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
So that’s just part of the, part of the way you work cattle.
Morris
And why would you rotate the cattle to different fenced areas, ma’am?
Yarborough
Well, they eat the grass down, and you have to give it time to grow back. And you leave them on that same place too long, they just pull it up by the roots, and then you don’t have any grass at all.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
So you rotate them about every 28 days.
Morris
Oh, that frequently?
Yarborough
Mmhmm. You can leave them a little longer, but just really depends on the weather. [laughs] Everything with farming and ranching depends on the weather.
Morris
So if it was rainier weather you’d keep them there longer, and drier weather you’d have to move them faster, because the grass wouldn’t grow as much, ma’am?
Yarborough
That would be safe to say, pretty well. Yeah. But warm nights is really when grass grows. That’s why grass grows so good down here in Florida. But the dirt—the sand is very porous, so you have to really fertilize it, and back then, they didn’t fertilize much. They didn’t know that back then. It was always native grass, but now we’ve got what’s called “improved grass.” So you fertilize the improved grass. The native grass, like on the river, grows on its own, because the river and the high water fertilizes the native grass.
Morris
And what is improved grass?
Yarborough
Argentina[sic] Bahia is one, and there’s a Pensacola Bahia, and that’s the two grasses that we use the most in our cattle ranch.
Morris
Okay, ma’am.
Yarborough
There’s a lot of different grasses, though, Joe.
Morris
Right, I just didn’t know if there was native grass in other areas…
Yarborough
Yes, there is.
Morris
Or if they had been, like, tinkered with.
Yarborough
No, we’ve cleaned—down through the years, we’ve cleaned up a lot of land, and made what’s referred to as “improved pastures.” That’s on the higher land. And so, you fertilize these places. We’ve made them into hayfields. Some of them are hayfields, and some of them are just regular pastures. But you always have to fertilize the improved pasture.
Morris
Okay. Could you tell me a little more about cattle raising, as is?
Yarborough
All right. We have what’s referred to as cow-calf operation.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
That means you raise the calf to about between six- and eight-hundred pounds, and then take it to market. Several years ago, we had cattle markets in Ocala, Webster, Kissimmee, Lakeland, and Okeechobee. We also had butcher houses at different parts of the state, but we no longer have but one butcher house, and that’s Center Hill over in Sumter County, close to Bushnell. The Ocala market is still open, and Webster is still open, and Lakeland and Okeechobee are still open. But the market that we would go to every week with our cattle was Kissimmee. That was the closest one to us. That closed about 20 years ago, now. So now we use mostly Lakeland, but we also—let me back up just a little bit. We lost Edward in the year 2000.
Morris
Okay, ma’am.
Yarborough
And there was a little bit of changing in the way that we do our cattle. As I said earlier, W. E. has two trucks that he hauls cattle out west with, so we would take our calves in his semi[-truck]s to markets out in Texas and sell them. And we continue to do that today. We had done that a little bit before Edward passed away, but not on the big scale, like the boys have changed the operation a little bit. But the cow-calf operation means that you raise a calf and sell it, and breed the cow back. So you buy registered bulls, and put them—and we have a mixed herd. Our main stock are the Brahmas[sic], because they get along so well here in Florida. They’re very tolerable of the mosquitoes and the hot weather and the rain, and such. But we have brought the English breeds in through the years, the Black Angus, and the White-Faced Hereford, and the Charolais, which is a cream-colored cow. And you cross that with the Brahmas[sic], and that makes for a good, good mama cow.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
So a good breeding cow is pretty good to raise calf for about 12 to 13 years, with good grass and good feed. A bull is probably good for maybe three to—they start breeding at three years, and they’re good for three to five years, so you have to keep bringing in new bulls. Each year, you bring in a certain amount of bulls. One bull can service about 35 cows, so you have to go according to your largest herds, to see how many, to see how large your herd is, to see how many bulls you need. A good bull would cost you between two- and three-thousand dollars. If you buy a bred heifer, which is a young cow, that will cost you between five- and seven-hundred dollars. But, if she has a calf in the next six months or so, then it’ll take six months to get that calf up to—which will put you into a year—that calf will bring back what that mother cost. Meanwhile she’s gotten bred again. Ready to have another calf. And that’s the cycle that you work through.
Morris
Okay, ma’am. And what would be the size of your herd? You said there’s one bull for every 35 cows, correct?
Yarborough
Yeah, you want it something pretty close to that.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
We’ve got about 1,000 head.
Morris
Okay, ma’am. Are you still using—do you still have the 12,000 acres?
Yarborough
No.
Morris
Yes, ma’am.
Yarborough
Down through the years, for inheritance tax purposes, we’ve had to sell land. We sold everything that we had in Volusia County. And we’ve sold—we sold 9,000 acres to the State of Florida, which has been turned into a game refuge and parks. It’s overflow land that’s not really a buildable property for homes. It’s real low. But an old cow can get along real well on it, so we’ve got 1,400 acres left in the family now.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
We have leased the 9,000 acres back from the state to use for the cows. We have to pay for that lease, so much an acre, and also keep up the fences and keep up the roads, and there’s a lot of responsibility there.
Morris
Oh, okay, ma’am. I noticed you mentioned, before that, at one point in time you had this many markets and this many butcher houses. How come that number has decreased over time? Were they personally yours, or were they...
Yarborough
No. No, no, no. They were, those were the ones that we could take our animals to. They were not ours personally. Kissimmee closed because of the management, and so many people started moving into the area around Kissimmee, and Orlando, and up our way, and the cattle, the little cattle ranches, were just not existent anymore. They were building homes. We could, a farmer could make more—and a rancher could make more selling his land than he could make with the cows on the land. Does that make sense to you, Jeffrey[sic]?
Morris
It does, ma’am.
Yarborough
All right. He could sell his land, and at that time put it at interest, which was 12 percent, 8 and 12 percent interest for a number of years, years ago, and could live—could live on that, and not have to work as hard. And the real estate was paying five and six and a whole lot more for land, an acre, see. So they could have that a lot easier. So, numbers were down. Numbers were down, and that’s why markets have to close. Same with the butcher houses. Same, same thing.
Morris
Okay, ma’am. That makes perfect sense to me, sounds like supply and demand. People kind of got squeezed out with the increase in population.
Yarborough
That’s right. That’s right.
Morris
Gotcha, ma’am.
Yarborough
Now, going back into the ‘50s here in Seminole County, there was about six families that made their living on cattle, all around in Seminole County. Right now—and for the last ten years—there’s three families that make, that make their living on cows. There’s a lot of people that’s got 20 head, or 10 or 20 or 40 or 60, or 150 head of cows, but they do something on the side to make a living. They work in a grocery store, or they’re a mechanic, or something else to help them make a living. But there’s only three families that’s just made their living on the ranch, and that’s the Robert Lee family of Oviedo, Betty [Yarborough] Schlusemeyer, who is Edward’s sister in Geneva, and our ranch, Ed Yarborough Ranches, in Geneva. But they all kind of congregate around the St. John’s River. Remember I said we needed the water?
Morris
Yes, ma’am, I do.
Yarborough
So the land adjacent and joins the Econ[fina] Creek and the St. John’s River. All of these three ranches go around into that area.
Morris
And do the ranches ever, do you communicate with the other ranches often?
Yarborough
Oh, yes, definitely.
Morris
In what ways, ma’am?
Yarborough
Right now, by phone [laughs].
Morris
Well, I asked for that. I should have known that was coming, ma’am.
Yarborough
That’s okay.
Morris
I meant in what capacity? Is it like a very positive relationship? Do you help each other?
Yarborough
Yes, yes, definitely. If one group might be marking and branding, and need a little help, or they might be cutting hay, and their tractor’s breaking down, they come over and get our tractor. Or one of our boys will take the tractor and go over and bale for them. And they do the same for us.
Morris
Okay, so...
Yarborough
Yeah, it’s a very congenial atmosphere. We have a very active cattlemen’s association [Seminole County Cattlemen’s Association] in the county, and you don’t have to be a cattleman to join it, because everybody wants to—every young boy wants to be a cowboy. [laughs] But nevertheless, this is a group that is also a state group, and we get information from the University of Florida about feed, fertilizer, medicines, and all, that help us raise the cattle to the better level that it is today.
Morris
So the business has improved over time?
Yarborough
Very much. Very much. Yes. See, the cows were brought here back in the 1500s by the Spanish people.
Morris
Mmmhm.
Yarborough
And they were what we refer to now as “scrub cattle,” because they lived in the scrubs, the woods, and they were all horns and bones. They weren’t very fat. But now we have to put meat on their bones, so the steaks will turn out good. So the taste is there.
Morris
Yes, ma’am, and I do love a good steak. Do you know where your cattle end up eventually? Do you know if it’s sold in Florida, or...
Yarborough
We do have that possibility of tracing every cow where it goes to, now. That is fairly new in our particular business world, I’d say five years or so back that all of this started. That is a health precaution, because if you have some tainted meat for some reason or another, it could go back to the owners, to find out if the meat was tainted at the ground level, so to speak, before it was butchered, or at the butcher house, or in transit to the grocery store.
Morris
Right. You gotta find it.
Yarborough
So you got to find that, that situation, and so we do have that facility to do now.
Morris
Do you keep track of where your cattle go?
Yarborough
Yes.
Morris
Do you know, do they usually end up—because I know you said they transfer a lot to Texas. Do...
Yarborough
They do, and they feed them out, out there. Then they get sold again to stores and such.
Morris
Do they end up all over the place, ma’am?
Yarborough
All over. All over.
Morris
Oh, okay. I didn’t know if there was a concentration. Okay.
Yarborough No.
Morris
The Yarborough more cows tend to be in Massachusetts, where they end up in.
Yarborough
Yep.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
But we do have buyers. They buy ours sight unseen, because they know from experience that we use the good bulls, and we use the right feed and medicines and everything to keep them well. So they, they even, there’s a group that bids on ours, sight unseen.
Morris
Is that a good feeling, ma’am?
Yarborough
That’s a very comfortable feeling.
Morris
And how long has the family been in this business? How far back does that go?
Yarborough
Okay. My children—Ed’s and my children—are one, two, three, are fourth, fifth generation.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
Fifth generation. And the grandchildren, C. W., J. K., and Robert, are next generation. And Gracie and her little brother will be the sixth generation. So, that’s the way it goes.
Morris
So you’re covered for now?
Yarborough
Right now.
Morris
Okay, ma’am.
Yarborough
It’s like a baseball team, almost, but you got to have help. [laughs] That’s one of the things that I take great pride in, is Edward coming through and working the kids, and working the ranch with the children, and one other man, all the years that they were growing up and all. They had to work hard, and they still do. It’s not an easy life.
Morris
It doesn’t sound easy, ma’am.
Yarborough
You don’t get just—close the gate and go on vacation. You have to, you have to stay close by.
Morris
There’s work involved?
Yarborough
There’s a lot of work involved. Have you ever dug a fence hole?
Morris
Yes, ma’am.
Yarborough
Fence post hole?
Morris
Yes, ma’am.
Yarborough
You ever strung barbwire?
Morris
Barbwire? Yes, ma’am.
Yarborough
You know what barbwire is?
Morris
Yes, ma’am.
Yarborough
Okay.
Morris
I’m in the military. We have our fair share of sharp pieces of metal that we set up.
Yarborough
Okay. Well, see, we have to grow our grass for the cows to eat. You got to provide them with water. You got to keep an eye on them, because they get sick just like we do.
Morris
Yes, okay. So it’s a very family-oriented business.
Yarborough
Very.
Morris
Not a lot of outside help, a lot of...
Yarborough
No, but we got people that we know, that if we need help, we can usually call on them. We have one hired man that works five days a week, so.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
Of course our boys, C. W.—no, J. W., and Bo—ride through all the time. They’re out there, pretty much.
Morris
Yeah, it definitely sounds like it can be a tough job.
Yarborough
It is, but it’s an interesting job. It’s rewarding. It’s rewarding in many ways, Jeff[sic]. You see that when there where the grass starts greening up after you’ve had a hard winter, and the frost has killed it and everything’s brown, and you’re feeding hay every day, and you’re feeding corn, and the ingredients that it takes to make the different types of feed we use, by the bagfuls, and spring starts coming, and the grass starts turning greener. The rains start to come. And you can smile again. But you always know it’s God’s country to begin with. You’re just the caregiver. That’s the attitude that I’ve tried to teach, and firmly believe in.
Morris
It sounds like it’s done a great job.
Yarborough
We’ve done well. We’ve been blessed.
Morris
And, I know you said one of your grandkids is 26, I think—one of the older ones?
Yarborough
Yes.
Morris
Will he be working in the cattle industry as well?
Yarborough
Oh, he helps. Yes. On his days off, it’s, and fortunately, his office is right across the street from our largest set of cow pens where we go in, off of Snow Hill Road. So, he can come over every now and then, and check on things. But on his days off, he can help us.
Morris
I thought he was a student at...
Yarborough
No, that’s the second, second one. This is the oldest one.
Morris
Gotcha. Oh okay, ma’am.
Yarborough
This is Robert, the oldest one, that works for the forestry unit.
Morris
Oh, okay.
Yarborough
And usually Mondays are his days off, because he’ll work weekends. And so, we plan to do a lot of pen work or have him riding on Mondays, when we got Robert a lot of times, ‘cause he’s a, he’s a good, big, strapping boy.
Morris
I have a question from a while ago. I just didn’t want to interrupt at the time. It was a—actually it goes even farther back, way back quite a ways, actually. You said earlier on that your husband had drafted into the service, correct?
Yarborough
Correct.
Morris
And this is in the early ‘50s—1954, I believe.
Yarborough
Yes, actually, it was ’55.
Morris
Oh, ’55, okay. Is that, was that a common occurrence at that time?
Yarborough
It was. Yes, you had the general, the boys, when they turned 21, they had to register. Or might have to register at 18, but they had to go about 21.
Morris
Definitely you get your draft card at 18, ma’am. That has not changed.
Yarborough
Oh, it hasn’t? Okay [laughs].
Morris
No, I have my draft card.
Yarborough
Okay, hut he—he had to go.
Morris
Okay. So most, almost all males at that time...
Yarborough
Back then, yes.
Morris
Oh, okay. I didn’t realize that that was still occurring after the end of World War II.
Yarborough
Yes.
Morris
Okay, I just wanted to make that clear. I didn’t know if there was an exception for him, if it was a...
Yarborough
No, no. In fact, they did make exceptions. It’s called hardship [exemption]. If a family did not, did—a lot of agriculture families did get excused, because they needed the boys on the farms.
Morris
Couldn’t afford it. Oh, okay, ma’am. But that family could, or he chose to do it regardless of...
Yarborough
Well, no, he, they didn’t give him a choice. [laughs]
Morris
Oh. Oh, the military. Okay, ma’am. I’d like to do some more general questions about your life.
Yarborough
lease.
Morris
Do you have any, any stories or childhood memories that come to mind, that you’d like to share—have recorded, ma’am? Anything that you find hilarious, or that was really important during your life as you were growing up, or even past that?
Yarborough
I was very—I have always felt I was very blessed having people in my life that would take the patience to teach me many of the things they had learned in life—older people. And my mother working, as I said earlier, I stayed with my grandmother in Oxford. I also had the opportunity to stay with a great-aunt on my mother’s side, Grace Bevel, in Bushnell. She never had children, but she accepted me as hers, and Mother let me stay with her quite a bit in my younger years. And she was a very—she was a learned person, and most willing to teach me how to crochet, how to cook, how to be good to others, and a lot of Bible verses, and rhymes. Because in her day, a lot of the teaching was done by voice, from one to the other, and singing it or either telling the stories is where doing it like the history and such. But she taught by repeating rhymes and songs and things. And states and capitals, multiplication tables. There was a railroad track right next to her house, and we had to—for me to get to play on the railroad track, between trains, I had to learn to spell certain words, big hard words, and then I could go over and walk the railroad tracks.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
And that was—like I said, we didn’t have TVs or radios, back then. We invented our own playtime and playthings. But I had Aunt Grace, and I had Granny Olberry, and my mom. Those were the close ladies in my life until we moved to Geneva, and then Edward had an aunt, Catherine Kilby, who was his Uncle W. G.’s wife. They had no children, neither. But she took a liking to me, and was just like a mother in teaching me, because she too was a schoolteacher. And then Edward’s mother, Pearl Yarborough, was like a mother to me. We called her Mama Pearl, especially whenever the children started coming. Ed and I were married four years before we had any children, because we didn’t want to live in the house with his folks and raise children. So we waited ‘til we accumulated enough money to build a house, and we were given the piece of property by Mr. Kilby to build right there between his mother and him. They put the young couple there to help the older people, is what I was told. [laughs] And we did. We worked together beautifully as a family. But go ahead.
Morris
Oh, I was going to say, are there any historical events, even international or domestic?
Yarborough
I remember the day that that Second World War was declared. I had broken my arm. I was in the third grade, doing something very foolish—the seesaws. The seesaws at school were built up about three feet high, and the boards were about twelve foot long. And I was acting like Tarzan. I was standing up on one end, and there was five girls on the other, and they would bounce me up. They would hit the ground hard with their end, bounce me up, and I’d come down, and supposed to hit the board. And I was pretty good at it, ‘til I fell one morning and broke my arm, my shoulder, right in the shoulder. And the doctors wanted to remove my arm because gangrene set in. They could not set it. At that time, Second World War was going on.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
And all the good doctors had been taken to war, so it was just a group of older doctors in Ocala. No surgeons, and my mother was pregnant with my third sister. And she just begged the doctor not to, not to take my arm off. Girls couldn’t get along without an arm. And this is—this will show you how God works. God sent up a surgeon home to Ocala, Dr. Davis, and he was home for two weeks, because they were going to ship him overseas. And Mother’s Dr. Ferguson heard that he was home, and he called him up and told him about my arm, and he said that, told him that we’re going to have to cut it off, unless he thought he could do something. He said that he didn’t have any idea what to do, but he would try. So they fashioned some type of plate to fit around the bone, because it was broken in the joint, so to speak, where the arm joints the shoulder. And it had four screws in this plate, and the operation took six hours. And that was a long operation, back then, especially. And they said I could use that plate for about a year, but then they’d have to go in there and take it out, because my bone would still be growing, and they, it wouldn’t stay properly. But it would probably never be a working arm. But, during all of this, Mother had had the baby, and she stayed home with me, and they didn’t have physical therapy that much back then, but Mother would rub this arm and exercise it, and I wasn’t let ride a bicycle, or skate, and I was a very active sports person. But today I have use of my arm.
Morris
That’s fantastic, ma’am.
Yarborough
Because of the doctors. And they did the surgery the next year, took the plate out, and I’ve got about a 14 inch scar on the arm that doesn’t bother me a bit to show. I’m proud to have the arm. But that’s, two of them—oh, and to getting back. I’m regressing. During this time, I said I remember the day that they...
Morris
World War II.
Yarborough
World War [II] was declared. I remember reading in the Bible, as a youngster, that God said He would destroy the earth the next time by fire. The first time He destroyed the earth by water.
Morris
Yes, ma’am.
Yarborough
And they talked about the atomic bomb. Maybe it wasn’t war declared. It was when they did the, dropped the atomic bomb.
Morris
At the end of the war.
Yarborough
Yes, whenever they did that, I said, “Well, that’s what’s going to have a part in God’s next coming, is the atomic bomb.” That was just my mental perception.
Morris
That stuck out to you?
Yarborough
Yes, yes.
Morris
Okay.
Yarborough
But that could have changed my whole life, too. I could have lost my arm on that deal, had Dr. Davis not come home.
Morris
That’s definitely a memory that would have stuck with me too, ma’am. Do you—we’re about to wrap up. Do you have anything you’d like to share before we go, ma’am? Anything that you feel that we overlooked or bypassed?
Yarborough
I think you’ve done a marvelous job, Jeff[sic]. I just feel it a great privilege to have had the opportunity to grow up in the little community of Geneva. Geneva is made up of a lot of older people that have retired from businesses, but they are willing to work with youngsters down through the years, through the school systems and the different community groups that we have out there, through the homemakers and the 4-H, and through the [Rural] Heritage Center and churches. I just feel very fortunate to have been put there for a reason, and I’ve tried to repay it in every way that I could by working with the youth as much as I can, all through the years. So I feel very blessed to have been there.
Morris
Thank you very much, ma’am, for coming in today.
Yarborough
Thank you.
Motta
All right. It is May 30, 2012, and I am speaking to Mr. Leonard Casselberry and Mrs. Jane Casselberry at the Museum of Seminole County History. To start off, Mr. Casselberry, can you tell me a little about where you were born and your childhood?
Leonard
Well, I was born in Chicago[, Illinois]. I fit in a shoebox when I came down here, and I grew up and went to school in Winter Park.
Motta
So you just moved down here when you were one or two?
Leonard
Yes, yes.
Motta
So you went through high school in Winter Park High School?
Leonard
I went to military school two years.
Jane
Bolles
Leonard
Bolles Military School in Jacksonville.
Motta
Jacksonville.
Leonard
And went in the Navy.
Motta
So did you not spend much of your childhood in the Central Florida area, or…
Leonard
Oh, yes. Yes, went to school in Winter Park, and back out in Casselberry, when I was working out there, following my dad around a little bit. It’s what you usually do [laughs].
Motta
So how long did you stay? You went through high school here, or just—when did you go to military school?
Leonard
Junior, senior year.
Motta
Okay. Was there any particular reason you went there, or...
Leonard
Well, it was just coming up on the war [World War II], and dad sent us for a little military training or something.
Motta
So how old were you when the war broke out?
Leonard
Eighteen or something.
Jane
Seventeen, I think.
Leonard
Seventeen.
Motta
Seventeen? So you didn’t serve? You were a little too young then?
Leonard
Couldn’t get in, then.
Motta
Yeah. No, no problem there.
Leonard
[laughs].
Motta
So do you have any memories of—I mean, how was it, being the son of somebody who was starting his own town?
Leonard
Of course, we—Dad[1] was in the fern business out here, and occasionally I could ride from Winter Park, where I went to school at. We lived on Lake Maitland in Winter Park, and I’d ride with Dad coming out here. From Via Tuscany, and then come out on…
Jane
Lake Howell Road.
Leonard
Lake Howell Road, and turn left and come back out this way.
Motta
I imagine that trip was different then, much different-looking.
Leonard
Yes, came by the turkey farm, and came on out through the orange groves, on out to Casselberry.
Jane
It wasn’t Casselberry in charter until 1940. His dad came in 1926, to work with—what’d they call it, Fern Park Estates? Where they would try to have like an artist colony, and people to come down, and they would have a little piece of fernery, and some orange, piece of orange groves. Maybe they’d have a little income with their house, and they could retire here or come in the winter, and…
Motta
And that was with Mr. Burnett?
Jane
Yes, he was hired to sell real estate, and to—and Mr. Burnett had a fernery, and Mr. Casselberry started his own fernery, and of course there was a lot of tension between the two.
Motta
Yeah, I’d imagine. Yeah.
Jane
Yeah.
Motta
And you went to Winter Park High School, correct—s well?
Jane
I did. I graduated from Winter Park High.
Motta
And that’s where you two met?
Jane
Yes.
Motta
So did either of you do any work with the ferns or azaleas or anything? Like, were you actually…
Jane
He did as a kid, in the winter, when they called everybody in due to the danger of freezing.
Motta
Any stories there?
Leonard
Well, you know, are you familiar with a fern shed, and you see the pots and so on? But what’s the temperature on there? And the temperature indicates it’s going to be down close to freezing. We’d call the hands in, so to speak, and watch the temperature, and then Dad had thermometers stuck in the different areas around the fernery, so we could check the different areas, and when the temperature goes down in one part of it, they notify, send somebody out to get the hands, ‘cause most of them didn’t live in Casselberry. They lived over in Altamonte [Springs], and they’d send the truck around, get the fellows to come in that were gonna be there, and one of the ladies would come in, do a little cooking for us. We’d watch, read the thermometers, and when the temperature goes down close to 30-something, we’d pass the word along. The men would come on in, and they’d get their—some of them would have—Dad used to issue boots, and…
Jane
How did they light the smudge pots?
Leonard
They’d go around with—light the flare or a little torchlight that they could light, and they’d tip them down and spill some of the diesel and gas mixture into the pot to get it started.
Motta
Into the soil?
Leonard
In the pot. Light up, take a little while, ‘cause it was fuel oil and not gasoline. It’d explode or something. So.
Motta
So that’s how they kept the ferns warm?
Leonard
Yes—well, they’d light it. And, I was reading—Paul Bates was one of those foremen there, and he’d go in and light the north, and the west, or sometimes the east side, first. A row along the fence. Well, the heat inside slat roofs like that, keeps some of the heat underneath. But it’d let the sunlight in the daytime, but when it got cold, it’d keep some of the heat in it. When the temperature got down to 32 [degrees Fahrenheit], they’d light up the side that the breeze was blowing on, and that would go through the fernery and would still keep it above freezing, until it got lower at other parts and they’d light other pots. Sometimes they’d have to light them all—before morning, ‘cause the cold temperature here about seven o’clock or after. It was quite interesting, and we’d get around the heaters, and of course we’d have to continue reading, and if the temperature drops down, or comes back up, we’d put some of them out, or didn’t light them all. When the time comes to shut them down, they’d go by and snuff them out. Then we’d have to fuel them, and Dad got the Atlantic Coast Line Railway[sic] to put a side track on up there where Casselberry’s siding, inside where our railroad station is, and how it got started.
Got a siding there. They’d come in, drop a tanker there, and we’d pump it out of there, and some of it would be there, then we’d pump it from there, part of it, out to a tank out by one part of the fernery, and another part to another part. Then they also had another pump. It would feed the line. We had line running from the tank on out the fernery. I don’t know if it shows it in this photograph or not, of a—run about a two-inch line, and then drops down to smaller, and then we had the faucet to fill at the end of each row where the pots were going down through, like in a row, and fasten the oil hose there, close the valve, of course, and then, move to the next one and fill the next row of pots that way.
Motta
Well, there’s a lot—there’s a lot you don’t think about, that goes into that.
Leonard
Yeah, they dragged in the oil, you know, like a sprinkler line or hose line down there, and it has a valve on the hose, so you’ll stick it inside the pot and watch until it gets full, turn it off and go to the next pot, does the same thing, in a row, and then as far as they can reach, and then go over to the next one and go back down, to fill them so they’d be ready for the next day.
Jane
Well, tell him about how they’d cut the fern asparagus plumosus and how they sorted it and everything.
Leonard
Well, asparagus plumosus used to—you’d refer to it as that ferns you’d see in the front of the banquet or someplace like that.
Jane
The center of the table.
Leonard
The center of the table. Sometime you get a flake of it in your butter or something—like that, butter patty?
Jane
[laughs].
Leonard
It’s a lacy fern, and it usually lays flat. When it grows, as you call it asparagus plumosus, it comes up just like a shoot of asparagus, and comes on out and sticks way up in a room like this and finally feathers out up there like that, and turned—of course, it’s not always green. It’s yellow and gets green when—it gets dark green—when you grip it off to bring in the packinghouse, and in the packinghouse, they’ll cut them and bring them in in bunches, big bunches like this—field hands— ‘cause they’ll catch all different kinds when they’re clipping them, just trying to clip ripe ones, or good ones, so to speak, and then we they come in—and then the girls will grade them, and they’ll grade them, and some of them are long, and some of them are medium, and some will be shorts.
Motta
And get rid of the…
Leonard
The rest of them.
Motta
The rejects.
Leonard
Well, yeah. Go out, and then, they will be more or less laid flat on each other, like this, with a ball, bag of moss, like, on the end of it, with a—they’re tied together.
Jane
And it would have been in a tank of water.
Leonard
Ball of paper around it, and then they would be put in a tank to preserve them, like when you put flowers in a jar to keep them.
Motta
Were they shipped out like that?
Leonard
They would just sit down on slats in shallow tanks, like this, in rows, and then they would go in, pick them out, and go to pack them. Well, they were taken out of there, and dipped in icy water, and break up ice, put it in a tank, about so square and that deep. They’d dip them in so they’d get wet all the way through. Then they’d throw them on the rack and let them drain out, and then they’d put them in thin wood pack…
Jane
Crates.
Leonard
Crates, like food crates, like…
Motta
Like fruit crates?
Leonard
Similar to that, and they would line the box with newspapers. We used to open up newspapers, get them flat like this, and then we’d roll them and take them and sell them to Barnett or Casselberry who needs them, buys them, pays them so much a pound for them. So many cents a pound for them. The newspapers all flat, and they’d take four, five, six of them to line the box, put down the end, the side, and the side like this, and some in the bottom. They’d put a few bunches of fern in there like this, and then they’d have a chunk ice, and wrap it in newspaper, several layers, depending upon the size of the box for shipping, and you’d be put it in the middle. They’d put some more fern around it like that, close newspapers around it like that, and close the crate like that. Then you gotta—like an ice box, ice in the middle, wrapped up in paper, and the fern’s the insulation, and outside’s the insulation’s newspapers, and they’d take it to the railway express, and they’d load it on the train.
Motta I never realized how much ice was involved with ferns.
Leonard Yes.
Jane And the—these ferns were shipped directly to the florist, and they could be packed to order if they wanted so many shorts or longs.
Motta
And did you ship just to around the Florida area, or nationally?
Leonard
Nationally.
Jane
All the states and Canada.
Motta
Oh, yeah?
Jane
At one time, it was the largest fern business in the world.
Motta
And that kind of tapered off after the [World] War [II]?
Jane
Well, during the war, of course, that was not a priority, to ship ferns. There were war materials. Also, a lot of the men were called to war, and didn’t have people to work.
Motta
So the women were mostly working in the…
Jane
So that’s when Mr. Casselberry was looking for something to help the war effort that would involve something that the women would be good at, and they said women can sew, you know. So that’s when they started making the bandoliers for the Army.
Leonard
And parachutes for fragmentation bombs?
Jane
That came later.
Motta
And your father—did he own the factories that made those, or...
Jane
Yes.
Leonard
Yes, he converted some of the buildings where the fertilizer mixing—where we mixed the fertilizer for a while, and we quit doing that and used that building on the railroad…
Jane
To make bandoliers.
Leonard
To make bandoliers on it.
Jane
But for the parachutes, we had to have a special building, and of course getting any priority to build anything was frankly impossible back then.
Leonard
Couldn’t build, even with the parts that you couldn’t buy building material, to build houses or anything like that, ‘cause everything was going to the war.
Jane
But he got the permission ‘cause they needed this product, and it went up in, what, how many days? A month or two months, and they said it was like a miracle building, you know. So that’s where they were making the bomb chutes to be used…
Motta
Do you…
Jane
Do you wanna tell what they—how they—why they needed them?
Leonard
Well, they needed them for fragmentation bombs. The ones they dropped bombs on, they had to fly low to drop down. But when you drop a bomb, it follows along underneath your plane. So they wanted a parachute for the backup to slow the—so the pilot could get out, you know?
Jane
Lost a lot of planes that way!
Leonard
[laughs].
Jane
So they came up with the idea of putting a parachute on the bomb so it would slow it down and let the crew get away.
Motta
I’ve always seen the parachutes on the bomb, and I never thought of that. Yeah, that’s—could I—I’d like to back up a little bit. When you two met in high school, did you know who he was? I mean, did you know, like, who his father was?
Jane
Well, we were probably in tenth grade, and we would have shared some classes, study hall.
Motta
So everybody knew who his father was and everything at that time?
Jane
Well, not really much. But he had a nice convertible—owned by his dad—that he could come to school in. [laughs]
Motta
What kind of convertible?
Jane
Ford.
Leonard
This was a Ford Club Coupe convertible, with the top down.
Motta
Oh [laughs]. That’s a nice Florida car.
Leonard
Yeah, she wanted a ride home, but she didn’t tell me that ‘til later.
Motta
[laughs] Well, looks like things worked out well.
Leonard
Yes, very well.
Jane
Yes, and he lived on one side of Lake Maitland, and I lived on the other, and he would come see me in his mother’s sailboat.
Motta
So that was in Winter Park, not Maitland, you lived in?
Jane
That was Winter Park, Lake Maitland.
Motta
Okay. So, I mean, [laughs] what do you—I’d love to get your opinion on what you think of how the city’s [Casselberry] progressed. When you look at it today, what do you think? I mean, what comes to your mind?
Leonard
Well, we remember when we were incorporated, but also remember when we didn’t have so many families there.
Jane
Back to about the paper that they wrapped the ice in, that was a good way—later, after the war, when we had children, that’s how they made their money to go to the movies or whatever. We’d take newspapers, and roll them, and sell them to the fernery.
Motta
Oh, yeah? So people would just collect newspapers and sell them?
Leonard
Yeah, you’d collect your newspapers, leftover newspapers.
Jane
Stack them up and roll them.
Leonard
Recycling, so to speak.
Motta
Do you remember how much you got for like a bundle, or—like, how much…
Jane
Not much, but it was a lot then.
Motta
Yeah, few cents here and there. Yeah.
Leonard
Well, get a couple of rolls, and you made a movie ticket.
Motta
That’s not bad.
Jane
And the ferns were shipped on railway express, back then, ‘cause they didn’t have the airplanes and things, and one of the first times we ever sent a shipment out on air, we went up to Ocala, and there was just like a cargo plane, maybe like a [Douglas] DC-3.
Motta
So there wasn’t an airport near Sanford, then?
Jane
Well, I don’t know. Maybe that was the nearest one that was shipping agricultural things.
Motta
So do you remember—I read that your father got into azaleas—like starting to grow azaleas. Is that correct?
Jane
Yeah.
Leonard
Yes, back…
Jane
Earlier he was into gladiolas.
Motta
Oh, yeah.
Jane
They grew out gladiolas from the bulbs. And—I gave Kim [Nelson] a picture, and the Belgian azaleas were beautiful. Up ‘til then, you know, just had the plain azaleas. But we had—with the Belgian azaleas, there were so many different varieties, and they were ruffled, [inaudible], different colors and combination of colors, and he was in business with a man called Jules Cole…
Leonard
Jules Cole.
Jane
That knew about azaleas. That’s how they got introduced.
Motta
But it was mostly just ferns. That was the main product?
Jane
Yeah.
Leonard
The Belgian azaleas, they set up as a couple acres or something like that for him, and developed them. Dad sold them out on the highway, and would scatter them around through town.
Jane
There was an area that had, like the bay trees and oak trees and things. It was like north of where the [Casselberry] City Hall is now. It’s this plain, but back then it was just thick woods.
Motta
Near Lake Concord, or...
Jane
And he had, like…
Leonard
South of Lake Concord.
Motta
Okay.
Jane
Like a faux Cypress Gardens. He had girls in antebellum skirts and outfits, showing people around the azaleas.
Motta
Oh, yeah? Were there like refreshments and things there?
Leonard
No, it wasn’t that. But it was just a…
Motta
Just a…
Leonard
Something that slows traffic down.
Jane
[laughs].
Motta
So you mentioned going by orange groves. Your father wasn’t in that business at all? Orange…
Leonard
No, we had a couple places where we started some going. Tally Hattaway and I got a bunch of seedlings up, but we didn’t follow through with much of them.
Jane
They were, like, sour, and they had this idea of planting them in the ferneries to add a shade. I guess it was expensive to replace the slats, and they planted these trees—orange trees—that got big, to provide shade, and that was the area where you find Target now.
Motta
By the Evergreen Cemetery?
Jane
It was all ferneries, and it had those orange trees growing in there. The sour oranges.
Motta
So the orange trees were pretty much abandoned then, ‘cause of the sour?
Jane
Yeah.
Leonard
Yeah, well, they liked the oak trees, and the competition we had…
Jane
Oak trees, yeah.
Leonard
Was from DeLand ferneries, and they’d grow theirs out in the woods, under the oak trees.
Jane
Out in Volusia [County].
Motta
So that was your father’s competition, the DeLand growers?
Leonard
Some of it was there.
Jane
We had local competition.
Leonard
Yeah, and then, so, we started buying oak trees. Dad put some of them on every lot that he was developing, and then we had planted some of them in ferneries, and so we had quite a few that were trees, but we didn’t replace the slats much again, and just let them grow under the trees. We could get them that way.
Jane
Well, we moved to Casselberry after he got out of the Navy, after World War II, and he had a piece of fernery that he’d inherited, from an aunt or something?
Leonard
Aunt May had left it to my brother and I, a couple acres of fernery, were on these development deals where they could have a house on it and so on, and Dad just leased those, so I said, “Well, can I lease those?” And Dad said, “Yeah, let me lease them.” So I’d be responsible for them, and I’d see about getting the fertilizer, mowing them, taking care of them. Had a crew working, just like big crews too. Yeah. Of course, in most cases they’re cutting fern or something like that, but they also had crews that they’d weed when they weren’t cutting. They’d go back to weeding or something else.
Motta
So that looks like a pretty big fernery. Was that about average size, or was this...
Leonard
No, that’s just one acre or so. There’d be several of those put together.
Jane
And he got, worked up all these florist customers, and we went through the Midwest, visiting and trying to get business.
Motta
So was that your primary business after you got out of the Navy?
Leonard
Probably for a little while. But Dad wanted us to go to the conventions, and we’d have to wear white.
Jane
Yeah, he always wore a white Palm Beach suit, or white with white jodhpurs or something, with a spray of fern on his lapel, and so when we were going with him to Chicago, to the convention, we had to have the white suits, too. With the fern.
Motta
And you didn’t care for those?
Jane
Oh, they were fine, except I got one and he said, “No, that wouldn’t do it.” It had to be like the Palm Beach kind of suit.
Motta
Wrong kind of fern?
Jane
So—went back and got some more—another outfit.
Motta
So you’ve lived in Casselberry since then? You haven’t lived anywhere else, moved anywhere?
Jane
Not since then.
Leonard
Well, we lived at the horse track for several years.
Motta
At the horse track?
Leonard
Yes.
Jane
Yes, see, soon after we moved to Casselberry, Mr. Casselberry acquired the Seminole Driving Park, and that was what, at the time, a winter training track for harness horses, and it was built about 1925, something like that, and then at time there was thoroughbred racing and different things. So here we were. We had no experience in this at all, and they’re a very closed community—the horsemen. But, so then he had to get the property ready, the barns fixed up and tack rooms, and came with it like a grandstand and a clubhouse. Well, his dad wanted him to run the clubhouse like an American plan hotel. So, as well as maintaining the track and everything, we had to go in the hotel business.
Motta
And that was...
Jane
And he was his early twenties, with—had to learn, like, experience…
Motta
As you’re going along?
Jane
Yeah, and he had to go up north to the horse sales to placate the horsemen that might have been upset about something that happened before we got it, and talk them into coming back, and then he would fix up the barns and do this and that. So.
Leonard
Of course, we didn’t know that when Dad—it’s adjacent to his property, and Dad bought it and he’d acquired some additional property to be able to develop part of. Says, “You can take care of the horses or I can.” So we were in there and trying to take care of it. When they sold it is when the horsemen had agreed with Ben White Raceway, which hadn’t started yet. They said Orlando told them, “We’ll build this half-mile track in Orlando if you’ll come down here, leave Seminole [County].” So they agreed to do that.
Jane
Well, we figured, at least we’ve got this guy Frank that’s a track man that would know what to do and knows the horsemen, and then he announces that he’s been hired to go to Ben White [laughs].
Motta
So they just stole it all away from...
Jane
Yeah [laughs].
Leonard
Well, they stayed just a little bit. We had some help getting up until they had to move to over there, on how to handle—we bought a jeep to drag the track with. Had a water wagon.
Jane
A clay track. Dirt track.
Motta
And was this all—were all these jobs—you were writing at the time?
Jane
I was not writing—well, I had been writing just local news for the area newspapers.
Motta
Like the Sanford newspaper?
Jane
But not full-time. So, his dad advertised it with an organization called “Ask Mr. Foster”, where you could—they send people to you, a travel service, you know, and so we were getting—here we were, and we had people, ninety-year-old women and eighty-year-old men, and then we had young families looking for excitement, and women looking for men. Whatever, you know [laughs]. Had all this variety, plus we had the horsemen to feed, and the grooms you’d have to feed like at five in the morning, before they went out to work the horses, and we’d have—they would be kind of rough, and would come and get drunk or something, and then we’d have these nice people [laughs] Oh, it was interesting.
Motta
Sounds interesting. So did you have any other jobs after that, or...
Jane
Well, in the summertime, we didn’t have the horses. About May, they would go up to the races, and sometimes you would have car races back then, before they had the Daytona…
Motta
[Daytona] 500?
Jane
They would have stock car races on that track.
Motta
And where was this located, the track located? In the…
Jane
You know where Seminola Boulevard is?
Motta
The same, where the…
Jane
Where they’re building apartments there now.
Motta
Oh, the big…
Jane
At the end of Seminola Boulevard.
Motta
Oh, yeah, the big field area.
Leonard
Yeah.
Jane
Yeah, all of that was our track property.
Motta
When did that go away, the track?
Jane
We had a one-mile track. After Mr. Casselberry sold his white elephant. He—it was various kinds of horse races with pari-mutuel betting, and then it was dog races. I mean, we had like a dog track on each end of Seminola.
Motta
So the track went away in the ‘70s or so, or, around then?
Jane
Well, a few years back, they closed down the dog track, and then they sold it to this developer. Well, actually, they sold it to Northland Church, and then Northland decided to expand on their present property on Dog Track [Road], and they sold it to the developer, and they’re still building and building, building.
Motta
Oh, wow. Well, learn something new every day.
Leonard
Yes.
Motta
So, your opinion on today’s Casselberry?
Leonard
Is it what?
Motta
Do you like it? Do you enjoy what the city is like now?
Leonard
Oh, yes. Of course, Dad had a lot of fun while it was happening.
Motta
Yeah. I know it was a lot different.
Leonard
He was working and sweating on a lot of it, some of it.
Motta
You think he would be proud of what it has become?
Leonard
Oh, yes.
Jane
I think so. Right now, it’s in kind of flux in major areas, business areas, because of those fly-overs.
Motta
Yeah, I actually live just about a half-mile from one of those—the construction site. So, yeah.
Jane
Yeah, they built—you know, they bought up property. But it’s just sitting there, and the business had to move, or close, or something. But we like the parks, what they’re doing with the parks. They’re beautiful, and people are using them.
Motta
Well, let’s see if we have any…
Jane
You asked what he did. He’s done a little bit of everything, but he worked for Casselberry Utilities many years. His father developed the sewer system that built the sewer plant and everything. That was the first sewer plant in Seminole County that really treated the sewage.
Leonard
Sanford had one. They just chewed it a little bit and dumped it in a lake.
Jane
Dumped it in Lake Monroe.
Leonard
[laughs].
Motta
Did your father own the utility company, or was that city by then?
Leonard
He owned it.
Jane
He owned it, and eventually it was sold to the city, and he continued to work for the city.
Leonard
For a short time.
Jane
For a time.
Leonard
Seven years. Not enough to get a retirement out of it.
Jane
And then after he retired, he went to work for the City of Winter Park Utilities, ‘til he was up in mid-seventies.
Motta
Oh, impressive.
Leonard
That’s a while back.
Jane
Yes, 87 now.
Motta
Oh, wow. Congratulations. Working into your mid-seventies, that’s admirable.
Jane
A lot of people can be doing that now [laughs].
Motta
Yeah, it’s admirable, though. Was there anything else you would like to discuss that we haven’t already? Any anecdotes or anything?
Leonard
Any more questions you have?
Motta
I think we covered a lot there.
Leonard
Yes, more than you want, probably.
Motta
Oh, no, this is great for me. All right. Well, thank you very much.
[1] Hibbard Casselberry.
Motta
This is Daniel Motta.I am interviewing Mr. Bob Hattaway at his business, Adult Toy Storage, in Altamonte Springs.To start, Mr. Hattaway, could you tell me where you were born?
Hattaway
I was born in the city of Altamonte Springs in 1936, which today, the location is on Lake Orienta, which at one time was called Orienta Ferneries, later in years.And the Hattaway family lived on that property for a number of years, probably 30 years, or something.
Motta
So you were born on the property?
Hattaway
I was born on the property, yeah.At that time, when I was born, 1936, a lot of people did not go to hospitals.They couldn’t afford it.So I was born at home.
Motta
And could you tell me a little about the neighborhood, the house, property?
Hattaway
The property, basically—it was 150 acres of property.Thirty acres of the property was into a fernery slat shed growing tropical foliage and plants, mostly asparagus plumosus fern, and then another fern called leatherleaf fern, which came on in a later date, which became very popular in the flower industry.But we were growing plants and flowers and a lot of different products back at that time, to sell.So it was a very rural area.Altamonte Springs had one road leading in and one road leading out, and it was Highway 436 [Florida State Road 436].If you wanted to go shopping, you would get on 436 and travel [US Route] 17-92 to Downtown Orlando, because there were no stores in Altamonte Springs, or Casselberry.You had to go to Orlando to shop.
Motta
And I imagine 436 looked a lot different then.
Hattaway
Yeah, 436 was probably a two-lane road, and going through the middle of Altamonte Springs was a four-lane road divided in the middle by two very large rows of oak trees, from about where the Altamonte Mall is today, all the way to the railroad track in Altamonte Springs.That’s going from west to the east.
Motta
Were any of these paved roads?
Hattaway
It was paved, yeah.Sometimes.But Maitland Avenue also was there, which was a two-lane road itself.But very rural.I mean, there was really nothing out here.
Motta
And you said, on the property, only part of it was ferns?
Hattaway
Yeah.Of the hundred acres, a lot of it, 30-something acres of it was slat shed fern itself, and the other was open fields, and we were growing plumosus or podocarpus, and were using that.We’d grow the podocarpus and cut that as cuttings and ship that to the northern market, to flower shops as well.So, and everything at that time, back when the fern business back in the [19]50s, and [19]60s, most of the freight was moved by rail, and not by truck.So there was a big depot in Altamonte Springs, and the depot itself, the major portion of it, was people like us—Hattaways, Casselberrys, Vaughns, etc.—shipping boxes and boxes and boxes of cut fern to the northern market, to flower shops.
Motta
And that would all take place here, or would it go to Sanford first, and go from there?
Hattaway
No.
Motta
Just directly?
Hattaway
There was a direct stop in Altamonte Springs and a direct stop in Casselberry, and also a direct stop in Longwood and Maitland.So they were little whistle stops, but most of the time they were stopping to pick up a product, like the fern product, and then some passengers.But there were no 7-Elevens, and there was absolutely nothing out here at that particular point in time.Not any tourists as well.
Motta
About how many families lived in this area, you think?
Hattaway
Well, you know, on the Orienta Fernery side, which was known as the Royal Ferneries at one time, there were probably—it was a housing development there, row houses for the migrant workers, or the workers, to live on the premise and work there, and [inaudible] 40-something houses with a church, [inaudible] on Hattaway Drive today, this long, long, long, then gone?.But they provided housing for people, and they were not great to live in and to be able to work.
Motta
And did your father build the houses and the church?
Hattaway
No, those were built back in the—golly.My father went in, they bought from Hibbard Casselberry, 1951.They bought what at that time they called the Royal Ferneries, and they bought that from Hibbard, and Hibbard bought it, I think, in 1946—‘45.And then my father worked for Mr. Casselberry, and my grandfather worked for Mr. Casselberry, and my two uncles, also, worked for Mr. Casselberry. All of them in stooped labor, cutting ferns by hand and taking it to the packinghouses, and then being able to ship the product to the northern market.And there were no Kmarts, and there were no big Walmarts, and those kind of things.Flower shops were flourishing.That was the mainstay of the fern business at that time, corsages and bouquets and things of that nature.
Motta
So what year did you say your father procured the property?
Hattaway
He bought the property from Hibbard in 1951.
Motta
Okay. So, when you were born, he was working in the industry?He just didn’t…
Hattaway
He was working with Mr. Casselberry.Yeah.
Motta
Okay. And what were your experiences like as a child? Did you also have any contact with—did you work in fields at all?
Hattaway
Yes, yes.Oh, yeah[laughs]. Those were wonderful moments.[laughs]
Motta
Could you tell me a little about them?
Hattaway
Out there with stooped labor, working in the—I would work in the summer months when I was out of school, high school and grammar school.I would pull weeds in the fernery.And they would hire a lot of young people like myself at that time—ten, twelve years old.And our job was—the fernery was full of weeds of various kinds, and so we’d line up ten, fifteen, or twenty of us in rows.We’d go down through and pull the weeds out of each row.That was a terrible job.I knew when that was happening I didn’t want to stay in the nursery business, or fern business.I darn sure didn’t want to be a stooped laborer in the field.But that’s where my family came from.I mean, they worked for every Casselberry.And Hibbard brought my grandfather and my father both out of the fernery, out of the field, and put my grandfather in charge of the fernery over[?]—which was the Royal Fernery at that time, Casselberry Ferneries as well—and put my grandfather in charge of that side of the fernery, and then my father went over to the main plant over in the middle of Casselberry, and he became the main foreman over there, in an office, working for Mr. Casselberry.And so Mr. Casselberry brought him out of the field, very little education, and put him in charge of a number of people.At that time, you know, back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, the fern business, it was a big business, and they were employing probably two, three hundred people.So it was a lot of people depending on the Casselberrys and the Foleys[?] in the fern business at that time as well.
Motta
So when you were in the fields doing that work that you loved so much, were you paid for that, or was that just something expected of you?
Hattaway
Oh, yeah.Yeah, we got paid for it.
Motta
Do you remember…
Hattaway
Twenty-five cent an hour.And I was, you know—I’ve always loved to work.That’s been my mainstay, and I’ve got great work habits.And I think most people back then did.I’m not sure what they have today.I know it’s not as good as it was back then.But Mr. Casselberry provided a lot of employment for young people when school was out, that they could work during the summer.And pulling those weeds was part of what you did.And I would get out, and we’d help with the repair of the slat sheds, repairing the irrigation systems, just to keep the fernery back in good repair, so we could grow the fern itself.But it’s hard work.
Motta
I’d imagine.
Hattaway
But, you know, I did that every summer.When I got out of school, the following week I’d be working in the field.
Motta
Could you tell me a little about where you went to school?Did you—high school, or did you go to college after?
Hattaway
Sure.I went to Lyman High School, grades one through twelve.I went to Winter Park High School the 10th grade to the 11th grade, and then came back to Lyman for the 12th grade itself.So I was actually grade one through ten at Lyman High School, the old school.
Motta
It wasn’t called Lyman High School then?
Hattaway
It was called Lyman High School, yeah.
Motta
But it was one through twelve?
Hattaway One through twelve, yeah.There were, when I graduated, in 1954—’55 there were twelve boys and one girl in my class.Thirteen class.And the class behind us, I think, had 25.So it was a very small school back then, and grade one was, you know—all the way through.And I think they stopped that just before—no, it was still going on in 1955.It was still grade one through twelve, I think, at that time.But Lyman today is probably graduating one thousand kids at one whack.And you got Oviedo, and etc., etc.Great changes, but, you know, we had small classes.Probably the max in a class was 20, 25.Teachers were very personal.Teachers knew us all, and it turned out, had a good education.When I graduated from Lyman, I think there was only two people in our class went to college, and the rest of us went into the work field.And I immediately, when I graduated, I started buying real estate, starting my own fernery.
Motta
Graduated from high school?
Hattaway
Yeah, high school.I didn’t go to college. Didn’t go to college.And I was working—I got a job in Winter Garden with Continental Can Company, and they were making small cans to put orange juice into, frozen orange juice, and that was a—you’d put three cups of water with it…
Motta
The concentrate?
Hattaway
Concentrate, and do all those.I worked there at night, the night shift from 3:30 ‘til 12:00 or something of that nature.And then during the day, I bought a piece of property in Oviedo on Chapman Avenue[sic], and built my first nursery under oak trees.And I started my own business back in 1956—I guess ’57, ’58, something like that.
Motta
Where did you say the canning company was?
Hattaway
Continental Can Company.
Motta
Where was that?
Hattaway
In Winter Garden.
Motta
Oh, okay.So those…
Hattaway
It was a big canning company.
Motta
Pretty far from each other, the two?
Hattaway
I’m sorry?
Motta
The two jobs you had were pretty far from each other.
Hattaway
Yeah.Yeah.One was working in the can company, the other was working in the field, in a nursery.And started my own place.I bought an oak tree hammock.And we’d found by that time, in the nursery business, in the fern business, that slat sheds were very expensive, and you couldn’t keep them up because of cost, wood rot, and it became—they were falling down.So, we started…
Motta
How often do you have to replace those?
Hattaway
Oh, you were constantly working on the building, on the fields themselves, and you’re talking about 30 acres of slat shed.Just slats are, you know, four inches wide.And sometimes they would kind of fall down.If you’re tall like I am, you’d run into a slat and hit your head and etc.So we went from the slat sheds into buying oak tree hammocks, and putting fern under the oak tree hammocks.And we also started planting in the ferneries—the old ferneries, oak trees inside of the fernery itself—to grow up through the slat sheds for shade.You were looking for a certain amount of shade.And so we started that, and that’s where the slat sheds kind of disappeared, and everybody, especially Mr. Casselberry, his whole side was nothing but oak trees.
Motta
Oh, really?
Hattaway
The side we had, and my father and grandfather had, over on Orienta Fernery side, they planted orange trees, which was a really, really smart move, because they always had orange trees—they also had the product of fern under that.The problem was, when they planted the orange trees, they budded the orange tree to Valencia, navels, or whatever it’s going to be.When they sprayed the orange tree spray on the fern, to kill worms, etc., it killed the buds on all the orange trees.Ended up with 25 acres of sour orange trees, and there’s not a lot of market for sour orange trees.So it was just a good concept, but it didn’t work.
Motta
So, by that time, there was pretty much the natural solution of replacing the slats with the trees?Like, is that what all the fern owners pretty much moved to?
Hattaway
Yeah.Yeah.Everybody was doing that.Everybody was doing that.
Motta
Okay.
Hattaway
Fern business was big not only here in Central Florida, in the Orlando area, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Fern Park, but it was big up in Crescent City and Pierson, which it still is today.
Motta
Yeah.
Hattaway
It’s the mainstay up there as well.
Motta
Was there any kind of rivalry between, like, here and Volusia County?
Hattaway
Oh, yeah.Oh my god.Yeah.Yeah.They would—and I’ve heard my father talk about the stories that the price of the ferns had become very cheap—and so the industry got together and met someplace up in DeLand or something, some little community, with the main growers all meeting at one concept.
Woman
Excuse me, do you need anything before I go to lunch?
Hattaway
No, I’m good.
Unidentified
Okay.
Hattaway
I’m good.They all went back to discuss the pricing, and I guess they were trying to do what you’d call the price fixing.But the typical agriculture business, they all got together, they all decided, shook hands, and this is what we’re gonna charge to the fern.All of them couldn’t wait to run back to the phone and call their customers in Chicago[, Illinois] or New York or where it is, and say, “Hattaway’s going up on the price of his fern by three cent.I’m gonna stay the same price” or “I’m gonna drop the price.”It never worked.And so they cut their throat time and time again.But there was great rivalry, especially, that I’m familiar with, between the Barnetts, the Casselberrys, the Vaughns.And there was a rivalry there because Mr. Casselberry started the tax-free town of Casselberry, and the Barnetts were a big, very wealthy family, had a lot of ferneries in the Fern Park, Casselberry area, and they didn’t like Mr. Casselberry, because he was so aggressive, and he was a new guy in town.And they got into a hell of a rivalry.So it was always a shootout.
Motta
And the Vaughns, you said?
Hattaway
Vaughns.
Motta
They were also in Seminole County already.
Hattaway
That’s right.Yeah.They were up in Casselberry—which you would never say “Casselberry,” you would say “Fern Park”—which today is the location of the Home Depot.
Motta
Near Lake Concord?
Hattaway
On 17-92 and Concord.That area.So yeah, there was a real rivalry going on between the small families with the Casselberrys.And those three, those were the three players.So.
Motta
And this was like the ‘50s, early ‘60s?
Hattaway
Yeah, ‘40s and ‘50s.
Motta
So when did the fern industry kind of start slowing down, in the area?
Hattaway
Oh, god.My father—I read this this morning—and it had so many ups and downs that I wasn’t even aware of—when I read his notes.And the, you know, just the price of fuel became so high, and labor became so expensive, that we really saw it when my father bought the place in 1951 from Hibbard, like 130 acres, Orienta Ferneries.He, within five years, was subdividing the fernery.And he became involved in real estate, which was a really smart move.
Motta
And these, the plots, were they designed for the houses and also, like, partially for ferns?Like, if somebody wanted to grow, like, a little on the side…
Hattaway
No. That was way before that ever happened.
Motta
Oh, okay.
Hattaway
That was a lot of little nurseries that were back in the ‘20s and ‘30s.
Motta
So this was purely real estate?
Hattaway
Yeah. purely real estate.Yeah.He started taking the fernery, which had a hundred and some odd acres, and started selling the land off itself to people that wanted to move.By this time, Altamonte Springs and Casselberry and the community started growing, and so people were starting to migrate, if you want to say that, from Orlando out into the country.And we were selling real estate lots on Lake Orienta—that was a fernery—and we took some of the slat sheds down and were selling real estate lots 100 feet wide, anywhere from 250 to 300 feet deep, for $2,000, for a lot, on paved road.
Motta
Around what year was this?
Hattaway
In the ‘50s—’58, somewhere along there, ’57, ’58.That area where Hattaway Drive is today, that drive that was all Orienta Ferneries, all the property that my father bought from Mr. Casselberry.But he went in like Hibbard.Hibbard went into the real estate business big time.He had a lot of land.And he saw the handwriting on the wall itself.The fern business was just not thriving.There was—and, a lot of artificial stuff coming down the line.People were using podocarpus.People were using [?], using a lot of fillers instead of using the fern.It was cheaper to buy a filler and put inside, in that corsage, for the price.
Motta
Oh.I was about to ask what were some of the reasons it kind of went down.That was pretty much just the artificial—were other parts of the country…
Hattaway
It wasn’t artificial, then.It was just shrubs and things they were cutting that they could stick into a bouquet of flowers.Bouquet of flowers won’t last, you know, a week, four or five days.So they could take sphagnum moss, or they could take a ligustrum, or something that’s leafy and green, and put it in a corsage at a cheaper rate than they could a sprig of fern, or a sprig of leatherleaf fern.
Motta
But if people did want those kind of ferns, were they still dependent on this area, or were there other parts of the country, do you know of?
Hattaway
Not from what I remember.It was mainly this area, plus the Pierson-Crescent City area, that was the mainstays.Later on, it became, everybody started to go off—not everybody.Several of the nurserymen started going off to Costa Rica and islands, and growing fern down there.In fact, one of the largest growers, probably still today, moved from Zellwood.Name was John Marcell.He moved to Costa Rica, and the last I heard, and I haven’t seen John in a long time, he had over 1,000 acres of saran shade cloth, growing leatherleaf fern, and ferns shipping all over the world.Actually, I’ve been told he controls the fern market in Costa Rica.This[?] big.[laughs]
Motta
Was Zellwood into the fern industry, or were they in other agriculture?
Hattaway
And actually Zellwood was—it was a small little town, still today.Marcell was the main grower at that time of leatherleaf fern.Went over to Lockhart, there was another grower over there, name of Joe Wofford, and he had a small fernery, probably ten or fifteen acres.He was growing leatherleaf fern.And Apopka itself had started transitioning over from the fern business—the Ustlers, Mahaffeys—golly, some other families there.But they were more into the tropical foliage business, and growing—building—greenhouses, taking slat sheds and growing tropical plants, which were now becoming very popular.So they shifted from the fern business over to the tropical plant business.And I shifted, also.I saw the handwriting on the wall.The one I built over in Oviedo, myself, it was only small as ten acres.But I sold that to another fernery guy out of Crescent City, took the money of that and started buying property in Altamonte Springs, off Hattaway Drive, and built my first greenhouses.And I went in the greenhouse business.So I shifted from the fern business over to the tropical foliage business.
Motta
More broad[sic].
Hattaway
Yeah. broader opportunity of selling to a greater amount of people.And my first greenhouse I built was out of used lumber, and I took a saw mill myself, and cut the two-by-fours and four-by-fours out of used lumber, and built my first building, which was 30 feet wide and a hundred feet long, which I have pictures of it there.And, gosh, over the years, became a pretty good size.[laughs]
Motta
And where did you say this first one was?
Hattaway
It was over just off of Hattaway Drive there in Altamonte Springs.Small place.
Motta
Okay.So how long were you—your property in Chapman, you said it was on Chapman Road?
Hattaway
Yeah.I was over there—I was in Chapman, probably, I had that nursery probably ten years.A good while, long enough that I’d made enough money working at night.At the Continental Can Company, they were paying me union wages, and I never joined the union.But I was making big bucks, and I was able to buy the land and do the things I’d need to do to get a business going.And it was pretty successful, but when I had the opportunity of selling that property to another person, then take that money and come back over into Altamonte, and go into a different business—although I was still in the agriculture business, it was a good shift.I ended up—well, the fernery there had 20 acres there on Hattaway Drive, and greenhouses—had probably ten acres of greenhouses there.And grew there for a number of years.To build the buildings, [?], build the buildings, I was—to get the lumber for that place—I was going, also to get the used lumber, I was going up and down the railroad tracks.They were taking down power poles and telephone poles, and I would cut the telephone poles and take the arms.At that time, they had arms going out with wires on them, and those were like three-by-fours, and they were like eight feet long, and I would use those for posts, as I gathered used stuff to build my whole nursery.
Motta
Were they just, like, the ones that they left there?
Hattaway
Yeah.
Motta
Was it okay that you took those?[laughs]
Hattaway
Yeah. definitely.They knew I was doing it.They were taking them down.
Motta
And, so, you pretty much built all those house, the original houses, yourself?It sounds like you’re a jack of all trades.
HattawayI am. [laughs]
Motta
Did you enjoy the growing aspect?Like, did you have a green thumb, or was it like…
Hattaway
Oh, yeah.
Motta
Did you enjoy the business?
Hattaway
I enjoyed the business, and I definitely did not have a green thumb.But I enjoyed the business, and I didn’t know anything else.What else could a guy do?There wasno—there was nothing out here.You either worked for the Hattaways, you worked for the Vaughns, you worked for the Casselberrys, or you worked for the Bradshaws in the grove business.This was agriculture community.There was nothing to do.Or, work at the dog track, something like that.So it was, you know—happy as a pig in slop.[laughs] What else can you do?This is what it is.
Motta
This might be going back a little bit, but did your family have any influence on early Altamonte Springs, like developing and like with the government?
Hattaway
No, my father did.He was elected a constable.He worked for Hibbard.And when Hibbard incorporated the City of Casselberry—I’ve heard my mother and father talk about that the night that they did the incorporation, they had a town hall meeting before it was ever incorporated in Mr. Casselberry’s office.There was a—had to have a certain amount of people in the meeting to have a quorum and to be able to appeal to the legislature for incorporation.
Motta
And this—as a town?
Hattaway
As a town.As a town.And they didn’t have four[?] people…
Motta
This was around 1940?
Hattaway
In the room, so my father left the meeting, went home—we lived on Concord Drive—and brought my mother to the meeting, and she voted, and that’s how, that was part of the process of incorporating the City of Casselberry.My father was elected in 1941 as the first constable of the City of Casselberry.And it was a, I guess, kind of a window-dressing job, but he was constable for eleven years in the City of Casselberry.
Motta
And that’s kind of like the police chief of the town?
Hattaway
That’s right.Yeah.He was the police chief.[laughs] I don’t think he even had a badge.[laughs] But that’s old time there.
Yeah.But you know, again, you know, this was small town, U.S.A.Hibbard would have—and I can remember this so well—he would, at Christmas time, he would have a big Christmas party on the front lawn of the offices, and for all the employees that worked for Mr. Casselberry, his entire operation.And he would get every kid a gift at Christmas time.And this was black, white, whatever it was be.He would always throw this big Christmas party.Big deal.You’d either get a knife or get a yo-yo or something like that.[laughs] But, and he was quite a—he was a good man.A lot of people, you know, just—vision, had great vision.And smart, wasn’t hard to talk to.He was a young man at that time.He was just good to us.He was very good for the community.Barnetts won’t tell you that.And the Vaughns won’t tell you that.But the Hattaways damn sure will tell you that real quick.
Motta
Did you know Mr. Casselberry personally, as a young man?
Hattaway
Mm-hm.Yeah.I knew him.He, and especially Leonard [Casselberry]. I don’t know if you’ve interviewed Leonard, Jane [Casselberry]?
Motta
Yeah. about a week or two ago.
Hattaway
Leonard used to come to my mother and father’s house, and Leonard would love to read comic books.[laughs] He—he wasn’t too energetic.[laughs] But he would come in and read the comic books, and Jane—they lived over off of the old race track road [Dog Track Road], at the horse track.He probably told you that’s what they built there, as well.
Motta
Yeah.Was knowing the founder and, I guess, owner at that time of Casselberry, was that like a—in this year, that seems kind of, like, strange, or maybe not strange, but—was it, did it seem like a big deal, or was he just like any normal citizen?
Hattaway
No. It was—to the normal person, it was probably a big deal.But because my father worked for him, and with him, I would go into my father’s office, and Mr. Casselberry’s office was right there.And he had a big picture window that he could look out into my father’s office, and then be able to look out into the grading there.They graded fern—longs, shorts, mediums, whatever you were looking for in the size of fern to ship.And, you know, he was just there all the time.He had a—I can remember so well—he had a big, big tarpon fish mounted in his office in back there.He would go to—my father, in fact, I’ve seen some pictures of him—he would go to the flower shows in Chicago or New York, where they might be, and Martha [Casselberry], his wife at that time—he married three times—Martha would wear, he would wear white riding pants—horses, cows?
Motta
Mm-hm.
Hattaway
And boots, real knee boots up there.With a big coat on.All in white.And a fern spray on this thing.Promoter.
Motta
Yeah. representing his…
Hattaway
Yeah.He was a promoter, as well.Promoted, and he had a knack about doing that, much better than the Vaughns and the Barnetts, as well.But, yeah, he was a good man.I can’t tell you that enough times.
Motta
So you started getting into the nursery, would it be considered nursery business or the greenhouse…
Hattaway
Greenhouses.Yeah.
Motta
How long were you involved with that before you looked more towards retail?
Hattaway
I started in the fern business when I got out of high school, 1954-55.I was in the fern business by 1960, with the fernery over in Chapman Avenue in Oviedo.And then started the first greenhouses and then grew that business.And I went out of the business in 1988, of the foliage business.So I graduated, basically, from the fern business over to the foliage, from the foliage into the foliage business itself.Ended up with this place, which is 500,000 square feet of what was greenhouses.But I built steel structure buildings, I told you.And today it’s now the steel structure buildings that are storing boats, cars, and recreational vehicles.1974-75, I bought a farm in Puerto Rico, and I started out with thirty, three thousand, building 3,000 square feet—300—yeah, 3,000, 30-feet wide and 100-feet long.And I bought a farm in Puerto Rico that was 80 hectares of greenhouses.And I was shipping fern or foliage plants from Puerto Rico, by sea freight, to Europe.So I moved from 33,000 square feet, to a farm here, and a farm in Puerto Rico.And I farmed in Puerto Rico, foliage plants, for twenty years, twenty-two years.
Motta
Did you sell that land, or still…
Hattaway
Yeah, I did.I sold it.I sold it.I wanted to go out of the nursery business.My brother, and then, by then graduated from University of Florida, had a degree in horticulture, and he wanted the nursery in Puerto Rico, so I sold the nursery to him in Puerto Rico.And he farmed in Puerto Rico for, I don’t know, another eight,-nine years.And we had three major hurricanes hitting back to back.First time we had insurance.We rebuilt.Second time, had insurance.Insurance company went belly up, and we rebuilt.And the third time, we said, “That’s it.”And we sold it.And then I was here all the time, and I just started converting all the buildings over to what you see today.
Motta
So about what time did you decide you wanted to get out of that business?
Hattaway
1988.
Motta
Okay.
Hattaway
Yeah.I already had another vision, what you see today.
Motta
Works out for you.
Hattaway
Yeah, it worked out.Yes.Yeah.It really—what was my whole plan at that time, was—I had roughly 30 acres here—was to add on a trailer park in front of me, which today is a public shopping center.And I was trying to buy their property, and I wanted to build a big industrial park, 40-45-acre industrial park.And I couldn’t buy that trailer park, and made them some ridiculous offers.I’m glad they didn’t take it, ‘cause the market went to hell in a handbag.I ended up, you know, basically looking at what they were doing, and I said, “If they will pay $35.00 a month to park a boat outside in an open field, with grass and grasshoppers, what will they pay to put it inside the building?”And from there, you know, it grew from there.So, in 1988, I was in the foliage business.In 2012, I’m now in the storage business.And the place is doing fairly well.
Motta
That sounds like a pretty brilliant idea, just converting the fields to this.Do you know if any other growers have took that...
Hattaway
No, no.They can’t.They all built buildings that were not convertible.They couldn’t do what I did.In fact, I saw Earl Vaughn two weeks ago. Had a funeral up in Apopka, and went over and we were talking—and I know Earl.Great guy.I like Earl.I don’t know if you’ve met him or not.
Motta
No.
Hattaway
You need to meet him.You need to meet Earl Vaughn.
Motta
I would love to.
Hattaway
Vaughn Greenhouses.They’re in the book.He’s no longer in the foliage business, but he has a farm, a foliage place up on [Florida State Road] Highway 46 up in Sanford.And saw him, and I said something, and he said, “Hattaway, what you did is brilliant.”He said, “I’ve been trying to do the same thing, except I can’t get my zoning.I’m in the Wekiva [River] Protection Area.”And so, he can do nothing other than what he’s doing.So, you know, fortunately, when I started building the buildings, I then started working politically to change the zoning on this place.And so I did it back early.If I tried to do it today, I’d probably never get it done.
Motta
Are you still involved in local politics?
Hattaway
I just write checks.[laughs]
Motta
[laughs] Well…
Hattaway
No, I’m still involved.I have a lot of friends in the political scene.I help them.You know, I served eight years in the [Florida] Legislature.Loved it, and had fun with it.Eight years at Orlando International Airport.That’s a full-time, non-paid political job, and did that for eight years.
Motta
And what was your—for the airport, what was your…
Hattaway
I was the—actually, I was chairman for four years, and vice chairman for two years, and on the board for eight.And the governor appointed me.Lawton Chiles appointed me.And so, I served there, and when I went on the board, there was $10 million worth of construction going at the Orlando International Airport.When I left, eight years later—yeah, eight years later it was—it was $500 million worth of construction going.And they had another $500 million committed to build the south terminal, and the new board decided that they didn’t want to do that, and so the new board today is trying to figure out how they can get the money to build the south terminal for international rivals.And, you know, that was a group of Democrats—John Rich, Bill Miller, Howard McNelty, myself—four really strong Democrats.We got in and got aggressive, said, “This place is gonna grow.”And we went from 22 million passengers—eight years later, it was like 31 million passengers.That’s growth.And all we did, we went out and started marketing the Orlando International Airport, as a board, as a group of people, with the mayor of Orlando, Linda Hood, and the county chairman, Linda Chapin.And we were a hell of a team, and we moved around this country, all around this world, basically.And brought airlines in, British Airlines[sic], Southwest [Airlines], Virgin [Atlantic].Those were all new carriers that came in that eight-year period of time.
Motta
Were you involved in the [Orlando-] Sanford [International] Airport or the…
Hattaway
That was my first venture.Back when we did that one, Kay Shoemaker was the chairman, and John—what was the name—Steve, he was the executive director.I can’t think of his last name now.But he came to me, I was a new board member, and he said, “You know, we need to go after international passengers for the Sanford airport.”So we went to Kay Shoemaker and talked Kay into letting us fly, I think it was, Toronto, Canada.And the concept that Steve had—and I was just the baggage, went along with him—that we need to go to Holiday Travel, and talk to them about direct flights from Toronto to Sanford, and not from Toronto to Orlando.And we met with the Holiday Travel, they thought it was a good idea, and he was very much in favor of it, but the issue was that the travel time coming from the Sanford Airport to [Walt] Disney [World], you didn’t have the 414, I think it is, or 4…
Motta
Oh,[State Road] 408, [State Road] 417?
Hattaway
417, yeah, coming across the lake.You didn’t have that segment built, and, so, that was a stopping point.When that segment was built, Holiday Travel and a lot of those guys started flying into Sanford, and bypassing Orlando.Well, in the meantime, I moved from the Sanford Airport board, over to the Orlando Airport.[laughs] So, it was quite a conflict there for a while.[laughs] And Larry Dale—and I don’t know if you know Larry—but Larry Dale and I had some real knockdowns and drag-outs about the airports.He’s the executive director of the Sanford Airport.
Motta
Oh, yeah?
Hattaway
Yeah.Yeah.
Motta
I’m curious how you, how did you even get involved with the airport, like the industry?
Hattaway
The governor.
Motta
Okay.
Hattaway
The governor.Yeah, I—when Lawton was elected—Lawton Chiles—I’d been in the Legislature.I knew him very well, and I worked with him for his election.And he was elected.He appointed me to the lottery commission.I didn’t believe in the lottery.I didn’t like the lottery.When it was approved, I was in the Legislature.I voted against it.And was opposed against it then, and Lawton told me, said, “I want you to be on that board.You’re the first Democrat to be appointed, and I want to get rid of the executive director.”I forget her name.She was really good, too.But he wanted to get rid of her and he wanted to change the entire board.He wanted to make changes.And so, I did that for a couple of years.And I was tired of it, and finally we just got enough Democrats on the board that I went to the governor, said, “I’m out of here.I don’t want to do this anymore.”In the meantime, when that happened, the [Greater Orlando] Aviation Authority thing came up available in Orlando, and I was supporting a Republican, Sue [inaudible] was her name, and Sue wanted to be appointed to the board.And I went to the governor to appoint her from Seminole County, and the governor says, “No, I’m not going to appoint a Republican.But I will appoint you if you want to take the job.”So I said, “Well, okay. I’ll do it.”
Motta
Did you have an interest in air travel?
Hattaway
Yeah, I did, because of Sanford.And I knew that it was a very, very important job.The Orlando International Airport is the economic engine that really runs this community today.And the things they’ve accomplished, and the size of the airport.This is number one around the state of Florida, certainly, that I enjoyed that.But I did, I was able to go into that segment having eight years in Tallahassee being a legislator, that I knew a little bit about politics, and I knew that a lot of my newfound friends that I found in Tallahassee, of eight years, when I was no longer elected, they didn’t know my first name or my last name.And when I was appointed to the Aviation Authority in Orlando, I told my wife, Charlotte, I said, “This is altogether different.We’re going to have a lot of brand new friends, and they’re going to love us for eight years.And when we’re gone, they won’t know our name.So we’re gonna do this different.We’re gonna do what the hell we want to do, and we’re gonna do the things that we think are right, and eight years from now, we’ll be good.”And that’s how we prefaced that.So it was fun.It was, like I said, it was a full-time—as a chairman—non-paid, political job.But would I do that again?Probably not.It was the right time.You know, I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve lived at the right time, when things were just starting to peak or things were really going smoothly, and everybody was getting along.
Motta
It seems like you’ve always been able to do what makes you happy.
Hattaway
I’ve been lucky.You’ll never sit across the table from a more blessed, lucky guy than me.Life has been good.With high school education, I’ve competed with all of them.
Motta
Work ethic.Whistling[?] away[?].
Hattaway
It’s worked out, worked out fine.[laughs] So, and I laugh about. In fact, I’ve brought my report cards in today for some reason, and I looked at those report cards, looking through stuff, and I said, “Man, I was a straight-F student.”[laughs] So, but, it’s been fun.Life’s been good, been good.
Motta
I wanted to ask you, for the Sanford Airport, when did that start becoming—when was it under construction?
Hattaway
It was, you know, it was a naval base [Naval Air Station Sanford], and then they converted over into a commercial airport, and I don’t remember the years.But I was on that board—phew.It wasn’t in the—must have been in the late ‘70s when they started converting it over.Yeah, I can’t remember the dates on that one.
Motta
So, did—it might have been the fern industry—I mean, it might have been kind of already low at that time, but was there any kind of transition?‘Cause you said the railroads, in the early days, that was like the artery.Was there, like, did the airports start to be more of a central thing with transportation?
Hattaway
With ferns, no.No.With the fern business, it became trucks.
Motta
Okay.
Hattaway
Everybody moved from the—we did some air freight, not a lot.Most of it was done by—the whole industry changed from trains and rail over to the trucking industry.So there was a—trucking lines were moving strictly either foliage plants or ferns by truck itself to the destination.The fern business itself—the labor, cost of labor, the cost of materials, the cost of land—all those things just became cost-prohibited to be able to do anything with it.You asked a question earlier about, you know, do I miss it?I loved the plant business.I really enjoyed it, and still today would like to be in the business, except I know I can’t make any money at it.And I’m not gonna fool around with something I can’t make money at as well.But, you know, the guys in Apopka and the guys that been in the fern business, and growing something, you know, a plant or product, I think they all will tell you, you know, it’s just a great place to—it’s a fun thing to do.And it’s really rewarding to put a little plant on a stem into a piece of sphagnum moss, and grow it to a finished product, and ship it.If I had a nickel for every plant that I’ve grown, I’d be a very wealthy man.Rick [Hattaway] enjoyed it.My brother enjoyed it very much.And I kept telling him, “You don’t want to go into the greenhouse business.You want to stay out of it.”My mother told me that as well.But, you know, he followed the family trade and did that as well.But, it’s a good life.It’s a good opportunity.
Motta
That whole watching something grow, that seems almost kind of like a good metaphor for your, all your business [inaudible].
Hattaway
[laughs ] Yeah.Yeah.I read an article today, an old one, gosh, about when I developed that orange grove over there, and it was—Phil [inaudible] was the city manager.It was quoting him about what I was doing over there, and how I environmentally was taking care of Lake Lotus, and all the things I did back then.But, you know, to see the growth, or where we were back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and where we are today, people have opportunities.There were no opportunities when I was growing up.Either you worked in a fernery or you worked in an orange grove.There wasn’t high school education.People weren’t going to college.
Motta
You had to find your own…
Hattaway
You had to find your own, you had to make your own way at that particular point in time.
Motta
Since you brought that up, I’m curious what you think about how this area—I probably can’t imagine what it was like when you were a kid.What do you think?How do you think it’s progressed?Are you…
Hattaway
I’m for growth.I’m growth.Opportunities.I mean, I had a farm, sold it a couple years ago up in Alabama, little town called Opp, Alabama.And it was heavy agriculture, farming area.And today—Opp, Alabama—you can take a shotgun down the main street and not hit a soul.There’s just nothing to do there.And that’s the way it was here.The growth has been really, really, to me, healthy.It’s been giving good opportunities to people having good jobs.Our way of life—there are no poor people in this community today.You see some not as well off as others, but everybody either has a television, or everybody has food on the table.Everybody has an opportunity to make something of themselves, you see, if they want to take that opportunity.And back then, there was no opportunities.You had to make it yourself.And today there’s many doors open for employment, and it’s not all agriculture.At that time, it was.But am I in favor of growth?Absolutely.Has it been good for this community?Absolutely.Has it been good for this state?Absolutely.
Motta
Is there anything that you see in this community, that you don’t find good about—like, obviously, there’s a lot of good growth brings, but is there anything you lament that has changed, or any nostalgia?
Hattaway
I think the one problem that we have in our community is that we have not been able to keep up with the road—the growth with our road network—and mainly because of the lack of proper leadership from the Legislature.We’ve never had the political voting power to be able to build a road network they have on the south coast, South Florida—they have on the west coast.And our group has been splintered—Democrat, Republican— and many times have not worked together to have the power base in Tallahassee to get the state dollars to build—FDOT [Florida Department of Transportation]—to build our community.So we’ve not done a good job on our roads.And you have one major road going through this entire community, from Daytona Beach into Tampa, and that’s I-4.Other than that, you have very limited roads.If it wasn’t for the East-West Expressway [SR 408], the [Central Florida] Expressway Authority, we wouldn’t have any roads.So that’s been a blessing to us, but I think that’s our biggest problem.Our growth has been handled with zoning—comprehensive land plan—where the commercial’s going to be built, where the residential’s going to be built—all those things, I think, have been handled very well.We have a great water system, sewer system in Central Florida.We have all the things conducive to solid development, except the roads.And you get on these roads, and you know what it’s like.
Motta
Yeah.
Hattaway
Gridlock.
Motta
But I’m kind of surprised to hear that—weren’t a lot of the old, like ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, Florida Republicans, weren’t they kind of pro-growth and infrastructure?Wouldn’t they…
Hattaway
Well, when I was in the Legislature back in the ‘70s, the [Florida] House [of Representatives] and the [Florida] Senate was controlled by the Democrats, and the Republicans were along for the ride.And then, when power shifted chains, we didn’t see a lot of growth coming here.I mean, we’ve had—I don’t want you to write this.
Motta
What’s that?
Hattaway
[laughs] I don’t want you to write this.This is off the record on this one.Yeah.