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https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/197874e145d3b17058cf363f3eab755d.pdf
8d026f907c6ee3fab4872f80183b7f5e
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cf9a90938dac133de27d27af11cd8516.mp3
2e13c1253097ad7b2c897e42380c20bc
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection
Alternative Title
Linda McKnight Batman Collection
Subject
Ocala (Fla.)
Orlando (Fla.)
Oviedo (Fla.)
Port Tampa (Fla.)
Sanford (Fla.)
Silver Springs (Fla.)
Titusville (Fla.)
Zellwood (Fla.)
Description
Collection of oral histories depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. The project was funded by Linda McKnight Batman, a former teacher, historian, and Vice President of the State of Florida Commission on Ethics.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>
External Reference
<span>Museum of Seminole County History, and University of Central Florida. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/744676869" target="_blank"><em>Researcher's Guide to Seminole County Oral Histories: Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project</em></a><span>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Museum of Seminole County History, 2010.</span>
Contributor
<a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>
Coverage
Seminole County, Florida
Ocala, Florida
Oviedo, Florida
Port Tampa, Florida
Sanford, Florida
Silver Springs, Florida
Titusville, Florida
Zellwood, Florida
Contributing Project
Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
Morris, Joseph
Interviewee
White, Garnett
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Oral History of Garnett White
Alternative Title
Oral History, White
Subject
Sanford (Fla.)
World War II--United States
Navy
Real estate--Florida
Celery
Citrus--Florida
Description
An oral history of Garnett White, conducted by Joseph Morris on October 13, 2011. Born in St. Augustine, Florida, White moved with his family to Sanford at a young age. In the interview, he discusses attending Southside Elementary School during World War II, running a paper route and riding bikes around Sanford, his experiences as a real estate broker, Sanford's celery industry, the history of Chase and Company, Red Hill Groves and the citrus industry, his service in the U.S. Navy, his civic service, and his family.
Table Of Contents
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:42 Education
0:05:58 Riding bikes around Sanford
0:11:12 Experiences as a real estate broker
0:13:32 Celery industry and citrus industry
0:22:54 Growing up in Sanford
0:24:01 Running a paper route
0:27:51 Working in a grocery store and as a golf caddy
0:29:24 Serving in the Navy
0:32:27 Community involvement
0:37:17 Wife, children, and grandchildren
0:41:03 Farmers in Sanford
0:43:36 Growing citrus
0:48:35 Closing remarks
Abstract
Oral history interview of Garnett White Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> in Sanford, Florida.
Type
Sound
Source
White, Garnett. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. October 13, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida.
Requires
Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>.
<a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/123" target="_blank">Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Coverage
West 10th Street and South Laurel Avenue, Sanford, Florida
Triple S Groceteria, Sanford, Florida
Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida
Lake Monroe, Sanford, Florida
Chase & Company Washhouse, Sanford, Florida
Red Hill Groves, Orlando, Florida
Creator
Morris, Joseph
White, Garnett
Contributor
Vickers, Savannah
Date Created
2011-10-13
Date Modified
2014-10-30
Date Copyrighted
2011-10-13
Format
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Extent
493 MB
174 KB
Medium
48-minute and 51-second audio recording
16-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Civics/Government Teacher
Economics Teacher
Geography Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Joseph Morris and Garnett White.
Rights Holder
Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only.
Accrual Method
Donation
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.redhillgroves.com/#!our-story/cqi7" target="_blank">About Red Hill Groves</a>." Red Hill Groves. http://www.redhillgroves.com/#!our-story/cqi7.
Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003.
Transcript
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>This is an interview with Garnett White. This interview is being conducted on October 13<sup>th</sup>, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Sir, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, yes. I was born in St. Augustine, Florida. My father was a butcher—or meat-cutter, I guess we would call it. We moved to Sanford when I was maybe three years old. I remember when I was four years old going to a birthday party to a neighbor girl—and as I’ve over the years have tried to think when that was. I believe I was about four years old. We lived on [West] Tenth Street in Sanford, and my father worked as a butcher—meat-cutter—and he moved here from southwest Georgia—called Pelham, Georgia—and he went to work here for a man from Pelham, Georgia, named Bluitt Stevens.</p>
<p class="Body">We lived on Tenth Street until I was in about second grade, and my father had a house built on Tenth and [South] Laurel Avenue, and he still worked for Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens owned a store in Downtown Sanford where the Colonial Room Restaurant is now, and it was called Triple S Groceteria—the red front store, and that time is about the time I started school, and I went to Southside Elementary [School], where my first grade teacher was a Mrs. Jacobs, and the principal was Mrs. Harrington. And I remember those times. I went up through the fourth grade. And in the second grade, Elizabeth Wigham was my teacher. And the third grade, was a lady named Bobbi Goff. And the fourth grade, was a lady named Bobbi Goff. And this was only about three—maybe four—blocks from my home, and back then, of course, you didn’t have buses like that, and I remember walking to school when I’m six years old, and of course today, they don’t allow that type of thing, but it was not out of the ordinary at all.</p>
<p class="Body">One memory I have of that is that the lunch. The lunches cost 11 cents. You got a blue ticket for five cents, and that gave you the food—a roll usually, amongst other things—and milk was six cents. That was a yellow ticket. And I think you could get all five for 25—all five of a week for 25 cents, as well as I remember. But most people brought their own lunches. They did buy milk for six cents. And that was kind of interesting.</p>
<p class="Body">This would have been in about 1940 or ’41, and the Second World War started in 1941, and I remember big piles of metal, particularly aluminum, and rubber. This was to help the war effort, with aluminum to build airplanes out of—and I don’t know what they did with the rubber. But that was my first recollection of playing baseball—or softball, I guess it was—was at Southside Elementary.</p>
<p class="Body">Then we, uh—my grandfather was from Athens, Georgia, and he had his arm taken off. He had cancer, and my mother went up there to take care of him for about six weeks, and I, of course, went with her, and so I went to school for that six weeks in Winterville, Georgia.</p>
<p class="Body">Of course, coming back to Sanford, continued with school at—we called it [Sanford] “Grammar School,” which is now the Student Museum on Seventh Street and Elm Avenue in Sanford. They’d talk about it being so old, and so on. Of course, that was 70 years ago almost, but it doesn’t look any different today than it did back then. And they’d talk about it being old, and so on and so forth. Didn’t mean anything to us. You know, you had a seat and that was it. You know, scribbling all over the desks with knives. So on. So, you know, times—it just did not mean anything to us, as far as how new something was, and apparently nowadays you got to have a new school, or they don’t—or the children don’t accomplish as much, I guess, is a word [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p class="Body">But then—about when I was 11 years old, I got a paper route. Remember, this is during the war—the Second World War. And I got a paper route delivering <em>The Florida Times-Union</em>, which is the Jacksonville paper. They weren’t—the Sanford paper came out in the afternoon, and it was very hard to get newspaper or newsprint, and presses would break down, and I delivered <em>The Sanford Herald</em> also, about that time, and they had brown paper. It looked like the brown paper that’s used by butchers to wrap meat in, and that was kind of odd. And I’ve talked to people in the last few years, and they remember the paper being printed on that brown paper.</p>
<p class="Body">But something that is really kind of interesting is, over the years, I have talked and had coffee with Senator Mac Cleaver, and we would always talk about our paper routes. He was older than I was, but it never changes. And we would talk about who lived in certain houses, and where they would leave the money for the newspaper, and they still—me being eight years younger than Mac—they still left it at the same place—on the banister, on the porch, that type of thing.</p>
<p class="Body">Of course, after that, we went to Sanford Junior High School, which was over on Ninth Street and Sanford Avenue, and I guess that’s when we started growing up a little bit, and getting around town on our bicycles more than we did when we were very young. But we would ride our bikes down to the lakefront—which is Lake Monroe, down where the motel is now—and we’d jump off the seawall. It was there at that time. We’d jump off. We’d swim out to one of the beacons or markers out in the water. Another time—me and another fellow—we swam across the lake all the way to the power plant, and truthfully, we walked most of the way. It was very shallow out in the middle. We didn’t really walk. We just kind of touched bottom, and my father picked us up on the other side at the power plant on the north side of Lake Monroe.</p>
<p class="Body">But those were good times. It was not out of the ordinary to go downtown and walk around. Go through the alleys and see what people—or I’m talking about stores—had thrown away and did we want it, and that sort of thing, you know. It was—I really remember one time we went behind a place called [B. L.] Perkins. That was a men’s store. And there was a book of swaths of material that you could pick out what you—the men—would want their suits made out of. And we thought that—they were little old things about three by three inches, about three inches—and we thought that was a big deal. We took those home, and I think our parents threw them away. Anyway, as time goes on, in high school, went further from home, and went through all of the things, I guess, that happen in high school. And immediately after that, I joined the Navy and spent my hitch on board a fleet OR, and this would have been in 1950-51. But going all over town with paper routes, you just got to where you saw things you would never have seen, or people that you talked to or knew—you knew who they were, uh, if you didn’t have a paper route.</p>
<p class="Body">And then, as time goes on and I got out of the Navy, I got my—went to the real estate—school of real estate law—and, uh, got my broker’s license. And shortly thereafter, I met my wife, my now-wife. And we got married and had three children. As far as the real estate business is concerned, that was 50—I still have a license—and that’s 56 years ago. That’s a long time. I actually made a living at it. Only way I’ve made a living, up until about 6-7 years ago. And I’m 78 now, so it was time. But in the meantime, there’s quite a bit of property—not houses, but I never was much in the house business—that I’ve sold over that period of time three different times. There was one piece of property I sold three times. All three times were to people named Hall, and that they had never known each other, of course.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Of course.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>So it’s interesting. And land would sell for—I can remember appraising. I did quite a bit of appraisals for the banks in Sanford and the First Federal Savings & Loan, and that really got me back into going to places that you normally wouldn’t go if you weren’t in the real estate business. As time goes on, I was handling acreage, as I said, and they pretty well quit farming in Sanford.</p>
<p class="Body">Uh, farming as they knew it at that time, which was produce—which was celery. You know, at one time, they said that Sanford—Seminole County I guess—was the celery capital of the world. And it was actually a picture in one of the school books that said “harvesting celery in Sanford.” I remember that. But after the war, they—the farming kind of petered out, because it all went to the muck, and the muck means that you don’t have to spend as much money on fertilizer. And the type soils that we have around Sanford—the farming areas—was good to hold the roots in place and that’s all. And that’s come from the farmers that said, “No, you got to fertilize.”</p>
<p class="Body">So muck farms in Zellwood and down in Lake Okeechobee pretty well had an end to the farming in the area. It’s my understanding from the owner of Chase and Co[mpany], which was a very large company—probably the largest farmer in Central Florida back in the ‘20s and—but the last celery grown in the Sanford area was in 1975. Now that came from the owner, president of Chase and Co., and his name was Sydney Chase—Sydney [Octavius] Chase, Jr. His father<a title="">[1]</a> and his father’s brother<a title="">[2]</a> are the ones that started Chase and Co.</p>
<p class="Body">Something really interesting is that, of course, all of this product had to be shipped by railroad. You know, you didn’t have trucks like you have today. You just didn’t put things on a truck, haul it to New York. It all had to go to—through the railroad, and so most every packinghouse—that type of thing—was located where it could be sent by the railroad. And celery—and cabbage, cucumbers, all of those things—required refrigeration. Well, if you’ll think back to 1925, you didn’t have no refrigeration. But they was able to make ice in big 300-pound “slabs” I’ll call them. Chase and Co. had an icehouse out on the east side of Sanford. There was another one in Ransidey[?], which is in Monroe, Florida, just west of Sanford on the railroad. And you had railroad cars called “reefer” cars, and that stood for “refrigerator.” And they would put these big 300-pound slabs of ice in these railroad cars. They were all painted yellow, and during the summer, there was a siding going—railroad siding going from Sanford Avenue out to the Chase washhouse, which is on Cameron Avenue. And that’s a long ways. And they would store these reefer cars all summer long, because they had no use for them except to ship produce, and of course, you didn’t grow produce in the summertime. Come summertime, in like May or something, would be the last that they grew until next fall and next winter. But I remember all those yellow reefer cars there, and I’m sure many other people that was[sic] out in that area remember just sitting on the siding and waiting on the next year.</p>
<p class="Body">But there was a lot of—another thing is interesting is it seems as though to me that the people that owned automobiles—and their kids went to school with me—they were farmers. And other people didn’t have automobiles. My father did not have an automobile until 1946, which was right after the war, and things became available to sell, particularly meat products.</p>
<p class="Body">But all of that—getting back to the real estate business, I would come across and I knew a lot of people in the citrus business. And as time went on, I sold some citrus groves, and I bought some citrus groves, and I leased several citrus groves. And our—my wife and I’s—two children kind of grew up knowing what citrus was, and you could go on the Internet under White’s Red Hill Groves and read about us, and it’ll tell you all you need to know about our family and the citrus business. But it’s been 29 years now since we purchased a gift fruit packinghouse called Red Hill Groves. So we have set out new trees and taken care of old trees, and picked and packed, and shipped citrus all over the United States. I would say there’s not a state we haven’t shipped fruit to. But times have changed considerably, since probably 1985 and things started booming—this is because of Disney—and started booming.</p>
<p class="Body">And another thing that’s kind of interesting here is that when I went to high school, Seminole High School had a hundred people in each class. And Crooms Academy had maybe 30, and Oviedo [High School] may have 15, and Longwood, which is called Lyman High School, may have 15. And look at it today, there’s what? Eleven high schools, each one of them got three thousand in that school. So that’s really what started happening during those years, and those of course, just kind of bloomed.</p>
<p class="Body">Really interested—I was very active in the civic things in the city—Chamber of Commerce, the Jaycees,<a title="">[3]</a> and that type of thing. As time goes on, I think I’ve been through four—they call them—they don’t call them “depressions,” whatever they call them.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Recessions?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Recessions. And I’ve been through four of them. And I can remember trying to sell houses for a hundred dollars down and making a commission. There ain’t much left to make a commission out of. But times would get better, and then you’d start selling again. People would start buying again. I guess time is going to tell about the one we’re in now in 2011.</p>
<p class="Body">But anyway, it was a good life that I lived in Sanford. It is much different. Traffic, as everybody knows, gets on your nerves. But all three of our children live in Sanford, while our packinghouse is in Orlando. The boys go back and forth every day, and our daughter works for Bayer Corporation in the animal health division.</p>
<p class="Body">So anyway, we—my wife and I—both feel that our time growing up in Sanford, and spending our entire life here, except for those maybe three years, has been good, and as good as any place we could have settled. I don’t know that we ever considered moving from Sanford, neither of us. But I guess that’s pretty well the story.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I have a couple questions, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Sure.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Okay, sir. You talked a great deal earlier about the paper route you ran as a kid.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Was that a great experience for you? Because you spent a lot of time discussing how you met and saw a lot of things.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Oh, well, sure! There’s a little story that goes along with that, was we delivered <em>The Florida Times-Union</em>, and we had about 11 or 12 paper boys. And you’d go up and down. Each one of us had about a hundred customers.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>And you’d go up and down the streets, and there was a policeman that walked the streets at night named Harriet. And Mr. Harriet had a dog that went with him, because Mr. Harriet walked up and down the alleys, and all the way generally throughout the whole downtown area. Well, a friend of mine who lived four or five houses from me had a dog, and the dog would go with him on his paper route. Well, it seems as though Mr. Harriet’s dog would jump on him and bite him and all of this sort of stuff. So my friend bought a collar that had, oh, pieces of metal like a nail sticking out the side—sticking on it. Well, he sharpened those up. And we’re all sitting there one morning, waiting for him to come with his dog. He’d always come around this corner—First Street and Oak Avenue—and he would come around that corner. Well, we’re waiting to see Mr. Harriet’s dog jump on this dog’s neck with those sharp barbs, and he did and he went off just howling. And Mr. Harriet came out. There was a bakery there, and everybody—paper boys—we would go in there five o’clock in the morning and get day-old donuts, and so would Mr. Harriet, and he come out of there just raising Cain about who hit his dog. But that was interesting.</p>
<p class="Body">And I guess when I was a senior in high school, I had a car route, and I went to Monroe, Paola, went all the way to Wekiva River, and back up through Monroe. And a man named Bass—he was the last one on my route. And he was a farmer, so he told the paper manager that I was just getting there too late, that if I couldn’t get there five o’clock in the morning, that he wasn’t going to take the paper no more. So I had to rearrange my route so I could get him first instead of last. But that was interesting in that too. And the people—there’s still people around that deliver papers. We talk about it, every now and then, when you see somebody. But that was good experience, really was.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And you did that from when you were younger all the way through high school, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Not all that time, no. But I got a paper route when I was 11 years old, so that’s gonna put me in the fifth grade. And I remember having a paper route in the seventh grade. I don’t think I had any until I was senior, from the seventh until that time.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White <br /></strong>Because like, a lot of—something very interesting. I worked in a grocery store.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>And you worked Thursday morning from about four o’clock in the morning, and Friday afternoon, and all day Saturday, for four dollars and something. Well, a friend of mine was caddying at the golf course, and he said, “Oh,” you know, “I don’t work but 4-5 hours and I make more than that.” So I went out and started caddying. So I caddied for several years.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Oh, okay, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Because you made more money. You carry those bags around. If you did it twice, they called it “double looping,” you made more money than you would at the grocery store. But anyway, I think everybody sooner or later worked in a grocery store.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I don’t think that’s changed much, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Huh?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I don’t think that’s changed much. I’ve worked in a couple grocery stores.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>No. No. I see the kids in there now, and they’re—course we didn’t stay there until all night long like they do now. They put up stock now at night, and we didn’t do that. Anyway, it was good. Good times.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>All right. You mentioned you were in the Navy, sir. How long were you in the Navy for?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>I was in the Navy for one hitch. I was a quartermaster.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, and one hitch is, uh...</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>One hitch is when I was on something called “minority cruise,” and that you means you join after you’re 18 and you get out when you’re 21, instead of a flat three years—four years, whatever it is. And I joined when I was a senior in high school, and this wasn’t too long after the war. This would be in 1950.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>And the war was over in ’45. So anyway—but I was a quartermaster. A quartermaster is someone who does signals and navigation, that sort of thing. And a fleet oiler is different than a tanker. A tanker hauls fuel from one place to another, and a[sic] oiler refuels ships at sea when you’re both underway—you’re both moving. And that’s what an oiler is. You still have oiler today, and always will, because you need it in the middle of the ocean just as you do alongside a dock. And I liked that—and I may have stayed in longer except the ship was going on Operation Deep Freeze, and that was in Antarctica, and I wasn’t going there, ‘cause I’d heard the stories about it before. Everything’s full of ice and all of that. Anyway, that was my military experience.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did you travel anywhere on that, at that time, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Oh yeah, sure. We went—first time when I went on board there, we went to New York City, which of course, here I am. Never been to New York City. We stayed there for like two days. Then we went to the Caribbean [Sea], down to South America to the Azores. Just that type—wherever. Maybe just sit out in the middle of the ocean waiting on a convoy to come that needed fuel. I mean, that was our job.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right, sir. Did you enjoy your time in the military—the Navy?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Sure.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Just didn’t want to go to Antarctica.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>I didn’t want to go to Antarctica, and probably if I’d have stayed in longer than that, I’d have stayed. I would have stayed to retire. But I didn’t, and not been disappointed in that at all.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. You also mentioned you worked with civic duties for a while. So tell me a little more about that.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, 1963, I started civic-type stuff. Well, I was a Boy Scout. And I’ll have to go through the Boy Scouts [of America] first. But the Boy Scouts—I was a[sic] Eagle Scout, and I worked at summer camp as a waterfront director-type person. I guess I was 16 then, maybe 17. Sixteen and seventeen. I worked two years, one at Camp Wewa over in Apopka. The other one was Camp La-No-Che. Excuse me, Camp La-No-Che wasn’t open then. See, that’s 50 years ago, and most people never heard of Doe Lake [Recreation Area], and Doe Lake was in Ocala [National] Forest. And that was a Boy Scout camp and I worked there at that time. But I was a[sic] Eagle Scout, and that was a big deal to me. And we didn’t have many Eagle Scouts around here. Well, around anywhere. That was good.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I’m sorry, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah. You asked a question before that. What was that?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Your civic duties, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Oh. Well, in the Boy Scouts, believe it or not, we actually did a lot of things civic-wise. But I was president of the Sanford-Seminole County Jaycees<a title="">[4]</a> in 1963, and the Jaycees were very active at that time.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>The Jaycees, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Junior Chamber of Commerce.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Okay. [<em>laughs</em>] And—very active. Had maybe 150 members, and had maybe 150 projects. These were things that, uh—and that was a big time in my life. For instance, we had a Christmas parade that we sponsored and worked. That was the big project for the year—the Christmas parade. And the year I was president, we had 11 bands, and nowadays, if you have one, you got a bunch of them. We had a hundred people working, doing whatever it took to make the parades. But it was always that way. And I have paperwork to that. So—I say “paperwork”—we made booklets of our projects. Some of them. I don’t have all of them. But it was a[sic] active time for people up to the age of 36. When you were thirty-six, then you were no longer…</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Junior.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Invited, I guess, to be a Jaycee. And then, I was president of the Seminole County union of the American Cancer Society, and I was president of the Greater Sanford [Regional] Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, it was the Sanford-Seminole County Chamber of Commerce, and I was a director for 25 years of the Chamber. So, you know, there were those. I was a bank director for 15 years. Served on the board of Seminole State College, as vice-chairman of the board for however many years. I don’t remember. So that was civic-type stuff.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. Sounds like you were very busy.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah. I was busy. I was busy. Knew a lot of people. Most of them are dead now, but, uh, and I’ll join them before too many years. Maybe tomorrow [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>That’s why we’re getting this down today, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Get that out today. Okay.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Could you tell me a little bit about your family? Your wife’s name, how you met her, and then your children’s names.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yes. I’d gotten out of the Navy, and just got out really, and me and another fellow went to Leesburg High School—to a football game. This was in September, before—after—I had gotten out of the service in August, I guess. Anyway, this girl was a cheerleader, and had black hair. And afterwards, you always used to have dances always—and out of town also. And back then, the girl cheerleaders would always go to the dance, and so me and this fellow went also. And I met her, and then—from then on, had a few dates with her. And anyway, three or four years later, we got married. We have two sons. One’s 54, one’s 53. Have a daughter about 44—something. And the boys run the packinghouse. Have for 20. I say “running” —that’s only partially, mostly. They’ve—that’s 29 years. And a daughter that works for Bayer in the animal health division. Anyway. I guess that’s it. And got grandchildren [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How many grandchildren, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, three. Three boy grandchildren. And one of them works for the city in Palm Coast, and the other one works for the car place—Gibson [Truck World]—down here, and the other one’s thirteen. He goes to school.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. Is it okay if we get your wife’s name and your children’s names?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Paulette. Paulette. My wife’s name was Paulette Casen. It’s Paulette White, of course. And the children are Ed [White], Ted [White], and Judy [White]. And that’s their names.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Ed, Ted, and Judy?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yes. Eddie, Teddy. [<em>laughs</em>] Yes. Ed, Ted, and Judy.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Do they still respond to Eddie and Teddy?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Oh, yeah, sure. Sure, sure, sure. Matter of fact, people their age call them Eddie and Teddy. But, you know, they have a lot of friends, since they’ve lived here.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Their whole lives, sir?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah. They’ve lived here except when they went to college. Eddie graduated from Stetson [University]. And Judy graduated from [University of] Florida. One of the grandsons graduated from Florida and has a degree in architecture. I was telling a story to a fellow about architecture, and I was telling him I knew nothing about computer[sic]. I do know how to turn it on. But I said I have a grandson that has a degree in architecture, and he has never picked up a pen or a pencil. It’s all down on the computer, every bit of it. It’s kind of hard for people my age to think that—that you’re actually gonna draw a plan for a building with a computer, instead of a pencil [<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I gotcha, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>The, uh—one of the things you mentioned earlier that really caught my attention was you said a lot of farmers had cars. Is that—do I remember that correctly?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>That’s correct.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Were a lot of the farmers well-off, or was there...</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>During certain periods, they were well-off. Yes. And it was told to me that a farmer in the late ‘30s could make a living on ten acres of celery, and that’s not very much, but he couldn’t do that today. Same token. I’ve sold—I’ve sold property to people that owned an orange grove and did all of the work their self, and they had 20 acres, and they made a good living. They had a car, and made a good living on 20 acres. But they did all the work their self. They didn’t have somebody else doing the work.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>And so, you know, there’s[sic] certain jobs that—if you’re cut out for it. Not everybody’s cut out to be a farmer. A lot of people are going to have to start thinking about it though, because somebody’s got to grow food to eat.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Sir, and I do like to eat.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>And everybody likes to eat.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>And the truth of the matter is there’s a lot of fussing going on now. People don’t like—well, one thing is dust. They don’t like the dust that farmers create when they plow their field. That’s the EPA—Environmental Protection Agency—and they want to stop that. Well, I don’t know how you’re gonna eat if you stop farm dust. But I’m talking out of bounds here.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Still interesting to hear, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>But that’s the way farmers feel. Although we consider ourselves farmers, we’re not farmers in the cattle business or corn business. We’re in the citrus business. But I guess you could say we could be in the citrus business without growing any of our own. We could buy it from somebody else, and pack it, ship it, and that would work, you know. But we do it all.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. My last question, if it’s all right with you, could you just give me a brief overview of how you actually grow citrus—the process for it.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, you plant a tree, and you grow it, and it ends up and blooms, and has fruit on it. That’s about it. It’s, you know—it’s just like any farming, and I think that’s what you’d have to say. It’s, you know—you’ve got to prepare the soil, if you want to call it. In the citrus business, you plant small trees—three feet tall—and after about five years, they have some oranges on them. Not very many, but enough, considered that you’ve got some fruit. And the maximum is about 20 years. And during this period of time, you fertilize them, and you prune them, and you just generally take care of them like a baby.</p>
<p class="Body">And things change in the business, such as—used to plant them 35 feet apart, and 35 feet in all directions, because the way that you get the weeds down was with a disc or harrow. So you went up and down the rows in one direction, and then across the rows in another directions to kill the weeds. And nowadays, you don’t do it that way. You plant them 10 feet apart in a row, and then you use chemicals to kill the weeds. And you also hedge them, because you don’t have that 35 feet. You have 10 feet. And you got big machines with big, round saws on it—three foot—and they’re spinning, and you go up and down the rows and make a hedge out of it. And that’s what’s really changed in the citrus business in the way that you grow citrus.</p>
<p class="Body">Plus, used to—you didn’t have very many ways to keep the fruit clean. Everybody wants to have a blemish-free piece of fruit. It don’t work that way. A friend of mine who used to disc and take care of the growth—first one I ever had—named Carl McWaters. His family was in the business, and he was a caretaker. He said, “Well, Mr. White,” said, “You know, my father worked for that packinghouse over there in Umatilla.” And whenever they had a—one of the diseases—not a disease—one of the bugs that you have. It’s called a “rust mite.” And a rust mite makes fruit look rusty. And he said, “Whenever we’d have a bad rust mite year, we’d go ahead and ship them up north anyway, and called them ‘Golden Rusty.’” Which made them sound a whole lot better than a rusty piece of fruit. So that was kind of interesting. Because they didn’t have any way to kill those rust mites.</p>
<p class="Body">And nowadays, you know, it’s an entire—oh, I don’t, what I want to say it. Crop protection, whether it’s citrus or other crops. It’s a whole world of taking care of those problems. In the United States and the agricultural business, the idea is to get rid of a problem instead of live with the problem. And that’s true with a lot of things, not just citrus. But, you know, if you got rust mites, you know—“Well, let’s get rid of those rust mites.” So you got 50 different companies out there trying to have chemicals to get rid of them. In a lot of countries that grow citrus, they don’t do that. They just live with it. And I see nothing wrong with that. But that’s kind of interesting too—how that kind of thing works. But, you know, the companies—some of the largest companies in the world are agricultural chemical companies.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>Anyway.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>That was it for my questions, actually. Did you have anything else you’d like to say?</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>No. Not really. I may have said a whole lot more than I should have, to start with. But, uh, anyway…</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, sir, it’s all great. Thank you very much, sir.</p>
<p class="Body"><strong>White<br /></strong>All right. Nice to talk.</p>
<div><br /><div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Sydney Octavius Chase, Sr.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> Joshua Coffin Chase.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[3]</a> Junior Chamber of Commerce.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[4]</a> Sanford Junior Chamber of Commerce; </p>
</div>
</div>
Has Format
Original <span>16-page digital transcript by Savannah Vickers: </span>White, Garnett. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. October 13, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a>, Sanford, Florida.
10th Street
7th Street
9th Street
aluminum
American Cancer Society
automobiles
B.L. Perkins' Store
bass
bicycles
bikes
Bluitt Stevens
Bobbi Goff
Boy Scouts of America
butchers
Carl McWaters
cars
celery
Chase and Company
citrus
citrus groves
Crooms Academy of Information Technology
Downtown Sanford
Eagle Scouts
Ed White
Elizabeth Wigham
Elm Avenue
farmers
farming
First Federal Savings & Loan
Garnett White
Golden Rusty
golf caddies
Greater Sanford Regional Chamber of Commerce
Hall
Harriet
Harrington
high schools
Historical Society of Central Florida
icehouses
Jacobs
Jaycees
Joseph Morris
Joshua Coffin Chase
Judy White
Lake Monroe
Laurel Avenue
Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project
Lyman High School
Mac Cleaver
metal drives
mites
Monroe
motor vehicles
muck
muck farms
Museum of Seminole County History
newspaper routes
newspapers
Ninth Street
oilers
Operation Deep Freeze
orlando
Oviedo High School
packing houses
paper boys
Paulette Casen
Paulette White
Pelham, Georgia
quartermasters
railroads
railways
Ransidey
real estate
real estate agents
real estate appraisal
real estate brokers
real estate licenses
recessions
Red Hill Groves
reefers
refrigeration
rubbers
rust mites
Sanford
Sanford Avenue
Sanford Grammar School
Sanford Jaycees
Sanford Junior Chamber of Commerce
Sanford Junior High School
Sanford-Seminole County Chamber of Commerce
Sanford-Seminole County Junior Chamber of Commerce
school lunches
Seminole County
Seminole High School
Seminole State College
Seventh Street
Southside Elementary
St. Augustine
Student Museum
Sydney Octavius Chase, Jr.
Sydney Octavius Chase, Sr.
Ted White
Tenth Street
The Florida Times-Union
The Sanford Herald
Triple S Groceteria
U.S. Navy
war effort
Winterville, Georgia
World War II
WWII
-
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/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>
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<p><a title="">[2]</a> The trial of George Michael Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of Travyon Benjamin Martin on February 26, 2012.</p>
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