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https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/7186274496a92a2c204a62c071c1ef36.pdf
8d96ba9401b0d6568c989b5224e5087e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection
Alternative Title
Creative Sanford Collection
Subject
Seminole County (Fla.)
Folk plays
Sanford (Fla.)
Description
<span>Creative Sanford, Inc. is a non-profit organization created to manage <em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em> community theater productions. The original idea for the Celery Soup project came from Jeanine Taylor, the owner of a folk-art gallery on First Street in Sanford, Florida. Their first production was </span><em>Touch and Go</em><span>, a play focusing on the people of Sanford and their determination to overcome various obstacles, including the Freeze of 1894-1895, the fall of Sanford's celery industry, and the closing of Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford in the 1960s. In the process of producing the show, Creative Sanford decided to rehabilitate an historic building, the Princess Theater, which is located on 115 West First Street and owned by Stephen Tibstra. The Creative Sanford offices are housed in the Historic Sanford Welcome Center, located at 203 East First Street.</span>
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Historic Sanford Welcome Center, Downtown Sanford, Florida
Princess Theater, Downtown Sanford, Florida
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">WHO IS CREATIVE SANFORD, INC?</a>" Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about.
<span>"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/" target="_blank">About: History and Purpose</a>." Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/.</span>
"<a href="http://www.communityperformanceinternational.org/sanford-florida" target="_blank">Sanford, Florida: How do you make Celery Soup? Add stories, then stir</a>." Community Performance International. http://www.communityperformanceinternational.org/sanford-florida.
Contributor
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
Thompson, Trish
Interviewee
Harkey, Dick Quentin
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Oral History of Dick Quentin Harkey
Alternative Title
Oral History, Harkey
Subject
Ft. Lauderdale (Fla.)
Orlando (Fla.)
Theme parks
West Palm Beach (Fla.)
Republican Party--United States
Insurance--Florida
Railroads--Florida
Sanford (Fla.)
Description
An oral history of Dick Quentin Harkey (b. 1942). In 1942, Harkey was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the fifth child in his family. In 1957, his family moved to Gainesville, Georgia. Harkey attended Young Harris College and the University of Georgia, graduating with a degree in psychology. He worked first for Great American Insurance in the Claims Department and married a woman that he met at the University of Georgia. After living in Atlanta, Georgia, for some time, Harkey was transferred to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1967. He moved back to Atlanta for a couple of years after getting divorced, but later transferred to Orlando, on March 25, 1971. Harkey met a schoolteacher, Cheryl Harkey, through the Young Republicans in April 1973. The couple married in December and had their daughter, Marianne Harkey, on February 11, 1978. After working for Great American Insurance, Harkey went to work with IMA and then later for CNA Financial. In this oral history, Harkey discusses the story of how his family came from North Carolina, stories about when he worked for Channel Nine, and stories about his time as a lawyer for insurance policies. He was active within the Republican Party and discusses the political and economic implications of the SunRail for Sanford and the surrounding areas. He also speaks briefly about racial tensions.
Type
Text
Source
Harkey, Dick Quentin. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. 2009. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford, Florida.
Requires
<a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida.
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Is Format Of
Digital transcript of original oral history: Harkey, Dick Quentin. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. 2009. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida.
Coverage
Charlotte, North Carolina
Atlanta, Georgia
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Magic Kingdom Park, Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, Florida
West Palm Beach, Florida
Sanford, Florida
Florida Hospital Health Village, Orlando, Florida
Creator
Harkey, Dick Quentin
Thompson, Trish
Contributor
Román-Toro, Freddie
Date Created
2009
Format
application/pdf
Extent
184 KB
Medium
17-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Civics/Government Teacher
Economics Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Trish Thompson and Dick Quentin Harkey.
Rights Holder
Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only.
Accrual Method
Donation
Contributing Project
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a>
Curator
Román-Toro, Freddie
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a>." <em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em>. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/.
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Florida Federation of Young Republicans</a>." Florida Federation of Young Republicans. http://www.ffyr.org/.
"<a href="http://rpof.org/" target="_blank">Republican Party of Florida</a>." Republican Party of Florida. http://rpof.org/.
Taylor, Tate, et al. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/748435864" target="_blank"><em>The Help</em></a>. Burbank, Calif: Touchstone Home Entertainment, 2011.
Transcript
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Tell me about where you’re from—where you were raised.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, I was born in North Carolina—Charlotte—and I’m the youngest of five, and my middle name is Quentin. The reason my mother named me Quentin is because, in Latin, “Quentin” means “the fifth.” That’s how I got my middle name.</p>
<p>My father was a regional sales manager for a big national food company. my mother was a social worker. When I was 15, my father got transferred to Gainesville, Georgia, so we moved there. It’s about 50 miles north of Atlanta[, Georgia]. My first year, I went to Young Harris [College] and then I transferred to the University of Georgia. In fact, the senator from Georgia was a professor there. I got my degree in psychology. and after, I went to Atlanta and walked the streets trying to find a job.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Where’d you end up?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>You get discouraged. And I finally went to one of these personnel agencies, and this guy had a connection with insurance companies, and I ended up getting a job with Great American Insurance [Group] in the Claims Department. I went to work for them as their trainee, and they had a class in New York City[, New York], at their home office at 99 John Street, so I went up for that. There were about 15 of us, and I ended up being number one in the class. They decided to transfer me to Fort Lauderdale. This must have been in the summer of [19]67.</p>
<p>And while I was at the University of Georgia, I met a young lady and got married and she was from [inaudible] Georgia. We moved to Atlanta, and we rented a place on Peace Tree Hills Road. And our real estate agent was Johnny Isaacson, and now he’s the Senator from Georgia. Actually, I was in [Washington,] D.C., and taking a tour of the White House, and I ran into him. And he says I still own that house—the one on Peace Tree Hills.</p>
<p>I moved to Fort Lauderdale and was there for a couple of years. Unfortunately, I got divorced, moved back to Atlanta, and was there for a couple of years, and said, “I want to go back to Florida.” I transferred back to Orlando in ’71, and I’ve been here ever since.</p>
<p>One of the interesting claims I handled was when the tower for [WFTV] Channel 9 collapsed in [inaudible]. I found out that they were going to install a cable for [WMFE-TV] Channel 24, and apparently they took out a cross member at the lower level of the tower. and in doing so, they caused it to collapse. It killed three or four people. I remember taking a statement from a farmer. He was out farming on his tractor and saw the thing come down—sort of telescope down—and it went so far and it fell over like a tree. But you had these [inaudible] wires that had been holding it up, and they were the size of a man’s leg. They were pulled out of the ground and several of the people working out there were pushed into the ground when it hit the building. Channel 9 was off the air for about three days, and then they brought in a temporary tower to get them back up and running. That ended up being a very expensive loss for—I was working for IMA at that time.</p>
<p>Over the years, you have very interesting cases—when I was in Fort Lauderdale. Once this couple was from Michigan, and they had a [inaudible] where they had their horses. And then they were going to build a place in Fort Lauderdale around [inaudible] Mile, and they had rented an apartment while their house was being built, and it was on the second floor of this apartment house. It was around Christmastime, and she had gone to the bank to get her jewels [inaudible] out of the vault. Apparently, these guys were following her. On this particular evening, her 13-year-old son went downstairs and opened the door to get a drink out of the Coke machine. They were watching, so they came in, went upstairs, and said, “We want your furs and diamonds.” They said, “What are you talking about?” And they said, “Don’t give us any lip.” and they started pistol-whipping her with the gun. They said, “Our son’s coming back. please don’t shoot him.” Anyway, she looked like Natalie Wood and he looked like Sebastian Cabot. All we had was a [inaudible] homeowner’s policy. And when I was taking their statements, he had these gold coins from Rome[, Italy] he had converted into cufflinks, and she had a $50,000 diamond ring. And this was back in 1967. and these furs—the most we could pay was $10,000, but I took the statement from the husband outside of the [City of] Fort Lauderdale Police Department in her Rolls-Royce, and she had her initials on the side “SAS.” They hired a bodyguard to protect them and [inaudible] said, “Hey, what’s going on here?” She went in with the bodyguard to look at mug shots while I took the statement from the husband. That made the newspapers.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did they ever find the guy?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>I don’t remember. It was two or three guys.</p>
<p>I had another case where this couple was from Vancouver[, Canada]. And they’d come down to Fort Lauderdale in the winter, and they had a place right on the Intracoastal. They were about six floors up. and they put in a claim, because their jewels, watches, and wallet had been stolen one night. We came to find out that one of these cat burglars had come across the Intracoastal, and had a grappling hook and pulled himself up to the first balcony. And here you are—if you’re overlooking the Intracoastal, you don’t think about locking your sliding glass door. Basically, what he did was go from one condo[minium] to the next all the way to the top. Apparently, he had some kind of aerosol spray, because when they woke up they felt nauseated. He sprayed something to sedate them so they wouldn’t wake up. All he took was the watches, diamonds, and jewels. And when he got to the top, he left with his gunny sack full of goodies. He had some accomplice waiting for him waiting on the street.</p>
<p>I had a case where this woman had been an actress on Broadway from about 1910 to about 1920 or ’25, and she had been a friend of Fannie [inaudible]. She was telling me the story of how Nicky Bernstein beat her up. And she told me the story about how her husband was a rich furrier[?] in New York City. And when the [Wall Street] Crash [of 1929] happened, he had such a loss that he went to commit suicide. He tried to do that in New York City, and he jumped off the building. And I forgot how many stories she said it was, but he hit the canvas canopy and slid off. And the doorman went to help him, and he said, “No. don’t help me.” It didn’t kill him. And she said he went to Chicago[, Illinois] and found a taller building and did himself in.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I shouldn’t be laughing, but you’d think he would realize that God had a different plan for him when he jumped off a building and didn’t die.</p>
<p>Tell me—I want to hear stories about you when you were young. Stories about Central Florida and what you remember of how things have changed.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, I moved here March 25<sup>th</sup>, 1971. And I can remember going to the grand opening of [Walt] Disney World in October of ‘71. I can remember I was standing there, and they had all the dignitaries walking towards the Magic Kingdom [Park], and here comes Claude [Roy] Kurt[, Jr.], the Governor [of Florida]. And these women that I was standing next to said, “That’s Kirk Douglas.” Another one called him another famous actor, but it was Claude Kurt. So I thought that was interesting that these women thought he was Kirk Douglas. He was a women’s man. He was a lady-killer. He was on his second or third wife when he became governor. Remember, he married this woman<a title="">[1]</a> from Argentina<a title="">[2]</a> that was quite a looker.</p>
<p>When I lived in Fort Lauderdale, I dated this girl that was from Palm Beach. And she was a schoolteacher. And they were more like ordinary people—not rich or anything. She invited me up one weekend to go to a wedding, and they had the wedding on the other side of the canal in West Palm [Beach] and then they went to this place called “The Sail Club” on the north end of Palm Beach. And they just had food and booze flowing, and I can remember the couple. They went through the regular routines of a wedding reception afterwards, and they walked off onto the dock. And I guess they got into their parent’s cabin cruise, and sailed off into the sunset. And I said, “Now, that’ the way to get married, and have that type of reception, and then cruise off into the sunset on your honeymoon.” That impressed me.</p>
<p>I got involved in Young Republicans [YR] when I came here. This was in 1973. This was where I met my wife-to-be, Cheryl [Harkey]. And I met John [L.]Mica, Rich[ard T.] Crotty, [Antoinette] “Toni” Jennings, Jeanie Austin—who’s now dead and gone, but she was a real leader in the Republican Party. Her history was fascinating. She was from Oklahoma, got married when she was 14, had her first kid when she was 16. When I met her, she was in her late-thirties and was running for president of the YRs. I was running for treasurer that year, so there was a slate of us running for office that year. I became the treasurer, she became the president, and she was working as a secretary at Western Electric [Company]. She ended up working her way up to being the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, and she ended up raising more money than any other state chairman. Then when George [Herbert Walker] Bush became president, [Harvey LeRoy] “Lee” Atwater was the chairman of the Republican National Committee [RNC]. She ended up becoming co-chair of the RNC, so considering her start, she really had a successful…</p>
<p>In fact, our club was voted the number one club in the country, and we became the biggest club in Florida. I can remember we had a casino night, and a couple of guys—years before that—had made up this casino equipment. And we raised—we had a budget of $14,000 in 1973 for our club—and we raised about $3,000 on casino night. From there, I became a claims adjuster and had interesting claims, like the ones I’ve mentioned before.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>When did you all get married?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>In a fever. We met in April and got married in December. so it was love and heat at first sight—love and passion. Then we had our daughter. She already had a little boy from her previous marriage—Greg. Then Marianne [Harkey] was born in February 11, 1978, so we brought her home on Valentine’s Day. I thought that was appropriate. Valentine’s Day for a little girl.</p>
<p>Over the years—I was with Great American for six years. Then I went to work for IMA for a while. And then I went to work for an insurance company for [inaudible], and I ended up with CNA [Financial Corporation]. And in ’92, when Mica ran or office—he had been state rep[resentative] in ’76, and I was his campaign coordinator. And he was up there for four years—’76 to ’80—and then in ’80 a guy by the name of [William D.] “Bill” Gorman, who had been a state senator for Orange County, decided he wasn’t going to run again, because Ken [inaudible], who was the Clerk of the Court, decided he wasn’t going to run again. so that left open that state senate position, so Mica ran on that against Toni Jennings, so of course, Toni Jennings won by about 500 votes. He was quite successful and had a very illustrious career.</p>
<p>A little side note is that about three years ago, I went to the Orlando [Regional] Realtor Association. They give out an annual award recognizing a person in public service, and they named the award the Toni Jennings Public Service Award. So they invited Mica, and he wasn’t able to come. so I went to receive his award, and I said, “Let me tell you the rest of the story. Mica and Toni Jennings ran against each other years ago, and now it’s kind of ironic that he’s receiving the Toni Jennings Award for Public Service.”</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>But I want to hear personal stories too. I think you started a good one with—you got married in a fever. That’s like the old song. Where’d you get married?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>We got married—oh, let me tell you another story. In YRs—in the Young Republicans—when I met her and John Mica and all the others, we were meeting at the Maitland Civic Center. We had this thing called the “Order of the Elbow.” and the “Order of the Elbow” was—drink. What we would do is, we would meet once a month and set up a little card table, and usually we’d have someone sitting there selling the tickets. Well, Peggy Spagler was selling the tickets that night, and we got raided by the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives]. And they accused us of selling liquor unlawfully, because you’d buy a ticket, go over to the bar, and get your drink. We thought we were legal. we found out we weren’t. Anyway, they arrested her since she was the one selling the drinks. They didn’t arrest the guys pouring the drinks. she was the one who was taking in the money. They arrested her and took her to jail, and we finally bailed her out about five o’clock in the morning. We ended up having a trial. Lawson Lamar was a young prosecuting attorney at the time. John King was a young judge and then Terry Griffin—he was an attorney in the YRs, so he was the defense attorney. One of the people that was in the YRs at the time was Scott Vandergrift[?], who was the Mayor for Ocoee for years. So we all went in and we testified. and after that, Terry moved or a directed verdict and he told Lawson Lamar, “You know what? You’re barking up the wrong tree.” [Robert] “Bob<br /> Egan was the state attorney at that time, and when he heard he had lost that little case, he razzed Lawson Lamar., and one time, I saw Lawson years after that night and kidded him about it and he said, “Yeah. Bob Egan razzed me about losing that case.”</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So you were saying that that’s where you met your wife and then you got married. Now, did Cheryl work?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Yeah. She was a schoolteacher. When I met her, she was teaching. I said I always wanted to marry a schoolteacher. I just thought they were the greatest. She was my dream come true. We have two granddaughters. Kelsey’s 15. Morgan’s 11.</p>
<p>And then Cheryl’s parents live here in town. He’s a World War II veteran—got a Bronze Star [Medal] and in the Italian Campaign. And they’ve been married for 68 years this November—quite a few years. Her father’s been having problems. He had a near-death experience about a year and a half ago. He had colon cancer, so they did the surgery. He just about didn’t make it. We thought he was going to die a couple of times. He’s managed to keep getting stronger and stronger. He’s an amazing character. He’s from “The Greatest Generation.” They’re tough. So Cheryl’s over there helping her mother take care of him and she needs assistance.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>What’s the biggest change you’ve seen since living here since ’71? It’s been 40 years.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>The overall growth of the area and the population is not going to stop growing. The SunRail, to me, is going to be a great connector for our community. I was talking with—who heads up the [Central Florida] Zoo [and Botanical Gardens]?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Joe Montesano[?].</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>He’s looking forward to where these school kids can hop on the commuter rail and visit the zoo. And people hopping on it to go to a [Orlando] Magic game, and the other thing is that the new Lake Nona [Medical City] that’s being built there on Lake Nona. The Veterans [Affairs] hospital there will be opening next fall, and they’re anticipating a million visitors a year to that facility. Assuming the Governor<a title="">[3]</a> makes the right decision tomorrow.</p>
<p>Once we get in that initial footprint for SunRail, there’s a spur that goes over to the [inaudible] OUC [Orlando Utilities Commission] utility plant right there in Taft. It goes around to the underbelly of the [Orlando-International] Airport, and then it goes over to the—well, if you look at [Florida State Road] 417 and where the new Medical City is—on the north side of 417—right in that area is the tracks. And half a mile away is the new Medical City. The beauty of it is that Orlando has a hundred foot [inaudible]. You know, you see almost the tracks. Now these coal[?] trains[?] are a 100-125 cars long, so they’re quite lengthy. And they have four coal[?] trains[?] a week that come here, so all they’ll have to do is do enough double tracking do they can pass. Eventually, they may get them out of here, but I’m not sure when that’s going to happen. but that’s the beauty. Once we get this thing up, then all these veterans will be able to hop on that commuter rail and—phase one is the one we’re looking at right now. that would just be 31 miles from [inaudible] to Sand Lake Road. We get that in, and it looks like it’s going to be the spring of 2014. They’ll be able to take a bus to the new VA [Veterans Affairs] facility, but eventually it’ll be where they can take a train.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, the train will stop in Sanford, right?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Yeah. We’re going to have four stops in Seminole County: Sanford, Lake Mary, Longwood, and Altamonte [Springs]. We’ll all have our own station.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And it’ll be right at the same place where…</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, the Sanford station is actually going to be on the north side of [Florida State Road] 46, right where [West] Airport Boulevard comes into 46. So it’s not going to be at the auto train location and it’s not going to be where the old station used to be. That’s been torn down—the old Amtrak station.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So Airport and 46—that’s right there before you go over the…</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>It’s just a little east of where [the] Wayne Densch [Performing Arts Center] is. That’s where the station’s going to be. In fact, I think there’s some electrical transformers close to that area. I was talking with Mark McCarty, the new [Sanford] City Commissioner…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>He’s a real friend of Creative Sanford[, Inc.] and Celery Soup. He built our snowman.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>In fact, I saw him last week. And they had the groundbreaking for the new performing arts center<a title="">[4]</a> in Orlando, and he’s talking about putting together a trolley from Downtown Sanford to go over to the new station once that’s built.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, we have a shuttle that comes from Amtrak, and it comes right here beside the [Sanford] Welcome Center. And people bring their suitcases in, and leave them here, and then they can spend the day.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Oh, so they were currently doing it—these are the British tourists that come in here?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, no. it’s whoever comes in on Amtrak—usually Americans. They bring whatever their baggage is off the train.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Oh, so you already have a little shuttle service. I didn’t realize that. That’s the excitement of the commuter rail. In fact—this was about two weeks ago—the Congressman met with people from northwest Orange County and Lake County, because there’s the Florida Central Railroad that goes from Downtown Orlando—you know where the Bob Carr [Performing Arts Centre] is? Behind the Sheraton [Orlando Downtown] Hotel are some tracks, and those tracks come right into the CSX [Transportation] tracks and they go out over to [Florida State Road] 441 and sort of parallel go up through Lockhart, through Apopka, up towards Mount Dora, Tavares, Eustis. So those tracks are there, and they’re looking forward to creating their own Orange Blossom Express.</p>
<p>We had a nice meeting about two or three weeks ago where the Congressman brought down the chairman of the board for this company called US Railcar, and they used to be called Colorado Railcar. and those were the vehicles we were going to get for our railroad, but they went bankrupt. Well, a company out of Columbus, Ohio, called US Rail purchased them, so now they’re still making the same vehicles out of Columbus. So the people over on the Florida Central would be looking at using those vehicles to provide that commuter rail service and they say eventually the people from The Villages could come over.</p>
<p>They would go as far north as Eustis and Tavares on this proposed commuter rail service they’re talking about. Eventually, we can have service going over to the airport, and to the new Medical City, and Apopka, and Tavares, and Mount Dora—in that area. This SunRail system—once it gets going, it’ll just keep migrating out and it’ll provide our community with opportunity. Florida Hospital is planning on having a “health village.” They’ve got 80 acres down, and it would be where people would live there, and they’d have a complex where they’d have offices, shops, dry cleaners, restaurants, etc.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>For the families of people who are living in the hospital?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>No. It’ll be for the workers there. They’ve got 17,000 employees. I think Lars Holman[?], who’s the CEO of Florida Hospital, said the [Florida Hospital] Health Village is going to cost about $250 million. They’re planning of doing a development in that blank area between the courthouse and LYNX [Rapid Transit Services]. It’s just vacant. It’s going to be developed into quite a complex, so there’s a lot of economic development coming with this SunRail.</p>
<p>I’ve been approached by people from outside—from the Northeast saying, “When this happens, here’s what we want to do.” The other ripple effect of the SunRail is the $432 million that Florida is paying CSX. they’re reinvesting it all back into Florida. They’re putting $40 million into upgrading the Jackson Port and the S Line, which runs down the center of the state. They’re upgrading that. And then they have this [Winter Haven] Integrated Logistics Center [ILC] in Winter Haven that they’ll be building, and when it’s fully developed it’ll employ about 8,000 people.</p>
<p>The other thing is that the Panama Canal is being expanded and will be completed so they can have these super cargo ships come through. CSX has a line that goes over close to the Port of Manatee that they can extend to dockside, and that would become a major harbor for exporting and importing in the IOC. And Winter Haven will become a major distribution hub, not only in Florida, but for the entire east coast. It’ll take the big truck traffic off of [Interstate Highway] 95 and [Interstate Highway] 75 because of this. This is the ripple effect of how that money is been reinvested by CSX into the state to create more jobs. So the naysayers aren’t really doing their homework. they’re just looking at the cost and saying, “We can’t afford it.” Hopefully, the governor will make the right decision there.</p>
<p>This would have been in 1955, and one of my older sisters was going to Appalachian College in Boone, North Carolina, and she met this football player and they married. They’re celebrating their 50<sup>th</sup> wedding anniversary several years ago. He was from Hollywood, Florida, so we decided to go down to Hollywood, Florida, for vacation that summer. This was in 1955, before we had the interstate. Gosh, we started out, and we were going into South Georgia. All of us were in the car, except my oldest sister. she was already married so she didn’t go on the vacation with us.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So it was your mom and dad and four kids?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>My father was, like I said, the regional sales manager, so he was actually in Miami working. so it was five of us driving down in the car. We got as far south as Folkston, Georgia. And my brother was driving, and I remember it was raining, and he was going too fast, and there was this car up ahead. I remember it was a 1952 Ford, and there was an African-American couple in there that had stopped, because a herd of sheep had gone across the road. and he misjudged his speed and we ran into the rear of them. Luckily, it wasn’t a bad crash, but it did bend in our right front fender, so we did have to go to a shop and have that pulled back out. But otherwise, we kept moving. We spent the first night in Jacksonville, and then we got down to Fort Pierce. My oldest brother and older sister were taking turns driving, so they got into Fort Pierce. And we had a ’53 Buick at the time—straight [inaudible]. And we came up to a traffic light and my mother decided to change drivers. So as they’re rolling over each other, my mother forgot to put it in park, and one of them put their foot on the gas. we shot out into the middle and there came a ’51 black Buick and we broadsided it. That stopped us, and, of course, Beverly [Harkey] got the ticket.</p>
<p>We called up my future brother-in-law’s parents and told them what happened. Well, he had an old ’49 [inaudible]. Well, he got in the car and came to pick us up. And I didn’t think he was going to ever get there, and I didn’t think we’d ever get back to Hollywood. but we were there for the week and my father spent his time going up to Fort Pierce checking on the car. Luckily, they got it fixed within the week. He had had to go up to Fort Pierce to get it down to Hollywood, so we could drive it back home. On the way home, we didn’t stop and we didn’t go back U.S. [Route] 1. We took [U.S. Route] 27—right through the center of the state.</p>
<p>We actually stopped in Orlando. And we had a big discussion, because one of my mother’s aunts lived in Williston, and she wanted to go over and see her and it was mutiny. “No, no., we’re not going over to see Aunt May. We’re going home.” Finally, she said, “Okay.” We were in Orlando probably around Park Lake or someplace like that, when we pulled over to have our mutiny, and the mutineers won. I thought I wasn’t going to live to make it home. Until I started driving—this was 1955, so I would have been 13 at the time—I was afraid to go anywhere, because I didn’t think I would make it back alive.</p>
<p>In ’57, when we moved from Charlotte to Gainesville—we moved in the summer—and my brother was going to be in 12<sup>th</sup> grade. He didn’t really want to move, because it was going to be his last year in high school. Since it was going to be his senior year, he was thinking of living with somebody, rather than moving to Gainesville. That Christmas, he and my oldest brother went back to Charlotte for Christmas parties. My oldest brother had been out to California with some friends, and they had worked out there, and just gotten back. And this one guy, who was a friend of my oldest brother,<a title="">[5]</a> had too much to drink. So this guy at the [inaudible] said, “I’ll take him home.” but he didn’t realize we had moved and my older brother didn’t think about it. The house we had over there on Kingston [Avenue]—the people we had sold it to—they had taken in these boarders. so when—and back then, you didn’t lock your door/ so he just went in through the front door, went upstairs, and put him in bed. The next day, he woke up and saw this guy on this other bed across the room and he said, “This looks familiar. Where am I?”</p>
<p>The guy said, “You’re at 715 East Kingston Avenue.” He said, “Oh my God.” He got up and ran out front door. He was so embarrassed.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And he never told him who he was?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>I think the lady we sold the house to was laughing, because it was so funny.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It sounds like you had some wild brothers. Now, how many boys and how many girls?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Three boys and two girls. It was girl, girl, boy, boy, boy. I was the youngest. Robbie became an attorney. He went Emory [University] undergrad and Emory Law School. And he was with Delta Air lines, Inc. for 35 years and was very successful, and lives in a very big, expensive house out there in Atlanta.</p>
<p>My other brother was a lobbyist, and he lives on the [inaudible] outside of Charleston[, South Carolina] and he had a scare when Hurricane Hugo hit there. His house, luckily, was spared, but he’s only about a block away from the ocean there.</p>
<p>One of my sisters stayed in Charlotte—the oldest. When they put through I[nterstate Highway] 85 years ago, she married one of five brothers. And when the parents died, the farm was divided up, and I-85 went right through the farm. She has 23 acres on the northwest quadrant of Mallard Church Creek Road and I-85, which is not that far from NASCAR [,National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing]. so she’s sitting on a gold mine and she has four kids.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And it hasn’t been developed?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>It’s coming out that way. It just keeps growing that way. My other sister lives out in Helen, Georgia, which is about 75 miles north, and they have an Oktoberfest up there. What they did is they turned Helen into a Bavarian village. Years ago, these businessmen from Gainesville, Georgia, were in Bavaria[, Germany], and they came up with an idea and said, “Let’s go back to Helen and ask all the owners if they’ll convert their storefronts into a Bavarian type of…” So they all agreed and it’s now a resort. They have tubing there and we went up there in [20]07 for my sister and her husband’s 50<sup>th</sup> wedding anniversary.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did you have any stories around racial lines? Around integration? Anything like that?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, I can say that when we were growing up, we had maids in the house. In fact, Geneva was part of the family, and my mother paid her $7 a week. She would come over and cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She was a great maid that we had. My parents were always very accepting. They weren’t bigoted types. My mother, like I said, was a social worker for 40 years.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I was talking to somebody about the book titled <em>The Help</em>. and the people in the book say that the employers wouldn’t allow their black help to use their bathrooms. I never heard that before.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>No. When I was growing up, I knew that either you were black or white. Water fountains were segregated.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>But in your home when she worked for you, she used your bathroom?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Of course.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>You see, I had never heard that either, because our Ovella was like a second mother to us. We had an amazing story. I’m down here in Florida, and she lives up in Knoxville[, Tennessee]. And I hadn’t seen her in a year or two, but for some reason, I just started thinking about her and thinking about her. and I said, “I’ve got to send her some money.” I talked to my husband and I said, “I’ve been having these dreams about Ovella and I want to give her some money.” He said, “Well, how much money?” I said, “I want to give her $5,000.” I had never given her more than $100 at any other time. Maybe at Christmas, if I was up there, I’d give her $50 or $100. I didn’t call her or say, “Money’s coming.” I just wrote her a little note telling her that I loved her and put in a check. and she called me and she said they had been praying for a new roof on their house. That was what they used the $5,000 for.</p>
<p>My point is that somebody—not your family, not your close relative—you’ve got such a close connection that their prayers came to me for some reason. Luckily, we had the money and we could spare it. I had never heard of this and a bunch of us are going to go watch <em>The Help</em> when it comes out.</p>
<p>Gino had said they had hired a lady and she kept going out to the garage or someplace. And he said, “Why are you doing that?” And they said, “Well, we can’t use the bathroom in the house.” He said, “What do you mean you can’t use the bathroom in the house? Of course you can use the bathroom in the house.” That must have been a common thing—maybe Deep South, because I had never heard of it living in Tennessee.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, my final story will be when I got burned as a kid. I was eight years old. It was in May of 1950. And the Retans lived down the street from us, and we had this thing of cleaning our bicycles—you know, the sprockets—how to get them oily. We had decided to clean all of our bicycles. Take the rear wheel off, take the sprockets off, and clean them with gasoline, put them back together. We had these little Maxwell House coffee cans, so we did it and cleaned them off. We were eating supper, and then Robbie and I went back down to the Retans’, and somebody left a book of matches on the back steps. So, for whatever reason, I went over, opened the matches and struck it, and then I just tossed it without noticing where I tossed it. Then I turned around and walked over and was looking down into the [inaudible] when it exploded. It was like a cannon, and this gasoline shot out my left leg, and caught me on fire, and I started screaming. Luckily, we had a hose that was set up with the pistol grip, and so my brother—he told me to roll and he put it out.</p>
<p>I was in the hospital for three months and I underwent eight skin graft surgeries. Initially, it was just my baby doctor who was treating me. They had just put this gook on me. My mother said, “This is not going to work. Something’s got to be done.” The doctor apparently thought she could handle it, but my mother went to the nurses and said, “You know, you need a specialist.” so they brought in Dr. Jacobs. He was a World War II doctor and had seen a lot of war injuries. and so he’s the one who did the skin graft surgeries on me.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>With all those parts, I was afraid you were going to tell that, when it exploded, the parts were like shrapnel coming out of there. They could have injured you too.</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>It was the gasoline that blew up, not the parts themselves. And luckily, it was below the knee. They said if it had been over the knee, it would have probably crippled me. It was third-degree burns. That was the traumatic event of my life. It changed me a little bit.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, what made you afraid of driving until you started driving? Were they just such wild drivers?</p>
<p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>I just wasn’t in control and I didn’t trust anybody. Once I started driving, I didn’t have that fear, because I started driving.</p>
<p>Wait, there’s one more story I’ve got. This was at the [inaudible] Methodist Church there in Charlotte. And we were about a block away from the church and me and Hugh Walker—he was the youngest of five—he just had one brother and three sisters. We hung out and we were in the [Boy] Scouts [of America] together. The church usually had Wednesday night supper, and they had these big five gallon size peaches that they would use and throw the cans out back. Well, we saw those and said, “Those would make great tom-toms.” so we started beating them. And we went over to where the choir director had his teenage group practicing, and we were outside beating on those things. My mother and both of my oldest sisters were in the choir, so he knew them real well. When he heard us beating on those things, he came out chasing us. Well, we ran out to the back of the church, around to the north side of the church, between the pastor’s [inaudible], around the front of the church. He was closing in on us, but he had on these wing-tipped leather bottom shoes. and then we got to this area of the sidewalk where it had a thin layer of sand. As soon as he stepped on that sand with those wing-tipped leather shoes, his feet came out from under him and he just busted his rear end. My friend Hugh Walker—I call him “Wookah.” I said, “Wookah, should we go back and help him?” He said, “Hell no.” My mother said he never mentioned it to her, but he was probably so embarrassed that he busted his rear end.</p>
<div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Erika Mattfeld.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: Germany.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[3]</a> Richard "Rick" Lynn Scott.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[4]</a> Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[5]</a> Robbie Harkey.</p>
</div>
</div>
African Americans
Airport Boulevard
Altamonte Springs
Amtrak
Antoinette Jennings
Apopka
ATF
Atlanta, Georgia
Beverly Harkey
Bill Gorman
Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre
Bob Egan
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
campaign coordinators
campaigns
Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play
Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens
Channel 24
Channel 9
Charlotte, North Carolina
Cheryl Harkey
church
churches
city commissioners
claims adjusters
Claims Department
Claude R. Kirk, Jr.
Claude Roy Kirk, Jr.
CNA Financial Corporation
Creative Sanford, Inc.
CSX Transportation
Dick Quentin Harkey
Downtown Orlando
Downtown Sanford
Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
Erika Mattfeld
Eustis
Florida Central Railroad
Florida Hospital Health Village
Florida State Road 417
Florida State Road 441
Florida State Road 46
Fort Lauderdale
Gainesville, Georgia
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush
Governor of Florida
governors
Great American Insurance Group
Harvey LeRoy Atwater
hospitals
Hugh Walker
ILC
IMA
insurance
Intracoastal Waterway
IOC
Isaacson
Jackson Port
Jacobs
Jeanie Austin
Joe Montesanto
John King
John Luigi Mica
John Mica
John Street
Kirk Douglas
Lake Mary
Lake Nona
Lake Nona Medical City
Lawson Lamar
Lee Atwater
Lockhart
Longwood
Magic Kingdom Park
maids
Maitland Civic Center
Manatee Port
Marianne Harkey
Mark McCarty
Maxwell House
Methodists
Mount Dora
New York City, New York
Nicky Bernstein
Orange Blossom Express
orange county
Order of the Elbow
orlando
Orlando Regional Realtor Association
Orlando Utilities Commission
OUC
Pam Beach
Panama Canal
Peace Tree Hills Road
Peggy Spagler
race relations
railroads
railways
Republican National Committee
Republican Party of Florida
Republicans
Retan
Rich Crotty
Richard Lynn Scott
Richard T. Crotty
Rick Scott
RNC
Robbie Harkey
Robert Egan
S Line
Sand Lake Road
Sanford
Sanford City Commission
Sanford Welcome Center
Scott Vandergrift
segregation
Spagler, Peggy
SR 417
SR 441
SR 46
state representatives
state senators
SunRail
Taft
Tavares
Terry Griffin
The Help
The Sail Club
Toni Jennings
Toni Jennings Public Service Award
Trish Thompson
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
University of Georgia
US Railcar Company
Wall Street Crash of 1929
Walt Disney World
West Palm Beach
WFTV
William D. Gorman
Winter Haven
Winter Haven Integrated Logistics Center
WMFE-TV
Young Harris College
Young Republicans
YR
-
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/e8aa521d3c51256016045535b932f4f9.pdf
a502cafbf7cd4aa802ade34cfa20c077
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection
Alternative Title
Creative Sanford Collection
Subject
Seminole County (Fla.)
Folk plays
Sanford (Fla.)
Description
<span>Creative Sanford, Inc. is a non-profit organization created to manage <em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em> community theater productions. The original idea for the Celery Soup project came from Jeanine Taylor, the owner of a folk-art gallery on First Street in Sanford, Florida. Their first production was </span><em>Touch and Go</em><span>, a play focusing on the people of Sanford and their determination to overcome various obstacles, including the Freeze of 1894-1895, the fall of Sanford's celery industry, and the closing of Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford in the 1960s. In the process of producing the show, Creative Sanford decided to rehabilitate an historic building, the Princess Theater, which is located on 115 West First Street and owned by Stephen Tibstra. The Creative Sanford offices are housed in the Historic Sanford Welcome Center, located at 203 East First Street.</span>
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Historic Sanford Welcome Center, Downtown Sanford, Florida
Princess Theater, Downtown Sanford, Florida
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">WHO IS CREATIVE SANFORD, INC?</a>" Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about.
<span>"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/" target="_blank">About: History and Purpose</a>." Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/.</span>
"<a href="http://www.communityperformanceinternational.org/sanford-florida" target="_blank">Sanford, Florida: How do you make Celery Soup? Add stories, then stir</a>." Community Performance International. http://www.communityperformanceinternational.org/sanford-florida.
Contributor
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
Thompson, Trish
Donaldson, Laura
Interviewee
Lee, Luticia
Dingle, Cathy Lee
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Oral History of Luticia Roberts Lee and Catherine Lee Dingle
Alternative Title
Oral History, Lee and Dingle
Subject
Sanford (Fla.)
Race relations--Florida
Hurricanes--Florida
Segregation--Florida
Description
An oral history of Luticia Lee, with her daughter, Cathy Lee Dingle. Lee was born in Sanford, Florida, where her mother bought a grocery store on First Street at half-interest in 1910. Lee's mother graduated from Sanford High School in 1913 and Lee graduated in 1942, after it was renamed Seminole High School. Her children in the attended the school in the 1960, and her grandson graduated later. Lee met her husband, James Lee, who had just returned from service in the U.S. Army in December of 1945. In September of 1946, the couple married. They had three children and five grandchildren. In this oral history, Lee discusses how they started the tradition of throwing pasture parties, life was like during integration in Sanford, how Jim Crow laws were applied, Lee's old house, and tornadoes and hurricanes that had passed through Sanford.
Type
Text
Source
Lee, Luticia and Catherine Lee Dingle. Interviewed by Trish Thompson and Laura Donaldson. Celery Soup. July 2012. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida.
Requires
<a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida.
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Is Format Of
Digital transcript of original oral history: Lee, Luticia and Catherine Lee Dingle. Interviewed by Trish Thompson and Laura Donaldson. Celery Soup. July 2012. Audio record available. Celery Soup.
Coverage
East 3rd Street and South Palmetto Avenue, Sanford, Florida
West 15th Street and South Oak Avenue, Sanford, Florida
American Legion Campbell-Lossing Post 53, Sanford, Florida
Seminole High School, Sanford, Florida
Creator
Lee, Luticia
Dingle, Cathy Lee
Thompson, Trish
Donaldson, Laura
Contributor
Román-Toro, Freddie
Date Created
2012-07
Format
application/pdf
Extent
175 KB
Medium
17-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Civics/Government Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Trish Thompson, Laura Donaldson, Luticia Lee, and Cathy Lee Dingle.
Rights Holder
Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only.
Accrual Method
Donation
Contributing Project
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a>
Curator
Roman-Toro, Freddie
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a>." <em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em>. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/.
Litwack, Leon F. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/37981894" target="_blank"><em>Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow</em></a>. New York: Knopf, 1998.
Newton, Michael. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47136480" target="_blank"><em>The Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida</em></a>. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
Taylor, Tate, et al. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/748435864" target="_blank"><em>The Help</em></a>. Burbank, Calif: Touchstone Home Entertainment, 2011.
Williams, John M., Iver W. Duedall, and John M. Williams. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47995910" target="_blank"><em>Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms, 1871-2001</em></a>. Gainesville, Fla: University of Florida Press, 2002.
Winsboro, Irvin D. S. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/797855859" target="_blank"><em>South, New South, or Down South? Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement</em></a>. Morgantown, W. Va: West Virginia University Press, 2009.
Transcript
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So, if you would like to give us the story of how you got to Sanford.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>I was born here.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>How did your oldest relative get to Sanford?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>My grandmother, after my grandfather died in Mount Olive, North Carolina—she had four girls and two boys. And Mr. Nathan Garner from Sanford was a friend, and he was visiting when my grandfather died. And he had a grocery store down here, so my grandmother bought half interest, and they came in 1910. My oldest aunt didn’t come, but then the next one, Aunt Marty [Roberts]—she came and she roomed at Miss Bessie Long’s. Do you know Miss Bessie Long? Her house was on [North] Oak Avenue right across from the park. The Higgins’ house was next door and Aunt Marty roomed there.</p>
<p>And my uncle roomed in Captain Mark’s house which was on [East] Third [Street] and [South] Palmetto [Avenue]. They had the grocery store on First Street. And then Mr. Garner’s son didn’t want to be in the grocery store, so Uncle James [Roberts] bought him out and changed the name to Roberts’ Grocery.</p>
<p>Mother was in the first class to graduate from Sanford High [School] in 1913. And I graduated in 1942 and my children graduated in the [19]60s. and then my grandson graduated, so there were four generations that graduated. They changed the name from Sanford High to Seminole High [School]. That’s how we got here.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Now did you work in the store?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>No. I never worked, except at home. Right after I got out of high school, I worked at the ice plant<a title="">[1]</a> for a while, but I didn’t work there too long. I got married. James [Lee] went to Stetson [University]. He got back from the [United States] Army in December 1945. Our first son was born in DeLand, when he was going to Stetson.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>How did you meet?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>His sister lived in Palmetto, right behind us. And she was a friend of Mama’s. When he came back from the war, I met him and it worked.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>How long have you lived in this house?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Mom and Daddy built it when I was three years old, but I just lived here ‘til I was married. And then James and I—after Mama died, we owned the house over on [West] 15<sup>th</sup> [Street] and [South] Oak and that’s where we raised our children. After Mama died, we moved back here. I’ve been here ever since. This house was built in 1926. It’s 85. It’s younger than me [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, it isn’t holding up as well as you.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>It might be doing better [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>So how long did y’all go steady before you got married?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>From December ’45 to September ’46. You know, he had been overseas for three years. He was ready to live [<em>laughs</em>]. Go to school and have a family. I was too.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>When you live through such a traumatic thing as the [World] War [II], you learn what’s important. Was he in the Pacific [Theater]?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>India and China. He was over there, and my brother was in the Pacific too. Then when the Second World War started, my daddy was the shop superintendent of the Crown Paper Company, when they used to print all the paper that they used to wrap all the oranges in. and then when the war started in ’42, they asked for all scrap metal to be sent back. And Daddy was in the [American] Legion [Campbell-Lossing Post 53]. And there was a cannon in front, and Daddy helped dismantle it, and that’s when he got spoke[sic] to make my rolling pin with.</p>
<p>See, I graduated in ’42, and that’s when you always got a hope chest [<em>laughs</em>]. And mother was crocheting me a bedspread. Since Mama was making the bedspread, Daddy wanted to make something to go in my hope chest, so he had that spoke so—and they had a shop in the Crown Paper Company, so he could make my rolling pin.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So your daddy made that rolling pin? Is it signed?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>No. I wanted to get a picture of the cannon, and I had a hard time. But I went down to the museum, and I started finding things, and I’ve got quite a bit of information on it.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did they turn that cannon in during World War II for the metal?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Yeah. For the metal and it had been used in the First World War and they put it in front of the [Legion] Hut when they built it.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, tell me how your father got involved in the legal system—in the jails, corrections…</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Well, it was my husband. Well, he graduated from Stetson with a business degree, but then he went to Rollins [College] and got a Master’s [degree] in Criminal Justice. When he was in the Army, he was in the military police and was interested in all that. When the Parole Commission advertised for people, he applied, took the test, and passed, and was hired. Then we went to Orlando for a little while. And then when an opening came in Sanford, he wanted to raise our family here, so we came here and then he was with the state for 32 years.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did he ever have any parolee problems—coming to the house?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>No. My husband was very good. People liked him. I remember after he was retired, and we were living here, we wanted to put a fence down the side in between the houses. And they said we couldn’t put a chain-link fence, and he went down and talked to somebody, and he said, “Well, you know, we wouldn’t put just an old chain-link fence. we’d put a green one down. We could put a barbed wire one down. It’s not prohibited.” The man said, “What?” And he said, “Yeah. I looked it up.” We got our fence [<em>laughs</em>]. It’s a nice fence. In fact, the people that live there, when they came home, they didn’t even notice it, ‘cause it was green and it was pretty, you know.</p>
<p>Anyway, the head of one of the departments said, “Mr. Lee, you don’t recognize me do you?” And James said, “No. I’m sorry. Should I know you?” And he said, “Well, I’m one of your success stories, and you told me…” He was very young. “I should think about what I wanted to be and start working toward it, and then try to get an education and become that. and here I am. I’m the head of the department.” I don’t know what department it was or anything, but he came home and said, “You know, I didn’t recognize—he’s a man now. He was a boy then. That was great.”</p>
<p>And another time—this was funny—is when the post office was Downtown. I still call it the post office. Not the one on Lakefront. the one on First Street.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson <br /></strong>Where the Historic [Sanford] Welcome Center is now. Okay.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>He came out to the car and he had the funniest look on his face. and I said, “What’s the matter?” He said, “I just got a Father’s Day card from this elderly man that was so old, he didn’t have his regular birthday. So Daddy figured out and got him a birthday…” And he said, “This is your birthday.” So he sent Daddy a Father’s Day card [<em>laughs</em>]. He had a lot of stories. I don’t remember too many of them, but he did have a lot. He said he was going to write a book after he retired, but he never had time.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>Now how many kids do you have?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Three. Cathy [Lee Dingle], Linda [Lee Maliczowski], and Jimmy [Lee]. They were all under three—we had one, two, three. He retired and we’ve enjoyed it. And then he got sick, but everything’s okay.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>How many grandkids do you have?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Well, we have five now. And then we had four great grandchildren. And when we add the in-laws, including me, there’s 18 of us. You know, it multiplies.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>And do you get together?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Yeah. Maybe we don’t get all together at the same time. But Mendelson’s getting married, but it’ll be about a year. He just got engaged. He’s a nurse at the Florida Memorial [Medical Center] hospital in Daytona [Beach]. They grew up so fast. I’ve had several parties here in the yard, and she wants to have an engagement party in the yard now. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, [inaudible] Sawyer’s had a pasture out. And they had horses in it, but the horses were not where they had the parties. but they had what we call “pasture parties.”</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>Mm-hmm, I went to them.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>You did? Wonderful. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. But then we all got old—they don’t have pasture parties after you get old.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Describe a pasture party. What is a pasture party?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Well, it was a pasture. And then Blake [Jones]—Joyce’s husband—he had a grill out there and a real small trailer and electricity. And he built picnic tables and a thing over it, and had a shed that he could keep chairs in. and when we went, we all took something—potluck. The men would cook on the grill and it was a lot of fun.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did people ride horses or did you play games?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>No. The kids—but I’m talking about the old folks. We didn’t ride horses. We just talked and laughed and had a good time. Then we lost quite a few. And last summer, we lost a couple: Elizabeth Steele and Joyce Adams Jones. And I thought it would be a lot of fun to get all the old people back together, so I had a backyard pasture party. But I didn’t want anybody bringing potluck, so I had [inaudible] catering. I said, “We’re too old to try to cook and bring things.” We took a lot of pictures. we really had a good time.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>When you had these, was it for Fourth of July or Memorial Day or things like that or spontaneous?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Spontaneous. It was always on the weekend, because some people were still working. and it was a lot of fun. I had pictures of when we were young and we took pictures at the backyard party.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Have you all followed the tradition?</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>Well, she had one here in her yard recently.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>It was in November. And now they’re all saying, “When are you having the next one?” Well, our helpers had to get over the last one, because I couldn’t do that much they were having to do it.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So it’s gone down to another generation. The leaders of the pasture party.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Anyway, those of us that were in it had a wonderful time. Benny and Louis Austin, Gladys and Doug Stenstrom, Joyce and Blake, of course. And Margie and Leo [inaudible], and [inaudible] and Charlie Smith. Ken and Mary McIntosh were here. Paddy [inaudible], Dr. Bill White. Even when James and I were at the beach and they had a condo[minium], and upstairs they had a meeting room. I called all the folks and said, “I’m having a beach pasture party.” so for a couple of years, we had a beach pasture party [<em>laughs</em>]. They’d all come over to the beach and go up to the 7<sup>th</sup> floor…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It sounds to me like you’re the social director of the group.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>No. I really wasn’t. But I did have the extra parties where everybody came and brought something. but Joyce and Blake and Margie really started it. They had the real pasture. I never had a real pasture. Did it in the backyard or the beach. It was Benny[?] and Phil Logan and…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>All of these people that you’re naming—when your husband—when you were in Orlando, and he said, “I want us to move to Sanford and raise a family here,” were all his friends here? What is Sanford to you all?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Sanford’s home. We grew up here, we went to school here, and most of these people we went to school with.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And did they leave and come back also?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Some of them left and came back. Now, James and I weren’t gone long. We were at Stetson for three years and then…</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>I was in the third grade when we came back here. I was eight. We were probably gone 10 or 11 years.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>But we were always coming back. You know, Mother and Daddy were right here in this house, so we were here a lot—most every week. And never felt like we had gone away. He did want to live here and raise our children.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>How many people were in Sanford when you came back? When I opened my restaurant in 1981 there were 20,000.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>Really, just 20,000?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>That’s a lot more people.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>But it still has that small-town feel to me. The people we’ve talked to—I’m trying to get that feel of what was Sanford that brought everybody here.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Well, like Margie and Leo [inaudible]. He was in the Navy. They were gone a long time, but then they came back. but then a lot of people stayed anyway. Joyce and Blake went to California, but then they came back.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>I think, as time goes on, when you’re younger, you want to leave and go to another town. And then you go to some big place and it’s not very friendly and a lot harder to get around. and you feel uncomfortable and you say, “Sanford wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Let’s go home.”</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>And you know everybody. Sometimes I go to town and I don’t know anybody and that feels funny. Our group—all of us—us pasture parties—we get together all the time.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Gladys moved to Jacksonville, right? Does she ever get back down?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Yeah. She comes down. Of course, she came down when Ralph [inaudible] died. He’s her cousin. She’s coming down in April. Joyce and I have a birthday party for about four of us, but we couldn’t do it this time. But we’re going to do it—I think George said we were going to do it in June. Gladys couldn’t come for a while. She was sick, but she’s okay now. and we’re going to have a belated birthday party for Linda Roth. Linda Roth was a pasture girl [<em>laughs</em>]. Linda is Leroy Roth’s wife. They were pasture party people. Linda has moved down to where her daughter lives, but she’s coming back.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>She just moved right before Christmas right?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Yeah. It’s hard to believe she’s not sitting in church every Sunday. She’s going to church down there.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Now, your kids were too young to have gone through integration of…</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>We were the class. Ingrid was the first person to be integrated, and she was in our class—Ingrid Burton. We were in junior high school. I remember pulling her across the street. she did not want to come. She was the only—in that whole school. We were upstairs in science class looking out the window, and they were pretty much pulling her across the street—her parents. She was the one they chose to be integrated. I’m sure she was very smart. She’s a schoolteacher out in Lake Mary. She came back here. There were only several black kids in our graduating class. Maybe about five or six in the whole class, I believe.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Of high school?</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>Of the class of ’68. There weren’t that many.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>Because integration was ’71. Forced integration was ’71.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>It was either 8<sup>th</sup> or 9<sup>th</sup> grade when she came. so she was with us for about five years.</p>
<p>I was on the yearbook staff and I was the editor my senior year. I don’t think there was a black in the senior class, because integration started in my class. Henry June—I remember him.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>That must have been hard for those children.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>Ronald Thomas—I didn’t know him. At least Henry had someone. There were only two black students in the senior class of ’67.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did you have any black friends or know any blacks?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>No. see, at that time, my mother always had help. We always had maids. And as I had my children, I had Ines. She worked for me for 25 years. We’re still friends. I send her a birthday card with a check and a Christmas card, and she calls me. When I lost James, she came here and she came to his funeral.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And you didn’t have any of the prejudice? That is wonderful. With what we’re going through now,<a title="">[2]</a> there’s a lot of talk.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>And see, to me, that’s not Sanford. I feel terrible that they are misrepresenting things, and they’re not telling the truth about Sanford, because I had never known that. When Charles and I were little…</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>There were eight in our junior class. That’s Ingrid. I don’t know if they all stayed and graduated, but Viola Jordan—we were in PE [physical education] together.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>My brother was two years younger than me, and he’s been gone 20 years. But Mama had—and he loved old Catherine, and she used to take him down to the lakefront to fish before he ever started to school. We were close to those that were there and worked for us.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Where did they live?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>They lived either in Georgetown or Goldsboro[?]. Now, when Aunt Ruth lived on Second and [inaudible], there was a two-story house. I don’t remember why it was built. It was used—downstairs had been for the wash. And then there was the upstairs that we had as a playroom. But then later, when we were in high school, Aunt Ruth had a maid that lived downstairs. It wasn’t like that movie—I haven’t seen it but…</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong><em>The Help</em>?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Yeah. I haven’t seen it, but Cathy saw it. She said that somebody asked her if she knew anything like that, and she said she never knew anything like that in Sanford. We didn’t.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>It wasn’t an accurate portrayal is what I heard.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It was in some areas.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>See, we’re not Mississippi or Alabama.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>You go to Mississippi, you go to Alabama—this is your story. But my mother’s from Mississippi, and her mother had a boarding house. And they had black maids that came in, and they literally lived in shotgun houses. You could shoot a gun straight through the house and go out the back door. Lived across the tracks. Absolutely, there was the line. That was very much in the small town of Mississippi, when I was a child. It was absolutely amazing to me, because I was a Navy brat. Born in the Dominican Republic. The only white child anywhere around and lived in California and New York. You know, very cosmopolitan compared to Mississippi. Yeah. but in Tennessee, we didn’t have that at all.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Cathy said that. She saw it with some of her friends and she said, “Was it like that in Sanford?” She said, “No.”</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>Like what? Drinking in bathrooms?</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Separate bathrooms and drinking fountains.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>Well, I remember as a kid in Orlando going to Sears[, Roebuck & Company] through the back door. We would park in one parking lot, and go back and there was a water fountain. one was black and one was white.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>I do remember water fountains.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>They called it “colored” then. I remember we’d go in there, there’d be nobody there, and there’d be three of us and we all wanted a drink of water. And we were wanting to go over there and we were told that we couldn’t go over there. that that wasn’t our fountain. And I remember going, “But why not?”</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did they have a fountain guard?</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>We were just told not to use that. “Here. this is yours.” “But there’s three of us and I want a drink.”</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>I do remember it was separate there, but not in homes. You had a maid. She used your bathroom.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And of course, I guess you didn’t notice that they wouldn’t be in touch at drug stores. They couldn’t come through the front door. They had to go to the back door to get their prescriptions.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>I didn’t know that. No.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>They wouldn’t let them. They wouldn’t serve them if they came in through the front door.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>I do remember that they had their own entrance in the movie theater. There was a wall. There was the downstairs part and then the balcony had a wall in between, and on one side, it was this section, and on the other, there was a door, and that’s where the blacks would come in. The theater was divided. We thought that was so weird.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>We never had that.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>Well, you see, this is what she and I were talking about. So many people were saying, “It just didn’t seem right.” and it seemed like such an injustice. How did it last so long? And how were there that many people who thought it was the right thing to do if everybody I meet says, “I felt like it was an injustice”?</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>It’s just like when any law is made. It’s easy to make the law, but it’s hard to change it. These were laws. It was just, “Put the wall up.”</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Really and truly, I’m going to give us the credit for it, because I think men would just go along. And I think the women finally stood up and said, “I want my friend to be here.” We weren’t the militant—we were quiet and easing into it. The men were militant.</p>
<p>With everything that’s going on right now, we’re seeing more openness. We’re seeing more blacks downtown. We’re seeing more people speaking to each other. I was at the post office—the guy in front of me was black. The person behind me was black. They all looked me in the eye and smiled at me. Said, “Hello.” and I said, “Hello” back. I don’t know if they wouldn’t have at another time or maybe I’m more sensitive to it now, because of what’s happened.</p>
<p>Now, let’s go to the past a little bit. Can you tell about being in the [inaudible] Club?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Well, I wasn’t in the [inaudible] Club. I was just there. Gladys invited us. I took my picture with them, but I wasn’t one of them as a youngster. I think they were younger than me. Gladys was younger. I think Gladys was 12 years younger than Florence [Stenstrom], Violet, and me.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Now was Florence Doug’s first wife?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Yes. And they were the first pasture party people. After she died, he married Patty [Stenstrom] and she was a pasture party person.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>Which grade school did you go to?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>I went to Southside Grammar School, junior high, and then high school.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>Break that up. How many years did you go to Southside?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Four years—two. Junior high was two and high school was four years.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>Who was your first grade teacher? I’m just curious, because my dad and I had the same one.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>At the time, she was Ms. Chapman, but then she got married and she was Mrs. [inaudible], and they belong to our church too. When we moved back over here, she was substituting. She had a kindergarten, and the children would stay with Mama, and Mrs. [inaudible] would let them come and stay in her kindergarten. It didn’t matter if they were students or not. She loved us.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Can you think of the scariest time you ever had? Gladys tells the story of how frightened she got when she saw the Ku Klux Klan on the corner of Melonville [Avenue].</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>I remember one time, Jimmy was sick. They had to do a bone marrow—I remember Cathy went with me. Cathy always wanted to be a doctor. She’d even keep her eyes open whenever the doctor would do something to her. I’d always close my eyes. I remember that I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t say anything. I remember I was listening—that they were saying that they had to do the bone marrow test. and after they did it, it was alright. His white blood count was normal in the bone marrow test. I remember being scared then.</p>
<p>I wasn’t scared when I had the kids. Of course, I was awake when Cathy was born, because all three were Caesarian [sections]. But hers had gone too far, so they had a tent in front of me, and the doctor asked me, “Do you feel that?” And I said, “Yes. it feels like you’re running a pen down my tummy.” When I heard her cry, he started doing something and I said, “Are you getting another one?” This was 67 years ago. I didn’t know anything back then. He said, “No. it just takes longer to sew you up than to cut you open.” I can remember all that very plainly. I always thought everything was going to be alright.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>What’s your happiest memory? What memories always make you feel great?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Getting married, having all my children, moving back to Sanford. I was thrilled. And buying that house over on 15<sup>th</sup> Street. The dining room was fantastic. It had beamed ceilings, and stained-glass windows, and a built in buffet all the way around it. The floor was striped—dark wood, black and gold.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Like inlaid wood? Oh, man.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>And I remember James said, “Honey, we can’t heat this house.” It had 12-foot ceilings, you know. And I said, “Honey, that’s alright. I’ll put my coat on and I’ll go sit in the dining room and say, ‘This is why we bought the house.’” That was a happy time.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And how long did you live there?</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Well, honey, it felt like I lived there longer. It was just 18 years, but the kids all went to school and college, the girls got married, I lost Mom and Daddy. You know, so much happened. I’ve been here since ’79.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>It was ’78 or ’79, because I got married in ’76. and then we bought the house from them when they moved back here. We sold the house about eight years ago.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>You see, they had it for longer than we did, but it seemed like we lived there longer, because so much happened. It just seemed like I’ve been here since then, and I’ve had all the grandchildren, but of course, we had grandchildren over there. You lived there like 27 years.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>And before that.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>And you lived there before that, because you grew up there.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And did you love the dining room just as much?</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. It was a great house. It was huge though. I have a son and he is now 23, and he was a big person. And we were gone all the time. Because of baseball and all these things and it was just too big of a house to take care of, and we decided it was time to find a smaller place.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>You see, I was there all the time, and all the neighbor kids were there and my kids too. I had Ines. she worked. </p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>And when Joshie [Dingle] was little, there weren’t any kids in the neighborhood. We had to import them.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>If they ever put it on the [Sanford Holiday] Tour [of Historic Homes], y’all should go. I can’t go back. I just don’t want to see it again.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>She means since it’s not in the family anymore. It’s a beautiful house, and they’ve done a lot of work since they got it.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>It was 14 rooms and look how many outside doors. If I was there by myself, I could not live there by myself, like I can here.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>I can. It was easy.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>I remember when James and I wanted to move back here, Linda said, “If you ever sell this place, I go with the house.” I remember her saying that.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>So I bought the house instead. I always said the house had a protective blanket over it. It was protected.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It just felt that way.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>I could walk through the house blindfolded. I would walk through it in the dark with no problem. I knew where I was going. When the tornado hit here, I was out of town when it happened, and Daddy called me from here. I was visiting a friend in Washington, and Daddy said, “You need to come home. The tornado came.” that was when Sarah [Dingle] was born, or about 35 years ago.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Would this be in ’83? The real bad hailstorm…</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>The hailstorm was in ’83. The tornado was in the ‘90s.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>The tornado was later.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I think they were at the same time, because I was looking at the sky and it was green.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>It was a hailstorm, but it was also a tornado.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>It went all the way around the house, because we had to have all the windows and screens replaced.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle <br /></strong>Yeah, but that was here. Over there, we went back and nothing, except some of the roof, was—a friend of mine, Cindy, was staying in the house when I was gone, and she left work. She said she drove home and there was stuff all over the place. it had been getting bad. She thought, “Man, I’ve got to get in that house all by myself and it’s dark.” She first went in and didn’t try to turn the lights on, because she knew there wouldn’t be any. and then she walked in the room and forgot and turned the light on and they were all on. We didn’t lose power. we didn’t lose anything.</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>And that’s Cindy Slaten Lee.</p>
<p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>What about the hurricanes? Were you living in that house when they had the four…</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>I remember living there during Hurricane Donna. That was when we were kids. I was living there when—I remember that I cooked everything in my freezer, because I was afraid it was going to go bad, because we were going to lose power. and then it didn’t go bad and I had to have all these people over to eat all the food. I remember that was the only time we boarded windows, because we always taped windows. But it was supposed to be bad, and that house is three feet off the ground and then the windows are humongous. we went and got plywood and boarded up that house. It was just me and my husband, and I was there holding the boards, and then the hurricane never came. But I would rather be prepared. I was in the other house when the other four came. They weren’t fun.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>But, you see, in this house, the worst we had was when there was a hailstorm and it went all around the house. When it comes to hurricanes, I never worried. This is a well-built house.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>I made her come to my house during those four hurricanes, and the next time, she said, “I’ll stay home. You have to come to my house next time.”</p>
<p><strong>Lee <br /></strong>You know, when I was little, I remember telling Daddy, “I’m scared somebody will come.” And my Daddy would say, “Honey, don’t worry. If anybody comes, as soon as morning comes, and they see you, they’ll bring you right back.”</p>
<p><strong>Donaldson<br /></strong>Tell her the story about the pond.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>Well, my Daddy built the pond in the ‘30s. My mama wanted it, and we went to Daytona and got the Kokino[sp] rock, and it’s still there around the pond. Heidi has to take care of it by herself. She’s got three lots. I’ve just got two. She comes over and takes care of my pond. It’s got fish, water lilies, and I’ve got stuff blooming in the pond. In the early ‘30s, you might find more ponds around. They were popular. People liked to have them. Mama’s fish were tame. Mine aren’t tame. Mama could put her finger in the water and wiggle it and the fish would come. When I come by the pond, mine hide.</p>
<p><strong>Dingle<br /></strong>Well, maybe because they think that you’re going to eat them like the owl did. Heidi has an owl that lives in her backyard and he’s eaten some of the fish.</p>
<p><strong>Lee<br /></strong>It’s a natural habitat over there. It’s a shame she isn’t really out in the woods, you know. She’s got a plaque from the state that says her backyard is a habitat.</p>
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<p><a title="">[1]</a> Rand Yard Ice House.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> The trial of George Michael Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of Travyon Benjamin Martin on February 26, 2012.</p>
</div>
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