31 100 4936 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/4b06279257eaafeb923355795f4ef4c7.jpg c92961fc8b212558663e76da98dade98 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Original Format 1 newspaper article 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 Officers Installed Alternative Title Officers Installed Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Clubs--United States Description A newspaper article the installation of new officers for the Oviedo Woman's Club (OWC). Claire Evans was installed as the new president, with Teresa Duda, Nancy Beasley, and Karen Morgan as vice presidents. Mary Walker was installed as treasurer, Grace Whittier as recording secretary, Judy Stamps as corresponding secretary, and Helen Leinhart as parliamentarian.<br /><br />The Oviedo Woman's Club was founded in 1906 as the Oviedo Magazine Club by seven charter members: H. B. McCall, Edith Meade, Georgia Lee Wheeler, Lillian Lee Lawton, Mattie Aulin Wheeler, Milcah Yonge, and Mary King. The first clubhouse was constructed in 1914 and also served as Oviedo's first library. In 1916, the club joined the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs (FFWC) and officially changed its name to the Oviedo Woman's Club. In 1923, the woman's club was federated under the umbrella of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs (GFWC). A new clubhouse was built in 1961 on property donated by R. L. Croom, a former member, which is located at 414 King Street. The Oviedo Woman's Club is involved in many civic projects, including the annual Great Day in the Country Arts and Crafts Festival, the Spring Fundraiser, Tasting Luncheons, and Celebrate Spring Teas. Type Text Source Original newspaper article: "Officers Installed." <em>The Evening Herald</em>, May 13, 1975: Private Collection of Beatrice Gestrich. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original newspaper article: "Officers Installed." <em>The Evening Herald</em>, May 13, 1975. Coverage Oviedo Woman's Club, Oviedo, Florida Contributor <a href="http://www.oviedowomansclub.org/" target="_blank">Oviedo Woman's Club</a> Gestrich, Beatrice Date Created ca. 1975-05-13 Date Issued 1975-05-13 Date Copyrighted 1975-05-13 Format image/jpg Medium 1 newspaper article Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally published by <em>The Evening Herald</em>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <em>The Evening Herald</em> 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://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Private Collection of Beatrice Gestrich External Reference "<a href="http://www.oviedowomansclub.org/our-community/our-history.html" target="_blank">Our History</a>." Oviedo Woman's Club. http://www.oviedowomansclub.org/our-community/our-history.html. Betty Harris civic club club FFWC Florida Federation of Women's Clubs Grace Whittier Judy Stamps Karen Morgan Mary Walker Melba Williams Nancy Beasley Oviedo Oviedo Woman's Club OWC Teresa Duda The Evening Herald Woman's Club women https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/2c0b87bacb0755e419ae31cca6fa3880.pdf 2a26030f83d7ed90a2a9d2c91cc638c9 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 Sanford Baseball Collection Description Sanford entered the world of professional baseball in 1919 with the formation of the Class D Florida State League. In its inaugural season, the Celeryfeds won the first half pennant, finishing in a tie with Orlando for the best overall record. Although the league folded in 1928, it was revived in 1936, and once again included a team from Sanford called the Lookouts, which was part of the Senators family of clubs. This struggling team finally turned around when they acquired former Major League star, Dale Alexander, as manager and first baseman in 1939. In over 80 years of Florida State League history, no team has ever matched their .737 winning percentage that season. The next season, the Sanford Seminoles emerged as the city's baseball team. Contributor <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Alternative Title Baseball Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Baseball--Florida Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford, Florida Curator Marra, Katherine Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference <span>McCarthy, Kevin. <a title="Baseball in Florida" href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/33102678" target="_blank"><em>Baseball in Florida</em></a></span><span>. Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press, 1996.</span> <span>Singletary, Wes. <a title="Florida's First Big League Baseball Players: A Narrative History" href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62872816" target="_blank"><em>Florida's First Big League Baseball Players: A Narrative History</em></a></span><span>. Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2006.</span> Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Original Format 4-page booklet 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 Official Schedule for the Sanford Lookouts, Florida State League Alternative Title Baseball Schedule Subject Baseball--Florida Sanford (Fla.) Description Official schedule of the Sanford Lookouts of the 1939 Florida State League. The cover page features a drawing of a batter and catcher. There are two advertisements and a list of games played by the Lookouts in the 1939 Season. Sanford entered the world of pro ball in 1919 with the formation of the Class D Florida State League. In its inaugural season, the Celeryfeds won the first half pennant, finishing in a tie with Orlando for the best overall record. Although the league folded in 1928, it was revived in 1936, and once again included a team from Sanford called the Lookouts, which was part of the Senators family of clubs. This struggling team finally turned around when they acquired former Major League star, Dale Alexander, as manager and first baseman in 1939. In over 80 years of Florida State League history, no team has ever matched their .737 winning percentage that season. The next season, the Sanford Seminoles emerged as the city's baseball team. Creator <a title="Florida State League" href="http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=l123" target="_blank">Florida State League</a> Source Original schedule by the <a title="Florida State League" href="http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=l123" target="_blank">Florida State League</a>: "Official Schedule, Sanford Lookouts, Florida State League 1939." Sanford, Florida: Celery City Printing Company, 1939: Baseball Exhibit, <a title="Sanford Museum" href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a>, Sanford, Florida. Publisher Celery City Printing Company Date Created 1939 Is Part Of Baseball Exhibit, <a title="Sanford Museum" href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Requires <a href="http://www.adobe.com/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Format application/pdf Extent 800 KB Medium 4-page booklet Language eng Type Text Coverage Sanford, Florida Leesburg, Florida Daytona Beach, Florida Palatka, Florida St. Augustine, Florida DeLand, Florida Gainesville, Florida Orlando, Florida Sanford, Florida Spatial Coverage 28.802701, -81.25551 28.810987, -81.877041 29.212111, -81.023598 29.648526, -81.637373 29.894532, -81.313305 29.028255, -81.303005 29.654046, -82.32439 28.539291, -81.377907 28.810839, -81.264963 Temporal Coverage 1939-04-15/1939-09-04 Accrual Method Donation Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a title="Sanford Museum" href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> and is provided here by <a title="RICHES of Central Florida" href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Curator Marra, Katherine Digital Collection <a title="RICHES MI" href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a title="Sanford Museum" href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> External Reference McCarthy, Kevin. <em>Baseball in Florida</em>. Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press, 1996. Singletary, Wes. <em>Florida's First Big League Baseball Players: A Narrative History</em>. Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2006. Weiss, Bill and Marshall Wright. "Top 100 Teams: 68. 1939 Sanford Lookouts." <em>MiLB History</em>. 2011. http://www.milb.com/milb/history/top100.jsp?idx=68. External Reference Title <a title="Baseball in Florida" href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/33102678" target="_blank"><em>Baseball in Florida</em></a> <a title="Florida's First Big League Baseball Players: A Narrative History" href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62872816" target="_blank"><em>Florida's First Big League Baseball Players: A Narrative History</em></a> "<a title="Minor League Baseball History" href="http://www.milb.com/milb/history/top100.jsp?idx=68" target="_blank">Top 100 Teams: 68. 1939 Sanford Lookouts</a>" Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original schedule by the <a title="Florida State League" href="http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=l123" target="_blank">Florida State League</a>: "Official Schedule, Sanford Lookouts, Florida State League 1939." Sanford, Florida: Celery City Printing Company, 1939. Audience Education Level SS.K.A.1.2; SS.K.A.2.5; SS.1.A.1.1; SS.2.A.1.1; SS.1.C.3.2; SS.2.C.3.2; SS.3.A.1.1; SS.3.A.1.2; SS.4.A.1.1; SS.5.A.1.1; SS.6.W.1.3; SS.8.A.1.5; SS.912.A.1.2; SS.912.W.1.3 Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created and owned by <a title="Florida State League" href="http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=l123" target="_blank">Florida State League</a>. Transcript Official Schedule Sanford Lookouts Florida State League 1939 Pharis The Lowest Priced First Line Tire in America Games Played by the Sanford Lookouts in the Florida State League for the 1939 Baseball Season Date Home Away DeLand St. Augustine Daytona Gainesville Leesburg Orlando Palatka Compliments W. H. Reitz Distributor Pharis Tires Amoco Gasoline Amoco Oils Phone 9130 Second St. and Sanford Ave. Sanford, Florida Celery City Printing Co., Sanford 2nd Street Amoco Gasoline Amoco Oils baseball Celery Printing Co. Celery Printing Company Daytona DeLand Florida State League Gainesville Leesburg Lookouts orlando Palatka Pharis Pharis Tires Reitz, W. H. Sanford Sanford Ave. Sanford Avenue Sanford Lookouts Second St. Second Street St. Augustine https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/e2ea850602beeb1904cae054663ac2a3.jpg aee4460c311e1f1db469d79fdfb332fc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Original Format 1 typewritten form 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 Official Summary Report Form: 1974-76 Community Improvement Program: General Federation of Women's Clubs/Sears, Roebuck and Company Alternative Title 1974-76 Community Improvement Program: GFWC/Sears, Roebuck and Co. Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Clubs--United States General Federation of Women's Clubs Sears, Roebuck and Company Description An official summary report form for General Federation of Woman's Clubs (GFWC)/Sears, Roebuck, and Company's 1974-1976 Community Improvement Program. This form was completed by Mrs. John W. Evans, President of the Oviedo Woman's Club (OWC). The form summarizes the club's Library Services Project and Rescue Van Project. According to the form, through the efforts of OWC, Oviedo residents were able to gain access to unlimited, free use of complete library services. The form also summarizes the club's efforts to raise money in order to replace a rescue van that was stolen and burned.<br /><br />The Oviedo Woman's Club was founded in 1906 as the Oviedo Magazine Club by seven charter members: H. B. McCall, Edith Meade, Georgia Lee Wheeler, Lillian Lee Lawton, Mattie Aulin Wheeler, Milcah Yonge, and Mary King. The first clubhouse was constructed in 1914 and also served as Oviedo's first library. In 1916, the club joined the FFWC and officially changed its name to the Oviedo Woman's Club. In 1923, the woman's club was federated under the umbrella of the GFWC. A new clubhouse was built in 1961 on property donated by R. L. Croom, a former member, which is located at 414 King Street. The Oviedo Woman's Club is involved in many civic projects, including the annual Great Day in the Country Arts and Crafts Festival, the Spring Fundraiser, Tasting Luncheons, and Celebrate Spring Teas. Type Text Source Original form by Mrs. John W. Evans, February 1, 1976: Private Collection of Beatrice Gestrich. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original form by Mrs. John W. Evans, February 1, 1976. Coverage Oviedo Woman's Club, Oviedo, Florida Contributor <a href="http://www.oviedowomansclub.org/" target="_blank">Oviedo Woman's Club</a> Gestrich, Beatrice Date Created ca. 1976-02-01 Date Issued 1976-02-01 Date Copyrighted 1976-02-01 Format image/jpg Medium 1 typewritten form Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Mrs. John W. Evans. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="http://www.oviedowomansclub.org/" target="_blank">Oviedo Woman's Club</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://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Private Collection of Beatrice Gestrich External Reference "<a href="http://www.oviedowomansclub.org/our-community/our-history.html" target="_blank">Our History</a>." Oviedo Woman's Club. http://www.oviedowomansclub.org/our-community/our-history.html. charity civic club club General Federation of Woman's Clubs GFWC John W. Evans library Market Day OFD Oviedo Oviedo Fire Department Oviedo Woman's Club OWC philanthropy Rescue Van Sears, Roebuck and Company Woman's Club women https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/80da7b12623a1e831701f782576483fe.jpg 6c416802473fc2f539693d0a943e7418 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 Friends of Lake Apopka Collection Alternative Title FOLA Collection Subject Lake Apopka (Fla.) Water quality--Florida Pollution--Florida Description The Friends of Lake Apopka (FOLA) is a citizen advocacy group with the mission of restoring Lake Apopka in Orange County and Lake County, Florida. Due to poor farming practices along its shores, Lake Apopka has become one of the largest polluted lakes in Florida. This collection features various archival items related to the restoration of the lake. Contributor <a href="http://www.fola.org/" target="_blank">Friends of Lake Apopka</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Lake Apopka, Florida Florida Game and Fresh Water Commission, Tallahassee, Florida Oakland, Florida Orlando, Florida Saint Johns River, Florida Winter Garden, Florida Winter Haven, Florida Zellwood, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.fola.org/" target="_blank">Friends of Lake Apopka</a> Curator Cepero, Laura King, Joshua Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.oaktownusa.com/Pages/Preserve/index" target="_blank">Oakland Nature Preserve</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.fola.org/" target="_blank">Our Mission &amp; Purpose</a>." Friends of Lake Apopka. http://www.fola.org/. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. 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 Officials Think Fish Kills May Spread Alternative Title Fish Kills May Spread Subject Lake Apopka (Fla.) Fishing--Florida Description A newspaper article published in <em>The Leesburg Daily Commercial</em> discussing fish kills that occurred in Lake Apopka in June of 1981. The article gives quotes from Harold L. Moody and Mike Wicker of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (GFC), who state that further fish kills are very likely to occur. The article states that the current drought conditions in Florida were exacerbating the poor condition of the lake, concentrating the lake's water and promoting the growth of algae. The algae growth causes the lake's oxygen levels to drop, triggering fish die-offs. The Lake Apopka fish kill is estimated to have killed between 30 million and 40 million fish.<br /><br />Lake Apopka is one of Florida’s largest lakes and was once considered to be one of the world’s best lakes for bass fishing. The lake’s sport fish population began to decline in the 1960s, with major die-offs occurring almost yearly. The lake’s problems are generally considered to be the result of over-nutrification from various sources. Twenty thousand acres of wetlands bordering the lake’s north shore were drained in the 1940s and used for highly fertile “muck farms.” These farms were routinely flooded to protect the fragile soil, and the fertilizer and pesticide-laden water was then discharged back into the lake prior to each growing season. Other sources of pollution include discharge from citrus processing operations, as well as treated wastewater from sewage plants. The nutrient-rich discharge promoted algae growth in the lake, turning the water to a green color, and blocked sunlight from reaching aquatic vegetation, which provided food and habit to the lake’s fish population. The lake’s bottom soil became increasingly “mucky,” also disrupting aquatic vegetation from taking root. <br /><br />Restoration work on the lake began in the 1960s with attempts by various agencies to remove “trash fish,” such as gizzard shad, from the lake via seining, which would hopefully allow the lake’s sportfish to thrive. The Lake Apopka Restoration Council, an initiative formed under Governor Claude Kirk (1926-2011) in 1967, launched several studies to find methods to improve the lake, though no serious action was taken. Various methods were debated to restore the lake through the 1970s and 1980s, including “drawdown,” which entailed completely draining the lake to allow the mucky bottom to consolidate. Restoration attempts were stalled for lack of funding and research.<br /><br />The Lake Apopka Restoration Council was reformed in 1985 under Governor Bob Graham (b. 1936), and, in 1987, the Surface Water and Improvement Management Act was passed. Together, these actions allowed comprehensive restoration plans to take shape, such as the Marsh Flow-way, a project by the St John’s Water Management District that uses natural methods to remove nutrients from the lake. The Friends of Lake Apopka, a citizen environmental advocacy group, began to push for further restoration efforts in the 1990s. The lake’s north shore muck farms were eventually purchased by the State of Florida, helping to reduce the amount of nutrient entering the lake. Type Text Source Photocopy of original newspaper article: Horvath, Paula. "Officials Think Fish Kills May Spread." <a href="http://www.dailycommercial.com/" target="_blank"><em>The Leesburg Daily Commercial</em></a>, July 22, 1981: binder 1981, Friends of Lake Apopka Archives, Ginn Museum, <a href="http://www.oaktownusa.com/Pages/Preserve/index" target="_blank">Oakland Nature Preserve</a>, Oakland, Florida. Is Part Of Binder 1981, Friends of Lake Apopka Archives, Ginn Museum, <a href="http://www.oaktownusa.com/Pages/Preserve/index" target="_blank">Oakland Nature Preserve</a>, Oakland, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/153" target="_blank">Friends of Lake Apopka Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of photocopied newspaper article: Horvath, Paula. "Officials Think Fish Kills May Spread." <a href="http://www.dailycommercial.com/" target="_blank"><em>The Leesburg Daily Commercial</em></a>, July 22, 1981. Coverage Lake Apopka, Florida Creator Horvath, Paula Publisher <a href="http://www.dailycommercial.com/" target="_blank"><em>The Leesburg Daily Commercial</em></a> Date Created ca. 1981-07-22 Date Issued 1981-07-22 Date Copyrighted 1981-07-22 Format image/jpg Extent 193 KB Medium 1 newspaper article Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Paula Horvath and published by <a href="http://www.dailycommercial.com/" target="_blank"><em>The Leesburg Daily Commercial</em></a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="http://www.dailycommercial.com/" target="_blank"><em>The Leesburg Daily Commercial</em></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.fola.org/" target="_blank">Friends of Lake Apopka</a> Curator King, Joshua Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.oaktownusa.com/Pages/Preserve/index" target="_blank">Oakland Nature Preserve</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.sjrwmd.com/lakeapopka/history.html" target="_blank">History of Lake Apopka</a>." St John's River Water Management District. January 28, 2013. Accessed June 5, 2016. http://www.sjrwmd.com/lakeapopka/history.html. algae Dorosoma cepedianum fish kills Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission GFC gizzard shad Harold L. Moody Lake Apopka Lake Dora Lake Griffin Mike Wicker Paula Horvath St. Johns River Fishery Program wetlands https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/a7a9f1377f82281f8763bcc3c2f4e1a4.jpg 4e7f5f41e0bb94a290952d6d8adeefe9 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 Florida Space Coast History Collection Alternative Title Space Coast Collection Subject National Aeronautics and Space Administration (U.S.) NASA Description Collection of images, documents, and other archival items donated by the Florida Space Coast History Project. Contributor <a href="http://srealserver.eecs.ucf.edu/chronopoints/" target="_blank">Chronopoints</a> Fowler, Calvin "Cal" D. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Cape Canaveral, Florida John F. Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://virtualheritage.ist.ucf.edu/cchp/" target="_blank">Florida Space Coast History Project</a> Curator Michlowitz, Robert Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/mercury/mercury-overview.htm">Project Mercury Overview</a>." John F. Kennedy Space Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/mercury/mercury-overview.htm. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 color photographic print 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 Offloading the Apollo 11 Crew in the Mobile Quarantine Facility Alternative Title Offloading Apollo 11 Crew in Mobile Quarantine Facility Subject Hickam Air Force Base (Hawaii) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (U.S.) NASA Apollo Project (U.S.) Project Apollo (U.S.) Description The mobile quarantine facility being offloaded from the USS <em>Hornet</em> at Hickam Air Force Base (present-day Hickam Field) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to be flown directly to Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. Apollo 11 was the first space mission where humans set foot on another celestial body, the Moon. Launched from Launch Pad 39A at John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 fired the third stage engines two and half hours after launch to leave Earth's gravitational pull. The mission was highlighted by the first lunar landing by human beings and Mission Commander Neil Armstrong's (1930-2012) descent from the Lunar Module (LM) to place his foot on the surface of the Moon. He and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin (1930-) spent less than 22 hours on the Moon, including two and half hours outside <em>Eagle</em>, their Lunar Module. The crew, which also included Command Module Pilot Michael Collins (1930-), returned to Earth on July 24, 1969. Type Still Image Source Original color photographic print, July 26, 1969: Leonard Pugh Collection. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/148" target="_blank">Florida Space Coast History Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original color photographic print, July 26, 1969. Coverage Hickam Air Force Base, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Contributor <a href="http://srealserver.eecs.ucf.edu/chronopoints/" target="_blank">Chronopoints</a> Date Created 1969-07-26 Format image/jpg Extent 273 KB Medium 1 color photographic print Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by Leonard Pugh 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://virtualheritage.ist.ucf.edu/cchp/" target="_blank">Florida Space Coast History Project</a> Curator Michlowitz, Robert Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/landing-missions/apollo11.cfm" target="_blank">APOLLO 11 (AS-506)</a>." National Air and Space Museum. Accessed July 10, 2015. http://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/landing-missions/apollo11.cfm. Apollo 11 Apollo Project Hickam Air Force Base mobile quarantine NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Project Apollo quarantine space USS Hornet https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/df376a0343cc4232ce435be7bebc6e7e.jpg 80da944f84c586966f5c2bae54636f8e 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 Miami Collection Alternative Title Miami Collection Subject Collection of archival items related to the history of Miami, Florida. The Tequestas were the first known inhabitants of the Miami area before explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1519-1574) claimed the land in 1566 for Spain, which established a mission there the following year. After Spain ceded the Florida Territory in 1821, the U.S. constructed Fort Dallas, which served as an important battlefront during the Second Seminole War. For much of the 19th century, Miami remained a region of wilderness, and it was one of the few area's to survive the Great Freeze of 1894 with relatively few damages. Soon after, Henry Flagler (1830-1913) expanded his Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) to the area, and Miami was officially incorporated as a city on July 28, 1896.<br /><br />Like other parts of Florida, Miami prospered during the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s, but also floundered when the real estate bubble burst in 1925. The following year, the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 devastated South Florida and the Great Depression began just three years later. During World War II, Miami played a vital role in battling German submarines, resulting in increased population growth in the post-ward period. Miami experienced another spurt in population growth when hundreds of thousands of people fled Cuba, following the takeover by Fidel Castro (1926-). Despite a number of social crises in the 1980s and 1990s, Miami remains a major international, financial, and cultural center. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/182">Miami-Dade County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Miami, 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.miamigov.com/home/history.html" target="_blank">City of Miami History</a>." City of Miami. http://www.miamigov.com/home/history.html. "<a href="http://www.historymiami.org/research-miami/topics/history-of-miami/" target="_blank">MIAMI: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF HISTORY</a>." HistoryMiami. http://www.historymiami.org/research-miami/topics/history-of-miami/. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. 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 Offspring: Washington Wells Alternative Title Offspring: Washington Wells Subject Miami (Fla.) Description A page from a family biography the Wells of the Bahamas. This particular page shows the offspring of Washington Wells, who was an Afro-Bahamian planter during the mid-19th century: John Wells (1866-1941), Herbert Alexander Wells (1882-1960), and Melborn Wells. Herbert Wells (1882-1960) was the first African American hired by the Florida East Coast Railway Company (FEC). Born in the Bahamas in 1882, Herbert migrated to Key West, Florida, via the <em>Fearless</em> in 1900 and began working for the FEC as a fireman around 1915. He worked for the FEC for 32 years before retiring in 1947. Herbert also owned and operated a drug and grocery store that was located at Northwest 2nd Court and 17th Street in Miami. Herbert married Mary Ellen Knowles Wells (1892-1948) in 1916 and had one daughter, Berdina Wells (b. 1930). This item was contributed by Cary Marshall Felton, the great grandson of Herbert Wells and great-great grandson of Washington Wells. Type Text Source Digital reproduction of original 1-page typewritten document: Private Collection of Cary Marshall Felton. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/183" target="_blank">Miami Collection</a>, Miami-Dade County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Long Island, Bahamas Miami, Florida Contributor Felton, Cary Marshall Date Created ca. 1941-1960 Date Issued ca. 1941-1960 Date Copyrighted ca. 1941-1960 Format image/jpg Extent 1 MB Medium 1-page typewritten document Language eng Mediator History Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by Cary Marshall Felton 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 Private Collection of Cary Marshall Felton External Reference "<a href="https://secure.ancestry.com/register/index/?rtype=1&amp;fname=&amp;lname=&amp;dbid=2442&amp;pid=133095498&amp;flowId=dbid2442&amp;returnurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ancestry.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fsse.dll%3Fdb%3D1940usfedcen%26indiv%3Dtry%26h%3D133095498%26nreg%3D1" target="_blank">Herbert Wells</a>." Ancestry.com. https://secure.ancestry.com/register/index/?rtype=1&amp;fname=&amp;lname=&amp;dbid=2442&amp;pid=133095498&amp;flowId=dbid2442&amp;returnurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ancestry.com%2fcgi-bin%2fsse.dll%3fdb%3d1940usfedcen%26indiv%3dtry%26h%3d133095498%26nreg%3d1. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/7420" target="_blank">Herbert Wells Dies In Sleep</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/7420. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/7423" target="_blank">Declaration of Intention for Herbert Alexander Wells</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/7423. 19th Street 2nd Court African Americans Alphease Wells Angela Wells Claire Anthony Felton Arthur Wells Berdina Wells Carlitha Felton Carlitha Wells Carrey Felton Colin Wells Earl R. Wells Edna Wells Culmer Ellen Major Ellen Wells Elma Wells Emily Blatch Wells Essie Wells Ethel Wells FEC firefighters fireman firemen Florida East Coast Railway Company Fred Wells Gail Moss Gail Wells George Moss Gerald Wells Giles Wells Glen Wells Harold Wells Henry Morrison Flagler Herbert Alexander Wells Herbie Wells Ida Hilton Ida Major Ida Wells immigrants immigration John Wells Lois Wells Symonette Loreice Wells Mamie Knowles Mamie Wells Marcus Royster Maria Wells Mary Ellen Knowles Mary Ellen Roster Mary Ellen Wells Mazine Wells Sherer McFarlane Wells Melborn Wells Melbourne Wells Miami Miriam Deveaux Miriam Wells Nassau, Bahamas Out Island, Bahamas Patrice Wells Patrick Wells Paul Wells railroads Roderick Royster Roxanne Thompson Roxanne Wells Second Court Temera Felton Veronica Wells Travers Washington Wells https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/8483fd56109e78fae274e5767cfec472.jpg 58b60733628d8af477ad06f958292669 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Original Format 1 newspaper article 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 OHS Honors Outstanding Athletes at Banquet Alternative Title OHS Outstanding Athletes Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Sports--Florida Athletes--United States Schools High schools--Florida Description A newspaper article published by <em>The Oviedo Outlook</em> on May 26, 1977. The article describes Oviedo High School's Athletic Banquet that was held at the Sanford Civic Center and lists the various awards and recipients. Oviedo High School is a Seminole County Public School located in Oviedo, Florida. Originally called the Oviedo School, the institution was first established in 1922 as a K-12 school. In 1948, the secondary grades separated from the elementary school. The upper grade levels formed Oviedo High School and moved to the campus at 601 King Street. Oviedo High School is notable for The Lion's Tale, the award-winning school newspaper recognized by various national and state scholastic press associations of its high ratings from the Governor's A+ Plan for Education of and its successful athletics programs. Type Text Source Original newspaper article: "OHS Honors Outstanding Athletes at Banquet." <em>The Oviedo Outlook</em>, Vol. 4, No. 40, May 26, 1977, page 2: <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Is Part Of "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/5659" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Oviedo Outlook, Volume 4, Number 40, May 26, 1977</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/5659. <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original newspaper article: "OHS Honors Outstanding Athletes at Banquet." <em>The Oviedo Outlook</em>, Vol. 4, No. 40, May 26, 1977, page 2. Coverage Oviedo High School, Oviedo, Florida Sanford Civic Center, Sanford, Florida Publisher <em>The Oviedo Outlook</em> Date Created ca. 1977-05-26 Date Issued 1977-05-26 Date Copyrighted 1977-05-26 Format image/jpg Extent 154 KB Medium 1 newspaper article Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally published by <em>The Oviedo Outlook</em>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <em>The Oviedo Outlook</em> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oviedo Historical Society</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.oviedo.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Oviedo High School</a>." Oviedo High School, Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.oviedo.scps.k12.fl.us/. "<a href="http://www.ohsr.net/about-oviedo-high-school" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">About Oviedo High School</a>." Oviedo High School Reunions. http://www.ohsr.net/about-oviedo-high-school. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. athlete baseball basketball Bobby Joe Couch Charlie Johnson Cheryl Hird Cheryl Phillips Chris Auturino Cindy Ward coach cross country running Cynthia Brundidge Dale Phillips Dave Caughill Dennis Sondag Don Jacobs Donna Sloan football Gary Hird golf Greg Hendley Greg Kerr Henry Finne high schools Hurueal Bell Jeff Morley Jody Michael Joe Montgomery John Horn Kathleen Green Kathy Batt Kelly Kearney Kip Grant Mark Maupin Mike Meta Mike Mullins Mike Seiple Mildred Allen Morris Hedges Most Valuable Player MVP Nancy Van Wormer OHS Oviedo Oviedo High School Randy Willis Ray Tyre Rick Evans Rick Nash Ricky Evans Sam Momary Sanford Sanford Civic Center schools Scott Meyer softball sports swimming Tami Glassmire tennis The Oviedo Outlook track and field Veronica Sheehan Viki Goulette volleyball weightlifting wrestling https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/7394b04279c515a81b416e35c0e11f07.jpg 661c2951b50138c2228f3ae5e4425d14 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Original Format 1 newspaper article 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 OHS Students Earn Credits by Examination Alternative Title OHS Students Earn Credits by Exam Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Altamonte Springs (Fla.) Lake Mary (Fla.) Schools High schools--Florida Students--Florida Education--Florida Description A newspaper article published by <em>The Lion's Tale</em>, Oviedo High School's student newspaper, in February of 1984. This article discusses the Secondary Level Examination Program (SLEP), which grants high school credits to students that successfully passed tests for courses. Several students from Oviedo High School, Lake Brantley High School, and Lake Mary High School earned credits from the examination. <br /><br />Oviedo High School is a Seminole County Public School located in Oviedo, Florida. Originally called the Oviedo School, the institution was first established in 1932 as a K-12 school. In 1948, the secondary grades separated from the elementary school. The upper grade levels formed Oviedo High School and moved to the campus at 601 King Street. Oviedo High School is notable for <em>The Lion's Tale</em>, the award-winning school newspaper recognized by various national and state scholastic press associations; its high ratings from the Governor's A+ Plan for Education; and its successful athletics programs. Type Text Source Original newspaper article: "Students Earn Credits by Examination." <em>The Lion's Tale</em>, Vol. XIII, No. 5, February 1984: Private Collection of Dan Beistel. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Original newspaper article: "Students Earn Credits by Examination." <a href="http://www.oviedo.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank"><em>The Lion's Tale</em></a>, Vol. XIII, No. 5, February 1984. Coverage Oviedo High School, Oviedo, Florida Lake Brantley High School, Altamonte Springs, Florida Lake Mary High School, Lake Mary, Florida Publisher <a href="http://www.oviedo.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank"><em>The Lion's Tale</em></a> Contributor Beistel, Dan Date Created 1984-02 Date Issued 1984-02 Date Copyrighted 1984-02 Format image/jpg Extent 156 KB Medium 1 newspaper article Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally published by <a href="http://www.oviedo.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank"><em>The Lion's Tale</em></a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="http://www.oviedo.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank"><em>The Lion's Tale</em></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://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Dossie, Porsha Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Private Collection of Dan Beistel External Reference "<a href="http://www.oviedo.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank">Oviedo High School</a>." Oviedo High School, Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.oviedo.scps.k12.fl.us/. "<a href="http://www.ohsr.net/about-oviedo-high-school" target="_blank">About Oviedo High School</a>." Oviedo High School Reunions. http://www.ohsr.net/about-oviedo-high-school. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. Altamonte Springs Andrew Montcrief Bo King education Eric Carlander examination high school Jana Denning Jeff Schwartz Jonathan Dick Jonathan Newell Ken DeMoor King Street Lake Brantley High School Lake Mary Lake Mary High School OHS Oviedo Oviedo High School school SCPS Secondary Level Examination Program (SLEP) Seminole County Public Schools student Tamela Sue James test The Lion's Tale https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/3351a402879a569f8208d883e82a66a6.jpg 96bcb05add2e9285763fee7eda5c8dbb 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 Lou Frey Institute of Politics & Government Collection Alternative Title Lou Frey Institute Collection Subject Frey, Lou, 1934- United States. House of Representatives Republican Party (Fla.) Contributor <a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Brevard County, Florida Cape Canaveral, Florida Cocoa, Florida John F. Kennedy Space Center, Titusville, Florida Indian River County, Florida Lake County, Florida Melbourne, Florida Miami, Florida Orange County, Florida Orlando Jetport, McCoy Air Force Base, Orlando, Florida Osceola County, Florida Patrick Air Force Base, Florida Port Canaveral, Florida Seminole County, Florida St. Petersburg, Florida Tampa, Florida Winter Park, Florida New York City, New York Washington, D. C. Rights Holder The Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government holds all rights to the items housed from the institute as well as those items represented digitally on the <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>. Contact the <a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government</a> for the proper permissions for the use of its items. Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government</a> External Reference "<a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute</a>." Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government. http://loufreyinstitute.org/. "<a href="http://loufreyjr.com/" target="_blank">Congressman Lou Frey, Jr. Biography</a>." Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government. http://loufreyjr.com/. "<a href="http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=F000381">FREY, Louis, Jr., (1934 - )</a>." Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, United States Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=F000381. Frey, Lou, and Aubrey Jewett. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/422763388"><em><em>Political Rules of the Road: Representatives, Senators, and Presidents Share Their Rules for Success in Congress, Politics, and Life</em></em></a>. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2009. Frey, Lou, and Michael T. Hayes. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/45419938"><em>Inside the House: Former Members Reveal How Congress Really Works</em></a>. Lanham, MD: U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress, 2001. Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records from the Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. Congressman Lou Frey, Jr. (1934-2019) served in the House of Representatives from 1969-1979. He was on several committees during his time in office, including the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control and the Science and Technology Committee. He was also the chairman of the Young Republicans of Florida.<br /><br /><span>According to its website, "The Lou Frey Institute promotes the development of enlightened, responsible, and actively engaged citizens.</span> <p>The Institute works to accomplish its mission:</p> <ul><li>through civic education programs that encourage thoughtful debate and discussion about current policy issues;</li> <li>through experiential learning programs that encourage the development of civic and political skills;</li> <li>by working to help strengthen the civic education capacity of Florida’s k-12 education system; and</li> <li>through research, policy analysis, and advocacy."</li> </ul> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Original Format 1 newspaper article 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 Okay for McCoy Expected: Port of Entry Status Close Description A newspaper article about the development of McCoy Air Force Base. After the McCoy AFB was fully transitioned from military to civilian use, it still lacked the status of an international port of entry. As a result, international tourists had to use other airports in Florida, such as Tampa and Miami. Due to the growth of attractions like Disney World, Central Florida was quickly developing a larger tourism industry. It was important that the airport was able to cater to international traffic so that the industry could continue to grow more effectively. Congressman Lou Frey, Jr. (1934-2019) petitioned the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to give special consideration to the City of Orlando's bid to change the Jetport's status and this measure was successful. The second part of the article is missing, Source Original newspaper article: "Okay for McCoy Expected: Port of Entry Status Close." July 14, 1976: Lou Frey Papers, Clippings Binder, <a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. Date Created ca. 1976-07-14 Coverage Orlando Jetport, McCoy Air Force Base, Orlando, Florida Winter Park, Florida Tampa, Florida Miami, Florida Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, Florida U.S. Department of the Treasury, Washington, D.C. New York City, New York Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Source Repository <a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government</a> External Reference "<a href="%20http%3A//loufreyjr.com/" target="_blank">Congressman Lou Frey, Jr. Biography</a>." Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government. http://loufreyjr.com/. "<a href="http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=F000381" target="_blank">FREY, Louis, Jr., (1934 - )</a>." Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, United States Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=F000381. Frey, Lou, and Aubrey Jewett. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/422763388"><em>Political Rules of the Road: Representatives, Senators, and Presidents Share Their Rules for Success in Congress, Politics, and Life</em></a>. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2009. Frey, Lou, and Michael T. Hayes. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/45419938"><em>Inside the House: Former Members Reveal How Congress Really Works</em></a>. Lanham, MD: U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress, 2001. Shaw, Frederick J. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57007862"><em>Locating Air Force Base Sites: History's Legacy</em></a>. Washington D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, 2004. Transcript Okay for McCoy Expected Port Of Entry Status Close Orlando Jetport at McCoy could become an international port of entry within three months if the U. S. Treasury Department gives the city’s application for a U. S. customs office quick approval as expected, Orlando City Atty. Egerton K. van den Berg said Tuesday. U. S. Rep. Louis Frey Jr., R-Winter Park, said Tuesday in Winter Park he expects Treasury Secretary William Simon to grant approval by Sept. 1. Van den Berg said once the Treasury Department gives the nod, a temporary facility could be opened within a month to begin processing foreign visitors. A permanent International Arrivals Building is expected to take about six months to build, the city attorney said. Orlando’s quest for a customs office has the blessings of district and regional customs officials in Tampa and Miami respectively. It has been sent to Washington for final approval. Jack Gillooly, project manager for jetport development, said Tampa customs officials are so convinced the city’s application will be approved, they sent an assistant district director to meet with him Tuesday to discuss which portion of the airfield would be designed the “port of entry” section. Orlando has been trying for 10 years to be declared a port of entry. With the opening of Walt Disney World and other attractions, the need became acute because of the volume of foreign tourists. Foreign visitors must now fly to international airports such as Miami, Tampa or New York to clear customs. They then transfer to a domestic flight to Orlando. With an international airport, foreign flights would come directly to Orlando. Van den Berg said that probably only foreign charter flights would land here initially because “that’s where the demand is.” Regularly scheduled foreign flights --which must be approved by the Civil Aeronautics Board --are “way in the distance,” after a demand for them builds, van den Berg said. The aeronautics board does not approve charter flights. The city and Page Airways of Florida Inc., which has the jetport fuel sales and aircraft service lease, have entered into a partnership to build the International Arrivals Building. The city would put up $350,000 with Page supplying $450,000, said John Meacham, Orlando aviation director. MEACHAM said no decision has been made whether the word international would be added to the jetport’s name once the port of entry status is achieved. Van den Berg said the city will apply for its share of the arrivals building under the amended Airport and Airways Development Act signed Tuesday by President Ford. (Continued On Page 5-A, Col. 1) Alternative Title Okay for McCoy Expected Subject Frey, Lou, 1934- McCoy Air Force Base Orlando (Fla.) Airports--Florida Tourism--Florida Date Copyrighted 1976-07-14 Date Issued 1976-07-14 Has Format Original newspaper article, July 14, 1976. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original newspaper article: "Okay for McCoy Expected: Port of Entry Status Close." July 14, 1976. Is Part Of Lou Frey Papers, Clippings Binder, <a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Format image/jpg Extent 185 KB Medium 1 newspaper article Language eng Type Text Accrual Method Donation Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Contributing Project <a href="http://loufreyinstitute.org/" target="_blank">Lou Frey Institute of Politics &amp; Government</a> Curator Mayer, Erica Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> airport Airport and Airways Development Act Civil Aeronautics Board Department of Treasury Ford, Gerald Frey, Lou, Jr. Frey, Louis, Jr. Gillooly, Jack International Arrivals Building jetport McCoy AFB McCoy Air Force Base Meacham, John orlando Orlando Jetport Page Airways of Florida, Inc. Simon, William U.S. Customs Service Van Den Berg, Egerton K. Walt Disney World https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/a9230180e4c540e8e7c8cbe0362c7fdd.jpg a517913721575c36c7fbb0e685323083 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 Veterans Legacy Program Collection Alternative Title VLP Collection Subject Veterans--Florida Description In 2017, the University of Central Florida was one of three universities selected to launch the National Cemetery Administration’s <a href="https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/">Veterans Legacy Program Project</a>. The program engaged a team of scholars to make the life stories of veterans buried in the Florida National Cemetery available to the public. The project engages UCF students in research and writing and fosters collaboration between students, faculty and local Central Florida schools to produce interactive curriculum for k-12 students. The corresponding website exhibit uses RICHES Mosaic Interface to create a digital archive of related data. The public can use the project-developed augmented-reality app at more than 100 gravesites at the Florida National Cemetery, where they can access the UCF student-authored biographies of veterans. Is Part Of Veterans Legacy Program Collection, RICHES Program Type Collection Digital Collection <div class="element-text"><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES MI</a></div> <div class="element-text"><a href="https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/">Veterans Legacy Program Project</a></div> 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 Okee-Chub-Bee, Or The Death of Thompson Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/210" target="_blank">Veterans Legacy Program Collection</a> Format image/jpg Mediator History Teacher Accrual Method Donation Alternative Title Okee-Chub-Bee Subject Second Seminole War, 1835-1842 Veterans--Florida Description The Army and Navy Chronicle was published between 1835-1842. It shared news and stories about the activities of the United States Army and Navy and included pieces contributed by the soldiers or sailors themselves. This is a poem published about the death of Lt. Col. Alexander Thompson, written by someone from New York who identified themselves as “M.” <br /><br /> Alexander Thompson was born around 1793, in New York City to Alexander Thompson Sr. and Amelia Thompson née De Hart. Thompson Jr. had one brother, William, and three sisters, Margaret, Catherine, and Amelia. His father, Alexander Sr., died in 1809, and one year later, Thompson Jr. entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated early because of the onset of the War of 1812, in which he participated as a lieutenant. When the war ended, Thompson continued in military service, rising through the ranks until he became lieutenant colonel in 1837. During this period, he also married Mary Nexsen. They had no surviving children. In 1837, his 6th Infantry Regiment was sent to participate in the Second Seminole War. Thompson died leading his regiment at the Battle of Okeechobee on December 25, 1837. He is buried at the US Military Academy Post Cemetery at West Point and commemorated at the St. Augustine National Cemetery in Florida. <br /><br />In 2017, the University of Central Florida was one of three universities selected to launch the National Cemetery Administration’s <a href="https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/">Veterans Legacy Program Project</a>. The program engaged a team of scholars to make the life stories of veterans buried in the Florida National Cemetery available to the public. The project engages UCF students in research and writing and fosters collaboration between students, faculty and local Central Florida schools to produce interactive curriculum for K-12 students. The corresponding website exhibit uses RICHES Mosaic Interface to create a digital archive of related data. The public can use the project-developed augmented-reality app at more than 100 gravesites at the Florida National Cemetery, where they can access the UCF student-authored biographies of veterans. <br /><br /> Transcript OKEE-CHUB-BEE OR THE DEATH OF THOMPSON Beside the dark hammock, near Okee-cub-bee lake, Where moss-covered boughs of the Cypress-tree wave; No yell of the Red-men shall ever awake The sleep of the soldier who rests in his grave. When called to the conflict the warrior was dress’d In an armor, the fullness of earth cannot give; For God was his shield, and on that did he rest – In faith he could die – or through toils he could live. He led in the phalanx – encountered the foe – (Though fierce was the contest, and duty press’d hard;) Yet calmness and courage appeared on his brow, While danger nor threat’ning his purpose retard. Amidst the dead strife, as they moved ‘to the charge,’ The eye of a savage, well skill’d in its aim, Directed his rifle – its contents discharged – And ah! the brave THOMPSON lies low with the slain. His corse, by his own faithful men was conveyed From the field, where so freely he poured his life’s blood; Un-coffined, within the cold grave was he laid, Whilst, united in sorrow they mournfully stood; Then, plaintive and low, were ‘the prayers they said,’ And they wept for their chief as they buried him there, Then covered the grave they so hastily made; Nor a ‘funeral note’ was there breathed on the air. No fair sculptured marble marks out the lone spot, No willow droops over the dust of the slain; Yet ne’er shall his deeds nor his name be forgot, For Freedom will honor and cherish his fame. New York, March, 1833. M. Creator "M." Publisher B. Homans; United States Army and Navy Date Created ca. 1838 Contributor Digitized by the University of Michigan Extent 286 KB Language eng Rights Holder This resource is not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work. Anyone may, without restriction under U.S. copyright laws:<br /><br /> • reproduce the work in print or digital form<br /> • create derivative works<br /> • perform the work publicly<br /> • display the work<br /> • distribute copies or digitally transfer the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.<br /><br /> This resource is provided here by <a href="https://riches.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. For more information on copyright, please refer to <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#105">Section 5</a> of <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html">Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code</a>. Curator Klements, Elizabeth Stoddard, James Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> <a href="https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">Veterans Legacy Program Project</a> Source Repository University of Michigan External Reference “Appletons’ Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1600-1889.” Database, Ancestry.com. (http://www.ancestry.com/: accessed January 13, 2020) entry for Alexander R. Thompson; “New York, Wills and Probate Records, 1659-1999.” Database, Ancestry.com. (http://www.ancestry.com/: accessed January 13, 2020), entry for Alexander R. Thompson; “Saint Augustine National Cemetery.” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, accessed January 17, 2020, https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/staugustine.asp; “The Late Col. Thompson, U.S.A.” Army and Navy Chronicle 6-7 (1838): 69-70; “U.S. Veterans' Gravesites, ca.1775-2006.” Database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed January 15, 2020), entry for Alex R Thompson. 6th Infantry Regiment Alexander Thompson Battle of Okeechobee Florida War military history military service Second Seminole War 1835-1842 United States Army United States Military Academy veterans Veterans Legacy Program West Point https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/106edc79f9e50c9b79db1261231aad1a.pdf dd2815e70003fcf890ad980cf53ca6c7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photograph 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 Old Downtown Oviedo Alternative Title Old Downtown Oviedo Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Stores, Retail--United States Description Old Downtown Oviedo, Florida, looking east from the intersection of Broadway Street/County Road 419/Florida State Road 426 and Florida State Road 434/Florida State Road 419. A Coca-Cola sign can be seen the right side of the photograph. The two-story building on the left was later replaced by the Townhouse Restaurant, which is located at 9 East Broadway Street. Type Still Image Source Original black and white photograph: <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of Original black and white photograph. Coverage Downtown Oviedo, Florida Date Created ca. 1940-1949 Format application/pdf Extent 196 KB Medium 1 black and white photograph Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</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://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. Broadway Street Coca-Cola County Road 419 CR 419 Downtown Oviedo Florida State Road 426 Oviedo retail shop SR 426 store https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/60961f85c44fded9e568ecd836db09ef.jpg 64b80fbf2e242cdff6d8bf85f3dddc85 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white newspaper photograph 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 Old Downtown Oviedo Alternative Title Downtown Oviedo Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Description Downtown Oviedo, Florida sometime between 1880 and 1919. The Timucuan Native Americans Originally inhabited the area of present-day Oviedo, although the remains of their settlements have disappeared. Homesteaders arrived along the shores of Lake Jesup in 1865 just after the Civil War ended and began growing celery and citrus. The area was called the Lake Jesup Community until March 13, 1879, when postmaster Andrew Aulin, Sr. (1843-1918), a Swedish immigrant, chose the name Oviedo. Type Still Image Source Original black and white newspaper photograph: <em>The Seminole Outlook</em>: Private Collection of Bettye Reagan. Is Version Of "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/5650" target="_blank">Oviedo's Old Downtown</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/5650. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original black and white newspaper photograph: <em>The Seminole Outlook</em>. Coverage Downtown Oviedo, Florida Publisher <em>The Seminole Outlook</em> Contributor Reagan, Bettye Jean Aulin Date Created ca. 1880-1919 Format image/jpg Extent 277 KB Medium 1 black and white newspaper photograph Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Humanities Teacher Visual Arts Teacher Provenance Originally published by <em>The Seminole Outlook</em>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <em>The Seminole Outlook</em> 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://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Private Collection of Bettye Reagan External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. Downtown Oviedo Oviedo https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/fee440146377ef3cb5bf8b564f77736e.jpg 7c0ad5d69af79ffa7bd92a2665dd0ac0 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 Sanford Collection Alternative Title Sanford Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Chase and Company (Sanford, Fla.) Description Select images, correspondence, and other records from the Chase Collection (MS 14) at Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. According to the biographical sketch in the collection's finding aid: "The story of the Chases in Florida began in 1878 when Sydney Octavius Chase (1860-1941), having read about orange groves in Scribner's Magazine, came to Florida from Philadelphia. His brother, Joshua Coffin Chase (1858-1948), joined him in 1884 and together they formed Chase and Company that year. The Chase brothers came to Florida at the right time for Florida citrus and at the right time for them as investment entrepreneurs. Strong family ties in the North provided them with financial backing for their ventures. Joshua left Florida in 1895 to work in the California citrus industry. He returned to Florida in 1904 and rejoined his brother. Another brother, Randall, remained in Philadelphia and augmented his brothers' finances when convenient. Sydney and Joshua were also important civic leaders who took part in community development, most notably in the City of Sanford. Both were elected to the Sanford city commission. They also supported the development of Rollins College, worked with the Florida Historical Society, and were the benefactors of numerous charities. Chase and Company began as an insurance company and branched out to storage facilities and fertilizer sales. The latter was the beginning of the company's lucrative agricultural supply division which remained in operation throughout the existence of the company. Although citrus was the primary interest, the company also invested in other agricultural pursuits including celery in central Florida, tung oil production in Jefferson County, and winter vegetables and sugar cane in the Lake Okeechobee muck lands. The company was also involved in the peach business in Georgia and North Carolina. The company was incorporated in 1914, with the Chase brothers owning 75 percent of the stock, and reincorporated in 1948. A second generation of Chases began its involvement in the family operations when Sydney O. Chase, Jr. ( b. 1890) became a citrus buyer in 1922. He was later joined by his brother Randall who served as president of Chase and Company from 1948-1965. Outside the Chase Family, Alfred Foster, W. R. Harney, and William "Billy" Leffler figured prominently as company executives and investors. The company dissolved in 1979 when its principal assets were sold to Sunniland for $5.5 million. The Chases' interest in citrus began when Sydney came to Florida and became associated with General Henry S. Sanford. The Chases would eventually own General Sanford's experimental farm, Belair, and the Chase family home in Sanford was located there. Over the years, the Chases invested in a number of citrus groves and owned others outright. In 1912, they organized the Chase Investment Company as a holding company for their farms. Initially, the company operated the Isleworth, Nocatee, Belair, and Kelly citrus groves as well as celery farms in Sanford. The company was renamed Chase Groves, Inc. in 1951. From time to time, Chase Investment was involved in real estate in Florida and North Carolina. The latter included Fort Caswell, a former military property that was held for a time and then sold. Unquestionably, the jewel in the Chase crown was the Isleworth grove at Windermere. Isleworth's four hundred lake-tempered acres carried the Chases through many difficult times. It proved to be the principal asset at the company's demise when it was sold to golf legend Arnold Palmer in 1984. Chase Groves dissolved that same year, 100 years after the founding of Chase and Company." Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/23" target="_blank">Chase Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Referenced By <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm" target="_blank">A Guide to the Chase Collection</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Sanford, Florida Sanford Country Club and Golf Course, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a>, University of Florida <a href="http://ufdc.ufl.edu/" target="_blank">Digital Collections (UFDC)</a><span>, University of Florida</span> Curator Cepero, Laura Marra, Katherine Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <span>University of Florida, </span><a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a> External Reference Warner, S.C. "<a href="http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1923%20Vol.%2036/198-200%20%28WARNER%29.pdf" target="_blank">Development of Marketing Citrus Fruits in Florida</a>." <em>Florida State Horticultural Society</em> vol. 36 (1923): 198-200. <span>Hopkins, James T. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1219230" target="_blank"><em>Fifty Years of Citrus, the Florida Citrus Exchange: 1909-1959</em></a><span>. Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida Press: 1960.</span> <span>"</span><a href="http://floridacitrushalloffame.com/index.php/inductees/inductee-name/?ref_cID=89&amp;bID=0&amp;dd_asId=600" target="_blank">Sydney Chase Sr. (1860-1941)</a><span>." </span><em>Florida Citrus Hall of Fame</em><span>. Copyright 2012. http://floridacitrushalloffame.com/index.php/inductees/inductee-name/?ref_cID=89&amp;bID=0&amp;dd_asId=600.</span> <span>"</span><a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-09-30/news/0260060057_1_chase-isleworth-golf-florida-citrus" target="_blank">Franklin Chase, 'Towering Figure in Citrus Industry</a><span>.'" </span><em>The Orlando Sentinel</em><span>, September 30, 1986. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-09-30/news/0260060057_1_chase-isleworth-golf-florida-citrus.</span> Contributor <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a><span>, University of Florida</span> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/94" target="_blank">Holy Cross Episcopal Church Collection</a>, Chase Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/87" target="_blank">Sanford Country Club and Golf Course Collection</a>, Chase Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Provenance <span>Entire </span><a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm" target="_blank">Chase Collection</a><span> is comprised of four separate accessions from various donors, including Cecilia Johnson, the granddaughter of Joshua Coffin Chase and the children of Randall Chase.</span> Rights Holder <span>The displayed collection is housed at </span><a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a><span> at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Rights to this item belong to the said institution, and therefore inquiries about the item should be directed there. </span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a><span> has obtained permission from Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida to display this item for educational purposes only.</span> Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photograph Physical Dimensions 8.5 x 11 inch 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 Old Fort Reid Building Alternative Title Fort Reid Building Subject Railroads--Florida--History Buildings--Florida Sanford (Fla.) Dry-goods--United States Description Former building at First Street and Magnolia Avenue prior to the construction of the N.P. Yowell and Garner Woodruff Buildings. The building was named after Fort Reid, which was established by Colonel William Harney on July 7, 1840. Colonel Harney named the fort after Robert Raymond Reid, the fourth Territorial Governor of Florida. "Reed" is another common spelling used in Sanford. Newton P. Yowell first came to Central Florida in 1884 with his family. Nine years after arriving in Florida, Yowell borrowed money from his mother and friends and opened a dry goods store. Shortly after Yowell opened his store in Sanford, the freeze of 1894-1895 hit the community hard. Even though crops were damaged and many people left Sanford, the Yowell Store remained open and survived the hard economic times. After the freeze, Yowell began construction on a new two-story brick building that would become the new store. Abstract Notes on back of photograph, "Old Ft. Reid building on 1st St. foot Magnolia Ave - where Yowell Store is now located 1881" Creator Chase & Company Source Original 8.5 x 11 inch black and white photograph by Chase &amp; Company: Chase Collection (MS 14), box 211, folder 3.30A, <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a>, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Is Referenced By Folder referenced in Chase Collection finding guide, <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm">http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm</a>. Format image/jpeg Extent 180 KB Medium 8.5 x 11 inch black and white photograph Language eng Type Still Image Coverage Sanford, Florida Spatial Coverage 28.811739, -81.266985 Temporal Coverage 1882-01-01/1882-12-31 Accrual Method Donation Provenance Entire <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm" target="_blank">Chase Collection</a> is comprised of four separate accessions from various donors, including Cecilia Johnson, the granddaughter of Joshua Coffin Chase and the children of Randall Chase. Rights Holder The displayed collection item is housed at <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a> at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Rights to this item belong to the said institution, and therefore inquiries about the item should be directed there. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> has obtained permission from Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida to display this item for educational purposes only. Contributing Project <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a>, University of Florida <a href="http://ufdc.ufl.edu/" target="_blank">Digital Collections (UFDC)</a> Curator Marra, Katherine Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">University of Florida, Special and Area Studies Collections</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=52162" target="_blank">Fort Reid</a>." The Historical Marker Database. http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=52162. Robinson, Jim. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1992-11-29/news/9211260636_1_yowell-sanford-dry-goods" target="_blank">Yowell Building Brings Rich History to Dec. 10 Auction</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, November 29, 1992. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1992-11-29/news/9211260636_1_yowell-sanford-dry-goods. <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=21" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Central Florida's Waterfront Gateway</em></a>. Sanford, Florida: City of Sanford, 2005. Transcript Old Fort Ried building First and Magnolia Ave. location now occupied by Yowell Store Date Created 1882 Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 8.5 x 11 inch black and white photograph by Chase &amp; Company. Is Part Of Chase Collection (MS 14), box 211, folder 3.30A, <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a>, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/86" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Chase Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Audience Education Level SS.K.A.1.2; SS.1.A.1.1; SS.1.A.2.2; SS.2.A.1.1; SS.3.A.1.1; SS.3.G.1.1; SS.3.G.2.5; SS.3.G.2.6; SS.4.A.1.1; SS.5.A.1.1; SS.5.G.1.4; SS.6.W.1.3; SS.8.A.1.2; SS.8.A.1.5; SS.912.A.1.1; SS.912.A.1.4; SS.912.A.1.6; SS.912.A.3.13; SS.912.G.1.2; SS.912.G.1.4; SS.912.W.1.3 Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher 1st Street dry goods dry goods store First St. Fort Reed Fort Reed Building Fort Reid Fort Reid Building Ft. Reed Ft. Reed Building Ft. Reid Ft. Reid Building Magnolia Ave. Magnolia Avenue Old Fort Reed Building Old Fort Reid Building Old Ft. Reed Building Old Ft. Reid Building store Yowell Store YowellFirst Street https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/da90bb20040aea0b2cea364b777c30a0.jpg 3e02e6efa06b43e86806a3f6e22d78fe 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 Art Legends of Orange County Collection Alternative Title Art Legends Collection Subject Art--Southern States Artists--Florida Contributor <a href="http://www.polasek.org/" target="_blank">Albin Polasek Museum &amp; Sculpture Gardens</a> <a href="http://www.orangecountyfl.net/" target="_blank">Orange County Commission Chambers</a> <a href="http://www.cityoforlando.net/arts/" target="_blank">City of Orlando Gallery</a> <a href="http://www.orlandoslice.com/group/cityartsfactory" target="_blank">CityArts Factory</a> <a href="http://artandhistory.org/" target="_blank">Art &amp; History Museums - Maitland</a> <a href="http://www.rollins.edu/cornell-fine-arts-museum/" target="_blank">Cornell Fine Arts Museum</a> <a href="http://www.crealde.org/" target="_blank">Crealdé School of Art</a> <a href="https://thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://www.omart.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Museum of Art</a> <a href="http://gallery.cah.ucf.edu/">University of Central Florida Art Gallery</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Eldora, Florida Gainesville, Florida Lake Wales, Florida Maitland, Florida Orlando, Florida Sanford, Florida Winter Park, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.artlegendsoc.org/" target="_blank">Art Legends of Orange County</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.artlegendsoc.org/" target="_blank">Art Legends of Orange County</a>." Art Legends of Orange County. http://www.artlegendsoc.org/. Description <p>Although visual art had been explored in Central Florida, Orange County’s visual arts community truly came alive during the years of 1932-1982, thanks to the vision of 20 distinguished artists and arts leaders. Their influence not only helped build a solid foundation for the local art community but some of Orange County’s local Art Legends significantly influenced modern American Art.<br /><br />To recognize the leadership and celebrate the accomplishments of these arts visionaries, arts administrators from 11 Orange County museums and galleries joined forces and shared collections to create the <em>Art Legends of Orange County</em> initiative.<br /><br />This community-wide collaboration runs throughout the 2015-2016 arts season and includes more than 15 exhibitions and events. <em>Art Legends of Orange County</em> celebrates 20 distinguished artists and patrons who helped build Orange County’s vibrant cultural landscape.</p> <p><br /><em>Art Legends of Orange County</em> full exhibition schedule and link to virtual exhibition available at <a href="http://www.ArtLegendsOC.org" target="_blank">www.ArtLegendsOC.org</a>.</p> <p>Visit RICHES™ of Central Florida at <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/exhibits/show/artlegends">https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/exhibits/show/artlegends</a> for virtual exhibition.</p> Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 painting 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 Old Mill by Ralph L. Bagley Alternative Title Old Mill by Ralph Bagley Subject Artists--Florida Art--Southern States Painters--Southern States Painting--Florida Description <em>Old Mill</em>, a painting by Ralph L. Bagley (ca. 1914-2008). <em>Old Mill</em> features a mill in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.<br /><br />Bagley was an artist and instructor who taught in Central Florida from the 1950s until his death in 2008, when he was 94 years old. He was born in Bertrand, Missouri, and attended the Flint Institute of Art in Flint, Michigan, continuing his studies in New York and Washington, D.C. Bagley and his wife, Marianne Bagley, moved to Orlando, Florida in 1950, where Bagley founded the Orlando Institute of Art, the city’s first fine-arts school. Bagley depicted landscapes, still lifes, and portraits in a variety of media, including oil, watercolor, and charcoal.<br /><br />Bagley also taught at Orlando Junior College, becoming head of the school’s art department in 1965. After the college closed in 1971, he taught at Lake-Sumter Community College in Leesburg, the Maitland Art Center in Maitland, and the Loch Haven Art Center (now the Orlando Museum of Art). He toured the nation with at least 30 one-man art shows featuring his paintings. Among many positions he held in art organizations, Bagley was president of the Orlando Art Association and a founding member and president of the Artists’ League of Orange County. The works of his many students sustain his legacy. Type Still Image Source Original painting: Bagley, Ralph L. <em>Old Mill</em>: <a href="http://www.cityoforlando.net/arts/" target="_blank">City of Orlando Terrace Gallery</a>, Orlando, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="http://www.cityoforlando.net/arts/" target="_blank">City of Orlando Terrace Gallery</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/155" target="_blank">Art Legends of Orange County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original painting: Bagley, Ralph L. <em>Old Mill</em>. Coverage Pigeon Forge, Tennessee Orlando, Florida Creator Bagley, Ralph L. Date Created ca. 1914-2008 Format image/jpg Extent 352 KB Medium 1 painting Mediator History Teacher Humanities Teacher Visual Arts Teacher Provenance Originally created by Ralph L. Bagley. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by Ralph L. Bagley 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.artlegendsoc.org/" target="_blank">Art Legends of Orange County</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.cityoforlando.net/arts/" target="_blank">City of Orlando Terrace Gallery</a> External Reference Finley, Gabrielle. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2008-01-13/news/dead13_1_bagley-art-center-institute-of-art" target="_blank">Obit: Art teacher Ralph L. Bagley, 94, stressed creativity among students</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, January 13, 2008. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2008-01-13/news/dead13_1_bagley-art-center-institute-of-art. art artist mill Old Mill painter painting Pigeon Forge, Tennessee Ralph L. Bagley https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/175be16cbfcce1be0083a664c2860f78.jpg 6062263a3d9ee9bcc330e93725fe5b6f 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 Central Florida Railroad Depots Collection Alternative Title Central Florida Railroad Depots Collection Subject Railroad depots Railroad stations--Florida Railroads--Florida Apopka (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Ocala (Fla.) Port Orange (Fla.) Lake Wales (Fla.) Avon Park (Fla.) Mount Dora (Fla.) Punta Gorda (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Kissimmee (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Language eng Type Collection Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the various railroad depots and railroad stations in Central Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. Contributor Bronson, Kelly Campbell, Tyler Clemente, Chris Connolly, Lehman Covington, Adrian Gray, Mark Lester, Connie L. Mercado, Carlos R. Moore, Samantha Santos, Marina Simons, Nicholas Smalls, Eric Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/77" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Coverage Amtrak Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Station, Orlando, Florida Apopka Seaboard Air Line Railway Depot, Apopka, Florida Avon Park Depot Museum, Avon Park, Florida Avon Park Seaboard Air Line Depot, Avon Park, Florida Avon Park Atlantic Coast Line Train Station, Avon Park, Florida Church Street Station, Orlando, Florida Fort Pierce Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Depot, Fort Pierce, Florida Fort Pierce Florida East Coast Railway Company Depot, Fort Pierce, Florida Kissimmee Railroad Station, Kissimmee, Florida Lake Wales Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Depot, Lake Wales, Florida Lake Wales Depot Museum, Lake Wales, Florida Mount Dora Train Station, Mount Dora, Florida Ocala Union Station, Ocala, Florida Orlando Railroad Depot, Orlando, Florida Oviedo Train Depot, Oviedo, Florida Port Orange Train Station, Port Orange, Florida Punta Gorda Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Depot, Punta Gorda, Florida Sanford Atlantic Coast Line Depot, Sanford, Florida Sanford South Florida Railroad, Sanford, Florida St. Lucie County Regional History Center, Fort Pierce, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=525" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s American Economic History Undergraduate Class, Spring 2014 External Reference Mulligan, Michael. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/225874809" target="_blank"><em>Railroad Depots of Central Florida</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2008. Turner, Gregg M. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/184906141" target="_blank"><em>A Journey into Florida Railroad History</em></a>. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008. Murdock, R. Ken. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38291666" target="_blank"><em>Outline History of Central Florida Railroads</em></a>. Winter Garden, Fla: Central Florida Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, 1997. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2477" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 25: The Railways of Central Florida</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2477. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. 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 Old Orlando Railroad Depot Alternative Title Old Orlando Railroad Depot Subject Orlando (Fla.) Railroads--Florida Description The Old Orlando Railroad Depot, located at 127 West Church Street in Orlando, Florida, sometime between 1881 and 1890. The station was first constructed in 1880 connecting Orlando to Sanford. After the railroad was bought up by the Plant System in 1883 from the South Florida Railroad, it was extended to Tampa. This brought a large boom to Orlando's economy shipping cattle and lumber, but chiefly citrus. By 1926, the depot was becoming too small for the volume of trade going through, so the depot was moved south to what is today the Amtrak Station. The depot became run down until the mid-1970s when Church Street Station opened up around the depot and stayed open until the early 2000s. Now the station is used as a stop along the SunRail Tram system. Type Still Image Source Digital reproduction of <a href="http://floridamemory.com/items/show/40046" target="_blank">original 8 x 10 inch black and white photoprint</a>: Reference Collection, shelf number 12360, call number RC18768, Florida Photographic Collection, <a href="http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/index_Researchers.cfm" target="_blank">State Library and Archives of Florida</a>, Tallahassee, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="http://floridamemory.com/photographiccollection/collections/?id=39" target="_blank">Reference Collection</a>, shelf number 12360, call number RC18768, Florida Photographic Collection, State Library and Archives of Florida, Tallahassee, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/97" target="_blank">Central Florida Railroad Depots Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 8 x 10 inch black and white photoprint. Has Format Original 8 x 10 inch black and white photoprint: Reference Collection, shelf number 12360, call number RC18768, Florida Photographic Collection, <a href="http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/index_Researchers.cfm" target="_blank">State Library and Archives of Florida</a>, Tallahassee, Florida. Coverage Old Orlando Railroad Depot, Orlando, Florida Publisher <a target="_blank">State Library and Archives of Florida</a> Contributor Owen, Christopher Format image/jpg Extent 204 KB Medium 8 x 10 inch black and white photoprint Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/index_Researchers.cfm" target="_blank">State Library and Archives of Florida</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://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=525" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s American Economic History Undergraduate Class, Spring 2014 Curator Covington, Adrian Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://www.floridamemory.com/" target="_blank">Florida Memory Project</a> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/index_Researchers.cfm" target="_blank">State Library and Archives of Florida</a> External Reference Mulligan, Michael. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/225874809" target="_blank"><em>Railroad Depots of Central Florida</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2008. Turner, Gregg M. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/184906141" target="_blank"><em>A Journey into Florida Railroad History</em></a>. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008. Turner, Gregg M. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52260683" target="_blank"><em>A Short History of Florida Railroads</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2003. Antequino, Stephanie Gaub, and Tana Mosier Porter. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/783150094" target="_blank"><em>Lost Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Pub, 2012. "<a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/Links/wtour.pdf" target="_blank">Downtown Orlando Historic District Walking Tour</a>." City of Orlando. http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/Links/wtour.pdf. Rajtar, Steve. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70911136" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Murdock, R. Ken. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38291666" target="_blank"><em>Outline History of Central Florida Railroads</em></a>. Winter Garden, Fla: Central Florida Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, 1997. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2477" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 25: The Railways of Central Florida</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2477. Transcript ORLANDO Zotero University RRD00010.jpg Church Street Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad orlando Orlando Railroad Depot railroad depots railroad stations railroads https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/0d4dea78a4c142d95dbaaf30425818f0.jpg 8cc52a9d37ee4a4afaeaa78daa957895 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 Lucile Campbell Collection Alternative Title Campbell Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Description This collection features postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. Campbell collected postcards from her travels around the world and used them as teaching aids in her classrooms. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. Contributor Campbell, Lucille <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 color postcard Physical Dimensions 4 x 6 inches 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 Old Powder Magazine During Revolutionary War Postcard Alternative Title Powder Magazine During Revolution Postcard Subject American Revolution, 1775-1783 Revolutionary War, American, 1775-1783 Description A postcard depicting the Powder Magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. This structure was constructed in 1713 to store gunpowder during the American Revolutionary War. The Powder Magazine now serves as a museum located at 79 Cumberland Street.<br /><br />This postcard is part of a collection of postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. During the 1940-1941 school year, Campbell taught at Sanford Grammar School. Before her retirement in 1970, she taught at many other area schools, including the Oviedo School, Westside Grammar School, and Pinecrest Elementary School. Campbell used these postcards as aids in her classrooms to teach advanced subjects, such as Shakespearean drama. The collection, along with her other teaching aids, papers, and photographs, was later found at Sanford Grammar School after it became the University of Central Florida's Public History Center. Campbell's postcard collection and photographs provide insight into the life of a respected Florida educator. Type Still Image Source Original 4 x 6 inch color postcard by the Gulf Stream Card and Distributing Company: ACC# SM-00-243, file folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Is Part Of File folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/151" target="_blank">Lucile Campbell Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 4 x 6 inch color postcard by the Gulf Stream Card and Distributing Company. Coverage Powder Magazine, Charleston, South Carolina Creator Charleston News Company Publisher Curt Teich and Company Contributor Campbell, Lucile Date Created ca. 1898-1978 Date Copyrighted ca. 1898-1978 Format image/jpg Extent 188 KB Medium 4 x 6 inch color postcard Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by the Charleston News Company and published by Curt Teich and Company. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</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 Aphasia Project Curator Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> External Reference "<a href="https://www.powdermag.org/history.php" target="_blank">History</a>." The Powder Magazine. https://www.powdermag.org/history.php. American Revolution American Revolutionary War American War of Independence Charleston, South Carolina gunpowder magazine polverista Powder Magazine https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/5705676c0b1b51457fe86e3efc3f59b7.pdf adf13adf82f1017ebd54f43d8b392a25 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 Sanford Collection Description The present-day Sanford area was originally inhabited by the Mayaca/Joroco natives by the time Europeans arrived. The tribe was decimated by war and disease by 1760 and was replaced by the Seminole Indians. In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain and Americans began to settled in the state. Camp Monroe was established in the mid-1830s to defend the area against Seminoles during the Seminole Wars. In 1836, the United States Army built a road (present-day Mellonville Avenue) to a location called "Camp Monroe," during the Second Seminole War. Following an attack on February 8, 1837, the camp was renamed "Fort Mellon," in honor of the battle's only American casualty, Captain Charles Mellon. The town of Mellonville was founded nearby in 1842 by Daniel Stewart. When Florida became a state three years later, Mellonville became the county seat for Orange County, which was originally a portion of Mosquito County. Citrus was the first cash crop in the area and the first fruit packing plant was constructed in 1869. In 1870, a lawyer from Connecticut by the name of Henry Shelton Sanford (1832-1891) purchased 12,548 acres of open land west of Mellonville. His vision was to make this new land a major port city, both railway and by water. Sitting on Lake Monroe, and the head of the St. Johns River, the City of Sanford earned the nickname of “The Gate City of South Florida.” Sanford became not only a transportation hub, but a leading citrus industry in Florida, and eventually globally. The Great Fire of 1887 devastated the city, which also suffered from a statewide epidemic of yellow fever the following year. The citrus industry flourished until the Great Freezes of 1894 and 1895, causing planters to begin growing celery in 1896 as an alternative. Celery replaced citrus as the city's cash crop and Sanford was nicknamed "Celery City." In 1913, Sanford became the county seat of Seminole County, once part of Orange County. Agriculture dominated the region until Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971, effectively shifting the Central Florida economy towards tourism and residential development. Alternative Title Sanford Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) 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> <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/" target="_blank">Sanford Historical Society, Inc.</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Is Part Of <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 Sanford, Florida Curator Marra, Katherine Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. <span>Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank"><em>A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</em></a></span><span>, 1975.</span> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photograph Physical Dimensions 8.5 inch x 5.25 inches 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 Old Railroad Spur at South Florida Railroad Station Alternative Title South Florida Railroad Station Subject Sanford (Fla.) Railroads--Florida South Florida Railroad Company Description Old railroad spur at the South Florida Railroad station, located at 209 North Oak Avenue in Sanford, Florida, with the Plant Investment Company (PICO) office to the far left of the photograph. The Lake Monroe and Orlando Railroad was organized in 1875. The charter planned to constructed a railroad from the St. Johns River port in Sanford south to Orlando. On October 16, 1878, the South Florida Railroad was incorporated but did not receive a charter until December 9, 1879, when it gained control over the Lake Monroe and Orlando Railroad charter. The first train on the new railroad ran between Sanford and Orlando on November 11, 1880. Henry Plant and his Plant System purchased three-fifths of the South Florida Railroad stock on May 4, 1883 and soon began laying tracks towards Tampa, whose railroad station opened on December 10, 1883. In 1893, the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway, which was also a part of the Plant System, acquired the South Florida Railroad. The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL) acquired the entire Plant System in 1902. In 1967, the ACL merged with the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, which is now operated by CSX. Type Still Image Source Original 8.5 inch x 5.25 inch black and white photograph: <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://www.adobe.com/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 8.5 inch x 5.25 inch black and white photograph. Date Created 1898 Format application/pdf Extent 162 KB Medium 8.5 inch x 5.25 inch black and white photograph Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</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 Hazen, Kendra Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep25-RailwaysOfCentralFL.mp3" target="_blank">Episode 25: The Railways of Central Florida</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep25-RailwaysOfCentralFL.mp3. Mulligan, Michael. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/225874809" target="_blank"><em>Railroad Depots of Central Florida</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2008. Murdock, R. Ken. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38291666" target="_blank"><em>Outline History of Central Florida Railroads</em></a>. Winter Garden, Fla: Central Florida Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, 1997. Turner, Gregg M. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/184906141" target="_blank"><em>A Journey into Florida Railroad History</em></a>. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008. Coverage Plant Investment Company, Sanford, Florida South Florida Railroad Station, Sanford, Florida Transcript Old railroad spur--station to the left--Pico to left of station.-----I898[sic] PICO Plant Investment Company railroad depots railroad spurs railroad stations railroads railways Sanford South Florida Railroad Company waterfront https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cb37b40def31efb0eb05f614b0147533.pdf d85e5454bd97592b908284fab2163d2d 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 Sanford Collection Description The present-day Sanford area was originally inhabited by the Mayaca/Joroco natives by the time Europeans arrived. The tribe was decimated by war and disease by 1760 and was replaced by the Seminole Indians. In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain and Americans began to settled in the state. Camp Monroe was established in the mid-1830s to defend the area against Seminoles during the Seminole Wars. In 1836, the United States Army built a road (present-day Mellonville Avenue) to a location called "Camp Monroe," during the Second Seminole War. Following an attack on February 8, 1837, the camp was renamed "Fort Mellon," in honor of the battle's only American casualty, Captain Charles Mellon. The town of Mellonville was founded nearby in 1842 by Daniel Stewart. When Florida became a state three years later, Mellonville became the county seat for Orange County, which was originally a portion of Mosquito County. Citrus was the first cash crop in the area and the first fruit packing plant was constructed in 1869. In 1870, a lawyer from Connecticut by the name of Henry Shelton Sanford (1832-1891) purchased 12,548 acres of open land west of Mellonville. His vision was to make this new land a major port city, both railway and by water. Sitting on Lake Monroe, and the head of the St. Johns River, the City of Sanford earned the nickname of “The Gate City of South Florida.” Sanford became not only a transportation hub, but a leading citrus industry in Florida, and eventually globally. The Great Fire of 1887 devastated the city, which also suffered from a statewide epidemic of yellow fever the following year. The citrus industry flourished until the Great Freezes of 1894 and 1895, causing planters to begin growing celery in 1896 as an alternative. Celery replaced citrus as the city's cash crop and Sanford was nicknamed "Celery City." In 1913, Sanford became the county seat of Seminole County, once part of Orange County. Agriculture dominated the region until Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971, effectively shifting the Central Florida economy towards tourism and residential development. Alternative Title Sanford Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) 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> <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/" target="_blank">Sanford Historical Society, Inc.</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Is Part Of <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 Sanford, Florida Curator Marra, Katherine Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. <span>Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank"><em>A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</em></a></span><span>, 1975.</span> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photograph Physical Dimensions 7 x 5 inches 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 Old Sanford Railroad Depot Alternative Title Sanford Railroad Depot Subject Sanford (Fla.) Railroads--Florida South Florida Railroad Company Description On January 10, 1880, the City of Sanford broke ground for the construction of the South Florida Railroad station on Oak Avenue in Sanford, Florida. President Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) famously participated in the groundbreaking ceremony. Originally only a 10-mile track between Sanford and Longwood, the line expanded to Orlando within the first six months of its operation. By 1883, Henry B. Plant (1819-1899) had purchased three-fifths of the South Florida Railroad Company and made it part of his Plant System and the Plant Investment Company (PICO). Shortly thereafter, in the winter of 1894-1895, a freeze hit Central Florida, destroying the entire citrus crop. This brought an end to what had been Sanford’s thriving citrus industry prompting the development of its vegetable industry. By the 1900s, Sanford was one of the largest vegetable shipping centers in the United States gaining the nickname of "The Celery City" for its most successful crop.<br /><br />Upon Plant's death in 1902, his widow sold his railroad system to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL). The arrival of the ACL in Sanford brought many new railroad workers as the city grew into a hub for shipping produce to surrounding areas. Rand Yard, ACL’s freight yard, housed a car shop, engine servicing facility, small locomotive shop, and the state's largest railroad ice plant.<br /><br />In the early 1900s, Lake Jesup farmers demanded that the ACL build a line for them to ship their produce into town, but the railroad company refused. In response, the largest growers chartered the Sanford and Everglades Railroad with Sydney Octavius Chase (1860-1941) as the president. The new line was completed as an ACL branch at Lake Charm. The ACL purchased the new line in 1913 when the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL) showed interest in buying it. The branch became the most profitable in the ACL system.<br /><br />By the mid-1900s, the amount of good farmland was shrinking in Sanford due to development, driving farmers further south to farms with more acreage. This, coupled with the establishment of a U.S. Naval Air Station in the town, turned the city's focus from agriculture to the military. In 1967, the ACL merged with the Seaboard Coast Line (SCL) Railroad and later was acquired by CSX. Today, the railroad station originally built by the ACL is no longer in use. Type Still Image Source Original 7 x 5 inch black and white photograph: Vincent Collection, <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a>, Sanford, Florida. Is Part Of Vincent Collection, <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 7 x 5 inch black and white photograph. Date Created ca. 1880 Format application/pdf Extent 221 KB Medium 7 x 5 inch black and white photograph Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</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 Hazen, Kendra Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.greatamericanstations.com/Stations/SFA/" target="_blank">Sanford - Auto Train, FL (SFA)</a>." Great American Stations, AMTRAK®. http://www.greatamericanstations.com/Stations/SFA. Mulligan, Michael. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/225874809" target="_blank"><em>Railroad Depots of Central Florida</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2008. Murdock, R. Ken. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38291666" target="_blank"><em>Outline History of Central Florida Railroads</em></a>. Winter Garden, Fla: Central Florida Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, 1997. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep25-RailwaysOfCentralFL.mp3" target="_blank">Episode 25: The Railways of Central Florida</a>" RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep25-RailwaysOfCentralFL.mp3. "<a href="http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-csx/our-evolution-and-history/interactive-timeline/" target="_blank">Our Evolution and History: CSX</a>." CSX. http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-csx/our-evolution-and-history/interactive-timeline/. Transcript <span>old South Fla. RailRoad depot. built about 1880 at Sanford Fla.</span> Is Referenced By Sanford Historical Society, Inc. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2003, page 32. Requires <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Coverage Plant Investment Company, Sanford, Florida South Florida Railroad Station, Sanford, Florida Oak Avenue railroad stations railroads railways Sanford Sanford Railroad Depot Sanford Railroad Station SFR South Florida Railroad https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/989472200afd64453975bf97ed807534.pdf a5f0d503f80c6309337cad82c02a2d22 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 Lucile Campbell Collection Alternative Title Campbell Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Description This collection features postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. Campbell collected postcards from her travels around the world and used them as teaching aids in her classrooms. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. Contributor Campbell, Lucille <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photographic postcard Physical Dimensions 3 x 5 inches 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 Old Slave Market Postcard Alternative Title Old Slave Market Postcard Subject Slavery--United States Description A postcard depicting Elijah Green (ca. 1838-), a former slave, sitting in front of the Old Slave Mart, located at 6 Chalmers Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Green was said to have been born in 1838 and was one of the few ex-slaves still living in 1941. The Old Slave Mart opened in 1808 as a response to the ban on the United States' participation in the international slave trade. It served as a domestic slave collecting and reselling center until 1863. The site was placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and was acquired by the City of Charleston in 1998.<br /><br />This postcard is part of a collection of postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. During the 1940-1941 school year, Campbell taught at Sanford Grammar School. Before her retirement in 1970, she taught at many other area schools, including the Oviedo School, Westside Grammar School, and Pinecrest Elementary School. Campbell used these postcards as aids in her classrooms to teach advanced subjects, such as Shakespearean drama. The collection, along with her other teaching aids, papers, and photographs, was later found at Sanford Grammar School after it became the University of Central Florida's Public History Center. Campbell's postcard collection and photographs provide insight into the life of a respected Florida educator. Type Still Image Source Original 3 x 5 inch black and white photographic postcard: ACC# SM-00-243, file folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of File folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/151" target="_blank">Lucile Campbell Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 3 x 5 inch black and white photographic postcard. Coverage Old Slave Mart, Charleston, South Carolina Contributor Campbell, Lucile Date Created ca. 1941 Date Copyrighted ca. 1941 Format application/pdf Extent 300 KB Medium 3 x 5 inch black and white photographic postcard Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</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 Aphasia Project Curator Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> External Reference "<a href="http://charleston-sc.gov/index.aspx?NID=160" target="_blank">Old Slave Mart Museum</a>." Charleston, South Carolina. http://charleston-sc.gov/index.aspx?NID=160. African Americans American Civil War Chalmers Street Charleston, South Carolina Elijah Green ex-slaves freedman freedmen museums Old Slave Mart slave markets slave trade slavery slaves https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/59acfe3ebf14b57ba6b41ae9cd45ab94.pdf ecdb57bc6148859a54d66ab7630177b1 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 Lucile Campbell Collection Alternative Title Campbell Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Description This collection features postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. Campbell collected postcards from her travels around the world and used them as teaching aids in her classrooms. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. Contributor Campbell, Lucille <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photographic postcard Physical Dimensions 3 x 5 inches 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 Old Spanish Mission Built in 1696 Postcard Alternative Title Old Spanish Mission Postcard Subject New Smyrna Beach (Fla.) Sugar--United States Description A postcard depicting what was once believed to be an old Franciscan mission with origins dating back to the time of Christopher Columbus (ca. 1451-1506). However, Captain Charles Henry Coe (1856-1954) debunked this myth in <em>Debunking the So-Called Spanish Mission Near New Smyrna Beach, Volusia County, Florida</em> in 1941. Instead, Capt. Coe revealed evidence that the site was actually a sugar mill, which is now known as the New Smyrna Sugar Mill Ruins, which was destroyed by Native Americans in 1845, just five years after it was erected. The ruins were added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1970. Also known as the Cruger and DePeyster Sugar Mill, the ruins are located at 600 Old Mission Road in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.<br /><br />This postcard is part of a collection of postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. During the 1940-1941 school year, Campbell taught at Sanford Grammar School. Before her retirement in 1970, she taught at many other area schools, including the Oviedo School, Westside Grammar School, and Pinecrest Elementary School. Campbell used these postcards as aids in her classrooms to teach advanced subjects, such as Shakespearean drama. The collection, along with her other teaching aids, papers, and photographs, was later found at Sanford Grammar School after it became the University of Central Florida's Public History Center. Campbell's postcard collection and photographs provide insight into the life of a respected Florida educator. Type Still Image Source Original 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard: ACC# SM-00-243, file folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of File folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/151" target="_blank">Lucile Campbell Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard. Coverage New Smyrna Sugar Mill Ruins, New Smyrna Beach, Florida Publisher L. L. Cook Company Contributor Campbell, Lucile Date Created ca. 1900-1941 Date Copyrighted ca. 1900-1941 Format application/pdf Extent 322 KB Medium 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally published by L. L. Cook Company. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</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 Aphasia Project Curator Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> External Reference Coe, Charles Henry. <em><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1814059" target="_blank">Debunking the so-Called Spanish Mission Near New Smyrna Beach, Volusia County, Florida</a></em>. [Daytona Beach]: [Fitzgerald publications], 1941. Redd, Robert. <em><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/922456011" target="_blank">Historic Sites and Landmarks of New Smyrna Beach</a></em>. [S.l.]: History Press, 2015. Cruger and DePeyster Sugar Mill missions New Smyrna Beach New Smyrna Sugar Mill Ruins ruins Spanish sugar mills https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/27a73e61f516138678448fbcaac8364e.pdf f7f125b4e62a49b473706b2d91bf19d4 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 Lucile Campbell Collection Alternative Title Campbell Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Description This collection features postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. Campbell collected postcards from her travels around the world and used them as teaching aids in her classrooms. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. Contributor Campbell, Lucille <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photographic postcard Physical Dimensions 3 x 5 inches 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 Old Type Vegetable Woman Postcard Alternative Title Vegetable Woman Postcard Subject Vegetables--United States Description A postcard depicting an African-American woman with a basket of vegetables on her head, and a poem used for selling them. This postcard is part of a collection of postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. During the 1940-1941 school year, Campbell taught at Sanford Grammar School. Before her retirement in 1970, she taught at many other area schools, including the Oviedo School, Westside Grammar School, and Pinecrest Elementary School. Campbell used these postcards as aids in her classrooms to teach advanced subjects, such as Shakespearean drama. The collection, along with her other teaching aids, papers, and photographs, was later found at Sanford Grammar School after it became the University of Central Florida's Public History Center. Campbell's postcard collection and photographs provide insight into the life of a respected Florida educator. Type Still Image Source Original 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard: ACC# SM-00-243, file folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of File folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/151" target="_blank">Lucile Campbell Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard. Coverage Charleston, South Carolina Contributor Campbell, Lucile Date Created ca. 1873-1949 Date Copyrighted ca. 1873-1949 Format application/pdf Extent 252 KB Medium 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</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 Aphasia Project Curator Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> External Reference Fraser, Walter J. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/20168842" target="_blank"><em>Charleston! Charleston!: The History of a Southern City</em></a>. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1989. African Americans cabbage Charleston, South Carolina cucumbers green corn okra potatoes sage squash squashes thyme tomatoes vegetables https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/75d93a277ca9304e86e00c2511c6f046.jpg bf88da2a5d32abe8603251156e94fd64 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 Orlando Gay Chorus Collection Alternative Title Gay Chorus Collection Is Part Of Orlando Gay Chorus Collection, RICHES Program Type Collection Digital Collection <div class="element-text"><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES MI</a></div> <div class="element-text"> </div> Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Dance--United States Gay culture--United States Description The Orlando Gay Chorus (OGC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and humanitarian organization, and part of the Gay and Lesbian Association (GALA) of Choruses. Founded on Valentines Day 1990, OGC is not only one of the largest mixed gay choirs in the United States at over 100 members, but they also boast four smaller ensembles that perform annual concerts, cabarets, and a host of community events, such as Come Out With Pride, Orlando Museum of Art’s Festival of Trees, and World AIDS Day memorial services. In 2017, the group performed at over 105 events, including 15 performances for the first anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. Members come from all walks of life and all sexual and gender orientations, including straight allies. OGC lives by the motto “Singing the World to a Better Place” and strives to use music to change attitudes and build a stronger community. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. 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 Oliver Button is a Sissy Alternative Title Orlando Gay Chorus Presents "Oliver Button is a Sissy" Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Dance--United States Description A poster for the Orlando Gay Chorus concert, “Oliver Button is a Sissy”. The event was held at the John &amp; Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center in Loch Haven Park, located at 812 East Rollins Street in Orlando, Florida, on March 23, 2003. Featuring guest star Peg O'Keef, the show was based on Tomie dePaola's classic children's book, "Oliver Button is a Sissy". Tickets were $8 for adults and children were admitted free and also received a free copy of the book. The poster features a rainbow background with a child's drawing in the bottom left corner. Featured artwork includes a photo of O'Keef and the logos of the OGC, NCCJ, and the Universal Orlando Resort. <br /><br />The Orlando Gay Chorus is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and humanitarian organization part of GALA Choruses. Founded on Valentines Day 1990, OGC is not only one of the largest mixed gay choirs in the United States at over 100 members, but they also boast four smaller ensembles that perform annual concerts, cabarets, and a whole host of community events like Come Out With Pride, Orlando Museum of Art’s Festival of Trees, and World Aids Day memorial services. In 2017, the group performed at over 105 events, including 15 performances for the first anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. Members come from all walks of life and all sexual and gender orientations, including straight allies. OGC lives by the motto “Singing the World to a Better Place” and strives to use music to change attitudes and build a stronger community. Type Still Image Source Original color poster: University of Central Florida Special Collections, Orlando, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/206" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus Collection</a>, Orlando Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES. Coverage John & Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center, Loch Haven Park, Orlando, Florida Creator <a href="https://www.orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> Publisher <a href="https://www.orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> Date Created ca. 2003-03-23 Date Copyrighted ca. 2003-03-23 Format image/jpg Extent 4.66 MB Medium 1 poster Language eng Mediator History Teacher Dance Teacher Music Teacher Art Teacher Provenance Originally created and published by the <a href="https://www.orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a>. Rights Holder <a href="https://www.orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> Accrual Method Donation Curator O'Neill, Carys Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository University of Central Florida Special Collections External Reference Unknown. "About OGC: History." Orlando Gay Chorus. 2018. Accessed April 10, 2018. https://orlandogaychorus.org/history/. Ahlquist, Karen. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62281651" target="_blank"><em>Chorus and Community</em></a>. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Boedeker, Hal. "<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus marks 25 years</a>." <em>Orlando Sentinel</em>, October 18, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2018. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html. concert GLBT GLBTQ+ homosexuality John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center LGBT LGBTQ+ Loch Haven Park Margeson Theatre music NCCJ Oliver Button is a Sissy orlando Orlando Gay Chorus Peg O'Keef performance Universal Orlando Resort https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cf2f80541cc732192f7f7395b74832d4.pdf b4afd773b2afbd2122041b0f101c8db2 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 Orlando Gay Chorus Collection Alternative Title Gay Chorus Collection Is Part Of Orlando Gay Chorus Collection, RICHES Program Type Collection Digital Collection <div class="element-text"><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES MI</a></div> <div class="element-text"> </div> Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Dance--United States Gay culture--United States Description The Orlando Gay Chorus (OGC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and humanitarian organization, and part of the Gay and Lesbian Association (GALA) of Choruses. Founded on Valentines Day 1990, OGC is not only one of the largest mixed gay choirs in the United States at over 100 members, but they also boast four smaller ensembles that perform annual concerts, cabarets, and a host of community events, such as Come Out With Pride, Orlando Museum of Art’s Festival of Trees, and World AIDS Day memorial services. In 2017, the group performed at over 105 events, including 15 performances for the first anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. Members come from all walks of life and all sexual and gender orientations, including straight allies. OGC lives by the motto “Singing the World to a Better Place” and strives to use music to change attitudes and build a stronger community. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. 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 Oliver Button is a Sissy, March 23, 2003 Alternative Title Oliver Button is a Sissy, John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Dance--United States Gay culture--United States Description A program for the Orlando Gay Chorus' concert, "Oliver Button is a Sissy", on March 23, 2003, at the John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center in Orlando, Florida. The program includes short biographies on the Artistic Director Terry Thomas, the Accompanist Genoa Minga, the Narrator Peg O'Keef, and the main actor Joe Erwin. Also included is an outline of the show's itinerary.<br /><br /> The Orlando Gay Chorus (OGC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and humanitarian organization, and part of the Gay and Lesbian Association (GALA) of Choruses. Founded on Valentines Day 1990, OGC is not only one of the largest mixed gay choirs in the United States at over 100 members, but they also boast four smaller ensembles that perform annual concerts, cabarets, and a host of community events, such as Come Out With Pride, Orlando Museum of Art’s Festival of Trees, and World AIDS Day memorial services. In 2017, the group performed at over 105 events, including 15 performances for the first anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. Members come from all walks of life and all sexual and gender orientations, including straight allies. OGC lives by the motto “Singing the World to a Better Place” and strives to use music to change attitudes and build a stronger community. Type Text Source Original 4-page program, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/206" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus Collection</a>, LGBTQ+ Collection, RICHES. Coverage John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center, Orlando, Florida Creator <a href="https://orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> Publisher <a href="https://orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> Date Created ca.2003-03-23 Date Issued 2003-03-23 Date Copyrighted 2003-03-23 Format application/pdf Extent 20.7 MB Medium 4-page program Language eng Mediator History Teacher Dance Teacher Music Teacher Art Teacher Provenance Originally created and published by the <a href="https://orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="https://orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Curator Rodriguez, Sharon Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository University of Central Florida Special Collections External Reference Ahlquist, Karen. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62281651" target="_blank"><em>Chorus and Community</em></a>. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Boedeker, Hal. "<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus marks 25 years</a>." <em>Orlando Sentinel</em>, October 18, 2016. Accessed September 18, 2018. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html. <a target="_blank">About OGC: History</a>." Orlando Gay Chorus. 2018. Accessed September 18, 2018. https://orlandogaychorus.org/history/. Everything Is Possible Genoa Minga GLBT I Always Drop the Ball Joe Irwin John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center LGBT LGBTQ+ Monday Morning OGC Oliver Button is a Sissy Oliver Button is a Star! Oliver Starts Dance Lessons Oliver's Dance Orlando Gay Chorus Peg O'Keef Terry Thomas Up in the Attic We Start Today https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/6e69dfe934c4ff218a04ff179cb8fa2c.jpg 2511d331de32b635b4471be7de8cf06c 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 Alliance for Truth and Justice Collection Alternative Title ATJ Collection Description The Alliance for Truth and Justice (ATJ) is a volunteer-based organization that engages with the community to promote education concerning the truth of local history and to advocate justice for those who have been harmed by inequities born of prejudice. ATJ builds on the work of Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative as well as the local efforts of Democracy Forum, the West Orange Reconciliation Task Force, and the Ocoee Human Relations Diversity Board. This project is rooted in acknowledging the 1920 Election Day Massacre in Orange County and all of the violence committed in the name of white supremacy. Their mission statement says that they are "working to create a more hopeful, collaborative, and just society for every person in Orange County, Florida." Subject Lynching Memorials--Florida Publisher <a href="https://riches.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES</a> Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Contributing Project Alliance for Truth and Justice External Reference Clark, Willie. "<a href="https://youtu.be/7AyarJcnzIg">The Ocoee, Florida Race Riot 1920</a>". YouTube video, 06:51. Posted [February 4, 2016].https://youtu.be/7AyarJcnzIg. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. 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 Olokunkemi Ojelofun Olamina, George Oliver, Ann Patton, Joan Erwin and Lawanda Hughley Alternative Title Olamina, Oliver, Patton, Erwin and Hughley Subject Lynching Memorials--Florida Description Soil collection at Greenwood Cemetery in Orlando, Florida, on November 3, 2018. Holding hands, from left to right, is Olokunkemi Ojelofun Olamina, George Oliver, Ann Patton, Joan Erwin and Lawanda Hughley. The site was chosen because Julius "July" Perry is buried there.<br /><br /><span>The Alliance for Truth and Justice (ATJ) is a volunteer-based organization that engages with the community to promote education concerning the truth of local history and to advocate justice for those who have been harmed by inequities born of prejudice. ATJ builds on the work of Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative as well as the local efforts of Democracy Forum, the West Orange Reconciliation Task Force, and the Ocoee Human Relations Diversity Board. This project is rooted in acknowledging the 1920 Election Day Massacre in Orange County and all of the violence committed in the name of white supremacy. Their mission statement says that they are "working to create a more hopeful, collaborative, and just society for every person in Orange County, Florida."</span> Type Still Image Source Original color photograph by Willie J. Allen Jr.: <span>Alliance for Truth and Justice</span>, Orange County, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/215" target="_blank"><span>Alliance for Truth and Justice</span> Collection</a>, RICHES. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original color photograph by Willie J. Allen Jr. Coverage Greenwood Cemetery, Orlando, Florida Creator Allen Jr., Willie J. Publisher <a href="https://riches.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES</a> Date Created 2018-11-03 Date Copyrighted 2018-11-03 Format image/jpg Extent 8.65 MB Medium color photograph Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Willie J. Allen Jr. and published by <a href="https://riches.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <span>Alliance for Truth and Justice</span>, and is provided here by <a href="https://riches.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project <span>Alliance for Truth and Justice</span> Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <span>Alliance for Truth and Justice</span>, Orange County, Florida External Reference Ortiz, Paul. "<a href="https://www.facingsouth.org/2010/05/ocoee-florida-remembering-the-single-bloodiest-day-in-modern-us-political-history.html" target="_blank">Ocoee, Florida: Remembering the 'single bloodiest day in modern U.S. political history'</a>." <em>Facing South, The Institute for Southern Studies</em>. University of Mississippi, May 14, 2010. Accessed February 20, 2019. https://www.facingsouth.org/2010/05/ocoee-florida-remembering-the-single-bloodiest-day-in-modern-us-political-history.html. Cordeiro, Monivette. "<a href="https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2018/11/19/ocoee-will-issue-proclamation-acknowledging-1920-election-day-massacre" target="_blank">Ocoee will issue proclamation acknowledging 1920 Election Day massacre</a>." <em>Orlando Weekly</em>. November 19, 2018. Accessed February 20, 2019. https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2018/11/19/ocoee-will-issue-proclamation-acknowledging-1920-election-day-massacre. Byrne, Jason. "<a href="https://medium.com/florida-history/ocoee-on-fire-the-1920-election-day-massacre-38adbda9666e" target="_blank">Ocoee On Fire: The 1920 Election Day Massacre</a>. <em>Medium</em>. November 23, 2014. Accessed February 20, 2019. https://medium.com/florida-history/ocoee-on-fire-the-1920-election-day-massacre-38adbda9666e. Ericson, Edward Jr. "<a href="https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/dead-wrong/Content?oid=2258296" target="_blank">Dead wrong</a>." <em>Orlando Weekly</em>. October 1, 1998. Accessed February 20, 2019. Clark, Willie. "<a href="https://youtu.be/7AyarJcnzIg">The Ocoee, Florida Race Riot 1920</a>". YouTube video, 06:51. Posted [February 4, 2016].https://youtu.be/7AyarJcnzIg. Alliance for Truth and Justice Ann Patton ATJ Community Remembrance Project EJI Equal Justice Initiative George Oliver Greenwood Cemetery Joan Erwin Lawanda Hughley lynching lynching memorial Olokunkemi Ojelofun Olamina https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/944329f8a6c521563d49d84ffab7f09a.jpg ebb1083dea98bd74f877e656bc20477b 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 Milane Theatre Collection Alternative Title Milane Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Buildings--Florida Theaters--Florida Film industry (Motion pictures) Description The Milane Theatre was built at 203 South Magnolia Avenue, the former location of the Star Theatre, an abandoned movie house. Scroggs and Ewing, architects from Georgia, prepared the plans for the Milane. The name of the new theater was derived from the combination of the Milane Amusement Company president and vice president: Frank L. Miller and Edward F. Lane, respectively. The Milane opened in July of 1923 and seated 823 patrons. In 1933, the Milane was sold to Frank and Stella Evans, investors from Lake Mary, Florida. The new owners renamed their business the Ritz Theater and held the property until the 1990s. However, the Ritz struggled financially in the 1960s and closed in 1978 due to failure to compete with the new multiplex theaters. The building remained vacant until 1984, when it reopened as the Showtime Cantina. The Showtime Cantina closed in 1988 and remained vacant and in decay. In the mid-1990s, Ritz Community Theater Projects, Inc. acquired the property and began rehabilitation in 1998. On May 6, 2000, the theater reopened as the Helen Stairs Theatre in honor of the citizen who led the restoration project, Helen Stairs. The following year, the location was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, additional renovations were completed and the theater was renamed the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in honor of the Wayne Densch Charitable Trust Fund for contributing to the renovations fund. Language eng Coverage Opera House, Downtown Sanford, Florida Star Theatre, Downtown Sanford, Florida Milane Theatre, Downtown Sanford, Florida Ritz Theatre, Downtown Sanford, Florida Showtime Cantina, Downtown Sanford, Florida Helen Stairs Theatre, Downtown Sanford, Florida Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center, Downtown Sanford, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Contributor Cepero, Laura Lynn <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> <a href="http://thehistorycenter.org/">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456">Sanford Museum</a> 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. External Reference "<a href="http://www.stageclick.com/venue/457.aspx" target="_blank">Helen Stairs Theatre</a>." StageClick. http://www.stageclick.com/venue/457.aspx. "<a href="http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/" target="_blank">Theater History</a>." Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center. http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/. "<a href="http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/" target="_blank">Theater History</a>." Seminole County: Florida's Natural Choice. http://www.visitseminole.com/listingdetail/53/wayne-densch-performing-arts-center.aspx. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 poster 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 On the Stage: America's Greatest Hillbilly Comedian Cousin Wilbur Alternative Title Hillbilly Comedian Cousin Wilbur Subject Sanford (Fla.) Hillbilly comedies Comedy Comedians--United States Tennessee Mountaineers Description Advertisement for Cousin Wilbur, a "hillbilly comedian", and the Tennessee Mountaineers' performance at the Ritz Theater on May 19, 1946. Originally the Milane Theatre, the Ritz was built at 203 South Magnolia Avenue in Sanford, the former location of the Star Theatre, an abandoned movie house. Scroggs and Ewing, architects from Georgia, prepared the plans for the Milane. The name of the new theater was derived from the combination of the presidents of the Milane Amusement Company president and vice president: Frank L. Miller and Edward F. Lane. The Milane opened in July of 1923 and seated 823 patrons. In 1933, the Milane was sold to Frank and Stella Evans, investors from Lake Mary, Florida. The new owners renamed their business the Ritz Theatre and held the property until the 1990s. However, the Ritz struggled financially in the 1960s and closed in 1978 due to failure to compete with the new multiplex theaters. The building remained vacant until 1984, when it reopened as the Showtime Cantina. The Showtime Cantina closed in 1988 and remained vacant and in decay. In the mid-1990s, Ritz Community Theater Projects, Inc. acquired the property and began rehabilitation in 1998. On May 6, 2000, the theater reopened as the Helen Stairs Theatre in honor of the citizen who led the restoration project, Helen Stairs. The following year, the location was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, additional renovations were completed at the theater was renamed the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in honor of the Wayne Densch Charitable Trust Fund for contributing to the renovations fund. Source Digital reproduction of original black and white poster, 1946: <span>Bishop, Katherine. </span><em>Sanford Now and Then: An Official Project of the Greater Sanford Chamber of Commerce, Commemorating the Incorporating of the City of Sanford, 1877</em><span>. S.l: s.n.], 1976, page 56: Item number DP0009054. Central Florida Memory. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/CFM/id/120167" target="_blank">http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/CFM/id/120167</a>.</span> Publisher Celery City Printing Company Date Created 1946-05-19 Date Copyrighted 1976 Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original black and white poster, 1946. Is Part Of <span>Bishop, Katherine. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3576018" target="_blank"><em>Sanford Now and Then: An Official Project of the Greater Sanford Chamber of Commerce, Commemorating the Incorporating of the City of Sanford, 1877</em></a><span>. S.l: s.n.], 1976.</span> <span><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42"><span>Milane Theatre Collection</span></a><span>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.</span></span> Format image/jpeg Extent 33.9 KB Medium 1 poster Language eng Type Text Coverage Sanford, Florida Spatial Coverage 28.810527, -81.266859 Temporal Coverage 1946-05-19/1946-05-19 Accrual Method Donation Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Published by the Celery City Printing Company. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.sanfordchamber.com/" target="_blank">Greater Sanford Regional Chamber of Commerce</a> and is provided here by RICHES of Central Florida for educational purposes only. Contributing Project <a href="http://www.cfmemory.org/"><span>Central Florida Memory</span></a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://www.cfmemory.org/">Central Florida Memory</a> <span><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/"><span>RICHES MI</span></a></span> External Reference Bishop, Katherine. <em>Sanford Now and Then: An Official Project of the Greater Sanford Chamber of Commerce, Commemorating the Incorporating of the City of Sanford, 1877</em>. S.l: s.n.], 1976 "Helen Stairs Theatre." StageClick. http://www.stageclick.com/venue/457.aspx. Pierce, Arthur C., et al. <em>Hillbilly Comedy Collection</em>. [S.l.]: VCI Entertainment, 2007. "Theater History." Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center. http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/. "Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center." Seminole County: Florida's Natural Choice. http://www.visitseminole.com/things-to-do/general/wayne-densch-performing-arts-center. External Reference Title <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3576018" target="_blank"><em>Sanford Now and Then: An Official Project of the Greater Sanford Chamber of Commerce, Commemorating the Incorporating of the City of Sanford, 1877</em></a> "<a href="http://www.stageclick.com/venue/457.aspx" target="_blank">Helen Stairs Theatre</a>" <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/245536971" target="_blank"><em>Hillbilly Comedy Collection</em></a> "<a href="http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/" target="_blank">Theater History</a>" "<a href="http://www.visitseminole.com/things-to-do/general/wayne-densch-performing-arts-center" target="_blank">Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center</a>" Transcript In Person on the STAGE America's Greatest Hillbilly Comedian COUSIN WILBUR FORMER GRAND OLE OPRY STAR WITH HIS TENNESSEE MOUNTAINEERS 1 FULL HOUR OF FUN, MUSIC COMEDY ON THE SCREEN "SO DARK THE NIGHT" WITH STEVEN GERAY MICHELINE CHEIREL Monday Only May 19 STAGE SHOWS AT 3:20-5:09-7:16-9:23 RITZ Theatre PRICES: ADULTS-60c, CHILDREN 25c (Inc. all Tax) Cousin Wilbur at the Ritz Theatre Has Format Print reproduction of original black and white poster, 1946: Bishop, Katherine. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3576018" target="_blank"><em>Sanford Now and Then: An Official Project of the Greater Sanford Chamber of Commerce, Commemorating the Incorporating of the City of Sanford, 1877</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1976. Original black and white poster, 1946. Cheirel, Micheline Cousin Wilbur Geray, Steven Magnolia Avenue Ritz Theater So Dark the Night https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/d27ca8cec9513e4bb6c3b4c653e42e14.jpg 91b3327e9162e1a56e2a3e511ae5b3f5 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 Sky Lake Collection Alternative Title Sky Lake Collection Subject Orlando (Fla.) Description Sky Lake is a residential community and unincorporated area in Orange County, Florida. It is located approximately seven miles south of Downtown Orlando between Lancaster Road and Sand Lake Road. The community was developed in late 1950s and 1960s by Hymen Lake. Houses originally sold in the range of $10,000 to $15,000. In the 1970s, Sky Lake became one of the first housing developments to be racially integrated. The community was originally proposed to include one thousand homes within the middle of the square mile block and a ring of commercial developments along the perimeter. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/46" target="_blank">Orange County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sky Lake, Florida Curator Barnes, Mark Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://pinecastlehistory.org/" target="_blank">Pine Castle Historical Society</a> External Reference Mormino, Gary R. 2002. "<a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5544029021" target="_blank">Sunbelt Dreams and Altered States: A Social and Cultural History of Florida, 1950-2000</a>." <em>The Florida Historical Quarterly. </em>81, no. 1: 3-21. Arsenault, Raymond. "The End of the Long, Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and Southern Culture." <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1782314" target="_blank"><em>Journal of Southern History</em></a> Vol. 50, no. 4 (November, 1984): 597-628. Staeheli, Lynn A. and Don Mitchell. "USA’s Destiny? Regulating Space and Creting Community in American Shopping Malls." <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/37915650" target="_blank"><em>Urban Studies</em></a> Vol. 43, nos 5/6 (May 2006): 977-992. Dietrich, T. Stanton. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4683014" target="_blank"><em>The Urbanization of Florida's Population: An Historical Perspective of County Growth, 1830-1970</em></a>. Gainesville, FL: Bureau of Economic and Business Research, University of Florida, 1978. Rome, Adam Ward. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/44594084" target="_blank"><em>The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism</em></a>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photograph 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 Onan Corporation Generator at Travelodge Orlando-Sky Lake Alternative Title Onan Generator at Travelodge Orlando-Sky Lake Subject Orlando (Fla.) Hotels--Florida Description The Onan Corporation generator at the Travelodge Orlando-Sky Lake, located at 7101 South Orange Blossom Trail (OBT), just north of the Bee Line Toll Road, in Orlando, Florida, around 1970. The hotel was constructed in 1970 by Hymen Lake and is currently in operation as the Royal Inn. Photographs from this era show the hotel offered a free continental breakfast, heated pool, and colored television. The Onan Corporation, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, commissioned the photographs. Onan was photographing a standby electric plant that had been recently installed at the hotel. Type Still Image Source Original 8 x 10 inch black and white photograph: <a href="http://pinecastlehistory.org/" target="_blank">Pine Castle Historical Society</a>, Pine Castle, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/179" target="_blank">Sky Lake Collection</a>, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 8 x 10 inch black and white photograph. Coverage Travelodge Orlando-Sky Lake, Sky Lake, Florida Creator Keagle, Robert Travis Publisher <a href="http://power.cummins.com/" target="_blank">Onan Corporation</a> Contributor Lake, Harriett Date Created ca. 1970-04-22 Date Copyrighted ca. 1970-04-22 Date Submitted 137 KB Format image/jpg Medium 1 black and white photograph Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Robert Travis Keagle and published by the <a href="http://power.cummins.com/" target="_blank">Onan Corporation</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://power.cummins.com/" target="_blank">Onan Corporation</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 Barnes, Mark Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://pinecastlehistory.org/" target="_blank">Pine Castle Historical Society</a> External Reference "<a href="https://www.ocpafl.org/Searches/ParcelSearch.aspx/PID/292327000000030" target="_blank">7101 S Orange Blossom Trl</a>." Orange County Property Appraiser. https://www.ocpafl.org/Searches/ParcelSearch.aspx/PID/292327000000030. generators hotels motels OBT Onan Corporation Orange Blossom Trail orlando Robert Travis Keagle Sky Lake tourism travel lodges Travelodge Orlando-Sky Lake U.S. Route 441 US 441 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/702aba4c1510848f3548d07a1548b143.jpg 39a4bb898e67e716f94d9d395db885b7 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 Orlando Gay Chorus Collection Alternative Title Gay Chorus Collection Is Part Of Orlando Gay Chorus Collection, RICHES Program Type Collection Digital Collection <div class="element-text"><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES MI</a></div> <div class="element-text"> </div> Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Dance--United States Gay culture--United States Description The Orlando Gay Chorus (OGC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and humanitarian organization, and part of the Gay and Lesbian Association (GALA) of Choruses. Founded on Valentines Day 1990, OGC is not only one of the largest mixed gay choirs in the United States at over 100 members, but they also boast four smaller ensembles that perform annual concerts, cabarets, and a host of community events, such as Come Out With Pride, Orlando Museum of Art’s Festival of Trees, and World AIDS Day memorial services. In 2017, the group performed at over 105 events, including 15 performances for the first anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. Members come from all walks of life and all sexual and gender orientations, including straight allies. OGC lives by the motto “Singing the World to a Better Place” and strives to use music to change attitudes and build a stronger community. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. 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 One Voice Alternative Title Orlando Gay Chorus Presents "Many Songs, Countless Stories, One Voice" Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Dance--United States Description A poster for the Orlando Gay Chorus Cabaret "Love is... Classic". The event was held in the Crimson Hall at the First United church of Christ in Orlando, Florida on February 14, 2014. The poster features a red backgroung with multiple hearts. A black panel at the bottom of the page contains information like time, location, with the OGC header at the top of the page.<br /><br /> The Orlando Gay Chorus is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and humanitarian organization part of GALA Choruses. Founded on Valentines Day 1990, OGC is not only one of the largest mixed gay choirs in the United States at over 100 members, but they also boast four smaller ensembles that perform annual concerts, cabarets, and a whole host of community events like Come Out With Pride, Orlando Museum of Art’s Festival of Trees, and World Aids Day memorial services. In 2017, the group performed at over 105 events, including 15 performances for the first anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. Members come from all walks of life and all sexual and gender orientations, including straight allies. OGC lives by the motto “Singing the World to a Better Place” and strives to use music to change attitudes and build a stronger community. Type Still Image Source Original color poster, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/206" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus Collection</a>, LGBTQ+ Collection, RICHES. Coverage First United Church of Christ, Orlando, Florida Creator <a href="https://orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> Publisher <a href="https://www.orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> Date Created 2014-02-15 Date Copyrighted 2014-02-15 Format image/jpg Extent 20.3 MB Medium 1 poster Language eng Mediator History Teacher Dance Teacher Music Teacher Art Teacher Provenance Originally created and published by the <a href="https://orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a>. Rights Holder <a href="https://www.orlandogaychorus.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus</a> Accrual Method Donation Curator Rodriguez, Sharon Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository University of Central Florida Special Collections External Reference Unknown. "About OGC: History." Orlando Gay Chorus. 2018. Accessed April 10, 2018. https://orlandogaychorus.org/history/. Ahlquist, Karen. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62281651" target="_blank"><em>Chorus and Community</em></a>. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Boedeker, Hal. "<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus marks 25 years</a>." <em>Orlando Sentinel</em>, October 18, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2018. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html. cabaret First United Church of Christ Love Is... Classic OGC Orlando Gay Chorus https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/2335edaeb9637945ab18621f655c372a.jpg 5bcc72a74460d78195bb0fe852ca2d0a 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 Isleworth Grove Collection Alternative Title Isleworth Collection Subject Windermere (Fla.) Butler Chain (Fla.) Chase and Company (Sanford, Fla.) Citrus fruit industry--Florida Agriculture--Florida Description Chase & Company was established by brothers Sydney Octavius Chase and Joshua Coffin Chase in 1884. The company sold insurance and later invested in storage facilities and fertilizer sales. Chase & Company was known mainly for its agricultural interests and maintained a series of citrus groves throughout Central Florida. The company was based out of Sanford and became one of the city's largest employers into the early twentieth century. By 1886, the Chase brothers purchased several citrus groves to expand their business, including Isleworth Grove in Windermere, Florida. Isleworth Grove covered a total of 1,300 acres along the Butler Chain of Lakes. Between 1894 and 1895, Central Florida was hit by several freezes and most of the citrus crop was destroyed. Chase & Company did not grow citrus crops again until 1904 when Joshua came back from an extended stay in California. Between 1894 and 1900, different types of pesticide equipment was created, including equipment driven by steam, machines, and horses.Randall Chase joined in the family business soon after his brother, Sydney Chase, Jr., did in 1922. Randall became the president of Chase & Company from 1948-1965. The Isleworth property stayed in the Chase family until 1984 when Franklin Chase, the son of Sydney Chase, sold the property to famed golfer Arnold Palmer. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/93" target="_blank">Citrus Collection</a><span>, Chase Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.</span> Is Referenced By <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm" target="_blank">A Guide to the Chase Collection</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Isleworth Grove, Windermere, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a>, University of Florida <a href="http://ufdc.ufl.edu/" target="_blank">Digital Collections (UFDC)</a><span>, University of Florida</span> Curator Cepero, Laura Marra, Katherine Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <span>University of Florida, </span><a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://floridacitrushalloffame.com/index.php/inductees/inductee-name/?ref_cID=89&amp;bID=0&amp;dd_asId=600" target="_blank">Sydney Chase Sr. (1860-1941)</a><span>." </span><em>Florida Citrus Hall of Fame</em><span>. Copyright 2012. http://floridacitrushalloffame.com/index.php/inductees/inductee-name/?ref_cID=89&amp;bID=0&amp;dd_asId=600.</span> <span>Warner, S.C. "</span><a href="http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1923%20Vol.%2036/198-200%20%28WARNER%29.pdf" target="_blank">Development of Marketing Citrus Fruits in Florida</a><span>." </span><em>Florida State Horticultural Society</em><span> vol. 36 (1923): 198-200.</span> <span>Hopkins, James T. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1219230" target="_blank"><em>Fifty Years of Citrus, the Florida Citrus Exchange: 1909-1959</em></a><span>. Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida Press: 1960.</span> <span>"</span><a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-09-30/news/0260060057_1_chase-isleworth-golf-florida-citrus" target="_blank">Franklin Chase, 'Towering Figure in Citrus Industry</a><span>.'" </span><em>The Orlando Sentinel</em><span>, September 30, 1986. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-09-30/news/0260060057_1_chase-isleworth-golf-florida-citrus.</span> Weaver, Brian. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/43312643" target="_blank"><em>The Citrus Industry in the Sunshine State</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 1999. Contributor <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a><span>, University of Florida</span> Provenance <span>Entire </span><a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm" target="_blank">Chase Collection</a><span> is comprised of four separate accessions from various donors, including Cecilia Johnson, the granddaughter of Joshua Coffin Chase and the children of Randall Chase.</span> Rights Holder The displayed collection is housed at <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a> at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Rights to this item belong to the said institution, and therefore inquiries about the item should be directed there. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> has obtained permission from Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida to display this item for educational purposes only. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photograph Physical Dimensions 5 x 7 inch 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 One Year Buds in Nursery Alternative Title Citrus Buds Subject Orange growers--Florida Citrus fruit industry--Florida--Orange County Agriculture--Florida--Orange County Chase, Sydney Octavius, 1860-1941 Chase, Joshua Coffin, 1858-1948 Windermere (Fla.) Butler Chain (Fla.) Chase and Company (Sanford, Fla.) Description One year old citrus buds at Isleworth Grove in Windermere, Florida in 1904. Chase & Company was established by Joshua Chase and his brother Sydney in 1884. The company sold insurance and later invested in storage facilities and fertilizer sales. Chase & Company was known mainly for its agricultural interests and maintained a series of citrus groves throughout Central Florida. The company was based out of Sanford and became one of the city's largest employers into the early twentieth century. By 1886, the Chase brothers purchased several citrus groves to expand their business, including Isleworth Grove. Isleworth Grove covered a total of 1,300 acres along the Butler Chain of Lakes. Between 1894 and 1895, Central Florida was hit by several freezes and most of the citrus crop was destroyed. Chase & Company did not grow citrus crops again until 1904 when Joshua came back from an extended stay in California. Between 1894 and 1900, different types of pesticide equipment was created, including equipment driven by steam, machines, and horses.Randall Chase joined in the family business soon after his brother, Sydney Chase, Jr., did in 1922. Randall became the president of Chase & Company from 1948-1965. The Isleworth property stayed in the Chase family until 1984 when Franklin Chase, the son of Sydney Chase, sold the property to famed golfer Arnold Palmer. Creator Chase & Company Source Original 5 x 7 inch black and white photograph by Chase &amp; Company: Chase Collection (MS 14), box 212, folder 8.18, <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a>, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Is Referenced By Folder referenced in Chase Collection finding guide, <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm">http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm</a>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>, page 26. Format image/jpeg Extent 167 KB Medium 5 x 7 inch black and white photograph Language eng Type Still Image Coverage Isleworth Grove, Windermere, Florida Spatial Coverage 28.477571, -81.526537 Temporal Coverage 1904-01-01/1904-12-31 Accrual Method Donation Provenance Entire <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/chase.htm" target="_blank">Chase Collection</a> is comprised of four separate accessions from various donors, including Cecilia Johnson, the granddaughter of Joshua Coffin Chase and the children of Randall Chase. Rights Holder The displayed collection item is housed at <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a> at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Rights to this item belong to the said institution, and therefore inquiries about the item should be directed there. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> has obtained permission from Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida to display this item for educational purposes only. Contributing Project <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a>, University of Florida <a href="http://ufdc.ufl.edu/" target="_blank">Digital Collections (UFDC)</a> Curator Marra, Katherine Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">University of Florida, Special and Area Studies Collections</a> External Reference "Franklin Chase, 'Towering Figure in Citrus Industry.'" <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, September 30, 1986. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-09-30/news/0260060057_1_chase-isleworth-golf-florida-citrus. "Sydney Chase Sr. (1860-1941)." <em>Florida Citrus Hall of Fame</em>. Copyright 2012. http://floridacitrushalloffame.com/index.php/inductees/inductee-name/?ref_cID=89&amp;bID=0&amp;dd_asId=600. Warner, S.C. "Development of Marketing Citrus Fruits in Florida." <em>Florida State Horticultural Society</em> vol. 36 (1923): 198-200. Hopkins, James T. <em>Fifty Years of Citrus, the Florida Citrus Exchange: 1909-1959</em>. Gainesville, Florida: University of Florida Press: 1960. Sanford Historical Society, Inc. <em>Sanford</em>. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2003. Henry Shelton Sanford Papers. General Sanford Memorial Library, Sanford Museum, Sanford, Florida. External Reference Title "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-09-30/news/0260060057_1_chase-isleworth-golf-florida-citrus" target="_blank">Franklin Chase, 'Towering Figure in Citrus Industry'</a>" "<a href="http://floridacitrushalloffame.com/index.php/inductees/inductee-name/?ref_cID=89&amp;bID=0&amp;dd_asId=600" target="_blank">Sydney Chase Sr. (1860-1941)</a>" "<a href="http://www.fshs.org/Proceedings/Password%20Protected/1923%20Vol.%2036/198-200%20%28WARNER%29.pdf" target="_blank">Development of Marketing Citrus Fruits in Florida</a>" <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1219230" target="_blank"><em>Fifty Years of Citrus, the Florida Citrus Exchange: 1909-1959</em></a> <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a> <a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/the-henry-shelton-sanford-papers.html" target="_blank">Henry Shelton Sanford Papers</a> Date Created 1904 Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 5 x 7 inch black and white photograph by Chase & Company. Is Part Of Chase Collection (MS 14), box 212, folder 8.18, <a href="http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/" target="_blank">Special and Area Studies Collections</a>, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/88" target="_blank">Isleworth Collection</a>, Chase Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Audience Education Level SS.K.A.1.2; SS.K.G.1.4; SS.1.A.1.1; SS.1.E.1.3; SS.1.E.1.4; SS.1.G.1.4; SS.1.G.1.6; SS.2.A.1.1; SS.3.A.1.1; SS.3.G.1.1; SS.3.G.2.4; SS.3.G.2.6; SS.3.G.3.1; SS.3.G.4.1; SS.4.A.1.1; SS.4.A.6.1; SS.4.E.1.2; SS.4.G.1.1; SS.5.A.1.1; SS.5.G.1.3; SS.5.G.1.4; SS.6.W.1.3; SS.7.G.2.3; SS.8.A.1.2; SS.8.A.1.5; SS.8.G.2.1; SS.912.A.1.1; SS.912.A.1.4; SS.912.A.1.6; SS.912.A.3.4; SS.912.A.3.13; SS.912.E.1.1; SS.912.G.1.2; SS.912.G.1.4; SS.912.G.2.1; SS.912.G.5.1; SS.912.W.1.3; SS.912.W.1.6 Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher buds Chase and Co. citrus buds citrus grove fertilizer freeze insurance Isleworth Isleworth Grove https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/e76a58a408b752d137a435e99caed308.pdf 4e4fae1d4f34e73304860f79b0350b85 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 Lucile Campbell Collection Alternative Title Campbell Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Description This collection features postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. Campbell collected postcards from her travels around the world and used them as teaching aids in her classrooms. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. Contributor Campbell, Lucille <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photographic postcard Physical Dimensions 3 x 5 inches 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 Only Lighthouse in U.S. Within City Limits - Key West Postcard Alternative Title Key West Lighthouse Postcard Subject Key West (Fla.) Lighthouses--Florida Description A postcard depicting the exterior of the Key West Lighthouse, located at 938 Whitehead Street in Key West, Florida. The lighthouse opened in 1848, with Michael Mabrity (D. 1832) as its first keeper. After Mabrity died, his wife, Barbara Mabrity (1782-1867) became new keeper, despite being a woman. The lighthouse was later destroyed by the San Francisco de Borja Hurricane of 1846, also known as the Great Havana Hurricane of 1846, A new lighthouse was completed in 1848. The Key West Lighthouse was ultimately decommission in 1969 and was subsequently converted into the Key West Light House and Keeper's Quarters Museum.<br /><br />This postcard is part of a collection of postcards kept by Lucile Campbell, a schoolteacher in Sanford, Florida, for 30 years. In 1931, she took advantage of a special rate for teachers and sailed to Europe, where she traveled for several months and is thought to have acquired many of these postcards. During the 1940-1941 school year, Campbell taught at Sanford Grammar School. Before her retirement in 1970, she taught at many other area schools, including the Oviedo School, Westside Grammar School, and Pinecrest Elementary School. Campbell used these postcards as aids in her classrooms to teach advanced subjects, such as Shakespearean drama. The collection, along with her other teaching aids, papers, and photographs, was later found at Sanford Grammar School after it became the University of Central Florida's Public History Center. Campbell's postcard collection and photographs provide insight into the life of a respected Florida educator. Type Still Image Source Original 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard: ACC# SM-00-243, file folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of File folder 1 (U.S. blanks), box 10A, Lucile (Mary Lucile) Campbell Collection, <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/151" target="_blank">Lucile Campbell Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard. Coverage Key West Lighthouse, Key West, Florida Contributor Campbell, Lucile Date Created ca. 1900-1969 Date Copyrighted ca. 1900-1969 Format application/pdf Extent 285 KB Medium 3 x 5 inch black and white postcard Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</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 Aphasia Project Curator Raffel, Sara Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.kwahs.org/visit/lighthouse-keepers-quarters/" target="_blank">Lighthouse &amp; Keeper's Quarters</a>." Key West Art &amp; Historical Society. http://www.kwahs.org/visit/lighthouse-keepers-quarters/. Key West Key West Light House and Keeper's Quarters Museum Key West Lighthouse lighthouses museums https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/fb0fb64a17774059b7620f444ca74339.jpg fdeb8015b38d62b7ae51b9804f8c6dfe 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 Milane Theatre Collection Alternative Title Milane Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Buildings--Florida Theaters--Florida Film industry (Motion pictures) Description The Milane Theatre was built at 203 South Magnolia Avenue, the former location of the Star Theatre, an abandoned movie house. Scroggs and Ewing, architects from Georgia, prepared the plans for the Milane. The name of the new theater was derived from the combination of the Milane Amusement Company president and vice president: Frank L. Miller and Edward F. Lane, respectively. The Milane opened in July of 1923 and seated 823 patrons. In 1933, the Milane was sold to Frank and Stella Evans, investors from Lake Mary, Florida. The new owners renamed their business the Ritz Theater and held the property until the 1990s. However, the Ritz struggled financially in the 1960s and closed in 1978 due to failure to compete with the new multiplex theaters. The building remained vacant until 1984, when it reopened as the Showtime Cantina. The Showtime Cantina closed in 1988 and remained vacant and in decay. In the mid-1990s, Ritz Community Theater Projects, Inc. acquired the property and began rehabilitation in 1998. On May 6, 2000, the theater reopened as the Helen Stairs Theatre in honor of the citizen who led the restoration project, Helen Stairs. The following year, the location was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, additional renovations were completed and the theater was renamed the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in honor of the Wayne Densch Charitable Trust Fund for contributing to the renovations fund. Language eng Coverage Opera House, Downtown Sanford, Florida Star Theatre, Downtown Sanford, Florida Milane Theatre, Downtown Sanford, Florida Ritz Theatre, Downtown Sanford, Florida Showtime Cantina, Downtown Sanford, Florida Helen Stairs Theatre, Downtown Sanford, Florida Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center, Downtown Sanford, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Contributor Cepero, Laura Lynn <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> <a href="http://thehistorycenter.org/">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456">Sanford Museum</a> 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. External Reference "<a href="http://www.stageclick.com/venue/457.aspx" target="_blank">Helen Stairs Theatre</a>." StageClick. http://www.stageclick.com/venue/457.aspx. "<a href="http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/" target="_blank">Theater History</a>." Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center. http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/. "<a href="http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/" target="_blank">Theater History</a>." Seminole County: Florida's Natural Choice. http://www.visitseminole.com/listingdetail/53/wayne-densch-performing-arts-center.aspx. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format 1 black and white photograph 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 Opera House Alternative Title Opera House Subject Sanford (Fla.) Buildings--Florida Theaters--Florida Opera--United States--20th century Opera houses Description Photograph of the Opera House in Sanford, Florida. The Opera House was first replaced by the Star Theatre and then later the Milane Theatre. The Milane Theatre was built at 203 South Magnolia Avenue. Scroggs and Ewing, architects from Georgia, prepared the plans for the Milane. The name of the new theater was derived from the combination of the presidents of the Milane Amusement Company president and vice president: Frank L. Miller and Edward F. Lane. The Milane opened in July of 1923 and seated 823 patrons. In 1933, the Milane was sold to Frank and Stella Evans, investors from Lake Mary, Florida. The new owners renamed their business the Ritz Theater and held the property until the 1990s. However, the Ritz struggled financially in the 1960s and closed in 1978 due to failure to compete with the new multiplex theaters. The building remained vacant until 1984, when it reopened as the Showtime Cantina. The Showtime Cantina closed in 1988 and remained vacant and in decay. In the mid-1990s, Ritz Community Theater Projects, Inc. acquired the property and began rehabilitation in 1998. On May 6, 2000, the theater reopened as the Helen Stairs Theatre in honor of the citizen who led the restoration project, Helen Stairs. The following year, the location was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, additional renovations were completed at the theater was renamed the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in honor of the Wayne Densch Charitable Trust Fund for contributing to the renovations fund. Abstract The Opera House stood on the southeast corner of Magnolia Avenue and Second Street. It was replaced by the Milane Theatre in the 1920s. Source <span><span>Photocopy of original black and white photograph: Milane Theater Collection, </span><a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456"><span>Sanford Museum</span></a><span>, Sanford, Florida.</span></span> Date Created ca. 1900 Is Format Of Digital reproduction of original black and white photograph. Is Part Of <span><span>Milane Theater Collection, </span><a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456"><span>Sanford Museum</span></a><span>, Sanford, Florida.</span></span> <span><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42"><span>Milane Theatre Collection</span></a><span>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.</span></span> Is Referenced By <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>, page 41. Format image/jpeg Extent 1.41 MB Medium 1 black and white photograph Language eng Type Still Image Coverage Sanford, Florida Spatial Coverage 28.810527, -81.266859 Temporal Coverage 1900-01-01/1900-12-31 Accrual Method Donation Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Humanities Teacher Music Teacher Theater Teacher Rights Holder <span><span>Copyright to this resource is held by the </span><a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456"><span>Sanford Museum</span></a><span> and is provided here by RICHES of Central Florida for educational purposes only.</span></span> Contributing Project <span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/buildingblocks.php"><span>Building Blocks</span></a></span> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <span><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/"><span>RICHES MI</span></a></span> Source Repository <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456">Sanford Museum</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.stageclick.com/venue/457.aspx">Helen Stairs Theatre</a>." StageClick. http://www.stageclick.com/venue/457.aspx. <em><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016">Sanford: Our First 125 Years</a></em>. Sanford, Florida: Seminole Herald, 2002. "<a href="http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/">Theater History</a>." Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center. http://www.wdpac.com/footer-menu/theater-history/. "<a href="http://www.visitseminole.com/things-to-do/general/wayne-densch-performing-arts-center">Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center</a>." Seminole County: Florida's Natural Choice. http://www.visitseminole.com/things-to-do/general/wayne-densch-performing-arts-center. Transcript OPERA HOUSE Has Format Original black and white photograph. Magnolia Avenue Opera House https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/215158d1b22ce578f3eea62eb6612695.pdf d1fd24fc12b62f5a10c38f2dbcff6115 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 UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection Description As part of RICHES of Central Florida, UCF intends to record, archive, and make accessible oral history interviews of Central Florida veterans. Diversity is a main focus for this project since there are many different subgroups under the group veterans, all with important stories. While the histories will be largely archived and made available through the UCF library, a portion will be contributed to the ongoing Veterans History Project based out of the Library of Congress. Contributor <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries, University of Central Florida Alternative Title CVHP Collection Subject Veterans--Florida United States. Army Army United States. Navy Navy United States. Air Force Air Force United States. Marine Corps Marine Corps Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Jacksonville, Florida Orlando, Florida Honolulu, Hawaii Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Great Lakes, Illinois Long Island, New York Newport, Rhode Island Norfolk, Virginia Germany Qaasuitsup, Greenland Keflavik, Southern Peninsula, Iceland Azores Islands, Portugal Mediterranean Sea Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Grossi, Jared Interviewee Holtz, Alan R. 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 Alan R. Holtz Alternative Title Oral History, Holtz Subject Veterans--Florida Navy Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Operation Desert Shield, 1990-1991 Operation Desert Storm, 1991 Persian Gulf War, 1991 Iraq War Description An oral history interview of Alan R. Holtz, who served in the U.S. Navy, during the Vietnam War, Operation Desert Shield, and Operation Desert Storm. Born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, Holtz enlisted in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He later joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and helped mobilize Reservists during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. This oral history interview was conducted by Jared Grossi on November 13, 2014. Interview topics include enlistment, boot camp, the USS <em>Hancock</em>, the Vietnam War, the Naval Reserves, Operation Desert Shield, and Operation Desert Storm. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:33 Background<br />0:01:45 Enlistment<br />0:02:50 Boot camp and USS <em>Hancock</em><br />0:05:55 Vietnam War<br />0:09:22 Naval Reserves and going back to school<br />0:10:23 Liberty and awards<br />0:12:48 Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm<br />0:14:43 Off-duty activities<br />0:16:07 Keeping in contact with other sailors, injuries, and September 11th<br />0:17:31 Civilian life<br />0:18:55 Lessons learned from the Navy<br />0:19:20 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Alan R. Holtz. Interview conducted by Jared Grossi in Orlando, Florida, on November 13, 2014. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/502/rec/1" target="_blank">Holtz, Alan R.</a>. Interviewed by Jared Grossi, November 13, 2014. Audio/video record available. Item DP0016189, UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 13-page digital transcript of original 21-minute and 27-second oral history: <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/502/rec/1" target="_blank">Holtz, Alan R.</a>. Interviewed by Jared Grossi, November 13, 2014. Audio/video record available. Item DP0016189, UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Brooklyn, New York City, New York Vietnam Philippines Creator Holtz, Alan R. Grossi, Jared Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-11-13 Date Issued 2015-02 Date Copyrighted 2014-11-13 Format application/website application/pdf Extent 432 MB 164 KB Medium 21-minute and 27-second Digital (DAT) audio/video recording 13-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Jared Grossi and Alan R. Holtz. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. Matthews, Eamonn, Ben Loeterman, and Will Lyman. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/34145115" target="_blank"><em>The Gulf War</em></a>. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1996. Anderson, Michael G. <a href="/www.worldcat.org/oclc/27694401" target="_blank"><em>The Air Force Rapid Response Process: Streamlined Acquisition During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm: Project Air Force Analysis of the Air War in the Gulf</em></a>. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp, 1992. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/502/rec/1" target="_blank">Holtz, Alan R.</a> Transcript <p><strong>Holtz<br /></strong>Three.</p> <p><strong>Grossi<br /></strong>Today, it is November 11^th, 2014. I am interviewing Alan [R.] Holtz, who served in the Navy. He served in Vietnam [War] and helped mobilize Naval Reservists during Operation Devert[sic]—Desert Shield, and Operation Desert Storm. He completed his service as an E[nlisted]-6 rank. My name is Jared Grossi. We are interviewing Mr. Holtz as part of the UCF Community Veterans History Project. We are recording this interview at—in Orlando, Florida.</p> <p><strong>Grossi<br /></strong>Alright. So Mr. Holtz…</p> <p><strong>Holtz<br /></strong>Yes?</p> <p><strong>Grossi<br /></strong>Where were you born?         </p> <p><strong>Holtz<br /></strong>I was born in Brooklyn[, New York City], New York.</p> <p><strong>Grossi <br /></strong>Okay. What was your childhood like?</p> <p><strong>Holtz<br /></strong>My childhood? It was very good. I, uh—my parents were very, very good. I had three brothers. We had a great time. I really had a good childhood. I liked it.</p> <p><strong>Grossi<br /></strong>You, uh—are you the oldest of the brothers?</p> <p><strong>Holtz<br /></strong>No, I’m the second. I have one older brother and the rest are younger than me.</p> <p><strong>Grossi<br /></strong>Okay. Um, what did your parents do for a living?</p> <p><strong>Holtz <br /></strong>Uh, my father was in the Army during World War II, but then he was—but then he, uh—he worked for a packaging company, I believe, in—in Brooklyn.</p> <p><strong>Grossi<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Holtz              </strong>And my mom, uh, stayed home and raised us four kids. I don’t think she worked outside though.</p> <p><strong>Grossi             </strong>Alright. Um, did—Other than your father, did anyone else enlist before you?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, my father I had a couple of uncles that were in during World War II, and that’s it. My brother tried to enlist in the Air Force, and I think his vision wasn’t good, so he didn’t—he didn’t make it.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, what type of education did receive before your service?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, right—right out of high school, I enlisted.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />How old were you when you enlisted? I mean, you said it was after high school.</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Yeah, 18.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, what caused you to enlist?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, it’s kind of a long story. They had the draft at that time, and people were being drafted into the Vietnam War, and it was, uh, sort of a lottery system, where would they tell you your number and you had a better chance of getting drafted, so I had a pretty good chance that I was going to be drafted. So to get a better choice of where you want to go, I enlisted.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. What did your family think of your enlistment?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, they—they were happy about it. Like I said, my uncle was in the Navy and said it was the best one of the services, even though my father was in the Army. So they were happy about it.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Uh, what was, uh, boot camp like in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Boot camp—it was—it was very tough for me, because it was the first time I was like away from home, alone there, and not, you know—scared what was going happen, but I ended up doing good[sic], ‘cause I had, uh—I was in pretty good shape. So the physical stuff wasn’t that hard for me, so I—I did good[sic].</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright. Um, where were you stationed after completing your training?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, after—after boot camp, I went to training in San Diego, California, and the first place I was stationed was onboard an aircraft carrier, U—USS <em>Hancock</em></p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Uh, what was your experience when you first arrived where you were stationed?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />When I first arrived, it was—it was just very different than anything that I had seen before. Nev—I’d never been on a ship, and it was really big. Um, lot of people. You have to live in, uh—sleeping on a little bunk in a room with a lot of other people. So it was—it was hard to get used to.</p> <p><strong>Grossi<br /></strong>Um, what was your instructor like?</p> <p><strong>Holtz<br /></strong>In—in boot camp, you mean?</p> <p><strong>Grossi<br /></strong>Uh, yes.</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, he, eh—He was good. You—first you get there, and you’re scared, and you’re—hate them and everything, but you get used to it. Then once you graduate, you appreciate what he did, you know, what he taught you, and everything.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />So you mentioned living on the carrier. What was, uh, the Navy life like?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Well, I—I liked it. Once you get out of boot camp, you realize it’s more like a job and it’s not all going to be like you were—like it was in boot camp. So you, uh—you get used to it pretty fast. It was good. It was fun. Some of it.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright. Um, was there any—what was not fun about it?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />What was not fun was the hours. You work a lot of hours, a lot of hard work, and, uh, the thing I got trained for was, uh, personnel, which is human resources. So when you work in human resources and in an office, they—the other people on the ship don’t think you’re doing anything, ‘cause you’re not out there manning the guns, or steering the ship, or anything important. Your, uh—you know, according to them.  So you get volun—you get volunteered to do other work to help other departments. So it’s—it’s a lot of work, a lot of hours.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright. So what were some of your other duties then?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, I worked in the—in the laundry, pressing uniforms and stuff, and, um, just, uh, security watches and stuff, go—security. Guard duty is called “watches” in the Navy.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Um, what were the watches like?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, you get different hours, like you’d have f—a four-hour period, where you just, you know, stand guard over something or, you know, security of the ship.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright. Uh, what was your assignment during the Vietnam War?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, I was in the personnel office on the aircraft carrier, and I was, uh, in support of an air squadron, where they—the, uh, pilots would fly off the carrier and do whatever they had to do over there, and just their support, like their—make sure their pay, their paper work got done, you know, transfers, retirements, whatever they had to do. All the office work.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, tell me about your, um, Western Pacific [Ocean] and your Mediterranean [Sea] cruise?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />That, uh—well, the Western Pacific was while I was on the aircraft carrier, and where they would go off the coast of Vietnam for a while, and then after that, they would go into different ports. So I got to see a lot of the world over there. It was—it was really good. The Philippines was my favorite place.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Oh, what made it your favorite place?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, just that the people are very—they’re very friendly. They’re very nice. They—they support, you know—they supported the military. Met a lot of nice people there, and also the, uh, beaches, mountains, everything—just a beautiful place to relax, after being out at sea for a long time.          </p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. What was the typical day like during this period?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />A typical day? Uh, like I said, there’s—there’s[sic] long hours, and your—Besides the regular office hours, which is—they try to make it eight to five, but then you’re on call and other things come up, so you end up staying there a lot longer or being called in the middle of the night, and then, if you had one of those, uh, watches or some other duties you had to do that—they don’t take the hours away from your regular office work.  You still have to be there. So some days you’d be working without any sleep.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />What was the food like?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />The food was—was actually good. I know people complain about it, but it was—it was good. You had a lot of choices. You got—you don’t have that much time to eat sometimes, but the—the food was really good. They did a—they did a good job.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Um, what would you do to entertain yourself at times?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, they had different activities, and s—you know, sports. ‘cause we would like—‘cause when I’m on an aircraft carrier that has a big flight deck, so during the times that they’re not, uh, landing and taking off aircraft, they’re—use it for sports, games, and they had movies, and they—we would get our mail stuff, and they didn’t have the Internet back then, but…</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />We could make phone calls and send messages.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Did the Navy change after the Vietnam War?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, it cha—Yeah. It changed a lot. A lot of things changed.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Could you tell me about some of the changes?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, well, see, it seemed during the war, they were more relaxed about, you know, haircuts, uniforms, A lot of things. Uh, even—even drug use was pretty prevalent during the Vietnam War, and they didn’t—seemed like they really cared that much, and it went from that to the zero tolerance policy pretty quickly. You know, I guess they realized it was getting quite out of hand [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />[<em>laughs</em>] Um, tell me about the Naval Reserves.</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />They—well, after— after my first four years, I got out for a few months. was going back to school, but then I decided to go back in and I went into the—it was called Training and Administration of the Reserves program, Where I’d work at Reserve centers and air stations, just training—training Reserves, and supporting them, doing there paper work, and keeping records and things.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright. You said you went back to school. Um, what’d you go back to school for?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, I—I went back to get an AA [Associate of Arts] degree, which I did, you know, start. When I got out, I started going full-time, but then I went back in the military and went just part-time ‘til I finished then.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright, and then you said you wound up going back in? Um…</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Why’d you decide to do that?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Well, I got married, and then I was going to have a kid. So I thought that would be—I thought that would be a good, uh—good career to have, since I liked it a lot for the first four years. So I decided to go back in and make a career out of it.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, what was your job in the Reserves?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Um, tt was still office work. It was, um, personnel, but, uh, helping with the training of Reserves. Like the Reserves that would come in one weekend a month, and they’d get trained. The—the person—the administrative ones—I would help train them, and also keep all there records and everything for all the Reserves. You know, transfers, retirements, promotions. Everything they do.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, how did moving up through the ranks change your responsibilities?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, it changed a lot. You get a lot more responsibility pretty quick[sic] from when you first go in and just—I made it all the way up to E6, which is, uh, supervisor. So it’s a lot of responsibility, because you have a lot of other people to worry about and make sure there doing their job as well.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Uh, what was one of your most memoral[sic]—memorable days throughout your service in your career—in the serving career?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, most memorable days? Uh, I guess, uh, being on a ship and traveling. You know, any one of those days, when you’re—you know, you work hard, but then when you finally get into a port, they give you a lot of time off to do what you want and relax, and I like that part of traveling. Seeing new places.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Traveling must have been fun. Um, what were some of the things you do when you um, would dock at ports?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, they would have—they would have tours available, you know, they’re trying to encourage you not to just go out to bars, like some people did. Um, so I didn’t do too much of that. I went on a lot of the bus tours and they had events scheduled for us. Like you could go help, uh, different charity events, go help, like—I remember one time, we painted a church or helped this, uh, shelter for people. A lot of things like that, where you can help the community too. They didn’t want us to just go out there and have fun and leave [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />[<em>laughs</em>] Um, did your receive any awards?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Yeah, I’ve got a lot of—a lot of different medals and awards for different things. I don’t even remember them all.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />How did you help exactly in Operation Desert Storm and [Operation Desert] Shield?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, well, that—at that time, I was at a Reserve center, and they mobilized some of the Reserve units to send them over there to—to, uh, well, fight, or set up things, whatever, and so we were—when you’re in the Reserves, they have these drills all the time about mobilizing the Reserves and calling them into active duty, and you think it’s never going to really happen, but that was the real thing. We had to mobilize them—and I think it was about three hundred people from our Reserve units—and get them ready, get them there orders, paper work and everything, and travel arrangements, and send them over there.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright. You said there was[sic], uh, drills and you actually wound up having to do them. Um, did the drills you feel help? Or was the actual event…</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, the actual event’s a lot different than—it—it helped—it—the drills helped you prepare for it, but then when it actually happens, they—there isn’t time to actually to do it—there wasn’t time to actually do it step-by-step the way you plan. You know, Set up the incoming—set up the tables, set up the—what forms they’re going to need. So it—it worked out a lot different than you planned, but you still got it done.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, did your experience in Desert Storm and Shield differ from Vietnam?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, yeah. It was a lot different, ‘cause I was just at the Reserve center, and—and preparing these other people to go where I—I—In Vietnam War, I was actually on the ship, right off the coast there, and even though I was working the office, I was more, you know—closer to the action that was going on, supporting the people, but, uh, for that for that—for that operation, I was just at the Reserve center, and getting them ready to go there. So it seemed like it was further from the actual thing.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, what kind of activities did you do while off duty? Um, I know you mentioned you—you’d go on tour and stuff…</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />During the dockings. Um, was it just—I mean, uh—I guess when you’re off duty, what did you do?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Oh, just—well, if I’m in a different—At the Reserve center or at the…</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Uh, I—just In general</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Well, if you’re…</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />When you were off duty.</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Well, when it—when it—it’s different when you’re off duty overseas. I would just, you know, travel, see, you know—See what I could find, enjoy the scenery and new places, but once I was at Reserves center, Reserves center is in the—in that program, I was back home. So I was married and had kids. So I was just doing normal, you know—normal daily life, and it was more like a regular job, than when you’re on a ship.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Did you visit back home often?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Yeah, I would. Yeah, my parents were still in New York most of that time, so I would—I would fly home whenever I could. Get vacation. They gave you a lot of time off in the military, when—when they can.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Um, when you were back home, what did you do for work or just entertainment then?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Oh, spend time with my parents and my brothers, and visiting, mostly.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Um, did you still keep in contact with any of your friends you made in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, I did for a while, but it was hard to do that, ‘cause so many people get transferred, and you don’t see them again, and—So I lost track of a lot of them, but there was a few that I—that I still kept in contract[sic] —contact with.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, could you tell me about some of the injuries you received?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Well, first injury—first injury I got—when I was working on that aircraft carrier, I worked in the laundry, and pressed my hand down on…</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Oh.</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />On the steam press. So that’s how I got that injury. So I call it my “Vietnam War injury,” but not really. It was on the aircraft carrier, working in the laundry, and got—got that hand burned, and some other things: I just hurt my back while I was there, so— but nothing too serious. I’m still able to work.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. How did, uh, the events of 9/11<a title="">[1]</a> affect you?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />How did it affect me? I was—I remember being very angry when it—when it happened, and wishing I was back in the military, so I could go do something about it, you know? Help fight whoever was doing it.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />How was the transition from the Navy life into the civilian life?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, it was very hard, at first, to—when you’re looking for a job, and you try to relate what you did in the military to civilian job. So you work in an office and, you know, you find out that all you’re qualified to do is be a secretary, or something like that. So actually, I was, uh, a medical services secretary, when I first got out. That was the first job they had at, uh, Humana[, Inc.] health care.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, how—how has the civilian life affected you?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Oh, well—well, I got used to it pretty quickly, and I had other jobs since then, and then finally found UCF [University of Central Florida], which I like.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. How have the—the way the civilians treated you over the years—how has that been?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />It’s—it’s been good, mostly. Most people—most people, you know, they appreciate what you did. they—there’s, you know, this preference for veterans, and a lot of jobs that you go for, you know—to at least get you the interview to see if you’re qualified to get the job, but, uh, most people treat you—treat you good[sic]. I never had anybody who didn’t.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />What lessons, from your time in the Navy, do you consider valuable?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Uh, I think I learned a lot about working, do, uh—doing the best job that you can, getting it—trying to get everything done, so you can enjoy your time off, and, uh, doing a good job working with other people—Team work. A lot—a lot of things you learn there, you know, still relates to whatever job you have outside.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Do you have any, uh, unusual or funny stories in your time of the service?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Um, no, not really [<em>laughs</em>]—not really that I can think of. I’m sure there were some.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Um…</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Well, now, there’s some unusual things when I was working at the Reserve centers. There sometimes—sometimes, they’re the only military in the area. So they’ve let you—make you volunteer for a lot of different things, like security and different things that you don’t need security for. They just wanted the local military to be there, and doing funerals, and things that I didn’t like to do.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, is there anything else we missed or you would like to talk about?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Um, no, not—not really. Not that I can think of.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright. Uh, do you have any messages or lessons you’d like to pass on to the young—the young people?</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Oh, about the military? Just that it—it is a good career. Uh, the benefits are great, now that I’m retired. I did—I did, you know, 20 years. Now that I’m retired, it’s really worth it to, uh—the benefit you get, through retirement, the medical care, everything. So it’s worth it.</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Alright. Uh, questions?</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Grossi</strong><br />Okay. Um, well, I’d like to thank you, Mr. Holtz, for your time. I and the UCF community really appreciate you coming out today and telling your story, Um, in the—in the short time in the interview [<em>laughs</em>]. Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Okay.</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Holtz</strong><br />Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> September 11^th, 2001.</p> </div> </div> 1st Gulf War 1st Iraq War 9/11 aircraft carrier aircraft carriers Alan R. Holtz basic training boot camp boot camps Brooklyn, New York City, New York Community Veterans History Project conscription CVHP Democratic Republic of Vietnam Desert Shield Desert Storm drafts E-6 education Enlisted Rank 6 enlistment First Gulf War First Iraq War Gulf War Hancock instructors Iraq War Jared Grossi Kuwait War liberties liberty military education military training naval instructors North Vietnam Operation Desert Shield Operation Desert Storm Persian Gulf War Philippines Republic of the Philippines Republic of Vietnam San Diego, California selective service September 11th Socialist Republic of Vietnam South Vietnam TAR terrorism terrorists training Training and Administration of the Reserve U.S. Naval Reserve U.S. Navy USS Hancock veterans Vietnam Vietnam War watch watches https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/156b446b618e506bf5739ccbc01f9238.pdf a99aa7a44583fcc134d0fd37967523ce 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 Sanford Collection Description The present-day Sanford area was originally inhabited by the Mayaca/Joroco natives by the time Europeans arrived. The tribe was decimated by war and disease by 1760 and was replaced by the Seminole Indians. In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain and Americans began to settled in the state. Camp Monroe was established in the mid-1830s to defend the area against Seminoles during the Seminole Wars. In 1836, the United States Army built a road (present-day Mellonville Avenue) to a location called "Camp Monroe," during the Second Seminole War. Following an attack on February 8, 1837, the camp was renamed "Fort Mellon," in honor of the battle's only American casualty, Captain Charles Mellon. The town of Mellonville was founded nearby in 1842 by Daniel Stewart. When Florida became a state three years later, Mellonville became the county seat for Orange County, which was originally a portion of Mosquito County. Citrus was the first cash crop in the area and the first fruit packing plant was constructed in 1869. In 1870, a lawyer from Connecticut by the name of Henry Shelton Sanford (1832-1891) purchased 12,548 acres of open land west of Mellonville. His vision was to make this new land a major port city, both railway and by water. Sitting on Lake Monroe, and the head of the St. Johns River, the City of Sanford earned the nickname of “The Gate City of South Florida.” Sanford became not only a transportation hub, but a leading citrus industry in Florida, and eventually globally. The Great Fire of 1887 devastated the city, which also suffered from a statewide epidemic of yellow fever the following year. The citrus industry flourished until the Great Freezes of 1894 and 1895, causing planters to begin growing celery in 1896 as an alternative. Celery replaced citrus as the city's cash crop and Sanford was nicknamed "Celery City." In 1913, Sanford became the county seat of Seminole County, once part of Orange County. Agriculture dominated the region until Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971, effectively shifting the Central Florida economy towards tourism and residential development. Alternative Title Sanford Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) 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> <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/" target="_blank">Sanford Historical Society, Inc.</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Is Part Of <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 Sanford, Florida Curator Marra, Katherine Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. <span>Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank"><em>A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</em></a></span><span>, 1975.</span> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Reisz, Autumn Interviewee Miller, Algerine Location UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Original Format 1 digital audio/video recording Duration 3 minutes and 9 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 263kbps 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 Algerine Miller Alternative Title Oral History, Miller Subject Sanford (Fla.) Oral histories Description Oral history of Algerine Miller, interviewed by Autumn Reisz on March 2, 2013, for the UCF Public History Center's History Harvest. In the oral history, Miller discusses how she found out about the History Harvest, the documents and photographs she contributed, and her family's property in Sanford, Florida.<br /><br />Born in Orangeburg County, South Carolina in 1909, Algerine's father Moddie moved to Sanford, where he and his wife, Alberta, purchased the property that the Miller family still owned as of 2013. Abstract Oral history interview of Algerine Miller. Interview conducted by Autumn Reisz at <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a> in Sanford, Florida. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br /> 0:00:25 Reasons for attending the History Harvest<br /> 0:00:48 Items contributed for scanning<br /> 0:02:37 Reasons for digital preservation<br /> 0:03:00 Closing remarks Creator Reisz, Autumn Source Miller, Algerine. Interviewed by Autumn Reisz. UCF Public History Center. March 2, 2013. Video record available. <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Date Created 2013-03-02 Contributor Miller, Algerine Has Format Digital transcript of original oral history: Miller, Algerine. Interviewed by Autumn Reisz. UCF Public History Center. March 2, 2013. Video record available. <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 112 MB Medium 3-minute and 9-second digital audio/video recording 6-page typed transcript Language eng Type Moving Image Coverage Sanford, Florida Accrual Method Item Creation Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Autumn Reisz and Algerine Miller and owned by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to the resource is held by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Contributing Project <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, History Harvest Spring 2013 Curator Reisz, Autumn Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank"> RICHES MI</a> External Reference Flewellyn, Valada S. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4497409" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://youtu.be/eOiwobAORvw" target="_blank">Oral History of Algerine Miller</a>." YouTube. Flash video file. http://youtu.be/eOiwobAORvw. Transcript <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Alright and my name is Autumn Reisz and it is March 2^nd, 2013 and I am talking with Algerine today at the History Harvest. And we're going to talk about some of the items that she brought today.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>So, first, ah, how did you hear about us and our event today?</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Ah, Meghan [Vance] and, um—I can't think of her name.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>I know Meghan came to see you. Was it Dr. [Rosalind J.] Beiler? Did you talk to her? Um, I am trying to think of who else went out.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Dr. who?</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Dr. Beiler—Rose?</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Yes, Rose. I talked to Rose. Yes, yes.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Did you talk to Rose? Um, Excellent.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>And then, um, tell us what you brought today.</p> <p><strong>Miller <br /></strong>Well, today I brought some documents going back in my family history. The birth of my father.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Thanks. Very nice. That is fantastic. What else do you have?</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>And I have the property deed for the property which we still have.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Nice.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>This is my father, my father's mother. My father and mother. My father's mother. My mother's sister and her husband. My father's three brothers—I mean two brothers. That's another picture of my father. That's an earlier picture. My brother who's deceased, on the left. My brother who's deceased. This is my family.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Is that the house?</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>That's the house. Yes.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Excellent.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>This is a picture of my sister who was attached to the White House. And she has a picture with…</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Ah, yeah!</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>With President [Bill] Clinton.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>That is fantastic! Well, I am going to give these back, because they're a little fragile.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Mmkay.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>So you said ya'll have had that house and that property for how long?</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>1946, I believe.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Yeah? Still living there and, ah…</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Still living there. The house's still standing. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Now you brought these particular pictures to be scanned today, because they are—they are very significant to you? And you wanted to make sure you had digital copies, right?</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>[<em>nods</em>] Yes.</p> <p><strong>Reisz <br /></strong>Is there one in particular that you really wanted to make sure that got scanned? Was it the picture, the deed, or everything?</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Everything.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Everything. Well alright. Any stories you'd like to share?</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>No. I can't think of any right now.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Okay. Well, that's it. We just wanted to know a little bit about the items that you brought today and how you heard about us, and, ah, that's it. Nice and easy.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>Thank you very much.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>You're welcome.</p> <p><strong>Reisz<br /></strong>We really appreciate it. </p> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a title="http://youtu.be/eOiwobAORvw" href="http://youtu.be/eOiwobAORvw" target="_blank">Oral History of Algerine Miller</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">Public History Center/Student Museum</a> References "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1553" target="_blank">Alberta Miller</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1553. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1557" target="_blank">Moddie Miller with Sister and Mother, Carrie Whaley</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1557. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1554" target="_blank">Certificate of Birth for Moddie Miller</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1554. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1555" target="_blank">Miller Family Warranty Deed</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1555. Beiler, Rosalind J. Clinton, Bill Clinton, William "Bill" Jefferson deed History Harvest Miller, Algerine oral history property deed Reisz, Autumn Sanford UCF Public History Center Vance, Meghan White House https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/5361858e574a773bd9ef69022c09f284.pdf b461139bed7cf82e625d3a9a91f777f4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection Subject Museums--Florida Schools Elementary schools Grammar schools Sanford (Fla.) Description The Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection encompasses a broad range of materials and items ranging from the late 19th Century into the present. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, documents, videocassettes, and other historical records pertaining to the history of the Sanford Grammar School, the Sanford community through the years, and the history of teaching and learning within the United States from the 19th century to the 2010s. The Student Museum has collaborated with the University of Central Florida and established the UCF Public History Center (PHC). All of the Student Museum's collections are presently housed at the PHC. The goal of the PHC is to promote access to history through ground-breaking research connecting local to global, provide cutting-edge hands-on educational programs for students and visitors, and to engage the community in contributing to and learning from history. Contributor Student Museum UCF Public History Center Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum, Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project Student Museum UCF Public History Center Curator Marra, Katie Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Alternative Title Student Museum and PHC Collection Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Vance, Meghan Interviewee Miller, Algerine Location <a href="http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/" target="_blank">Goldsboro Museum</a>, Goldsboro, Sanford, Florida Original Format 1 DVD Duration 35 minutes and 40 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 195kbps 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 Algerine Miller Alternative Title Oral History, Miller Subject Oral history--United States Sanford (Fla.) African Americans--Florida--Sanford Museums--Florida Schools High schools Integration Desegregation Civil rights--Florida Description Oral history interview of Algerine Miller, who was born on December 6, 1940, in Sanford, Florida. Miller graduated from Crooms Academy, located at 2200 West Thirteenth Street, in 1958. After high school, she attended the Walker Business School for one year. Miller worked for the State of Florida as an Eligibility Interviewer for 16 years and for Seminole County Community College as an Assistant Financial Interviewer. Miller has also worked with the UCF Public History Center as a volunteer, especially within the Crooms Academy Alumni Exhibit: Triumph Through Adversity. This interview was conducted by Meghan Vance at the Goldsboro Museum, located at 1211 West Thirteenth Street, on November 7, 2012, in Goldsboro, an African-American neighborhood in Sanford. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:60 Life after graduation<br />0:01:58 Crooms Academy Alumni Exhibit: Triumph Through Adversity<br />0:06:34 Alumni events<br />0:07:24 Future of the exhibit and memorable moments<br />0:10:19 Connecting the exhibit with other museums<br />0:14:57 Sanford<br />0:17:00 Crooms and school segregation<br />0:21:34 Other museums in Sanford<br />0:22:55 Teaching history<br />0:25:19 Integration and the Civil Rights Movement<br />0:28:59 Motivation for working with the exhibit<br />0:30:01 Local ice house and family history<br />0:33:08 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Algerine Miller. Interview conducted by Meghan Vance at the <a href="http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/" target="_blank">Goldsboro Museum</a>, in Goldsboro, Sanford, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Miller, Algerine. Interviewed by Meghan Vance. UCF Public History Center. November 7, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a>. <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 35-minute and 40-second oral history: Miller, Algerine. Interviewed by Meghan Vance. UCF Public History Center. November 7, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Coverage Crooms Academy, Sanford, Florida Goldsboro, Sanford, Florida Public History Center,Sanford, Florida Hopper Academy, Georgetown, Sanford, Florida Creator Vance, Meghan Miller, Algerine Date Created 2012-10-23 Date Modified 2012-10-25 2012-11-18 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 112 MB 53.4 KB Medium 35-minute and 40-second DVD 24- page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Meghan Vance and Algerine Miller. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the UCF Public History Center and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project UCF Public History Center Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository UCF Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Exhibits." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. "<a href="http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank">Seminole High School</a>." Seminole High School, Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/I5YudPwNnn0" target="_blank">Oral History of Algerine Miller</a> 13th Street 7th Street A. Duda & Son, Inc. African Americans Beiler, Rosalind J. civil rights Civil Rights Movement class reunion Crooms Academy Crooms Academy Alumni Association Crooms Academy Alumni Exhibit: Triumph Through Adversity Crooms Academy of Information Technology desegregation Duda, D. A. executive secretary exhibit Five Points Operation Complex Gibson, Colonel Goldsboro Goldsboro Museum high school Hopper Academy ice house integration King, Martin Luther, Jr. Miller, Algerine museum Museum of Seminole County History Oliver, Francis oral history Orangeburg pool Sanford Sanford Civic Center Sanford Museum Savannah State University school SCPS segregation Seminole County Board of Education Seminole County Community College Seminole County Public Schools Seminole County Public Schools School Board Seminole High School Seventh Street SSU State of Florida Student Museum and Center for Social Studies Thirteenth Street trade school Vance, Meghan Walker Business School Williams https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/2770b18439046c8783cbe81b35958fd2.mp3 d06a204e43be3bf30d5cccaa5e54dd84 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 Algerine Miller Alternative Title Oral History, Miller https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/9929a175f1dfc6e4b005fa3d61672e9b.pdf cb5daf2a442c1dba68baeefe36f0286c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Dossie, Porsha Interviewee Bunch, Alice Kathryn Aulin Location <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video recording Duration 22 minutes and 10 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 626kbps 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 Alice Kathryn Aulin Bunch Alternative Title Oral History, Bunch Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Description An oral history interview of Alice Kathryn Aulin Bunch (1926-), conducted by Porsha Dossie on April 18, 2015. Bunch was born in in Oviedo, Florida, on July 2, 1926. After graduating from Oviedo High School, Bunch began working in a bank in Downtown Orlando. On August 17, 1946, she married Richard Burdette Bunch (1924-) and together they had two daughters: Mary Kathryn Bunch Hamby (1947-) and Billy Beatrice Bunch Parrot (1948-). In the interview, Bunch discusses attending high school during World War II, her career as a bank teller, how she met her husband, the founding families of Oviedo, church and her social life growing up, the influence of the military on Oviedo, the artifacts that she contributed to the Oviedo History Harvest, her parents and her siblings, and how Oviedo has changed over time. Table Of Contents <br />0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:43 Attending high school during World War II<br />0:04:32 Career as a bank teller and meeting Richard Burdett Bunch<br />0:06:16 Founding families<br />0:07:47 Church social life<br />0:09:53 Influence of the military on Oviedo<br />0:11:38 Oviedo History Harvest<br />0:14:49 Parents and siblings<br />0:18:44 How Oviedo has changed over time<br />0:21:51 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Alice Kathryn Aulin Bunch. Interview conducted by Porsha Dossie at the <a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/1322" target="_blank">Lawton House</a> in Oviedo, Florida, on April 18, 2015. Type Moving Image Source Bunch, Alice Kathryn Aulin. Interviewed by Porsha Dossie, April 18, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. References "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6290" target="_blank">The Oviedian, Vol. VII</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6290. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6364" target="_blank">Letter from Steen Nelson to Annie Tes Rae (July 20, 1938)</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6364. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6292" target="_blank">Oviedo High School Varsity Letters</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6292. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6289" target="_blank">U.S. Army Air Force Aircraft Warning Service Armband from Oviedo</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6289. Has Format 15-page digital transcript of original 22-minute and 10-second oral history: Bunch, Alice Kathryn Aulin. Interviewed by Porsha Dossie, April 18, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Oviedo, Florida Orlando, Florida Creator Bunch, Alice Kathryn Aulin Dossie, Porsha Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Contributor Cepero, Laura Date Created 2015-04-18 Date Modified 2016-01-22 Date Copyrighted 2015-04-18 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 164 KB Medium 22-minute and 10-second audio/video recording 15-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Julia Alice Kathryn Aulin Bunch and Porsha Dossie, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;GRid=69149825" target="_blank">Andrew Aulin</a>." Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;GRid=69149825. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/YuSG0LJyDUs" target="_blank">Oral History of Alice Kathryn Aulin Bunch</a> Transcript <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>My name is Porsha Dossie. This is an oral history interview of [Alice] Kathryn Aulin…</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Bunch.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Bunch, and it is April 18^th, 2015, and we are at the Lawton House in Oviedo, Florida.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So, Kathryn, please tell me a little bit about growing up in Oviedo. You were born here? Is that correct?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>I was born here in[sic] July 2^nd, 19, uh, 26 [<em>laughs</em>], and lived here ‘til I graduated from high school, but most everything we, uh, did, we did it e—either at the church or at school. That was[sic] our activities in those days—back in those days.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Uh, you went to the Oviedo School? Is that right?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Uh huh, it was just one school. You went from first through, um, twelfth, and then you graduated from there, and it was only three of us that graduated, because it was wartime. Not that we had that many to start with, but with—it was ‘cause of the war and the boys were gone—had gone off to be in service during World War II.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>What was that like?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>We just got used to the war. We—I mean, like, a lot of things that were different—uh, you were limited, uh, to a lot of things back then that, Uh, you couldn’t, uh,—you couldn’t buy clothe[sic]—or shoes—leather shoes. You were limited to so many like that and things, uh, but other than that, we got used to it, and, uh, had, uh, some—I—I was older when I was—in high school, I was—had boyfriends that would go off to the service and come—and not come back, and that was sorta sad too, uh, in those days. We had servicemen stationed in, uh—in the [Armed] Service, uh, in the woods near here too, as well as—they were—their main place was in Orlando, but they would be over here at different times, and my father<a title="">[1]</a> ran the—we had two swimming pools, and there was, um, dance hall there, and, uh, he ran the swimming pools, and we—that’s where we had a number of the service boys—would come and dance there with—as well as the local, but we didn’t have that many local boys of that age around anymore. So…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>That was it.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>What were the swimming pools called?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>They were the Oviedo swimming pool. It was, um, by the city, and they did away with ‘em. Uh, I have a couple of pictures of them that—I don’t know if they still ever—that—there’s—it still belongs to the City [of Oviedo].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong> The property does, but the pools have been done away with, and they got ballparks there or somethin’ now, but that was the thing to do. Uh, we had a sm—a small and a large one, uh, and he man—he managed those for—during that period of, um—my daddy did for a while.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Was that the—Sanlando?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>No, we went to Sanlando when you went—go on a big date[?].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] I have a picture of, uh—of the three…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>The three seniors at Sanlando, and it, uh—in my book, or it’s in our yearbook, I think.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So tell me a bit about your yearbook. I know you brought that with you today…</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>To be scanned. You made that yourself?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>We, uh—we put it together, although I’m sure somebody else helped us, uh, but we did have to glue the pictures in, and, uh, I noticed that I—in the other one—the year before me—that we typed the words in there, and actually, I noticed that in one place, the typing—if we made a mistake, instead of erasing the letters, just typed back over it, which [<em>laughs</em>] would not be a thing to have done, I don’t think, in those days, but they’re hand-typed. I mean, everything was done by hand, not woven books and things, like they are nowadays, but other than that—and we had an awful of, uh—I was a Baptist, and we all went to the Baptist church, and did most everything—social life was there, as well as school. Those were our two main things [<em>sniffs</em>] to do during—but other than that, I don’t—I…</p> <p>When we left Orlando, we still [inaudible], uh—I graduated from high school, but I had a job in Orlando, uh, my last year, and I started working at the bank. My sister—older sister<a title="">[2]</a>—two years older than me—was already working in Orlando, so I moved from Oviedo to Orlando, and been there the rest of my life, after that.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So you, uh—what did you do at the bank?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Teller. When you started out, in those days, at the bottom, you learned every step. Nowadays, I understand you go in whatever department you’re gonna—but you—you started answering the phone, then[?] learning the each thing—bookkeeping—and, uh, I ended up—I was a teller when I left.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So how did you meet your husband?<a title="">[3]</a></p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>That was—my mother-in-law<a title="">[4]</a> was a big person to go into bank, and I understood she wanted my husband, who was in the service—and I didn’t know ‘im. I knew her from being a customer at the bank, but, uh, she wanted to have him meet her—my sister, but for some reason, he just—and she was already there two years ahead of me.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>But for some reason, he would rather have met me, so…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] I dated him, and we met, uh—we married later on, uh, after he’d come out of the service. He was a—in the—she had, uh, property in—in, uh, cattle and dairy and a ranch, and he was in the ranch business at that time, after he came out of the service, and we married, had two girls,<a title="">[5]</a> and that’s been it.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So, um, growing up in Oviedo, you knew the, uh, Wheelers and the Evans? Is that correct?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>The Wheelers were actually kin—uh, my daddy’s sister, Mary Ann, um—Mattie, uh, Wheeler<a title="">[6]</a> married, uh—he—that’s his sister—married [Robert] Lee Wheeler, who was a brother to Frank Wheeler, uh, that had Nelson and Company and those[?]…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>And there was the Law—Lawtons and the, uh, Lees, and the—all those were, uh—they—they were the people in Oviedo, and everybody knew everybody back in those days.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>And, uh, I actually—my daddy, uh—the man that, uh—my daddy’s dad<a title="">[7]</a>—that named Oviedo was born—he was—the house at where he was born is still here,<a title="">[8]</a> as I understand. It doesn’t look anything like it did…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Back then. They’ve changed it around, but it’s still there.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>But…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So you said the Wheelers were kin?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Yes, uh, Lee Wheeler—my aunt married—was a brother to Frank Wheeler. That—like I said, they were—and, um—and I think I, uh—we’ve got the background all in—in all these books and things, and[?] the Lawtons—there’s a com—combination of—way back there, with all those—that’s first started. Now, about the Lees, I’m not real sure, but they were here too. They were another family that was—but everybody knew everybody…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Back in those days—and you—for some reason, we never did—did—my sister and I have talked about it since—why the women went to the Methodist church—most of ‘em—of the husband and wife, and the men went to the Baptist church. I, uh—not in our family, but m—most of ‘em—a lot of ‘em, that’s the way it worked, and you—still, you got together, eh, for socials and things like—I mean, you got together with the two churches, but for some reason, the women all seemed to be—want, uh—go to the Methodist church, and we—but I went to the Baptist all my life and still do [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>What kind of social events did you guys have at the Baptist church?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Well, just, uh—just nothing really that much. Uh, picnic-type things, and, uh, we had, uh, training you, uh—the one thing I did do, which isn’t the thing[?] to try to tell, uh, we had BYPU<a title="">[9]</a> or BTU, we called it—Baptist Training Union—at night, which is like—Sunday mornin’, you have Sunday school, and at night, and I would have a date. I could go to trainin’ union and not stay for church at[sic] Sunday night, and this was a, uh, typical thing, and it—I wasn’t the only one that did this. It was a—but that was the thing to do Sunday night, and we’d—we’d go to Winter Park. Uh, that was the place to go after—and, uh, go, uh, to a movie, and then go to, uh, get Coke and a sandwich, and come home. That was just a typical Sunday, uh, night. We went to, uh—did that, back in those days, but we didn’t, uh—anything that we had as far as social things, uh—there weren’t that many. I mean, it was something at the church, or, uh, it was eating or something, and I’m, uh—but, uh, other than that, I don’t remember too much, but[?] that’s about it. I [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So let me ask you about, um, the influence of the military on Oviedo in the 1940s. How did that affect your life here in Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>It—it did. Like I said, we met a lot of them men that were stationed here, and, uh, That’s when we could go to the pool and, uh, could dance, and Met a lot of ‘em that way, and then, uh—but, uh—and some of them even dated other people, because I remember, uh, one going with my sister to church. Uh, I mean, they were close enough friends if they were doing that, back in—they were very good. I—we didn’t—we didn’t mind ‘em being here, by any means. It was something going on. ‘Course, war was just so different, anyhow, back then. I mean—and then when they left here, we went, uh—moved to Orlando, and we still did things with the service people there, uh, at the different things that were for so—the soldiers back then too. Went to dances and things like that. That was mainly what most of the things were. Although, I have some pictures I’ve seen that we were at a lake out there at the—at the, uh, base<a title="">[10]</a> in our bathing suits and things, with the boys out there. So we did do things out there at the base too.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Uh, but it was just different than things are nowadays [<em>laughs</em>], but an awful lot of boys stayed—married people and, uh—and just like in Sanford, they married, uh—a lot of the Navy people are married to Sanford people too. So other than that, I really don’t know too much to report on that.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So we can discuss some of the items you brought today. You brought your yearbook? Um…</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>What else did you bring?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Well, the, um—my, uh, my sister-in-law wanted a copy of a letter that was written by Steen Nelson, as to how Oviedo was named. Our fa—grandfather, they say named—I mean, and—why he named it Oviedo and that business. So I—that’s in the—one of those copies, and I had an annual, uh, yearbook for the fo—where we got to get together for our 50^th, uh—the other class—we didn’t have but two that showed up, but they—for our 50^th anniver—graduatin’, we have a book on that. That’s in—in those things that I saved, uh, but we didn’t have but two that showed up for that [<em>laughs</em>]. That was me and, uh, one boy, and he’s still here in Oviedo, I understand.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Auliff[?] [inaudible], and, um, other than that, I don’t know…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>You brought some…</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>44s?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Uh, my letters for my—I got a—I was, uh—played basketball in high school…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>When I was—got a 44 and a[sic] O for, uh, my letter, with my stripes and stars on it for being captain—co-captain, and, uh, they’re in there—the O and the 44, and I also have an [U.S. Army Air Force Aircraft Warning Service] armband that I got from havin’ watched planes go over, uh, during wartime. We—we each had a shift. They had a tower they built over in Downtown Oviedo, and, uh—in front of the [First] Baptist Church [of Oviedo], and, uh, we would report whatever plane was going over and[?] the direction, and I’m pre—I’m thinking we were reporting back to the base, or somethin’, what kind of plane. Now, why I would know, uh—I’m sure they taught us how and all that.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>But that was what it was, and they gave us an arm—and I have that in there to give to the His—[Oviedo] Historical Society.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>What was that like watching the planes overhead?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Uh, I don’t know.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>I’m thinkin’ back. I—I don’t know that I was that smart about it, but I guess they were tryin’ to get—and they would get more[?] girl—people they would get…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>On, uh—and you had a shift, I’m sure, you know, and, uh, went[?]—went there after school or whenever. Maybe it was a weekend, um—on the weekend. I—I just know we did it same time at—why they chose to do it right[?] there in Oviedo? I don’t know. I guess they did it in all kind of different areas of the—around the bases, but, uh, that was part of it, and—and they gave us a[sic] armband to put on that says that that’s what you were. So I have—I saved that and my letters, and I never did use ‘em for anything. I didn’t put ‘em on a sweater, I don’t think.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>But that was about it. It wasn’t very [<em>laughs</em>], uh—not—not like it was nowadays with young people, and things[?] goin’ up, but was good.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>I’ve enjoyed it.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>I had, uh, two sisters<a title="">[11]</a> and, uh, two brothers,<a title="">[12]</a> and, uh, so we had pretty good-sized family to—to deal with, and my daddy—as well as having the pool, he did do a lot with examining fruit, uh, to be sure it was ready to be picked and that, and he did that for quite a few years too—too, and my mother<a title="">[13]</a> worked at Nelson and Son, but she was a seamstress, and she did a lot of, uh, sewing for people. Uh, you know, the [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So they both working at the Nelson packing company here?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Mmhmm, both ‘em had, mmhmm. matter of fact, my mother was working there when my youngest brother<a title="">[14]</a> was still too—too young, uh—little to go to school, and she would—would keep him in one of the—the places where they were packin’ the oranges, and I—when school was out, I’d go out do there and get him and go back home with him, and I got a nickel to go by the drugstore, which was in the center of Downtown Oviedo, to get a Coca-Cola, and—and he[?] got ‘em off of a fountain. The man behind the fountain would give[?] them to you. That was one thing I remember—and ordered—that was my payment for…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Eh, takin’ care of him ‘til she got home.</p> <p><strong>Dossie</strong>            [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>But, uh, we did—didn’t have a lot of money, but we had—we had plenty to get by with, and that was the way it worked in those days.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>So tell me about, uh, your siblings. You just—you mentioned that you had brothers and sisters.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Well, I had one girl—one sister that was two years older, and, uh, she was smart—very smart, and, uh—and why she—how she got the job in Orlando ahead of time? I don’t know, but anyway, she moved over there, and, uh, as a teller at the bank, and, uh—and I—we did not go to college that much in those days. The girls didn’t then[?], and, uh, [inaudible] we couldn’t have afforded it anyway, I’m sure, but, uh, she liked the bank and was doing alright and had a place in Orlando called the [inaudible] Community Club, which was right down near the center of Downtown Orlando, and, uh, you stayed there and you got your food and that kind of stuff, and she knew that I was graduatin’ and that—she thought I’d get a job there, so I did. I went over and applied and they gave it to me, and I moved in and we stayed there at the [inaudible] Community[?] Club, and that’s when went to a place in Downtown Orlando to dance with the USO.<a title="">[15]</a> Uh—they had a place for—but, uh, she started making too much money to stay at [inaudible] Community[?] Club, which was part of the deal. I mean, the—and so we all moved to a place down out of there, uh, and then—but stayed there ‘til I get married—met my husband and we got married, and that was it, but then I have a sister that’s here, and she’s giving information today. She’s an artist, and I had a brother,<a title="">[16]</a> but he went to Texas. He—he was in the service, uh, also, and he’s no longer living, and my older sister isn’t either, but my other sister’s here, and she’s[sic] lives in Lake Mary, and, um, is an artist, and she’s doing a lot of work today for them, and then I’ve got my brother<a title="">[17]</a> that lives here in Oviedo, and he and his wife<a title="">[18]</a> live here, and that’s it—that I…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>With us—the rest of the family, but all the rest of ‘em are gone, but we’ve got the sister here and the brother here, and that’s—and me—of the family—of the five of us. That’s what’s left. I’m the oldest of the group.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Well, is there anything else you’d like to tell me about Oviedo that we haven’t covered yet?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>No, it’s, eh—it—it is—nothing the same.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>I don’t know my way around it at all. I—I just cannot—I—how much the church, uh—how big it is, uh—has added and added to, uh, and I came out, went to church [inaudible], and there was no—well, the person that I—only person I knew that I saw—that I knew that day and he’s [inaudible]. He was a Wheeler—Frank Wheeler, Jr., and, um, I didn’t know anybody, and—just like I don’t know anybody out here nowadays, uh, but, uh, my mother is, uh—she’s been dead a pretty good while, and, uh, that—once she was gone, then I didn’t come back out like I did to—did later on, but, uh, it’s grown, and that’s for sure, and I keep seeing it goin’ more too, but other than that—and back in our day, we didn’t have anything but a Methodist and Baptist church. Now, I’m sure they got all of ‘em different ones…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Now, out here now.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Has the growth surprised you?</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Yes, it really has. It’s—it’s—it is—it’s much—than I would’ve thought when I was growing up, yes, um, ‘cause like I said, you knew everybody, but I think it’s this way with other small towns, but probably the way they do, but this one has grown from what it was back in our day. That’s for sure, but other than that, I don’t know. Eh, I—I really don’t know of any other—and I don’t know if I know anybody that lives out here, except my sister—my brother-in-law—my brother and sister-in-law, and, uh, Bettye [Jean Aulin Reagan] has, um—her child is out here now, but I don’t know any of the past, uh—I—that’s why I said when I was looking in that, uh, yearbook, I don’t know that there’d be anybody anymore, and as old as I am, um, I’m—I guess I’m one of—of, uh, the older ones that would be, uh…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Out here nowadays.Knowing how—I know people go to their 90s and that, but I still—they can’t, uh—back in my day, I don’t—I don’t know if there’s anybody that much more out here that I would’ve known, unless I was kin to ‘em, and I don’t have anybody out here now. So—but things have sure changed, and I do see there are, uh, in the b—block that we called[?] goin’ around Oviedo, uh, some of those houses, when we’ve gone, are still there. That—which is odd. Very—they’ve been there quite a while. Like I said, where my daddy was born,<a title="">[19]</a> uh, it’s still there these days, but it doesn’t look anything like it—I mean, they changed it all around—backyard and everything.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>But I don’t have that much to contribute [<em>laughs</em>] to Oviedo. That’s for sure.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Oh, you definitely…</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>And, um…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Told us some great…</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Information today.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Yeah, so I think that’s enough.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Well, we’re going to bring the interview to a close. I wanna thank you so much…</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>For being interviewed, and I really appreciate you coming out here and doing [inaudible] did.</p> <p><strong>Bunch<br /></strong>Okay [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Mary Leonora Aulin Bartlett.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Richard Burdette Bunch.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Mary Bunch.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Mary Kathryn Bunch Hamby and Billy Beatrice Bunch Parrot.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Martha Lenora Aulin Wheeler.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> Andrew Aulin, Sr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> Correction: Andew Aulin, Sr. was born in Sweden.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[9]</a> Baptist Young Peoples Union.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[10]</a> Naval Training Center (NTC) Orlando.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[11]</a> Mary Lenora Aulin Bartlett and Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[12]</a> Charles Warren Aulin and Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[13]</a> Mary Alice Powell Aulin.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[14]</a> Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[15]</a> United Service Organizations.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[16]</a> Charles Warren Aulin.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[17]</a> Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[18]</a> Julia Nadine Davis Aulin.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[19]</a> May 20, 1893.</p> </div> </div> aircraft airplanes Alice Kathryn Aulin Bunch Andrew Aulin III Andrew Aulin, Jr. Andy Aulin AWS bank tellers banks Baptist Training Union Baptist Young Peoples Union Baptists Bettye Jean Aulin McGill Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan Billy Beatrice Bunch Parrot BTU BYPU Charles Warren Aulin church churches citrus Downtown Orlando Downtown Oviedo Evans Frank Wheeler Frank Wheeler, Jr. history harvests Lawton Lee Llewellyn Roberts Bartlett, Jr. Martha Lenora Aulin Wheeler Mary Alice Powell Aulin Mary Bunch Mary Kathryn Bunch Hamby Mary Leonora Aulin Bartlett Mattie Aulin Wheeler Methodists Naval Training Center Orlando Nelson and Company NTC Orlando OHS oranges orlando Oviedo Oviedo Historical Society Oviedo History Harvest Oviedo School packing planes Porsha Dossie Richard Burdette Bunch Robert Lee Wheeler sailors servicemen soldiers Steen Nelson swimming pools U.S. Army Air Force Aircraft Warning Service U.S. Navy World War II WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/31fb4532f476182b304e5a3c758f2651.pdf e442f3e6067d334573d048ad86fdf3f6 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 Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra Collection Alternative Title Orlando Philharmonic Collection Subject Philharmonic orchestra series Orchestras Music--Florida Musicians--United States Orlando (Fla.) Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, located at 812 East Rollins Street Suite 300 in Orlando, was inspired by the closing of the Florida Symphony in 1993. The orchestra performs in more than 125 concerts each season. In June of 2013, the Philharmonic made plans to purchase the Plaza Live, located at 425 North Bumby Avenue in downtown Orlando, for office space, a rehearsal hall, a music library, and a music hall. Contributor <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span>." Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. http://orlandophil.org/.</span> <span>"</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span>." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil.</span> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/140" target="_blank">Central Florida Music History Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/145" target="_blank">Classical Collection</a>, Central Florida Music History Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Rights Holder <span>Copyright to this resource is held by the </span><a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span> and is provided here by </span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a><span> for educational purposes only.</span> Curator Cepero, Laura Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee Lane, Andrew Duration 4 minuets and 2 seconds 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 Andrew Lane Alternative Title Oral History, Lane Subject Orlando (Fla.) Philharmonic orchestra series Orchestras Music--Florida Anniversaries Conductors (Music)--United States Horn players Musicians--United States Description Episode in the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra's 20th Anniversary video series, chronicling the orchestra's history in Central Florida. This episode features an interview with Andrew Lane, who is a horn player, one of the orchestra's founding members, former Principal Pop, and current Resident Conductor. Topics in the video include the closing of the Florida Symphony, the creation of a new orchestra, how the orchestra obtained funding, trombonist and general manager Mark Fisher, an early concert in Kissimmee, and Lane's proudest accomplishment. <br /><br />Andrew Lane began his career with the United States Navy Band in Washington, D.C. Following his resignation in 1986, Lane performed as a freelancer with the American Chamber Orchestra, Washington Chamber Orchestra, Kennedy Center Orchestra, and National Gallery Orchestra. He joined the Florida Symphony in 1990 and the Florida Symphony Orchestra of Orlando in 1991. Other past positions held by Lane include: music director of the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra from 1994 to May 2005; principal conductor of the Southern Ballet Theatre, presently called the Orlando Ballet; and guest conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Naples Philharmonic, and the Florida Orchestra. As of the fall of 2002, Lane is currently the conductor of the Florida West Coast Symphony Youth Philharmonic and the principal conductor of the Florida West Coast Symphony Youth Orchestra Program. <br /><br />The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, located at 812 East Rollins Street Suite 300 in Orlando, was inspired by the closing of the Florida Symphony in 1993. The orchestra performs in more than 125 concerts each season. In June of 2013, the Philharmonic made plans to purchase the Plaza Live, located at 425 North Bumby Avenue in downtown Orlando, for office space, a rehearsal hall, a music library, and a music hall. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:13 Closing of the Florida Symphony 0:00:31 Starting a new orchestra 0:01:01 Funding and recruiting musicians 0:02:10 Mark Fisher and concert in Kissimmee 0:03:16 Lane's proudest accomplishment 0:03:47 Closing credits Abstract In celebration of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra's 20th Anniversary season, this video series chronicles the orchestra's two decades of history in Central Florida. In this episode, founding member and former Principal Pops & Resident Conductor Andrew Lane talks about the beginning of the orchestra. This video was produced by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown and Lisa Mills with the guidance of Stella Sung and Emily Lindahl. Type Moving Image Source Original 4-minute and 2-second video by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills: "<a href="http://youtu.be/_8UV_UUR9Rg" target="_blank">The Orlando Phil's 20th Anniversary | Andrew Lan</a>." <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, October 3, 2012: Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a>. Application software, such as <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a>. Coverage Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida Creator Gennaro, Joe Brown, Timothy G. Mills, Lisa Publisher <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Contributor Lane, Andrew Lindahl, Emily Lindahl, Emily Date Created 2012 Date Copyrighted 2012-10-03 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Medium 4-minute and 2-second video Language eng Mediator History Teacher Humanities Teacher Music Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills and published by the <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</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 Loan Contributing Project <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> External Reference "<a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>." Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. http://orlandophil.org/. "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil. "<a href="http://orlandophil.org/biographies/andrew-lane/" target="_blank">Andrew Lane</a>." Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. http://orlandophil.org/biographies/andrew-lane/. Carpenter, Marilyn D. "<a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LGFhAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=6YQEAAAAIBAJ&amp;dq=orlando-philharmonic%20andrew-lane&amp;pg=6059%2C3117607" target="_blank">Patriotic Music Highlights Concert</a>." <em>The Sarasota Herald-Tribune</em>, May 18, 2007. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LGFhAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=6YQEAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=6059,3117607&amp;dq=orlando-philharmonic+andrew-lane&amp;hl=en. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/_8UV_UUR9Rg" target="_blank">Oral History of Andrew Lane</a> Transcript <p>Before the Florida Symphony, um, went outta business it was difficult for a lot of people. It was difficult for the concert-goers, certainly the musicians. I was chairman of the orchestra committee, uh, French horn player in the Florida Symphony. Um, and we were just exhausted when the orchestra went out of business. It was a very difficult time and, at the time, I never imagined that we would start a new orchestra so soon.</p> <p>And the reason we did that—the reason we tried to—to build something back quickly, uh—there were a lot of fine musicians in the area that have lost their jobs. We wanted to keep them in the area. And, um, of course we wanted to go back to the supporters of the Florida Symphony and say, “Look, you know, we’re gonna try to do something new here—something that works for our community.” So we did exactly that, but what we found out was people who had contributed a lot of money to the Florida Symphony were not ready to contribute to another orchestra. They were concerned about how it would be managed and we learn that very quickly and it was a very difficult learning process.</p> <p>We didn't start from scratch in the sense that there were—there was a core group of musicians in town. Um, and—but what the challenge was they had other options. They had family they had to feed, you know. They had to do everything that they could. So going to them and saying, “Hey, look. Donate your time to us and we'll create this orchestra again,” you know, really wasn't gonna fly. We had to find funding to put this together an, um, you know, the—the artistic integrity of the organization was first and foremost on our mind. And so that was that was another big challenge we have to find the funds to put together a concert series that would keep these musicians involved and I think, you know—looking back on it I think that work pretty well.</p> <p>The story that I think dates back the furthest in an organization, that I kinda chuckle about every now then, had to do with Mark Fisher, who’s now general manager and principal horn of the orchestra. When we were first starting the orchestra, we were doing everything we could to get support. I mean, everything we could. And we were fortunate enough to be asked by the City of Kissimmee to do a concert at a local park in Kissimmee. And with the concert was really well attended. it was really great for the organization to do it. The problem was that we didn't have a lot of money to produce this concert. So I conducted the concert, and Mark played French horn in the concert. But we are also stage crew and, you know, we had to get out hours before the event. we had to set up the entire orchestra. The orchestra performed. We had to tear down the orchestra, put everything back on the truck, and drive all the way back to Orlando, unloaded the truck. Mark and I—we were exhausted and we sat down on the kind of the lift on the track and it was about one o'clock in the morning. And Mark looks at me and he says, “I hope we don't ever talk about this as the good old days.”</p> When I think about the accomplishment, I think how lucky I am that I even got to do it and it was really by default. The orchestra needed somebody to conduct for a concert. I had had conducting classes in college, had always had an interest in it, um, and I have my opportunity to do it. So I’d really have to say my proudest accomplishment was the first time I did it for the Orlando Philharmonic [Orchestra], because, as I said, these musicians fabulous and all I had to do was get up there and be concerned about myself and they took care of the rest. Date Issued 2012-10-03 Has Format Original 4-minute and 2-second video by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills: "<a href="http://youtu.be/_8UV_UUR9Rg" target="_blank">The Orlando Phil's 20th Anniversary | Andrew Lane</a>." <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, October 3, 2012. http://youtu.be/_8UV_UUR9Rg. Is Part Of <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/140" target="_blank">Central Florida Music History Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Extent 105 KB 20th Anniversary City of Kissimmee conductor Fischer, Mark Florida Symphony Florida Symphony Orchestra horn player Kissimmee Lane, Andrew music musicians OPO orchestras orlando Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra philharmonic orchestra Principal Pop Resident Conductor Rollins Street Twentieth Anniversary https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/fec9b77921e0994cce5dab2f6ab481bc.mp3 79c9c935661a1087d3454d4d4b43b337 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/44775ef5866d17ab7d73a7196eb445c7.pdf dfd59d2b2064be8b457d5917c8fff8b3 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 Cook, Arthurene Wilson Location <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><span>, Sanford, Florida</span> Bit Rate/Frequency 1411kbps 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 Arthurene Wilson Cook Alternative Title Oral History, Cook Subject Sanford (Fla.) World War II--United States Great Depression, 1929 Railroads--Florida Description An oral history of Arthurene Wilson Cook (b. 1930), conducted by Joseph Morris on October 4, 2011. Cook was born in Orlando, Florida, in 1930, but migrated to Sanford around 1942. In the interview, Cook discusses life in Sanford, her employment experiences, her husbands and children, growing up during the Great Depression, prosperity in the post-World War II era, her husband's career in the railroad industry, her children and grandchildren, and her battle with cancer. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:04:15 Working at the Wilson-Maier Furniture Company 0:07:21 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:07:22 Working at the Wilson-Maier Furniture Company 0:07:48 Working at Florida Fashions and the Family Loan Company 0:07:48 Getting married, divorced, and remarried 0:12:32 Life in Sanford 0:14:11 Growing up during the Great Depression 0:14:11 Post-World War II prosperity 0:16:31 Greater Orlando area 0:17:59 Working for the tax collector 0:21:54 Walt Disney World 0:26:50 Working at the Sanford Civic Center 0:28:28 Husband's career in the railroad industry 0:35:19 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:35:19 Husband, children, and grandchildren 0:38:49 Battle with cancer 0:43:54 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Arthurene Wilson Cook. 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 Original 44-minute and 42-second oral history: Cook, Arthurene Wilson. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. October 4, 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 Orlando, Florida Sanford, Florida Columbus, Georgia Wynwood, Sanford, Florida Magic Kingdom Park, Lake Buena Vista, Florida Sanford Civic Center, Sanford, Florida Creator Morris, Joseph Cook, Arthurene Wilson Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-10-04 Date Modified 2014-09-14 Date Copyrighted 2011-10-04 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 451 MB 146 KB Medium 44-minute and 42-second audio recording 15-page typed digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Arthurene Wilson Cook. 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 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>It is October 4^th, 2011, and I am talking to Arthurene Wilson Cook at the Museum of Seminole County History. I am Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Could you tell us about yourself?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Well, I was born in Orlando in 1930, and we lived there until I was about eleven years-old, right after Pearl Harbor, so I would say, we moved into Sanford about 1942.</p> <p class="Body">And, um, I have a very clear remembrance of Pearl Harbor, because I remember being out in the yard. And my parents had company, and I went in, and they were all listening to the radio. And they were talking about the Japanese were attacking Pearl Harbor. And the next day when we went to school, they called us into the chapel, and we listened to FDR [Franklin D. Roosevelt] declare war on Japan. So I can remember that very clearly.</p> <p class="Body">We moved to Sanford, and we lived on Celery Avenue. And across the street from us was the Department of Agriculture. Had their, their farm, where they raised the various types of vegetables and things, and they tested them and all that kind of stuff. And my brother and I were absolutely enthused, because right up the road about two blocks—and after our house the blocks became long—they[sic] were farms, and they had all this tilled land where the artesian wells flooded the fields and watered them from beneath, rather than on top. And you could reach down there and the artesian wells flowed all the time. Well, we thought all that sulfur water was wonderful. Then we had to live in a house that had sulfur water, and it was not wonderful. Smelled awful. [<em>laughs</em>] But we thought that this was new. We had never lived in the country. We had lived in town—in Orlando—so we were not used to being out, but we went all up and down the fields and cut onions out of the agriculture people’s farm, and made onion sandwiches, and were just carefree, barefooted kids having a good time.</p> <p class="Body">And, then when we moved to Sanford, I was I think in the fifth grade, and we were here for several years. And then, this is the middle of World War II. And my dad had been in the Army before, and had gotten out when he married my mother in 1927. So, he was drafted. And they were not drafting fathers, but they drafted him. And we did not own a home at that time. We were renting.</p> <p class="Body">And so we went back to Georgia, to Columbus, Georgia, and lived with my grandparents during World War II while he was gone. And, Georgia was—at that time, had graduated in eleven grades. So when the war was over, I was a senior in high school, and my mother and dad and my brother moved back to Daytona [Beach], and I stayed in Georgia and finished high school. So, I came back, and I didn’t want to go to school another year, so I had already finished. So, and at that point, I went—I had gone to a commercial high school, so I had typing, shorthand, bookkeeping, and how to behave like a young lady in an office and all that kind of stuff.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>So I went to work. And Mom and Daddy, at that time, they had moved over to Sanford. My dad was running a furniture store for another man, called Ted Davis Furniture Company. It was right on East First Street, and part of the downtown area now. And as time went on, the man that owned it offered my dad a partnership, which he took, and this took care of—as time went on, and after we were grown and married, my brother and I bought into that, and we owned the Wilson-Maier Furniture Company.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>But, um, I can remember we lived out on the lakefront, which—there’s still a bar out there, but it was down. It was the home of the people that owned the bar, and it was a real nice home, right on the lakefront, going toward DeLand. And when the hurricane came, they were advising people to get out of places that were, you know, dangerous to stay in, because it was coming right that way. So we went down to the store and I can remember, I got up on a stack of mattresses and put something down and went to sleep. So the hurricane went right over me. I had no problem. [<em>laughs</em>] But I remember out West First Street, which is now that main road [State Road] 46, that goes out to the mall. And all the businesses are out there—that was all agriculture, completely, I mean fields and fields and fields of it. And, um…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>What were they growing?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>A lot of celery, and cabbage, and broccoli, and onions, and all that kind of stuff. And a lot of oranges, grapefruit, tangerines. I remember, I was sort of full of myself, riding with my dad one day out West First Street, and I said, you know, “This is a highly agricultural area.” He says, “Yeah, they do a bit of farming, too.” [<em>laughs</em>] So, but, uh, it was just a neat place to grow up in. The class that I would have graduated from—with—in Seminole High School, when I came back, since I had been here for several years with them, they sort of just wrapped me into that class, so that I had to go to all, everything, just like I had gone to school here. So it was a nice place to grow up. And—stop for a minute.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Sure thing. Please go on, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>All right, well after high school, I went to work for my dad in the furniture store, and, um, I was not very businesslike nor did I feel like it was—I just did not do well, so he fired me. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Your father fired you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>My father fired me. And I went to the employment agency and they sent me to Florida Fashions, which was right there on First Street in the 300 block. And it was a mail-order company for all kinds of clothes, and it was something to where everybody and anybody that could type had a job there. You just sat down and you typed out all—the order and who you will send it to. And it wasn’t much of a job, but anyway, you typed all day and it was downtown, and you know you could—at lunch, you could go downtown and have lunch, and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, I finally went to work for, um, it was the sporting goods people. That was downstairs from Florida Fashions and I was their bookkeeper, and this was right across the street from our store. So, um, I was working and waiting on people when I wasn’t busy doing keeping books, and the owner came in one day and he told me, he said, “Arthurene, I’m going to have to let you go.” And I said, you know—my first thought was, “What have I done?” He said, “There is no fault of yours. I will give you a very good recommendation.” Well, he said, “My brother-in-law has moved down here and I have to give him a job, and I can’t keep both of you.”</p> <p class="Body">So at that, I went back to the employment agency, and I got, they sent me to Family Loan Company. Well, I went up there and they wanted to know if I could take shorthand, and I could, and type and books and wait on the customers there.</p> <p class="Body">And I worked there until my first child was born. And that was about three years later. And, um, I married in 1950, and I had two little boys, David and Dan. And, in the process my husband came home one day and said he wanted a divorce. And, um, so, as time went on—didn’t take very long. Back then if you agreed and he agreed and they were going to do whatever, you could have a divorce in nothing flat. So I had my two little boys, and I had moved home with my mom and daddy.</p> <p class="Body">And I got a job at the courthouse with the tax collector’s office, and I worked there for a number of years. And I always said when I got out of high school that it didn’t matter what kind of job I would get, but just something that didn’t have anything to do with money. So every job I ever had had something to do with money. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">And, then, a friend of mine whose husband worked for the railroad, I had been best friends with her ever since she had come to town. And I went over and a guy that I knew from high school, just very briefly—matter of fact, I was dating his best friend, and I really didn’t know anything about him, and he asked me out. And I said, “Well, you”—he said, well, you know, like going to the beach or going to the movies, or something. We went out to dinner and all, and I said, “Well yes, I would like to go, but,” I said, “I can’t always get a babysitter. There will be times that I would have to take my two boys with me.” He said, “Well, that’s not a problem. I like children.” So we started going together, and we went to the beach, and he reached over and put his hand on my leg, and I said, “Move your hand.” And he said, “Well, somebody thinks that I was their daddy.” I said, “I don’t care what they think. Move it.” [<em>laughs</em>] Anyway, we went together for a year, and we married in 1955, and we have been married a little more than 56 years. So I think it’s going to take. I think it’s going to. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Crossed fingers?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Yeah. [<em>laughs</em>] So, but, to go back to our, um, what it was like around here. There was a division of the black and white communities. And there were only three really big companies that people could go to work for, and feel like, that they could probably retire from that. And that was Chase &amp; Company, who—they raised all sorts of things, and vegetables of all kinds, celery being the main crop. And—but they did fruits and all sorts of vegetables, and cabbage, and carrots. You name it. The fields were everywhere. Matter of fact, when we lived out on the lakefront, the field behind us was—well, as far as you could see back toward First Street. Whatever they had was growing there, the man would always—there was some man that he rented the fields out to other people that actually didn’t own a farm. But they would—this was big, you know, large farming, a lot of it. And they would always say to my mother, “Whatever you need out of here, take it.” So if it was green beans, we had green beans. And if it was cabbage, you know, whatever, we had.</p> <p class="Body">And to go back just a little ways, but—probably never get this transcribed. When I was growing up during the [Great] Depression, I was never aware of being poor, or not having anything, because nobody had anything to speak of. People didn’t own—very few people owned their own homes. Everybody worked. And, I mean, like my parents when the Depression came along—they had a thousand dollars in the bank. They got a penny. And, I mean, you know, but, I remember I got a bike, and I knew my daddy had redone a bike, you know, a secondhand bike, but it never bothered me. I got a bike. I didn’t care.</p> <p class="Body">But, it was, after the war, there was a lot of boom going on and building houses and things, so there was lots of work for people. And I know when Walter [Cook] and I got married, we actually bought a house. The Navy was leaving here at that point, or they had gotten—they had built houses in the Wynwood section off 25th street, between there and 46 going toward the east coast. And in that area there, they had two lots of houses that they had built to rent to Navy people. And they quit renting them, redid them, and we bought one of them, where we lived for 31 and a half years. And we built onto it in every direction, but we lived there for a long time. But, you know, the downtown was just about all there was. When you got off as far as French Avenue—that was almost getting in the country.</p> <p class="Body">And like I said about coming from Orlando, you would run into Maitland, and see a sign that said, “Ye Town of Maitland, County of Orange.” And I always thought at—so quaint. I just looked for it every time. And then when you got to Longwood, it was just a crossroads with filling station. I mean, there was nothing out there, absolutely nothing.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Not even agriculture?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>I don’t remember much in that area, and of course, I didn’t do a whole lot in Longwood at that point. Never did. And you know, whatever shopping we ever did, you went to Orlando to buy it. When I first got out of high school, this friend and I—both of us worked, and we worked Saturday morning, and then the office closed at noon. And we would get on the Greyhound bus and go to Orlando, and do our shopping right there on Orange Avenue, have lunch, and then we’d get on the bus and come back home that night. And didn’t think a thing about it. We even went to Jacksonville one day and visited a friend that had gotten married, and went early on a Saturday morning and came back Saturday night. You know, the bus was the way to go.</p> <p class="Body">But, uh, I was still working at the courthouse when Walter and I got married. And he was working for the railroad, and he worked at night. And back then I worked in the tax collector’s office, because they hired me because I was a fast typist. And I did all the—typed up all the tag numbers and who they belonged to. So then, when all the tax bills were written out—handwritten—the legal descriptions, the whole nine yards was handwritten.</p> <p class="Body">So up when it was time to do like tags for Chase &amp; Company—which they would have hundreds, because those little trucks that go back and forth across the highway, they have to have a special tag that they cross the highway. And we would have boxes full of Chase &amp; Company things, and we did them at night. So we’d go back and we’d type all those and wait ‘til about 10 o’clock, and then I’d go home. And we had to write out all the tax bills.</p> <p class="Body">And for the big companies—when I went to work in the courthouse in 1953, I was, uh—the big books, that had all the tax rolls in them, had Sanlando Springs. They were valued on the tax roll, I will say that. You could—on a tax roll, they were valued at $10 a lot. Why I didn’t buy out there for those lots, or well, uh—Sanlando Springs was a beautiful place to swim when we were growing up and going there. You could go in and they had this wonderful place to swim and you had picnics, and everything for years. And then when it started growing up, the whole place is businesses, and restaurants, and mortgage companies, you know, it’s just solid. And if you get there under I[nterstate]-4 now, prepare to tear out your hair, because traffic is horrendous. [<em>laughs</em>] But back then, that was just uh, right up the road.</p> <p class="Body">But I worked until we paid my daddy off for the furniture we bought for our house, because we bought a house before we got married, and then we came back home and signed the papers on it that we, you know—so it would be in both our names. So it was all furnished and all before we got married, and I worked at the courthouse until about the late part of ’56. And my husband said, “One of us has got to raise the boys, and the other one has got to make a living, and I think I can do better than you.” Well, I knew that he could make better money than I was, because I wasn’t making but $25 a week. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>So I went home and stayed home, and in about 18 months, or two years, we had a daughter. So I was very busy being a mother and a wife, and doing a lot of church work. I’ve been a member of First Baptist Church of Sanford since 1947. I’m still there, and I’ve done a little bit of everything there.</p> <p class="Body">But, um, you know, back before [Walt] Disney [World], it was just a whole different thing. When my daughter was in high school, somebody told her that she could—if she was cute she could get a job at Walt Disney World, on the main gate of the Magic Kingdom. So she went down there and applied with a bunch of girls, and she worked there all through high school, and all through college, on every, uh—summers, Christmas, anytime they were off for any period of time, she worked down there. So we got in free, which was wonderful. And we got to see, you know, the Main Street Parade, when the fireworks went off for the Fourth of July, all of that stuff. And, you know, they drove back and forth. I know very few people that work at Disney World anymore, because of the traffic between the two places. It’s just not happening. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">But, um, I worked at the, um—I went back and forth to the courthouse. Shortly after—before, I had my daughter, they called me in and said they were going to go to—I can’t remember what it was—but what they said we had to do was type the entire tax roll into a metal plate, that they were going to print off this metal plate. And they were going to print tax rolls. So we had to do the legal, the name of who owned it, and all this, on, uh—and we were in the—this was the old courthouse. We were in the basement, and this thing, I mean—you know what metal cutting into metal would be. “Whoom whoom whoom.”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook <br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] It was really crazy. But, um, I remember Dottie Anthony—who was Dottie von Turbulis[sp] at that time. And she and I spent several—about a month or two working down there. Every time they had something that they needed, they’d call me in. And for years a friend of mine, Louise Austin, and I would go back and we would work when, um—there were twin sisters in one office, and when they left, they had to have somebody cover for them in the clerk’s office. And I worked down there many, many summers until they went to computers. And then I knew nothing about computers, and it was fast. And the [Seminole] County, by then, was growing so fast, they had, uh, you know—two people being out, it was nothing.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, I understand.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>You know, they, uh—but back when you do it all by hand, it was, it really was something. But, um…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>So these were all jobs after you were married? And you would stay home with the children, but they would call you in occasionally for help?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Right. Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook <br /></strong>Yeah, I’ve even—they’ve called and said, “Will you come in and do the docket for us?” I would, you know, go in at one o’clock, sit down and type for four hours, and get up and leave. And they offered me a job and said I could come when I wanted to and leave when I wanted to, if I would just do it. So I told my husband about it, and he didn’t say much. So the first day I left him at home, I told him, “Now, the boys have homework. They need to do the homework. And they need to do it.” Well, he didn’t do anything. And I said, “I don’t know how you could expect me to work if you’re not going to help me.” He said, “I did not ask you to go to work.” He didn’t want me to go to work. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">But, uh, and then I did many, many years of, uh, when the voting—I was clerk of one of the precincts, the court, the [Sanford] Civic Center. I was down there first as just a helper, and then I was the clerk for a number of years. And that was, it was always a lot of fun, because you got to see everybody in that whole precinct. But by the time I was in my seventies, getting up at 4:30 and working until seven o’clock that night lost a lot of its luster. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, I can imagine.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook <br /></strong>But the last election, we did early voting out at the office there on the airport. And I said to the gal—she was, you know, telling—complaining about it. And I said, “I used to work the elections.” “Would you like to work now?” And I said, “No, thank you.” [<em>laughs</em>] But, um, let’s see now who we—well, I’ve covered my job, and my family, and, uh…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, how about your husband’s job? What kind of work did he do?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Railroad. We didn’t cover the railroad. Uh, he was working for the railroad when I started dating him. And he had—they would call me and say—he’d be off on a run and they would call me and say, “He’s going to have to go straight through to Tampa. Will you have a set of clean clothes and something for him to eat when he comes through?” So you go out, and the train comes in, and you hand him this, and hand him that, and off he goes. And then we had been on train trips where the railroad would do a lot for their employees. And one time they took us all the way on the train to Rainbow Springs, over in—up around the Gainesville area. A day trip. And out to, uh, there was another springs that we went to one time. But, um, it worked a lot better that, you know, that I was at home and him working at night. Because in the beginning, you know, if you’re starting at the bottom, you work whatever. But like he says, they always were on time paying you, and you never had to worry about the check not being any good. It was a busy thing. And not everybody can live railroading. That is a whole different lifestyle, because they are gone probably 75 percent of the time. And you never know day, or if they work the extra board, you don’t know day or night, where they’re going. When the telephone rings, that’s when you go to work. And I know, I guess about the worst thing that ever happened to him on the railroad, was, um, he came home one morning, and he was pretty shook up. And we were eating breakfast, and he told the kids that he had ran over a little girl that ran in front of the train.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, no.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook <br /></strong>And, uh, he had about three different people, that, uh—he was coming out of Tampa one time, and a lady looked up at him and walked right in front of the train. And then, of course they put on emergency brake, you know, you can’t stop a train on a dime.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>I mean, if you get stopped in a mile, you’re doing good[sic], and that’s with air brakes and the whole business. And he said the woman came up and asked, he said, “What happened?” And he said, “Well, there was a young lady stepped in front of me just as I got to her.” And he said she said, “What was she wearing?” And Walter told her, and she said, “That was my daughter.”  And, uh, he had about three of those, and they always—I mean, it’s hard.</p> <p class="Body">It happened to my son, too. When my oldest son, David, became old enough, he worked at the store for my daddy and all of us. And he went out to SCC [Seminole Community College], but he was not a student at all. He wouldn’t even let us pay for his books or anything, he said because, “If I don’t do good[sic], then you won’t say, ‘Well, I paid for all this.’” He said, “I paid for it myself.” [<em>laughs</em>] So every Wednesday when he got off, he would go to the railroad and ask them about a job, and this went on for quite some time, but he got a job and went to Jacksonville. So that happened to him. But when you work on the railroad, that it was one of the things. People, cars, things run out in front of you and there’s no way to stop. And you just never know. But it’s a well-paying job, and the benefits were great, and we just adjusted.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>We just adjusted to the whole thing, and didn’t have any problem. And then when, right before he retired, we, on our 40th wedding anniversary, we took a train from Sanford to Los Angeles[, California], and then we rented a car and went up to Portland, Oregon. And we went space available, which is like half-price if you’re on another railroad. And we stayed there a couple or three days. Portland is a wonderful city to visit. And he got up about three o’clock in the morning, and he said, “I’m going to call and see what they can do about getting us going home.” And he came back in a few minutes, and he said there’s a young lady, she says, “I can get you home, not the way want to go, but I can get you back home.” And he says, “All right, we’ll take it.” And she said, “It’ll take five days.” [<em>laughs</em>] And we had to go back to L.A., and up to Chicago[, Illinois], and over to Philadelphia[, Pennsylvania], to Richmond[, Virginia] to Sanford. [<em>laughs</em>] But we had bedrooms all the way, so that was not too bad.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>But the clothes that I wore on that trip—I don’t think I ever had on again. I was so tired of them. Oh, let’s stop a minute.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Sure thing, ma’am.  Ma’am, would you tell us a little more about your family? I know you mentioned your son in the railroad business briefly.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Uh, well, there was my husband Walter, and we had the three children. David was born in ’51, and Dan in ’53, and Sherry [Cook] in ’58. And now we have 10 grandchildren, and we have seven great-grandchildren. And just this past spring, in less than two months, we had three little girls born.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Triplets?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>No. It seems that all of these children had finished college, gotten married, and they were all fairly close between the families, so all of them started having babies all at one time. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>So we had four, and then all of a sudden three more. So we don’t have anything to even think about right now. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Rushed up [inaudible] a horde of great-grandchildren.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Yes. So that has kept us very, very busy. My husband has been retired 16 years. And up until a few years ago, we spent part of every summer in North Carolina. And then we thought, after a while, that we had—well, when we first started going up, you know, there were a lot of people from Sanford, and we had our own little Sanford in North Carolina. And we would spend the summer up there and do all sorts of things, and then, you know, they had to move back home. They might have died, went somewhere else, and all of a sudden none of those people are up there anymore. So it has made a difference.</p> <p class="Body">But my oldest son David lives in The Villages, and that’s a very busy lifestyle and a whole lot of different way of living. Everybody travels in their golf cart, and if you want to be busy, there are a gillion[sic] things you can do. My son Dan died nine years ago, and my daughter Sherry lives in Carey, North Carolina. She works for the State of North Carolina. She spent nine years in the Marine Corps, and in that time married a Marine.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay. She was in the Marines, then.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Yep. And she says, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” So she and her husband have four children, and David and his wife had four children, and Dan and his wife had two. So that was our 10 grandchildren, and trying to keep up with all of them wasn’t a problem when I was younger, and the older I get, the harder that is to do.</p> <p class="Body">And back in 2001, I—well, let me go back. Back in ’96, I had a total knee replacement. When I woke up, they told me I had a blip in my blood protein that had to be investigated. Well, I had no idea what a blip in my blood protein could mean to me. So finally, I said, “Well, what do I have to do?” “Well, we’re going to X-ray every bone in your body, and if you have holes in them, we will start treatment today.” I thought, “Wow.” Well, I had the X-ray, and there were no holes in my bones, so they said, “Now you have to have a bone marrow transplant.” No, not—bone marrow biopsy. And if it is clear, you just need to have your blood checked every six months.” Well, I had the biopsy, and I had my bones checked every six months. And they did the blood work, and every time, they said, “If you don’t hear from us, we’ll see you in six months.” This went on for five years. At the end of the fifth year in 2001, they called me back, and they said that they needed to do some testing. And after about the third test, I said, “Is it cancer?” And he said, “Without a doubt.”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>What type of cancer was it, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Multiple myeloma, which is a blood-borne cancer. But if it is let go, it causes the bones to crumble. And so they told me that if you did not treat it, or if it was not diagnosed and, you know, nothing—you had no symptoms or you didn’t go to the doctor for years, you could be walking along and you could break your arm, your leg, your neck, back, whatever. So they told me that I was very fortunate that I had been checked for five years, and so mine had just become to the point where I had to have, uh—take care of it. So I started on the chemo[therapy]. And I lost all my hair, which is always a big shock to women. But, uh, anyway—and then some of the medicines they gave me, years down the road, after you’d been taking them a while—four years—I discovered that one of the medicines had destroyed my jawbone. So I had went to a doctor in Miami. He was the only one in the world—he found out about it, he worked on it. He went in the lab and did the pharmacology and all. And last October, I have a titanium jawbone from my ear to the middle of my chin.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Titanium?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>Titanium.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Chewing will never be a problem for you, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook <br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] No. So, I’ve been in remission now about four years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>And, uh, there’s no cure for multiple myeloma, but I’ll take remission. [<em>laughs</em>] And that’s where my energy went. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh. Dealing with all the grandchildren got a little hard after that?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>It got really difficult. So I wrote them a real sweet letter last year, and told them that I loved them all, that I would love to have them visit and all that, but I was going to, uh, I said, at Christmastime, I’ll always do the same thing. But all these birthdays and all, when you’re married, you know—we went from 10 to almost 20 real quick. And then they started having children. So I said, “I’m doing the great-grand[kid]s.” I will do those. And so far, none of them have complained.</p> <p class="Body">But, yeah, I kept asking the nurses when I was first diagnosed, oncology nurses, I said, “When will I get my energy back?” They said, “Some time you never do.” But I have been very blessed, because when I got on the computer and looked at what multiple myeloma was in 2001, I did not expect to be here. So I am very blessed.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Congratulations, ma’am.<strong>  </strong></p> <p class="Body"><strong>Cook<br /></strong>And, so our family has grown. And Sanford has grown like you wouldn’t believe. And in every community—all the places where the mall is—was all agriculture. And, used to, you would go for miles and miles between Orlando and Sanford and see nothing. And now there’s not as bare space between the two. [<em>laughs</em>] So there has been a lot of change, not all of it for the better, but there’s a lot of blessings too. And I thank you. That was it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>All right. Thank you very much, ma’am. </p> 1st Street Anthony, Dottie Von Turbulis artesian wells Austin, Louise bookkeepers cancers Carey, North Carolina Celery Avenue Chase & Company Columbus, Georgia Cook, Arthurene Wilson Cook, Sherry Cook, Walter courthouses divorces Downtown Sanford drafts elections Family Loan Company First Baptist Church of Sanford First Street Florida Fashions French Avenue Great Depression Historical Society of Central Florida hurricanes Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Longwood Magic Kingdom Maitland Morris, Joseph multiple myeloma Museum of Seminole County History Orange Avenue orlando Pearl Harbor, Hawaii railroads railways Sanford Sanford Civic Center Sanford, North Carolina Sanlando Springs Seminole High School SR 46 tax collectors Ted Davis Furniture Company The Villages trains Von Turbulis, Dottie voting Walt Disney World Wilson-Maier Furniture Company Wilson, Arthurene World War II WWII Wynwood, 25th Street https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/e8a26e74724981cfa15583e0812b03ec.mp3 19a079928d14ad551d93167f12df0077 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/a54351957504fd4193ab5d7421ba1114.pdf 79e25fd5559a428ff09744265f759e0a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Dobson, Alexandra Interviewee Blackwood, Bernie Location <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida Original Format 1 audio recording Duration 30 minutes and 21 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 128kbps 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 Bernie Blackwood Alternative Title Oral History, Blackwood Subject Oviedo (Fla.) St. Petersburg (Fla.) Real estate--United States City planning--Florida Construction Description An oral history interview of Bernard O. Blackwood, conducted by Alexandra Dobson on March 19, 2015. Blackwood was born on April 9, 1933, and attended the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, Florida. After graduating from college, Blackwood migrated to St. Petersburg with his wife, Suzanne A. Blackwood, to work as a city planner. In the 1970s, the couple moved to Oviedo with their children. There, Blackwood helped plan several residential subdivisions alongside Ben Ward, Jr. Interview topics include land development, the effects of Florida Technological University (present-day University of Central Florida), Blackwood's wife and children, Ben Ward's contributions to the community, desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement in St. Petersburg, and his career as a city planner. Table Of Contents <br />0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:01:48 Land development <br />0:04:07 Florida Technological University and the Oviedo Land Group <br />0:07:51 Migration to Oviedo and working with Ben Ward, Jr. <br />0:13:30 Wife and children <br />0:14:29 Population growth and Florida Technological University <br />0:18:39 Ben Ward’s contributions to the community <br />0:19:24 Blackwood Construction Corporation and Lutheran Haven <br />0:20:25 Schools and desegregation in St. Petersburg <br />0:21:57 St. Petersburg and career as a city planner Abstract Oral history interview of Bernard “Bernie” O. Blackwood. Interview conducted by Alexandra Dobson at Blackwood's home in Mead Manor in Oviedo, Florida, on March 19, 2015. Type Sound Source Blackwood, Bernie Interviewed by Alexandra Dobson, March 19, 2015. Audio record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, History Harvest Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 20-page digital transcript of original 30-minute and 21-second oral history: Blackwood, Bernie Interviewed by Alexandra Dobson, March 19, 2015. Audio record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Mead Manor, Oviedo, Florida St. Petersburg, Florida Creator Blackwood, Bernie Dobson, Alexandra Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2015-03-19 Date Modified 2016-01-05 Date Copyrighted 2015-03-19 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 27.7 MB 198 KB Medium 30-minute and 21-second audio recording 20-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Bernard “Bernie” O. Blackwood and Alexandra Dobson, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/5278" target="_blank">Mead Manor Brings New Lifestyle to Oviedo</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/5278. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Transcript <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>This is an oral history interview of Bernie<a title="">[1]</a> [O.] Blackwood. Interview is conducted by Alexandra Dobson at the Blackwood home in Oviedo, Florida, on the 19^th of March, 2015. Inter—interview topics include Oviedo, Mead Manor, and that’s it.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, my name’s Bernie Blackwood, and my association with Oviedo began in the early [19]50s. I was a student at Gainesville,<a title="">[2]</a> and I had a roommate named Bob Ward, who was a native of Oviedo, and I came to Oviedo on occasions on weekend with Bob, and got to know a little bit about the area. It was so different from my, uh, little home town in North Florida. I saw orange groves and celery fields and stuff, to—tobacco fields, uh—shade[?] tobacco fields it was up there, but, um, when I finished at Gainesville, I went right to work. I had a job waiting in Saint Petersburg[, Florida], and, uh, Bob and I kept in contact over the years, and through Bob I had met his brother, Ben Ward—Ben Ward, Jr., and, uh, we’d been in St. Pete four or five years. I—I guess it was around 1963 when Ben called me—Ben Ward, Bob’s brother—and said he was developing a subdivision. He and a group of, uh, investors and businesspeople here in O—Oviedo were developing a subdivision, and they had started, but they’d ran into a few troubles, and he knew I—through Bob—knew had a little—had—I had a little experience in land planning.</p> <p>So he asked me if I’d come up, take a look at what he had, and I was glad to do it, because it gave me a chance to visit Bob, and Ben brought me out. it’s a 40-acre site in— northeast, uh, Oviedo—beautiful piece of land—and made it clear to me to—to begin with they wanted large lots, nice home sites, and the group of, uh, investors and businesspeople, who, uh, put their money up for this project, wanted the same thing. They wanted to grow Oviedo and they knew there was nothing in Oviedo, at that time. No lots available, really. I don’t think there’d been any residential lots added in Oviedo since probably the early 1900s, and—so I went to work on the plan, and, uh, came up with something that they agreed with.</p> <p>Oh, I’m getting a little ahead of myself maybe, because they had actually started—they had, uh, put the group together, and they had paved a little section of Mead Drive, which is the entrance off of Division Street into Mead Manor, at that time, Three or four hundred—two or three hundred feet, I’d say, and then it made a right turn into a little cul-de-sac, and they had, uh—[<em>laughs</em>] they didn’t know quite where to go from there, because they had three—three swampy areas—little ponds in the 40 acres. So we developed a plan, uh, around those ponds, uh, with nice size lots and streets running around, and, uh, they approved the plan and, [<em>clears throat</em>] I came up one weekend—one Saturday with an engineer friend of my from St. Pete, and, uh, the streets had been, uh, cleared, and we shot grades, went back to St. Pete, and did a cut-and-fill plan, and presented that to the group, and they went from there and started developing the subdivision.</p> <p>And the—they paved the streets, they put in paved streets with gutters, and they had a water system in Oviedo at that time, so it was on a water system, and the, uh, next, uh—next thing we knew, uh—I should say that before they started this project, there was no kno—knowledge of FTU<a title="">[4]</a> locating five miles south of Oviedo. It, eh—I asked Ben later, and he said “No,” uh, “We didn’t know it,” and I thought they were crazy, at the time, for—for footing this kind of subdivision and—and—[<em>laughs</em>] out in Oviedo with just a little crossroads farm community, and I didn’t know where the people were going to come from, and Ben said, “Oh, they’ll come.” He was an eternal optimist, and the next thing I knew, I read—read in <em>The St. Pete</em>[<em>rsburg</em>]<em> Times</em> where FTU was locating five miles south of Oviedo. So I began to be a little more interested in what was going on, and they began selling the lots. First lot they sold in here—or maybe the second one—uh, I know it was the first person from the university—was a man named Phil Gorey[sp] and he was a, um—one of the administrative people under Millican—Dr. [Charles Norman] Millican, and the, uh—the subdivision took off rather slowly, but they were selling lots. A lot across the street there was, uh—was, uh, [Joe] Gomez, uh…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>He was a professor out there.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah, What’s the first, uh…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Joe.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Joe.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Joe. Yeah, Joe Gomez. He was a comptroller out at the university, and, uh, there were three or four, five, six—I mean, there half a dozen, at least, uh, different professors that started buying lots out, and some of them still here, like me [<em>laughs</em>]. I’m not a professor [<em>laughs</em>], um, and as the lots started selling, the land group—Oviedo Land Group was the name of the, uh—of the, corpora—or the company that Ben Ward put together, and the investors in it—I could—I can recall most of ‘em, I think. There was, uh, Frank Wheeler, John Evans, uh, I think Mr. Roy Clonts, probably, um…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Beleren[sp]?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Who?</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Bob[?] Beleren? Was he one of ‘em?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>No, no, not, uh, not, uh…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Uh, uh…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Martin?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Bill…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Bill…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Martin?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah, Bill Martin and John Evans. I might have…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Said him before, but anyway, it was a group of local businessmen and there were five or six of ‘em. I met with them a couple times, and, uh, didn’t really know them at—at all. I have since gotten to know them all, one time or another, and, uh—so they decided to buy another 40 acres just, uh, to the north of the first unit, and, uh I—again, I did a layout for them, and Ben developed it, and so it made a total of 80 acres here in Oviedo, and I—I’d be glad to drive you around and show you if you’d like to see it. Some of the developers’ve[sic] been dead, but during this time, Ben was still planning ahead and the next thing—he had a project. Another, uh—I think it was another 40 acres, and—and they—we worked up a subdivision for him on that—a layout, and it’s called [inaudible] Garden Grove. It’s right near here.</p> <p>And, [<em>clears throat</em>] by that time, Ben, eh—he was originally—he had an insurance business, and, uh, uh—and a real estate brokerage business, and he was getting interested into building and construction. He said, “I’ve got all these lots. I might as well build some houses.” So he offered—gave me—he said, “Why don’t you come up and join me, and we’ll form a corporation and build—build a few houses,” and the idea appealed to me, but leaving my secure place in St. Pete—position I had and so forth—uh, it took a lot of soul searching, and I guess it—I probably thought about it for two or three years ‘fore—and, in the meantime, Ben and I were still working together on—on the projects up here, and, uh, I finally made the decision. <em>I’ve gotta do it. I want to do it. </em>I’d always been interested in construction and had some experience in that, and my[?]—my family wasn’t too eager about it at first.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>The kids—I had a, uh, son<a title="">[5]</a> that was in the third grade and going—would be going into the fourth grade, and a daughter in the sixth grade, I believe, but they finally came around, and we moved up here, uh, second day of September, 1972. Went to work about the very next day and…</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>The kids start…</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>The kids started school the very next day after we got here, I think, and my family adjusted. They just loved Oviedo, and Sue<a title="">[6]</a> was a city girl. Sue was from Jacksonville.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And she didn’t think she wanted to move to Oviedo from St. Petersburg. We all loved St. Petersburg. I did too, but, um, we found Oviedo to be—the people here were the most gracious, welcoming. we never felt like a stranger, and part of that maybe was, because I came here with Ben Ward, who—his dad was a celery grower, and, uh, had—had groves here in town, and Ben had some land, and—quite a bit of land in and around Oviedo, and, uh, so we—we went from there. We started building houses, and, uh, Ben and I were together, uh, for four years, I think, and his interests were—was on development—land development, and mine…</p> <p>[<em>phone beeps</em>]</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Was more in construction, and I didn’t have the deep pockets to go into land development [<em>laughs</em>], but Ben, uh—he had a vision for this—for this little town, and he—he wanted to—nothing but quality development, and he was the only one developing land in Oviedo, and he was always, I thought, a little ahead of the market, and it was, uh—it cost him financially, but he did it, and after we, uh—we split, we remained friends, and met on a weekly basis and compared what each of us was doin’, until he passed away in—I think he passed away in ‘99, and [<em>coughs</em>] I never—I feel he never deserved the credit he did—he deserved—for what he did for this little town, because you can look around he—he’s re—responsible for Mead Manor, Garden Grove, Whispering Oaks….</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Uh, Hill—Hillcrest, uh, Farms—I think was the name of it.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Uh, Windmilll…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Windmill Farms.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Farms.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Those were residential, uh, develops here.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>How about Oviedo Oaks?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>No, no, he didn’t—he didn’t develop that.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Uh, and he also started—he did some commer—a couple of commercial projects. one of ‘em was, uh, Westwood Square. It was a commercial/industrial, uh, zoning area, and, uh, it’s completely built out now. Uh, do you know where, uh, Toucan—what—no, it’s—what’s the Spanish…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Habanero’s [Mexican Grill].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Habanero’s.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>You know where that is?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>I drove by it.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>That was part of Westwood Square. All of those b—back in there was developed, and there was nothing out there at the time—nothing, and nothing between there and Oviedo [<em>laughs</em>], and…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>One little gas station.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah, the—the, uh, Tiger—Tiger Station.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>We called it, and, uh, then there’s another, uh, I believe it’s called Oviedo Office Park up to your—on [Florida State Road] 426 between Westwood Square and the city limits—what was the city limits then—or the high school, say—and it’s a very nice commercial development, and it had doctor’s offices, uh, and that—that type of commu—uh, development, and, like I say, we—we came here—we’ve been here for 43 years now, and I could never move Sue from—get her out of this house or out of this city.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>She loves it and the kids love it. My daughter lives in Tallahassee, and, uh, she—she’s down here quite often. My son works with me, or did work with me. He runs the business now. I’m just—I’m retired. I go in and aggravate him every day a little bit [<em>laughs</em>]. Uh, I don’t know. Do you have any questions from there? I’d be glad to drive you around a little Oviedo and show you some of these projects if you have the time…</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Or the inclination.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Sure, thank you.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Take her to, um, Whispering Oaks, ‘cuz that’s…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Really…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, they’re all nice.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Really, pretty, yes, Whispering Oaks has beautiful trees, but…</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Um…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Have I missed anything Sue?</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>I don’t’ think so. I think—I was amazed at how well you [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Covered everything.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, you know, that’s—that’s about it with, uh, my—my interests in Oviedo. It was…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>I…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Was primarily building. I built all these years and…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Do you know what the population was when we moved here?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>I should’ve…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Gone into that. It was about 2000, and, uh, it was about the same when I visited 10 years earlier. It hadn’t grown a bit. I don’t think it grew a bit from—I should’ve included this in it—from the ‘30s and on up to the ‘60s, and this development right here<a title="">[7]</a> was what started the growth in Oviedo, uh, after—after, um—no. I guess it was the edges[?] of [inaudible], uh, track builders started coming into Oviedo. The, uh, uh, Jacobs brothers owned two thousand acres of land where O—where Alafaya Woods is now and that area over there, uh—Twin Rivers and that area. They sold it to a group in Atlanta in the early [19]70s, and Bob pretty well fell out of construction for a while there, and nothin’, eh—I don’t know if that company went bankrupt or what, but they sold it to the Anden Group, and the Anden Group is a group that developed Alafaya Woods [<em>clears throat</em>], and it was a little bit, uh—it was, uh, a different type development than what Ben had been developing. I think he’d be surprised today if he knew how, um—he felt that—that Oviedo never had, uh—be, uh, anything but small, rural community [inaudible] with good home sites. ‘Course he knew, and I knew too, that when the university located there, sooner or later it was gonna affect Oviedo in a big way [<em>coughs</em>], and it did, but, uh…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Is—is Tom Phillips next door still teaching?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah, he’s a professor over—no. he’s not teaching, but he’s retired.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>He’s retired? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>That’s—that’s probably…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>We were surrounded by them.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah, when we first moved here, the—‘course, this was, you know—all the professors had kids and we had kids, and it’s, uh, changed a couple times since then. You’ve got, uh, uh, older families that moved out, newer families with kids that moved in, and, uh, and, uh, and we’ve stuck—stuck here [<em>laughs</em>] all those years, but, um, we’ve seen the growth in Oviedo from two thousand to…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>What? 35,000 now, probably.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Do you think it was just the university that did that, or…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Pretty…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Pretty much.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>It, uh—pretty much, I think. The [Central Florida] Research Park out there—and of course, it—it—Oviedo [<em>clears throat</em>]—it grew to be a—it had a very good school system.<a title="">[8]</a> I should’ve mentioned that. When—when we moved here, my son was going into the fourth grade, and we—he went to a school right across from where we lived, practically, in St Pete. He could walk to school, and they had gotten into the new, uh—let the kid reach his potential, don’t push him, don’t push him.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And…</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>I went and talked with the teacher about it, and—“Oh, Scott’s doin’ fine,” And it didn’t…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Seem to me that he was doin’ fine, and she said, “Oh, no, no. he’s fine.” Well, when we got here, he had teachers like Ms. [Margeurite] Partin.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Partin Elementary [School] was named after her, and she was a wonderful teacher.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And Ms. Gore, and s—same teachers that taught Ben Ward, and Bob Ward—that group. They were still there, and she went to work on Scott and brought him up to speed. He didn’t—he didn’t even know his multiplication tables, and [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Does now [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And all of the kids here did, but she—she put him to work on ‘em and you[?]—he learned real quick[sic], and caught up, and did alright, But it—it was just a great place to raise your kids, and, uh, I—I just can’t say enough about the—the town and about—about the guy that really got it goin’.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Ben Ward.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>I think so too.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>You get the chance to give him a plug—he’s long gone. his wife still lives here in Ovi—in, uh, Mead Manor, and his kids—he has one—one kid that lives in Tuscawilla and the rest of ‘em are scattered around.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Tuscawilla was not here at all when we moved here.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, it was too. It was one road…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Called Dyson Road<a title="">[9]</a> comin’ off of, uh, Tuskawilla Road—Dyson—and they had…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Dyson, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>They—they just started developing a few lots there. That’s a beautiful sub—one of my favorite subdivisions. The area is Tuscawilla.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Mm, what kinds of things has Blackwood Construction [Corporation] done?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>We did primarily single-family and, uh, small commercial. We did, uh, dental office for Bob Beleren over in Winter Springs[, Florida], and that sort of thing, but we built over 500—we’ve got—I think we got…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>563 [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, some of ‘em weren’t—some of ‘em in the recent years have just been small jobs…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>And Lutheran Haven. mention Lutheran Haven.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah, we did—we built most of Lutheran Haven projects out of, uh—duplexes.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>You’ve probably passed Lutheran Haven on your way in. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Could be…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>I’m not sure.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>I’m really not that familiar [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>It’s a big Lutheran church, and they—it has a retirement for us—little du—duplexes.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Its’ a…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Its’ a…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And a—and a, uh, nursing home now. Uh, we could even—if you’ve got time, I’ll drive you all over. show you—show you a little bit of Oviedo.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Okay [<em>laughs</em>], Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Don’t want to live here? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Yeah [<em>laughs</em>]. Um, I actually moved to Orlando from St. Pete for the same reasons.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Oh, my goodness.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>To get my son in a better school.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Aww.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Aw, really?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Yeah, I don’t…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Well, you know, we thought the schools there were just great, ‘til we moved here.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, I didn’t think they were great, because I didn’t think our—our boy was learning anything.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah, well…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And—and another thing, uh, we got caught up right in the Civil Rights [Movement]—we—you know where Bay Vista Elementary [School] is?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>We lived within a block of Bay Vista, at that time, and the kids walked to school, and it was a fairly new school then, and, uh, eh, I think, 11 or—yeah, she was in the fifth grade when all the civil rights—and they started bussing kids, and she got bussed to the school right in the middle of St.—black school in the middle of St. Pete.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>I don’t remember what the school was—the— the name of the school.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>I don’t remember.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>But [<em>laughs</em>] it—it, uh—it was only for that one year, and she got along fine.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah, she did.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>She didn’t have any problems, but…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>She—she made some good friends there.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>It just didn’t make sense to take kids that [<em>laughs</em>] could walk to school and pay a bus to drive them somewhere else.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] It was probably a good experience.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, you [inaudible]—how—how long did you live in St. Pete?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Uh, five or six years.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>You weren’t born there then?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>From when to when?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Uh, it was recent. I’ve been in Orlando for three years.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Three years?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Oh, well, you saw—you’ve seen the downtown area really change.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Yes, it has [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>We—we—I graduated on Saturday night, and we packed up everything, and we had. I met Sue at [the University of] Florida her—her senior year [<em>laughs</em>], and…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Just about.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And, uh, we packed up everything. We—we got married, uh, my last semester there. we got married, and she’d graduated the semester ‘fore I did. She’s smarter than I am.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And we moved to St. Pete on Sunday, and I started work Monday. I was, uh—I worked as a city planner for 14 years ‘fore I came here.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Wow. What kind of things did you do?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>What kind of work?</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, uh, we—are—are you—if you’re familiar with the parks system in Oviedo—just to give you an example—uh, in, uh, St. Pete, um—Southside Park—you know the 40-acre park down Lakewood Elementary [School]?</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>And all of that? That was a plan that we came up with. Oh, oh—we developed a five-year pl—plan. We had a great city manager named Lynn [H.] Andrews, from about the time I went there until he left in ‘69, and he had a—a capital improvement program—a five-year, capital improvement program, and every year, they would, uh, budget certain projects, and at the end of the year, you’d see if the money was spent right on those projects [inaudible]. He—he’d project the five years another year, but he adjusted every year during that five years, and, uh, he built the, uh—had the, uh—Bayfront Center was built, the museum downtown, the waterfront—the city park of the waterfront, Northeast Park, there was all developed while he was there. The pier—inverted pier—was built, and I was all part of all that, and it was just interesting and fun, until he left, and we got another manager, and I just did not enjoy working anymore.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>That’s how I happened to come here.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>I think that was the time to come here.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>What was civil rights like in St. Pete? What was your experience with it?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Well, uh, my main experience—it was no problem. 16^th Street was kind of, uh—they[?] had their riots and things during the time.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>They still do [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood</strong>     [<em>laughs</em>] And my main memory of it—and this was why Lynn Andrews left St. Petersburg. I’m sure. In ‘68 or ‘69 when they, um, allowed public employees to be unionized—the garbage department became unionized, and they went on strike one year, and Mr. Andrews, uh, negotiated with ‘em and got ‘em back—not a big break in service. The very next year, they went on strike again, and he—on Monday morning, they didn’t show up for work. the whole garbage department didn’t show up for work, and he gave them an ultimatum. He said that “Anyone that’s not back on the job by Thursday of this week will be permanently terminated—all benefits and everything.” Well, they—the union didn’t believe him, I guess, because a big percent—some did come back. Within a week he had completely re-staffed that from people from Georgia—different people looking for jobs. He completely re-staffed the garbage department, and a lot of employees lost their jobs, and from that point on, <em>The St. Pete Times</em> took up the position of the strikers. They marched on city hall every day, and he didn’t yield. It’s kinda like Ronald Reagan and, uh—and the, uh, uh, air [traffic] controller strike.  You’re probably too young to even remember that.  </p> <p><strong>All<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>But he did the same thing, and, um, from that day on, anything that, that Lynn Andrews did—and I was privy to what was going on there, he would be lambasted in <em>The St. Pete Times</em> for it, and after about, uh, a year of that he, uh—he went back to Tex—he came to St. Pete from San Antonio, Texas, as the city manager, and he went back as the city manager of, uh, Austin, Texas. When he came to St. Pete, he brought his finance director, um, his assistant city manager, and the budget director—was, uh—that group came. When he left, they all went with him, except one, and he left the city and went to work for First Federal [Bank of Florida].</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Wow, That’s impressive. Keeping your staff with you.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>And they were good, good men, weren’t they?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Good men, all of ‘em. yeah, Smart men. I often said. If he’d of run for president. I woulda…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>I woulda—he—he was firm, but he was fair, But, uh, no. We—we love St. Pete. We go back every now and then, when we get a chance. [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>How many people weren’t up there anymore?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Yeah, most of my old buddies are gone. [<em>laughs</em>]. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>It’s still a lovely place to visit.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Yeah, and the downtown is so—with the waterfront—is so nice now.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>You know, I went down for a job interview, and Sue went with me, and that was before we were married. I went—I got a summer job there, and, uh [<em>laughs</em>], we drove into St Pete from—came down 30—34th Street, turned left on Central [Avenue] and got downtown, and I—we—this was in April.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>We saw nothin’ but green benches and gray heads, and that’s quite a shock comin’ from Gainesville.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>From Gainesville, yeah, where everybody’s young to…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Where everybody’s young.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>To where everybody’s old.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] but it was a good place to live.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>It—yeah.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>It—it—it had something for everybody then, but the majority—I think 25 percent of the population then was 65 or older. It had, uh—I knew at the time, the population was 180 thousand when, uh, we moved there, and I think it was about 22 5[thousand] when we left. I don’t know what it is now, but it had pretty well built out. There wasn’t much developable land in St. Pete, other than up and around Whedon’s[sic] Island area.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>What part of St. Pete did you live in?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Um, I lived on First Avenue North and 25th Street. So…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>25th Street? [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Almost downtown.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Uh huh, al—yeah.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>We lived almost downtown when we first moved there.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>We had a little garage apartment, uh…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Right near the hos—near Mound[?] Park Hospital.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>No, no. our garage apartment was, uh, up on the Northside.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Oh, that one?</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>About 26th Avenue North, and then we—we bought a, um—an old, 50-year-old apartment building down on 11th Avenue South, and I could walk to work from there—to City Hall, and we—we moved in— fixed up one unit and moved in it, and as a tenant left, we’d remodel that tenant[sic]—that unit and fix it up. Made a nice place.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Was your son…</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Born there?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>Uh, he was born in Clearwater. I lived in Clearwater, Largo, Dunedin [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>You ever heard of Fred Marquis?</p> <p><strong>Dobson<br /></strong>I don’t think so.</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>He was county manager there in Pinellas County for 25 years, I guess. I think he set a record for it, but he…</p> <p><strong>Suzanne<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Blackwood<br /></strong>He—he was a planner, uh, with, uh—in St. Pete with me [<em>coughs</em>]. He came there right out of graduate school, and, uh, worked there, and we became good friends, but I hadn’t been in touch with him for years. Uh, he’s—he’s—he’s since retired.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Bernard.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> University of Florida.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Present-day University of Central Florida.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Florida Technological University.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Scott Blackwood.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Suzanne A. Blackwood.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> Mead Manor.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> Seminole County Public Schools (SCPS).</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[9]</a> Correction: Dyson Drive.</p> </div> </div> 11th Avenue 16th Street 1st Avenue 25th Street 34th Street Alafaya Woods Anden Group Bay Vista Elementary School Bayfront Center Ben Ward, Jr. Bernard O. Blackwood Bernie Blackwood Bill Martin Blackwood Construction Corporation Bob Beleren Bob Ward bussing Central Avenue Central Florida Research Park Charles N. Millican Charles Norman Millican city managers city planners civil rights Civil Rights Movement colleges construction demonstrations desegregation Division Street Downtown St. Petersburg Dyson Drive educators Eleventh Avenue First Avenue Florida State Road 426 Florida Technological University Frank Wheeler Fred Marquis FTU Garden Grove Gore Habanero's Mexican Grill integration Joe Gomez John Evans labor labor rights land development Lutheran Haven Lynn H. Andrews Marguerite Partin Mead Drive Mead Manor neighborhoods Northeast Park Oviedo Oviedo Land Group Oviedo Oaks Oviedo Office Park Partin Elementary School Phil Gorey Pinellas County professors protesters protests public employees race relations real estate residential developments riots Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan Roy Clontz Saint Petersburg school bus school buses schools Scott Blackwood SCPS Seminole County Public Schools Sixteenth Street Southside Park SR 426 St. Pete St. Petersburg strikers strikes subdivisions Sue Blackwood Suzanne A. Blackwood teachers The St. Petersburg Times Tiger Station Tom Phillips Tuscawilla Tuskawilla Road Twin Rivers UCF unionization unions universities university University of Central Florida Westwood Square Whispering Oaks Windmill Farms https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/41cdd26d528b13716bce4e196199673e.pdf ed9a10b71f3b016a2ce50866e72408fb 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 Sanford Collection Description The present-day Sanford area was originally inhabited by the Mayaca/Joroco natives by the time Europeans arrived. The tribe was decimated by war and disease by 1760 and was replaced by the Seminole Indians. In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain and Americans began to settled in the state. Camp Monroe was established in the mid-1830s to defend the area against Seminoles during the Seminole Wars. In 1836, the United States Army built a road (present-day Mellonville Avenue) to a location called "Camp Monroe," during the Second Seminole War. Following an attack on February 8, 1837, the camp was renamed "Fort Mellon," in honor of the battle's only American casualty, Captain Charles Mellon. The town of Mellonville was founded nearby in 1842 by Daniel Stewart. When Florida became a state three years later, Mellonville became the county seat for Orange County, which was originally a portion of Mosquito County. Citrus was the first cash crop in the area and the first fruit packing plant was constructed in 1869. In 1870, a lawyer from Connecticut by the name of Henry Shelton Sanford (1832-1891) purchased 12,548 acres of open land west of Mellonville. His vision was to make this new land a major port city, both railway and by water. Sitting on Lake Monroe, and the head of the St. Johns River, the City of Sanford earned the nickname of “The Gate City of South Florida.” Sanford became not only a transportation hub, but a leading citrus industry in Florida, and eventually globally. The Great Fire of 1887 devastated the city, which also suffered from a statewide epidemic of yellow fever the following year. The citrus industry flourished until the Great Freezes of 1894 and 1895, causing planters to begin growing celery in 1896 as an alternative. Celery replaced citrus as the city's cash crop and Sanford was nicknamed "Celery City." In 1913, Sanford became the county seat of Seminole County, once part of Orange County. Agriculture dominated the region until Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971, effectively shifting the Central Florida economy towards tourism and residential development. Alternative Title Sanford Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) 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> <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/" target="_blank">Sanford Historical Society, Inc.</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Is Part Of <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 Sanford, Florida Curator Marra, Katherine Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. <span>Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank"><em>A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</em></a></span><span>, 1975.</span> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Bette Skates Alternative Title Oral History, Skates Subject Sanford (Fla.) Teachers--Florida Education--Florida Churches--Florida Description An oal history of Bette Skates, conducted by Diana Dombrowski on July 9, 2010. As the historian of the Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Sanford, Florida, Skates discusses growing up in Sanford, how Sanford has changed over time, her educational and family history, her career as a teacher, school integration, the history and activities of the Holy Cross Episcopal Church, her role as church historian, how education has changed over time, ad Florida's Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:47 Growing up in Sanford<br />0:07:13 How Sanford has changed over time<br />0:08:47 Mother's beauty shop<br />0:11:05 Going to college, getting married, and raising a family<br />0:13:43 Career in education and school integration<br />0:20:03 Home and family<br />0:23:07 Church life<br />0:24:45 History of General Henry Shelton Sanford and the Holy Cross Episcopal Church<br />0:36:08 Trends in congregational membership<br />0:37:59 Church involvement in the Sanford community<br />0:42:08 Church memorials and artifacts<br />0:49:33 Role as church historian<br />0:52:40 How education has changed over time<br />0:56:59 Florida's Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT)<br />1:01:21 Historical events<br />1:04:51 Children<br />1:05:47 Schools that Skates taught at<br />1:09:01 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Bette Skates. Interview conducted by Diana Dombrowski 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>, Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Skates, Bette. Interviewed by Diana Dombrowski. July 9, 2010. <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 <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="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/43" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage St. Gertrude's Grove, Sanford Florida Montezuma Hotel, Sanford, Florida Stetson University, DeLand, Florida Geneva Elementary School, Geneva, Florida Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Sanford, Florida's. Gertrude's Grove, Sanford Florida Belair Grove, Lake Mary, Florida Creator Skates, Bette Dombrowski, Diana Date Created 2010-07-09 Date Modified 2014-10-01 Date Copyrighted 2010-07-09 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 702 MB 263 KB Medium 1-hour, 9-minute and 34-second audio recording 27-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created Bette Skates and Diana Dombrowski. 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.sanfordholycrossepiscopal.com/about-us.html" target="_blank">Holy Cross Episcopal Church est. 1873</a>." Holy Cross Episcopal Church. http://www.sanfordholycrossepiscopal.com/about-us.html. Stinecipher, Grace Marie. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10878290" target="_blank"><em>A History of the First Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida, 1884-1984</em></a>. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1984. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/CHLpeA7LzOk" target="_blank">Oral History of Bette Skates</a> Transcript <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>This is an interview with Bette Skates, the church historian for Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Sanford. This interview is being conducted on July 8, 2010,<a title="">[1]</a> at the Museum of Seminole County History. Interviewer is Diana Dombrowsk<strong>i</strong>, representing the museum for the Historical Society of Central Florida.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Good.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I just have some basic questions first. Your name is Bette Skates, but where and when were you born?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I was born in Philadelphia[, Pennsylvania] in 1933.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, wow. What brought your family to Florida?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>My father’s ill health, which is what brings most people to Florida back in the day.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah. That’s true. When did you move here? Did you grow up in Central Florida?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I moved to Sanford in 1944.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, okay. What was it like? Could you describe it? Was it very big? Was it busy?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Sanford was a railroad town. And my father worked for the railroad—is the reason, besides the fact that his health was not good, and he needed to get out of the North. And he was a Georgia boy to begin with. So he wanted to come south. And so when he had this opportunity to work for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, at the freight station, he was very eager to accept the job. We came in on a train that they call the—well, there’s two of them. One was the Orange Blossom Special, and the other was the Champion. And this was the passenger train from the North—from Philadelphia and New York. All points north.</p> <p>When we came into the station, my mother had never—well, yes. Mother had been south before, but we hadn’t, as children—very young children. I was ten—nine or ten. And when we pulled into the station and got off the train, the humidity hit us like it was going to knock us out. And I said, “Oh. Let’s get back on the train.”[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>And that was before air—trains were air-conditioned too, but—but it was still cooler on the train.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So my dad said, you know, “This is nothing. This is fine. This feels wonderful. Get used to it.”</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>]And my mother—she’s just kind of being quiet and fanning herself. We had this—it—it was the old station that was on—on Ninth Street, and they’ve since torn it down.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>On Ninth and, uh—well, it was just Ninth Street. I guess there was side street, but I don’t recall. right off of French Avenue. Because then the tracks still all—we still had tracks running all over downtown.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Hmm.</p> <p><strong>Skates <br /></strong>They’re—they’re not there now, because back in the day, when trains first came in—all of the wharves and the produce—everything came in to downtown to the river. So, um, we had—let me get back to my story. So we got off the train and my sister and I—and she was a year younger than I am—and we both started—“Something smells funny. What is it?” My dad said, “Oh, that’s sulfur water! Oh, come over here, girls!” He says. “Come over here!” And here’s a water fountain, right up against the train station. I think it was a brick train station. Right there, it’s all green inside, where the water is coming out. And we’re looking at this saying, “Oh, this smells so bad!” You know. We’re holding our noses, and he’s getting very annoyed with us. “Take a taste of that water. That’s healthy water. That’s better than drinking that Schuylkill River water you’ve been drinking in Philadelphia.” Of course, my mother is being as she always is—long-suffering. And she said, “Well, they can taste it if they want to.” We tasted it and we almost gagged! Sulfur water—the first time you ever taste it, is horrible. You do get used to it. And you do realize that it is healthy.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But, it’s all the water fountains in the city. And there were water fountains in the parks, and there was one in front of the [First] Baptist Church [of Sanford], and different places. They were all over town. And they were all sulfur water.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Skates <br /></strong>So you did get used to it.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh my goodness. So was the smell everywhere too?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Everywhere. Sulfur smells like rotten eggs.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>It does. Yeah. I remember we went to the [Ponce de Leon’s] Fountain of Youth [Archaeological Park] and they were giving it out, you know.</p> <p><strong>Skate<br /></strong>Yes, yes. But it’s supposed to be good for you. So, we got off the train there. And we—I think we took a cab, because we didn’t have a car at that time. And we went to an apartment my father had rented. And I guess I need to say this too, because these are the things that people that haven’t lived here don’t understand or can’t get used to. When we got to the apartment—we had an upstairs apartment. A lovely old two-story house in Sanford just two blocks from where I live now, by the way. And the whole upstairs—this was during the war—and every house in Sanford had been made into apartments and efficiencies, because the Navy base<a title="">[2]</a> was here, and housing was a premium.</p> <p>As we started to go up the stairs, and on the porch was a burlap sack that had something in it. My dad said to me, “Bette, grab that bag and bring it upstairs.” We had our suitcase and everything. I went to pick up the bag, and roaches came out of the bag. They were flying roaches and they were flying all over. I don’t know how many. It might have been two, but it seemed like a hundred. Of course, I dropped it and screamed and had a hissy fit, a good Southern expression. Someone had left a bag of oranges there for us. And, so roaches, of course—so that was my introduction to Sanford.</p> <p>The apartment was lovely and it was cool with oak trees. Of course, I found out that oak trees breed roaches too, so we had roaches flying in the windows and things like that. Yeah, like the water, and the humidity—you try to get used to it. I don’t think I ever got used to the roaches. But that was my introduction to Sanford.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>How long did you live in the apartment?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>We lived there for four years, and then my mom bought a house. And my father was ill. I mean, he was very ill, and he knew he was dying. My mother opened a beauty shop downtown, just in 1956, because she knew that she was going to have to support the family. He died in ’56. So she had her beauty shop for 25-30 years in Downtown Sanford.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>That’s really nice.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>She’s the one that could tell the stories [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay [<em>laughs</em>].How has Sanford changed when you were growing up there? It was a big railroad town, and your mother, it seems, was there for a very long time. Did you see it get busier? Or develop more?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yes, development. The stores that I remember, as growing up, are—I was trying to think if there are any that are still downtown. But, coming from a big city, it was very nice that we could walk everywhere. Ride bicycles.</p> <p>We went to school at the grammar school and then at Seminole High School, which was just up not too far from my house. I mean, everything was convenient. It was very nice. It was a good, homey feeling, and everybody was friendly. It was a very nice place to grow up, I think. And the schools—my father did not think much of the schools, but then again, in the South, schools hadn’t really caught up by that time. It took quite a few years for them to catch up to what we had been used to. But it, you know, was a nice place to grow up. Very nice.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>That’s—that’s nice [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>What was it like for your mother to set up the beauty shop? Was it very difficult? Or…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It was very difficult. My grandparents—her mother and father—had lived in Philadelphia. And they had, um—they sold their property up there and came down, just after my dad died, to live with my mother. I know—to help her. We didn’t realize it, at the time, but, um—and they helped her with finances for the beauty shop</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So that was—it was very nice. And they lived with us actually, until they both died. They lived with my mother. Um, So that was, um—that was the way she could do what she did. The beauty shop was, um—what—what she would charge for what—for the work she did—I wish I had a price list. But I remember one time, she said something about a dollar and quarter for a manicure. We all said, “Is that all?” She said, “If I had charged a dollar and a half, they wouldn’t come back.”</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, wow.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So, I mean, the prices were—were—were really…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Different.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Different.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. But it was her—her hopes[?]—her beauty shop was in the Montezuma Hotel, which that building has burned down since…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Then. It was a big hotel that was built here in the 1880s.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Hmm.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It was about four blocks from the river, and People would get off the steam ships and walk up the little hill and—to the hotel. It was called the “Bye Lo Hotel,” at the time—I mean, at that time. It was later changed to the Montezuma. But it was—when Mother had the beauty shop there, it was a little spooky</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Really?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It was old, you know?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>And—and there’s a lot of people who still lived there. But, uh, it burned down a few years ago. [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Hmm.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>About 12 years ago, I guess. So, uh, that was—that was a loss, but it was the first hotel in Sanford that had a swimming pool. Maybe the only…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, wow.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>One. It was in the basement…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Of the hotel.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>That would be cool.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So that was neat. Later, they, uh, put a furnace in the swimming pool and didn’t use that anymore. I never saw the swimming pool with water in it.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I did see it with a furnace in it.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But, uh, um…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Um, Where did you go to school? Did you go to college?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I did. I went to Stetson University, um…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I started at Stetson in 19well, let’s see. I was going to OJC—Orlando—it was Orlando Junior College. I went there for a while, and then I went to Stetson. It took me—I—I figured this out one time, but I don’t remember. Let’s see. 70—It took me about—I hate to say too much, because I—I—it took me a long time to graduate. I got married when I was 18.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I went to college, and I spent three months at Middle Georgia College, up in, uh, Cochran, Georgia. My cousins, uh—my dad’s sister wanted their daughter to go, and she wouldn’t go. She was homesick. And they said, “Well, if Bette would come and go with her, she would go.” So I went there, and I spent three months. Had a wonderful time. Made the Dean’s List. Was just doing fine, except I had a boyfriend, and I was in love</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Aww [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>]. And my moth—the woman’s—the—the—the boy’s mother kept saying, “Well, I was married when I was 18,” So I decided that it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me. So I married him. So…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I went to college in between having my children.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Every time I could get, uh—I could find some money, or get a loan, or—there—there were student loans—there were [Federal] Pell Grants we could get. They—Loans were much easier to get in those days, so I could get student loan. So I would go to school for a while and then I would get pregnant again. And then I’d…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Go to school for a while and then I would get pregnant again.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>This went on until 1964—well, it—let’s see when. I don’t remember how many years. But I finally started teaching when I was—when it was, um—it was 1965, I think.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So it took me a long time to get certified to teach, but I did. And then I taught for 30 years in Seminole County.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. Which has been exciting.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>How many children did you have?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I have four children.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. So I was kind of spacing this. Finally—I might want to censor this—finally about 1968, my husband got tired of it. Anybody, I guess, could understand that. He said—he didn’t sign on for that. So that was alright. But we managed, very well, and thank goodness I had my education so I could support my family. So it was good.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>So you taught in the school system for 30 years. What was it like in the 60’s? What was integration like?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>My first 10 years, I taught out in Geneva [Elementary School].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, I like Geneva.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Oh, I love Geneva. I still hear from those kids. They’re great. Of course, they’re not kids. They’re grown. It was wonderful. It was probably the best teaching assignment you could have for a beginning teacher. Because by that time, I was 35 when I started teaching.</p> <p>I was trying to think of how to put this. The schools had not been integrated much at that time. I don’t remember the year that I had the first black student, but I had a sweet boy. Now I was teaching fifth grade. He had come up through the grades. There was only five grades—five classrooms—at Geneva.</p> <p>And the first year that I taught there, I taught in the auditorium, because there was no place. So what they did was take out the first couple rows of seats and let us set the classroom up right in front of the stage. Which was good until I got a couple of kids that were a little bit older than they should have been in fifth grade—a boy and a girl. And next thing I knew, they were behind the stage, and I had to go get them. They were good kids, and they really didn’t do anything bad, I don’t think. But I would have been in big trouble.</p> <p>But anyway, the first black child I had—I was going to say I’ll never forget his name, and I did. What a sweetheart he was [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But he was just testing. He was testing us, going to see if the system was going to work. He was a nice kid. Good parents. If I called his parents before he left school, by the time he got off the bus at home, they were back at the school to see what he had done or hadn’t done. Because he didn’t like to do homework and he didn’t like to do class work. Guess he had just been allowed to get away with more than he should have. But he wasn’t used to me. Anyway, he was a nice kid. Yeah, it was interesting, and the children we had at Geneva—the black and the white children—were I think just the salt of the earth. I mean they were really good people. Parents were country folks, most of them at that time. Now, later on, when UCF [University of Central Florida] opened, we started getting a different group of children. Their parents were more educated. They were professors and people that worked at the college. And so by the time I left Geneva, it had changed a good bit.</p> <p>My two younger boys, I brought with me to Geneva, so I taught two of my own children in fifth grade. Which was—everybody says, “How is it working?” I said, “It works fine.” No problem. They were good kids to begin with. It worked out. It was fine. That was good too, because, that was, at the time, in Sanford. My two older children—there were a lot of problems at schools in Sanford, with the integration. They started busing—I don’t remember the year. When I was going to Geneva, my daughter was being bused to what used to be an all-black high school—Crooms High School—which they did just to integrate. And that was wrong. Because the kids—the black kids were not happy, the white kids were not happy. And the black teachers and the white teachers were all upset about it, but they were busing the kids across town. So I’m driving to Geneva ten miles away and my daughter is in a bus driving across the city, and I don’t know where she is and what’s happening. It was worrisome. But it all worked out. It just took time and a lot of patience on both sides. It should never have been separate to begin with, but we have to fix our mistakes.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>So tensions were high?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Very high.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Was it ever violent?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. There was violence. A lot of it was threatened. You know, just like, if you go down this street, we’re going to throw rocks at the bus and things like that. That was very worrisome. And my oldest son, when he was in ninth—and well, high school. It was ninth grade at Crooms. But when he was in ninth grade and tenth grade—all through school, he was a big boy, and had red hair. And it was a novelty. He got a lot of—he did his best to stay out of trouble, but trouble came to him. And of course, he tells me now he got blamed for a lot of things he didn’t do, but I’m not going to go there. You know how kids are. Anyway, he hung in there. His high school experiences were very bad. Very bad. Yeah. It was real sad. But my daughter didn’t seem to have the problems. She was also redheaded, but she seemed to go with the flow easier. He was a target. You know, a big guy. But he’s not a fighter. He didn’t want to fight, but anyway. We got through it [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Good [<em>laughs</em>].Did you all live in Sanford at the time? Did you drive to Geneva and back?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I drove to Geneva. Yeah. I bought the house that I’m still living in, in 1958.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. So I raised my family there. And just last couple years ago, we celebrated our 50^th—I said, I’ll never have a golden wedding anniversary—so we celebrated our golden anniversary living in the house. So the kids got together and each one did something. But anyway, they have a photograph of the house framed in a beautiful frame that my grandson found when he was working for the College Hunks Hauling Junk. He found a frame and on the bottom of it my daughter wrote in gold, “Thanks for the memories.” So it’s very nice. I have it hanging over the piano. It’s very nice.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>That’s wonderful. So it’s downtown?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yes. It’s downtown. If you go—First Street is the street where all the commerce is, where the business is. I live between Eleventh [Street] and Twelfth [Street] on Park Avenue. And Park Avenue’s the main street that goes down to the lakefront, and used to be [U.S. Route] 17-92 back in the day. That is where traffic went through the town. It’s in the historic district.</p> <p>The house was built in 1924. It’s probably more than anybody wants to know, but it’s called a “Craftsman Airplane Bungalow.” Because the upstairs is one room, and a bathroom, and it has 12 windows all the way around. So it looks like you’re looking out airplane windows. You’re not. They’re regular windows, but anyway, that’s what it’s called.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>That sounds really cool. I love Craftsman style.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yes. It’s really nice. I have pillars on that house that are real unique. They’re made out of coquina.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. My fireplace—the chimney is made out of coquina. And it’s much higher than the first floor. It goes up past the second floor, because the second floor is sitting kind of in the middle of the house. It’s really neat. You’ll have to come see me.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>This sounds like a real Florida house.</p> <p><strong>Skates             </strong>It is a real Florida house. Yeah. For a good many years we didn’t have air conditioning, so we had what they called an “attic fan” that’s up in the second floor attic. When you turn it on and you open a window in each room, one window—it sucks the cool night air in and keeps the house cool. Only it slams doors, you have to be real careful, because doors get sucked. You get slamming doors all day. But it was neat. I don’t remember being miserable.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Well, good.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I don’t remember being exactly hot. So it must have worked.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Were you a member of the church since you moved here?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>No. We were Lutheran when we first moved here. My sister and I had both been confirmed in the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia. And so I convinced my husband that he should join the Lutheran church, and so we went as a family until he left. And well, the kids were teenagers, and you know how hard it is to get teenagers to go to church. So I just decided that I had always loved the [Holy Cross] Episcopal Church, and I loved the architecture, and the history, and Jesus. I’m sorry, Jesus. I get carried away. But so we—my daughter and I, and my youngest son—all joined the Episcopal church. My two older sons were not interested. But they were grown by that time, and I didn’t feel like I could force them to do that. They had to want to do that. And I’m still a member.</p> <p>But how I got the job as historian, I made the mistake of correcting someone. You know how when someone says, “Oh, it was 1873—2, or something?” I said, “No. it was ’73.” “We need a historian. You’re—you’re it. You’re going to do it.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I said, <em>Oh, my gosh. I should keep my mouth shut</em>. [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But I love it. I’ve been doing this since, um, [20]04.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow. Okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. So the church, they said, had no written history. I’ve—I’ve found all kinds of stuff, so it’s—I’ve collected it. I’ve got it together. I write a news, uh, article each month for our church newsletter that goes out every month, telling, you know, whatever it is I found out recently about the church. And so it’s—it’s a good thing. I enjoy it.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Could you speak a little about the church? When it was founded, you know?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yes,. This was General [Henry Shelton] Sanford’s church. When General Sanford—Henry Sheldon Sanford—came to this area in 1870—probably 1870. It was after the Civil War, and he was trying, as a lot of—I don’t want to call them “carpetbaggers,” but some people do. A lot of people—wealthy northerners—came down and tried to make their fortune, or another fortune. He had been ambassador to Belgium. They called him a liaison. Liaison? That doesn’t sound right. Well, anyway, yeah. I guess he was. But he also was a spy for the Union Army during the war—the Civil War.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, my goodness.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>And he was traveling around going to different foreign capitals, trying to get some of those countries to send ammunition and guns to the North. So there’s a whole big story that I haven’t even started on of his spying for the North. But when he finished up with that job—I guess he retired from that job, because he was probably in his 50s then, I think. He married a beautiful lady. She was living in Belgium, but she was from the United States. The Sanford Museum has a huge, gorgeous painting of the home they lived in, in Belgium. It looks like a small—like maybe the Queen might have had that summer home, or something. It was beautiful. We have friends in Sanford that have visited that area and that house, and they’re using that house as a retreat for nuns now. Anyway, General Henry Sanford—he became a general, because he gave some cannons to the state of Minnesota, because he wanted a title. So the Governor of Minnesota [Alexander Ramsey] made him a general.</p> <p>So, anyway, let’s see. Let me get back to the church. So he bought a lot of land down on the lakefront. He was right for his time, that Sanford—and of course it wasn’t called Sanford in those days) —that this area, Mellonville, was going to be the “Gateway to South Florida.” Because all supplies—food, you know, everything that people need to start up a homestead—they would have to buy in Sanford. So he had a lumber mill. Somebody else had a grocery store. I mean they had all things people, you know, the pioneers, would need.</p> <p>He bought orange trees from all over, and he planted orange trees. One of his groves—his first grove [St. Gertrude’s Grove] —was downtown right on the lakefront where there’s apartment buildings and city hall and things there now. Citrus didn’t do too well there. The soil apparently wasn’t good enough, and so they moved out to what he called Belair [Grove], and that’s out towards Lake Mary, around the lakes. So, his Belair Groves[sic] were very profitable.</p> <p>About 1873, he decided that there needed to be a church. He and his wife, Gertrude [Dupuy Sanford]—now, Gertrude didn’t come here much, because this was not her cup of tea. And when you see pictures of her as a young girl, she’s absolutely beautiful. Beautiful clothes, and very high class. And they had about five children and they were all born in Europe. She didn’t come here often. But he planted Belair in orange and lemon trees. He had a grove manager whose name was Reverend Lyman Phelps. General Sanford was from Connecticut. And he convinced this Episcopal priest to come down to start a church. Well, he did, but he also made Lyman Phelps his agent and his farm grove manager, because the man had a background in botany too. The man was very, uh,—he was very versatile.</p> <p>When, um—when General Sanford—I call him “General Sanford”. A lot of people say he—he doesn’t deserve that title, but it just comes easy to me, for some reason. It—it denotes a lot of the things that he did, other than just being Henry Sanford. Um, so they started to build this church, and Mrs. Sanford wrote to all of her wealthy friends, and in her letters, she said, “Please, um, help us build our dear little church.” And that was her—the way she called it—their “dear little church” in San—in—in this city. Someone, finally, along the line—a friend of his daughter—[inaudible] said—said, “Well, we should call this city ‘Sanford,’ after you, Mr. Sanford.” And Mr. Sanford said, “Ha. What a good idea.”</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>]. And I don’t remember the years that that was—that was started. But, so anyway, by 1873, they had completed the church. Lyman Phelps and Reverend Holeman—H-O-L-E-M-A-N—um, were priests there. And they had, um, services that—these priests—I—when I read their—in the diocesan records, there’s—they had to keep records of what trips they went on and where they went. They rode horses, walked—horse and buggy—through Florida sand, which anybody that walks through it knows that—there was[sic] highways. The only way you went were by animal, you know, roads, where animals, or maybe the Indians, had made them. Um, they went to, um—but they went all over Central Florida. They went to Eustis, to Longwood, to Orlando. They started the St. Luke’s Church in Orlando, which is now the Cathedral [Church of St. Luke]. They went all over Central Florida, uh, especially Lyman Phelps. Um, But he—they were, um—it just amazes me, when I read their exploits, and the alligators…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>You know, the mosquitoes, the—oh, my soul. But, um, anyway, so that’s how the—the Episcopal church got its start. That church—that was built in 1873. 1880, along comes—and they called it a “tornado,” and I haven’t been able to say that it wasn’t, but I think it was more like a hurricane, and maybe a tornado—a tornado was [inaudible]. It blew down Mrs. Sanford’s dear little church.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>And we have pictures of it. And the—the steeple is laying on the ground, and the church is still standing, but it’s—it’s—it’s damaged. So they got busy. Mrs. Sanford raised some more money, and by, um, 1880, they had built another—well, yeah. It was 1873. By 1880, the church blew down. By 1881, they had a new church built. That church survived until 1923, and it burned down.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So they—1924 and ’25, they rebuilt it. So the church standing on that property is still on the same property that Sanford gave us. That church now was built, uh, in 19—1924, it was completed. It’s, uh, what they call “Spanish Mediterranean” [Architecture]. It’s…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Very Spanish-looking. It’s a very pretty church.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Where is it?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It’s on the corner of Fourth—Park Avenue and Fourth Street.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>And the parish hall was built by 1926. So one of the things I always thought was interesting, when they first built—or probably the second church—in the side where they had some room, they put orange trees so that in case times were bad, they would have some money. They would have a way of getting money still.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Aw.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>That was kind of interesting.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Um,I do have a question. I don’t know much about the church in Sanford. Is it the main church for the city? Are most of the people in Sanford Episcopalian?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>No, no. They’re not. Probably back in the day, it was the only church, but then of course, the South is mostly Methodist and Baptist. And right now the street—Park Avenue should have been called “Church Street.” Because there’s the Episcopal—well, first, a block closer to the lake was the Congregational church. But since they’ve moved that—they tore it down and moved down Park Avenue. The next church was Holy Cross. Then, next door to us is the [First United] Methodist Church [of Sanford]. Right next door to that is the [First] Baptist Church [of Sanford].</p> <p>So on Sunday mornings, we used to have a real traffic jam down there. Not so much anymore. No, Holy Cross—I think it’s like all the churches. They’re struggling. But we’re still here. We have two services, an 8 o’clock service and a 10 o’clock service. If we had everybody at 10 o’clock, we would have a good crowd. But when you separate it into two—the people who go at 8 o’clock won’t come at 10. The people who come at 10 o’clock won’t go at 8 o’clock. So our priest does two services. And yeah, it’s a busy little church. We have a fairly good-sized Sunday school, considering Sunday schools are hard for churches these days too. So, probably at one time it was the center of the area, church-wise, but not anymore.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>In your time as a historian there, have you—reading through the documents and that sort of thing, have you noticed any trends in how many members they had? Like when UCF came, did more people come to the church?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It was the biggest—the largest crowds that we have ever had was through the war years when we had a Navy base in Sanford. And that started up as a training base for carrier—for planes to land on carriers. I’m not as familiar with the history of the Navy base, but it closed at the end of World War II, and it was a big drop in the congregation. But then when [the] Korea[n War] came back, they started the base up again. And a lot of those people too have been Navy people—very sophisticated—have been all over the world. Lived in many different places.</p> <p>So those are the people we seem to pull in more than the people that grew up here. Most Southern people are Baptist. My dad’s family—they were all Baptist. But it’s different. Different churches suit different people. I mean, you want whatever it is that makes you feel the presence, or that you feel that you need, that’s where you should be. So I’m very ecumenical. I can, um, belong to any church you want to [<em>laughs</em>]. But Holy Cross is lovely. And the services are beautiful [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Uh, how involved has the church been in the community? Do they hold a lot of, have they held a lot of events?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Sanford—Holy Cross—was the “Guiding Light for Grace and Grits,” which is to feed the homeless. It’s a feeding program that we had at Holy Cross. And I can’t remember these years, it’s been going on for a long time. And we had it at Holy Cross. Every Wednesday night, Holy Cross would feed, oh, a hundred people. But it would depend on the season and what. Homeless people from all over. And not just men, but families. People would come to eat.</p> <p>A few years ago, we wanted to remodel the parish hall, which is where the kitchen is. And we opted to find another place to hold the Wednesday night feedings—dinners, I should say—and that was—that was hard, because the people at the church—and we have some people who are so dedicated to this—they finally found that the City [of Sanford] would let them use the [Sanford] Civic Center. It costs, I think, $200 a month or something like that. We have to pay the City for that. So now they’re feeding them down there. And also, during the transition when the parish hall was being refurbished, and the kitchen was—when we had a new priest—he really has done a lot. I mean, he has Wednesday night services, and so they had a meal there on Wednesday nights, and classes and everything. So that kind of made them want to keep the “Grace and Grits” out there. And Holy Cross wasn’t the only one that does this. I must explain this. Every church—not every church, but many churches in Sanford—there’s a Methodist church, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Lake Mary, the [All Souls] Catholic Church [of Sanford]. All of them.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Just a minute here. Just to make sure.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>All of them have people that come and help so we’re not doing it by ourselves. Did it run out of battery?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>No. It’s working. No. It’s working, I just wanted to make sure that the whole thing had recorded and everything. I’m sorry.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But anyway, it’s a whole city thing. There’s a whole lot of people involved in this. So, yeah. We do that. We also have our new priest—well at least not that new anymore. He’s been here 2 or 3 years, and he’s very much involved in helping the homeless. They call it “SACON[sp].” I couldn’t tell you what it stands for, but they go to different places in the neighborhoods and help homeless people get ID cards. Because if they don’t have an ID card, they can’t—well, there’s a lot of things they can’t do. They can’t even get shelter sometimes, if they’re going to shelters. So this has been a good thing. And helping—it’s helping the city to know what the population is of the homeless, and where they’re staying and what they’re doing. So that’s a good thing. He was just very much involved in that.</p> <p>We have some kind of a health thing one day a week at Holy Cross in the mornings, where people can come. I’m not really sure what, I guess I shouldn’t say anything about it, because I’m not sure what that is. I don’t what the group is that’s doing it. But yeah, Holy Cross is involved.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Uh, is there anything about the church that you’d like to discuss that we haven’t covered?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>We have a lot of memorials in Holy Cross that I’ve been trying to—and this is a hard job. We actually have two memorial books that from the beginning people have—the gifts of love that they’ve given in memory of someone that they lost. But when I go to the memorial books, there are items in there that we no longer have. We’ve had a couple of break-ins over the years, so they’ve lost some things, and then there’s items that we have that aren’t listed. So we’ve endeavored to work on this. I was trying to take pictures and it’s just one other job that I haven’t finished. It takes a lot of time to do that. And I really—I could get help—old-timers, because I’m not an old-timer there. They’ll say, “Oh no, I remember that was given in memory of so-and-so.”</p> <p>Right now, I’m working on—when the church was rebuilt in 1923-1924, the altar and the pulpit at the front was very plain. I can only tell from pictures, but unattractive. And in 1940, sometime, a member of the choir—and I’m still working on this. This is one of those strings you have to keep following and try to see if you can come to the end—was killed in an automobile accident. And he is—what’s the word? They have said that he had given in 1945 money to buy a new altar. A new altar, and reredos behind the altar, and an altar, and chairs. We have a lot of furniture, because it’s a very formal church. I don’t think you call it “High Episcopal.” I think some people might, but we have a good candelabra, good communion-ware. A lot of stuff. And anyway, this man—apparently there was a big brouhaha that the vestry wanted to put a new roof on the church, which is a tile roof—which always needs work—or to buy the altar furniture. And just recently I talked to a lady, who’s in a—a Heritage [at Lake Forest] nursing home out here, who was telling me about this. I didn’t know this story. And she said, “Oh, my goodness.” She said, “Everybody was fighting, and everybody was mad. They wanted the roof.” “No, no. We want the altar.” Well anyway, the altar people won out, because the priest wanted the altar…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Redone [<em>laughs</em>]. So, uh—so I’m still working on that. And, as, uh, oral tradition says, that that money was used for the new altar-ware—altar and furniture, I should say—um, by this man, who gave it, But, um—in honor—in [inaudible] —yeah. In of our members who fought in World War II.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So I asked one of our older members if he remembers that. He says, “Oh yeah, there’s a plaque up there in the front of the church someplace that tells all the members that died. I’m sure it says something about ‘in memory of’ that.” Well, the plaque wasn’t there, so several ladies started on a search of the rooms, and they found the plaque. Only, it wasn’t a plaque. It’s a big framed picture with 70 names beautifully written by someone on there, with little gold stars next to five men who were killed during the war. But I still don’t know if it’s a memorial to them for the furniture. So I’m working on that, because I have the big memorial plaque reframed and I guess we’ll rededicate it one of these days when we find out what’s the story on it. But there’s things like that that come up when someone will say, “Well, who gave that baptismal font? What was that all about?”</p> <p>Or, we have two things in the church—this is interesting—we have two things in the church that we know for certain were there in the first church. That General Sanford gave: a crucifixion picture that he had bought in Belgium and donated it to the church. That picture—and we were trying to get an idea of the value of it—and the man that we had restore it said, “It’s not worth a thing. All it’s worth is what it’s worth to the congregation. But as far as famous artist, no.” It’s the crucifixion. Even after it as restored, still doesn’t look very good. Because it went through the hurricane the first time. Through the fire the second time. Someone rescued it. So it has—the restorer said it has water damage. So that was something that we know General Sanford physically probably touched, and that it was there. The other thing is a small lectern, where they put the Bibles on, or the prayer book. And that’s in the chapel that was given by Reverend Lyman Phelps. We think he built it. He made it in memory of his wife. So that’s pretty interesting to have two things back a hundred and how many years—138 years or whatever it is.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh. That’s very special.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. It is special. So it’s the history. I mean, I could go to any church. I love—just love churches. But I love the history of this church. It’s—and I’m sure that if I were in Philadelphia I’d go to Christ Church I went to Williamsburg [,Virginia]<a title="">[3]</a>—my mother and I—we went to the—oh, what was the name of that Episcopal church<a title="">[4]</a> there? It’s so beautiful in Williamsburg.<a title="">[5]</a> Where Patrick Henry gave his speech.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>In Virginia?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>In Virginia. That was—so it’s the ambiance. It’s what you feel. It’s very interesting. And I do get excited about it [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I’m just going to check the battery one more time. Oh, it looks fine. Whoa. I didn’t notice the bars. They change as I talk and get closer. But the battery’s fine. Okay, great.</p> <p>So, uh, you’re a historian there. It sounds like you do a bunch of different things.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I’m kind of a detective. There’s not a day goes—well, a day—there probably is. But not a week goes by that someone says, “Bette”—well somebody asked me the other day, “Isn’t our,”—we have a huge bell on the bell tower—“Isn’t that bell called ‘Raphael?’” I said, “No, I don’t think—that’s not the name of the bell.” And he said, “Oh, I’m pretty sure it is.” Well, now I have to figure it out. Is it or isn’t it? Or, people will say, “Well, where did the bell come from?”</p> <p>Oh, and then we have this magnificent organ of Ferrante[sp] Brothers organ from—I can’t remember where it’s from. I want to say Canada, but I may be wrong. It was installed in 1947, and this is just a magnificent piece of furniture. Ferrante[sp] Brothers. I believe there’s another name that goes with that. I guess I can’t remember. But anyway, it doesn’t matter. This is not a test. That was put in in 1947, and I’ve forgotten how many pipes there are for it, but—oh, more than 100 pipes. There’s pipes and pipes. Pipes that you can see over the choir loft, but there’s also a whole closet full of pipes. Our organist—she knows how to play it. It’s just beautiful. So that was—I don’t know where the money for that came from. As far as that being a memorial, or something, I don’t know. I don’t think so. So many things are, but that’s not. But someone will say, “Well, what year was the organ installed?” Or, “Where did it come from?”</p> <p>So I—yeah. I do. I have to have a little notebook in my pocketbook and I keep writing it down and then I have to go back and research it. And I have a lot of friends too that have been long, long-time members there, so I usually go to them and say, “Do you know anything about this?” And some of them will say, “No, I don’t know.” Or, “We’ll look it up.” But we have—and I’m trying to get all the histories together and put them in one place so it’s pretty organized. It’s fairly organized, but not as much as I would like to have it done. But I’ve saved all the newsletters[sic] columns that I’ve written over the years. I have them each in a different notebook with acid-free paper so after I type them I print them off and put them in the folders and so I’ve got all that. So that’s a pretty good history right there. It’s good. Did I answer the question? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Also, I must give credit to Alicia Clarke at the Sanford Museum. We have much help from her. And then some! Sorry.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] No. I don’t mind at all. I know we’ve been talking for a long time now, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to find out more about what your time as an educator was like Seminole County.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Oh, I think I had the best 30 years that you could have had really, because it was—right now, I have friends, my neighbors. I have a lot of friends still teaching, and it’s very different now. It’s very different. We had—the wonderful thing we had that teachers today don’t have, and that’s freedom. You can’t say—if Johnny brings in a whole bag of shells that he had his mother just collected at the beach, we can’t dump those shells out and sit down and go through them and maybe catalog them or talk about them or what can we do with it. There’s no way of being spontaneous, because teachers today—if that child brought that in, I would have to say, “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to put that away. We don’t have time to look at that.” And that bothers me a lot. Because I really feel like the teachable moment is when the kid is interested. And if nobody is interested, then there’s no teachable moment.</p> <p>It’s—when I was teaching at Idyllwilde [Elementary School] one year, the kids found a dead rabbit on the playground. I have a friend who had just moved here from Chicago[, Illinois], and she was working with me at the time. She was getting ready to take over half of my class, because I had 45 kids in my class. And they had hired her to take part of my kids. But she tells me about this every time she thinks about it. She said, “So, the kids wanted to know what to do with the rabbit.” And I said, “Well, we’re going to have to bury it. Let’s bury it.” So we got a shovel from the janitor and the boys dug a hole right outside the classroom door. And buried the rabbit. Well, they got to talking about what was going to happen to the rabbit in the ground. Well, of course the kids—and these were fourth and fifth graders—they would say, “Well, the bugs and the worms are going to eat him,” and so forth. So, just before school was out, the boy that dug the hole said, “Ms. Skates, can we dig that rabbit up? See what’s left? See if we can find his bones?” And I said, “Well, that’s a good idea. Let’s do it.” So we did. We couldn’t find it! This kid dug up a whole are as big as this table. Couldn’t find a thing left of the rabbit.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, my goodness.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But that sounds—and it would probably almost be silly to some educator—but those are things that—what did they learn? Well, we could put a whole bunch of things on the board. We learned this. We learned, you know—what is this? So, or you know—well like the space shuttle. We had classes when the Space Shuttle [<em>Challenger</em>] blew up. We all went outside on the playground to watch the space shuttle go up. And this was—what was this? [19]89?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, I have it here. No, I don’t.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But anyway, we were all out on the playground, watching, and we saw it went up, and we saw all these stars and everything. The kids were all saying, “Look at that. They’re putting out stars,” all kinds of things that kids would think of. And my fellow teacher was standing next to me, she said, “I think we ought to take the kids in.” I said, “Okay.” So we take the kids in. Well, she happened to have a little TV set in her closet. And we brought that out to see what had happened. And we could do that. You couldn’t do that today.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>That’s true.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>She brought it out and we set that out between our two classrooms. We watched it all day long. The kids—it was very sad. We all were grieving. So we grieved together. So, what is this? How did this happen? All we could do was speculate. We didn’t know. But what would you, you know, you…</p> <p>Well, first off, I think taking time outside would probably take time away from teaching about the FCAT [Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I was going to ask how you think the FCAT has influenced—okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>You know, every week, teachers, back in the day—and I retired in [19]97. Every teacher gave a test at the end of the week. You would take your math book and go through—and everything that I had taught in math that week—the test would be on Friday. Same thing with spelling tests—on Friday. Social studies on Friday. And we did teach social studies. We did teach the Constitution. We did teach early American history. We did teach that. I think that, in fifth grade, we stopped at the Civil War, but that’s all we had time for. So, you gave the test. At the end of the week, you knew what the child had done. By the time you correct those papers, you knew that Johnny and Mary and Susie were having trouble with multiplication. So next week, let’s zero in on those three and their multiplication tables. How hard is that? I mean, why do we have to do what they’re doing now? I don’t understand.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I don’t want to interject my opinion too much, but my mother teaches middle school. And so I’ve heard a lot about FCAT, and a great deal about how it’s changed. She used to teach in New York and it’s very different.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Oh, yes. I think, even now—well, this friend of mine that came down—she wasn’t a friend at the time, but now she’s my best friend—from Chicago, you know. She’d said, “Oh, my gosh. These schools—they’re so far behind! In Chicago in fifth grade, we were doing this.” And you know, well, it takes a long time. I mean, you know, the [Great] Depression hit the South harder. The agricultural society makes a difference. Kids are not—they may be working in the fields some. I mean not so much in my time, but it was just different. And it takes a long, you know—I think this a lot about even the ship of state, it takes a long time to turn a ship around. And it takes a long time to turn the education system around. It’s like it’s the biggest boat you ever saw and you’re just trying to turn it around and make things better. I think we’ve come a long way, but I think there probably still is a way to go.</p> <p>But now we’ve got—it’s so muddled with this FCAT and this—pushing, pushing these kids. My grandson goes to a parochial school. Goes to St. Luke’s Lutheran Church School in Oviedo. He doesn’t have that stigma hanging over his head. He’s going in third grade. He loves school. He’s a good student. And he struggled to begin with. He had problems with his reading. But if he were in the public school, he would really be in trouble. First off, he’d be going into the third grade. You have to take the FCAT. If you don’t pass that, you have to repeat third grade. Well, his handwriting is very poor, what are you going to do about that? But the private school—they give them more time. They also give them more one-on-one situations. I don’t know. I’m just so that glad that his mother and father—my son and his wife—are so wise. And it’s a sacrifice. It’s a lot of money every month to keep him in private school. He’s their only child, which is a good thing. It’s tough. Your mother is right, and she’s right in the middle of that FCAT business in middle school.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Uh, you mentioned the <em>Challenger</em> accident. Are there any other events that stick out in your mind, that you remember teaching or going through with your students?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>What did we have? [John F.] Kennedy’s assassination didn’t affect me, but it did my children. They were in elementary school and Kennedy was assassinated—my two older ones. They were talking about this, not long ago, about the atomic bomb scare with the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were talking about the duck-and-cover. You know, an atomic bomb is blowing up over your state, and what do you tell the kids to do? You tell them to get under their desks and cover their head[sic]. That involved them. I wasn’t teaching in ’63. Let’s see, what else could there be? Thinking back to Kennedy, I can’t think of anything else.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Did UCF opening or Cape Canaveral opening change…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It did. I think it changed. With the Cape, with Geneva—the school—when we started getting the influx of people moving to that area. The fathers were engineers and the moms worked, most of them, over there too. Those were great kids. I don’t know, maybe because the parents were involved in scientific things like the engineering and everything. Every couple years, it seems like they come up with something new. Your mother can relate to this too.</p> <p>They taught us what they call the “New Math.” And I’d only been teaching a couple years and we had this great, and I still have the book—a great big blue book about New Math. Well first off, we were supposed to be teaching the metric system, and that was because of the engineering thing, I think. But they had—I remember one of the fathers was an engineer and he came to school and I was struggling as much as the kids were. They gave us the course in the summer and we were supposed to start teaching it in the fall. So I really didn’t—nobody had a chance. The father came in, he said, “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Now, how do you talk to an engineer? And I was honest with him, “Well, yes. I do.” I said, “We had six weeks.” I think we had a course. And I said, “Not as much as I’ll know at the end of this year.” And he said, “Well, my son doesn’t know what the hell’s going on.” I said, “Well, I am really sorry.” But he was very nice about. But he really kind of put me on my toes. Which was a good thing. I’m glad he did. But by the end of the year, I even knew what prime numbers were [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>In fifth grade, you teach addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I figured the fact that I could multiply and divide fractions—I was pretty smart [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Don’t go beyond that. Oh dear.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I just have a couple specific questions left. If you wouldn’t mind, just because it’s a personal history about you, what were the names of your children—are the names of your children?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Phillip, Pamela—well, he’s Jimmy. And the youngest is Bill. They all have their given names, but that’s what we call them. They were—Phillip was born in [19]5—he was born ’54. I have a nice little rubric here. Pam was born in ’56. Jimmy was born in ’58. And Bill was born in ’63. I think I was busy going to school there or something.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Uh, where—which schools did you teach at? You taught at Geneva.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I taught at Geneva. That was my first assignment. Well, I went to Southside, which is a school in Sanford right near my home—was where I did my internship, and that’s where my kids went to school. And that’s an old—that was—when I bought my house, that was the best school in Sanford. And that’s the reason I bought that house. It’s now been turned into—what did they call it? A nursing home. Golden Years nursing home. It’s a lovely school. It’s built in a square and in the center is an atrium. And all the classrooms are built around the atrium. And down in the basement is the lunchroom, and up a little flight of stairs in the auditorium. It was a very nice plan for a school, but it’s a nice plan for a nursing home, I guess. But they closed the school, because they built new schools and whatever. But my kids got to go through that, which I was glad for that. At least the two oldest ones did. And then the other two came with me to Geneva. What was the question?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh. Which schools have you taught at?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Oh, and then I went, I was at Goldsboro [Elementary School. This was a good thing. When I left Geneva, and I had gotten my Master’s in Exceptional Education, and I wanted to teach learning disabled children. And the principal at Geneva, for his own reasons, said he wasn’t going to have a special ed[ucation] class. Well, it wasn’t true, but that’s what he told me. So I had this Pell Grant that I had used to get my Master’s, that if I taught at a [Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965] Title I school, which I don’t know if you know that means now, but it was a school that had more free lunches than any other school or something like that. So the principal at Goldsboro called me and he said, “If you come and teach the learning disabled children at Goldsboro,” he said, “I can sign off on your student loan.” So I spent two years there and signed off all that my Master’s cost me. I mean, I had not paid for—he would sign off the loans—the superintendent would sign it off…</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>So they would pay for it.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So they paid for it. So that was very good. I don’t know if that’s what you call a Pell Grant. I’ve forgotten. But I taught there two years and then the principal from Idyllwilde called and said they had a new wing opening up. They call it the E Wing—Exceptional Ed. Wing. And would I come out and do their SLD [Specific Learning Disabilities] classes. I said, “Oh, yes.” So that’s where I was when I retired.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>That was good. I—those were good years. They were all good years.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Well, good.Those are all the questions and topics that I have. Is there anything else you’d like to speak to that we haven’t?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I don’t know. I think I’m probably boring you.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Well, no. This is a good time.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Now, how are they going to work this? Are they going to have a library?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah, I think I’ll just…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Right.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: July 9, 2010</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Correction: Richmond, Virginia.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> St. John’s Church.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Correction: Richmond, Virginia.</p> </div> </div> ACL Alexander Ramsey Alicia Clarke altars ambassadors assassinations Atlantic Coast Line Railroad atomic bombs beauty shops Belair Grove Belgium bells Bette Skates Bye Lo Hotel Cape Canaveral carpetbaggers Cathedral Church of St. Luke charities charity church church bells churches citrus citrus groves Civil War Clarke, Alicia Cochran, Georgia cockroach cockroaches community service Craftsman Airplane Bungalow Crooms High School Cuban Missile Crisis desegregation Diana Dombrowski Downtown Sanford education educators elementary school Episcopal Church Episcopalianism Episcopalians exceptional education FCAT Ferrante Brothers fires Florida's Comprehensive Assessment Test Gateway to South Florida Geneva Geneva Elementary School Gertrude Dupuy Gertrude Dupuy Sanford Guiding Light for Grace and Grits Historical Society of Central Florida Holeman Holy Cross Episcopal Church homeless hurricanes Idyllwilde Idyllwilde Elementary School Jack Kennedy John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy Lake Mary lemons Lyman Phelps Mellonville memorials Middle Georgia College Montezuma Hotel Museum of Seminole County History NAS Sanford Naval Air Station Sanford New Math Ninth Street OJC Orange Blossom Special orange grove orange groves oranges organs Orlando Junior College Patrick Henry Philadelphia, Pennsylvania priests railroads roach roaches Sanford Sanford Museum school desegregation school integration schools Seminole County Space Shuttle Challenger Spanish Mediterranean Architecture special education St. Gertrude's Grove standardized testing Stetson University sulfur water teachers The Champion Title I school trains U.S. Navy Union World War II WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/dac3e983596d523356a270dec6716ae8.pdf 6d5497eb7b17fb887d2f6c59eee9cd5c 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 Sanford Collection Description The present-day Sanford area was originally inhabited by the Mayaca/Joroco natives by the time Europeans arrived. The tribe was decimated by war and disease by 1760 and was replaced by the Seminole Indians. In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain and Americans began to settled in the state. Camp Monroe was established in the mid-1830s to defend the area against Seminoles during the Seminole Wars. In 1836, the United States Army built a road (present-day Mellonville Avenue) to a location called "Camp Monroe," during the Second Seminole War. Following an attack on February 8, 1837, the camp was renamed "Fort Mellon," in honor of the battle's only American casualty, Captain Charles Mellon. The town of Mellonville was founded nearby in 1842 by Daniel Stewart. When Florida became a state three years later, Mellonville became the county seat for Orange County, which was originally a portion of Mosquito County. Citrus was the first cash crop in the area and the first fruit packing plant was constructed in 1869. In 1870, a lawyer from Connecticut by the name of Henry Shelton Sanford (1832-1891) purchased 12,548 acres of open land west of Mellonville. His vision was to make this new land a major port city, both railway and by water. Sitting on Lake Monroe, and the head of the St. Johns River, the City of Sanford earned the nickname of “The Gate City of South Florida.” Sanford became not only a transportation hub, but a leading citrus industry in Florida, and eventually globally. The Great Fire of 1887 devastated the city, which also suffered from a statewide epidemic of yellow fever the following year. The citrus industry flourished until the Great Freezes of 1894 and 1895, causing planters to begin growing celery in 1896 as an alternative. Celery replaced citrus as the city's cash crop and Sanford was nicknamed "Celery City." In 1913, Sanford became the county seat of Seminole County, once part of Orange County. Agriculture dominated the region until Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971, effectively shifting the Central Florida economy towards tourism and residential development. Alternative Title Sanford Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) 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> <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/" target="_blank">Sanford Historical Society, Inc.</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Is Part Of <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 Sanford, Florida Curator Marra, Katherine Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. <span>Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank"><em>A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</em></a></span><span>, 1975.</span> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Bette Skates, 2010 Alternative Title Oral History, Skates Subject Sanford (Fla.) Churches--Florida Description An oral history of Bette Skates, conducted by Austin Smith on July 14, 2010. As the historian of the Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Sanford, Florida, Skates discusses the history of the church and other churches in Sanford, missionaries at Mellonville and Camp Monroe, the founding of the City of Sanford by Henry Shelton Sanford (1823-1891), and how the church and the city has changed over time. The interview also includes commentary from Alicia Clarke, curator of the Sanford Museum, and Grace Marie Stinecipher (b. 1936), historian of the First Baptist Church of Sanford. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:22 Fire and rebuilding the Holy Cross Episcopal Church<br />0:09:20 First United Methodist Church and the First Baptist Church<br />0:13:31 Missionaries at Mellonville and Camp Monroe<br />0:16:54 Henry Shelton Sanford and the founding of the City of Sanford<br />0:18:34 Other churches in Sanford<br />0:25:00 How the congregation and the community has changed over time<br />0:31:28 Interesting church figures<br />0:34:49 Skates' personal background<br />0:36:49 How Sanford has changed over time<br />0:41:51 Crime in Sanford<br />0:42:27 RECORDINGS CUTS OFF<br />0:42:28 Crime, migrant labor, and desegregation<br />0:48:24 Events in Sanford<br />0:50:07 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Bette Skates. Interview conducted by Austin Smith 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>, Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Skates, Bette. Interviewed by Austin Smith. July 14, 2010. <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 <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="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/43" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Sanford, Florida First United Methodist Church, Sanford, Florida First Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida All Souls Catholic Church Historic Chapel, Sanford, Florida All Souls Catholic Church, Sanford, Florida's Belair Grove, Lake Mary, Florida St. Gertrude's Grove, Sanford Florida Creator Skates, Bette Smith, Austin Contributor Clarke, Alicia Stinecipher, Grace Marie Date Created 2010-07-14 Date Modified 2014-09-30 Date Copyrighted 2010-07-14 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 510 MB 180 KB Medium 50-minute and 33-second audio recording 22-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Bette Skates and Austin Smith. 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.sanfordholycrossepiscopal.com/about-us.html" target="_blank">Holy Cross Episcopal Church est. 1873</a>." Holy Cross Episcopal Church. http://www.sanfordholycrossepiscopal.com/about-us.html. Stinecipher, Grace Marie. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10878290" target="_blank"><em>A History of the First Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida, 1884-1984</em></a>. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1984. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/76HKSRgbVcY" target="_blank">Oral History of Bette Skates</a> Transcript <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I’ll tell you what, if you would like to do this—I just live up the street, we could go to my house. I’ve got my printer there. Do you want pictures?</p> <p><strong>Smith</strong> <br /> Yeah. we can get those. That’s something that we don’t even have to get today, that’s something we can get whenever you’d like.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>What I can do is I can copy pictures of the first and second [Holy Cross Episcopal] church and, of course, the picture of the now church for the now thing, which is interesting. The way those buildings evolved tells a lot about the financial business of Sanford too, because during the very lean years nothing was done. But each time the church was destroyed it was replaced within a couple of years. And when you consider that for 19—the first church was built in 1873, and it was destroyed in 1880 and rebuilt. I think 1882 it was consecrated again. So that would be just a couple of years. And there was no money, they couldn’t even afford to hire a priest. If I go too fast, stop me.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>No. No problem. That’s the good thing about this.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So that was—I’m trying to think. So the rebuilt church from the storm, rebuilt in 1880, in 1923 it burned to the ground—everything that was in it. We saved a few—they saved a few things, and we have records of those things still now in the building.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Do they know what ‘Caused the fire?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>The fact—they think it was started—I’m trying to be succinct here. In the 1920—late 1800s till the 1920s—they used those buildings for a community center for the whole city of Sanford, because it was the only institution that could do that. There was no YMCA [Young Men’s Christian Association] or that sort of thing. And it was for the young men of Sanford. They came there in those years—let’s see 1918—it would have been the 1900s to 1920. I didn’t say that right, but anyway—they had a—what did they call it? They had a moving picture machine, and they had a bowling alley. They had a library they were going to build on just before the fire. They were getting ready to build a basketball gym. I’m trying to use the words they used but I can’t remember them all, but that never happened. So when the churched burned in 1923, it was a disaster for the whole city because of the way everybody used that facility. They had a moving picture theater, but they also had a[sic] galas and theatrical plays and things like that. They must have been really a hubbub for the city it was neat. So where do I want to go from here?</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Really just—at that time in 1923, that church that had burned down, that wasn’t located at the present location?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Uh huh. That’s the property that General [Henry Shelton] Sanford gave—probably that whole block—but then he donated the Methodist church property to them. That’s on that same block. And then there were several private homes there, but—what was I going to tell you—how the church burned.</p> <p>The church was facing Park Avenue like it is now. And right behind it—where our parish hall is now—was a rectory, a two-story building for the priest and his mother. And right behind that was a parish hall, and right beyond that, on Magnolia [Avenue], was a private home. So when the priest—and the description is in the newspaper—a great description. I have copies of that too if you really want to go into detail. The priest said he awoke in the morning and he saw a bright light, and he thought the sun was coming up. And when he looked again, he realized it wasn’t the sun. It was a fire. The church was on fire, or the outbuildings probably first. He got his mother out, tried to save some of his books, but he had a very extensive library in his home and lost most of it. He ran to the church and tried to save his vestments. I don’t know how successful he was at that. The fire department came, but when they put the hoses on the hydrant there was no water pressure.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Oh, wow.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>So there was nothing they could do. All the buildings burned, including the house that was back there on Magnolia too. The man who lived in the house—Alicia [Clarke], I put your papers underneath—no. Alicia, underneath—right there. I tried to put them someplace where they wouldn’t…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Thank you so much. [inaudible]</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Yeah. Sorry.</p> <p>Where was I? Oh, um. So when they, um, couldn’t get any—also the man that owned the house got his water hose out—his garden —and he tried to wet his hose down, he had no water pressure.</p> <p>So after the smoke cleared and all the finger pointing started, it was determined that it was the City [of Sanford]’s fault, because of the water pressure. The mayor of the city at that time was Forrest Lake, which you’ve heard that name before. After many meetings—and I guess different kinds of haggling with the insurance company and the City—they also had several attorneys in the congregation. That helps. But they had the insurance money, and I think they got something like $30,000 from the City to replace the building. So after all of that, by 1924, they had started work on the new building. And by 1925 they had—I don’t think it was consecrated, because I don’t think it was paid for. I’d have to look that up, but that’s the story of the fire. And of course, that just took out that whole Fourth Street side of Magnolia and Park Avenue—those blocks. Let’s see, what else…</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>And you said it got rebuilt in [19]24?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>‘24. I think actually it was in ‘24—‘25.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>I think it’s raining.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. It’s going to rain. It’s one thing you can be sure of.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>And then did the church take on all those old roles as a community center and all those things again?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>No. They didn’t, because they didn’t have room at the time. They built the building that’s there now, but they lost all that community that they had with the young men. We didn’t have a parish house until 1926. What’s there now was built in 1926. Of course, it was a matter of money, and keeping a priest too. Because with no money, that was difficult. Those were boom times though back when we got into the later ‘20s, as I recall. So they could finally call a priest and have one that was there. I list—I have a Holy Cross folder and I have a Historical Society folder, so I don’t have that one with me. That was an interesting time, so what’s there now, that takes care of that hunk of Sanford. I mean if you’re going to do one hunk, there you go you’ve got that.</p> <p>Let me see, what else could we—where could we go with that?</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>When did the—there is Methodist church directly next door…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Next door to us. It’s First United Methodist Church [of Sanford].</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>And when was that building built?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It was in the ‘20s. I don’t remember the year exactly.</p> <p>The First Baptist Church [of Sanford]—Grace Marie [Stinecipher] could tell you exactly when—when the brick building—that was another very old building, but not the—the brick building is the old church, Grace Marie?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yeah?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>When was the Baptist—when was the brick building built?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>One time in 1914. The other time in 1920.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>1914?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. It was built in two parts.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Oh, it was. I didn’t know that. This is Grace Marie Stinecipher. She’s the historian at First Baptist—I was going to say Holy Baptist [<em>laughs</em>]. This is Austin [Smith]. She’s another former teacher.</p> <p>Go head tell him about the Baptists, because we’ve been talking about that block. Because that’s going to give him a block and he can deal with that whole block. Well, no. The two blocks. I’m sorry you’re not Methodist. You’re Baptist. We’ll have to find a Methodist.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>It was built under Reverend Harman who was here, and he went off—they built the front part, which was the Sunday school part.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Oh. Those two side parts?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>The front part of the building is a Sunday school and it has four Sunday school rooms in the back and it has three floors.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Oh. So that’s when the chapel—I mean the auditorium…</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>And then in 1920 they added on the auditorium. He [Harman] went off to war—this is 1914. It may have been finished in ’15. We’re not really sure. And he went off to war as a chaplain, and then came back. And then they built the other part.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>What did they do without a minister? Did they have somebody fill in?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>The next—was Reverend Brooks the next one that came?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>He wasn’t for a while yet.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>He came in ‘29.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br />‘</strong>Cause they had one minister there that was there for 50 years.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>No, no, no. 33.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Excuse me. You see, I better stick to what I know. [<em>laughs</em>] Didn’t he live in that house by me for 50 years?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes—no.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>33?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yeah. I guess so.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I guess I’m giving out bum information. When was that house built? Do you know?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>It’s probably in my book, but Alicia can’t find it here.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Grace Marie wrote a book. A real book with covers on it.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>And I won’t do another one. They keep asking me.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Bring it up to date. That was—well, that house next door was built in 1923, because it was built a year before my house I think.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>The one—our building?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Your building. The rectory.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I’m sure it’s in the book, but I can’t remember.</p> <p><strong>Skates             </strong>Well, I wish I’d bought that book before they got away from us. You know anybody we could borrow one from?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I’ve got some at home, but it keeps looking like she lost this one here.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>What’s the title of your book?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>[<em>A</em>] <em>History of First Baptist Church, Sanford Florida, 1884-1984</em>.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, so it was—but you didn’t have a building in [18]84?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>One was built by the end of the—I think, by at least early 1885. A wooden building.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Was it? ‘Cause if Holy Cross was built in [18]73, we’re only 10 years older than you.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>You were organized in 1890?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>That first church was built in 1873. Actually, the missionaries down here on Mellonville Avenue when Mellonville was the city of Mellonville was here. That’s another area that might be interesting to you.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>If you can talk about it that would be great.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I can’t talk about it. I don’t know enough about Mellonville. [<em>laughs</em>] It was just a strip of buildings where the fort was, what is now called Fort Melon, but in those days it was called…</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Monroe. Camp Monroe.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Monroe. There you go. It was Camp Monroe. And you have to say it that way too, you can’t say “Monroe,” you have to say “Monroe.” [<em>laughs</em>] But we could find information on it that won’t be so bad.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>But Holy Cross was, in addition to being set up by [General] Sanford—also those missionaries from Mellonville that came over.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yes. The first priest there’s name was Holeman, and he was the “missionary at large” is what they called him. And he also came and started the church along with General Sanford—Henry Sanford. There was another guy too. I can’t think of his name right now. I’ll have to look at my notes at home. I would say the city of Mellonville was probably only about two blocks long—and Alicia could probably tell you more about that than I can.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Yeah. We have a file on Mellonville. We have a lot about it. That’s a little before Bette’s time though. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. A little before my time. That was back when the Indians were still…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] If someone’s asking you about Mellonville, it’s time you’d died.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] It’s time I put the cane away and dyed my hair, huh? Oh, dear.</p> <p>Um, so that was, um—but he was up and down. Those Episcopal—I’m sure the other church too, but I don’t know about those. But the missionaries were sent here from places like Connecticut and New York, and places like that. When they came here they didn’t know whether they were going to get shot by an Indian or eaten by an alligator, or killed by a mosquito bite, because it was a pretty wild place.</p> <p>I read some of the diocesan records of the Episcopal priests and how they tried to get their little boats across Halifax River with sails on them. Of course, you can’t sail very well on a river. And what they went through—the thunderstorms would come and they’d get down and pull the sail over their heads and sleep in the boat all night. Tales that you read and you think, <em>And they stayed? Why didn’t they all just say “goodbye!”</em> But I guess God was stronger than the weather.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Alright. Let’s see what else—where do we want to go here? I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. But I do think that Holy Cross, and because of Henry Sanford, was instrumental in building the beginnings for Sanford. Henry Sanford also had his orange groves, and that’s what helped the area become agricultural; because of his orange groves. His first orange grove was down on the lakefront over here. He called that Street Gertrude [Grove].</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Once again, you’re getting off in territory where we can look that up.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. I’m getting out of my—when I get away from Holy Cross, I’m kind of lost. [<em>laughs</em>] But that was one of his first groves and then he had his big grove—and I guess the one that was really productive—was out at Belair [Grove], which was where Chase Groves [Condominium] housing development is now. That might be an interesting thing for you to—that’s not an old development, but the Chase family had finally died out and they sold all their property, or it’s in the process I guess of being sold. But where Henry Sanford actually put down his citrus grove—Henry Sanford didn’t spend a lot of time in Sanford. He spent a lot of time writing letters telling other people how to do things, but—what else?</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I’m just trying to figure out where Grace Marie’s book went.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, I wish you could find it, because I’d like it…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I’d heard her mention it, and we can’t figure out where it went.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>How would you say—the congregation, in those early days—what was the general make-up? Because obviously Sanford himself was Episcopal, but very early on you had a Catholic church in the area, and a Methodist Church in the area.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yes. And Baptist.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>It seems so soon off even in 18…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>In the 1880s-90s.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>There were already three or four churches in the area.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But remember, this is right after the Civil War. So a lot of these people that were coming south were looking to make their fortunes. And I hesitate to call them carpetbaggers, because that’s very unkind. But a lot of men—that’s when [Henry B.] Plant came. That’s when [Henry] Flagler came. So there were a lot of northerners coming down trying to make their fortune.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>May I ask a question? ‘Cause I know the early churches were in Fort Reed and Mellonville—so I know the congregation started there, but is Holy Cross the first Episcopal church?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>The first Episcopal church.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>There wasn’t one in Fort Reed or Mellonville, was there?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>No, but the missionaries were in Mellonville. Reverend Holeman and…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>So they just didn’t have a church. But before Henry Sanford arrived, there were people from the Episcopal church looking around?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Right. There were missionaries.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>And are any of those churches over around Enterprise or down Altamonte [Springs] earlier?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Near Enterprise—there’s an Episcopal church in Enterprise, and it’s an original. It would be worth the drive over there to see it.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>But were those earlier than over here, because I thought that this was the mother church.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>You know, I don’t remember. It’s the mother church of Central Florida.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>But we don’t necessarily know if it’s the oldest Episcopal congregation.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, we don’t know. I don’t think there was one in Fort Reed.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>That’s why I was asking, because the Methodists and the Presbyterians were in Fort Reed. There’s older—there’s a much older—the congregations that are in the big churches on Park Avenue are older than Sanford. Because they started—like our Masonic Lodge started—in Mellonville, so it’s older than Sanford. But that’s why I’ve never thought to ask you. I’d never heard about Episcopalians meeting in a house or anything else anywhere.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I never heard that either, but they did meet in Mellonville.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>But as far as you know the Sanfords are the ones who started. But when you were looking through Lyman Phelps letters, was there already Episcopalians drifting around looking for a church before Mrs. [Gertrude Dupuy] Sanford started it? Or was she hoping people would become Episcopalians?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. Well, because so many of their friends from the North, and that’s where the money came from to build the church both times, Mrs. Sanford wrote to her friends in the North…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I had never thought about that. When we were going through things—there would have already been some people that she met with and said, “Let’s build a church.” So we don’t know if there was a minister here, or a priest or—when did they come?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>We know that Reverend Holeman was here…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Did he come before the church?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Oh, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I never thought to ask you that. Was there a congregation before there was a building?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But he was here, and so was the Bishop of Florida—made some trips with him. And I have some diocesan records of that, which I need to look this up, because I don’t know that.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I just never thought about it that way. We know some of the congregations—the people—are older than the building we’re looking at, or the city. So depending on what you’re talking about Episcopalians.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Sanford never had anything to do with Holeman and the other guy—I can’t remember his name—coming here. I don’t think.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I don’t know. That’s why I thought maybe you’d run across that in something. So you’ve never seen anything?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>There was somebody in your congregation—somebody that was already here—and said to Mrs. Sanford, “We need a church.” Mrs. Sanford thought, <em>We need a church</em>.</p> <p><strong>Skates</strong>The reason Lyman Phelps came, which was a little bit later than this, was because Sanford asked him to come from Connecticut, but he also—the man also was a botanist and he was an Episcopal priest.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>So there might still be a little mystery as to how exactly they got started with the Episcopal congregation.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. Well, now you give us something else to think about.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I know the church, but I never thought about that.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I never either.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>We spent all this time worrying about church number one, two, and three, but not whether or not there were already some Episcopalians or a priest here who needed a church. I always assumed they didn’t have a church, they didn’t have a congregation.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>They met in Mellonville. I do have—I have seen that line some place. But then why Sanford—I think the Sanfords wanted the—and you tell me if I’m wrong—Henry and his wife were very aristocratic.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>A social thing. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I mean, they were really very important people. After being—what was he given? I want to say a legation, but he’s not a legation. He was a…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>A diplomat.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, I don’t see that word as often.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>He was a Minister Resident. Which most people go, “What?”</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But he was in Belgium for many years. And when he married, he was in his 40s. So when they came here, they were used to living in luxury in this little castle-looking house.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>And for some reason the church is an important thing that was supposed to be here.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>And that also elevated your prestige too. I’m making this up.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>That’s what I’ve assumed from what you’ve found is that this was more than just “Oh, we’re church people.” It’s a social station. “We have to found a church.”</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Because Episcopalians would have been the…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>The upper crust. Right. So that’s what I think—I think that’s what he was aiming at. Thinking that this was a big time, but it was not [<em>laughs</em>]. I mean, when you get here and you see the hardships and the way the people lived, he lived very differently. And I’m sure Mrs. Sanford probably didn’t spend 15 minutes in Sanford if she could get a steamboat out. Do you have the Mellonville history there?</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I was just curious…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>No. Alright. Okay. Well, I’m rambling. How are you ever going to tie this together?</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>No, no.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>If there’s anything that you all talk about if you just need the founding of a church or something, something comes up, just make a note of it and we can pull the files.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Alright, because I’ll research some of this church business if you want to go further than this.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Sure. How would you say that the congregation has changed over the years—or even that the community as a whole—has changed over the years.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, I think that what we have at Holy Cross today is a middle-aged, and I think this is true of most large churches today—city churches especially. Because you’re not going to have as many young people. Though we do have young people, as many as they probably do out at Street Luke’s Lutheran Church out there by I[nterstate Highway]-4, near Heathrow, or some of those other churches. But it’s a stable church. We’re stable.</p> <p>It’s a beautiful building if you—if aesthetics helps you worship, then it certainly is lovely and also the Episcopal service is very different from any other church in town. We have the Holy Eucharist every Sunday, a processional, and a beautiful choir and a fantastic organ. It’s very—people say, “Is it a high church?” No. It’s not. Not in Florida. It’s not a high church. It’s a very formal church, but comfortable. It’s—that’s just one person’s opinion.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>How has—I guess the church itself changed over the years, or different things that it has had to go through over the years?</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>You mean the building?</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Whether the—well aside from having…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Fires and storms.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Endured fires and storms, just any particular stories about things within the church or—that would be interesting you think?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, right now, I’m working on a memorial for the soldiers from World War II. We have, we found a large plaque with parchment inside of it—it’s not a plaque. It’s a picture with a parchment inside. It’s beautifully illustrated. Where they got this I can’t imagine. Honoring—we had 70 members from Holy Cross that were in World War II. And we—by oral tradition, all the alter furniture that we have right now was donated as a memorial to the World War II veterans. But here’s the catch: we don’t have it in writing. We don’t know that. Nobody knows that for sure, and I’m working on that—running that one down. But I did have the plaque reframed and put acid-free paper in it and everything, so it will be better preserved, and so we’re going to hang that by the pulpit. But we have a lovely—our furniture is wooden. It’s really beautiful. it’s really beautiful furniture.</p> <p>During the wartime, everything in Sanford was booming. We had the Navy base [Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford] out here. Did I tell you this before? I just told someone the other day. We had a—oh, I guess Dianna [Dombrowski]. There was a big boom and so we had a large congregation, a lot of the Navy families came to Holy Cross and brought their children. Then when the base closed at the end of World War II, then when [the] Korea[n War] started up, they reactivated the base and so that’s when we had another huge influx. I have pictures of our Sunday school children all lined up all the way down the sidewalk of the church—is how active everyone was. I guess in wartime people do go to church more maybe. I’m not sure [<em>laughs</em>]. So that was—so of course, we had a large congregation, then after Korea, and after they closed the base permanently. Then of course, the congregation fell off, and I think the City of Sanford went through some doldrums there for a while.</p> <p>The houses in the historic district, which is between First Street and Thirteenth Street from Sanford Avenue to French Avenue—is the historic district, where a lot of those houses were really run-down, but then we got another shot in the arm coming about in the ‘70s-‘80s, where[sic] people started—where[sic] people started buying those old houses and realizing the value in an old house, and it was—it became trendy to buy an old house and renovate it. People coming from Orlando—and they couldn’t afford Winter Park—and Downtown Orlando. They were coming to Sanford where they were much more reasonable. So we had a lot of that at that time.</p> <p>But Holy Cross has held its—I don’t know what our membership is. I really don’t. I don’t even think I can guess. We have a hundred—maybe a 150—on church each Sunday, but we have many more than that, I’m sure.</p> <p>That was an interesting period the ‘70s and the ‘80s. The people were coming and buying these old houses, and then we had the [Sanford] Historic Trust—now that’s another interesting group that might give you some insights. I don’t belong to the Trust, but they have a very active membership and they—I think they’ve done a lot toward getting people to repair their old homes, and of course, they set up a few little rules and regulations that nobody likes, but you know that’s the way it is with that sort of thing. Um, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask me a question. I’m kind of…</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>No problem. Are there any—would you say, big personalities, that you can think of, that have been connected with the church that maybe there are some interesting stories about?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Some interesting person from the church [<em>laughs</em>]. The only interesting person I think about in Bishop Whipple. [<em>laughs</em>] But he wasn’t from Florida.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>What about somebody from within your memory?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, I don’t know…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>You spend too much time before your memory.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I’m just lost in history.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Yeah, but about things that you remember.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>In my life—I’m trying to—we’ve had a lot of very interesting people…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I guess the question was: who was[sic] the interesting people?</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Just some interesting personalities.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>I—the church—I mean you’ve got the Chase family.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, the Chase family obviously. I guess we should.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>He doesn’t know that.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, he doesn’t know that [<em>laughs</em>]. The Chase family—actually Alicia’s the history…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>No. No, it’s—the thing is: from an outside observer—from when you’ve talked about in—I mean, it’s probably oversimplifying to say that they were sort of the aristocratic. But it does tend to be the Sanfords built the church, and then were they [the Chase family] —the major benefactors afterward?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, what happened over the years was…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>What was their role in the church in your lifetime? Who were the major benefactors? Or the major players in the church?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I think any time anything was needed for the church, they went to the Chase family.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>That’s something I always found interesting. Before your time it would have been the Sanfords, but…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>See, when Henry Sanford died, his wife was trying to get some money to live on, because she didn’t have much, because he was pretty free with his money. But finally his son ended up selling Chase his—Henry Sanford’s—grove, Belair, to the Chase family for $5,000—500? Oh, that’s an interesting story.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>That’s another story.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>The Chase brothers [Sydney Octavius Chase, Sr. and Joshua Coffin Chase] came from—where did they come from?</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>That’s another story.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I’m back. I’m out of my element again.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Well, what do you know about them?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>The first group of Chases, then second group. I know the second group, because Julia Chase was the last one that died that was living out there at Belair. But she was just the Grand Dam. She was just lovely. Just one of those women that, when you look at her you, just know that she’s not just anybody.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Mrs. Randall [Chase, Sr.].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yes. Mrs. Randall Chase, and she was a lovely lady, but—and her family—none of her children live here, so we don’t have a Chase in our church. But when Julia died a few years ago, she had her son who was a priest, he did the…</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Randall [Chase, Jr.].</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Randall. Yeah. See these people I’m not that familiar with them, because I haven’t—wasn’t there when they were there. Then she has a daughter who’s also involved in the Episcopal church up—someplace up north. Was it just the two children?</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>No. There’s three. There’s Josh [Chase], Ran [Chase], and Laura [Chase]. You didn’t know any of them.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I didn’t know any of them, no. I’ve met the daughter several times when she’s been at church, but…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Who were the leaders of the altar guild and things like? What groups were you in? I don’t mean to ask questions for Austin, but I think you’re thinking so much in your historian hat. You’re not thinking that you’ve been in the church…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>39 years. Well, since 1969. Whatever that is.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>So you didn’t grow up in that church.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But I didn’t grow up in that church. No. I’m not a cradle Episcopalian, and you know that is not a good thing.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>That is news to me. I did not know that.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>No. I am not.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>What church did you defect from?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I grew up in a Lutheran church.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I was confirmed in a Lutheran church.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Here?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>No. In Philadelphia, before we moved to Florida.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>Oh, so that’s why you know…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>So you only know about the past 39 years.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. Yeah. So that’s what I can—that’s what I can tell you about. And the history…</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>So you know about 120 years ago and 39 years ago, but nothing in between.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>But the in-between—I’m sort of—well, actually, I was very busy I was trying to get my education and trying to raise four children, so those are lost years.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>No. I understand that.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>But you’ve been living on Park Avenue…</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I’ve lived in the same house for 53 years on Park Avenue.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>That’s part of what I thought was interesting about Bette. She’s been living downtown. You’re talking about how downtown’s changed. You live in basically walking distance from the church.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I always thought that I would walk to church. I never have.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>And you’ve lived down there as downtown went downhill, and came back up again. That’s why I was thinking—she’s lived in the same house all this time, right in the middle of downtown. You’re not in the historic district though, are you?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>You are?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It’s to 13th Street.</p> <p><strong>Clarke<br /></strong>So she’s been in the historic district before it was there.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>And also Park Avenue used to be [U.S. Route] 17-92. I think I told you that before, and that was the main street of the town. I don’t know what year it was switched over to French Avenue. And then after French Avenue, they moved—well, 17-92 still is French Avenue, you still have to go around. I’m sorry I have these gaps.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>No problem. In your time as someone just living in the—so close to downtown—so close to the church—I don’t know if you went into this a lot in the last interview, but how has the area around you, that you’ve seen, changed?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It has, because the houses, at least—if you drive up and down those streets of the historic district, basically every house has been occupied and renovated and sold, and occupied and renovated. I mean, there’s a lot of that that’s gone on. It’s interesting to—and I don’t do it on purpose, but sometimes I find myself over on Myrtle [Street] or Elm [Avenue], which are the streets between Park and French Avenue, and I’m always kind of amazed, I think, <em>Oh my gosh! Somebody’s fixed that house up</em>. They’ve done a lot of in filling in Sanford, which is interesting. Lots that were vacant—they built houses on those lots, and the houses look a lot like my house, or other, you know, houses that are already there. So they’ve done a good job. There’s only one house in that district that I could show you that is not of era of the [19]20s-‘30s, even ‘40s. It’s—somebody was doing something in the ‘60s that it’s just one of those real modernistic looking buildings.</p> <p>But—it’s changed, and Sanford probably right now is in a very good place I think, because they have so many of the younger crowd. I don’t really think—I don’t know this to be true—I don’t think we have a lot of churched people in this area. We have the old [All Souls] Catholic Church is right there on Ninth [Street] and Oak [Avenue], but the Catholic school is there. Now they moved the Catholic—they have services now on First Street. It’s the big church. You’ve probably seen out on First Street—a big Spanish church. But the old church there was built early on. Not as early as Holy Cross, but early. Actually, it’s a replacement too, because their first church burned. Because I know when our church burned, they gave us stuff, and when their church burned we gave them stuff, because we have some letters saying thank you for different things we gave them. But then they built the Catholic school over there, which has been a real boon to that church I think. It’s at capacity, I’m sure. It only goes to seventh or eighth grade, then they have to go to Bishop Moore [Catholic High School] in Orlando. But eventually, on their property on [Florida State Road] 46, they’re going to build a whole new church—I mean a whole new school and high school and everything. With the economy with the way it is, who knows when that will happen.</p> <p>We have a convenience store in my neighborhood and my friends—and they’re used to be two or three houses on that property—my friends will say to me, “Bette, how did you let that happen?” I’ll say, “Y’all, I was busy.” When you’re raising a family and doing all those things—I wasn’t out there standing with my picket sign saying, “Down with 7-Eleven.” It was a 7-Eleven. It’s not anymore. Now it’s something—I don’t know what. But, so now they’ve got two filling stations on the corner of Thirteenth Street, which used to be filling stations, and then the convenience store, which is across the street down one block from me, which is not desirable. But since I didn’t get out there and picket them, I don’t know what I can do now. But that’s a danger in a neighborhood of letting those types of buildings in, because that does ruin the family atmosphere of the area. Now, that’s not being snobbish, I’m not saying that, because, you know—it’s[sic] just doesn’t belong there. If that had been a little small grocery store or something maybe—maybe, I’m not even sure about that. But once you bring that element in, then you’ve got a lot of trash and things. But it’s not like that—I mean, it was like that at a time. Every morning, I used to go out and, on my way to school, I would go and pick up the cups, and the paper, and stuff out on my front yard, but I don’t have that anymore, because they seem to be—I don’t know why not, but it’s just not. But that’s not good for a neighborhood.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>One thing that I’ve heard about Sanford—and some people say that it continues on even today—is that there is a high crime rate in the area, or at least in the past 5-10 years, there had been a much higher crime rate. And that’s the picture—at least certainly as someone that lives over in Orlando and only hears about Sanford—that’s the picture that’s painted.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. And that’s, you know—let me give you my theory on that. And now I have to go back a little bit. [<em>phone rings</em>] I have a new granddaughter and I have to answer my—excuse me.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>No problem. I can put this on pause.</p> <p>The crime rate in the area and your theory on that.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Well, for one thing it annoys me that that’s Sanford’s reputation, because that’s not fair. Because Orlando has its areas that are just as bad. It just doesn’t seem to get as much publicity as Sanford does.</p> <p>Here’s my theory, Sanford—when Henry Sanford—I wonder what my doodles mean. I’ll stop it. When Henry Sanford came here, this was going to be the thriving metropolis—the “Gateway to South Florida. I’m sure he envisioned all kinds of buildings and everybody coming to these stores and buying things and then moving on down south, which for a while it was like that. Of course, a lot of this has to do with fluctuations in the country’s economics too. Seems like things, you know, are up or down—are up or down.</p> <p>The agriculture—citrus was great, but when the citrus was frozen out in 1895 and ‘96—the two back-to-back freezes—and just ruined the citrus crops. And when you’ve got those trees that will have to be taken out and replaced—that was after General Sanford’s time anyway. I think he died in ‘91. So there really wasn’t anything to do, so they started plowing up the fields and we have people in this organization [Sanford Historical Society] that are great on the celery. They started planting celery. Well, so when you get “dirt crops”—I’ll call them, ‘cause I don’t know what else you would call them—when you get crops like celery and cabbage, which is what they grew a lot of those type of crops, you have to have workers. Where do you get the workers? From someplace else, because they didn’t have—well of course, General Sanford had imported his Swedish people, but they weren’t going to do that type of work. So they got a lot of blacks coming down after the Civil War, they got people that would want to do that kind of work. When that happened, it became a migrant thing. The workers work in Sanford all through the harvest season. They would go to Upstate New York to Sodus and Syracuse, and they’d have their—well kind of like—you see the pictures of the people going west. Their cars loaded down and their children—going up north to work the fields up there. So when you have all those migrant workers, they’re not getting paid much of a wage. They don’t have a decent place to live. So areas grew up around Sanford that kind of—I mean the people were poverty-stricken. They—so when you think of poverty, you think of crime as going hand-in-hand.</p> <p>That’s my theory of the reason that we have that and of course, with integration—or I should say with desegregation—it takes time. You can’t say, “Okay. Fine. You can come to my school today and we’ll make you well.” It doesn’t happen that fast. I mean, they’ve got to work the same years that everybody else does. So I think a lot of that was—this is just my theory. I haven’t read this in a book. I feel bad about it, because you feel guilty, because the people who are so distressed. But then you also feel sad that the whole city is tainted with the brush of holding people down, and so they’re angry and so what are they going to do? It’s—I don’t know. Does that work [<em>laughs</em>]? I just—it’s a sad story actually, I think, and it makes me feel bad. And I think when the first child was integrated in the school where my children went to school—her father was a local dentist—a black dentist. Mother—lovely people. And this one little black girl in this whole school of white children—God bless her. She turned out to be a teacher, and she’s done very well for herself, and her mother and father were wonderful people. What she suffered, I don’t know. I’ve never talked to her, but it’d be interesting to know her story. I’d like to think that she didn’t suffer, but then—I don’t know.</p> <p>So I think that when you look at the part—and also when you take and you build like these developments, these housing projects—you’re lumping all these people that are unhappy together. And you’re supposed to be taking care of the houses. Well, sometimes the city, or whoever was in charge—like right now they’re having a big brouhaha about the upkeep of some of the project homes, so you can see what you—but Orlando has the same thing. I imagine every city has the same thing. Maybe Sanford is just more noticeable, because it’s a small town. We have a large population of blacks, but for the most part—at least the people I know—they’re educated. They’re trying to improve their families just like we are. So that’s kind of a sad tale, but that’s just what I think. I’m not sure what the question was [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Well, I guess then are there any other types of events, either connected to the church or just things that you’ve—and they’ve probably asked you this as well in the last interview, but any types of events—whether connected to the church or not that you experienced—that you remember as big events that stood out in the community or even for yourself?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Sanford has a lovely Christmas tour of homes and Holy Cross has been on the tour many years. The people open their homes to the—this is, I think, the first week in December, which is interesting and it’s nice to go through those—the old homes, the renovated homes—but it’s usually Downtown Sanford in the historic district . So that’s always a big thing Sanford has every—well, one Thursday a month, they have Thursday Night Alive. I have only been to two of them, because I just can’t do the walking, but they have wonderful food and drinks and dancing and all kinds of things in the street downtown. It’s a very nice thing. It’d be a nice place to bring a date or something on—I think it’s the third Thursday. Every month they close off the streets, and I think you pay one fee—like five or seven dollars—and then you go around and taste everything.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Did they do that last week?</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. They did that last week.</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Because I was down here and they had some streets closed off and I was wondering what was going on.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>Yeah. That’s what it is. Was that the third Thursday?</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>I don’t know.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>I don’t know what day it is. But anyway, can you think of anything else, I can’t think of anything that’s too earthshaking. Nothing. We don’t have any Disney-type characters running around on the loose or anything. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Smith<br /></strong>Alright.</p> <p><strong>Skates<br /></strong>It’s very nice. No—it’s something to come over and take a look at.</p> A History of the First Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida, 1884-1984 agriculture Alicia Clarke Austin Smith Baptist Church Belair Grove Bette Skates Brooks Camp Monroe celery Chase and Company Chase Groves Condominium Christmas church churches citrus citrus groves City of Sanford congregations crime rates crimes desegregation Downtown Sanford enterprises Episcopal Church fires First Baptist Church First Baptist Church of Sanford First United Methodist Church First United Methodist Church of Sanford Florida State Road 46 Forrest Lake Fort Mellon Fort Reed Fourth Street French Avenue Gateway to South Florida Gertrude Dupuy Gertrude Dupuy Sanford Grace Marie Stinecipher Halifax River Harman Henry B. Plant Henry Bradley Plant Henry Flagler Henry Morrison Flagler Henry Shelton Sanford Holeman Holy Cross Episcopal Church hurricanes integration Josh Chase Joshua Coffin Chase Julia Chase Korean War Lake Mary Laura Chase Lyman Phelps Mellonville memorials Methodist church migrant labor migrant workers missionaries missionary Museum of Seminole County History NAS Sanford Naval Air Station Sanford orange groves race relations Ran Chase Randall Chase, Jr. Randall Chase, Sr. Sanford St. Gertrude Grove Sydney Octavius Chase, Sr. Thursday Night Alive veterans Whipple World War II WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/68de2783eb584748a93b583d1e213e1a.pdf 6bb211a768d0527e7d8fe33ef8bc5857 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan Alternative Title Oral History, Reagan Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Education--Florida Description An oral history interview of Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan, conducted by Rebecca Schwandt on April 2, 2015. Born January 27, 1934, Reagan is the granddaughter of Andrew Aulin, Sr. (1843-1918), who is credited with naming Oviedo, Florida. In this oral history, Reagan discusses growing up in Oviedo, attending school at Oviedo High School, the great technological advances that have occurred during her life, segregation and integration, her hopes and aspirations, and her family life. She also tells stories about her grandfather and talks about the history of the Aulin family, as well as the Lawtons and the Wheelers. Finally, Reagan discusses her career as an artist. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:00:37 Childhood memories <br />0:03:46 Childhood games and entertainment <br />0:07:29 Friends and pets <br />0:11:46 Siblings and childhood aspirations <br />0:14:27 Favorite books <br />0:17:18 Mary Alice Powell Aulin and sewing <br />0:22:17 Childhood homes <br />0:24:56 RECORDING CUTS OFF <br />0:24:59 Community events <br />0:29:36 Car accident and the local doctor <br />0:35:02 Teachers and discipline <br />0:39:19 School pranks and memories <br />0:42:05 Integration and race relations <br />0:47:30 Graduation <br />0:49:41 College education and first job <br />0:53:26 Husbands and children <br />1:02:35 History of the Aulin family <br />1:09:08 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan. Interview conducted by Rebecca Schwandt at Reagan's home in Lake Mary, Florida, on April 2, 2015. Type Moving Image Source Reagan, Bettye Jean Aulin. Interviewed by Rebecca Schwandt, April 2, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 28-page digital transcript of original 1-hour, 14-minute and 19-second oral history: Reagan, Bettye Jean Aulin. Interviewed by Rebecca Schwandt, April 2, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Oviedo, Florida Sanford, Florida Lake Mary, Florida Creator Reagan, Bettye Jean Aulin Schwandt, Rebecca Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2015-04-02 Date Modified 2016-01-20 Date Copyrighted 2015-04-02 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 482 MB 270 KB Medium 1-hour, 14-minute and 19-second audio/video recording 28-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Julia Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan and Rebecca Schwandt, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6207" target="_blank">Joseph Lawton, October 18, 1753 - March 1815</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6207. "<a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;GRid=69149825" target="_blank">Andrew Aulin</a>." Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;GRid=69149825. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-01-13/news/9301130107_1_oviedo-sanford-grandchildren" target="_blank">MARY ALICE AULIN, 83, Myrtle Avenue, Oviedo, died Tuesday...</a>" <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, January 13, 1993. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-01-13/news/9301130107_1_oviedo-sanford-grandchildren. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/6kRa494ENww" target="_blank">Oral History of Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan</a> Transcript <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>This is an oral history of Bettye [Jean Aulin] Reagan. The interview is conducted by Rebecca Schwandt at Bettye Reagan’s home in Oviedo, er—Lake Mary, Florida…</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>On April 2^nd, 2015. Could you please state your full name and birth date for the record?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Okay, Bettye Jean Reagan. Uh, January 27^th, 1934. Uh, born actually in Sanford in the hospital, which I was the first one in my family to be born in the hospital. Everybody else had been born at home, [<em>laughs</em>] which was in Oviedo, and, um, that’s where I was raised.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And what is one of your earliest childhood memories?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>My earliest childhood memories was[sic]—we lived, uh—I don’t know the name of the road. It goes, uh—it goes beside the Lawton House—where the Lawton House, uh—there’s one that goes towards Winter Park and the other one that comes beside it. We lived down that road, across from where the [Oviedo High] School was. That was in a big ol’ two story house there, and one—I guess I’ll never forget this. When I was—we moved out of that house when I was six years old, but, uh, one day my little brother<a title="">[1]</a> and I decided to go for a walk out—and you went through the back—we had a—a garden and we had an orange grove. If you kep’ on goin’, there was a great big ditch there, you walked over, which was scary. We could go all the way to where the cemetery is today. It was there then, through the woods, and we decided we just go for—and we went, which we—unheard of. Today, it would be terrible they would have called the police [<em>laughs</em>], but—and we’re out there wandering around in—in the cemetery, and this lady, who knew who we were, came and got us and took us back home, and another time, we went down there, and—and I was gonna fix it so my brother, who’s two years younger than I am—he had to be—if I was six he had to be four—and I made him a fishing pole out of a stick, a piece of string, and I don’t know how I did it, but I took a straight pin and bent it. We got some bread and we tied that string on there, and we went down there to that ditch that we had to cross over, which is really what it was, but it had water in it—to fish, and my little brother fell in head first, and his—there—and his feet are sticking up and I pulled him out [<em>laughs</em>]. He’s covered with mud [<em>laughs</em>], but that was a sca—I used to have nightmares after that about that incident.</p> <p>It scared me so bad, and another time, at that same area, where my daddy<a title="">[2]</a> had planted all the strawberries, I took the bucket one day and I picked every strawberry in the patch, and they were all green, so we didn’t have strawberries that year [<em>laughs</em>]. That’s[sic] my first memories [<em>laughs</em>], but then, I swear I started school in first grade, and I got to go to school a year early. I went when I was five. My birthday was in January, but you were—but—and you weren’t supposed to go to school, but, uh, a man from Oviedo, Mr.—Mr. Gore, was a—on the school board, and, uh, his son was Frank—Frankie D. Gore, and he’s a school—well, I guess he’s not now, but he was a school teacher—grew up to be a school teacher. He got to go—his birthday was the same as mine was. So my Mama<a title="">[3]</a> said, “Well, if you[sic] can go to school—well, if he can go, you can go.” So they had to let me go. So I got to go to school when I was five and get out early, and those are some of the first things I remember [<em>sniffs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And what kind of games did you play as a young child?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>We, you know—we made up our games. We did things—I guess we couldn’t say we—we, uh—I remember that, uh, we took the—we—We lived in another—we moved two more times, and we lived up where the—we were surrounded by orange groves, and every year, when they got ready to pick the oranges, they would come out and they would dump all the orange crates. If you know what an orange—old-fashioned orange box looks—it’s got a division in the middle and they would stack them, and we would make a great fort. Me and my brother would get out there and make this great big fort and, uh, play in that.</p> <p>Then, we would also fix a, uh—a little thing in the back yard and play storekeeper, and in those days, you—what you did with you garbage—you didn’t have garbage collection. You dug a great big hole in your backyard somewhere.  you put all the—your trash that you had and we put it in the hole and then—and you tried to burn it, if you could, and then you’d fill the hole in, and then you dig another hole, but we would get anything that came in a carton, a box, and we would save all those and we would put them up on the table, and we would play like we had a store, and y—anybody came to the store, and we would pull the—we got in trouble for this—we pulled the leaves off the orange tree. That was our money. We made out like that was dollars, and we would do that, and we would, uh, play cops and robbers, and we—we would get a little saw, which my daddy had—we weren’t s’posed to use, and saw out little—just a little thing that look like a—a pistol, but of course, it wasn’t. It was just a little thing, and we would run around and chase each other, and then another time, we decided we would go find Indian mound[sic]. We had a wild imagination, I guess, and we went out with a shovel, and we found a little mound way away from the house. I don’t know how we got away with all that, and we would dig and dig. ‘Course, we never found anything [<em>laughs</em>], but we—but we spent a lot of time doing that sort of thing.</p> <p>We—you just came up with your own ideas, you know, but as far as havin’ a lot of toys, we didn’t, but we—we made, uh, treehouses. We’d climb a tree, and put boards up on it and climb up, and we didn’t really have a house, but we would put a couple boards up there—make out like we did. Or we would do another thing. We would cut off palmetto[sic]—big, uh, palmetto[sic] palms, you know, and we would put them around some trees, and we would have a little house, and that’s the kinda thing we did growin’ up, but as far as havin’ a lot of toys or anything, we didn’t. We didn’t do that. Not like today, and of course, there was no TV, of course, and you listened to the radio at night. That’s the only time you listen to it.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Do you remember any radio shows?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes, uh, <em>The Lone Ranger</em>. Every—we always listened to <em>The Lone Ranger</em>, and, uh, something else came on. Um, cowboy show came on—another one. I can’t think of the name of that one. Trigger—who was<a title="">[4]</a>—he had the horse named Trigger? Uh, anyway, we—we did listen to those kind of sh—and then, uh, <em>Grand Ole Opry </em>came on Every Saturday night. We listened to that, uh, but—and everybody just sat around the radio.it was quiet and you listened to it.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Who were your childhood friends?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, some of the—the same people that I started out with in the first grade. I—they were still with me when I graduated [<em>laughs</em>], and I don’t know how many people were in the first grade, becau—but probably 20 or so, and, uh, when I graduated there were nine, but most of ‘em, I had started out with in the first grade, and, uh, some—a couple of ‘em lived close to me, and we would go to each other’s house n’ play, but—or, actually, a lot of times, we went to the school ground and play. They have swing sets there, and, uh, they had a field to play baseball and all that, and—and then, another thing, we had a cow, and—to get—for milk—and every day, my daddy would take that cow with a chain on it and go across the road to the school grounds [<em>laughs</em>], which had some woods on it—a little bit of woods, and he would stake the cow out there on—and the cow would eat the grass on the school ground, and then we’d bring it in every night, and that was—nobody thought there was anything wrong with that. That was just what you did, and it’s crazy. Things change so much, but today, you couldn’t think of doin’ something like that [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p>Another thing that we would do when we got a little bit older, um—where the school is, the railroad track ran right behind the school, and we would be watchin’ the ball game on Sunday afternoon, which everybody in town went, and there would be s—just a bunch of people get up a game—you know, choose up, and then they would play baseball, and everybody would be there to watch it, and these boys would figure out how to let…</p> <p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Some of the air out of the tires on the car and get it on the railroad track, and they would—we would be sitting her watching the ball game and way out there past the field, there goes the car down the railroad track, and that was the highlight of the thing [<em>laughs</em>]—of the day. I don’t know how they did that. Sometimes, they’d get off and it’d go, “Bump, bump, bump, bump” down there too [<em>laughs</em>]. Oh.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Did you have any other animals besides the milk cow?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. Well, we had, uh—we had a dog. I had two dogs I’ll never forget. Uh, the first one we got—well[?], we—we got this white Spitz, and we had that dog for 14 years. His name was Troubles, and, uh, he—he was, uh, just a lifelong pet, and, uh, then one time, my daddy brought home a little, black puppy. Uh, when he was workin’ with—for Nelson and Company, which was Wheeler’s.<a title="">[5]</a> Uh, he was, uh, a man who checked the fruit. He was a fruit tester, and when they would go to pick oranges in the groves, he had all this equipment and he would, uh—slice the fruit and put the juice in, and he knew how to measure to see how much solid it had, how much sugar it had. They had to do that when they picked the oranges to know what kind of thing it was. Anyway, while he was—was gone one day, somebody gave him a little puppy. He brought it home, and we already had that other dog, and my mother said—and I thought it was my dog. It was my dog. Uh, I called her Black Beauty, ‘cause I had just read that book, <em>Black Beauty</em>, and I had that that dog for a couple weeks. My mother kept sayin’ all the time, “You can’t keep that dog. You can’t keep that dog.” Well, I kept it three or four months, and one day, I came home from school and the dog wasn’t there, and my mother had given it to somebody who was walkin’ by and saw it, and she asked if they wanted that dog. She—we couldn’t have two dogs. She gave my dog away, and I was very, very heartbroken [<em>laughs</em>] about that, but, uh, Anyway, we knew who had it and we used to go down and see the dog all the time, bum, but that was—that was the only pets we ever had was those two dogs and the cow, of course. [inaudible]. That was it.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>How many siblings do you have?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>I had, uh—I had two sisters and two brothers, and I still have one sister and one brother. The others are all passed away.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And how did you get along with your siblings?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /> </strong>Good. Well, there was a big, uh—there was seven years difference between my older—my older sister, <a title="">[6]</a> who’s here, and, uh, I had a—my older sister was 10 years older than me, and then [Alice] Kathryn [Aulin Bunch] was next to her, and then I had a brother<a title="">[7]</a>—was seven years older, and then there was me and my younger brother, who’s two years younger, who still lives in Oviedo, and, uh, so, we were, uh—my sister will be the first to tell you that me and my brother were spoiled, because we were younger, then there was seven years difference, and by the time we came along, we—we didn’t have to do all the work that they had to do, and she says we got by with a lot of stuff, which not true [<em>laughs</em>], but, uh, ‘cause they grew up and they left home. We were still at home, you know, for seven more years, but, uh—and[?] today she lives in so[?] close to me now. She used to live in Orlando most all her life and now she lives here.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What did you want to be when you grew up?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, I wanted to be, uh, a teacher, and I wanted to teach English and literature, which I loved, and, uh, P.E.,<a title="">[8]</a> and the reason I wanted to teach P.E.—one reason—cause I loved sports and all that. We used to have these girls in our P.E. class, which we would go, eh—different times of the year, you did different things. We had basketball. We actually didn’t have a lot of sports, but we played basketball and softball. That was the only two sports that girls played, and, uh—but those girls—so many of them were la—lazy, and they would just say, “Oh, um, you know, I’m havin’ my period and I can’t play,” and so they’d sit in the gym, you know, and just sit there and not do anything, and that wasn’t true. They[?] just lazy, and I always said, “One day I’ma be a P.E. teacher and nobody’s gonna be sitting in there on the bench, ‘cause I’m gonna give them a trashcan and they’re gonna walk around the school yard and pick up the trash, if they can’t do anything else.” That was my goal, but I didn’t get to do any of those things [<em>laughs</em>], ‘cause I didn’t get to go to college, as much as I wanted to, Uh, but, uh, it all turned out okay anyway, but that’s…</p> <p>I loved school. I loved school. I would go to school—as soon as I was old enough to be able to do this—the teachers always came to school in those days—two weeks before school, the teachers would be at school gettin’ their classrooms ready, and they always stayed for two weeks after school was out, and I would go to school and find my teacher that I was gonna have, and I would ask her what I would do to help her, and I would stay there, because I just loved going to school, and I was always not happy when school was out every year. I loved school.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What—you mentioned you wanted to be a—a[sic] English teacher. What were some of your favorite books?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, gee [<em>laughs</em>]. Uh, I remember <em>Heidi</em>, when I was little. <em>Heidi</em>, you know? if you ever read that book, and, uh, then, um—oh, after I got older, I remember books I read, but I can’t think of any right off the—oh, I’ll never forget, I’ma tell you a funny story about this book. We had this little book that somebody gave us on the life of Abraham Lincoln, and it was a child’s book. You know it had pictures of Lincoln and it was written so a child could understand. Well, you know when you get up in the high school, you got to write a book report. You gotta read a book every six weeks—well, we did then—and you gotta bi—write a book report on it and turn it in. Well, we had this book. I didn’t do this, but my brothers did. They got the Abraham Lincoln book, which you could read in 15 minutes if you were an adult, you know, and they would almost copy it word for word and turn that thing in for a book report, and got by with it, but I [<em>laughs</em>]—I always remembered that, but I used to, uh, uh—we had—in Oviedo, actually, they had, uh—we had a drugstore, which was the place. The number one place in Oviedo was the drugstore. They also had a section down there where they had like library books—new books that were written today, you know—modern books, and you could go check ‘em out, and, uh, I would go down there and check books out there, and I had a teacher, um, uh, her name was Miss Walker, and, uh, she got married later her name was Ms. Anderson, but she told me about these books and she would recommend a book for me to read, and I would go down to the drugstore and check it out and read those books, and then after I got married and had kids, eh, hardly had time to read, but every day when they took a nap after lunch, I would—I was a member of a book club and I would my—I’m still reading today.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Uh, in an earlier conversation you mentioned your mother was a seamstress.</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Can you elaborate on some of the things she did[?]?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes. Um, my mother, uh, was—oh, she—she packed oranges for 25 years for Nelson and Company. I remember that well, ‘cause we would go down there sometimes after s—we’d have to go down there and see her about something, but, um—but she also was a seamstress, and she learned to do this on her own. My mother came to Oviedo on the train from Sanford. She only got to go to school to the eighth grade, and she loved school. That was another thing. She lived over here in Sanford and she came out there to operate the telephone service—the—be the telephone operator, and, uh, that’s where she met my father, but, um, I don’t know when or how she learned to sew, because I know that she was young, uh—maybe 16, 17 years old then, when she came out there, and, uh, I never heard about her mother sewing so I—I—I didn’t ever know how she ever learned, but she was very good. She made all our clothes. Never had a bought dress. Never had anything bought, until one day she did get me a big coat. I have a picture. It’s in one of my books. That—it was a—really a store-bought coat. It looked like fur. It wasn’t, but it was—I—I—there’s a picture of me in that book in school, standing there in that big old coat [<em>laughs</em>], but she made, uh—she made all my clothes, and, uh—and my—my sister’s too, and she made—she sewed for other people. They would come to the house, uh, she made clothes for them too, but she made me a—something I’ll never forget—she made me a red coat. It was like a red, wool coat—bright red—and in the inside was satin lines. It was full-length, you know, like a—I was only about 10 years old, and I thought that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I wanted to wear it to school, but she said, “No, that was to wear to church,” you know, that was special. I finally remember I got to wear it to school, but I never forgot that, and to this day, not too long ago, I learned a song that Dolly Parton wrote, my—<em>Coat of Many Colors</em>. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard—are familiar with that. Anyway, that always made me—we weren’t that hard up. It wasn’t made out of rags, like her coat was, but every time I heard that song, I think about my red coat that my mother made me.</p> <p>So that, uh, and she sewed everything, and then what happened years later—I always said—every night my mother would sit there by the sewing machine and sew, and we’d be sittin’ listenin’ to the radio, and she would sew ‘til late, and I said, “There’s one thing I’m never gonna to do. I am never gonna sew,” ‘cause I thought it was just too much work. Well, got married. my husband gives me a sewing machine for Christmas, plus lessons over in Orlando, so I’d go take lessons, and so I did that, and low ‘n’ behold, I—liked it, and I can—I made my kid’s clothes, and I have pictures—Easter pictures where everybody’s—even my little boys’ coats. we all had dresses that—just alike, and we all had hats and gloves, and we would go to church, and—I mean, some of them are little kids, and we got movies of all this, and we would go to church, and then—especially on Easter and Mother’s Day, we went to Morrison’s Cafeteria after church, the only time we ever went out to eat, and we would go there, and then we would go to Lake Eola in Orlando to the Easter parade, and go up on the platform at—at Lake Eola, and walk across there with our Easter outfits on, and the last thing I made was, uh,—my daughter—one of my daughters got married, and I made her, uh, all the dresses for that, and it was like a Southern Belle-type thing, and the wedding was here at our yard, and, uh, I made all the dresses for that, but I haven’t made—and I made all my kids little—they had a band, uh, that they played. They had guitars and all that, and we had—all of them played, but the—the four younger ones were playing in a little group that started out doin’ it for school, and it got—they got good, and we played it, eh, for Doctor’s Day, for Fourth of July. So I made them outfits alike, you know, vest-like things to wear for that, and that—I really enjoyed being able to do all that. It was neat [<em>taps on table</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Um, in an earlier conversation, you mention several different houses you moved to…</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Throughout the years. Uh, could you describe them?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes, the first house we lived in, it was called “The West House,” ‘cause Mrs. West owned it—was the one—was across from the school, and then we moved—I’ll never forget that, because we didn’t have electricity at that house. We had lanterns, like oil lanterns, and, uh, Then I remember when we moved, and my mother was so excited, because that—the house we moved in is still there, and, uh, it’s—you go by the Lawton House and go on down, through that red light, up the hill, and it—it’s on the left. It sits up on top that hill there still. It’s funny—it doesn’t look near as big as it did, when I was growin’ up. Everything looks smaller, but, uh, we moved in that house, and—electricity, running water. We had—the house we lived in had a pump outside. You pumped the water and brought it in—before. Now, we had water. You turned the faucet on. You could take a bath in the bathtub. That was a big thing for us. That was our first time to do that, and, uh, so that was—we really liked that house, and my mother wanted to buy it. We didn’t—we were renting, and, uh, the lady sold it to somebody else, so we didn’t get to buy it. So we—we had to move.</p> <p>So we moved down back into town into an area that—the house is not there today, because it’s the parking lot of First Baptist Church [of Oviedo]—where the house was. It was real small, but then there were only—all my brothers and sisters—the older ones—Just me and my little brother were still home, so it was okay, ‘cause we just needed—and we actually slept on this sleeping porch—bunk beds. I slept on top and he slept on bottom, and then a lil’ later, when I got a little older, they moved me into the dining room, and they opened the couch up every night and slept on it [<em>laughs</em>], but, uh, that’s where we lived, until I left home, and—and then after my mother got sick, uh—she had a, um, Parkinson’s [Disease].</p> <p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>And she stayed there as long as she could, and, uh—very independent person—very. Always wanted to take care of everything herself. Never wanted any charity from anybody—very independent, and, uh, so, um, she was nur—in the nursing home in Orlando—in Winter Park, and—and then eventually, she ran out of money, and she had to stay there, ‘cause she cou—and she still had her house, and, uh, she—she took the money, and sold the house, and used it to pay her hospital bill until.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Were there any community events that you would attend regularly?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, actually, very few, um, community events. Most everything centered around either school or church, and, uh, that[sic] was[sic] the activities for—and the other thing though, in the summertime—very important—the swimming pool. Oviedo had a pool. No—Sanford didn’t have one, Longwood didn’t have one, and there weren’t any in people’s homes, in those days. They didn’t do that, but there—Oviedo had a swimming pool—a good, big, record[?]-sized pool, and then they had a baby pool next to it. Everybody came from Sanford and everything out there.  My daddy ran the pool, and so, every day in the summertime, we’d go to the pool. Every day, after lunch, you’d go to the pool, and then, also, they had a dance floor and an old juke—juke organ, you know, and, uh, so that was a very popular place people went, in the summertime. You’d go all the time, and, uh, that was very important part of our life in those days. That and—actually, we didn’t do much else.</p> <p>We rode our bikes a lot. That, we did. Uh, walked everywhere. We didn’t have a car. In fact, most—a lot of people didn’t, uh, and at—at school, there would be three—maybe—kids that drove a car to school, when they got in high school. The other cars belonged to the teachers, and these boys usually were from Slavia, and the reason they got to do that was—as soon as school was out they could go home and start workin’ out in the farms there, but, uh—and you walked everywhere. We walked all the way from my[?] house down to the pool, and the crazy part was, eh, we’d do it at night. I would be 15 years old, and I’d be walkin’ home with another friend, and she lived somewhere else, and she’s goin’ to her house and I’d wa—we’d walk all the way home in the dark at 10 o’clock at night. Nobody thought anything about it.</p> <p>Today, you wouldn’t do that at all. I wouldn’t think of letting my kids to do that, but in those days, it was not a problem, ’n you didn’t lock your door at our house. If you—Mama did decide to lock the door. The windows that went from the porch into the hou—[<em>laughs</em>] to the living room—all you had to do was raise it up and go in. I mean, anybody could com—there was—no one broke into houses. There was not any of that. You hardly ever heard of anybody stealing anything. That didn’t happen, in those days. You just didn’t have like we have today. Uh, it is so different. Everybody took care of everybody else, uh, but as far as, uh, entertainment and all, we rode our bikes to Lake Charm. That was a big thing. Get on your bike and ride out from Oviedo to Lake Charm—you know where that is—and ride around the lake. That was what we did. My brother would catch fish, and he’d sell it to the people that he went by there homes on his way home, and he stopped and sell his fish stock[?]. Yeah [<em>taps on table</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>As I understand, you attended the First Baptist Church of Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>Reagan</strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Uh, what’re some memories of services or events?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, they had, uh, uh—like when you were real little, they had what they called Sunbeam Band, When you were little. I remember going to that, Sittin’ in the little red chairs, and learnin’, uh, little songs that I’ve never forgot. I could sing them for you to this day, and they learned them in Sunbeam Band, and then, as you got older, they had a girls’ organizin—organization called GAs—Girls’ Auxiliaries somethin’—and—and that was extra that you—so it gave you something else to go to, and you learned all kinds of scripture verses, and you learned so much, and then you got promoted up to another level, and all of that, and the boys had something called RAs—Royal Ambassadors—and they did that, and, uh, you had, uh, the Christmas program, and, uh, that was always a big thing every year—the Christmas program in our Church, And, you went to Church, uh, every Sunday morning and at—Sunday night, and that was what all the teenagers did.</p> <p>And then, uh, I’ll never forget this, uh—when—my mother would always say, “Come straight home from church.” This was where we lived, right—we lived next to the church almo—within a block of the church, and this was—I was a senior in high school, and, uh, this particular night, [inaudible] my friend—girlfriend lived right down the street from me, and these two boys ask us if we wanted to go for a ride, and, uh, I didn’t particularly want to go with this guy, but I knew she did, so I was going to help her out, and, um, we said, “Okay,” and I knew I was supposed to go home, but I didn’t. So we got in the car with them and we went from Oviedo out to Slavia. You know where that is? Turned down a little dirt road that’s now right where the, um, nursing home is out there. Now, there’s a dirt road that went down there, and got down there, and this guy’s gonna park, and I said, “Nope.” I said, “I want to go home.” So he was not happy. Meanwhile[?], this other couple’s in the back seat.</p> <p>So he takes off and tears down the road, and we get to the hard road—the road that goes to Winter Park today, and he instead—he goin’ too fast, and he turns and rolls the car. Rolled it over two or three times. I went through the windshield, landed on the—on the railroad track. The railroad track went by there, and the car—I looked and I was alright. The car is upside down, the wheels are still goin’ around [<em>laughs</em>], the lights are on. We had a friend that lived right down the road from there. They heard it, and they came up, and, uh—but in the meantime, a car with a lady in it from Oviedo came drivin' by. She saw the accident, and anyway, it scared them, because they didn’t know where—I wasn’t in the car. They thought maybe I was under the car, but I wasn’t, but the—I di—I lost my shoe—one of my shoes. Couldn’t find it, but anyway, this lady knew me, knew my parents, and she said, “I’ll take you home,” and this was about 10 ‘o clock at night.</p> <p>So I had to go home, and go in there and wake up my parents. They were already sleepin’—with one—the whole thing that was bothering me was the fact that I lost my shoe—couldn’t find it [<em>laughs</em>], ‘cause I didn’t have but one pair of loafers, you know, and I had to wear ‘em to school the next day. <em>What am I gonna wear to school? </em>Anyway, I had to tell her we—that had[?]—that happened, and I’ll never forget. It Totaled the car. Totaled it—messed it all up, and the—the guy who was driving—his—nobody got hurt really, luckily. I did have to go in a cou—I got dizzy in a couple days and I had to go over and get x-rayed, and I had a slight concussion, but that was never any more to that, and, uh—but anyway, I felt sorry for the boy that was driving the car, because his mother was pregnant, and they were—she had to have that car to go to the doctor in Sanford. So he was in big trouble. That was a memory I remember[?] [<em>laughs</em>] well. Anyway…</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>In a prior conversation, you mentioned the town’s doctor. Could you tell me any stories you have of him?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>The town doctor? Dr. Martin, yes. Dr. Martin was the town—and he did everything. He pulled teeth, and, you know, anybody got anything wrong with them. What you hardly ever—I—I don’t remember going to him, uh, eh, but just one time. um, my mother—I came—came in from somewhere, one time, and my daddy was washing dishes, and that was unheard of, ‘cause I had never seen him wash a dish in my life, or do anything in the kitchen, and he was washing dishes, and I said, “What is goin’ on?” I was a teenager, and, uh, he—my—my mother had been doin’ it, and there was a knife in the water and she had cut her hand real bad, and he had to take her over to Dr. Martin and get it sewed up, and I remember that, and then, another thing that happened, um—Dr. Martin and his wife, Miss—Mrs. Martin, were very active in our church. Mrs. Martin…</p> <p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Taught Sunday school and all that. They—the—this doctor’s office was right next to the church, a little bit behind it—right next to it, and they had a bell out there by the office—doctor’s. The office was right by the home, and if somebody came while the doctor was in church, they would ring the bell and he would hear it, get up and go out of church, and One Sunday that happened. Somebody had done something to their leg, was layin’ on the back of a truck, with no sides on it—just a wooden back—and he goes over to take care of it, and he took that guy’s leg off—the rest of it, while everybody—Of course, as soon as we could get out of church, we all went runnin’ over to see what’s goin on, and we’re all standin’ around watchin’ Dr. Martin take a—saw this guy’s leg off, while he’s layin’ on the back of the truck [<em>laughs</em>]. Yeah, he was a character. Yup.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And also, um, in an earlier conversation a—about school, you mentioned, uh, the disciplinary actions of certain teachers.</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What are some experiences that stuck out to you?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, well, I’m not gonna tell you that story I told you last time, ‘cause I don’t want to get in trouble about that one, but, uh, uh, most of my teachers, uh—it—I’ve always said this, and I’ve probably—you probably know this. Everybody does. You always have certain teachers that are really good teachers and you’ll never forget ‘em. I mean, they—I have—I can remember certain teachers that were just good, and then there were some that, you wonder why they’re doing this, you know, uh, but um, I—we had this one teacher and [<em>clears throat</em>] she was hard to get along with, and she wa—she never had a smile on her face. She was just real sharp, and is always getting on everybody for every little thing, and she taught the fourth grade, and I was getting older by then, you know, ‘cause all the grades, one through 12, went to same school. You walked down the hall and—and this was something that I—I was bad sometimes at—I must have been seventh grade, ‘cause junior high is really the bad time [<em>laughs</em>]. I—if you look at my—I have every report card, and I can—you could pick out the ones I had when I was in seventh and eighth grade, uh, and anyway, she was just always mean to the kids, I thought, and so, she left her door open. She’d be in there talkin’ and you can walk down the hall and you’d hear her or see her in there.</p> <p>So one day, when we were ki—talking out there on the—before you walk into the main building—on the porch, and, uh, so I said—there was a box—an old cardboard box out there, and I said, “I’ma walk down the hall. I’ma throw it in her room. See what happens.” So they bet me I wouldn’t do it, so I did it. I walked in, threw it in there, and ran on down the hall. She caught me, and she took me up to the office, and the principal there knew me, of course, and he knew that she—also that she was a little bit difficult to get along with, and all he did to me was—after she left, he said he’d take care of it, and, uh, he gave me a poem to learn. He says, “Now, just sit here and learn this poem, but don’t do that anymore,” [<em>laughs</em>] but we had some, uh—we had another teacher, who had been there for many years and taught my older si—you know, that was another thing. The teachers you got—they had already had your older sister, who was a brain.</p> <p>You know, you’re supposed to know as much as she did, and, uh, they always compared you, as you went down the kids, but, uh, we had this teacher, and she could be—she was a good teacher, but she—she didn’t really—I don’t think she had children of her own. I don’t think she ever had children, but she would do things that, uh, would hurt people. Like we had this one girl that lived across the railroad track—her home was right over there—and she’d walk to school across the railroad track every day. Nicest person in the world, and one day she did something, and this—this teacher criticized her so badly in front of the whole class, and the girl did not deserve it. She didn’t do anything. Oh, she was a little bit late, I think, and I think she was late, because the train was across the track, and she got all over her or bein’ late to class and made the girl cry, and she did that to another girl in my class, and I just—it just really—I never, ever forgot it. Even though she was a good teacher, she—she would ridicule students sometimes, and, uh, I thought that—and—and it was embarrassing for that student, in front of the other kids, uh, and so you just remember certain people for certain things, but most of my teachers were good.</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, and I gotta tell you one more school story. Right next to the school, lived—there was some houses, and one of these houses was Mr. McCulley’s[sp] house. Charlie McCulley was my—I went to school, first grade through 12. I wish I knew if he was still livin’ today. I would love to see him. uh, but anyway, they had chickens—chicken yard, and one night, uh, some of the high school boys got Mr. McCulley’s chickens—three or four—and brought them over, and—and for some reason, we were able to get in and out of the school. I don’t know what it was, but they knew how to open—pick the lock or something, then go in there, and so, they got these chickens and they had this teacher that was a retired military. His name was Mr. Bayton[sp], and Mr. Bayton was vague. He shouldn’t have been teaching history. I mean, he was like—he didn’t even know the subject, you know, and he didn’t—nobody cared for him, but he was just kinda dumb, and so they put these chickens in his room and shut the door and left them in there [<em>laughs</em>] all night. The next day, he came to school and had all those chickens in there, and another time, they took somebody’s old “Model T,” and put it in the hall—put it in the hall, and every Halloween, they put a metal trashcan on top of the flagpole, upside down. Nobody ever figured out how they did it, but they—that was—you knew it would be there the next mornin’ [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p>Another thing though, when I went to school, what we did every day—they—they had the [American] flag, it stayed in the office, and they had certain people that did this, and they would take the flag out, unfold it, put it on the flagpole, and put the flag up, and that was—and if it rained, you ran out there and took the flag down. You never let the flag stay up there in the rain. You never let it stay up overnight. That was the way it was always. The whole time I was at school, it was that way.</p> <p>We always had what we called chapel every S—every Friday morning, everybody in the school went to the auditorium and there was a program. A lot of—once a month, you had a pastor of one of the churches came and talked, and it’d be a different one each time, and today, that could never happen. You always had the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before class, and you always said the Lord’s Prayer. You did those two the whole time I was in school. Now, things have changed.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>I have read that, uh, Oviedo High did not become integrated until the 1960s. Growing up during segregation, do you recall any incidences where you recognized the separation of races?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh, when I was growing up—I remember when integration started, ‘cause we were livin’ here, and I had kids in school, and I remember the first day, uh, that  it—that the schools were integrated, and my kids were in high school, at that time, but back when—when I was growin’ up, it—everything was segregated. Blacks were—rode—if they got on the bus, they had to ride in, uh, like the—we had a bus that came from Orlando to Oviedo. It was called Orlando Transit, and if you got on the bus, all the black people had to sit in the back. They loaded back to front, but this was another thing. They did have buses that went—went out to get kids to go to my school, but blacks didn’t have a bus. They—they had to walk to school, and they lived past where I lived up on the hill that—what we called “The Negro Quarters.” they were called “The Quarters.” They lived—a lot of ‘em—there were different places, but there was a group down there. They walks by our house, and they had to walk all the way across town to the black school, and of course, there was—it was no—no integration at all, and, uh, it even, uh—it was just unheard of for, uh—for people to mix up, or—or even—they was[sic] just two separate entities, and, uh, it—gradually, it got better.</p> <p>I remember like when my daughter, who, uh, just passed away this last summer—when she was a senior in high school, she was yearbook editor, just like I was yearbook editor when I was in school, and, uh—but, uh—and the two years before that, we had integration. it started when my oldest son<a title="">[9]</a> was still in sch—still in school, and, um, so there were some black[sic] on her, uh, editor—on her, uh, staff to do the yearbook, and when they got ready to have the ye—the party, there was a big discussion about whose house they could have it at, because that meant black people—kids were gonna come.</p> <p>The same way with my daughter, uh—my younger daughter, Julie [Karin Reagan], who‘s a nurse, uh, now. Uh, when she was a cheerleader, uh, we had some black girls that were cheerleaders with her, and, uh, lot of people—it was hard for a lot of people to get used to that. They didn’t like it, and—but I remember I took ‘em, um, ‘cause the parents—the white girls’ parents worked too. I was a stay-at-home mom, and, uh, all the other parents of the cheerleaders worked, and so they never went to anything, and then every—the cheerleaders needed to go to cheerleading camp. I drove ‘em over there, picked ‘em up. I made their uniforms, and—and I took the black girls too, you know, and somebody would say, “Are[?]—are you gonna do that?” I’d say, “Yes,” and I can remember that, and then I remember when my oldest daughter—the one that was a yearbook editor—went to Miami, she trained at, uh, Jackson Borough School for Nursing, and she had to watch a[sic], uh, autopsy. They had this group[?]. they watched up looking down from this glass to watch it, and that was part of her nurses training, and it was a black girl they were an autopsy on, and she said, “You know, Mom, when you open up somebody, they’re the same on the inside as you are,” and she said, “A lot of people need to think about that,” and, you know—and that was just wha—what she figured out on her own, and I said, “That’s[?]—that’s right,” and right now, two or three doors down here, my best friend is a black girl who’s 50 years old, who was married to a white man, who just passed away, and she and I walk every—two days a week, and we have a ball. She is more fun than—anyway, uh, that is certainly not a problem today, but I remember when it was a very big problem.</p> <p>I can remember when the guy who was the—the de—the she—the, uh, constable or the police chief of Oviedo—the only—only one policeman—I can remember how he mistreated black people that he put in jail. He hit ‘em. He had a billy stick and I remember hearing how he hit ‘em in the head with that, and, you know—I mean, they were mistreated. They were bad. It was bad. I can remember some bad things that happened. I’m certainly glad that part is over. Uh, hopefully, it’s over.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What year did you graduate at Oviedo High School, and what was the graduation ceremony like?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, I—1951. Nine people in my graduatin’ class. In those days, you always had a—a baccalaureate service. I don’t know if they still—don’t still do that, but they always had a, uh—a, uh—and they had it at the school. It was just like a graduation thing, but They had it like a—on a—two or three days before graduation, you had baccalaureate, and they would, like, preach a sermon, or they would do a—it would be a talk on how you—to live your life and all that sort of thing, but it was a different, and every year, they’d have a different pa—we had a Methodist and a Baptist and a Lutheran ch—church. Those were the three main churches, and they would take turns, uh, doin’ the baccalaureate service.</p> <p>So you always had that first, and then you had graduation, and at the same time as grad—graduation night, you also—they gave out any awards that—now—now today, my kids—they have an award night for different things, but in the—they did all the awards the night of graduation, and, uh, I got—I’ll never forget this, because my older sister got a bunch. S when I came along, I did too, except…</p> <p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>One. She got one that I didn’t get, and my mother said—as soon as she walked out of that thing, the first thing she said was, “How come you didn’t the”—I forgot what it was—“American Legion Award” or somethin’. I said, “That’s alright. I got best all-around athlete award. My sister didn’t that,” [<em>laughs</em>] but I got the history award and, uh—and the, uh, leadership award. I forgot what—it’s another name for it, but, uh, I’ll never forget that. She didn’t know how come I didn’t get that one, so—but that—we had award’s night the same night, as we did that [<em>taps on table</em>]. That was about it.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And where did your life take you after high school?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, not very far. My whole thing was to leave Oviedo. Both of my sisters had left and went to work at a bank in Orlando. uh, my older sister went first and she got—she worked at Florida State—it was called Florida State Bank in Downtown Orlando, right down the middle of town, and then when my sister graduated, my ol—other sister had talked to ‘em and got her in the[?]—she worked in the bookkeeping department. So they both went to Orlando to work in the bank.</p> <p>Well, I didn’t want to work in the bank. What I wanted to do was to go to college, and I did not get to go, and Mr. [Thomas Willington] Lawton—T.W. Lawton—you’ve heard of the Lawtons? Uh, he was a cousin of ours, and, uh, he knew how much I wanted to go, and[?], uh, so I was supposed to go over to—with him, right? ‘Cause he—he drove to Sanford every, uh, day to work at the—down at the courthouse—was where his office was, and, uh, they were gonna have a test for scholarships. You could take these tests to try to get a scholarship to go to co—FSU.<a title="">[10]</a> In those days it was a women’s college,<a title="">[11]</a> and, uh, so I was all set to go. My principal had fixed it for me to go, ‘cause—‘cause I was valedictorian, and—and I was kinda’ smart, and I[?] thought I could pass—get maybe—maybe get a scholarship, and I was gonna go, and Mr. Lawton—and I was—and I already made arrangements with him. I didn’t tell my mother anything about it, ‘cause she had said, “We can’t afford to send you to college,” you know, “We don’t have the money,” uh, and—but so I thought, <em>If I can get a scholarship, you know I can do this</em>, and, uh, so doggonnit, if, uh, Mr.—somebody from sch—one of the teachers called and my mother answered the phone, and she said, “Well, tell Bettye when she goes tomorrow to take the scholarship test” —she didn’t know I was goin’. I didn’t tell her, and, uh—but Mr. Lawton knew, ‘cause I had already contacted him. He was goin’ take me, and so she says, “What is this all about?” And I told her. She said, “We can’t do that.” So she called Mr. Lawton and told him not to come—not to pick me up, ‘cause I couldn’t—even if I got it, it was just—they couldn’t afford all the stuff they still have to do for me to go, and he called back, and he said, “Listen. I will help her go. I will help her financially [inaudible],” but my mother would never take any money from anybody.</p> <p>So that, I did not get to do, but—so then, I get on the bus, after I get out of school and I [inaudible]—my senior year, I worked for—Mr. Teague, who was the principal, I worked in the office half a day every day, ‘cause I had all the subjects they had. I took [inaudible] instead of st—study hall, I took a subject. So there wasn’t[sic] any subjects left for me to take. So he asked me to be the school secretary, work in the office half—half a day, and I did that all that senior year, and tough—and then after I graduate, I’m—I’m goin’ to Orlando riding the bus, trying to walk around, find a job, which I hadn’t found. I come home one day, and my mother says, “Well, you got a job. I got you a job. Mr. Teague called and wanted to know if you wanted a full-time job being a school secretary.” <em>Oh, jeeze.</em> I wanted to leave. I wanted to get out of Oviedo, and go do somethin’ different.</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>So I was home for a year, and then I got married and moved to Sanford, and then, uh, I was married for three years. I had—we built a house. City of Sanford would give you a lot—give you a lot, but you had to build a house within a year. We built the house. We cleared the lot. I can show you that house today. We built the house—I mean, laid the blocks, poured the floor, did the whole thing in one year. He<a title="">[12]</a> worked for the railroad and we did this when he wasn’t working. We built the house. We laid blocks—all that stuff—and we were able to move in within a year. it wasn’t finished, but we moved in, and, uh, anyway, he was, uh—I had two kids, and when I had a year-old baby<a title="">[13]</a> and a three-year-old son, <a title="">[14]</a> and he was killed, uh, in a train accident, working—he was a railroader—train accident, uh, and then, I met my husband<a title="">[15]</a>—I have today, uh—eight months later, which everybody thought was too soon [<em>laughs</em>], at church, and, uh, we’ve been married—we—we just celebrated, uh, Monday, our 58^th wedding anniversary. So [<em>taps on table</em>] it worked [<em>laughs</em>], and we had four more kids.<a title="">[16]</a> That’s six.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>After your first husband died, for those eight months, before you met your—how did you survive?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, well, uh, Social Security [Insurance], uh, and he had some insurance and, uh—the other thing though we had done—we had bought—borrowed money and bought, uh, I think it was 4,000 dollars—bought 80 acres—now, 80 acres in Osteen, uh, found a road that if you took it—took you all the way to Oak Hill. It was a back road. It goes through there. We bought 80 acres, and we got these cows from the dairy, and we were—we were raising cows out there. We were doin’ that too. So when he died, I had that 80 acres and about seven or eight cow, uh—calves. I had to go feed ‘em on a nipple bucket, and I was goin’ out there every day doing—in fact, that’s where I was when they came out and found me to tell me what had happened, and, uh, so anyway, uh, I had that when I married Don—he was in, uh, TV business—and, uh, so we—he went out there and got some more cows and played cowboy [<em>laughs</em>], and we had that, and we were eventually able to sell it for [$]16,000, which when—in those—that was a long  time ago, back in the—we’re talkin’ about the [19]60s, and, uh—and we bought another five—bought 10 acres out here near the airport, and put our cows out there and we had that.</p> <p>Then we had a chance to buy this place, and, uh—we lived in town, and he had a really nice, big house. I mov—sold my house out there and moved into his house, and, uh—but we had a pool we added on to the house by the time we had a bunch of kids. We had to keep addin’ onto the house, and we had a pool, which was—new at those time[sic]. Not too many people had ‘em. So every day, I had not just my kids. I had everybody’s in the neighborhood’s kids at my house, and it got to be a zoo. I said, “We gotta move.” So he was out here fixin’ these people’s tel—television set, and he saw this place. He said—and they wanted—there was an old couple—they wanted to move into town. Well, we owned another house across the street that was a rental, and, uh, so they—we almost swapped ‘em, and Of course, we had to work on this one for a year to make it so we could—this—this, uh—this was outside the house. This wall was the outside, and that brick in that fireplace—there was a—fireplace right here. We chipped all the brick out of that. that’s the same brick that were[sic] in the fireplace, and we added this room, and we added another bathroom and put—what was a porch, we made that into bigger bedrooms, and we moved out here with six kids, and, uh, it’s been a great, great place to live, and then we got a lot o—I’ll show you my studio, before you go. It’s outside.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>And how did you meet your—how did you meet Don, your second husband?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>My husband now? At, uh—it was a put-up job [<em>laughs</em>]. It really was. Um, he—he came here in the Navy, and, uh, he was—he got married and he was married. He was divorced, when I met him, um, and he was at the church. Anyway, One day, after my husband had passed away, I called. I had the two little kids, and I was still—I was going to church down there, but—and I had gone to church all my life, but I was so, you know—I was totally—I was just kinda’ down, and I called the—the church, and they said—the assistant pastor came out, and I told him—I said, “I’m goin’ to church, but I’m not gettin’ anything out of it.” I said, “I’m just not”—I was miserable, and he said, “You know what? You need to be—you don’t need to be sittin’ in a class, uh, with you kids anymore[?]. You need to be teaching class,” So he said, “We have seven year olds. We need a teacher for seven year olds. Would you”—and so I said, “Okay.” So I go—first Sunday, I go in this—we had 30-somethin’ seven year olds and there were four or five teachers. He was a teacher, and I was a teacher of Sunday school of seven year olds. They put us both in the same room with a little thing in between, and it didn’t take very long, and, uh, so we got—that’s where I met him—was there. We been together ever since [<em>taps on table</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What are some fond memories you have raising your children?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Oh [<em>taps on table</em>], great memories, and the good part about it was we had a movie camera. Took movies of everything we did—every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every birthday, all events. Oh, you should see our kids, going to Lake Eola, lined up where the flowers are, where all the little kids with—all the little girls had white gloves on, hats, frilly dresses. Boys had on ties and coats and—and, uh—gettin’ out of the car, going to church, [inaudible] watchin’ ‘em tryin’ to get in and out of the cars and all that, and, uh—and then going on vacations, camping. That was the only way you could go—take that many kids on vacation is to go camping, and that’s what we did. We went camping. We started up[?] in Florida, ended up in the mountains, and they still go camping to this day, but, uh—and then, I—I enjoyed my kids.</p> <p>Uh, I never missed a—any program that they were in, and, uh, of course when you got that many, they’re in different things, you know, uh, and that—and this one daughter—she tickled me, because if I was gonna have to go to school for, uh—drive a car for, uh, you know—take the kids somewhere—trip, or something—she would tell me—pick out what she wanted me to wear. She wanted you to look good, you know? [<em>laughs</em>] She would come in there and say, “Mom, this is what I want you to wear,” but, um, I really—and I never missed a PTA<a title="">[17]</a> meeting, and I remember going, and I have two or three kids in one school, and you went to each one of ‘em’s class, and I’m trying to go to all of ‘em’s class, and change classes and do this, but I always did—kept up with what was going on, and, uh—and they all did good in school—pretty good in school, and never really had any major problems with ‘em. Uh, all did school, all—all graduated good[sic], and, uh, have great memories, and then I have all these—and used to be the movies were on film, and then—‘till now. You know, now, it’s entirely different, but my daughter that—the one that you went to her house—she took those, and I dunno how long it took her, she’s finally—still got something to do, and put ‘em all on DVDs, and, uh—and we have ‘em all today. A lot of nice ones. We don’t have anything on TV we want to watch, we sit and watch the kids all growin’, when they were little all the way up. So that—we have those, and I—I tell ‘em today—I said, “Y’all have all these things on camera”</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>“Now you need to be makin’ sure you—you have these things. Don’t just let it get taken off of there, ‘cause we have a record of everything. Y’all aren’t going to have that.” I’m just gonna let that go.</p> <p>[<em>answering machine</em>]</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>I understand that your great-grandfather Andrew Aulin[, Sr.] founded Oviedo.</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>What are some stories about him or other founding families, like the Lawtons or Wheelers that you…</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Remember being told?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Well, he passed away before I was—was born, and, uh, the, uh—the way that, uh—he came down here—a lot of those people who were Swe—he was Swedish—came over here from Sweden, and he didn’t come the way so many people in this area did. The Sanford area is all—a lot of Swedes over here, and they came over, uh, to work the citrus groves, and the—and the people who owned the groves here would pay their way on the ship, if they’d come and work a year. That’s how a lot of them came, but he didn’t come that way. He came up at, um—on the East Coast in New York or somewhere like that, and he came down through Georgia, and then eventually, into down here, and, um, he, uh, uh—at first, Oviedo—the settlement was out on, uh, Lake Jessup, and they called it White’s Warf—was the name of it—little settlement, and then they sor—sort of moved into O—into what is Oviedo today, and, uh, he was one of ‘em that moved in there, and he became—he was the first postmaster, and they had to come up with a name, and, uh, he was—when they named it, and he was also a schoolteacher…</p> <p>[<em>clock chimes</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>And he spoke ‘bout four or five languages. He was very smart, and the reason he named it O—it should be pronounced <em>Oh-vee-ay-do</em>—was he traveled, uh, before he came over here, and then he even went back over to Europe several times, and he had been to Oviedo, Spain, and he thought since Florida was a Spanish word, he thought we’d name it Oviedo, and he called it <em>Oh-vee-ay-do</em>, and at, uh, one time, it—it was—it was in Orange County. You know, that used to be all Orange County all this part of it, plus this was too, and—and it was, uh, uh…</p> <p>[<em>train whistles</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>So then, he—and he opened a store. He had a store there also, and they—and I heard a, uh—different things people have written about him and said that they’d go in their store, and he’d be so intent on reading something. he was very intellectual, and he liked to read all the time—that they’d have to ma—make him quit reading to wait on him, ‘cause he was into that, and [inaudible] when he passed away, he didn’t have a lot of money, but what he had, he game to Rollins College. It was just starting, and he was one of the people that gave what he had to Rollins College, because he wanted to see that college be there. So he was—I wish I had known him. He was—I was—he gone before I came along, and his wife<a title="">[18]</a> was a Lawton.</p> <p>So that’s how we got involved with that, and, uh, then, it’s—it’s crazy, because when we started going through different history things, I found out that [inaudible] the Lees in Oviedo, which are—that’s all involved—the Lawtons, Lees, and the Wheelers—all [Lee] sisters all married those people. They were sisters and one married a Lawton,<a title="">[19]</a> one married a Lee[sic], and a Wheeler,<a title="">[20]</a> and all that, and, uh, so when—my—on my mother’s side, who came from Sanford, there were some Lees. Her sisters married the Lees, and—and I al—al—I asked a couple times—I said, “Ya’ll kin to the[?] Lees in Oviedo?” Said, “No, no.” Well, they are, uh—they got this book on the Jacobs family and I started reading it, and the Jacobs family, involved with both Lees there, Lee’s here. So way back, if you wanted to go by marriage things, my mother was actually—her people were ancestors with my father’s people, way back and by marriage, and I thought—I just found that out not too long ago, and I bet that they—I’ll tell ‘em. They don’t know it [<em>laughs</em>], but that was, uh—and, uh, another thing—when—when my husband—my first husband—he was Catholic, and, uh, when we—when he went and talked to my daddy about us getting married, and he said, “Well, there’s one thing I want you to do. I don’t care which church you go to, but both of you go to the same one,” because—and Oviedo’s known for that. The Lawtons and the Wheelers and the Lees—the Whe—Frank Wheeler—big in the Baptist church—his wife was big in the Methodist church. Same things with the Lawtons. One went—husband went to one church and the wife we—and my daddy said, “I don’t want to see any more of that.” You—but that was—was one of the things that they did out there too, but they were all related. Yup.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Do you have any family heirlooms that were passed down that you held on to?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, no, uh, I don’t. I have some pictures, but I don’t have any—anything else that—I wish I did, and that is why I[sic] makin’ a point to save everything that I have [<em>laughs</em>], and—Like that bell that’s—there’s a big bell hanging outside. That’s my husband’s family. His father had that bell on the farm in Mississippi, and we were able to get that, and he re—redid it and painted it and all and put it up there, but—but that’s one of the few things we have from his family, and, um, we—so our kids are—that’s the one thing—you don’t get rid of that. that stays in the family, you know, and it’s very, very—it’s made in 1800-somethin’ is what—the date is in it, but, um, no, uh, I don’t think there’s—there’s much left, uh, physical things, you know, um, just some pictures, which I try to keep up with, and I have pictures of my father and his father together, and, uh, things like that, but, uh, no, uh, I don’t—can’t think of any—any artifacts, really, that I have.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Is there anything you like—you’d like to cover that we haven’t addressed?</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>No, uh, well, one thing I want to say about Oviedo today, is, uh—it must be a great place to live, because here a few years ago—well, quite a few years ago, when I was starting, uh—doing a lot of painting, and, uh, I—I did a whole thing—a lot of pic—paintings, uh, about Oviedo, and, uh, I went out there and just drove around, went down to where the pool used to be, which they covered it up. it’s not there anymore, but there’s a park down there—children’s park and things, and, uh—and I went down there to—just to take some pictures and look around, and there was[sic] some women down there playing with their kids, and, uh, I—I told them— I said, “Do you mind if I take some pictures?” ‘Cause I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I was going to do some series of paintings on Oviedo, and they said, “Yes.” it was okay, and—and I said, “Would you mind telling me”—‘cause they—they weren’t from there, and I said, “Why did you move here?” And they said, “Well, we researched before we moved”—they came from out of state—”And this just was the best place to move to raise your kids.” They checked it out. They said, “This is a very family-oriented town. They have a lot of things for kids, and it’s—it’s, you know—it’s just a very—it’s the ideal place to raise a family.” I thought, <em>Well, that’s great. </em>So then, I go to another place in Oviedo, another place like that. There’s some more families there. I asked the same question, got the same answer. I said, “Now, isn’t that amazing?” That—that’s sayin’ a lot for Oviedo. It is, and another thing—the Townhouse Restaurant—are you familiar with that? Which they’re fixin’ to move, you know?</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>But, uh, we go out there every now and then just to eat there, but, uh, I remember when it wasn’t the Townhouse, and up above it, there used to be a doctor’s office above that place, but, uh, that corner there—the—the red light—the whole time I was re—growin’ up, that was the red light. the only one in town for many, many years, and I kinda hate to see ‘em do what they’re gonna do there, but that’s progress, and, uh—but, uh, I have very fond memories of Oviedo, but, you know, when you’re growing up, you always think somethin’s gonna be better somewhere else, but, uh, my daughter lives out there, and right down the road, you know, comin’ from—back to Oviedo from her house, there’s a new subdivision that’s called Aulin[‘s] Landin<em>g</em> or something they’re building. That’s got the Aulin name in it. There’s just—new. They just started building it. So that’s something too, and of course, they got Aulin Avenue, you know, out there by the cemetery. So yeah, it’s a—good memories from Oviedo, and I need to get back out there, ‘cause I have—still have people out there that I know. Um, how are you—how—how much more are y’all doing? Do you have more people you’re going to interview? ‘Cause I know somebody would be good to interview [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Oh, I’m sure other classes…</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Like I said, you know, which—which—every new semester, because we’re just…</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>To get as much…</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Of Central Florida’s history as possible. So…</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>If you wanna…</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Uh, the Wards, uh—there’s a, uh—Bob Ward. Uh, his brothers passed away, but Bob Ward—Bob and Joanne Ward. I would recommend, uh, talking to—to them. Uh, they live out there close to where I lived, right across the street from the Wheeler House. The—we used to call Mrs. Wheeler—Mrs. B. F. —Frank Wheeler “The Queen,” and, uh—and she was like a queen, you know? She didn’t speak to you. You speak to—I’ll never forget. One time, since I’ve been—when—after I moved to—to, uh, Sanford, we had a drug store downtown called Tusta’s[?] Drugstore. In those days, it had a soda fountain. just like Oviedo had a soda fountain. Had a soda fountain in it, and I was down there one day, sittin’ in a booth, and, uh, Ms. Wheeler came by, and I recognized her and she recognized me, you know, and she walk right on by and didn’t speak, and goes on down and doggone, if every booth wasn’t full, of course, and so she comes back and then all of the sudden, she remembered who I was, ‘cause she needed a place to sit [<em>laughs</em>]. I thought that was—that was—that was pretty good. That was the way it was. They were a little bit—little bit that way—a little bit that way. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Schwandt<br /></strong>Well, thank you so much for your time.</p> <p><strong>Reagan<br /></strong>Mmhmm, you’re welcome. I enjoyed it.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Andrew “Andy” Aulin III.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Mary Alice Powell Aulin.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye) in <em>The Roy Rogers Show</em>.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Wheeler Fertilizer Company.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Mary Leonora Aulin Bartlett.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> Charles Warren Aulin.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> Physical Education.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[9]</a> Daniel Lee Reagan, formerly Daniel Lee McGill.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[10]</a>  Florida State University</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[11]</a> Florida Female College, later Florida State College for Women.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[12]</a> Joel Edwin McGill.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[13]</a> Kathleen Ann McGill, now Kathleen Ann Reagan.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[14]</a> Daniel Lee McGill, now Daniel Lee Reagan.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[15]</a> Donald Thomas Reagan.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[16]</a> Debbie Lynn Reagan, Julie Karin Reagan, Andrew Schott Reagan, and Patrick Kelley Reagan.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[17]</a> Parent-Teacher Association.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[18]</a> Emma “Lona” Leonora Lawton Aulin.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[19]</a> Charlotte "Lottie" Lee Lawton married Thomas Willington Lawton and Lillian Della Lee Lawton married Winborn Joseph Lawton, Sr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[20]</a> George Lee Wheeler married Benjamin Franklin Wheeler.</p> </div> </div> Abraham Lincoln Alice Kathryn Aulin Bunch American flags Anderson Andrew Aulin III Andrew Aulin, Jr. Andrew Aulin, Sr. Andrew Schott Reagan Andy Aulin art artists Aulin Avenue Aulin's Landing awards B. F. Wheeler baccalaureate services Baptists Bayton Benjamin Franklin Wheeler Bettye Jean Aulin Reagan Bettye Reagan bicycles bike riding bikes Black Beauty Bob Ward book reports books bovines busing camping canines car accidents cattle chapels Charles Warren Aulin Charlie McCulley Charlotte Lee Lawton church churches clothes clothing Coat of Many Colors coats cops and robbers cows cycling Daniel Lee McGill Daniel Lee Reagan Debbie Lynn Reagan desegregation discipline doctors dogs Don Reagan Donald Thomas Reagan dressmakers dressmaking drugstores Easter education educators Emma Leonora Lawton Aulin First Baptist Church of Oviedo flags Florida State Bank forts Frankie D. Gore fruit testers GA games George Lee Wheeler Girls’ Auxiliaries graduations Grand Ole Opry gym Heidi high schools immigrants immigration integration Jackson Borough School for Nursing Jacobs Joanne Ward Joel Edwin McGill Joel McGill Julie Karin Reagan Kathleen An Reagan Kathleen Ann McGill Lake Charms Lake Mary Lee Leonard Franklin Slye Lillian Della Lee Lawton Lona Lawton Aulin Lottie Lee Lawton Martin Mary Alice Powell Aulin Mary Leonora Aulin Bartlett milk milking Morrison’s Cafeteria Nelson and Company novels oranges orlando Orlando Transit Osteen Oviedo Oviedo High School Oviedo School Oviedo, Spain P.E. painters painting Patrick Kelley Reagan pets physical education physicians postmasters pranks RA race relations radios Rebecca Schwandt Rollins College Roy Rogers Royal Ambassadors Sanford school bus school buses schools seamstress seamstresses segregation sewing Slavia spitz spitzen storekeepers strawberries strawberry Sunbeam Band Swedes Swedish swimming pools T. W. Lawton teachers telephone operators The Roy Rogers Show Thomas Willington Lawton Trigger Troubles Tusta's Drugstore W. J. Lawton Walker weddings West West House Wheeler Wheeler Fertilizer Company White's Wharf Winborn Joseph Lawton, Sr. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/23288d20d38c0f7e671f6412e62d4b87.mp3 55a3af9e40b4b44c9a4a0ad9c247159b https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/663dc00c96defba98cdc99ec779a8f3e.pdf 42d0c3d670181b55b0a681f04154e110 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 Altamonte Springs Collection Alternative Title Altamonte Collection Subject Altamonte Springs (Fla.) Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of Altamonte Springs, Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. In 1870, Dr. Washington Kilmer of Cincinnati, Ohio, became the first Euro-American to settle in Altamont. In 1882, the area was renamed Altamonte Springs. The Altamonte Land, Hotel and Navigation Company was one of the major developers of the area. On November 11, 1920, residents voted in favor of incorporation. 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> Is Part Of <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 Altamonte Springs, 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.altamonte.org/" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs, Florida</a>." Altamonte Springs, Florida. http://www.altamonte.org/. Robison, Jim. <em><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/49963391" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs</a></em>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 1999. Shofner, Jerrell H. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32274737" target="_blank"><em>A History of Altamonte Springs, Florida</em></a>. Altamonte Springs, Fla: City of Altamonte Springs in association with Tabby House Charlotte Harbor, Florida, 1995. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Motta, Daniel Interviewee Hattaway, Bob Location <a href="http://www.adulttoystorage.com/" target="_blank">Adult Toy Storage</a><span>, Altamonte Springs, Florida.</span> Bit Rate/Frequency 14111kbps 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 Bob Hattaway Alternative Title Oral History, Hattaway Subject Altamonte Springs (Fla.) Ferns--Florida Casselberry (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Zellwood (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Airports--Florida Description An oral history of Bob Hattaway, conducted by Daniel Motta on June 14, 2012. Hattaway was born and raised in Altamonte Springs, Florida. In the interview, Hattaway discusses growing up in Altamonte Springs, working in the fern industry, his real estate and agricultural endeavors, his family's influence in Altamonte Springs and Casselberry, the greenhouse business, local politics, and the air travel industry. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:46 Altamonte Springs during Hattaway’s childhood 0:04:26 Hattaway’s father 0:05:36 Childhood memories working in the fields 0:08:27 Education 0:09:58 Life after high school 0:13:16 Rivalry between Seminole County and Volusia County 0:15:24 Decline of the fern industry 0:19:20 Fern industry in Zellwood and shift to the tropical plant business 0:23:24 Interest in agriculture 0:24:11 Influence of the Hattaway family on Altamonte Springs and Casselberry 0:25:51 The Casselberry family 0:29:14 Greenhouse business 0:34:25 Local politics and involvement in the air travel industry 0:42:30 Evolution of the fern industry 0:45:28 How Altamonte Springs has changed over time Abstract Oral history interview of Bob Hattaway. Interview conducted by Daniel Motta at the <a href="http://www.adulttoystorage.com/" target="_blank">Adult Toy Storage</a> in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Type Sound Source Original 49-minute and 20-second oral history:Hattaway, Bob. Interviewed by Daniel Motta. June 14, 2012. 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/118" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Altamonte Springs, Florida Lyman High School, Longwood, Florida Winter Park High School, Winter Park, Florida Winter Garden, Florida Oviedo, Florida Zellwood, Florida Casselberry, Florida Orlando International Airport, Orlando, Florida Orlando-Sanford International Airport, Sanford, Florida Opp, Alabama Adult Toy Storage, Altamonte Springs, Florida Creator Motta, Daniel Hattaway, Bob Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2012-06-14 Date Modified 2014-12-10 Date Copyrighted 2012-06-14 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 498 MB 175 KB Medium 49-minute and 20-second audio recording 22-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Daniel Motta and Bob Hattaway, and transcribed by Savannah Vickers. 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.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/details.aspx?MemberId=2876&amp;SessionId=50/" target="_blank">Representative Bob Hattaway</a>." Florida House of Representatives. http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/details.aspx?MemberId=2876&amp;SessionId=50. "<a href="http://www.altamonte.org/" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs, Florida</a>." Altamonte Springs, Florida. http://www.altamonte.org/. Robison, Jim. <em><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/49963391" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs</a></em>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 1999. Shofner, Jerrell H. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32274737" target="_blank"><em>A History of Altamonte Springs, Florida</em></a>. Altamonte Springs, Fla: City of Altamonte Springs in association with Tabby House Charlotte Harbor, Florida, 1995. Transcript <p><strong>Motta<br /></strong>This is Daniel Motta.I am interviewing Mr. Bob Hattaway at his business, Adult Toy Storage, in Altamonte Springs.To start, Mr. Hattaway, could you tell me where you were born?</p> <p><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I was born in the city of Altamonte Springs in 1936, which today, the location is on Lake Orienta, which at one time was called Orienta Ferneries, later in years.And the Hattaway family lived on that property for a number of years, probably 30 years, or something.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So you were born on the property?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I was born on the property, yeah.At that time, when I was born, 1936, a lot of people did not go to hospitals.They couldn’t afford it.So I was born at home.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And could you tell me a little about the neighborhood, the house, property?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>The property, basically—it was 150 acres of property.Thirty acres of the property was into a fernery slat shed growing tropical foliage and plants, mostly <em>asparagus plumosus</em> fern, and then another fern called leatherleaf fern, which came on in a later date, which became very popular in the flower industry.But we were growing plants and flowers and a lot of different products back at that time, to sell.So it was a very rural area.Altamonte Springs had one road leading in and one road leading out, and it was Highway 436 [Florida State Road 436].If you wanted to go shopping, you would get on 436 and travel [US Route] 17-92 to Downtown Orlando, because there were no stores in Altamonte Springs, or Casselberry.You had to go to Orlando to shop.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And I imagine 436 looked a lot different then.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah, 436 was probably a two-lane road, and going through the middle of Altamonte Springs was a four-lane road divided in the middle by two very large rows of oak trees, from about where the Altamonte Mall is today, all the way to the railroad track in Altamonte Springs.That’s going from west to the east.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Were any of these paved roads?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>It was paved, yeah.Sometimes.But Maitland Avenue also was there, which was a two-lane road itself.But very rural.I mean, there was really nothing out here.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And you said, on the property, only part of it was ferns?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah.Of the hundred acres, a lot of it, 30-something acres of it was slat shed fern itself, and the other was open fields, and we were growing <em>plumosus</em> or <em>podocarpus</em>, and were using that.We’d grow the podocarpus and cut that as cuttings and ship that to the northern market, to flower shops as well.So, and everything at that time, back when the fern business back in the [19]50s, and [19]60s, most of the freight was moved by rail, and not by truck.So there was a big depot in Altamonte Springs, and the depot itself, the major portion of it, was people like us—Hattaways, Casselberrys, Vaughns, etc.—shipping boxes and boxes and boxes of cut fern to the northern market, to flower shops.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And that would all take place here, or would it go to Sanford first, and go from there?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Just directly?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>There was a direct stop in Altamonte Springs and a direct stop in Casselberry, and also a direct stop in Longwood and Maitland.So they were little whistle stops, but most of the time they were stopping to pick up a product, like the fern product, and then some passengers.But there were no 7-Elevens, and there was absolutely nothing out here at that particular point in time.Not any tourists as well.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>About how many families lived in this area, you think?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Well, you know, on the Orienta Fernery side, which was known as the Royal Ferneries at one time, there were probably—it was a housing development there, row houses for the migrant workers, or the workers, to live on the premise and work there, and [inaudible] 40-something houses with a church, [inaudible] on Hattaway Drive today, this long, long, long, then gone?.But they provided housing for people, and they were not great to live in and to be able to work.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And did your father build the houses and the church?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>No, those were built back in the—golly.My father went in, they bought from Hibbard Casselberry, 1951.They bought what at that time they called the Royal Ferneries, and they bought that from Hibbard, and Hibbard bought it, I think, in 1946—‘45.And then my father worked for Mr. Casselberry, and my grandfather worked for Mr. Casselberry, and my two uncles, also, worked for Mr. Casselberry. All of them in stooped labor, cutting ferns by hand and taking it to the packinghouses, and then being able to ship the product to the northern market.And there were no Kmarts, and there were no big Walmarts, and those kind of things.Flower shops were flourishing.That was the mainstay of the fern business at that time, corsages and bouquets and things of that nature.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So what year did you say your father procured the property?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>He bought the property from Hibbard in 1951.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. So, when you were born, he was working in the industry?He just didn’t…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway <br /></strong>He was working with Mr. Casselberry.Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. And what were your experiences like as a child? Did you also have any contact with—did you work in fields at all?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yes, yes.Oh, yeah<em>[laughs]</em>. Those were wonderful moments.<em>[laughs]</em></p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Could you tell me a little about them?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Out there with stooped labor, working in the—I would work in the summer months when I was out of school, high school and grammar school.I would pull weeds in the fernery.And they would hire a lot of young people like myself at that time—ten, twelve years old.And our job was—the fernery was full of weeds of various kinds, and so we’d line up ten, fifteen, or twenty of us in rows.We’d go down through and pull the weeds out of each row.That was a terrible job.I knew when that was happening I didn’t want to stay in the nursery business, or fern business.I darn sure didn’t want to be a stooped laborer in the field.But that’s where my family came from.I mean, they worked for every Casselberry.And Hibbard brought my grandfather and my father both out of the fernery, out of the field, and put my grandfather in charge of the fernery over[?]—which was the Royal Fernery at that time, Casselberry Ferneries as well—and put my grandfather in charge of that side of the fernery, and then my father went over to the main plant over in the middle of Casselberry, and he became the main foreman over there, in an office, working for Mr. Casselberry.And so Mr. Casselberry brought him out of the field, very little education, and put him in charge of a number of people.At that time, you know, back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, the fern business, it was a big business, and they were employing probably two, three hundred people.So it was a lot of people depending on the Casselberrys and the Foleys[?] in the fern business at that time as well.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So when you were in the fields doing that work that you loved so much, were you paid for that, or was that just something expected of you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Oh, yeah.Yeah, we got paid for it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Do you remember…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Twenty-five cent an hour.And I was, you know—I’ve always loved to work.That’s been my mainstay, and I’ve got great work habits.And I think most people back then did.I’m not sure what they have today.I know it’s not as good as it was back then.But Mr. Casselberry provided a lot of employment for young people when school was out, that they could work during the summer.And pulling those weeds was part of what you did.And I would get out, and we’d help with the repair of the slat sheds, repairing the irrigation systems, just to keep the fernery back in good repair, so we could grow the fern itself.But it’s hard work.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>I’d imagine.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>But, you know, I did that every summer.When I got out of school, the following week I’d be working in the field.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Could you tell me a little about where you went to school?Did you—high school, or did you go to college after?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Sure.I went to Lyman High School, grades one through twelve.I went to Winter Park High School the 10th grade to the 11th grade, and then came back to Lyman for the 12th grade itself.So I was actually grade one through ten at Lyman High School, the old school.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>It wasn’t called Lyman High School then?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>It was called Lyman High School, yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>But it was one through twelve?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway       </strong>One through twelve, yeah.There were, when I graduated, in 1954—’55 there were twelve boys and one girl in my class.Thirteen class.And the class behind us, I think, had 25.So it was a very small school back then, and grade one was, you know—all the way through.And I think they stopped that just before—no, it was still going on in 1955.It was still grade one through twelve, I think, at that time.But Lyman today is probably graduating one thousand kids at one whack.And you got Oviedo, and etc., etc.Great changes, but, you know, we had small classes.Probably the max in a class was 20, 25.Teachers were very personal.Teachers knew us all, and it turned out, had a good education.When I graduated from Lyman, I think there was only two people in our class went to college, and the rest of us went into the work field.And I immediately, when I graduated, I started buying real estate, starting my own fernery.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Graduated from high school?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah, high school.I didn’t go to college. Didn’t go to college.And I was working—I got a job in Winter Garden with Continental Can Company, and they were making small cans to put orange juice into, frozen orange juice, and that was a—you’d put three cups of water with it…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>The concentrate?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Concentrate, and do all those.I worked there at night, the night shift from 3:30 ‘til 12:00 or something of that nature.And then during the day, I bought a piece of property in Oviedo on Chapman Avenue[sic], and built my first nursery under oak trees.And I started my own business back in 1956—I guess ’57, ’58, something like that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Where did you say the canning company was?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway <br /></strong>Continental Can Company.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Where was that?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>In Winter Garden.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, okay.So those…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>It was a big canning company.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Pretty far from each other, the two?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I’m sorry?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>The two jobs you had were pretty far from each other.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah.Yeah.One was working in the can company, the other was working in the field, in a nursery.And started my own place.I bought an oak tree hammock.And we’d found by that time, in the nursery business, in the fern business, that slat sheds were very expensive, and you couldn’t keep them up because of cost, wood rot, and it became—they were falling down.So, we started…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>How often do you have to replace those?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Oh, you were constantly working on the building, on the fields themselves, and you’re talking about 30 acres of slat shed.Just slats are, you know, four inches wide.And sometimes they would kind of fall down.If you’re tall like I am, you’d run into a slat and hit your head and etc.So we went from the slat sheds into buying oak tree hammocks, and putting fern under the oak tree hammocks.And we also started planting in the ferneries—the old ferneries, oak trees inside of the fernery itself—to grow up through the slat sheds for shade.You were looking for a certain amount of shade.And so we started that, and that’s where the slat sheds kind of disappeared, and everybody, especially Mr. Casselberry, his whole side was nothing but oak trees.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>The side we had, and my father and grandfather had, over on Orienta Fernery side, they planted orange trees, which was a really, really smart move, because they always had orange trees—they also had the product of fern under that.The problem was, when they planted the orange trees, they budded the orange tree to Valencia, navels, or whatever it’s going to be.When they sprayed the orange tree spray on the fern, to kill worms, etc., it killed the buds on all the orange trees.Ended up with 25 acres of sour orange trees, and there’s not a lot of market for sour orange trees.So it was just a good concept, but it didn’t work.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So, by that time, there was pretty much the natural solution of replacing the slats with the trees?Like, is that what all the fern owners pretty much moved to?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah.Yeah.Everybody was doing that.Everybody was doing that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Fern business was big not only here in Central Florida, in the Orlando area, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Fern Park, but it was big up in Crescent City and Pierson, which it still is today.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>It’s the mainstay up there as well.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Was there any kind of rivalry between, like, here and Volusia County?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Oh, yeah.Oh my god.Yeah.Yeah.They would—and I’ve heard my father talk about the stories that the price of the ferns had become very cheap—and so the industry got together and met someplace up in DeLand or something, some little community, with the main growers all meeting at one concept.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Woman<br /></strong>Excuse me, do you need anything before I go to lunch?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>No, I’m good.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I’m good.They all went back to discuss the pricing, and I guess they were trying to do what you’d call the price fixing.But the typical agriculture business, they all got together, they all decided, shook hands, and this is what we’re gonna charge to the fern.All of them couldn’t wait to run back to the phone and call their customers in Chicago[, Illinois] or New York or where it is, and say, “Hattaway’s going up on the price of his fern by three cent.I’m gonna stay the same price” or “I’m gonna drop the price.”It never worked.And so they cut their throat time and time again.But there was great rivalry, especially, that I’m familiar with, between the Barnetts, the Casselberrys, the Vaughns.And there was a rivalry there because Mr. Casselberry started the tax-free town of Casselberry, and the Barnetts were a big, very wealthy family, had a lot of ferneries in the Fern Park, Casselberry area, and they didn’t like Mr. Casselberry, because he was so aggressive, and he was a new guy in town.And they got into a hell of a rivalry.So it was always a shootout.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And the Vaughns, you said?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Vaughns.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>They were also in Seminole County already.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>That’s right.Yeah.They were up in Casselberry—which you would never say “Casselberry,” you would say “Fern Park”—which today is the location of the Home Depot.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Near Lake Concord?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>On 17-92 and Concord.That area.So yeah, there was a real rivalry going on between the small families with the Casselberrys.And those three, those were the three players.So.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>And this was like the ‘50s, early ‘60s?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah, ‘40s and ‘50s.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So when did the fern industry kind of start slowing down, in the area?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Oh, god.My father—I read this this morning—and it had so many ups and downs that I wasn’t even aware of—when I read his notes.And the, you know, just the price of fuel became so high, and labor became so expensive, that we really saw it when my father bought the place in 1951 from Hibbard, like 130 acres, Orienta Ferneries.He, within five years, was subdividing the fernery.And he became involved in real estate, which was a really smart move.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And these, the plots, were they designed for the houses and also, like, partially for ferns?Like, if somebody wanted to grow, like, a little on the side…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>No. That was way before that ever happened.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>That was a lot of little nurseries that were back in the ‘20s and ‘30s.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So this was purely real estate?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah. purely real estate.Yeah.He started taking the fernery, which had a hundred and some odd acres, and started selling the land off itself to people that wanted to move.By this time, Altamonte Springs and Casselberry and the community started growing, and so people were starting to migrate, if you want to say that, from Orlando out into the country.And we were selling real estate lots on Lake Orienta—that was a fernery—and we took some of the slat sheds down and were selling real estate lots 100 feet wide, anywhere from 250 to 300 feet deep, for $2,000, for a lot, on paved road.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Around what year was this?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>In the ‘50s—’58, somewhere along there, ’57, ’58.That area where Hattaway Drive is today, that drive that was all Orienta Ferneries, all the property that my father bought from Mr. Casselberry.But he went in like Hibbard.Hibbard went into the real estate business big time.He had a lot of land.And he saw the handwriting on the wall itself.The fern business was just not thriving.There was—and, a lot of artificial stuff coming down the line.People were using <em>podocarpus</em>.People were using [?], using a lot of fillers instead of using the fern.It was cheaper to buy a filler and put inside, in that corsage, for the price.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh.I was about to ask what were some of the reasons it kind of went down.That was pretty much just the artificial—were other parts of the country…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>It wasn’t artificial, then.It was just shrubs and things they were cutting that they could stick into a bouquet of flowers.Bouquet of flowers won’t last, you know, a week, four or five days.So they could take <em>sphagnum</em> moss, or they could take a <em>ligustrum</em>, or something that’s leafy and green, and put it in a corsage at a cheaper rate than they could a sprig of fern, or a sprig of leatherleaf fern.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>But if people did want those kind of ferns, were they still dependent on this area, or were there other parts of the country, do you know of?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Not from what I remember.It was mainly this area, plus the Pierson-Crescent City area, that was the mainstays.Later on, it became, everybody started to go off—not everybody.Several of the nurserymen started going off to Costa Rica and islands, and growing fern down there.In fact, one of the largest growers, probably still today, moved from Zellwood.Name was John Marcell.He moved to Costa Rica, and the last I heard, and I haven’t seen John in a long time, he had over 1,000 acres of saran shade cloth, growing leatherleaf fern, and ferns shipping all over the world.Actually, I’ve been told he controls the fern market in Costa Rica.This[?] big.<em>[laughs]</em></p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Was Zellwood into the fern industry, or were they in other agriculture?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>And actually Zellwood was—it was a small little town, still today.Marcell was the main grower at that time of leatherleaf fern.Went over to Lockhart, there was another grower over there, name of Joe Wofford, and he had a small fernery, probably ten or fifteen acres.He was growing leatherleaf fern.And Apopka itself had started transitioning over from the fern business—the Ustlers, Mahaffeys—golly, some other families there.But they were more into the tropical foliage business, and growing—building—greenhouses, taking slat sheds and growing tropical plants, which were now becoming very popular.So they shifted from the fern business over to the tropical plant business.And I shifted, also.I saw the handwriting on the wall.The one I built over in Oviedo, myself, it was only small as ten acres.But I sold that to another fernery guy out of Crescent City, took the money of that and started buying property in Altamonte Springs, off Hattaway Drive, and built my first greenhouses.And I went in the greenhouse business.So I shifted from the fern business over to the tropical foliage business.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>More broad[sic].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah. broader opportunity of selling to a greater amount of people.And my first greenhouse I built was out of used lumber, and I took a saw mill myself, and cut the two-by-fours and four-by-fours out of used lumber, and built my first building, which was 30 feet wide and a hundred feet long, which I have pictures of it there.And, gosh, over the years, became a pretty good size.<em>[laughs]</em></p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And where did you say this first one was?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>It was over just off of Hattaway Drive there in Altamonte Springs.Small place.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.So how long were you—your property in Chapman, you said it was on Chapman Road?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah.I was over there—I was in Chapman, probably, I had that nursery probably ten years.A good while, long enough that I’d made enough money working at night.At the Continental Can Company, they were paying me union wages, and I never joined the union.But I was making big bucks, and I was able to buy the land and do the things I’d need to do to get a business going.And it was pretty successful, but when I had the opportunity of selling that property to another person, then take that money and come back over into Altamonte, and go into a different business—although I was still in the agriculture business, it was a good shift.I ended up—well, the fernery there had 20 acres there on Hattaway Drive, and greenhouses—had probably ten acres of greenhouses there.And grew there for a number of years.To build the buildings, [?], build the buildings, I was—to get the lumber for that place—I was going, also to get the used lumber, I was going up and down the railroad tracks.They were taking down power poles and telephone poles, and I would cut the telephone poles and take the arms.At that time, they had arms going out with wires on them, and those were like three-by-fours, and they were like eight feet long, and I would use those for posts, as I gathered used stuff to build my whole nursery.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Were they just, like, the ones that they left there?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Was it okay that you took those?<em>[laughs]</em></p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah. definitely.They knew I was doing it.They were taking them down.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And, so, you pretty much built all those house, the original houses, yourself?It sounds like you’re a jack of all trades.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway</strong>I am. <em>[laughs]</em></p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did you enjoy the growing aspect?Like, did you have a green thumb, or was it like…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Oh, yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did you enjoy the business?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I enjoyed the business, and I definitely did not have a green thumb.But I enjoyed the business, and I didn’t know anything else.What else could a guy do?There wasno—there was nothing out here.You either worked for the Hattaways, you worked for the Vaughns, you worked for the Casselberrys, or you worked for the Bradshaws in the grove business.This was agriculture community.There was nothing to do.Or, work at the dog track, something like that.So it was, you know—happy as a pig in slop.<em>[laughs] </em>What else can you do?This is what it is.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>This might be going back a little bit, but did your family have any influence on early Altamonte Springs, like developing and like with the government?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>No, my father did.He was elected a constable.He worked for Hibbard.And when Hibbard incorporated the City of Casselberry—I’ve heard my mother and father talk about that the night that they did the incorporation, they had a town hall meeting before it was ever incorporated in Mr. Casselberry’s office.There was a—had to have a certain amount of people in the meeting to have a quorum and to be able to appeal to the legislature for incorporation.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And this—as a town?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>As a town.As a town.And they didn’t have four[?] people…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>This was around 1940?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>In the room, so my father left the meeting, went home—we lived on Concord Drive—and brought my mother to the meeting, and she voted, and that’s how, that was part of the process of incorporating the City of Casselberry.My father was elected in 1941 as the first constable of the City of Casselberry.And it was a, I guess, kind of a window-dressing job, but he was constable for eleven years in the City of Casselberry.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And that’s kind of like the police chief of the town?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>That’s right.Yeah.He was the police chief.<em>[laughs] </em>I don’t think he even had a badge.<em>[laughs] </em>But that’s old time there.</p> <p class="Body">Yeah.But you know, again, you know, this was small town, U.S.A.Hibbard would have—and I can remember this so well—he would, at Christmas time, he would have a big Christmas party on the front lawn of the offices, and for all the employees that worked for Mr. Casselberry, his entire operation.And he would get every kid a gift at Christmas time.And this was black, white, whatever it was be.He would always throw this big Christmas party.Big deal.You’d either get a knife or get a yo-yo or something like that.<em>[laughs] </em>But, and he was quite a—he was a good man.A lot of people, you know, just—vision, had great vision.And smart, wasn’t hard to talk to.He was a young man at that time.He was just good to us.He was very good for the community.Barnetts won’t tell you that.And the Vaughns won’t tell you that.But the Hattaways damn sure will tell you that real quick.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did you know Mr. Casselberry personally, as a young man?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Mm-hm.Yeah.I knew him.He, and especially Leonard [Casselberry]. I don’t know if you’ve interviewed Leonard, Jane [Casselberry]?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Yeah. about a week or two ago.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Leonard used to come to my mother and father’s house, and Leonard would love to read comic books.<em>[laughs] </em>He—he wasn’t too energetic.<em>[laughs] </em>But he would come in and read the comic books, and Jane—they lived over off of the old race track road [Dog Track Road], at the horse track.He probably told you that’s what they built there, as well.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Yeah.Was knowing the founder and, I guess, owner at that time of Casselberry, was that like a—in this year, that seems kind of, like, strange, or maybe not strange, but—was it, did it seem like a big deal, or was he just like any normal citizen?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>No. It was—to the normal person, it was probably a big deal.But because my father worked for him, and with him, I would go into my father’s office, and Mr. Casselberry’s office was right there.And he had a big picture window that he could look out into my father’s office, and then be able to look out into the grading there.They graded fern—longs, shorts, mediums, whatever you were looking for in the size of fern to ship.And, you know, he was just there all the time.He had a—I can remember so well—he had a big, big tarpon fish mounted in his office in back there.He would go to—my father, in fact, I’ve seen some pictures of him—he would go to the flower shows in Chicago or New York, where they might be, and Martha [Casselberry], his wife at that time—he married three times—Martha would wear, he would wear white riding pants—horses, cows?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Mm-hm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>And boots, real knee boots up there.With a big coat on.All in white.And a fern spray on this thing.Promoter.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Yeah. representing his…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah.He was a promoter, as well.Promoted, and he had a knack about doing that, much better than the Vaughns and the Barnetts, as well.But, yeah, he was a good man.I can’t tell you that enough times.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So you started getting into the nursery, would it be considered nursery business or the greenhouse…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Greenhouses.Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>How long were you involved with that before you looked more towards retail?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I started in the fern business when I got out of high school, 1954-55.I was in the fern business by 1960, with the fernery over in Chapman Avenue in Oviedo.And then started the first greenhouses and then grew that business.And I went out of the business in 1988, of the foliage business.So I graduated, basically, from the fern business over to the foliage, from the foliage into the foliage business itself.Ended up with this place, which is 500,000 square feet of what was greenhouses.But I built steel structure buildings, I told you.And today it’s now the steel structure buildings that are storing boats, cars, and recreational vehicles.1974-75, I bought a farm in Puerto Rico, and I started out with thirty, three thousand, building 3,000 square feet—300—yeah, 3,000, 30-feet wide and 100-feet long.And I bought a farm in Puerto Rico that was 80 hectares of greenhouses.And I was shipping fern or foliage plants from Puerto Rico, by sea freight, to Europe.So I moved from 33,000 square feet, to a farm here, and a farm in Puerto Rico.And I farmed in Puerto Rico, foliage plants, for twenty years, twenty-two years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did you sell that land, or still…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah, I did.I sold it.I sold it.I wanted to go out of the nursery business.My brother, and then, by then graduated from University of Florida, had a degree in horticulture, and he wanted the nursery in Puerto Rico, so I sold the nursery to him in Puerto Rico.And he farmed in Puerto Rico for, I don’t know, another eight,-nine years.And we had three major hurricanes hitting back to back.First time we had insurance.We rebuilt.Second time, had insurance.Insurance company went belly up, and we rebuilt.And the third time, we said, “That’s it.”And we sold it.And then I was here all the time, and I just started converting all the buildings over to what you see today.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So about what time did you decide you wanted to get out of that business?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>1988.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah.I already had another vision, what you see today.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Works out for you.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah, it worked out.Yes.Yeah.It really—what was my whole plan at that time, was—I had roughly 30 acres here—was to add on a trailer park in front of me, which today is a public shopping center.And I was trying to buy their property, and I wanted to build a big industrial park, 40-45-acre industrial park.And I couldn’t buy that trailer park, and made them some ridiculous offers.I’m glad they didn’t take it, ‘cause the market went to hell in a handbag.I ended up, you know, basically looking at what they were doing, and I said, “If they will pay $35.00 a month to park a boat outside in an open field, with grass and grasshoppers, what will they pay to put it inside the building?”And from there, you know, it grew from there.So, in 1988, I was in the foliage business.In 2012, I’m now in the storage business.And the place is doing fairly well.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>That sounds like a pretty brilliant idea, just converting the fields to this.Do you know if any other growers have took that...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>No, no.They can’t.They all built buildings that were not convertible.They couldn’t do what I did.In fact, I saw Earl Vaughn two weeks ago. Had a funeral up in Apopka, and went over and we were talking—and I know Earl.Great guy.I like Earl.I don’t know if you’ve met him or not.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>You need to meet him.You need to meet Earl Vaughn.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>I would love to.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Vaughn Greenhouses.They’re in the book.He’s no longer in the foliage business, but he has a farm, a foliage place up on [Florida State Road] Highway 46 up in Sanford.And saw him, and I said something, and he said, “Hattaway, what you did is brilliant.”He said, “I’ve been trying to do the same thing, except I can’t get my zoning.I’m in the Wekiva [River] Protection Area.”And so, he can do nothing other than what he’s doing.So, you know, fortunately, when I started building the buildings, I then started working politically to change the zoning on this place.And so I did it back early.If I tried to do it today, I’d probably never get it done.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Are you still involved in local politics?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /> </strong>I just write checks.<em>[laughs]</em></p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong><em>[laughs] </em>Well…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>No, I’m still involved.I have a lot of friends in the political scene.I help them.You know, I served eight years in the [Florida] Legislature.Loved it, and had fun with it.Eight years at Orlando International Airport.That’s a full-time, non-paid political job, and did that for eight years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And what was your—for the airport, what was your…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I was the—actually, I was chairman for four years, and vice chairman for two years, and on the board for eight.And the governor appointed me.Lawton Chiles appointed me.And so, I served there, and when I went on the board, there was $10 million worth of construction going at the Orlando International Airport.When I left, eight years later—yeah, eight years later it was—it was $500 million worth of construction going.And they had another $500 million committed to build the south terminal, and the new board decided that they didn’t want to do that, and so the new board today is trying to figure out how they can get the money to build the south terminal for international rivals.And, you know, that was a group of Democrats—John Rich, Bill Miller, Howard McNelty, myself—four really strong Democrats.We got in and got aggressive, said, “This place is gonna grow.”And we went from 22 million passengers—eight years later, it was like 31 million passengers.That’s growth.And all we did, we went out and started marketing the Orlando International Airport, as a board, as a group of people, with the mayor of Orlando, Linda Hood, and the county chairman, Linda Chapin.And we were a hell of a team, and we moved around this country, all around this world, basically.And brought airlines in, British Airlines[sic], Southwest [Airlines], Virgin [Atlantic].Those were all new carriers that came in that eight-year period of time.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Were you involved in the [Orlando-] Sanford [International] Airport or the…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>That was my first venture.Back when we did that one, Kay Shoemaker was the chairman, and John—what was the name—Steve, he was the executive director.I can’t think of his last name now.But he came to me, I was a new board member, and he said, “You know, we need to go after international passengers for the Sanford airport.”So we went to Kay Shoemaker and talked Kay into letting us fly, I think it was, Toronto, Canada.And the concept that Steve had—and I was just the baggage, went along with him—that we need to go to Holiday Travel, and talk to them about direct flights from Toronto to Sanford, and not from Toronto to Orlando.And we met with the Holiday Travel, they thought it was a good idea, and he was very much in favor of it, but the issue was that the travel time coming from the Sanford Airport to [Walt] Disney [World], you didn’t have the 414, I think it is, or 4…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh,[State Road] 408, [State Road] 417?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>417, yeah, coming across the lake.You didn’t have that segment built, and, so, that was a stopping point.When that segment was built, Holiday Travel and a lot of those guys started flying into Sanford, and bypassing Orlando.Well, in the meantime, I moved from the Sanford Airport board, over to the Orlando Airport.<em>[laughs] </em>So, it was quite a conflict there for a while.<em>[laughs] </em>And Larry Dale—and I don’t know if you know Larry—but Larry Dale and I had some real knockdowns and drag-outs about the airports.He’s the executive director of the Sanford Airport.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, yeah?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah.Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>I’m curious how you, how did you even get involved with the airport, like the industry?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>The governor.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>The governor.Yeah, I—when Lawton was elected—Lawton Chiles—I’d been in the Legislature.I knew him very well, and I worked with him for his election.And he was elected.He appointed me to the lottery commission.I didn’t believe in the lottery.I didn’t like the lottery.When it was approved, I was in the Legislature.I voted against it.And was opposed against it then, and Lawton told me, said, “I want you to be on that board.You’re the first Democrat to be appointed, and I want to get rid of the executive director.”I forget her name.She was really good, too.But he wanted to get rid of her and he wanted to change the entire board.He wanted to make changes.And so, I did that for a couple of years.And I was tired of it, and finally we just got enough Democrats on the board that I went to the governor, said, “I’m out of here.I don’t want to do this anymore.”In the meantime, when that happened, the [Greater Orlando] Aviation Authority thing came up available in Orlando, and I was supporting a Republican, Sue [inaudible] was her name, and Sue wanted to be appointed to the board.And I went to the governor to appoint her from Seminole County, and the governor says, “No, I’m not going to appoint a Republican.But I will appoint you if you want to take the job.”So I said, “Well, okay. I’ll do it.”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did you have an interest in air travel?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Yeah, I did, because of Sanford.And I knew that it was a very, very important job.The Orlando International Airport is the economic engine that really runs this community today.And the things they’ve accomplished, and the size of the airport.This is number one around the state of Florida, certainly, that I enjoyed that.But I did, I was able to go into that segment having eight years in Tallahassee being a legislator, that I knew a little bit about politics, and I knew that a lot of my newfound friends that I found in Tallahassee, of eight years, when I was no longer elected, they didn’t know my first name or my last name.And when I was appointed to the Aviation Authority in Orlando, I told my wife, Charlotte, I said, “This is altogether different.We’re going to have a lot of brand new friends, and they’re going to love us for eight years.And when we’re gone, they won’t know our name.So we’re gonna do this different.We’re gonna do what the hell we want to do, and we’re gonna do the things that we think are right, and eight years from now, we’ll be good.”And that’s how we prefaced that.So it was fun.It was, like I said, it was a full-time—as a chairman—non-paid, political job.But would I do that again?Probably not.It was the right time.You know, I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve lived at the right time, when things were just starting to peak or things were really going smoothly, and everybody was getting along.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>It seems like you’ve always been able to do what makes you happy.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I’ve been lucky.You’ll never sit across the table from a more blessed, lucky guy than me.Life has been good.With high school education, I’ve competed with all of them.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Work ethic.Whistling[?] away[?].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>It’s worked out, worked out fine.<em>[laughs] </em>So, and I laugh about. In fact, I’ve brought my report cards in today for some reason, and I looked at those report cards, looking through stuff, and I said, “Man, I was a straight-F student.”<em>[laughs] </em>So, but, it’s been fun.Life’s been good, been good.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>I wanted to ask you, for the Sanford Airport, when did that start becoming—when was it under construction?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>It was, you know, it was a naval base [Naval Air Station Sanford], and then they converted over into a commercial airport, and I don’t remember the years.But I was on that board—phew.It wasn’t in the—must have been in the late ‘70s when they started converting it over.Yeah, I can’t remember the dates on that one.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So, did—it might have been the fern industry—I mean, it might have been kind of already low at that time, but was there any kind of transition?‘Cause you said the railroads, in the early days, that was like the artery.Was there, like, did the airports start to be more of a central thing with transportation?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>With ferns, no.No.With the fern business, it became trucks.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Everybody moved from the—we did some air freight, not a lot.Most of it was done by—the whole industry changed from trains and rail over to the trucking industry.So there was a—trucking lines were moving strictly either foliage plants or ferns by truck itself to the destination.The fern business itself—the labor, cost of labor, the cost of materials, the cost of land—all those things just became cost-prohibited to be able to do anything with it.You asked a question earlier about, you know, do I miss it?I loved the plant business.I really enjoyed it, and still today would like to be in the business, except I know I can’t make any money at it.And I’m not gonna fool around with something I can’t make money at as well.But, you know, the guys in Apopka and the guys that been in the fern business, and growing something, you know, a plant or product, I think they all will tell you, you know, it’s just a great place to—it’s a fun thing to do.And it’s really rewarding to put a little plant on a stem into a piece of <em>sphagnum</em> moss, and grow it to a finished product, and ship it.If I had a nickel for every plant that I’ve grown, I’d be a very wealthy man.Rick [Hattaway] enjoyed it.My brother enjoyed it very much.And I kept telling him, “You don’t want to go into the greenhouse business.You want to stay out of it.”My mother told me that as well.But, you know, he followed the family trade and did that as well.But, it’s a good life.It’s a good opportunity.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>That whole watching something grow, that seems almost kind of like a good metaphor for your, all your business [inaudible].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong><em>[laughs ] </em>Yeah.Yeah.I read an article today, an old one, gosh, about when I developed that orange grove over there, and it was—Phil [inaudible] was the city manager.It was quoting him about what I was doing over there, and how I environmentally was taking care of Lake Lotus, and all the things I did back then.But, you know, to see the growth, or where we were back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and where we are today, people have opportunities.There were no opportunities when I was growing up.Either you worked in a fernery or you worked in an orange grove.There wasn’t high school education.People weren’t going to college.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>You had to find your own…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>You had to find your own, you had to make your own way at that particular point in time.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Since you brought that up, I’m curious what you think about how this area—I probably can’t imagine what it was like when you were a kid.What do you think?How do you think it’s progressed?Are you…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>I’m for growth.I’m growth.Opportunities.I mean, I had a farm, sold it a couple years ago up in Alabama, little town called Opp, Alabama.And it was heavy agriculture, farming area.And today—Opp, Alabama—you can take a shotgun down the main street and not hit a soul.There’s just nothing to do there.And that’s the way it was here.The growth has been really, really, to me, healthy.It’s been giving good opportunities to people having good jobs.Our way of life—there are no poor people in this community today.You see some not as well off as others, but everybody either has a television, or everybody has food on the table.Everybody has an opportunity to make something of themselves, you see, if they want to take that opportunity.And back then, there was no opportunities.You had to make it yourself.And today there’s many doors open for employment, and it’s not all agriculture.At that time, it was.But am I in favor of growth?Absolutely.Has it been good for this community?Absolutely.Has it been good for this state?Absolutely.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Is there anything that you see in this community, that you don’t find good about—<strong>l</strong>ike, obviously, there’s a lot of good growth brings, but is there anything you lament that has changed, or any nostalgia?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway <br /></strong>I think the one problem that we have in our community is that we have not been able to keep up with the road—the growth with our road network—and mainly because of the lack of proper leadership from the Legislature.We’ve never had the political voting power to be able to build a road network they have on the south coast, South Florida—they have on the west coast.And our group has been splintered—Democrat, Republican— and many times have not worked together to have the power base in Tallahassee to get the state dollars to build—FDOT [Florida Department of Transportation]—to build our community.So we’ve not done a good job on our roads.And you have one major road going through this entire community, from Daytona Beach into Tampa, and that’s I-4.Other than that, you have very limited roads.If it wasn’t for the East-West Expressway [SR 408], the [Central Florida] Expressway Authority, we wouldn’t have any roads.So that’s been a blessing to us, but I think that’s our biggest problem.Our growth has been handled with zoning—comprehensive land plan—where the commercial’s going to be built, where the residential’s going to be built—all those things, I think, have been handled very well.We have a great water system, sewer system in Central Florida.We have all the things conducive to solid development, except the roads.And you get on these roads, and you know what it’s like.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Gridlock.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>But I’m kind of surprised to hear that—weren’t a lot of the old, like ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, Florida Republicans, weren’t they kind of pro-growth and infrastructure?Wouldn’t they…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong>Well, when I was in the Legislature back in the ‘70s, the [Florida] House [of Representatives] and the [Florida] Senate was controlled by the Democrats, and the Republicans were along for the ride.And then, when power shifted chains, we didn’t see a lot of growth coming here.I mean, we’ve had—I don’t want you to write this.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>What’s that?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Hattaway<br /></strong><em>[laughs] I</em> don’t want you to write this.This is off the record on this one.Yeah.</p> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/23288d20d38c0f7e671f6412e62d4b87.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of Bob Hattaway</a> 7-Eleven Adult Toy Storage agriculture airports Altamonte Mall Altamonte Springs Apopka asparagus plumosus Barnett Bill Miller Bob Hattaway Bradshaw British Airways Casselberry Central Florida Expressway Authority Chapman Avenue Chapman Road Charlotte Hattaway Chicago, Illinois Christmas citrus Concord Avenue Continental Can Company Costa Rica Crescent City Daniel Motta Daytona Beach DeLand Democratic Party Democrats Dog Track Road Downtown Orlando Earl Vaughn East-West Expressway economic growth farming farms FDOT Fern Park ferneries fernery ferns Florida Department of Transportation Florida House of Representatives Florida Senate flower shops flowers Foley Greater Orlando Aviation Authority greenhouses Hattaway Hattaway Drive Hibbard Casselberry Holiday Travel Home Depot horticulture Howard McNelty infrastructure Jane Casselberry John Marcell John Rich Kay Kmart Lake Concord Lake Lotus Lake Orienta Larry Dale Lawton Chiles Lawton Mainor Chiles, Jr. leatherleaf fern Leonard Casselberry LHS Linda Chapin Linda Hook Lockhart Longwood Lyman High School Mahaffey Maitland Maitland Avenue Martha Casselberry moss mosses NAS Sanford Naval Air Station Sanford navel oranges New York nurseries nursery oak tree hammocks oak trees Opp, Alabama orange tees oranges Orienta Ferneries orlando Orlando International Airport Orlando-Sanford International Airport Pierson podocarpus price fixing Puerto Rico real estate Republican Parties Republicans Rick Hattaway Royal Ferneries Sanford saran shade cloth Seminole County Semoran Boulevard Shoemaker slat sheds Southwest Airlines sphagnum SR 408 SR 417 SR 436 SR 46 Tallahassee Tampa Toronto, Canada tropical plants UF University of Florida US 19-92 Ustler Valencia oranges Vaughn Greenhouses Virgin Atlantic Volusia County Walmart Walt Disney World weeding weeds Wekiva River Winter Garden Winter Park High School Wofford, Joe WPHS Zellwood zoning https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/be2a921939a6fc10f5709a6c62cf1322.mp3 0a44b29d11ce0eaf6d1a55db0bf28268 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/edb34fabc03ff5a313f705e7a4da9d03.pdf acef6c4a8c12c1e61939a776ad0a7ad4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Seminole County Collection Alternative Title Seminole County Collection Subject Seminole County (Fla.) Altamonte Springs (Fla.) Casselberry (Fla.) Goldenrod (Fla.) Heathrow (Fla.) Lake Mary (Fla.) Longwood (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Winter Springs (Fla.) Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. Mosquito County, a massive county south of St. Johns County that consisted of much of Central Florida was established in 1824. In 1845, Mosquito County was renamed Orange County when Florida earned statehood. This new county included present-day Osceola County, Seminole County, Lake County, and Volusia County. Orange County was named so for the area's major fruit crop: oranges. The area was devastated by a freeze during the winter of 1895-1896, which allowed for subsequent land speculators to initiate a land boom in Florida, with Orlando becoming a "boom town." Seminole County separated from Orange on April 25, 1913, and was named for the Seminole tribes that originally inhabited the area. In the early-1900s, Seminole County was known for its agricultural development and close proximity to shipping lanes. By the 1920s, citizens in Seminole County, particularly in Sanford, soon shifted their interests in making the area a tourist destination. Language eng Type Collection Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Contributor <a href="http://www.cfmemory.org/" target="_blank">Central Florida Memory</a> Cepero, Laura Lynn Cepero, Nancy Lynn <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/118" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/117" target="_blank">Casselberry Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/54" target="_blank">Geneva Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/55" target="_blank">Geneva Historical &amp; Genealogical Society Collection</a>, Geneva Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/56" target="_blank">Goldenrod Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/57" target="_blank">Goldenrod Historical Society &amp; Museum Collection</a>, Goldenrod Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/129" target="_blank">Heathrow Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/119" target="_blank">Lake Mary Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/43" target="_blank">Longwood Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <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/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/30" target="_blank">Seminole County Centennial Celebration Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/31" target="_blank">Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/125" target="_blank">Winter Springs Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Coverage Seminole County, Florida Altamonte Springs, Florida Casselberry, Florida Goldenrod, Florida Heathrow, Florida Lake Mary, Florida Longwood , Florida Oviedo, Florida Sanford, Florida Winter Springs, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.cfmemory.org/" target="_blank">Central Florida Memory</a> Curator Cepero, Laura External Reference Bentley, Altermese Smith. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/45705201" target="_blank"><em>Seminole County</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2000. "<a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/index.aspx" target="_blank">Seminole County Government </a>." Seminole County Government. http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/index.aspx. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52607030" target="_blank"><em>Early Days of Seminole County, Florida: Where Central Florida History Began</em></a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Seminole County Historical Commission, 2002. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Motta, Daniel Interviewee Martin, Bobby Location <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><span>, Sanford, Florida.</span> Bit Rate/Frequency 1441kbps 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 Bobby Martin Alternative Title Oral History, Martin Subject Longwood (Fla.) Fishing--Florida Sanford (Fla.) Lake Jesup (Fla.) Lake Monroe (Seminole County and Volusia County, Fla.) Description An oral history of Bobby Martin (b. 1944), conducted by Daniel Motta on June 13, 2012. Martin was born in Tampa, Florida, in 1944, but spent much of his life as a commercial fisherman on Lake Jesup and Lake Monroe. In the interview, Martin discusses growing up in Longwood, serving in the military during the Vietnam War, the commercial fishing industry, the relationship between fishermen, fishing methods, catfish farming and the decline of the wild commercial fishing industry, leaving the fishing industry, and the dangers of fishing. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:48 Growing up in Longwood 0:02:23 Serving in the Vietnam War 0:03:15 Commercial fishing industry 0:08:05 Relationship between fishermen 0:11:48 Typical day fishing 0:15:19 Fishing methods 0:32:51 Catfish farming and the decline of the wild commercial fishing industry 0:34:26 Fishing territory 0:35:30 Leaving the fishing industry and pollution 0:40:31 Dangers of fishing 0:46:46 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:46:46 Fishing injuries 0:53:11 Stingrays and eels in Lake Jesup and Lake Monroe 0:56:41 Favorite aspect of fishing 0:58:51 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Bobby Martin. Interview conducted by Daniel Motta 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>, Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Original 59-minute and 36-second oral history: Martin, Bobby. Interviewed by Daniel Motta. June 13, 2012. <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/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Creator Motta, Daniel Martin, Bobby Date Created 2012-06-13 Date Modified 2012-06-22 Date Copyrighted 2012-06-13 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 601 MB 195 KB Medium 59-minute and 36-second audio recording 28-page typed digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civcs/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Daniel Motta and Bobby Martin. 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 Belleville, Bill. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41503194" target="_blank"><em>River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River</em></a>. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.monroeharbour.com/" target="_blank">Monroe Harbour Marina</a>." Monroe Harbour Marina. http://www.monroeharbour.com/. Transcript <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>This is Daniel Motta. It is June 13, 2012. I am at the Museum of Seminole County History, interviewing Bobby Martin. If we could just start—could you just tell me where you were born?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yes, sir. I was born in Tampa, Florida, Hillsborough County.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And what year was that?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>1944.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So what brought you over to Central Florida?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>My dad’s employment, basically.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And, what was he in?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Well, at that time, I believe he was working for the Imperial Oil Company. I believe he was. And I was about three, four years old when we moved up here from Tampa.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And you said, a little earlier, that you fished with him. Did he have experience fishing in the fishing industry as well?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah, absolutely. Well, to get to that, we’ll have to fast forward to 1960 or ’61.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, okay. Well, we’ll take it a little slower then. When you got here—could you describe your house. Your…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Absolutely.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Your—just your house, neighborhood. How it was then?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Sure. We moved up here—I’ll tell you this. My dad bought a house in Tampa when I was a baby. My mother told me this. They borrowed money from my grandmother. For $600, they bought a house. They paid the house off. And from that day forward, my dad never had a house mortgage. He was able to—to wheel and deal, and he never had a mortgage.</p> <p class="Body">But the story is that we moved up here, and our first house was down by the Dog Track Road in Longwood, at the intersection of [Florida State Road] 17-92. It had a hand pump, for water, and it’s what they call a “shotgun house.” That means you can look in the front door and look right out the back door. That’s how they were built then—bedrooms on one side. And then, from there, we moved on up into Longwood, rented a house. And in 1948--about 1950, I guess—my dad built a house physically himself. Built us a house and raised four kids in that house for 21 years. And then after that—wasn’t long after that time period—I went to Vietnam, and while I was gone, Mom and Dad moved to another house, and then to another house. And, make a long story short, my dad has passed now, and my mother lives in assisted living here in Sanford at Renaissance Retirement [Center].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So you, did you go to Vietnam right after high school, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin  <br /></strong>No, I was—no. I was—went to Vietnam in ’67, and ’68.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Were you drafted, then?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>I was drafted. Yeah. And I obtained the rank of sergeant, did the best I could, and came home. And in the military I was a wheeled-vehicle mechanic. And, other than that, I was involved in the commercial fishing industry before I went to Vietnam, but not very much before. About—we went into the commercial fishing in about 1961. And I can tell you how that happened, if you want to hear it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Well, you said you were a mechanic in the..</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Military.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Was that—have you always had an interest in that? Is that why you...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. Mm-hm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>All right. And, would you like to continue? Were you about to...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah, I was gonna tell you—did you want me to tell you how we started in the fishing industry, or did you want to go somewhere else?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Well, what was the impact of the fishing industry like when you were younger, before you got into—before you went to Vietnam?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. Okay. Exactly. Well, the way it happened was, I had never heard of a commercial fisherman on the river prior to 1961 or thereabouts. My dad had a gas station at the corner of Airport Boulevard, which at that time was Anora Road and 17-92. The building still stands today. We were in the gas station one day, and two men pulled in in an old car, and they looked bad. And the old car was a 1937 four-door DeSoto sedan—had no backseat. It was a huge. It was as big as a barn. It was a huge car. And they came in for gas, and my daddy walked out to that car and looked in the back of that car, and there were two garbage cans in the back, and they were full of catfish. Well, Clarence Coir and Cecil Dile were in that car, and they got to talking about those catfish. Well, our family’s always loved to fish, but we never did commercial fishing. And, when my dad found out that you could actually earn a living catching fish, it wasn’t very long before the gas station was history, and we obtained ourselves a little boat, and we began to commercial fish.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So he sold the gas station to get a boat?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>That’s right. Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>All right. Well, so, that was when you were in your teens, or earlier than that?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Early twenties. That was about 1961, ’62, I guess. Right along in there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So, when you came back from Vietnam, did you get back into that industry, or were you, like, looking for other jobs before then?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Well, as a matter of fact, before I went to Vietnam—before I was drafted—I was involved in commercial fishing with my dad. He had his boat, and I had my boat. Now, these weren’t big boats like you see in the ocean. These were just river skiffs, basically, is what we fished out of.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Do you remember about how long they were?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yep. They were around 14 to 16 feet, and some of them were flat-bottomed, and some of them were what they call a “skip jack.” A skip jack is just a small boat, usually with a big engine on it, and it has a very sharp bow, so that when you carry a load in it, it’ll break the waves on the rough lake, and it’s stable. The flat-bottomed boats were better for calm water. So we got our two boats, we went to commercial fishing. The kind of commercial fishing we did from 19—approximately ’61, ‘til the time I went in the service—we used a trot line. Do you know what a trot line is?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Trot line is a very, very, very long piece of string, with a lot of hooks on it. You see that in the Deadliest...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Oh, Deadliest…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>[<em>The</em>]<em> Perfect Storm</em>!</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>[<em>The</em>]<em> Perfect Storm</em>, they’re catching big fish. But it’s the same theory. It’s a long line about…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And you just drag it along the…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>No, they’re put out.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>They’re a quarter-mile long. And you go down the line on your little boat, and you knock the fish in the boat, bait the hook back, and go to the next hook, and so on, ‘til you progress down the line.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>This was in Lake Monroe or Lake Jesup?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>At that time, that was Lake Jesup, only.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>There were other fishermen doing the same thing, but my dad and I, at that time, fished out of Lake Jesup. We put our boats in Tuskawilla Road—used to run right down to the lake. It was a dirt road. And there was a bunch of wino commercial fishermen that lived there in the woods. Now, in that camp where they lived, they had a wooden nail keg—a wooden barrel—buried in the ground, and the groundwater seeped in through the cracks. And they would drink that water, and I saw maggots in that water. And they would live in this old camp.</p> <p class="Body">Well, at that time, we left our boats right there at the boat, along the bank, ‘cause people didn’t steal your stuff then. We’d just drive down there, get in our boats, and go fishing, and come back, and beach the boat, and go sell our fish down at the fish house. Right across the road from Lowe’s, yeah, there was an establishment called Waits’—I don’t know how you spell “Waits”—their last name was Waits—Fish House. And they were a commercial fish outlet—inlet, whatever, distributor. And we would sell our fish at that fish house.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And where was this? What Lowe’s? What location?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Across the road from Lowe’s in Sanford.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. So…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Right where the Walmart is.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. So pretty much all the commercial fishing was done in the lake. It wasn’t on the rivers usually?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Well, see, at that time, we were fishing in the lake. There was commercial fishing in both lakes and the river, and all up in North Florida. It was all statewide. But I’m just referring to what my dad and I did.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. So how many fishermen usually were in the—well, commercial fishermen—in Lake Jesup?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Okay. Well Lake Jesup—I’ll say at any given time—people were running trot line. There might have been a dozen, I guess. But, see, when you’re running trot lines that are a quarter of a mile long, you run three or four of them. It takes up quite a large area.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>It seems like there might be a risk of them getting tangled. Was that ever a possibility?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. What would happen when one trot line—when one man would put his trot line unbeknownst to the other, across his, there was a common courtesy that when you ran your trot line, it would pick his up, and you would tie them together. And then when he saw that his line was on top of yours—so he would take his up, you see. Common courtesy.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So there was like an unspoken code, pretty much?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>All right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>And sometimes it ended up in not so pleasant situations, but most of the time it worked pretty well.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Well, were there any…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Physical altercations?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Or just any feuds or anything between…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. There were always territorial wars on the lake. “I’m fishing this end of the lake.” “Well, you don’t own this lake. You don’t have a deed to it.” Back and forth, and so on, you know. “You go fish in that section,” and “I was here first,” and that kind of childish bickering went on constantly.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did it ever escalate above just shouting or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Mm-hm. Yeah. In some cases, it got physical. There were some boats sunk at different times. Hostility. But that was a rare occasion.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>You say boats sunk? How exactly did that…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Well, there are stories. And, you know, I have to confess. I’m gonna relay a story or two to you that were stories that were relayed to me, and I don’t know how much foundation there was to them.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>But I would—from that industry, I would say they’re probably pretty well true. One of the stories is that one gentleman had his trot lines out—now, these lines, you leave them—at that time, you would leave them in the water, and you would take the fish off and re-bait the hook, and go on down the line. So the lines stayed in the water, at that time. And this gentleman had his line out, and when he went out to his line, there were some people—sports fishermen—fishing out there, and they had his trot line on up out of the water. Well, now, this gentleman had a skip jack with a great big stack of motor on the back of it, and he was probably running 100 horse[power] or better. Boat probably run 70 miles an hour. So he pulled up to them. He said, “What you all doing?” And they said, “We’re taking some catfish off this trot line.” He said, “Well, isn’t that something?” Then he fired that motor up, and he made a big circle out there on the lake ‘til he got her up running good and fast, and he cut that boat in half, and he put both of them in the water. So, that kind of stuff would go on, you know, occasionally. But I gotta tell you, my friend, that’s a rare occasion. That didn’t happen every day.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did all the commercial fishermen kind of stick together if there was some kind of…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Confrontation?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Water sports?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Sports fishermen.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Is that what you refer to them?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. You had commercial fishermen, then you had your sports fishermen. That was always a conflict there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And you pretty much stuck together if there was any kind of…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah, but we didn’t gang up on people.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>All right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>We weren’t that type.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>You weren’t looking to…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>It was—looking at it from the sportsmen’s objective[sic] is that they were right in their complaint that we had these lines all over the lake, and they’re out there drifting for speckled perch. Some people call them “crappie.” They’re drifting, deep, then their line’d get hung on it, and they’re [inaudible]. They’d wind it all in. Well, it’s a trot line. And they’d get their motors caught in them, so it was probably a nuisance. At the same time, we’d go out to our trot lines and find them cut in two, and they’re all tangled up, and the fish all make big balls out of the trot lines. So there was always some kind of a war going on out there, but it was usually verbal.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So how long did you have the lines out at a time? Like, when you went out on the lake? How long was that?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>What we would do—we’d go out about daylight.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>We’d walk along the shoreline with a little net and we’d catch shrimp. There were brine shrimp that lived in the river, if you didn’t know that. They look like any other shrimp, but they’re just smaller. And we would bait our trot lines with them. So, we would put our lines out, bait them up, and we would actually— we’d get probably—maybe a couple weeks before we had to pull them back up and then re-hook them, you see. Put new hooks on the lines, ‘cause the hooks, after a while, they’ll deteriorate, rust, begin to break, get dull. So you had to put new hooks on your trot lines. So you would bring it in, put it in a big tub, bring it in, cut the old hooks off, put new hooks on, put it on a special rack that I’ll tell you about later, and we’d go put the line back out in the water.</p> <p class="Body">Now, later on, this type of fishing—when I got back from Vietnam, I met a family that had come up here from Clewiston, and they were deep into commercial fishing all their lives. And they knew a technique that I did not know, and they would put the lines out at dusk, and pick the line up in the morning, and just knock the fish off of it. They would call it “boating the line.” They’d put the line in a tub, and they’d take the line home, and put it on this rack I’m telling you about, and repair any damage to it, jump it out at dusk, and the same process. They called that “jump lining.” Well, they taught me how to do that. This family kind of just took me in. They just liked me, I guess. And, so they taught me how to jump line. So from that point, my dad and I kind of separated in that he remained in Lake Jesup doing what we call “stay lining” or leaving them overboard, and I migrated up into the river and Lake Monroe, because now I started fishing at night. I started using different kind of equipment, different kind of light. My dad didn’t use lights. He’d fish in the daytime. I started using lights, and I started jumping the lines out in the evening, picking them up in the morning, and playing all day. I was single and running crazy.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So about how old were you when you and your dad split up the boat?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>That would have been about 1970, I guess. Something like that. We didn’t part enemies. I just took on a different kind of fishing. And for 10 years—after I got back from Vietnam—for 10 years, I lived on various kinds of boats on the river. I actually lived on the river. And Archie Smith at Sanford Boat Works [&amp; Marina]—finally I moved one of my boats into his marina. And after he talked to me for a while, he asked me if I would like to run his little store there on the weekends. And I said, “Sure!”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>It’s like a bait shop, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Well, what it was—no bait—it was what is called a “ship store.” They’d sell screws and hardware and bilge pumps. Of course, they had their yachts in the marina. So, I went to work one weekend, and my next day off was a year later. I ended up working seven days a week! [<em>laughs</em>] But I still fished at night. Archie’s a great guy. This guy—you know Archie?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>I’m trying to get an interview with him, actually.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>You’ve got to. You’d better have some time, though, ‘cause he’s got a lot to tell you. He’s a wonderful man.</p> <p class="Body">And anyway, I lived in the marina and worked at the marina for five years, but I was still commercial fishing and still living on my boat. But I bought and sold, back and forth, different boats to live on, always making a profit. And I lived on boats for 10 years, on the river, and that was a cool thing to do.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Sounds kind of nice, actually.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So the lines, that was pretty much—the trot lines, that was the way to catch fish? You didn’t use—you only used the nets for the shrimp and...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Okay. That’s a good question. Now we’re gonna get in the part where we’re gonna talk about some poaching.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>With a trot line, basically, you can’t poach, ‘cause it’s all legal. But now, when I moved up into the river, and I fell in with some friends up here. We began to do what they call “monkey fishing.” And most people, they don’t know what monkey fishing is. It’s just—I don’t guess it’s a local name been given to it—but it’s using electric generator. And these generators generally come in the old field phone or an old crank telephone. It’s an armature with a series of bar magnets stacked over the armature, and when it spins, it generates an electrical current. Well, my daddy had one of those monkeys—we’d call it—in his old shop, when I was a little boy. You running out of time? And I saw that thing laying in the shop for years. I didn’t know what it was. Well then, when I fell in with these guys and I found out what a monkey was, I said, “I’ve got one of those.” And I went home and I got that monkey and I fastened it to a board, and I hooked an electric motor to it. And brother, we went fishing.</p> <p class="Body">Now when you turn that monkey on, if you turn it too fast, it doesn’t work. If you turn it too slow, it doesn’t work. There’s a certain rhythmic impulse for that machine, which is relatively slow, the catfish can’t stand. It doesn’t affect any scale fish. It doesn’t affect eels, gar, brim, stingrays—nothing but catfish. And so, we would go out at night with very powerful headlights. My light was a landing light off of an aircraft. It was about a half a million candlepower. And we would run that monkey, we’d put a wire over each side of the boat, and the fish would literally try to get out of the water. They’d come up to the top, and they’re running around, and we’ve got long poles with nets on them. When that started, we’d dip them up and put them in the boat.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So they’d be jumping out of the water?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah, they’d jump up on the banks. Some of them would jump in the boat. It was crazy. We’d be laughing. It was funny. But it was illegal. I gotta tell you, it was illegal. But we made a lot of money doing that. And, so, I’ll say this—and I want this to go on the record—because that monkey machine, as we’d call it, will not work in any water at all times. There are several conditions that have to be favorable for its function. The water has to be low, basically a drought situation—wintertime low. Water has to be hot, disgusting, nasty. Usually it’s green with algae. But what happens in that process—and a lot of commercial fishermen don’t understand this the alkalinity in that water is magnified, because the water volume is reduced, thus condensing the amount of alkalinity in that water. Now the river’s a battery. It’s a conductor. You put the two wires over it, now you’ve got a current flowing, as well as radiating, and it drives the fish crazy. If it rains a lot and dilutes that water, or the water’s high—still diluted—you lose that connection, and it doesn’t work at all. So we knew that it would only work in the summertime. But that’s why. It has to do with the alkalinity and acidity in the water.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>This sounds like a kind of complicated process. Is this something that most fishermen knew, or was it something like you guys just figured out after a while?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>I think we all knew it, but I don’t think a lot of the commercial fishermen—and I was one. So I guess, I wasn’t of the same mind as most commercial fishermen, I gotta tell you. I’m not better than them, I just came from a different spoke of the wheel. I would investigate things. I take things apart now. I have an inquisitive mind. So I delved into why this thing worked. They don’t give a hoot. All they care is if it works or it don’t[sic] work. But anyway, that’s why I was able to share with you why it works, and why sometimes it doesn’t.</p> <p class="Body">Now, I don’t wanna get long-winded, but I could tell you something else phenomenal about commercial fishing. There is a time of year that you will catch more fish on a trot line with no bait than you will with bait. And they call it “fishing empty hooks.” And you ask a commercial fisherman, “Why is that?” “I don’t know! Just this time of year. They bite empty hooks.” Well, I did some investigating. When acidic water is acidic water, as opposed to pure water, it’s a good conductor. It’s also corrosive. When you drop a metallic object into corrosive water, on whatever scale, it will begin to deteriorate. It’s called “electrolysis action.” It rusts. It corrodes. When it does that, it puts out a minute electrical aura around that which is deteriorating. You understand that. Iron deteriorating in air, when it gets wet, is called “oxidation.” Metal deteriorating in water, going through the same process, I guess it’s oxidation. It’s a mixing of a metal with oxygen. But it occurs under the water, and it generates a small electrical charge.</p> <p class="Body">A catfish’s whiskers are so ultra-sensitive, he doesn’t even need eyes. And I’ve got a book on this—I’ve read this, so I’m not just spinning you a yarn. They are so ultra-sensitive, that in itself is why the monkey affects only catfish. And it won’t affect any other kind of fish. Now the state uses a generator to bring up scale fish to do a count. They’re using an AC [alternating current] voltage. Well, the monkey’s putting out a DC [direct current] voltage. And they use 110 volts—a different kind of electricity to affect the scale fish.</p> <p class="Body">But anyway, that’s why a certain time of the year, you can catch more fish on a trot line on empty hooks than you can with bait, because the fish goes for that electrical aura. That’s how catfish can find food. They can actually find food by that. Any living thing has a small—you have electricity in your body. Well, I don’t care how small the organism is, it has an aura, and the catfish can find their food with that. So when they swim by that hook, and they go, “Oh, this is lunch,” and they grab it. And there will be fish on almost every hook. But the water condition has to be right. When that water’s diluted, all of a sudden that doesn’t work.</p> <p class="Body">We’ve caught thousands of pounds of fish on pink Camay soap. And you could always tell when the fish were biting on the pink Camay soap, because you’d go into the store, and all the soap displays were all crumbled, because the commercial fisherman would pick up the bar of soap and shove his thumbnail in it. If he could push his thumbnail in it, the bar of soap was a nice, fresh bar, and you could cut it up. If you couldn’t push your thumbnail in it, he didn’t want that one. So they’d destroy all the pink Camay. And they would only bite on pink Camay. So we’ve caught catfish in a commercial way on pink Camay soap.</p> <p class="Body">Shrimp—local shrimp here in the river—there’s brine or grass shrimp, snails. The bottoms of these lakes and the river are just literally covered with millions of snails. There’s a certain way you get the snail out of his shell to put it on the hook. Watermelon produces large channel catfish. But not many of them, but the thing of it is, would you rather clean five great big fish, or two hundred little bitty fish? So we would use watermelon sometimes. Watermelon. Cantaloupe was a good producer of large channel cats. I think that somehow the large channel cats, believe it or not, they must favor something sweet. I have a friend right now that’s running trot line right now, today, he’s baiting with corn, canned corn, and he’s just cleaning house.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] I would never imagine that would…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Well, see. That’s another reason I’m glad we’re having this interview. And this stuff could—that’s why I asked you on the phone, “Could this be a long interview?” This could go on—I could tell you stuff like this for days. And you don’t have that kind of time, let alone that amount of stuff on that machine. So anyway. Therein lies that. And in Lake Monroe, we would do the trot line. Now if you want, I’ll get into other methods we caught fish.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Well, let me just ask you this quickly. The device—monkey? What’d you call it, the monkey?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>A monkey.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. You said that wasn’t really legal, technically.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Not legal at all! No way.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Was there, at that time—what kind of presence did the fish and wildlife have? Like, were they patrolling the rivers and the lakes a lot?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Like, did you have to watch out for them?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Very much so. That’s a good question, Daniel. Matter of fact, what we would do, occasionally—sometimes we just went monkey fishing, but occasionally, we would go down to, we would drive down to Mullet Lake Park, or we’d go down to [Lake] Harney, or we’d park right here across the river at 17-92. We’d go to that park at night. Well, it’s closed. We’d drive around behind the park, and come up the back way, and come under the fence. And we’d go down to the boat ramp, make sure the game warden wasn’t in. Now, if his truck was sitting there, we knew he was in the area. So if his truck wasn’t there, now we drove down to Mullet Park and it wasn’t there, we had a full, pretty fair shot that he wasn’t in our area, and we’d go monkey fishing. So, but, the game warden…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So it was kind of a risk, a little bit, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /><br /></strong>I’m sorry?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Was it kind of a risk, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Absolutely. Every time we went monkey fishing, it was a risk. But the game warden and the average commercial fisherman didn’t have a real good rapport. I happened to have had a good rapport with the game warden. I respected him. He was a good man. A lot of guys didn’t. And he almost caught me doing some illegal things, but he never caught me. He never caught me, brother. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">But anyway, the game wardens were always—it was like the old movies—cowboys and Indians. The cowboys chase the Indians, or the Indians chase the cowboys. And it was that kind of a thing, you know. But he’d catch—occasionally catch somebody and write them up, and then there was always a dispute. If he caught somebody doing something illegal in Lake Monroe, when they went to court, the commercial fisherman would say, “Well, where did you catch me?” And he’d say, “I caught you in Lake Monroe.” And he would say, “Well, where in Lake Monroe did you catch me?” Because the county line runs right through the middle of the lake. So, and a lot of times, it was thrown out of court. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So what were these other methods of fishing you were...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Now there’s a—fish traps, at that time, when I was doing that, were illegal. Now, I didn’t get into the trapping much.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>What kind of traps were they?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Good question. A trap was made, basically, with chicken wire. Now, picture in your mind a round tube made of chicken wire, approximately 18 inches to 2 feet in diameter, 3 feet high—maybe 4. Now pinch one end of that tube shut. So it’s seamed at the bottom, now it’s open at the top, in which there is an inverted funnel laid on its side on the bottom of the lake with food in it. Catfish would go in the funnel, and they’re too stupid to find their way out. They turn around, now they’re against—between the trap and the funnel, and they can’t get out. And they just continue to fill up, fill up with catfish. And when the person—you would tie that to a long line, like a trot line—when you would run your trap string, as they called it, you’d pull the trap up, you unzip the bottom of it, drop your fish out, close it back up, threw some more bait in there, you threw her back overboard.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And this was illegal, as well?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>At that time, it was. It isn’t now. At that time, trapping was not legal.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Is there a reason why—do you know why that became illegal? It doesn’t seem very harmful.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Well, I don’t know the particulars as to why it would be illegal, unless it would be because of the amount of fish harvested. Other than that, I don’t know why. I just know it was illegal, and if they would catch you, they would confiscate your traps, stomp them all down, and then put you in jail.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>They’d jail you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>If they caught you with the stuff, yeah. But a lot of people were doing it. But I never did the trap. I don’t know why. I was always content to do the trot line. I was a trot liner. And then I got into monkey fishing. Now there’s another method of fishing that we—oh, this was fun, brother. Out off the coast of Florida, they do a lot of shrimping. Behind those boats, they pull what’s called a “shrimp trawl.” Do you know what that is?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Have you seen a shrimp boat?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>It’s got the two things sticking up here. When they’re out in the ocean, they’re called “outriggers.” They’ll drop them down. And from those—back behind the boat are two long ropes tied to a very wide-mouth net, and it comes down to what they call a “sock.” This is wide at the beginning. It comes down to a long tube. They drag that along the ocean bottom, and that’s how they catch the shrimp that you put on your dinner table. We had a shrimp net—a trawl, as it was called. Well, we would pull the trawl on Lake Monroe, with 100 horse Mercury. Now, you couldn’t pull it very fast, ‘cause it was 35 feet wide and dragging the bottom. Had a cork line on top to hold the top up, and it had a lead line on the bottom to hold the bottom down. So it was bagged out, and you would drag that along the bottom of the lake, and you would catch your catfish that way. And that was easy pickings there. It’d take a long time, but see, you could get caught doing that, too. You had to always be on the lookout for the game warden out there in the lake. This was done at nighttime, with no lights.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And you said you did participate in that kind of…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin  <br /></strong>I’m sorry?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>You did use that kind of a method sometimes?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. Yep. Pulled a trawl in Lake Monroe, right down the channel, catch all kinds of catfish. But once again, that was illegal. Very illegal.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>You keep saying “catfish.” Is that pretty much all—the catfish—that was pretty much the prize fish you…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. Now, catfish was a legal fish. Now, once you caught that catfish, and took it to market, nobody cared. I mean, it was just a fish on the market. So if you trapped it, if you monkeyed it up, if you dug it with a trawl, or however, once you took it to market, it was fair game. How you got the fish was a different story. Now, there were a lot of brim captured with trawl, traps, and sold on black market. The brim, you didn’t have to clean them. You ice them down, and they run them across the state line or wherever they went, and you could sell brim.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>But they weren’t legal to sell or to catch?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Not at all. That’s right. No game fish. Commercial fishermen were not allowed to have a game fish in his boat.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So what were the fish that were—aside from catfish—I mean, did you even bother with any other fish, or where there’s like—was it like smaller…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Oh, no. We just focused on catfish. And if you really got desperate and wanted to make some money on black market, you would catch brim and speckle perch, which is crappie. And I didn’t get into that much. I stayed—basically, catfish.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>And, did a lot of things illegally to catch the catfish. It was a lot of fun, made a lot of money. But, you understand, commercial fishing industry, it’s either feast or famine. You’re making a lot of money in a very short period of time. But when you’re not doing it, and that money’s gone, you’ve got to do it again to produce that kind of money, or you just gotta get by the best way you can. So if your trot line’s only producing a small amount of money, basically whatever that figure might be, and the monkey—or the trawl, the traps—are producing a lot, and you’re not doing that fashion, that method anymore, now you’ve gotta revert back to your trot line, which takes hours and hours to run. A lot of effort, you see. Then you’re gonna gravitate towards the easy pickings. Now the trot lines, they were on average about a quarter of a mile long—about 1,300 feet long each. And we would run anywhere from two to four, five of those a day.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Okay. Were there any other methods of catching a fish that you haven’t gone over?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah, one more. It’s called a “hoop net.” It’s a long net, much like the trawl in the—what I called the “sock” or the “tube area.” It has no large, wide mouth, like a trawl. It just has a round mouth with a funnel. This is all made out of string. It’s netting. Has multiple hoops in it. Looks like a big caterpillar laying on the bottom. Like a big sausage. And one end of it is tied off. Pinched shut. The other end is wide open with the funnel, and the catfish will go in that. Just like a large trap, only instead of being made of chicken wire, it’s—I don’t know—four, five feet wide and it has fiberglass round hoops that are attached as ribs every couple of feet.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And this was being pulled?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>No. That’s just anchored in the river, like a trap, and the fish would just go in it. And you’d go out there and pick it up and drag the fish out of it. That’s illegal. I don’t know that hoop nets are illegal now. That might not be. You see, what has happened, Daniel, is the farm-raised catfish. You’re familiar with that?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Mm-hm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Farm-raised catfishing industry has accelerated to the effect that it has shut down the wild commercial fishermen. Because people prefer restaurants, big dealers are buying up farm-raised catfish. However, I will say this: farm-raised catfish on the plate are distinctively different than those that came out of the wild. The flesh is relatively flabby and tasteless. And the reason for that, Daniel, is that the farm-raised catfish lays on the bottom of that pond where he’s raised, and he is fed. He doesn’t have to move. He just eats, goes back, and lays on the bottom. The wild catfish has to work for his food, and his muscle tone is good, the flesh is firm, and he has a better taste when you want to eat some catfish.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So catfish quality has pretty much declined over the years, as a result of restaurants preferring raised fish?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. If you buy catfish filet at a restaurant, you’ll find it’s—it’s edible. It’s good. It is. I’m not mocking them. I’m just telling you that a wild catfish is better on the plate than a farm-raised catfish. It really is. So if you go to a restaurant that has wild catfish—which I think Black Hammock Fish Camp on the bottom end of Jesup there has—they’re a lot better, and that’s the reason why. It’s not that I’m down on the farm-raised fish. It’s just a matter of fact.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Well. You mentioned going to Lake Harney, right? What was like, the—like your territory? Like how far did you go out on the lakes and the rivers?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>My territory was basically Lake Jesup and the [St. Johns] River connecting Lake Jesup and Lake Monroe, and Lake Monroe. That was my territory that I fished. Well, other people did too, but just personally, that’s just the area that I fished. A local area. No commercial fisherman fishes the entire length of 128 miles of St. John River, so we all—you live in this town, you fish this section, and that guy lives in that town, he fishes that section, ‘cause it’s not practical to do that. But I just fished Lake Jesup and the river between Jesup and Monroe, and mostly Lake Monroe.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So never outside of Lake Monroe, like north on the river? No?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>No. ‘Bout the I[nterstate Highway]-4 bridge, from there north up. I been up there, but not in a commercial fashion.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. And, I’m curious, so what were the year—when did you stop commercial fishing? What year?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>It’s a gray area, Daniel, because an industry like that—to where you see all the beautiful sunsets and the sunrises, and you’re out there in nature at night, it’s so inviting to the typical guy. You get out of it, and you’re back in it. And you’re back out of it, and you’re back in it. You meander. Nobody just quits commercial fishing one day, ‘cause it gets in your blood, so to speak. It becomes in your fiber. But I’ll say that I finally relinquished all commercial fishing, on a commercial basis, probably about 1971, something like that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, okay. So did you notice any—it might have been a little early in ’71, but did you notice any effective—like pollution, with more people moving to Central Florida? Was there any, like, effect on the water and the fish?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Yeah. Now, the answer to that, basically, is no, as far as the fish are concerned. But I, of course, through the years, been on a river as many years as I have, there’s a lot more pollution—people camping on the riverbank and leaving old grills and beer cans and bottles up in the woods. It’s disgusting, the way people actually treat the river. Now, although I was a commercial fisherman, don’t exclude me to the fact that where you think I don’t have good sense, because I like to think that I do, and I’m an advocate for the river. And it offends me greatly when the river’s abused. I see the erosion of the boat wake. Now, nobody can help that. Boat wakes will erode the bank and the trees fall. That—okay. That’s okay. But the debris that people leave behind when they go out. They have a good time on the river, and they leave their trash on the riverbank. I’ve got a real, real problem with that. There’s just no call for that. But anyway, to answer your question, as far as the fish are concerned, haven’t seen anything negative reflect from the fish at all.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did you know any other fisher—like, I don’t know how—how far out you got, but did you know any fishermen from Lake—I read Lake Apopka, for instance, there was a pretty—it was pretty—with the pesticides used from the surrounding farmlands, it got pretty bad for a while there. Was there not really much of that around here?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>No, not here. It was bad in Lake Apopka. It really was. No, haven’t seen that here. Personally, I can’t say that I have.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>The water quality comes and goes with the seasons. In the summertime, before the rainy season, water’s low. Not all that inviting sometimes. It gets a lot of algae. And algae’s a natural process.</p> <p class="Body">But now I’ll tell you this: away from the commercial fishing, and just looking at the river itself, most of the time that I was commercial fishing, the hyacinths were a nuisance. Because the hyacinths would move, and the hyacinth produces a new plant, I think, every 72 hours. So they’re prolific beyond compare, I guess, but there would be literal acres—a half-acre of hyacinths floating in the water. And you try to run a trot line up off the bottom, you pick that trot line up, and there’s this a half a[sic] acre of hyacinths you can’t even get through. It’s impassable. That’s a problem. So they were a problem. Hyacinths were a problem to small boat navigation. They were a problem to the commercial fishermen. However, when the state began to spray the hyacinths, they would die and settle to the bottom. Now you try to run a trot line in that. When you pick it up off the bottom, all those hyacinths that were floating on top are now rotting on the bottom, and they’re all over your trot line. There’s another problem. And they turn to silt, and it just gets worse and worse. But I’ve got to say in defense of the hyacinths, I think water quality was better, because their, the way they feed, as they float to the water—have you ever seen the root of a hyacinth?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>It’s pretty long, right?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah, and it was like a feather. It was like a feather duster. It hangs in the water. And as it moves along, it collects nutrients out of the water, and thus it cleans the water. So, they have sprayed so many hyacinths—the state has—that I feel like that the water quality is not what it could be with the hyacinths. In other words, I don’t have a problem with them spraying the hyacinths, but I think they’ve overdone it. They’ve virtually almost wiped them out.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Yeah. You don’t really see them that much anymore, do you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>No. No. You don’t. And the habitat—the shrimp and a lot of small fish would live up under the hyacinths in the roots, and the game fish were up there all the time. You could find a hole in the hyacinths, and fish through that hole, and catch all kinds of fish. Well, there are no hyacinths. It’s good to look at, nice pretty water, but it’s not as good as it could be. And that hyacinth is not a natural plant for Florida, you know. It came here, I think, from the Orient.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>You mentioned earlier some altercations with other fishermen. Aside from the human aspect, were there any major, like, dangers with—I’d imagine there’s some kinds of dangers with commercial fishing? Natural dangers or just, like, the boat. Like, what did you have to look out for, pretty much?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. Okay. I’m glad you brought that up. One of the most agonizing injuries a commercial fisherman can get is to get horned by a catfish. A catfish has three horns—or spikes, fins—two out the side of each side of the head, and one up on the dorsal fin in the back. Now these fins are—they’re designed in a way that they’re serrated. They go in slick, but coming out is a different story, because it has, like, teeth on the backside of it, all in one direction, allowing it smooth penetration, but a very painful extraction. And to get stuck by one and bleed a little bit, it hurts a little bit and that’s it. But if you get one jammed in all the way in halfway through your hand, and you gotta pull that thing out, that’s a bad deal, brother. So anyway, that’s a bad deal.</p> <p class="Body">And I’ll tell you something a lot of people don’t know about catfish. One of the things that creates the intense pain when one is stuck by a catfish is the slime on the fish. And the way I found that out is, I had a cut on my hand one day when I picked up a catfish, and it just stung beyond belief, and I realized that that had something to do with it. I don’t think the catfish injects you with anything. I can’t say yes or no. I don’t think so.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Maybe like the bacteria or something?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. And infection is rampant. You need to get attention for a deep puncture wound from a catfish. But catfish will hurt you. A stingray will hurt you. I didn’t mess around with the alligators. I’m not of the mindset that I like to kill things. I kill the catfish to survive, but I’m not a hunter.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Well, yeah, you were on Lake Jesup a lot. Was the alligator population pretty big then, too?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Tremendous.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Did they pretty much just leave you alone?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. An alligator’s a misunderstood animal. He’s docile in his realm. He’s shy. He’ll stay away from you. Sometimes he’s kind of curious, but he won’t come up to you. He’ll stay off some distance and watch you, and that’s about it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Even—you started in the early morning, right? They’re pretty active then. They still just kind of ignored you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. You’d see them out there, see their heads up out on the lake, and they’re just trying to catch a garfish or a turtle or something, you know. They’re not the aggressive animal the media has made them out to be. You corner an alligator, he’s gonna try to hurt you.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Mess with its nest or something?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. That’s right. But if you leave the gator alone, he wants to get away from you. He don’t wanna be around a human being. On the other hand, people that feed the gators, they’re asking for trouble. That’s a different scenario. But in the wild, an alligator—he’s not gonna come charging up and jump in your boat, and all that stuff, whatever you might have heard. They’re docile. I should say—I can’t say “docile.” They’re hostile when they are challenged. But other than that, they don’t.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So, you worked for your father. Was there more crew than you and your father, I’m assuming?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Just my dad and I.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. And he had his little boat, and I had mine, and he ran his trot lines, and I ran my trot lines, and I lived with my dad.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>So even when you went off into Lake Monroe, it was just you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Well, about that time’s when I started living on the boat, and so I had left on a different path.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. But you didn’t have, like, deck hands or anything?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>No. No, ‘cause the boats were too small. It’s only big enough for one boat, ‘cause you put a lot of fish and that commercial fishing equipment in the boat, and you—there is no room for anybody else. ‘Cause you’ve got a trot line what you call “wrapped,” and long hooks, and buoys, and all this fishing equipment. Lights and batteries and all kinds of stuff in the boat. So the boat’s only 14 feet long, there’s not a whole lot of room in there. So you gotta walk over all your stuff to get from one end of the boat to the other. And the trot line, by the way, is run from the bow. You sit right up in the bow, if you didn’t know that, to run the trot line, and the boat just kind of follows along as you go down that trot line.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Okay. So, since it was just you in the boat, did you have to kind of—I guess you knew what you were doing—but did you have to take care that you didn’t hurt yourself, or fall out or something? I mean, there’s nobody watching your back, pretty much?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Well, that’s right. You’re out there by yourself a lot. Yeah, you know—and that is good. You didn’t want an explosion or fire in your boat, which I never heard of that happening, but you wouldn’t want that out there by yourself.</p> <p class="Body">But I think the main thing you had to watch out for was—every commercial fisherman had a knife. It was a tool, and you could get cut, which I had done. You could get a pretty bad cut. Or, at times, when you’re baiting a trot line, when you grab this hook to bait it, you let go out this side of the boat, as you’re going down the line. You follow me? So you grab this hook, you bait, you let it go, and you grab this hook. Now, now you’re spread eagle. When you come together the length of the next pull, when you let that hook go, it’s a crucial moment, because if the wind is blowing—and this has happened to me and my dad—you pull that hand back, and that hook will bury itself right there in the palm of your hand, ‘cause it’s flopping in the wind, and you pull your hand back—it’s got you. So then you cut that little—it’s called a “brailing.” You have a trot line, you have a little string hanging down with a hook on it. You would cut that little string off, leave the hook embedded in your hand, finish your work, and come home and go to the doctor and have him cut it out. But what I would do, I’d just get a pair of pliers, jerk it out, and it’d pull out a hunk of meat. I wasn’t gonna go to the doctor. I’m not big and bad. I was cheap. [<em>laughs</em>] I wasn’t going to the doctor. Uh-uh. But we’d pull it out.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, man. [<em>laughs</em>] Well, do you have any other stories you’d like to share, or I mean…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>A lot. A lot, but I can’t take up your whole day, brother.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>We’ve got a little time left.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>All right. One time when I was married, I came home from the lake and I had exactly that scenario.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>All right, sorry about that. You were about to start a story?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. That’s fine. We were talking about injuries or potential injuries. And, only because you asked me, I’ll tell you this story. But I came home that one day, and I had a hook buried in the palm of my hand. That little—what they call a “brailing” —that little piece of string on it. And as I said, at that time I was married. Well, outside we had a clothesline, and a T-fashion pole at each end. So, I knew she wasn’t gonna pull that out of my hand. So, I took a concrete block and I tied a string to it, and I set it right up on the top of the center of that T on that clothesline, and right beside the clothesline was my truck. So I laid my hand on the truck, and I tied a loop around that hook, and I held the shank down on this side, where it would pull that hook out reverse, and I called her out in the yard. And I said, “Push that concrete block off the clothesline.” And she looked at that scenario and saw that line coming down to my hand, and saw that hook, and she wouldn’t do it. And I insisted, so she finally tipped that concrete block off, and it went over the side of that clothesline pole. And when that line tightened up, brother, that hook come out of that hand and it pulled a hunk of meat about the size of an English pea. It put a hole in the middle of my hand. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>It seems you would have a lot of scars from this industry.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>But you know, there’s probably so many scars, they just all run together. Now, I’ll tell you—you wanna hear this scar? That scar runs from that middle finger down around here, and comes around here, and it goes right through here. Well, my friend had a skip jack—fiberglass skip jack. That’s a boat I told you about earlier. And it was brand new. It didn’t have the bow cap on it. Boat comes to a point at the bow, and you have a little cap that goes on it right there. It’s a decorative cap over the bow. It’s usually aluminum or something like that. Well, now you’ve got this boat with bare fiberglass bow sticking out like this, and it’s sharp. I was right there in front of the Sanford Boat Works, and my friend was running the boat, and because he just got it, he wanted me to stand on the bank and watch the boat run by, to watch how she was running in the water. So he ran by a couple of times, and then he wanted me to run it, so he could stand on the bank and watch it run. So I ran the boat, and when I came back, he wanted to do it one more time, so he ran the boat, and the wind was blowing that day, and I was standing right at the water’s edge. Water was low. There was a bluff bank about four feet high right to my rear. So the bank came at one level, dropped 90 degrees down to a very short four-foot beach to the water. You follow me?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>So now I’m standing on this little beach in front of this big bluff bank behind me. My friend makes a circle and comes back with this boat with a[sic] 80-horse Mercury on it, and he slows it down. He’s just gonna let it come right down to the beach there. Well, he came in a little bit hot. So I reached out to get a hold of the bow of the boat to slow it down as it come in, and it just shoved that hand right into that bank, and it almost took those two fingers off. And that’s what those scars are right there. It just about amputated that half of my hand, when that boat pinched my hand between the bow and that dry muck bank back there. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>It seems like you had a lot of injuries with your hands. Didn’t that, like, prevent you from doing basic boating…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Sure. Yeah. It’d cripple you up for a while. It sure would, boy.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Did you ever have to, like, stop fishing for a while?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. I was skinning fish one time. The way we’d clean the fish, you would take the fish, you’d cut him right behind the head here on both sides. And you would have a reverse hook on a ramp. So you got a little ramp with a reverse hook on it. You would hook that fish on that hook, take a pair of skinners, and pull that hide off the catfish and throw him in the stack, and then you would take his head off and gut him and he goes into the last process, you see.</p> <p class="Body">Well, I was skinning fish one night at the Sanford Boat Works. I had a little hook set up out there, and right under my hand right here is what we called a “red cat.” Now, a red cat is what they call—some people call them “brown bullheads,” “spotted catfish” —and they have red meat. The meat’s red, but it’s good. And that red cat was right there, and I was skinning that fish. Well, the skinner slipped off the hide, and my hand went right down the back of that fish, and that fin was sticking up I just told you about. And it went almost through my hand. When I got that taken care of—and like usual not going to a doctor—I rubbed some stuff on it, bandaged it up, and I was crippled up where I couldn’t hardly use that hand. Well, in about three days, it got all swelled up. My fingers got real tight like they were gonna split open. And it got red, boy. I mean, it was hot. And finally, I went to the doctor, and the doctor got all over my case. He said, “Twenty-four more hours, we’d have taken that hand off.” He said, “You’ve got blood poisoning in that hand.” He was not nice to me. He seemed like he was offended. They pumped me full of antibiotics, and got that taken care of.</p> <p class="Body">And I’ll tell you another time, a stingray—I had a stingray on a hook, and I was trying to take him off, ‘cause I didn’t want to hurt him, and that was not a smart thing to do. So, I rolled my hand under his back and turned him belly up, thinking he couldn’t get me with that tail. It’d be hanging out here in the air. And I’m over here trying to take that hook out of his mouth, and he run that spike right in that knuckle right there, and buried it in that knuckle, and gave me a good shot of his poison. Well, I was bleeding pretty good[sic], and I got rid of that scenario. Cut the string and threw him over. And about that time, I had a girlfriend. She was out there with me. And she said, “You better go ‘n’ have that taken care of.” And I’m like, “No. It’s all right. I’m okay.” Well, we kept fishing, and after a while, my wrist got to hurting, and then my elbow got to hurting, and I started rocking. You know, I didn’t want her to see it. She said, “You’re hurting. We’d better go right now.” So by the time we got to the boat ramp, I couldn’t hardly get the boat up on the boat trailer, ‘cause now it’s hurting up here under my shoulder. And we went right straight down, right to my house, and parked the boat, got in her car, and took me to the hospital. They gave me an IV of Benadryl, morphine, and some other stuff, because of the infectious poison that the stingray had. So that’s another thing a commercial fisherman doesn’t want to do is a stingray.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>And there’s—I didn’t know there were freshwater stingrays in. This was in the lake?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. Lake Jesup, Lake Monroe are just thick with stingrays.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh. I never knew that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. If you fish with worms or a protein-type bait—worms, shrimp, snail, meat of anything—throw that on the bottom, you’ve got a good chance of catching a stingray. Now, I know you’re running out of time, but I’ll tell you how the stingrays got here, because a lot of people don’t know, and I’m a reader. I read. I try—I’m not very educated, but I try to educate myself. And I read a book by Bill Belleville, and he wrote this book on nothing but the St. John’s River and the history thereof.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Do you remember the title of it?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah, <em>River of Lakes</em>[<em>: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River</em>]. And the St. John’s River originates over there just west of Melbourne. And at one time, the St. John’s River used to run directly into the Atlantic Ocean in an easterly fashion. The whole east coast of Florida literally rose up—this is probably millions of years ago, but they’ve done studies and they know this—thus forming the St. John’s River basin. And the river had to go somewhere, so it meandered, and it found its way out at Jacksonville. Now, when it did that, it encapsulated a lot of salt water. It was a saltwater marsh. Well, those stingrays were there. There were stingrays, there were mullet, and there were seahorses, and there were all kind of saltwater animals living in this saltwater marsh that eventually turned into the St. John’s River. So these stingrays that are here, most people think they come up from Jacksonville. They didn’t come up from anywhere. They’ve always been here. So that’s how the stingrays, the American eel, small seahorses—a few, not many—-mullet, stripers, croakers, are saltwater fish. There have been sightings of tarpon in Lake Harney.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Man, and a lot of these, they stay in—pretty low to the, like the lake bed? So they’re pretty much out of sight a lot, right? Like the stingrays and the eels.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah, they’re bottom-dwellers.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Yeah. So, a lot of people wouldn’t know that they’re there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>That’s right. I mean, a stingray can swim clear to the surface. There are stingrays in the ocean, where they jump clear of the water. But these stingrays, if you’re not looking for them, you basically don’t know they’re there. But you don’t want to step on one of them, brother, ‘cause he’ll put that spike in your ankle. And these aren’t large stingrays, like in the ocean. They’re only about—a big one might be a foot to 14 inches wide—would be a big one.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Learned something new.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>They’re a nuisance on a trot liner, ‘cause if you don’t float that trot line up off the bottom, where they’ll swim under it. If you put that bait on the bottom, my gosh, you’ll have a whole string, trot.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Do they ever get caught in the traps, or like eels ever get in those traps?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>That’s a good question. There are actually—some of the commercial fishermen, which I never did, they have what they call “eel pots.” They have designed traps to actually catch the eels here, and they send them to England. They eat a lot of eels in England. They do some kind of jelly with our eels or something crazy. I don’t know. But he’s called the American eel. He’s harmless. And a big one would be probably two and a half feet, I guess. But they actually—it seems like they have actually shut down the eeling in Lake Monroe, for some reason. Probably population’s down. I don’t know what it is, but for a long time, the commercial fisherman was putting out eel pots, or eel traps, and trapping the American eel as well.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Wow. Well, to—let me just ask you one last question, then. Kind of on a personal note. Do you have any—well, could you just tell me—it seems like you have a lot of experience on the lakes and the water. Personally, what was your favorite aspect of it? Like nature aspect or just your personal opinion. I would love to know.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Yeah. I’m glad you asked me that, because I have an answer. This is gonna be different than probably any commercial fisherman that you interview. Only because it’s different, not because my opinion is better. I’m a humble guy. I’m not in this for the heroes.</p> <p class="Body">But, many a night, when I would get through running my trot line, baiting it, sometimes I’d put the trot line out, and then bait it out there and go home. Well sometimes, it might be a full moon or thereabouts—beautiful out there—when I got through working out there. I’d take my boat and I’d go all up in the nooks and crannies with my big light, and watch the wildlife. And I could tell you some alligator stories. An alligator attacked my boat one night, but it was my fault. I provoked him. But it’s too long. I’ll tell you later. But anyway, I would appreciate nature.</p> <p class="Body">I saw a rabbit one night, on the bank in a place called Woodruff Creek. And the rabbit was on the riverbank eating a piece of grass—just one long piece of grass. He was just sitting there. And you know, a rabbit can eat a piece of grass and never move his hands. He’ll just kind of ingest the whole thing. He was doing that, and the grass was getting shorter and shorter, but the unique thing about this particular rabbit was when I shined the light on him—I wish I had had a camera, photography, the ability to take a picture—there was a halo of mosquitoes around this rabbit that were illuminated by the light. He didn’t pay them any mind at all. They can’t get to his fur, you see. So he was just—they didn’t matter. But the mosquitoes sensed that he was there, but they couldn’t get to him. So the rabbit was eating his grass in the nighttime, and this big giant halo of mosquitoes—not blind mosquitoes, these were bloodsuckers—trying to get to this rabbit. And I just—that picture in my mind will never go away.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Stuck with you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>He just was having dinner. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, well thank you for talking with us, coming in. Definitely taped a lot of this, so again, thank you for coming in and talking.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin <br /></strong>Well, you know, it’s been a pleasure. But the downside is—I just regret the history that is gonna be missed, because we only had an allotted time to do this. And I’ll still try to put some things together on paper, and you can drop by and give them to Ms. Kim [Nelson] up there or something. I wanna draw you some illustrations as to how the trot lines were made.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta <br /></strong>Oh, that would be great.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>Now I’ve thought about donating that monkey to you guys. I guess I mentioned that earlier. Are you interested in having that machine?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Motta<br /></strong>Oh, yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Martin<br /></strong>It’s about that long.</p> Coverage Lake Jesup, Florida Lake Monroe, Florida Longwood, Florida Sanford Boat Works & Marina, Sanford, Florida Waits' Fish House, Lake Mary, Florida alligators American eels Archie Smith Bill Belleville Black Hammock Fish Camp boating the line Bobby Martin Camay soaps catfish catfish farming catfish farms catfishing Cecil Dile Clarence Coir commercial fishermen commercial fishing Daniel Motta Dog Track Road eel pots eeling electrolysis action fish fish traps fishers fishing fishing empty hooks game wardens gators hoop nets hyacinths jump lining Lake Harney Lake Jesup Lake Monroe Longwood monkey fishing monkey machines Mullet Lake Park Museum of Seminole County History oxidation pesticides poaching pollution Sanford Sanford Boat Works & Marina ship stores shotgun houses shrimp shrimp trawls shrimping skip jacks snails SR 17-92 St. Johns River State Road 17-92 stay lining stingrays Tampa trot lines Tuskawilla Road Vietnam War Waits' Fish House Woodruff Creek https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/e6bad1d824a6cfb5815ccf67fc2d43b6.pdf ef42e997bfbd1f4d128b8a3cbad20d50 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. 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 Calvert and Phyllis Conklin Alternative Title Oral History, Conklin Subject Sanford (Fla.) Race relations--Florida Architecture--Florida Engineering--United States. Humanitarianism--United States Description An oral history of Calvert Conklin and Phyllis Conklin. Cal moved from Baltimore, Maryland, to Florida in 1963 and Phyllis was born in Florida. The couple met each other at the University of Illinois, where Cal pursued his doctorate degree after returning from the Korean War. In the interview, Cal and Phyllis discuss their involvement in the development of the historic section of Downtown Sanford. They also discuss their humanitarian experiences and awards. The couple then delves into the racial tensions within Sanford during integration, even going so far as to tell detailed stories of violence within the city and the alienation they experienced because they came from the North and openly mixed with African Americans. Type Text Source Conklin, Calvert  and Phyllis Conklin. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. Celery Soup, June 24, 2011. 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: Interviewed by Trish Thompson. Celery Soup, June 24, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida. Coverage Sanford, Florida Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center, Sanford, Florida Woman's Club of Sanford, Sanford, Florida Rescue Outreach Mission of Central Florida, Sanford, Florida Good Samaritan Home of Sanford, Sanford, Florida First Presbyterian Church, Sanford, Florida Creator Thompson, Trish Conklin, Calvert Conklin, Phyllis Date Created 2011-06-24 Format application/pdf Extent 212 KB Medium 19-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Trish Thompson, Calvert Conklin, and Phyllis Conklin, and transcribed by Freddie Román-Toro. 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">Celery Soup</a>." <em>Creative Sanford, Inc.</em>. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/. Kharif, Wali Rashash. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10501914" target="_blank"><em>The Refinement of Racial Segregation in Florida After the Civil War</em></a>. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 1983, 1983. Transcript <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>My middle name is Calvert, which is my mother’s last name, and she and I are related to the Virginia Calvert, and that goes all the way back to Lord Baltimore.<a title="">[1]</a> The first one was George [Calvert] and the second was Charles [Calvert]. Anyway, one of my crazy relatives tried to sue the City of Baltimore, claiming the land was his. Needless—he didn’t get very far, and of course, there was a Calvert whiskey at one time, and they have one of these genealogy books—it’s an advertisement—and they got up to my mother and me, and they didn’t carry it on any further, so I stopped drinking their dang whiskey.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>You never did anyway.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>But that’s my story. I’m going to stick to it.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well now, Lord Baltimore came from England, but Calvert whiskey—I thought that was scotch?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>No, it was a blended one made by a Canadian.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /> </strong>So your family is English?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>All English.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So how’d you get to Sanford?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>I’m in the engineering business and we came down here. One of the senior partners, Just Deets[sp], visited a Northern client of ours in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, by the name of Cecil Osier, and we had done work for Cecil up there doing developments, and he was down here building a bunch of manufactured homes that don’t look very nice, but they’re over on Summerlin [Avenue] around there—those little box homes? And Deets stopped by to see him, and he told Deets that the city didn’t have a sewage plant at the time, and he said that they were going to interview for an engineer to design the sewage plant and that we should apply, and so Deets went down and met old Leffler and Busch[sp] —two of the old families in Sanford—and they were in a partnership. Busch later became [inaudible] engineer.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Leffler—was that the Judge [Kenneth Murrell] Leffler?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>It was his brother. His older brother was an engineer. We formed a partnership with them, and I was sent down here to do the inspection. Decided I liked the place and came down and started an office. Over the years, that turned into what now is CPH—Conklin, Porter, [&amp;] Holmes [Engineers, Inc.].</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>And when he came down to inspect this sewage plant, we had gone down to my grandmother’s in Southern Florida…</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>I came in 1963.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>My son is fourth generation Floridian. I was born in Florida. My dad came down here to help build houses back up after the 1928 hurricane, so he met my mother and they got married and had me, and then I was only here six months, but I lived up North about 35-40 years.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Where was your home up North?</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>In Southern Illinois.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And that’s where you came from too?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>No, I came from Northern Illinois—outside Chicago.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>And we met at the University of Illinois.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>I came home from [the] Korea[n War] and went back to school working on a Doctor’s degree, and went to a church service—a social event—and met her there, and that’s how…</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Immediately, we knew we were for each other [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>That was a long time ago. We were married 55 years ago.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So how did you know right away that he was the one?</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Well, he looked good and he had a graduate degree, and I decided—and he was a Christian. I thought he was, and he was, because we met in a Presbyterian church there on campus, and I just thought, “That’s the right one.” I don’t know what he thought, but anyway, we got married.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>The program that evening was on Korea, and of course, I knew much about that.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>So he was sitting there by me telling me all of this stuff about Korea and I thought, “Oh, this man sounds so fascinating.” [<em>laughs</em>] So we married and lived up there about seven or eight years, and then he came down and we said, “Let’s go visit grandmother.” And he had never been to Florida and he said, “Oh, this weather is so nice down here. I wish we could start a branch office down here.” and that’s what he told the firm up North and they said, “Yes, go down and start it.” So he did.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>I was general manager up there.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Here, he was in business with William Leffler for a short period of time, and then William decided that he didn’t want to be in engineering. Very bright, bright man, but he decided he wanted to go back and farm or have his properties out near Osteen or something like that, but the amazing story is that we came here right about when integration was starting in the schools in the early Sixties and William…</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>I got somewhat discouraged by the situations and decided that even though I had a good client base, that I wanted to go back up North, and I went back to see if I could get my old job back and the company said “Yes.” But in the meantime, the city manager and Lee Moore called up there and said, “We don’t want you to leave.” And they said, “If you come back, we’ll let you design a marina for us.”</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>So he designed the marina and it was built in ’67, and the amazing part about that was that, at that time, you could dredge part of the stuff up from the lake and make the 13 acres of ground that the hotels and stuff are sitting on. Today, you could not do that. They would not let you dredge up and put more land…</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So you deepened the lake by taking the…</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Dredged it up and built an isle, and then the roadway and all to it and I designed the dry storage building out there and the docks—the whole thing. That was a long time ago.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, we’ve had a lot of stories about what happened in integration and what the situation was with the blacks—what happened?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Well, I was with William Leffler, and we were going to Eustis and he had—well anyway, we got shot at by a bunch of black folks. He had a citizens’ white council…</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>He belonged to the White Citizens’ Council, which is the KKK [Ku Klux Klan].</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>No, no. They are two different organizations. He belonged to both, and a car pulled alongside of us and somebody pulled out a gun and shot at us, and we chased them—of all things. I didn’t have any interest in that. I was in Jim Spencer’s—the bar—when the first blacks came in there, and that was something.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>How did that happen?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Many of the regular customers got up and left, and they were ignored for a considerable period of time, and they just sat there and waited, and finally the owner did go and asked them what they wanted. It was a very awkward situation, but they did get served. Most of the customers left.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>At that time they were trying to integrate the schools here and William Leffler had a…</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Honey, let’s not get into that.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Well, anyway—it was in <em>Time</em> magazine.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It’s history.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Well, first I had an experience. Our son was a gifted student up North and we got down here—that was one of the disappointments. The schools here weren’t anywhere near as good as the Northern ones and he was in a gifted class up there, and I noticed that the textbooks said, “For average and below students.” That bothered me badly, because he wasn’t average or below. So I went in to see the superintendent of the schools and said, “How do you expect to raise that level if you keep teaching for average and below?” And it was Ray Milwee, and he said, “Well, that’s what our students are—average and below.” I said, “Don’t you want to change that?” He said, “You can’t change that.” So I had absolutely no luck, but later William went in and his daughter had a black teacher—the first black teacher in the schools—and he didn’t like that at all. Wouldn’t accept it, so he went in and confronted Milwee with the same situation, and Milwee wouldn’t change it so William hit him. Beat him up and it made <em>Time</em> magazine. It was quite a—and he pleaded—the funny thing is I got a jury summons to be a juror in his trial. I went over to the courthouse and I knew the prosecuting attorney well, and he said, “Cal, what are you here for?” I said, “I came to be a juror in William’s trial.” and he said, “Like hell you did.” He went in and got the judge to dismiss me, and that’s, of course, what I wanted, but it was funny.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis <br /></strong>And at the same time, the neighbors we had up North where we lived—it was a mixed neighborhood. There was a Chinese family, a black family—and I will say, they were culturally put together. Well, we did have a man next door that drove a bread truck, but mostly—being a university town, they were mostly intellectuals. When I went to school, in Southern Illinois, I went to school with—with black children all the time and thought nothing of it.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>And when we came down here, the only people that really were see[sic] was controlled by the old landowner families, and socially, we were not accepted. We were Yankees and not accepted, and our first friends here in town were Jewish people and some of the blacks. They’re still friends of ours today.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>In 1985, when Mayor Bettye Smith started the Martin Luther King[, Jr.] choir<a title="">[2]</a>…</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>We both saw the Martin Luther King choir for 20-something years [inaudible], so we’re culturally adept.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>But they weren’t used to that, and I had a birthday party for my daughter, who was six at the time. So I told her, “You can invite six children from your class to come to the birthday party.” and one was a little Stallworth girl—like Mill Stallworth’s daughter—a black girl, and a lovely, lovely person, and when they went outside to play a while, and somebody—a passerby or neighbor, but I won’t say who. It certainly wasn’t Connie Williams, because she is very culturally non-prejudice[sic] at all, and it wasn’t Rosita Jacobson, because she lived across the street and she was Jewish, so she wouldn’t have said anything, but somebody else said, “I wanted to tell you that we don’t mix socially with the blacks here.” and I said, “But we do.”</p> <p>So that set us back a couple of steps, but then one of our Jewish friends, the Tetenbaums, got us into a barbecue club, which was out in what is now in Hidden Lake, and they introduced us to some people out there, and we got in, not because we were trying to get in, but anything to have people be a little more friendly[sic] to us.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>There’s quite a story about the marina in some respects, because the [Sanford] City Council didn’t have a tenant or anybody to rent or lease anything to when they started and decided to build that. That took a lot of guts.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>On whose part?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>I’m the [Sanford] City Commissioner. The newspapers was urging them to—the Gilos, who were the publishers at that time—were urging them to and they had no tenant—nobody to lease or rent anything to, and here they were going to build an island, and during construction, they got a marina operator to do it, basically, with ash and oil.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>But he designed the marina with floating docks so the water [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>So I give the [Sanford] City Commission a lot of credit to have the nerve to do that and to proceed with the project, and it’s been a huge success, and I never did a job where we got as much construction for—it was the whole thing, including some of the buildings—only cost a million dollars—building it all up from nothing.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>He designed that dry storage building—that big building that has the stripes on the side. At that time, some hotel came in and it’s changed hands a lot.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>It’s a motel now.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>We lived on the lakefront at that time. We just rented a house, because we weren’t too sure if we were going to be able to stay or not. That’s when we first came, and after the marina thing, he got some jobs for being city engineer for places like Eustis.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Well, I had those before I went up North—a whole bunch of the cities and counties around here.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>[inaudible] and gave us a base to stay, and I would’ve thought too that it would’ve been very courageous for that lady black teacher—whoever she was—to walk into that Sanford Middle School or Seminole High [School]…</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Was she in it when it was Seminole High—as the first black teacher? Or was it…</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>I don’t know. William’s daughter was not a little, tiny girl, because knowing William...</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Other things that I thought were noteworthy is, for instance, the Central Florida Zoo [and Botanical Gardens].</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>When we came, it was downtown.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>One block right behind the [Sanford] City Hall. You could make quite a story about the moving of that and the...</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I’ve never heard that story—how it happened.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Well, they had a zoo behind the City Hall, right down the lakefront there.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I saw an aerial picture of it and thought it was much larger than it was. It’s very small.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>And the woman’s name was Hood—that was the curator there. He worked for the city and she did, and her whole job was to tend to the zoo, and they had one lion and you could hear him roar. You could hear him and then they decided—well, a bunch of businesspeople facilitated the Central Florida Zoological Society[, Inc.], and a number of us contributed money, so that we could relocate it. I put up several thousand dollars to the Sanford Atlantic Bank and so did others, and that served as seed money to borrow against to relocate and build the Central Florida Zoo. I had connections with contractors so I went to C. A. Meyer and Amick Construction[, Inc.] and leveraged them into building the roads in and doing all the earthwork for the original zoo. That was quite a contribution. It was all donation and the two of them—C. A. Meyer and Amick Construction—donated all the work to build the road and do the earth or the original zoo, and I was one of the founding directors of the Central Florida Zoo.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Both he and I had served on the zoo board at one time or another.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did you all have anything to do with the actual moving of the animals?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>No, my thing was contributing the money and doing the construction of the roads and all of the earthwork out there. There were many other people around town. Doug[las] Stenstrom did. Glenn McCall, the druggist, did. Dr. Hickman, the dentist from Maitland, was involved. I don’t really remember all the other people. That was the way that the zoo got started.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>What was the reasoning for moving the zoo? Did somebody donate the land?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>I think it was bought. It was bought. Right along there was Leffler land and a bunch of it was Kirchhoff. Now, have you ever talked to Bill Kirchhoff?</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>No, I haven’t.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Beside the stories of the marina and the zoo, the other one that I know a lot about is the historic trend or the beginning of the historic movement in Sanford.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>The historic trust?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /><br /></strong>No, ot the trust. The whole idea of historic preservation becoming a forefront program in Sanford, and Sarah Jacobson was the one that started that whole thing, and she got me again, Doug Stenstrom, Don Knight, Glenn McCall—a bunch of downtown businesspeople—and we applied and got money to do historical surveys, and the state sent a[sic] historical architect and a plain historian and they worked out of my office. They’d go looking at all the insurance records, titles, and deeds, and all the interesting things they could find out about the buildings. That went on for a couple of years, because they’d come back and they’d found out the railroad magnate [Henry Morrison] Flagler had owned this and that—it was an old train station, and that’s the Piper Building, and they’d find all this interesting stuff about all of the other old buildings.</p> <p>The first thing we did was we got the whole downtown district on the Federal Register of Historic Places.<a title="">[3]</a> It was first a downtown district—one of the few in the state for a whole downtown district, and we had to do all of these surveys and then we moved to the area behind it—the [Sanford] Historic Trust. We got that designated as a residential historic district. Now the people in the historic trust didn’t have anything to do with that. They formed the historic trust after all this was done, and I, in my many travels, kept thinking about park benches, and I picked out a bench from various places that I’d gone, and bought one for 900-and-something dollars, and had it brought here, and the city liked it, and it’s one of those—it’s downtown. They use that on the waterfront and everywhere. Then we got grants and formed a Downtown Historic Development [inaudible], and we got grants—the owners would apply, and we would sponsor them, and they got grants to fix up the facades of many of the buildings, and you’ll also see then when we have a historic board later. I was chairman of the [Sanford] Historic Preservation Board that the city conceived, and we got plaques that were put on all of the buildings that you see downtown. Then the historic trust came into being. They came later and formed their historic trust for remodeling the buildings and all of the homes. Then we had a few—Bettye Smith and I did a local one for the St. James AME [African Methodist Episcopal] black Church. They’ve got a local historic designation. That whole thing started with Sarah[?] Jacobson and a bunch of us, and that’s been very successful. Now the historic trust people kind of take the credit for the whole thing, but they didn’t start it. They did a good job.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, I think they have done a good job, but the city—I don’t know if you noticed, but the City of Sanford and the Sanford Historic Trust did the first Cultural Preservation Award and gave that to the City of Sanford for what we’re doing today.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>I started in 1973. My mother and two other little ladies and I started the Meals on Wheels program. I have a newspaper clipping showing a picture of us...</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>We’ve done that longer than anybody in Seminole County—the two of us.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>I’ve done it ever since then—36-37 years, and I think, because of that, I got the Jefferson Award [for Public Service] for this area, but there were others in other areas and Orlando and everything that got it too, and so, when it went statewide, of course, it wasn’t only that that got me the award.</p> <p>Cal and I had done so many things around town—you know, volunteer things— ‘cause that’s really what we live for—is volunteering. He’s done about a 150 pro-bono engineering jobs for little churches, or the crisis center, or the Salvation Army sign out front and things like that. At one time, they gave him the Topper Award and, at the same time, they gave me the Dr. Luis Perez Humanitarian Award the same night, and I didn’t expect that. I knew he was to get the Topper Award, and so I didn’t say anything to him about it and then when we got there, I knew. I had some relatives coming, because I knew he was going to get that award. Then they started out with the humanitarian award first, and they got up and started talking about this woman—who was me, you know, and I thought, “That sounds like me.” And they were giving me this award and I said, “You’ve got this wrong. I’m not supposed to get this award.” and I didn’t want to say it and take all the—my husband, and they said, “Oh, but you are. This is the humanitarian award.” And I felt so disheartened, because I thought, “Gee whiz. I thought they were going to give him the Topper Award and here they’re just giving me an award,” and it turned out later in the evening that he got the Topper Award.</p> <p>When we started this Meals on Wheels program—I don’t remember which church, but I think it might’ve been the First Presbyterian [Church of Sanford] downtown, which we were members of—and they decided they wanted to start a Meals on Wheels program and there were only four of us ladies. You could only take about eight people yourself, so there must’ve been 35 people, and we got the meals from the hospital, and they had them in these big, green plastic containers, and so we’d have to collect those from the clients—we call them “clients.” It was all-volunteer stuff. The next day and take those back—sometimes during, sometimes not, and then get the other meals. And, as the years went on, the mothers of these other ladies were 20 years older than I, so they’re all dead now, but I have a newspaper clipping of when I started, but 10 years after I started it, he started it, ‘cause he was retiring, but he’s done it 10 years less than I have.</p> <p><strong>Calvert           </strong>I still do pro-bono engineering. I’ve done over 200 projects. There’s an awful lot. I’m still doing them.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>We‘ve known that you’d been doing those pro-bono when we had to have the engineers—pay an engineer to put up the risers for the theater.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Well, I did the first one for what they now call the Wayne-Densch Theater.<a title="">[4]</a> I did the first structural study there that they used as a credit to the Federal Government to get their grants. Then I did structural inspections both on main theater and the building next door they later got.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, how did you get into this wonderful, giving spirit?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>We both believe we were put here to help other people.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Our mission is just to help other people. We get the fun out of it, because it’s the one-on-one thing that’s important.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>It keeps us occupied. It’s something worthwhile to do.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /><br /></strong>We’ve been on lots of boards, but I say, “What you get on boards is a lot of splinters.” We’ve been in the Martin Luther King choir for 25 years. Bettye Smith started that. She was the one that got the Sanford Woman’s Club<a title="">[5]</a> integrated, and that didn’t go so well with many of the ladies that dropped out, when she brought in these lovely, fine four ladies. Because they were saying, “Well, you bring in one like that and who knows who they’ll bring in.” It’s the fear thing, and then Rosita Jacobson was in the club at the time, and they had a time getting Rosita in, because she was Jewish. They asked me to join for many years and I knew they were so segregated. I just didn’t want any part of that, but I used to say, “That’s the Sanford White Women’s Club.” but that changed over the years and these lovely black ladies are in and the Jewish ladies.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>I have another story to tell and it’s about the rescue mission.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>The Rescue Outreach Mission [of Central Florida] on Thirteenth Street.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>They had kind of a ramshackle operation out there. Mother [Blanche Bell] Weaver was running it with the help of pop and it was really a rag-tag thing. She started out by being a cook and ran the restaurant on Thirteenth Street.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And everybody went there.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>That’s right, and one day she walked into our office downtown and said, “I understand there’s a man here that likes to help people.” [<em>laughs</em>] And I ended up helping her. I donated land. I bought some lots and donated the engineering, and we built the women’s and children shelter, and I was, for 21 years, on the Board of Directors of the rescue mission. Mother Weaver founded that, and her church over there also founded it. That’s quite a story too, because she started out by having children just come—she kind of adopted them and they moved into her house with her. She was preaching at this church, and then she got the idea of founding a homeless shelter and started it, and then she called on me and then together saw about building the women’s and children’s shelter. Much of the money came from one man, and he should be talked to if he will talk to you, but he’s very, very generous.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And who is that?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Mike Good. Briar Construction.<a title="">[6]</a> Every organization that I go to and am part of, such as the Children’s Home Society [of Florida]—I’ve been on that board, and I look to see who the big givers are. Mike Good is at the top of the list.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Soon after we first came here, Thelma Mike was, until just recently, administrator at the Good Samaritan Home [of Sanford]. That’s just an assisted living center for people and they—somehow, the Good Samaritan Home hadn’t noticed they hadn’t paid their taxes for some time...</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>They hadn’t paid their withholding and their unemployment and that stuff. They were in big trouble and the whole city got together and bailed her out.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>They owed the government about $100,000. The whole city—respecting her so much—came forth and got people here and there to raise money, and they let her off.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>They raised considerable money.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>My first employee stole a lawnmower from the Good Samaritan Home. He started working for me after he got out of jail. He had to pay restitution to the Good Samaritan Home, and I told Thelma that story and she laughed and laughed. She said, “If he needed a lawnmower, I would have given him that lawnmower.”</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>We both started out in a choir when we first came here, because both of us had sung for years and years, and we have been singing in the First [Presbyterian] Church [of Sanford] downtown, and then about 1991 it had a split over a pastor and it...</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>They moved over to Markham Woods Road.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>No, that one’s a great one. That’s where most of these people downtown went. We went to another church for a year.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>We didn’t originally. We went to Oakland, followed our choir director.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>We didn’t want to make an exodus—Markham Woods, because Markham Woods was started by Dr. [inaudible] and in 1985, they were—when did you join?</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>That would’ve been years ago. We lived just a block down from the church.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>We came there in 1991, and been in that choir for all those years too. We’re about at the place where we don’t do solos anymore.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, what about your children growing up here, and do you have any family stories of the kids?</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Well, our kids stayed out of trouble, so I guess we don’t have any stories. Our daughter is almost 48 now. She’s in California and she’s a veterinarian. We’re in the process of getting a home for her. She has MS [multiple sclerosis] and she’s partially disabled, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at her. She swims a lot, but she can’t work full-time now. She’s moving back here after 20 years to live with us. She’s single. We have a son in Orlando who works for the city at [Orlando] City Hall.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>It’s a funny thing about him. He played guitar for years and he had a rock band in high school and before, and he and Ricky Bowing—they used to—that room up there that’s now our music room was open—it was a breezeway, and they used to practice there and I remember getting out of the car way over at her mother’s house and I said, “Oh, there’s somebody playing ‘Proud Mary,’ just like Charles and his band did.” And all of a sudden I realized it was them. I decided right then that we had to enclose that breezeway and make a room out of it [<em>laughs</em>], and we’ve had all kinds of animals in our backyard. We’ve had horses there.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Well, the horse would only stay overnight one night, but she had [inaudible] brought it in—brought it right down 46. At that time there wasn’t that much traffic, and then she got ready to take it back out and it was starting to storm and I said, “You better not go now.” so she left the horse in the backyard.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>There was a pig back there for a while, when Robert [Conklin] had his heart surgery. She sent him a piglet from Tennessee and the pig grew up in the backyard and got huge in three months, and we had a judge there and the head of the code enforcement next door, and we had a pig in the backyard, but only for three months. Voley was sitting there on the couch talking to us one day and we were talking about Robert having to have a new valve. He needed to have heart surgery for a valve, and we were talking about the possibility of them using a pig valve, and right at the minute we said “pig,” the pig went,  “Oi” right behind—and he turned around and looked, but he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>A pig valve only lasts about eight or nine years, because that’s all...</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>They use them on older people. Now they use cowbells[?].</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>He had a metal valve at the age of 17. Now he’s the one that lives here in town and he works for NAPA Auto Parts, and he’s a manager of parts at OIA [Orlando International Airport], the big airport down there, for the ground vehicles, not the airplanes. He’s certified as an ASE [Automatic Service Excellence] mechanic, which he did for a few years, but the heart thing was too much for him.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>We always said, “We have one that can fix your car and one that can fix your cat.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>So that’s the three kids, and the one in Orlando is project manager in the engineering department for the City of Orlando, and then the veterinarian daughter is going to move back here.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>The story there is he wanted to be a sound engineer and he had gone to Stetson [University]. Then he kind of went to music, and he went to Denver[, Colorado] to take recording engineering. Then he decided to go to—he got accepted to go to Berkeley College for Music<a title="">[7]</a> in Boston[, Massachusetts], and he went up there and he called me on the phone and said, “Dad, you won’t believe this, but they said I have to start over as a freshman. They won’t give me credits for the other stuff.” And I said, “Charles, go back inside and ask a different person the same question.” And he did and we just held the line open and he came back after a little while and he said, “Yes, they said I have to start over as a freshman. I want to come home.” and I said, “Okay. Come on. Under that circumstance.” Anyway, then he came back and he served as a soundman for a local band that played all over the United States that went by the name of Root Boy Slim. They were really quite good.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>And [Root Boy Slim and] the Sex Change Band.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Yeah. Well, they called it that. He traveled to New York City, [New York] and Baltimore and all those places as their soundman, and he got hit on the head with a beer bottle and it was a tough, tough life, because those people live on the thin edge of everything. After that, he called up and said, “Dad, I decided I want to go back to school and be an engineer like you.” [<em>laughs</em>] So he moved back.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>And of course, they accepted all his LAS [Legal Assistant Studies] stuff at University of Florida. So he got a Master’s Degree and got really good grades. His sister got her veterinary medicine thing from there in 1991 too, but she wanted to go to California, because they were paying a little bit more at that time, but she didn’t realize how much more expensive everything was. Having been there, the climate is good for her, because it’s not as humid as here. After 20 years, and now that she’s partially disabled, she feels she ought to be a little nearer her aging parents, since we’re over 80 and we just think it’s time to—she said one time, “Well, I think within the next five years, I want to move back to Florida for sure.” I said, “Ruth Ann [Conklin], if you want us to help you move, in five years, we’re going to be about 87 years old.” She said, “I’d better move now, hadn’t I?” I said, “Yes, I think so.” You want to tell her the story about you, Gino [Pelucci], and the fundraising?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Well, I—he doesn’t even remember who I am, and I worked with him and for him for years. Even before Heathrow—way back—I did a bunch of factories for them up in other states and my cousin, Bob B.B., was the general manager for Chung[?] King, when he decided that he shouldn’t be running it anymore, and he hired my cousin, who was a board member of Campbell Soups,<a title="">[8]</a> and he was high help in things. He ran Chung[?] King, because Gino was very volatile. He would run around handing out 100 dollar bills or swearing loudly at people and stuff, and he wasn’t what you would call a “consistent” manager. My cousin used to tell me that Gino had hundreds of ideas that would come into his mind all the time, and he would write my cousin notes about, “This is an idea.” and at the end of the day he’d send another note: “Forget all those ideas.”</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>When Gino was featured at one of these Boy Scout[s of America] dinners, and he was a speaker—and this was maybe three years ago or something—Cal said he needed to go over and say hello to Gino. He went over to say something to Gino and Gino acted like he didn’t even know who he was, and then he said...</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>And Brenda [inaudible] was sitting there and she said, “Gino, this is Cal Conklin. He was your engineer for Heathrow. He did all the engineering in Heathrow for you.” And Gino looked up at me and still no recognition. I said, “How about—you remember Bob B.B.?” And he just lit up, because he remembered that. I don’t think he remembered me, but he remembered the guy who had run Chung[?] King for him.</p> <p>Two stories about him that I think are kind of funny: I would attend many of his board meetings at his request. Most of them there was an accountant and a lawyer and so forth, and there were all kind of “yes-men” with him. We were having a meeting, and a young man came to make a presentation, and it wasn’t long, and I knew he wouldn’t be interested, but he said, “Young man, does foul language offend you?” And the young man said, “No.” He said, “Why you dumb son of a bitch.” He just lit into him and cussed him out up and down and back and forth. Every foul word you could think of.</p> <p>When the Presbyterian Church downtown was having a building program—when they put the Fellowship Hall and they redid the sanctuary—I was the special gifts chairman. General Hutchinson was the overall chairman, and one of the people I had to call on, besides Warren Patrick and a bunch of other, was Gino Pelucci, and the only reason we did was his daughter would come to Sunday school once in a while, and the preacher was with me,<a title="">[9]</a> and I walked in and Gino said, “Hey. I’m glad to see you.” We shook hands and he said, “You’ve got a rendering of what you’re going to do. That’s good.” And he got down on his hands and knees and began pointing to the rendering and telling me all of the things I should say to anyone I was presenting to. He was going to teach me how to make a presentation. “You should point out all the good features that you’re going to be in this program.” And then I got down on my hands and knees right there alongside him, and the preacher’s standing there and they’re just incredulous. You can just imagine the scene. When we got ready to finish up he said, “And now the most important thing, Cal. You must remember that when you call on people—you’ve got to ask for enough. Remember.” And he didn’t seem to realize that I was going to do it to him. I stood up and tried to recall all of the things he had said, and I went through it as well as I could, and I asked him for $40,000, and his jaw dropped about a foot, and he said, “Cal, you asked for enough.” When we bought this house, his pilot was also trying to buy it. Gino didn’t really want him this close. He used to stop and talk to me all the time.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Within the last year, when they go by—they aren’t usually driving—they have a driver or something. They often wave while[?] we’re out in the yard.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>He used to stop and talk, but now he’s lost his recollection of what my part and background was.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>He had Hubert Humphrey come to his home, when Hubert was running for vice president.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Even when he was vice president, he was down here.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>They’d come from the airport and go by here, and our son had one of those etch-a-sketch things, where you put the little dots—and he hung it in the window.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Little Gina [Pelucci] came here to play with Ruth Ann.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>Gina Pelucci came over here to play with Ruth Ann, and brought her pet mouse—a little black and white thing. Of course, our daughter loved animals, and we did too, and it didn’t frighten me or anything, but when she got ready to go home, she couldn’t find the mouse, and we never did find that mouse. I’m sure it’s hiding around here somewhere. [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Well, one thing that is funny is that everywhere I go people tell me I look like Jimmy Carter. Well there’s a picture of Jimmy Carter right up there, and when we went to Panama, we were going through customs, and as I approached the customs thing. The guy hollered out, “¡Jimmy Carter ahí!” All these people came running around, and I thought, “I’m just going to go along with it.” A woman wanted to have her picture taken with me, so I put my around her, smiled, and took a picture with her.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>‘Cause he didn’t know any Spanish, he couldn’t say, “No, I’m not Jimmy Carter.” It would sound like—it happened at the resort...</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>It happened six times on one trip. I got invited into the bar for a drink and all sorts. He’s a big hero, ‘cause he’s the one who turned the [Panama] Canal over to them.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>He thought if he said no when they wanted their picture taken, and he didn’t speak English, it would sound like, “I’m Mr. Big and you’re paparazzi. Get away from me.” So he’d just smile and let them take his picture.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>One lady—I never did understand that. Well, I’d go shopping in Wal-Mart, and very often somebody will tap me on the shoulder and say, “Here, I’m going to go home and tell my folks that I went shopping with Jimmy Carter.” The City of Sanford does a great deal. The county does not. The county feels they have to go to Orlando to get the big engineering firms, and it’s very strange, and of course there’s competition between cities and the counties, and there always has been. We started out doing both, but in your local area, you usually end up doing one or the other and we’ve ended up doing all the cities essentially.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>We bought it out. Us[sic] and the porters and the homes bought it out and...</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>We bought it from CRS and a national firm. Clark Deets[sp] was sold to Richardson and then to CRS—Rawlins and then CRS.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So there were several owners before you?</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>Clark Deets was the original one I went to work for in Urbana, and my professors were the ones that started it. They resigned from the college and hired their better students, and there were three of them. A structural man, a civil man, and an environmental or sanitary man, and I was actually one of the very first ones they hired, and we made a big business out of that and got into the 200 range in the country, and then I came down here and saw it and thought it’d be good to make a branch, and then the company got sold and ended up with CRS [inaudible]. They did the big arenas. The big one in Gainesville, and they were mainly doing things in the Middle East in the [United] Arab Emirates. All of that fancy stuff there, and they had no idea what our business was here. I mean, it was all local. They just didn’t understand. It wasn’t the kind of business that they did, and when we decided to go into business for ourselves, I said, “We may be able to get this for a song.” And the other two just wanted to leave and I said, “No. Let me have a try at it.” So I went down there, and we paid $35,000, and we got all of the new business, and they even paid us 5 percent of the collections for three years, and so they ended up—we were roughly 10 percent of their organization and they ended up paying us to take it away from them.</p> <p><strong>Phyllis<br /></strong>And this was 1981, when it first became Conklin Corps.</p> <p><strong>Calvert<br /></strong>And the other two worked for me.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And I opened up the Rib Ranch in 1981 and I retired in 2008. My husband was ill and he died last year. I was lucky to be with him at that time.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> George Calvert.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Chorus.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Correction: National Register of Historic Places.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Correction: Wayne-Densch Performing Arts Center.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Correction: Woman’s Club of Sanford.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Correction: The Briar Team.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> Correction: Berkeley College of Music.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> Correction: Campbell Soup Company.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[9]</a> Virgil Bryan.</p> </div> </div> 13th Street African Americans Amick Construction, Inc. architecture Berklely College of Music Bill Kirchoff Blanche Bell Weaver Busch C. A. Meyer Cal Conklin Calvert Calvert Conklin Calvert whiskey Cecil Osier Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens Central Florida Zoological Society, Inc. Charles Calvert Children'ss Home Society of Florida Chung King Clark Deats Conklin Corps Conklin, Porter & Holmes Engineers, Inc. Connie Williams Creative Sanford, Inc. CRS Cultural Preservation Award desegregation Douglas Stenstrom Downtown Sanford engineering engineers Eustis First Presbyterian Church of Sanford Flagler, Henry Morrison George Calvert Gilo Gina Pelucci Gino Pelucci Glenn McCall Good Samaritan Home of Sanford Heathrow Hickman Hidden Lake historic preservation Hood Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. Hubert Humphrey humanitarians Hutchinson integration Jefferson Awards for Public Service Jimmy Carter Jimmy Earl Carter, Jr. Just Deet Kenneth Murrell Leffler KKK Korean War Ku Klux Klan Lee More Luis Perez Humanitarian Award marinas Markham Woods Road Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Chorus Mary Proud Meals on Wheels Mike Good Mill Stallworth NAPA Auto Parts OIA Orlando International Airport Panama Panama Canal Phyllis Conklin Piper Building race relations Rawlins Ray Milwee Rescue Outreach Mission of Central Florida Rib Ranch Richardson Ricky Vowing Robert Conklin Root Boy Slim Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band Rosita Jacobson Ruth Ann Conklin Sanford Sanford Atlantic Bank Sanford City Commission Sanford City Commissioner Sanford City Council Sanford City Hall Sanford Historic Preservation Board Sanford Historic Trust Sanford Women'ss Club Sarah Jacobson segregation Seminole High School Smith, Bettye Spencer, Jim St James African Methodist Episcopal Church St James AME Church Stetson University Summerlin Avenue Tetenbaum The Briar Team Thelma Mike Thirteenth Street time Topper Awards Trish Thompson U.S. National Register of Historic Places UF UI University of Florida University of Illinois Virgil Bryan Virginia Voley Warren Patrick Wayne-Densch Performing Arts Center whiskey White Citizens' Council William Leffler zoos https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/5ffc5f5b2bc8eaeaa1df6d6494d81794.mp3 0bdb2f7aea21e3304ca11976e497402a https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/90940a60da0b4092b863636334d7e439.pdf f6d69399e30e75cc389a9e764dd96350 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Seminole County Collection Alternative Title Seminole County Collection Subject Seminole County (Fla.) Altamonte Springs (Fla.) Casselberry (Fla.) Goldenrod (Fla.) Heathrow (Fla.) Lake Mary (Fla.) Longwood (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Winter Springs (Fla.) Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of Seminole County, Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. Mosquito County, a massive county south of St. Johns County that consisted of much of Central Florida was established in 1824. In 1845, Mosquito County was renamed Orange County when Florida earned statehood. This new county included present-day Osceola County, Seminole County, Lake County, and Volusia County. Orange County was named so for the area's major fruit crop: oranges. The area was devastated by a freeze during the winter of 1895-1896, which allowed for subsequent land speculators to initiate a land boom in Florida, with Orlando becoming a "boom town." Seminole County separated from Orange on April 25, 1913, and was named for the Seminole tribes that originally inhabited the area. In the early-1900s, Seminole County was known for its agricultural development and close proximity to shipping lanes. By the 1920s, citizens in Seminole County, particularly in Sanford, soon shifted their interests in making the area a tourist destination. Language eng Type Collection Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Contributor <a href="http://www.cfmemory.org/" target="_blank">Central Florida Memory</a> Cepero, Laura Lynn Cepero, Nancy Lynn <a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/" target="_blank">Museum of Seminole County History</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/118" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/117" target="_blank">Casselberry Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/54" target="_blank">Geneva Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/55" target="_blank">Geneva Historical &amp; Genealogical Society Collection</a>, Geneva Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/56" target="_blank">Goldenrod Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/57" target="_blank">Goldenrod Historical Society &amp; Museum Collection</a>, Goldenrod Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/129" target="_blank">Heathrow Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/119" target="_blank">Lake Mary Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/43" target="_blank">Longwood Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <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/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/30" target="_blank">Seminole County Centennial Celebration Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/31" target="_blank">Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/125" target="_blank">Winter Springs Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Coverage Seminole County, Florida Altamonte Springs, Florida Casselberry, Florida Goldenrod, Florida Heathrow, Florida Lake Mary, Florida Longwood , Florida Oviedo, Florida Sanford, Florida Winter Springs, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.cfmemory.org/" target="_blank">Central Florida Memory</a> Curator Cepero, Laura External Reference Bentley, Altermese Smith. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/45705201" target="_blank"><em>Seminole County</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2000. "<a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/index.aspx" target="_blank">Seminole County Government </a>." Seminole County Government. http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/index.aspx. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52607030" target="_blank"><em>Early Days of Seminole County, Florida: Where Central Florida History Began</em></a>. [Sanford, Fla.]: Seminole County Historical Commission, 2002. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Youngers, Stephanie Interviewee Tucker, Cecil A. II Bit Rate/Frequency 1411kbps 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 Cecil A. Tucker II Alternative Title Oral History, Tucker Subject Christmas (Fla.) Gainesville (Fla.) Ocala (Fla.) 4-H clubs--Florida Sanford (Fla.) Oviedo (Fla.) Description An oral history of Cecil A. Tucker II, conducted by Stephanie Youngers on September 23, 2010. Tucker served as a County Agent for the Extensions Office in various counties in Florida. In the interview, he discusses growing up in Christmas, Cracker Christmas and Fort Christmas Historical Park, his educational history, the 4-H (head, heart, hands, and health) program, working for the Extensions Office in Marion County and Seminole County, agriculture in Seminole County, opening Tucker's Farm and Garden Center, and his wife and children. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:01:50 Growing up in Christmas<br />0:05:38 Schools in Christmas<br />0:08:40 College education and 4-H <br />0:13:27 Working for the Marion County Extension Office<br />0:17:39 Working for the Seminole County Extension Office<br />0:22:41 Agriculture in Seminole County<br />0:33:54 Growing watercress and managing dairy<br />0:38:20 Tucker's wife<br />0:39:15 RECORDING CUTS OFF<br />0:39:15 Tucker's wife<br />0:42:55 Tucker's family and cattle<br />0:43:47 Challenges while working at the Extension Office<br />0:51:17 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Cecil A. Tucker II. Interview conducted by Stephanie Youngers 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>, Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Tucker, Cecil A. II. Interviewed by Stephanie Youngers. September 23, 2010. <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/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Christmas, Florida Fort Christmas Historical Park, Christmas, Florida University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida Ocala, Florida Citrus Heights, Sanford, Florida Agricultural Center, Sanford, Florida Tucker's Farm and Garden Center, Sanford, Florida Creator Youngers, Stephanie Tucker, Cecil A. II Date Created 2010-09-23 Date Modified 2014-10-09 Date Copyrighted 2010-09-23 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 543 MB 177 KB Medium 53-minute and 48-second audio recording 19-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Stephanie Youngers and Cecil A. Tucker II. 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 Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/783150094" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Edwards, Wynette. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Orlando and Orange County</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2001. "<a href="http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/about-the-museum-of-seminole-county-hi/" target="_blank">About the Museum of Seminole County History</a>." Parks and Preservation, Seminole County Government. http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/about-the-museum-of-seminole-county-hi/. Transcript <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>My name is Stephanie Youngers. Today is September 23^rd, 2010. And I am interviewing Mr. Cecil [A.] Tucker [II], here at the Museum of Seminole County History. Mr. Tucker, how are you?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>I’m doing great.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Good. We’ll start with where and when you were born, if you’re willing to give us that information.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes. I was born actually in Brevard County in Rockledge. May 26^th, 1931. And we lived in Rockledge—my mother and dad and I—for just a few weeks. My dad was working for the state and the tick eradication and his job as a range rider was over in east Orange County. So he moved us to Bithlo. And so, I was in—actually, he was already working for the state and headquartered out of Bithlo when I was born. My mother went over to Cocoa, to where there was some of the family, to help when I was being born.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>We lived in Bithlo for about six months. And then we moved to Christmas.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>And that’s another story.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And is that where you live now, is in Christmas?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes. Yes.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Okay. How—how was it growing up there? Obviously different from today, but…</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>You know, Christmas is a kind of unique community. In a lot of respects, there’s some areas of it—we live a lot different today than it was when I was growing up, primarily because the people worked real hard to keep it that way and not let influence come in.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>That’s good.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>But the community is—always had a—it’s a real close-knit community. And people pretty much look after each other, and help each other out. And the [Fort Christmas] Historical Park in Christmas is helping to preserve some of this kind of history.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And like, we talked about the Cracker Christmas, and that’s one of the main events out there.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And I know a lot of people don’t hardly go to Christmas, but during that time of year, you’ll find a lot more people out there.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Cracker Christmas is always the first weekend in December. That also is the time that we have the tree-lighting and carol singing. We have decorated a Christmas tree. A large, living Florida red cedar. We’ve decorated it every year since 1952.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>And we have the carol singing and tree-lighting. Tree-lighting and carol singing, always the first Sunday in December every year. So Cracker Christmas—that weekend involves usually the tree-lighting and carol singing, as well as what’s going on at the fort.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And is it like crafts and things at the fort?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes, at the fort. Crafts and—it’s a real nice festival. It really is.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>I know most people that go to Christmas during Christmastime want to get their letters stamped from Christmas.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes. That’s an interesting situation. When Mother became Postmaster in 1932, she found out how much people were interested to get their cards postmarked at Christmas time. So she created a Christmas tree cachet that could be put on the extra onto the cards.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>The envelope?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes. Yeah. And so, she started doing that. And that was in 1934.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And everything is by hand too?</p> <p><strong>Tucker <br /></strong>Everything was by hand. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. So how many people do you think, on average, would come through there?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, it started out, you know—it’d be 30 or 40 thousand a year. Now, we’re probably somewhere between 300 and 500 thousand a year that have this done. But it’s just for those extra, little special things. We don’t get a whole lot of cooperation out of the Post Office Department. Because they consider this an extraneous thing. It creates more problems for them.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Right. But you all still do it out there.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Still do it. Yeah [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>That’s crazy. Wow. Was there any other kind of events and things that you can remember, growing up?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>As I was growing up, the school—the activities at the school pretty much centered—it was the activities in the community. We’d have school plays, and get-togethers at school, a covered dish dinner, and this sort of thing. All those kind of things going on all the time in Christmas.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Right. And the school is located not in Christmas?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yep. Well, in those days, until 1969, there was a school in Christmas. It started out in the 19—in 18—probably the 1880s. It could have been a little before that. The post office—the church in Christmas was started in 1871, and shortly after that, the school was created in the church, in the building. But we’ve had a school in Christmas ever since, until 1969, when it ended up getting moved to Bithlo.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And that was all the grades throughout?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>We had a, it was eight grades. My first eight years of school was in that building. First four grades—we called “The Little Room,” and that was in the small room. That building has been moved to the fort, and is one of the preserved buildings at the fort. The larger room was grades four—five through eight.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And the high school?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, in those days, they didn’t—we had a junior high, but it went from ninth grade on. And now they call it, well…</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Now they have elementary school, middle school, and high school.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Middle school. Yeah. They call it middle school. So…</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And which high school did you go to?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>And then I rode a bus to Orlando and went to Memorial Junior High [School] in Orlando, and then I transferred in the tenth grade. I transferred to Orlando High School—OHS.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Okay. And after that, you went to the University of Florida?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, I went to Orlando Junior College, which was there in Orlando. It was in the early stages of junior colleges getting started. But I only went one year, because I had in my 4-H work. I had won a scholarship to the University of Florida. And that scholarship was fixing to expire on me, so I had to transfer out of junior college up to the university so I could get my scholarship.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>We’ll come back to your schooling. How long were you into the 4-H? I mean, what did you do while you were in there?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /> </strong>I was always very active in 4-H. In fact, when I got on up to—I stayed active in 4-H even when I was in high school. I drove my dad’s cattle truck, and I would haul our dairy heifers to the various shows around. I carried Orange County heifers to Tampa—to the show.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So you showed dairy cows?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Showed dairy cows and beef cattle. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Alright. And did you show any hog, or anything like that?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>No. Never was very intrigued by hogs.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>I can understand. So you won a scholarship through doing your shows and things?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Through the 4-H. yeah.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Well, good. Okay.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Wasn’t a very big scholarship, but in those days, every penny counted.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Exactly.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>I think it was $100, or something like that.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Well, good. And that helped you get into the University of Florida?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, no, it just helped to pay some of the expenses when I did get in.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>When you went there, did they have, like—was it still an all-male college, or…</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>You know, I need to do a little research on that. It was close. We did have—when I was attending there, it was co-ed. But it was pretty close to the time that it became co-ed, because I went there when—as I was active in 4-H, we used to go to what they called “Short Course.” And we spent a week at the university in the summertime every year. If you won that position in 4-H, you could go to Short Course. So I had been to Short Course, I guess, every year for five, six, seven years. And so I was involved there at the university as a 4-Her long before I got there as a student, so I knew some of the things that was going on.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And they already knew you. They were expecting you.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So is that what you went to college for was for the agriculture?</p> <p><strong>Tucker <br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Did they have a specific program?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>I was going to major in animal husbandry. And did.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Okay. And you went for four years at the university?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, I actually went for four years, and I was thinking about going to vet school. And at that time, the only vet school was in Auburn, Alabama. And I applied, and the earliest I could get in, I would be already out of college. You had to wait two or three years to get in. So I decided I would back up and look at the feasibility of going into—I was interested in either extension agriculture, extension work, or in research. So, I ended up going toward a Master’s degree. So I got my Master’s degree, and had an opportunity to go into extension down in Marion County, in Ocala. And that’s what got me into County Agent.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So after you graduated, you went right into the [Marion County] Extensions Office? Wow. And you were the youngest, one of the youngest in the state?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, there were a lot of young assistant county agents my age. But when I became the full agent, I was the youngest at that time of that.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And had you—when you first started out with the Extensions Office, did you work there for a while, or did you just go right into the position that you were in?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>I went right in. When I graduated from university, in Marion County, Assistant Agent position opened up. I applied for it, and received it, and went right into it. And so I was very fortunate, because Marion County was one of the most active 4-H counties in the state. They had numerous state titles, teams, judging teams that won. And then 4-Hers that won positions and went to Chicago[, Illinois], or the national deal. And so it was a great county to go into for training.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>What did you do at the Extension Office when you first started out there?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, I—my job was two-fold. As a—see, at that time, I had a Master’s degree in Animal Husbandry and Nutrition. So, I had a job in Marion County working with the cattle people. And then I had the job of being 4-H Agent. And so, as leader of the 4-Hers, I ended up training judging teams. We had judging teams in dairy, and judging teams in beef, and judging teams in poultry.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And you taught them, like, what to look for in the animal…</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Right. In the area of poultry—I didn’t know that much about it, but I found somebody that did.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>That seems like it would a little bit more in-depth.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yep. But we had some good teams. Some great 4-Hers there.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So, when you say, working with the cattle there, like what types of cattle? What types of things did you do with them?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, it had to do with the cattlemen on their pastureland, and any problems they had with pastureland. And, of course, we had a number of purebred ranches in the area. Some of them were Brahman, some of them were Shorthorn, some of them were Hereford. And Angus. So it was a good training area for me.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>It sounds like it. And how long were you with the Marion County office?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>I was with Marion County for two years, and the, just before I left Marion County, the county agent of Marion County—he’d always been quite interested in the Sheriff’s Department, and in fact, he periodically would go on with the Sheriff’s Department on activities, and it became available to him to be able to get appointed as Sheriff. And so he took it. So I was appointed for a brief time as acting county agent in Marion County—big county.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>But at the time, I had already applied for the job of County Agent here in Sanford, Seminole County, because it had became available.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And it was closer to home.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>And it was the closest one home.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Now, when you were up in Marion County, did you live up there?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Okay. Good to know you didn’t try to commute every day.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>No, no. I lived there.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So once he took the position as Sheriff, how long until you got to come down here? I mean, did they find someone else?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yeah. They found someone right away. In fact, I was just Acting Agent to take care of some things at the school. I wasn’t in the county, just for—goodness, it probably wasn’t for more than six or seven months.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Then you come down here.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yep.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Okay. You want to talk about what you did down here, which was a lot?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>The county agent that was here at the time—it was an interesting situation. He had—he had almost retired before his retirement. And some of it’s understandable. During the [Great] Depression, they cut back drastically on salaries. In fact, one of the stories told is: one of the farmers said to him, “Charlie, I heard they cut back your salary. Cut back 25 percent.” [<em>laughs</em>] He says, “Doesn’t that bother you?” Charlie says, “Well, yeah. But no, I just set the lever back 25%percent.” Well, he had done that. And he was fortunate that he was—had been in place for a long time. And the farmers were a little unhappy that when he first came in to the county, he did a tremendous job as county agent. I went through his files and things, and letters and all that he sent out, and he did a remarkable job. But after the episode with the salary and all of that, I think he was fortunate that he was real close friends with the director of Extension.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Goodness. So you came in about mid-1950s, into Seminole County?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>In 1956, I came here. The joke in the community was that, well, if you want to look for the county agent, just go down to Roumillat and Anderson’s Drug Store. He’ll be down there in the coffee shop.” So I says, “I tell you what. You won’t find me in Roumillat and Anderson’s. I’m going to go down to the other drug store.”</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh, goodness.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>But Charlie had—Charlie had a good job. It was just there towards the end.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>He was ready to go.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yeah. And some of the old time farmers here, they pretty well understood. And so—but he was—the day came time for him to retire. It was pretty well fixed.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So when you came in, what types of things did you do down here?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, one of the first things I did was to begin to get the 4-H going. Because there wasn’t much going in that area. And then I started working on the—bringing all of the mailing lists of the various farms—the citrus growers, the vegetable growers, the cattlemen—bringing those up to date. Charlie pretty well had a list, but he wasn’t keeping all of it up-to-date. And that was one of the things I worked on.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So there was quite a bit of agriculture planting?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes. There was. In those days, we still was one of the more active vegetable producing areas in the state. And we had quite a bit of citrus here. We had probably 15 to 18 thousand acres of citrus.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And that was in the Sanford area?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>In the Sanford area—Seminole County area. Now, the unique thing about that is, Seminole County is the fourth smallest county in the state in land area. So to have much acreage of anything is a little unique, because of the size of it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>I know the big thing that I’ve heard is, like celery and citrus.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>But I know there was maybe some other things in there, as well.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, in the—in those days, the nursery part of it was not—it was just beginning to come on. And in the ‘70s, we predicted that the nursery part—ornamental, horticultural, nursery—was probably going to outstrip the rest of it. And it has. But that’s just one of those things of how an area changes to meet the needs of the community.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. And what about like agriculture—beef and things? I know there’s still quite a bit of it here, but not as much as it was.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>No. In fact, the only thing that is as much as it was is ornamental horticulture. The vegetables has dropped way down. Almost nil right now. Beef cattle is still, over in the eastern part of the county is where most of the traditional pastureland was. And it’s still a lot of it over there.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So that’s like, Geneva?</p> <p><strong>Tucker <br /></strong>Geneva. Yep.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oviedo kind of area.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Chuluota. Yep. Kind of area. Osceola.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Chuluota. Osceola. Okay. Back in those days, was it more prominent? Did it come further into Seminole County, or is it just kind of always in that general area?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>It’s always been out in that area, although every area in the county had some cattle scattered in it. Not today, but back in those days.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong></p> <p>No. Definitely not today. Now, when you were with the exchange office, you were telling me earlier about getting the new buildings, and even using this building, the county home building,<a title="">[1]</a> as an agricultural office. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Alright. Let me back up before that. I probably developed more offices for the county than any other department head. When I became county agent in 1956, we were in the bottom floor of the courthouse. I called it the Salt Mine Section of the courthouse. And it was just basically one big room, which housed my office, the home economics agent’s office, and we had Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation [Service (ASCS)], the old AAA. That office was also in that area. And so, basically, and I was trying to develop part of the program that we provide in extension to farmers is information about agriculture. And some of the best information that Extension has available are the bulletins that they print on the various topics. So, I determined that we were going to have a—when I was working my way through college at the university, one of my jobs, I worked in the bulletin room. And we sent out to county agents all over the state. They would send in an order for so many bulletins of this, so many bulletins of that. And so I was involved in shipping those out to the various agents. So I was pretty well familiar with the—what was available in bulletins. And I determined, in Seminole County, we was[sic] going to have the best supply of bulletins south of Gainesville. And we did.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. What kind of things did the put out for bulletins? Was it like that tell of, like maybe a pest type thing for plants, or…</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Right. They would have a bulletin out on chinch-bug control. And a bulletin out on varieties of grasses. You name the topic, and they had it. In vegetables, there was a general vegetable production guide that gave how many pounds of seed, and how you would do for all the vegetables for growing a garden.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So being down here in Seminole County and making more offices, and making more of this information available, you were very helpful to more of the general population here, to help them with their agriculture.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yeah. And that was part of the making information available. So when I came in to the—to the Salt Mine Section of the courthouse, it was a little bit difficult to do what I wanted to do with the—just that one big room. So, I showed—in those days, the [Seminole County] Clerk of the Court pretty much ran the county. And so, I was to see Mr. Herndon, and I said, “Mr. Herndon, I know we really need a little bit more office space. And the other day, I was downstairs here, on the other side our office in this big storage area down here, and I could regroup a lot of stuff that’s in there, and make an office right there.” He says, “Son, let’s go down there and see what you talking about.” So I went down there and showed him, and he says, “We’ll think about that.” And he agreed, as I recall. I don’t think I even had to restore the stuff. They moved it around. And so we put an office in, and it was an all-inside deal. I didn’t have any—if I’d had claustrophobia, I would have been in trouble, because there wouldn’t have been any windows.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>No windows. Wow.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>But it provided more wall space to do what I wanted to do. And that was to put these bulletins available for people to see and pick up.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Right. And then did you all stay in that office, or did you eventually move out into the new one?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, we were there until the early ‘60s. The judges needed more room. And we had made our space into a pretty nice office area, over the course of time. And so they wanted that space. So again, I says, “Mr. Herndon, there is an abandoned county building. It’s a good building. It has a potential. And what I’d like to do is for us to create a[sic] ag[ricultural] center and move all the agriculture people we’ve got—we’ve got soil conservation, plant inspector, we’ve got ASC here, and put all of us in one area for the farmers just to come into one spot. To see all these things.” And so, he says, “Well, we’ll think about that.” Well they appointed a committee, and I was on the committee, and we created the Ag Center at the Stockade building down here.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And that’s where everybody moved with you.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>They all moved with me.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yeah. So then they wanted more space for the road department. And that was shortly about the same time that the county home had moved out of here. And so I said again, “I know where there’s a place that would really work out better for us, because we’re a little bit crowded here for all the people for the Ag Center.” And they agreed to it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So you made this entire area here?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>This entire building became the Ag Center.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. And how long was that office here?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>From the middle ‘60s until 19—I think Frank [Jazzen] moved over into the new Ag Center in the mid-70s.<a title="">[2]</a> I had already left as county agent at that time.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And how long were you County Agent?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Thirteen and a half years.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. So what did you do when you were done being the county agent?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>I had an opportunity to go into a farming operation growing watercress down in Oviedo. Went into a watercress-growing enterprise, another young fellow and I. And after a couple of years, well, we ended up merging with Don Weaver and his brother-in-law, and created B&amp;W Quality Growers. That grew into a pretty sizeable watercress-growing operation. We were the largest in the eastern part of the United States. And we had farms in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Florida. Later on, I got out of that.</p> <p>And Joe Baker, who had Baker’s Dairy over here, was interested in my coming to work for him. In fact, when he found out I had gone into the watercress, he says, “Cecil, you, uh, I didn’t know you was[sic] available.” I said, “Joe, I probably wasn’t available for anything except what I did.” Because it was a good opportunity that I got into. Anyway, when I got out of the watercress deal, I went to see Joe. He says, “Yeah. I’m still interested in you.” And he says, “When can you start?” I says, “Well, I got a couple of things I got to finish at home. I’ll need a couple of weeks.” He says, “No. I need you to start Monday.”</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Alright then.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>So, I managed Baker’s Dairy here for a couple of years. And then, well, let’s see. I got out of Extensions in 1969. And then I was in the watercress business for a couple of years. And then I managed Baker’s Dairy for I guess it was about a year and a half on each one of them. In 1972, I opened my own farm and garden supply store in Sanford. Tucker’s Farm and Garden Center. And we ran that as a family operation for the next 30 years.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And it’s Myer’s now?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yeah. Horstmeyer [Farm and Garden]. Horstmeyer. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And when did you sell that there?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, I sold it to my son in 198—1983. That’s when I moved to Christmas. Let’s see, ’83-’84 —somewhere along in there. And he sold it to his friend, Horstmeyers[sic], in—about 15 years later.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So during the time that you lived—or that you worked—out here in Seminole County, did you still live in Christmas?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>No. I’ve always lived in—from the time I came here as County Agent, I’ve lived here in Seminole County. I didn’t move back to Christmas until I sold the store and moved back to Christmas in the mid-80s.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So you lived in the Oviedo-Chuluota area?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>No. Always right here in Sanford. Actually, over here is what’s called Citrus Heights. That’s where we lived.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>The whole time?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>The whole time. Yeah. Well, I shouldn’t say the whole time, because I bought a house on Rosalia Drive, and we lived there a few years, and then I lived out her. [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Now, during all this time you met a lovely lady?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Actually, I met her and courted her while we were in college at the university.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So she went to University of Florida too?</p> <p><strong>Tucker</strong>She went to the university for a while. Her mother had to have an operation, and that was money sending her to college had to be used. And so by that time, she and I had gotten pretty serious, and she got a job working for an orange packing company in Orlando. And after—I don’t know—a little over a year we ended up getting married. And then she came back to the university.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>How’d you win her over? Did you do anything special? Or did you just say, “Alright, woman...”</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>We need to make that a continued story. I’ll be right back.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Now then, you was[sic] wanting to know about my wife.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Yes, sir.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, during the year that she was—I knew her—knew of her—before we got to university. I doubt if she knew too much about me beforehand, but we—I was a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, agricultural fraternity there, and I would invite her every guest night to come over to the fraternity house and eat with us. And so they got to be pretty—and by the way, you’ll want to put Ms. [Mart Albritton] Tucker on your list as one to do an oral interview.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>I will do that.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Because she is an old-time—as an Albritton, old-time Florida family. But she’s been active here in Seminole County. She helped me in to get the store going. She’s active in the cattle operation. In fact, when I was running the store, she did as much of the cattle work as I did. We had a—a pet at the store. It was a wild pig that became pretty well-known in the community. She used to take it on a leash downtown when she went to make the deposit at the bank. She’d carry the pig with her.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>What was his name?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Pete. Streaky Pete. Pete the Pig. And he grew to be about 700 pounds. But anyway, that’s another story. But she was active in the [Seminole County] Farm Bureau—in the women’s deal at the Farm Bureau. She was active in 4-H, doing some of the judging, and some of the 4-H activities here. And of course, when we were opening the store, she was part of that. So she’d be another one.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And she—so you all married before you graduated?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So she went to Marion County with you?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes. In fact—well, let’s see. Before I got my Master’s, she was expecting my daughter. And she typed my thesis. And then when we moved to Ocala, uh—trying to remember at what point—my daughter was born before then.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And you have one daughter?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>I’ve got one daughter and two sons—twins. They were born on my daughter’s second birthday. And then, we have an adopted daughter, as well.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And you all have always had cattle in your family?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Put your boys to work?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>We’ve had cattle in our family since as far as we can tell, going back into the 1700s. And that’s another thing I’m researching, because one of these days, that’s going to be a part of my book too.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. That’s a long time. Okay. As far as the cattle in your family—the history—that’ll be good?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Do you have anything else that you want to add to our…</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, let’s see. Well, there’s a lot of things we could go into and talk about [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>We could always come back and talk about different things, if you wanted to.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>The problem of being able to have—to build a program when the county didn’t have any funds, it was a problem. I needed—and of course, I was always on the low-end of the pay scale. If it wasn’t for the fact that this is where I wanted to be, I’d have gone somewhere else. In fact, when I left to go into the watercress, I was offered a job paying me twice as much I was in extension. And he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t take it. Because my opportunity that I was going into was better [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, let me look here. See if there’s anything—this is interesting. When I came to the county, the phone number for the county agent’s office was 470.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>470? That’s it? [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] 470. That’s it. But we went through the medfly infestation, we went through the fire burning the [Sanford State] Farmers’ Market down, and having to help get things going for it to build back up. We had, in ’57—late ’57, early ’58 —a severe freeze deal that actually we had cattle dying, because there wasn’t enough hay, and we brought in hay for that. We had—one of the projects that I worked on was the eradication of screwworms. And my dad was involved in that. That was one of the miracles of using atomic energy to eradicate the screwworm fly. The female fly mates only once. And so they found that if they would raise screwworm flies and eradiate them with atomic energy deal, it sterilized the males, and they put these male flies out in the area, and they mate with the wild females, and the eggs wouldn’t hatch. And by continually doing that, they lowered the population of the screwworm fly to completely eradicate it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Really? So it’s gone for good?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes. Yes. it’s gone.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. That’s amazing.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>And my dad was involved in that. He was an inspector. And in fact, some of the first pastures that they put the medfly—I mean the screwworm fly—out in was his pasture. So, when I was County Agent, of course I would make contact with the cattle people, and pass along the information to him about what was going on, and if there was an outbreak somewhere, they’d get on top of it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Did they still have the technique of doing the cow dipping?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Yes. Now, the cow dipping—this was to eliminate the cattle tick—the fever tick. And in the early ‘50s, they was[sic] still—in fact, my dad worked with that. There’s still a lot of the, uh, dipping going on. Getting rid of the fever tick. And that lasted until, I guess, the early ‘60s.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Right. Is that something that they were able to just control?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>They were able to control it by dipping continually. They were able to eliminate the fever tick. After they wiped out a bunch of the deer who was perpetuating it. And some of your family was involved in that.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Yes, sir.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Oh, let’s see. We had a fire ant infestation that came into the county and we almost got it eliminated by flying [Boeing] B-17s [Flying Fortress], and putting out Myrex, until the do-gooders got involved and killed the program.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And we still have fire ants.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>And we still have fire ants, and we’ll always have fire ants. But we came about within two flights of eliminating them.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. Now, did that have any—the chemicals used, did it have any effect on people? Is that why people got involved?</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>The problem is it could create some problem in the water and affect fish, and that sort of thing. But we could have eliminated that. You know, by staying away from those areas. Anyway. Well, let’s see. Any other questions?</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>No. Not if there’s anything. I mean, I have lots of questions. I know you’re big into the rodeo, and you’ve done a lot for 4-H, and different things like that, but we can come back maybe and talk about that another other time.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Well, what do—yeah. Make a list. And we’ll do it. And like I said, I think you need to interview my wife, because I think you’ll find that to be interesting, as well.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>There’s a lot of little ins and outs of what went on here in the county.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Well, I’ll definitely schedule a day with her, so she can come in and talk to me.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Good deal.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Well, I appreciate it very much.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>And I appreciate your being on board to help do these things.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>We want to look through the list of people and be sure that we get some—thing of it is, we’re five years late on a lot of people that passed on. Joe Baker, he—would have been great to be able get his. And I want to set up Don Weaver.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Don Weaver and his family was—they came here from Pennsylvania. But they are pioneers in the watercress industry in the United States. And he lives down in Chuluota, on the south side of Lake Mills. And we’ll work out getting that set up. Anything else?</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>No, sir.</p> <p><strong>Tucker<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p> </p> <div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Old Folks’ Home.<br /><br /><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: November 1980.</p> </div> </div> </div> 4-H Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service agriculture Alpha Gamma Rho Angus animal husbandry ASCS B&W Quality Growers Baker's Dairy beef Bithlo Brahman cattle cattleman cattlemen Cecil A. Tucker II Christmas Christmas trees citrus Citrus Heights Cocoa cow dipping cows Cracker Christmas dairy Don Weaver extension agriculture extension offices Fort Christmas Historical Park Frank Jazzen Gainesville Hereford Herndon horticulture Joe Baker Marion County Marion County Extension Office Mart Albritton Marty Tucker Memorial Junior High School Museum of Seminole County History Ocala Old Folks Home orlando Orlando High School Orlando Junior College ornamental horticulture Oviedo poultry Rockledge Rosalia Drive Roumillat and Anderson's Drug Store Sanford screwworm flies Seminole County Seminole County Extension Office Short Course Shorthorn Stephanie Youngers Tucker's Farm and Garden Center UF University of Florida vegetables watercress https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/0b990020107e0d56317297dd472eadae.pdf cacb275a5be012930c31e1cb34c46e87 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 Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection Alternative Title Lone Sailor Collection Subject Veterans--Florida Orlando (Fla.) United States. Navy Navy Sailors--United States Description Collection of digital images and oral histories related to the former Recruit Training Center Orlando (RTC Orlando) for the United States Navy. The training center transformed raw recruits into highly effective sailors. This process took place over an intensive eight-week training period, commonly referred to as "boot camp." RTC Orlando occupied roughly one half of the former Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando), which was located at present day Baldwin Park, Orlando, Florida. Between 1968 and 1994, over 650,000 men and women graduated from RTC Orlando. Contributor <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/ "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Chad Etchison Alternative Title Oral History, Etchison Subject Veterans--Florida Orlando (Fla.) Global War on Terror, 2001-2009 Description An oral history interview of Chad Etchison (b. 1974), who joined the U.S. Navy in December of 1992 and served during Operation Active Endeavor and the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Ethicson was born in Anderson, Indiana, on December 12, 1974. He attended boot camp at Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando) and later served on several Navy frigates. He also served President Bill Clinton (b. 1946) as part of the White House Communication Agency and attended the Fleet Combat Training Center in Dam Neck, Virginia. In Orlando, Etchison served at the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command Operations Force Center and the Navy Operations Support Center. Ethicson achieved the rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer (CPO) and earned a Joint Service Commendation Medal, two Navy Commendation Medals, five Navy Achievement Medals, and a Presidential Service Badge.<br /><br />This interview was conducted by Chad Eric Joyner on March 15, 2014, three months before Etchison left the Navy. Interview topics include enlistment, boot camp, NTC Orlando, the Grinder, Ethcison's naval career after Orlando, and how the Orlando area has changed over time. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:35 Enlistment<br />0:02:42 Boot camp and training at Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando)<br />0:07:50 Taking leave and helping with recruitment<br />0:09:06 Relationships with other recruits<br />0:11:12 Instructors<br />0:12:58 Hardest part of NTC, proudest moment, and memorable story<br />0:16:22 USS <em>Blue Jacket</em> and the Grinder<br />0:20:53 NTC in comparison to other bases<br />0:22:15 Important locations at NTC Orlando<br />0:24:04 Graduation<br />0:24:54 Naval career after training<br />0:29:48 Boarding vessels and contraband searches<br />0:31:45 Contacts from the Navy<br />0:32:47 Naval values<br />0:36:50 How Orlando has changed over time<br />0:38:50 NTC€™s legacy and the Lone Sailor Memorial Project<br />0:42:20 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Chad Etchison Interview conducted by Chad Eric Joyner at the UCF Libraries in Orlando, Florida on March 15, 2014. Type Sound Source <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/274/rec/1" target="_blank">Ethcison, Chad</a>. Interviewed by Chad Eric Joyner, March 15, 2014. Audio record available. Item DP0014895, UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> Adobe Acrobat Reader Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 18-page digital transcript of original 43-minute and 22-second oral history: <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/274/rec/1" target="_blank">Ethcison, Chad</a>. Interviewed by Chad Eric Joyner, March 15, 2014. Audio record available. Item DP0014895, UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Anderson, Indiana Jonesboro, Georgia Recruit Training Center Orlando, Orlando, Florida Naval Training Center Orlando, Orlando, Florida Naval Training Center Great Lakes, Great Lakes, Illinois Naval Training Center San Diego, San Diego, California Baldwin Park, Orlando, Florida Naval Station Mayport, Jacksonville, Florida Des Moines, Iowa Navy Operations Support Center, Orlando, Florida Creator Ethcison, Chad Joyner, Chad Eric Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-02-22 Date Copyrighted 2014-02-22 Format application/website application/pdf Extent 39.7 MB 198 KB Medium 43-minute and 22-second audio DVD/MP4/CD 18-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Chad Eric Joyner and Chad Etchison. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/ "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/274/rec/1" target="_blank">Etchison, Chad</a> Date Modified 2014-09-01 Transcript <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Today is March 15^th, 2014. I am interviewing Chad Etchison, who served in the United States Navy. Mr. Etchison currently serves as Command Senior Chief at NOS—NOSC [Navy Operational Support Center] in Orlando. My name is Chad Eric Joyner. We are interviewing Mr. Etchison as part of the UCF [University of Central Florida] Community Veterans History Project and as research for the creation of the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. We are doing this interview at the UCF Library in Orlando, Florida. Senior Chief, if you will please start off by telling us when and where were you born?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>I was born in Anderson, Indiana, on December 19^th, 1973.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What did your parents do for a living?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, my dad was a mechanic, uh, for Delta Air Lines and, uh—prior to the Navy, and my mom was a schoolteacher.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Did you have any brothers or sisters?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Yeah, I have a[sic] older brother, Mark, who’s, uh—currently works for Anderson University in Indiana. He’s a football coach, and I have a younger sister, Lana, who, uh, works in advertising in Atlanta, Georgia.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Growing up, where did you go to school?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, well, when I was a very young age, we moved to Jonesboro, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. So I, uh, grew up in Jonesboro, went to elementary school all the way through high school right there in Jonesboro.</p> <p><strong>Joyner <br /></strong>What did you do before entering the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>High school. I joined right [out of] high school. I—I—actually, I joined the Navy, um, just a couple months into my senior year. So I know what I was going to do.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Um, when did you join?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>I joined in December of [19]91.</p> <p><strong>Joyner <br /></strong>Why’d you join the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after high school. Um, my brother had received a football scholarship. He was a big sports star. I got a couple offers, but I kind of wanted to step outside—or from under his shadow a little bit. Do something different. Uh, and both my grandfathers and father were Navy veterans and they talked about their time in the service, so figured I give it a shot, and that’s what I did.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>So that’s why you selected the Navy over the other branches?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Initially, I wanted to join the Army, but, um, my dad kind of talked me out of it and talked me into talking to a Navy recruiter, and, uh, once I talked to them, I got offered, uh the job I wanted, so I went with the Navy.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>How did your family feel about you joining the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, they were a hundred percent behind it.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Where did you attend boot camp?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, I left Georgia in November of ‘92, um, come down here to Orlando, and, uh, I was here for a couple of days, uh, classing up there waiting for all the recruits to get here for my class. Then we officially started boot camp on December 1^st of ‘92.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What were you trained to do for your career in the Navy? What—what were you trained to do for your career in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>At the time, I was just planning on, uh, doing my—I enlisted for six years, so my—my initial thought was just do the six years get the training and get out. See what was—well, what life had to offer me, but, uh, 21 years later, I’m still here so…</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>When did you begin your training at NTC [Naval Training Center] Orlando, and how did this come about?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, I graduated boot camp in February of ‘92.<a title="">[1]</a> Got two weeks leave and then started, uh, beginning of March—end of February of ‘92<a title="">[2]</a> at NTC Orlando. Uh, I went there, because of—that was the first phase of Electronics Technician School. Uh, the basic electronics was here in Orlando. Um, so I went through there and then from there I moved on to the [Naval Training Center] Great Lakes to finish my training.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What did you know about the region, military, or—or any other information about Orlando, before arriving?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, actually, my—my grandparents—my dad’s parents—live in Winter Haven, Florida. So we’d been down here quite a bit vacationing and spending time with them. So I knew about the area—of course, the attractions and stuff, but as far as the military, um, I really didn’t know there was a boot camp here, until I joined the Navy. That’s—that’s where they told me I’d go.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>How long were you at NTC Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, I was there from Nov—at NTC? I was there from March until July of that summer, so several months.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What was your first impression of the base?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>I loved the base. Uh, it was a training facility, so, uh it—it was nice. Um, act—actually, at the time, they were building some new schoolhouses, and, uh, I had several friends at Nuclear School there, so, uh, it was kind of like a college campus almost, you know?</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What were your first days of the service like?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Confusing. Very confusing. Um, had no idea what was going on—on—all I knew was just they pointed this and told us to go somewhere, I just followed along and went with whatever they told me.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What were you primary responsibilities at NTC Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, at NTC, I was, uh just a student primary. As a student, we would stand duty and have watch responsibilities, and, um, that’s pretty much it.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What did the watch responsibilities consist—contain or consist of?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, watch responsibilities, uh—you had watch every four days or one weekend a month. Uh, mainly just staying quarterdeck watch at the barracks, uh, making sure everybody who entered the barracks had proper ID, and a reason for being in there and you’d clean. Basically, cleaning duties, making sure the barracks stayed clean and the—all the showers, they stayed clean.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What was your overall impression of the recruits and their training at the base?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>At the beginning, you hated it, but at the end, um—I—I got a lot out of it. I thought it was a great experience. Um, you kind of grow up really fast, so the experience was—was for—for a young kid, to me, was a great—was great. I learned a lot—learned a lot about myself, you know? And the thing back then is there is no such word as “quit,” ‘cause they wouldn’t let you quit. They’d push, push, push, and when you thought you couldn’t go anymore, they’d push more. So it was a—it was a great experience for me. An eye-opening experience being, uh, fresh out into the world, right out of high school. So, um, I got a lot out of it, and I look fondly back on—on those memories.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What kind of social life existed amongst the recruits?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, first and foremost, respect, you know? Um, they demanded respect. Uh, it’s a little bit different nowadays, we’re more PC [politically correct] with the training, but back then, ultimately, you learned respect and you gave respect. Uh, that was the primary, and then, um, just the basics of being a sailor, what it was like to be a sailor, the routine of, um—of being a sailor and how to survive, uh, in the Navy [<em>sniffs</em>] [<em>clears throat].</em></p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>How often was leave granted?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, in boot camp, it wasn’t. Um, when I was in training, if there was[sic] any special holidays, you got—you can request leave. Um, But everybody was offered two weeks leave, right out of boot camp, So I took advantage of that.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Where did you go?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, I went back home, and actually, I started a week with the, um, local recruiters, going back to my high school and talking about my experiences in boot camp and stuff, And doing that, they only charged me for one week.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>How did you feel about going back with the recruiters?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, it was a proud experience to walk back into your high school and see, uh, a lot of the students that were still there. Walk back in uniform and stuff, and—and knowing—even though, looking back, it wasn’t that big of accomplishment, but at the time, to me, you know, going through boot camp and doing that was a big accomplishment for me. It’s kind of, uh, rewarding to go back and have everyone see you in uniform.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>How did you training experiences shape your relationship with other recruits in you class?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>It—it taught me, um—the biggest thing I learned is—is, uh—there were recruits from all over the country. So many different backgrounds and, uh—and I didn’t realize how diverse the military was and, uh—and how different, you know people’s upbringings was[sic] all over the country. So you learn to adapt to people and learn to, uh—to accept people for who they are, and—because—because you got to work together as a team, and ultimately, that was one of the things they taught us in boot camp—how to work together as a team. So regardless of your differences—your background—ethic, religion, whatever—When you are part of that team, it does not matter. You’re all one team. You have to work together. So that was an eye-opener too.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Who did you interact with on a daily basis?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, during boot camp, there was a couple of people that I interacted with, Uh—several recruits. One—one—one—his name was Tom Johnson. Um, he was from, uh, Red Wing, Minnesota, and I don’t know why, but me[sic] and him just got along. So me[sic] and him would talk on a daily basis.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>While you were at NTC, was there anybody…</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, actually, uh, he was also, um, in the electronics technician program too, so me[sic] and him were actually in the same class, and we ended up being roommates, and, um, a third roommate joined us. His name was Troy Slewroo[sp], and I become close friends with him and, uh, he’s still serving in the Navy as well, so I talk to him on a regular basis too. Um, after about a year, after I graduated Electronics School, I kind of lost track of Tom, so I’m not sure what happened to him, but Troy I still talk to on a regular basis.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Who were your instructors?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>At boot camp, I remember there was a Chief K, and, um BM1 Conner, and, uh, I’ll never forget them, ‘cause they made a huge impact on me, and actually, several years ago, I ran into—who’s now Master Chief Conner. He was a Command Master Chief at Naval Station Mayport, and I was on a ship out there. I was at training and I heard the voice, and I—<em>I know that voice.</em> So I walked around the corner, and, uh, there’s Master Chief Conner. I had a conversation with him and I was floored when he actually remembered who I was. So and, um, in—in A School— I don’t remember his name, but I know he was a retired chief—electronics technician—and, uh, he was my instructor. I don’t remember his name.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What were your instructors like?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, during boot camp, the two instructors—they were hardcore workout fanatics. So, um, we got in pretty good shape, ‘cause, uh, they were all about pushups, sit-ups, doing all that kind of stuff all the time. So, um, they—they were pretty strict, but they also kind of had a joking side. They—they would joke with you and, um, they let you know when it was time to be serious and time to joke.</p> <p>Um, my instructor for A School, um—he was great. He was a very personable person. Um, very strict in the classroom, but very approachable, and, uh, he helped us out a lot. Willing to do whatever he could to make sure we understand what he was teaching. So…</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What was the hardest thing you remember doing at NTC?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, the hardest thing was going through Electronics Technician School. It’s just so much information thrown—THROWN at you at one time. Um, and, uh, it was fast and furious, and—and coming out of high school, um, the—the pace was just so much quicker than I was ever use to, And a lot of information to try and retain and, uh, just trying to figure out how to study and—and how to be able to regurgitate that information during our labs and during our tests. So, eh, that was very challenging for me, and—and I struggled a little bit at first, and, um, eventually the instructor to help me along kind of—I went to him and he taught me actually how to study and the proper ways to—to study to help us out, ‘cause the pace was just so fast.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What was your proudest moment?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, making it through basic electronics training. Um, I was proud when I graduated boot camp, but, uh, moving on with Electronics Technician School—that was the first hurdle you had to get through. Um, Otherwise, you could have went to—if you failed out, which we had a couple guys drop out, you got sent to the fleet to a ship—basically undesignated. So you were working with the boatswain, which is not the funniest job, and I joined to do electronics work, so once I got past that first hurdle of graduating electronics school, that was a big—big moment for me.</p> <p><strong>Joyner <br /></strong>Tell me a story of a time at NTC you will never forget.</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>There—there’s a couple, but the one that stands out the most is, um—was in boot camp, ‘cause, uh, the first time we really got, uh, a PT’d [physically trained] really hard, they called it “cycling.” And, um, we did what they call a “rain party,” where all the windows were shut, all the bunks were pushed back, and they just PT’d us until condensation formed on the ceiling. We were just going and going, and going, and, uh at the time, we were, uh, [inaudible] <em>This is the worst thing in the world, </em>but looking back on it, it was like, <em>Wow.</em> That was—that was—that was the big start of it all, you know? The—the defining moment of how—how far you were going to be pushed, and you just kept going, because, you know, you were scared to stop, ‘cause these guys were on you, you know? So, um, that’s something I’ll never forget. Looking back on it, I—I kind of chuckle. Uh, that’s kinda fun, because they do not do that kind of stuff anymore, but, uh, um—yeah. I—it’s kind of a fond memory now, even though it wasn’t fun at the time.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>And that was when you first arrived or the first few months [inaudible]?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, no. In the first week or so of being there, once we finally classed up and got moved into our barracks and started to settle in.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>How would you describe the USS <em>Blue Jacket</em> and its function?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, unfortunately, when I was there, we didn’t get to do much on the USS <em>Blue Jacket</em>, ‘cause, uh, they were doing some work on it. So, um, we just got the basic tour, got to do some, um, simple line handling drills on it, and that’s about all we go to do, but like I said, because they were doing work on it. So, um, I remember seeing it though and, um, thought it was kind of small for a ship, but, uh, um, I wish we got to the full training, but we just didn’t.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>And what class of ship was the <em>Blue Jacket</em>?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>You know, I don’t recall. Um, if I had to guess, I’d probably say it’s a frigate. A small vessel. Kind of really don’t recall.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What was the official purpose of the Grinder and what it—it’s significance to you and the recruits?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>The Grinder, um—that was the— main thing—that’s where we learned how to march, and—and how to follow, uh, calls and military protocol. Um, a lot of work was done on the Grinder. We—in the early mornings, we’d PT’d on the Grinder, and then, uh, we spent a lot of hours in the afternoon just doing marching drills, learning formations over and over and over, you know? Um, it was a big deal when you got your—your, um, dungaree uniform, and, uh, as soon as we got them, um, they took us back to the barracks, and dressed out in them, and went right out to the Grinder, and marched for hours, just to break in your boots. Which we, uh—actually, they were boondockers. They weren’t even boots. They were three-quarter inch, uh—three-quarter inch boondockers. So, um, a lot of blisters [<em>laughs</em>] and stuff, but—yeah. A lot of times, just learning drills and marching quite a bit.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>How would you defi—how would you define the Grinder to other people? What would you—How would you—what did it mean to you?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Oh, um, gosh. At the time, it was a work area, you know? Um, at the time, it meant you—when they said, “Hit the Grinder.” You kind of like—<em>Aw, man. Here we go</em>, you know? You never knew what you were in for, um, whether we were going to PT at the time, even though we had a set scheduled for stuff, you know? If they said “Hey. We’re hitting the Grinder,” you kind of—you didn’t know what you were in for. You were kind of hesitant at the time, but, uh, that—that was the foundation for learning, like I said, the drills and protocol and all them calls, and, um—and on the Grinder, that’s where we become a team, ‘cause if one of us messes up in formation, we all paid the price, so we learned, you know, uh, about being a team.</p> <p>So when—when I think of the Grinder, I think of, you know—that was the formation of teamwork there and that’s how—where we really learned, uh, to be one, and I guarantee you: by the time we did our graduation ceremony, um, we were all in perfect harmony and perfect step, because of we—we worked it all out there on that Grinder, and we were on that Grinder—we were on the Grinder every day, rain, shine, and, uh, I was here during the winter. It doesn’t matter what the weather was. We were out on that Grinder every day. So, um, a lot of hard work, but, um, a lot, uh—a lot of teamwork came out of that, you know?</p> <p>So I guess I look back on the Grinder as a, you know—just a—probably a— significant place in Naval history, you know? Because if you think of all the sailors who walked on that Grinder—who learned the same lessons I did there, you know—it’s kind of sad that it’s gone now, you know? But it’s, you know—I never really thought about it until—‘til you asked me, so it—it’s—it’s a pretty—pretty significant, I would say, in my past.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What other training bases did you go to?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, [<em>clears throat</em>] when I left Orlando, um, I went out[?] to Great Lakes, Illinois, and, uh, did Phase 2 of Electronics School, which is advanced electronics, and then, I also went to, um, the [Naval] Training center out in San Diego[, California] for some follow-on schools before reporting to my first ship.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>How would you compare the other bases to NTC [Orlando]?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>I always questioned why they closed Orlando and—and, uh, kept Great Lakes open, because, uh, to me, the base here was nicer. It was in, uh, better shape. Um, But, understandably, the—the history up in Great Lakes, You know—the historical buildings. There’s a lot of history up there, as well, but, um, I always favored this base. It was just, you know—and—and those of us who been through—went through Orlando, kind of take ownership of it, and, you know, um, I [inaudible]—when I first moved down here, uh, six months ago, when I got transferred, I drove over to Baldwin Park just to see what was still there, and, uh, I was kind of sad to see it all gone, you know? I didn’t recognize anything over there anymore.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What other areas of the base were particularly important to the recruits?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, on boot camp, um, of course your barracks were very important, because, uh, if you ventured outside of that, you know, it—you—that was kind of your safe zone when you were with your—your company commanders, um, that and, um, there was a USO [United Service Organization] right outside, and, um, it was a big deal, ‘cause I know we were there over Christmas, and, um, we got, uh—I think it’s like 45 minutes-an hour. They let us—we were allowed to go over to the USO and just kind of let our hair down for a little while, and, uh, the USO would have some snacks and stuff for us, and, uh, that was always a—a—a great place, you know? I remember going over there and just loving it, and when, uh, we graduated boot camp, everybody migrated over to the USO and that’s where you met your families and stuff.</p> <p>Um, on the NTC side, I remember there was a little club that had the ar—ar—arcade games, and jukeboxes, and pool. Um, that was—that’s kind of the place we all congregated either after school or on the weekends, um, and there was a McDonald’s. I remember the McDonald’s. Um, there was a volleyball court right across from it, um, in front of some barracks. So usually after school, we—we’d run over get changed and go to the volleyball court, and, uh, you know, spend the majority of the afternoon there, and the, uh, go for McDonald’s, grab something, and go back to barracks and study for the night, and be ready to go the next day.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Is that McDonald’s still there or no?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, I don’t think so. Not that I remember.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What did it feel like to graduate and finally put the hat on?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Oh, the white hat? Yeah. Uh, that was a big moment. Um, you strive, and, uh, I remember wearing, you know, the other cap—your—your stocking cap all the time, and you’re looking[?] and you’re like, <em>Aw, I can’t wait until I get the white hat. Can’t wait to get</em>—you know, ‘cause to use that was the signal of a sailor, and once you got the white hat, you know, you knew you were almost there. Um, so that was a big goal that everybody was striving for, was to get the white hat, and then once you got it, you kind of, you know—you kinda strutted around, you know, ‘cause you saw all the other companies that didn’t have theirs yet. So you felt a little better than everyone else. So it was—it was a good feeling.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What did you do for the Navy after you completed your training?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, when I finished, um, I reported to my first ship the USS <em>John A. Moore</em>. Um, I was on there for, uh, three years. Um, deployed a couple times with them. Um, I got to do some work on the USS <em>Wadsworth</em>—help out some fellow ETs [Electronic Technicians] for some time.</p> <p>After that, I—I transferred to the White House Communications Agency [WHCA]. I was fortunate to get picked for that, and, um, I was—I served under President [William “Bill” Jefferson] Clinton—his last three years, and, uh, Got to setup and maintain all the communications equipment for the President and Secret Service, and, uh, one—one of my primary jobs was to work in the limo shop, so I got to install maintain the presidential limousine, the communications equipment.</p> <p>From there, I went to Fleet Combat Training Center in, uh, Dam Neck, Virginia, and, uh—and worked on radar systems there. Um, and I—I was fortunate enough to make chief while I was there, and, um, after graduating there I went to the USS <em>Simpson</em>—was on the <em>Simpson</em> out of Mayport, Florida, for, uh—for three and a half years. When left the USS <em>Simpson</em>—when I deployed on to a NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] cruiser, during the [Global] War on Terrorism,<a title="">[3]</a> with the <em>Simpson</em> and then, um, from there, I went to the, uh, Naval Expeditionary Combat Command. I—I helped stand that up. It was a small staff when I got there. Probably 30-40 people, and, uh, we built up the expeditionary force and when I left we were a staff of 300, uh, plus sailors, and, um, from there, um, I went to Des Moines, Iowa, of all places, with the Navy. Um, I was a Senior Enlisted Advisor for the Navy Operations Force Center out in Des Moines, Iowa. While I was out there, I, um—I made Senior Chief at NACC, and when I was out there, um, I went to the Navy Senior Enlisted Academy and got, uh—and applied and got selected for a Command Senior Chief program, and so, uh, I was at a, uh—a Command Master Chief conference and my [inaudible] was there, and, uh, I got to talking to him, and—and, uh he told me that the, uh—that the Navy Operations Support Center here in Orlando had just, uh, received a Command Senior Chief billet[?], and, uh, asked me if I was interested in coming down here. So, uh, Aft—I thought about it, and I was like, <em>You know, I’m getting to the point where I might want to retire. </em>I figured that would be a great place to retire. So I started my career there and—and I thought it would be neat. If I do retire here, to end it here. So this is where I’m at now.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Of all your previous deployments and stations, which one to you is—was the most influential and significant? Which one means the most to you?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, probably the USS <em>Simpson</em>. Um, that was my first, um, real command. I was a new chief when I got there, and, um, I learned so much on that ship. I had some great people. I had a few people above me that I didn’t think was[sic] great, but still, um, I—I learned a lot of lessons there on how to treat people, on how not to, um, uh, what it takes to run a division on a ship, um, to be that leading chief.</p> <p>Um, a lot of that lessons learned on that stuff—on that ship, uh—experiences I—I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else, except for being at sea, you know? So, um, I’m very grateful that I, uh, chose to enter[?], and, um—and the lessons learned—you know—good and bad—that—that was just the biggest learning curve for me—was that 3 years, and, um, I was very fortunate to have a couple, um, of chiefs and senior chiefs I still talk to, to this day, that kind of helped mentor me. From, you know, being a new chief, and I feel when I left that command, I was a seasoned chief, and, um, you know, a lot of great, great chiefs helped me along, and—and we had some good officers that really, you know, helped me learn even more. I kind of thought I knew a lot, and then when I got there, I thought I was in over my head, but, um, it was just such a great experience and a learning experience [inaudible]. I’ll—I’ll look fondly on that command.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Where you ever in an active warzone?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, active warzone? No. Um, we did do, um, boardings, um, outside in the Mediterranean [Sea]. Um, the ships going to and from the Gulf. [inaudible] there’s, um—we did boardings—non-compliance boardings—but I was never in an active warzone though.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Could you talk about the boardings, or no?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, some—some of the boardings, um, [inaudible]—some of them—we did the same thing on—on, uh, my first ship, down off the coast of South America, as well. It’s just, uh, you know, um, looking for contraband. Uh, we go, uh, trying to make contact with the ships. If—if they’re will to stop, great, and let us board, great. If not, for the non-compliance ones, we kind of forced them to stop, and, um—boarding, and I was fortunate to be part of a boarding team on a couple of those, and, uh, whether they are compliant or not, boarding a ship is always nerve-racking, ‘cause you don’t know what to expect, and Of course, you’re looking for contraband and—and, um—and, uh, going through the ship is always kind of nerve-racking, ‘cause you, you know—you don’t know what—there’s so many places to hide on a ship, and, um—so it—it was—it was interesting, to say the least. Um, nerve-racking, but, um, fortunate enough, um, uh—the few, um, kind of situations that happened, I wasn’t involved in those. So I was—I was extremely fortunate, you know? So that’s about that. Nowadays, they don’t do that.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>You mentioned you kept in touch with one of your buddies from the NTC.</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Is there anybody else you kept in contact with from the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, I got a couple mentors. Uh, two—two of them have retired from the Navy, but I still keep in contact with them. I touch bases with them, um, if I got a situation I am in and I’m not sure how to handle that, or what to do. Or, uh, if I make a decision on what I’m going to do, I usually call them and run it by them. I—I kind of get their take, um,and—and I’ve made a couple of real good friends along the way that—that I keep in touch with. So I would say—and my dad gave me this advice when I joined the Navy—He told me, um, you know, “Mot everybody’s your friend. You’re going to make a lot of acquaintances, but your—your friends, you’ll keep in touch with.” And so, um, I would say, out of all the sailors I served with, probably about 4 or 5 I keep in touch with.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What values or characteristics of the Navy do you believe made an impression on your life?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Well, the, you know—our core values are honor, courage, and commitment, and, um, with honor, it’s just not, you know—I feel honored to wear the uniform, but, uh, it’s—it’s an honor to represent not only the United States, but all those sailors that have served before me, and, uh, especially those chiefs who, uh, have made the Navy strong. Because, you know the saying is “The chiefs are the backbone of the Navy.” And my ultimate goal in the Navy was to make chief, once I decided to make it a career, and obtaining that goal and being a part of the mess is, you know, the big honor, and I just want to live up to the standards that, you know, all the sailors before me have set, you know?</p> <p>Um, and another characteristic is—is courage, and courage doesn’t mean you’re not scared, you know? Um, being courageous is when you’re unsure, maybe a little scared, but you do—you do the job anyway, and—and being courageous is, you know, sometimes making an unpopular decision, you know to, uh—with some of my junior personnel, you know, I know the decision is not going to be popular—not going to like it, but you gotta make it and—and—and be committed to the—to the decision, and, you know, [inaudible] that goes along with commitment, you know? Um, Not only being the decision-maker, but as somebody making the decision, whether you like it or not, or agree with it or not.</p> <p>Um, we have this saying in the mess, you know: “Acceptance doesn’t mean agreement.” You don’t have to agree with it, but you’re committed. That’s the way we’re going, so let’s go and you drive your sailors to—to follow along. So, um, the values that the Navy hold dear—honor, courage, and commitment—that’s[sic] the ones I take on and try to live up to, and I’ll tell you this: not only in my professional life, but in my personal life as well. ‘cause I—I’m always mindful that my actions out in the civilian world, um, Can affect my professional world, as well, and I—I don’t want to do anything that would discredit, you know, the Navy, as well as discredit my family.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>So overall, what would you say is the most valuable lesson you learned from the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Wow. Um, you—it’s—it’s—I’ve changed so much in my way of thinking, in the Navy. Um, I think the most valuable lesson is being, uh, tolerant of, uh, different points of view, different, um, people, you know? Um, it’s okay to have your own opinion and to state your opinion and have your belief, as long as you’re willing to accept the fact that there’s[sic] people out there that’s[sic] gonna disagree with you and have a different point of view, and, um, that’s one thing [inaudible], uh—uh, where I grew up, um, I kinda had a mindset of a way things should be and my beliefs, but, um, sitting here 21 years later, I’m a totally different person. I think I’m more open and more, uh, subjective to—other people’s, um, either backgrounds or, you know, ways of life, and, you know, the way I look at it—I, you know—we’re all people. We all have a right to our own opinion, our own way of life, so as long as it doesn’t affect me directly, you know, I haven’t put much thought into it.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>You said when you returned back to Orlando, you didn’t recognize the base, so—or the area at all. So how would you say the NTC base or the Central Florida region changed since you left?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, from what I remember, um, there—there’s a few landmarks that are here that I remember going to, um, around the base. Church Street Station is still there. Um, there’s a couple of restaurants—still there, but the landscape has changed, you know, to being primarily housing now, and, um, I think the demographics of the population has changed too. Um, I think there’s more of a Hispanic culture here than I remember.</p> <p>Um, so, um—and this is the—since boot camp, you know, this is—the last six months is the first time I’ve really been here—living here, you know, not just kind of visiting to visit the theme parks and stuff like that. That’s totally different than actually being—excuse me—being a resident here. So, um, I think the demographics has[sic] changed and, you know, that whole area around Lake Baldwin now, you know, just seems to me to be all housing and stuff now, and, uh, there—there was a club—I think it was called Manatees—outside the gate there—that I was looking for to see if to see if it was still there, and, uh, it might be there, but I couldn’t remember my way around, because I didn’t recognize the area. Um, I remember that and, uh, there was a hotel in the area we use to stay at on the weekends, just to get away. It was the Colonial Plaza. I don’t know if it is there or not. Uh, I’ve [inaudible] —I’ve talked to my wife. I was like, you know, “I want to take some time and drive around see if we can find it,” or, you know—so—But, uh, yeah. It’s totally changed.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What do you think the lasting legacy of the NTC Orlando—of is—of the NTC Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>I would hope people remembered it was here, you know? And, um, I know the [Central Florida] Navy League has worked hard, uh, to get the—the Lone Sailor [Memorial Project] statue out in Baldwin Park, which, um, that would be a good reminder. Even talking with some of the younger sailors nowadays, uh, when I told them, “Hey. I went to boot camp in Orlando,” they didn’t even know, you know, that Orlando even existed as—as a RTC [Recruit Training Center] or that we had a base down here, Other than where we’re at now. Um, so I—I just hope people remember, you know, that we were here—that we were a big footprint here, at one time, and, uh, I think that Lone Sailor statue would be a lasting memorial, At least to all the sailors, you know, that[sic] served here, and at least we get some kind of recognition that we were here and did something here. So, um, sad that it’s gone, but it is what it is.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>What do you—what do you think former Navy personnel would like to see or be reminded of when they revisit the site?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Um, I think just having a statue that, you know—the Lone Sailor Statue just represents a—a lot to sailors, and, uh, seeing that there would be a, you know—hopefully, just a good reminder, uh, of the things that went on, you know, at RTC and NTC, and, uh,it’s funny when—when I got asked to do this—and looking through my book and thinking about, you know, um—you remember all the good times, you know? The bad times—you just forget—kinda forget them, unless somebody brings something up, but, uh, you remember the good times, and hopefully, having a memorial there, you know, when—when the sailors come back to visit and they see that, it will bring back the good memories of—of that, and the positives that they experienced there.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Before we finish I want you to fill in the—fil in the blank for me.</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>NTC Orlando means what to me.</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>[<em>sighs</em>] I tell you: NTC Orlando means a new beginning for me. Um, because I was there at, uh, RTC and NTC, where I got the first taste of the world and experience the world on my own, not in a family environment or setting, and, uh, I had to rely upon myself, you know, to get things done or to be more responsible. Um, I—I had to answer to a higher authority for my actions. So it was a total new beginning for me, and, um, looking back, I think I made the right choice for myself, ‘cause I couldn’t, um—I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else, and—and, um—and having that experience there and getting to experience life, uh, on my own being, able to make my own decisions and do things, you know, um—that’s, uh—that’s where it all started for me. Right there.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Is there anything I haven’t asked you about or anything else you would like to talk about, sir?</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>You know, I—I can’t think of anything. Um, not at the moment. No.</p> <p><strong>Joyner<br /></strong>Thank you, Senior Chief Etchison, for taking your time to conduct this interview for us. We appreciate your service and we look forward to—hopefully to this going forward to become part of the Lone Sailor Memorial Project.</p> <p><strong>Etchison<br /></strong>Uh, thank you for—for inviting me, and, uh, service is a pleasure. So it’s my pleasure to serve—serve the United States and to be able to serve its great people. So, um, I appreciate your “thank you,” but it—it’s—it’s a pleasure and it’s an honor to be able to do this. So, um, thank you for inviting me.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: 1993.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: 1993.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Correction: Global War on Terror (GWOT).</p> </div> </div> advanced training Anderson, Indiana Baldwin Park basic training Bill Clinton Blythe, William Jefferson III boot camp boot camps Central Florida Navy League Chad Eric Joyner Chad Etchison Colonial Plaza Command Master Chief Command Senior Chief Community Veterans History Project Conner contraband CVHP cycling Dam Neck, Virginia Des Moines, Iowa Electronics Technician School electronics technicians enlistment ET Fleet Combat Training Center Global War on Terror graduation GWOT Jacksonville Joint Service Commendation Medal Jonesboro, Georgia Lake Baldwin Lana Etchison Lone Sailor Memorial Project LSMP Manatees marching Mark Etchison Mayport McDonald's memorials military training NACC Naval Expeditionary Combat Command Operations Force Center Naval Station Mayport Naval Training Center Orlando Naval Training Center San Diego Navy Achievement Medal Navy Commendation Medal Navy League Navy Operational Support Center Navy Operations Force Center Navy Senior Enlisted Academy NECC NOSC NS Mayport NTC Orlando NTC San Diego Operation Active Endeavor orlando Presidential Service Badge rain parties Recruit Training Center Orlando recruits RTC Orlando sailors San Diego, California Secret Service Senior Chief Senior Chief Petty Officer Senior Enlisted Advisor The Grinder Tim Slewroo Tom Johnson U.S. Navy U.S. Secret Service United Service Organization USO USS Blue Jacket USS John A. Moore USS Simpson USS Wadsworth USSS veterans volleyball WHCA White House Communications Agency William Jefferson Blythe III William Jefferson Clinton 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 Vietnam War Collection Alternative Title Vietnam Collection Subject Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans--Florida Description The Vietnam War was a Cold War Era "military conflict." The war was originally waged between Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. The United States became involved as a preventive measure to combat communism. The date of the war has been disputed, but a study in 1998 by the Department of Defense definitively put the start of the Vietnam War as November 1, 1955. The first combat military troops 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade didn't arrive until 1965. With the arrival of the combat troops came the first traditional battles of combat fighting in the war. During the Vietnam War, not only did American military go into battle with and for South Vietnam, the military also trained members of South Vietnam to fight alongside during the war. Peace talks were attempted, with France moderating, beginning on May 10, 1968. These talks were unsuccessful and lasted over three years. The longest battle of the Vietnam War began on January 21, 1968 and didn't end until the U.S. reclaimed Route 9 on April 8, 1968, 77 days later. While the military conflict ended in April of 1975, it was a long process towards reunification and redevelopment as a country. The conflict left Vietnam in both political and economical ruins. Contributor <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Vietnam Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a><span>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/.</span> Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. "<a title="American Experience" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html" target="_blank">American Experience</a>." Public Broadcasting Company. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Kallina, Edmund Interviewee Hite, Charles Lewis Location UCF Research Parkway, Orlando, Florida Original Format 1 mini-DV audio/video recording Duration 57 minutes and 21 seconds Time Summary 0:25 Basic bio 0:50 Family 2:40 Enlistment 4:06 Basic training 7:25 Navigator training 11:25 Advanced training 14:15 Planes flown 16:15 Bliville 19:30 Simulations/alerts 21:00 Macabre sense of humor 23:00 Thailand 27:20 Cambodian planes landing at Thailand base 29:30 After Thailand—back to Bliville 30:20 Job promotion—to Louisiana (4/5 years) 33:00 2 years in Nebraska/ SAC HQ 36:00 7th Air Division in Germany 38:00 Travel in Europe 42:08 post-Vietnam morale Air Force 45:24 length in Germany 46:00 Return to Florida—flew around world still 49:52 General Schwarzkopf 51:00 General Hoar 52:28 Duties during Desert Storm 56:00 Working at UCF Bit Rate/Frequency 1197kbps 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 Charles Lewis Hite Alternative Title Oral History, Hite Subject Air Force Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Persian Gulf War, 1991 Veterans--Florida Operation Desert Storm, 1991 Description Oral History of Charles Lewis Hite's military service during the Vietnam War (1961-1975) and the Persian Gulf War (1991). Hite was born on March 23, 1947 in Centralia, Illinois. In 1972, he enlisted in the United States Air Force and trained at Blyheville Air Force Base in Blyheville, Arkansas. He served in Thailand during the Vietnam War and then returned back to Blyheville to work as First 2nd LT Radar Navigator. After being promoted to Standardization/Evaluation Radar Navigator, Hite was stationed in various locations: Barksdale Air Force Base near Bossier City, Louisiana; Offutt Air Force Base near Bellevue, Nebraska; Ramstein Air Force Base near Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany; and MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Florida. He also was assigned duties during Operation Desert Storm (1991). Throughout his service, Hite served in various units, including 97th Bomb Wine, 340th Bomb Squadron, 1st Combat Evaluation Group, HQ Strategic Air Command, 7th Air Division, and DET 1 8th Air Force (SAC) Central Command. He achieved the rank of Major and received both the Commendation Medal and the Meritorious Service Medal. Hite left the military on May 31, 1992 and began working at the University of Central Florida. This oral history interview was conducted by Edmund Kallina at the UCF Research Parkway in Orlando, Florida on October 12, 2012. The Vietnam War was a Cold War Era "military conflict". The war was originally waged between Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. The United States became involved as a preventive measure to combat communism. The official date of the military conflict is November 1, 1955 and ending in April 1975. The date of the war has been disputed, but a study in 1998 by the Department of Defense definitively put the start of the Vietnam War as November 1, 1955. The first combat military troops 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade didn't arrive until 1965. With the arrival of the combat troops came the first traditional battles of combat fighting in the war. During the Vietnam War, not only did American military go into battle with and for South Vietnam, the military also trained members of South Vietnam to fight alongside during the war. Peace talks were attempted, with France moderating, beginning on May 10, 1968. These talks were unsuccessful and lasted over three years. The longest battle of the Vietnam War began on January 21, 1968 and didn't end until the U.S. reclaimed Route 9 on April 8, 1968, seventy-seven days later. While the military conflict ended in 1975, it was a long process towards reunification and redevelopment as a country. The conflict left Vietnam in both political and economical ruins. While the U.S. military was fighting overseas, Many American citizens protested the war at home. Demonstrations took place across the country with the most famous one being at Kent State University in Ohio. While this is the most well known demonstration it was not the first. Americans questioned the U.S. involvement in the war throughout. Abstract Oral history interview of Charles Lewis Hite. Interview conducted by Edmund Kallina at UCF Research Parkway in Orlando, Florida. Table Of Contents 0:25 Basic bio 0:50 Family 2:40 Enlistment 4:06 Basic training 7:25 Navigator training 11:25 Advanced training 14:15 Planes flown 16:15 Bliville 19:30 Simulations/alerts 21:00 Macabre sense of humor 23:00 Thailand 27:20 Cambodian planes landing at Thailand base 29:30 After Thailand back to Bliville 30:20 Job promotion to Louisiana (4/5 years) 33:00 2 years in Nebraska/ SAC HQ 36:00 7th Air Division in Germany 38:00 Travel in Europe 42:08 post-Vietnam morale Air Force 45:24 length in Germany 46:00 Return to Florida flew around world still 49:52 General Schwarzkopf 51:00 General Hoar 52:28 Duties during Desert Storm 56:00 Working at UCF Creator Kallina, Edmund Source <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/VET/id/11" target="_blank">Hite, Charles Lewis</a>. Interviewed by Edmund Kallina. UCF Community Veterans History Project, D0010465. October 12, 2010. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Publisher <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries Date Created 2010-10-12 Date Copyrighted 2010-10-12 Contributor <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Conforms To Standards established by the Veterans History Project, Library of Congress, <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/">http://www.loc.gov/vets/</a>. Format video/mp4 Extent 493 MB Medium 57-minute and 21-second mini-DV audio/video recording Language eng Type Moving Image Spatial Coverage 38.529099, -89.131794 35.927425, -89.918346 15.411319, 101.070556 32.501863, -93.657139 41.133587, -95.917674 49.436721, 7.596048 27.849246, -82.521087 28.586371, -81.195931 Temporal Coverage 1947-03-23/2010-10-12 Accrual Method Deposit Rights Holder All rights are held by the respective holding institution. This material is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. For permission to reproduce and or for copyright information contact Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, (407) 823-2576. <a href="http://library.ucf.edu.specialcollections/">http://library.ucf.edu.specialcollections/</a>. Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Morris, Alisha Digital Collection <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalCollections/" target="_blank">UCF Digital Collections</a> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">University of Central Florida, Special Collections and University Archives</a> External Reference "<a title="American Experience" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html" target="_blank">American Experience</a>." Public Broadcasting Company. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html. Glasser, Jeffrey D. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32310932" target="_blank"><em>The Secret Vietnam War: The United States Air Force in Thailand, 1961-1975</em></a>. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland &amp; Co, 1995. Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. Rosenau, William. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50851067" target="_blank"><em>Special Operations Forces and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets Lessons from Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War</em></a>. Santa Monica, CA: Project Air Force/Rand, 2001. Matthews, Eamonn, Ben Loeterman, and Will Lyman. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/34145115" target="_blank"><em>The Gulf War</em></a>. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1996. Anderson, Michael G. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/27694401" target="_blank"><em>The Air Force Rapid Response Process: Streamlined Acquisition During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm: Project Air Force Analysis of the Air War in the Gulf</em></a>. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp, 1992. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/VET/id/11" target="_blank">Hite, Charles Lewis</a> Date Submitted 2011-05 Is Part Of <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/92" target="_blank">Vietnam War Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank">QuickTime</a>. Coverage Centralia, Illinois Blyheville, Arkansas Thailand Bossier City, Louisiana Bellevue, Nebraska Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany Tampa, Florida Orlando, Florida Audience Education Level SS.K.A.1.2; SS.K.A.2.4; SS.K.C.2.1; SS.1.A.1.1; SS.1.A.2.1; SS.1.A.2.2; SS.1.A.2.4; SS.1.C.3.2; SS.1.C.2.1; SS.1.C.2.2; SS.1.C.2.3; SS.1.C.2.4; SS.2.A.1.1; SS.2.C.2.2; SS.2.C.2.4; SS.2.C.2.5; SS.2.C.3.2; SS.3.A.1.1; SS.3.C.2.1; SS.4.A.1.1; SS.4.C.2.2; SS.4.C.2.3; SS.5.A.1.1; SS.5.C.2.5; SS.6.W.1.3; SS.7.C.2.2; SS.7.C.2.3; SS.7.C.4.1; SS.7.C.4.2; SS.8.A.1.1; SS.8.A.1.5; SS.8.A.1.7; SS.912.A.1.1; SS.912.A.1.6; SS.912.A.6.10; SS.912.A.6.13; SS.912.A.6.14; SSS.912.A.6.15; SS.912.A.7.10; SS.912.A.7.11; SS.912.A.7.17; SS.912.C.2.3; SS.912.C.4.2; SS.912.W.1.3; SS.912.W.1.6; SS.912.W.8.4; SS.912.W.8.10; SS.912.W.9.4; SS.912.W.9.7 Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Provenance Originally created by Edmund Kallina and owned by <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries. 1st Combat Evaluation Group 340th Bomb Squadron 7th Air Division 97th Bomb Wine 97th Bomb Wine- 340th Bomb Squadron Barksdale AFB Barksdale Air Force Base Blyheville AFB Blyheville Air Force Base Cambodia Commendation Medal Desert Storm DET 1 8th Air Force (SAC) Central Command Europe First 2nd LT Radar Navigator Germany Hite, Charles Lewis Hoar HQ Strategic Air Command Kallina, Edmund MacDill AFB MacDill Air Force Base Meritorious Service Medal Offutt AFB Offutt Air Force Base radar navigator Ramstein AFB Ramstein Air Force Base SAC HQ Schwarzkopf Standardization/Evaluation Radar Navigator Thailand U.S. Air Force UCF University of Central Florida https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/1e3d6a8903fd876f397fb8e874e95303.mp3 fcc6d527a46d56948c35456b7a21f329 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/d3db22861b20e15022993b037d91af11.pdf 7fa2aef6d827b83921203af64caa1714 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 Whittington, Charles Location <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><span>, Sanford, Florida</span> 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 Charles Whittington Alternative Title Oral History, Whittington Subject Sanford (Fla.) Celery Agriculture--Florida National Aeronautics and Space Administration (U.S.) Army Air Force Description An oral history of Charles Whittington b. 1938), conducted by Joseph Morris on November 18, 2011. Whittington was born in Sanford, Florida, in March of 1938. In the interview, he discusses his childhood in Sanford and Charleston, celery and gladiola farming, his father's service in the U.S. Navy, his mother and sister, how Sanford has changed over time, his employment history, his world travel experiences, his activities after retirement, his work with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),his wife and children, his service in the U.S. Army and in the U.S. Air Force, and the Apollo 8. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:56 Growing up in Sanford and Charleston 0:04:33 Father’s gas station 0:05:13 Celery and gladiola farming 0:09:55 Working on a farm 0:14:07 Father’s service in the Navy 0:19:29 Parents and sister 0:23:04 How Sanford has changed over time 0:25:44 Employment history 0:29:05 World travel experiences 0:34:06 Retirement 0:37:15 Working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 0:40:11 Wife and children 0:45:25 Serving in the Army and the Air Force 0:55:04 Apollo 8 0:57:01 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Charles Whittington. 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 Original 58-minute and 16-second oral history: Whittington, Charles Interviewed. by Joseph Morris. November 18, 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 Sinclair Oil Corporation Gas Station, Sanford, Florida Charleston Naval Shipyard, Charleston, South Carolina Sanford, Florida Anchorage, Alaska Creator Morris, Joseph Whittington, Charles Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-11-18 Date Modified 2014-10-10 Date Copyrighted 2011-11-18 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 451 MB 197 KB Medium 58-minute and 16-second audio recording 22-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Charles Whittington, and trasncribed by Savannah Vickers. 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 Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank"><em>A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</em></a>, 1975. Transcript <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>This is an interview with Charles Whittington. This interview is being conducted on the 18^th of November, 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 about where and when you were born?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yes, I was born in Seminole County, in Sanford, at the old Fernald-Laughton Sanford Hospital, and that was in March of 1938. The building is still standing, and the last time I was by there, it was used as a—I believe it was a halfway house of sorts. I’m not really sure, and I’m not well-informed on that, but that was my understanding. But it is still there. It’s across from the old Sanford library.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir, and can you describe the place where you grew up?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yes, my dad owned a Sinclair [Oil Corporation] gas station on the corner of [South] Park Avenue and [East] Second [Street], and we had a little home on Oak Avenue.</p> <p class="Body">When World War II broke out in 1942, my dad was offered a job as a machinist in the Navy shipyard<a title="">[1]</a> in Charleston, South Carolina. And we moved up there, and my dad worked in the division of the shipyard that later became the test bed for our first nuclear research into nuclear-powered ships. And it was highly classified and very structured, and he didn’t understand why at the time. and I didn’t either, until later, realized that no wonder was it top secret—I mean, because this was our first involvement in nuclear research for, you know, powering anything.</p> <p class="Body">And then, in the latter part of 1943, my dad had saved enough money to come back here and buy a farm. We bought a little 13-acre farm on Richmond Avenue, and moved down there. And my dad—it was sort of a lifelong dream for him—went into farming. And at that time, primarily we grew celery, and corn and cabbage, other crops that could be shipped up north.</p> <p class="Body">But the days of the small farmer in Seminole County, toward the end of that decade—the end of the ‘40s—was starting pretty rapidly to come to an end. The soil was worn out, and much of the farming had moved to the Everglades, to the area around Lake Okeechobee. And my dad hung on, and tried to make it, and he finally realized that we were going under, and this just wasn’t going to do it for us. And we sold the farm, and moved to Pasco County, down near Tampa, and he got back into the poultry industry there and did, you know, quite well.</p> <p class="Body">But I hated to leave. I loved Sanford. I loved being raised on a small farm, and it was a big disappointment for me to leave Sanford, especially in my sophomore year in high school. The two schools were just as, you know, much different as night and day—the high school here and the high school down there. The one down there wouldn’t come anywhere near the quality of what we had here in Sanford, and I missed that very much. And I come back to Seminole County as often as I can, and that’s why I’m here today, for this interview and also to meet with some former classmates. And I still feel like this is my hometown, but it’s also, if anyone asks me where I’m from it’s always Sanford, not Zephyrhills.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And you said your dad, prior to World War II, he ran or owned a...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>A Sinclair gas station.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>A gas station. What happened to that when he moved to South Carolina for the machinist job?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay. He sold it to someone else, and the station now is the office of Edward Jones Investment Agency, and Bill Kirchhoff had that, and I believe he has been here and talked to you folks. And he and I are good friends. Matter of fact, I’ve got a tractor radiator cap for him. I’ve got to get to him after our interview.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>But his dad was involved in the overall agricultural structure of Seminole County during the time that we had the farm on Richmond Avenue. He raised gladiolas in Florida and also in New York, and I think he even had some farms on the West Coast, and he would, you know, follow seasons. And also there was a problem with a little microbe in the soil here called a “nematode” that was not present in the soil of New York, because, you know, the soil freezes up there in the winter and kills these things. And here it doesn’t freeze, and these little guys do pretty well, and they really wreak havoc on both celery plants and gladiola bulbs.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>These were nematodes, you said?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Nematodes. Right. It’s a little microbe, and they attack the roots of the young plants.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How did you counter those when you were farming?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>You would flood the area. You would dam in a little area of the farm that would be the area for the seed beds, where the young celery plants were growing, and flood it for about two and a half weeks. And just keep, you know, a couple inches of water on it, with the well running in there, you know, all the time, and keep the water in there for about two and a half weeks. And that would kill the nematodes in this area, and you would raise your young celery plants in seed beds in this area. And once the plants caught up to, you know, a height of like three or four inches, they could deal with these little bugs. But it was the little bitty plants that they would go after.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And when they were the little bitty plants, that’s when you flooded, or did you flood and then plant?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>No. You flooded, then planted.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>You would flood, drain it, and form the seed beds, and plant those. And I’ve got pictures I’ll send you too. You had to put muslin covers over the seed beds, because when the plants first came up, they were very sensitive to sun. So you had to keep them covered during the hot part of the day, and in the afternoon you would open the side of the cover, along all the way, halfway through the field, and let air, fresh air and sunlight in, with the sun over here, and in the morning, you would open, you know, the back side, other side, west side, and get air and sunlight in there. But not direct sunlight, because they were very, very—a celery plant is a very tender little guy when it’s, you know, when it’s an inch high.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. And the sun would just be too strong for it early on?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>If you just opened it up, they couldn’t handle it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did you have to do that when they, when the little celery grew up, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>No. Once the celery got to a height of maybe two or three inches, then you could take the cover off, and it was okay then. But it was just when they were first starting, first coming up, that they were so sensitive to the sun.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. What other kinds of problems did you have while raising celery, other than the sunlight, and other than the microbes? Was there any other kind of difficulty that you found out about?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Well, the main difficulty would be weather during the, you know, winter months, when you planted celery—typically wasn’t an issue. But the real issue was the market price of the celery when you harvested it. You know, if it was good, why, you did okay. And if it was bad, you know, it was just another bad year.  </p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>What affected these—what would change from year to year that would make it a good year or a bad year for selling celery?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Well, just the market price in New York. That was where we shipped. We shipped from the Sanford [State] Farmers’ Market, usually to New York and that—you know, the New England area. And it was just the price of celery up there that, you know, was whether you made it that year or not. And we had too many of the had-not years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. And what was your involvement? Like how old were you when you moved to the farm? And what was your involvement while you lived there?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Well, I was five years old when we moved there, and we started farming. We started farming with a pair of mules. [<em>laughs</em>] Now this is how far back it goes. We used mules for plowing and discing and so forth.</p> <p class="Body">And after this, we bought a Model F Fordson tractor. I’ve got a picture of this, and there are several online now. And my dad would let me drive it, but it was so hard to steer, until I was about 12 years old, I could not turn it around at the end of the row. It took that much power to turn the steering wheel. And also, I didn’t weigh enough to push the clutch in. The clutch was the lever that stuck out of the transfer case, and you had to press down on it, and I could stand on it, and it wouldn’t go anywhere. [<em>laughs</em>] So, obviously, I couldn’t operate the Fordson by myself.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>We later got rid of that and got a Model 8N Ford, and that’s the radiator cap for the one I have in my car, and it was, you know, had power steering and the hydraulic lift in the back, and so forth. And so, I did a lot of plowing, and discing, and running the tractor. That was, you know—10 years on, I did a lot of it. That was my part of helping.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>No planting or harvesting necessarily?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>No. We—for harvesting the celery crops, we usually used crews of labor that we would hire locally. And they would plant the celery, and also cabbage or couple other plants that required—you know, physical planting—and then they would also do the harvesting and packing. And you contacted a crew leader, a team leader, and contracted with him to do the harvesting in your field. And we were just responsible really for, you know, making certain that the celery—if it was celery, or whatever the crop—was sprayed, in case there was any kind of a blight or a fungus, or some sort of an insect problem, that we sprayed it with the proper spray, and that we fertilized it, and also cultivated the rows to keep the weeds down, and it was a very labor-intensive occupation.</p> <p class="Body">And I was very upset with my dad, especially in the later years, because he could’ve stayed on forever. He already had his foot in the door in the nuclear—the government nuclear involvement in the Military, and he didn’t even know it. I mean, he knew he was under a very tight security environment, but he didn’t know why. But he was an excellent machinist. He was moved up shop chief in no time at all, making good money, but his dream was always to come back to Sanford and own a farm. And, I mean, it was quite obvious by the end of, you know, the ‘40s, that the farming here was in trouble. And, you know, in later years, I thought, “Why couldn’t you have just stayed in Charleston with the Navy?” And, you know, gotten a civil service retirement. And we wouldn’t have, you know, been in the situation that we found ourselves in here. Although, like I say, I do really love Sanford, and loved growing up here.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. A little bit of a catch-22.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yeah. That’s a very good comparison there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Now, you said you moved here—you moved to Sanford when you were five.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How long was your dad a machinist for the Navy? Because I know when he moved up to South Carolina, you must have been only a couple years old.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Right. Well, I was born in ’38, and we moved up there in ’42.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>And he worked for about 18 months, and put everything aside. And that was enough to buy that farm, and so we came back. And that—and plus he had sold the gas station by this time, and he had some income from that, and so he put it all in that farm and getting some equipment, and…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Mules.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yeah. Mules. He had mules, and then the Fordson and then the Model 8N Ford, which I’m trying to find—got a couple leads on it—but I’d like to learn how to get some pictures of it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. So I’m kind of surprised, because when you moved to Sanford, World War II was still going on.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And they didn’t have a problem, coming from a very heavily secured area, and during World War II, an able-bodied man—I’m surprised they just—that he was able to leave his job and become a farmer.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>That’s an excellent point, and I would be surprised at it except that farming was a fairly high-priority occupation, as far as the government was concerned, because you were feeding, you know, you were feeding the population, and providing some foods that could be used in preparation of foods for the—you know, our military. So that was effective. We came back here, and we’re going into farming wasn’t a problem. And he had—my dad had served in World War I in France.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>And he was past the draft age. So that was something else too. I mean, he was too old for, you know, for required military service.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. And what was the cap at this time for age? The age cap before you could no longer be drafted?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Joe, I don’t remember exactly. I think somewhere in the 30s—like 35?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>I believe that was it. I’ll do some checking, get back to you on that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>All right. Thank you, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>I believe that was in, you know, mid-30s.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>I was a little surprised they’d let such an excellent machinist, you know, leave so easily.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Well…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Unless they put up a fight trying to entice him and keep him to stay. But it just seemed, during World War II, to let him go to farming—I mean, maybe they didn’t have any say in the matter, as well. That’s just where my question was going.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Right. And I really wish that, of the many things you want to go back and ask your parents, something I’d really like to talk to my dad about is why you left. I mean, was farming that important to you, that you would leave, you know, a high-tech, high-paying, secure job like that, and go back into something that, you know, almost going in it was a known gamble, because there was problems with weather, insects, and, you know, always the market fluctuations?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did he like his career as a machinist?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yes. He did. I mean, he liked that very much, but it didn’t have the pull that, you know, being his own boss in farming did.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I guess maybe it could have been just his own culture growing up, attached significance to farming and independence.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Right. Well, he was raised on a farm in North Carolina.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>So, you know, that was his—where his roots were. He wanted to get back into it down here. And, of course, you know, in the ‘30s, Sanford couldn’t produce enough celery. I mean, it was the celery capital of the world.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>And some of that aura sort of hung over for quite some time, that, you know— “Oh, get a farm and get celery growing. You’ll get rich.” Well, that didn’t always work out that way.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Shoot.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>But, anyway, that was…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How long did your family own the farm?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>We sold the farm in 1950, and he leased another farm, and we stayed on ‘til 1953, and at Christmas that year, my sophomore year in high school, we left and went to Zephyrhills.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>So how long did you live, then, in Sanford, from the first farm up until that, 1953?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay. I was born here, and we lived here until we left in 1942, and then—the early part of 1942—and then toward the latter part of 1943, we came back. So I was only gone, like 18 months.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>And then we stayed here until 1953, and I was a sophomore in high school at that time.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. Then, I know we talked a little bit about your father. Could you tell me more about your parents and any kind of siblings?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>I had one sister that was 17 years older than I was, and she graduated from Florida State [University], which was Florida [State] College for Women back then, with a degree in education. And she went to Melbourne and got a teaching job there, and when World War II started, the City of Melbourne offered her the directorship of the USO that they’d built in Melbourne for the, mainly the sailors, because there’s a lot of Navy and Coast Guard. You know, all these war activities at that time in that area. And so, Melbourne built a USO and offered my sister a job to run that, and she took it and did that until the war ended.</p> <p class="Body">And my dad had a couple years of mechanical engineering at NC [North Carolina] State [University], and that’s why he did well at Charleston, because he had that—already had some college training in, you know, the math end of mechanical engineering. Well, it’s primarily math. But, the, you know, his roots in North Carolina—being raised on a small farm—just were too strong, and he wanted to go back to it. Plus, he just—he had the problem that a lot of folks have of not wanting to work for somebody else. That’s why he ran the gas station is because, you know, he was his own boss there, and, you know, he could hire somebody else to help him, but he didn’t report to anybody else. He was his own station, and he ran it the way he wanted to.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. And what about your mother, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>My mother helped my dad a lot. I mean, farming was sort of a family thing that you got into, because, I mean, there was just so much work to be done, that my mother frequently would help, not only, you know, taking care of running the home, but she would actually physically help with some of the labor on the farm itself. And I didn’t like that. It just seemed wrong that a woman should be, you know, having to make ends meet, to have to work, you know, on the farm. Even though it was not really heavy labor work. It was the fact that she still had to chip in and help us to make it. That bothered me. But she did, and never complained about it. But it was, you know—it was something that many families here did. The whole family was involved in farming. And I didn’t mind, you know, running the tractor at all. I liked it. I mean, that was [<em>laughs</em>]—especially the Ford that I could handle, not the big Ford, but the little one that was newer.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, sir, how has Sanford changed over the years, from…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Sorry?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How has Sanford changed over the years?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>How’s it changed?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>From when you grew up to how it is now, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Oh, okay. Well, the change that I noticed when I first came back was the decline of the downtown area, which is so typical of many small towns. The shopping moves out to shopping centers in the suburbs, and that has happened to me—that Downtown Sanford’s the perfect example of it. Because we had, downtown, we had a Firestone store and a JCPenney, and Lerner Clothing Store, and a McCrory’s Five and Dime [Store]—I can’t think of—two hardware stores, some regional area chain department stores, and two banks. And it was just, you know, it was a very functional little downtown area.</p> <p class="Body">And you could see that starting to go. You know, stores would close and be empty, and then somebody else would try something else in it. It wouldn’t make it. Now, it’s a lot of antique shops down there, and that’s about it. I mean, that’s that whole main street, is antique shops. And I didn’t like to see that. The old telephone company was over the JCPenney store. There was an old manual switchboard with operators on the second floor of the JCPenney building, and then there was the Thudson[?] Drugstore on one corner, and the Roman Anderson[?] Drugstore on the other. There were no Target or pharmacy or CVS, any of those. You know, there were none of the chain stores. The Eckerd chain was the first one down here—Eckerd and Walgreens. But, you know, during my growing up years, those two were places that you hung out, and you could get a hamburger and a malt, or, you know, whatever. And, also, there was a pharmacy there. And I hated to see those go, because that was, you know, that was just a very active part of Sanford.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And where have you lived over the course of your life?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Well, after I got discharged from the hospital following that jet accident in the Air Force, I immediately went right back to the Cape [Canaveral] and applied to NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] and got on. This was during the Gemini program.<a title="">[2]</a> I got on at the flight simulator over at the Cape. And I worked the NASA contracts. I was at Houston[, Texas] twice. I was in Ecuador for one time, and then a tracking station in the Smokey Mountains, and was there through, well, after the end of the Skylab program. When that ended, and the shuttle program wasn’t yet, you know—we’d gone to the Moon and done that thing with the Apollo series, and the shuttles weren’t flying it, so there was a massive layoff. I got caught in that.</p> <p class="Body">And I got into the telecom industry, and followed that all over the country as a contractor. And I found that I could—of course, you weren’t building any pension or retirement—but I found that I could make more money than a company employee. I could make more money as a contractor if I was willing to move around. And you just had to discipline yourself, and put aside what otherwise would have been your retirement from the company. And I did that and did all right. And I liked to travel. But I ended up in an ISP [Internet service provider] Internet hosting outfit in Seattle[, Washington], and was doing that when I retired in 2001. You know, the travel and, you know, the change, the challenges of new jobs, and being able to go to a new area and move into the new company and a new job—that part of moving around was attractive to me.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>What kind of places did you move, sir? For example?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay. I was in San Francisco[, California], and was there during the earthquake, and was in Los Angeles[, California], and then in the Seattle area for about 10 years. and then, prior to that, I had moved around just for, like, a few months at a time, in various places all over the U.S.—Indianapolis[, Indiana] and Chicago, Illinois]—you know, for like maybe six weeks or two months at a time on just a contract job. And, it was interesting, but I was single then, and just pull up and move without any real concern. It was okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>You said you liked to travel, sir. Have you ever traveled outside of the country? Or—vacation travel?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yes. Yes. I have. I’ve traveled to, well, the South America travel was mainly as a function of the Military and NASA time. But I’ve traveled to England, and done the Hawaiian Islands, was in Israel in Tel Aviv for five weeks for a company school. And that was an eye-opener. That really was. I mean, I got a good look at the Holy Land. It was [<em>laughs</em>]—it was a lot different than I expected. It really was.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How so, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Well, those people have got an unreal—I’m talking about the Israelis—have got an unreal work ethic. I mean, if they are asked to work 24 hours a day, and there’s a need for it, they’ll do it, and no griping. You don’t find that very much in the U.S.</p> <p class="Body">I mean, they are very, very much—uh, I can’t really express myself here—loyal to Israel, and to their faith, and to the country. I mean, just, you know, they’ve got a country, and they’re going to hang onto it now. And the [<em>laughs</em>], the guys around them had better not mess with them. I can say that from being there, and being in the technology. I know what they’ve got. And they can—the guys around them can end up a big smoking hole in the ground over there, if, you know, they push Israel too hard.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>All right, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington</strong>They might hurt Israel too, but they’ll come out the losers.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And have you travelled anywhere else, sir, for work or vacation? You said South America. What countries in South America?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay. I’ve been over a good bit of England, and I was in Alaska, and was in the Army up there. I liked that, but I’ve been back just as a tourist with my wife, and took my in-laws up there. And the Hawaiian Islands several times. I’ve not done China. I’d like to see China. I really would. And that’s kind of the feeling I got, because there was a contract. The Chinese were going to completely replace their aging landline system with a…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Towers?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>With a tower network.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yeah. With towers, and cell phones. And several different companies had some pretty good contracts over there, if you’d go and stay for as long as you could take it. But, some of the places I heard about, you know, they were all right, and some were pretty Spartan—I mean, food and accommodations. And you having been there, you probably would validate some of that. I don’t know.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Some of it, sir. When was this going on? When were these contracts for landlines or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay. The contracts for China were, like, in the mid-‘90s.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>There was some openings there, and that kind of moved around. It would change a lot, and I never could get somebody to, you know, sit down with me and say, “Okay,” you know, “here’s what we can offer you, and here’s when you leave.” And I never was able to find it at that point. Perhaps it’s a good thing. But anyway, I’ve not been there. I’ve met a good friend my wife worked with in San Francisco and Seattle that is from Ethiopia—not Ethiopia. [<em>sighs</em>] Can’t say it. Starts with “E,” and it’s part of the Soviet Union. Oh, fiddle.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Is this in Africa or Asia?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>No, it’s in…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, is it Estonia?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yeah. Estonia. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>I couldn’t say it. And he’s gone back to Russia several times, and the pictures and so forth. And the stories I got from when I would talk to him afterwards, I don’t really have any desire to travel in Russia. And that’s not one of the things I want to do. I want to do Europe first, and really work it over really good, and Hong Kong and Japan. Those are ones that I really wanna [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>They’re both very nice. Sir, are you still working right now?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>No. I’m retired now.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. How long have you been retired, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>I retired in 2001.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. And what have you been doing to, you know, kill your time since then, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay. I’m very much into researching my ancestry—into genealogy. I’ve got a solid trace back to, now, I don’t if you’ve ever heard of this, the story of Dick Woodington and his cat.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>No, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>But this was a guy who was Lord Mayor of London four different times. And anyway, he was a far-distant cousin, and I’ve gone 200 years past him, with a solid trace back, and that was a lot of fun. And I think I’ve got my own family tree built now. I’m working my wife’s, and just anybody else that pops up. I thought, “Well, let’s just see what,” you know, “theirs looks like.” That’s a lot of fun.</p> <p class="Body">I’ve been in ham radio for, since, well, it was 11 years old, and that technology keeps advancing. I mean, we were digital before digital phones were, you know, the thing. We were bouncing, you know, signals off the Moon, communicating that way. We’ve got a whole bunch of satellites up. Not our satellites, but we’ve got ham radio, we would piggyback on a lot of satellites that are up there. So you can send up with a little handheld and talk to somebody on the other side of the earth. And that, to me, is fascinating. So that’s been something that’s kept me really busy with my time—is ham radio.</p> <p class="Body">And my wife and I like to travel, and, you know, if we get a few days that we can see we can get away to do something, we get in the car and go. And that’s, you know—we had a great big map when we were in California, a huge, plasticized, ceiling-to-floor map of the whole state. And when I was there, I was able to take off, you know, and be gone for a week at a time, with no charge against any vacation time, because I was on-duty 7 by 24 out there. They didn’t require that much support, but I had to be there. So if I wanted to leave, they’d fly one of the managers out there to watch my equipment, because it was a little vacation for him to San Francisco, and we’d take off. And we went to little towns that we’d just find this map and say, “Let’s go there this weekend.” And we’d go to little towns in California that the average Californian had never heard of, and go spend the night, or sometimes not spend the night. Just go, come back. The travel was a big thing out there, especially in the mountains. Of course, California’s got a lot of them, and that was an interesting thing.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>I was involved in the Voyager aircraft project that flew around the world, non-refueled, nonstop. It was the bird [Burt] Rutan designed. Canard, weird-looking airplane. And I worked on that for about two and a half months, or two and a half years, as a volunteer on the staff for the world-record flight, and they wanted me for my NASA background, because I knew how to solder without putting a lot of weight in the airplane and solder. Because they proved that if you improperly—if the crews that built the big Saturn [inaudible] spacecraft that we used to go to the Moon—they used too much solder—you could end up with five tons of solder in the spacecraft, that it would never get off the pad. And, so there’s a very finite point in soldering where you can, you have just barely enough but not too much solder, and I had instructors for hand-soldering for, you know, air space flight hardware. And the Voyager crew wanted me for that reason, because I could keep the weight down. We put something in the plane in the wiring—in the way it’s hooked up.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And when’s this again, sir? Like, can you give me a time frame?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>This was from, like, ’84 through, the plane flew in ’87. It was those years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /> </strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>And they were up for just under 10 days, but they flew all the way around, you know, nonstop, from Edwards Air Force Base, back to Edwards Air Force Base, in California, nonstop and non-refueled.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did you enjoy working for NASA and with NASA projects?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was very much into that, and I also enjoyed the work when I was assigned to Patrick [Air Force Base] over at the Cape, because we were supporting the NASA effort, and we were right on the cutting-edge of everything there. And that was extremely, extremely fascinating and challenging. And it was the kind of a job you’d go into early, not to be on overtime—‘cause you couldn’t just go clock in arbitrarily—but just to be part of it. And I worked the midnight shift, and a lot of times I’d still be over there at noon just hanging around, watching stuff. You know, just to be part of it, and, you know, you’d realize, “Hey, I’ve got to go home and get some sleep.” And sometimes they’d run you out, when there were too many of us hanging around, but it was extremely fascinating.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And, sir, you mentioned your wife. How long have you been married, and who is she? Where did you meet her?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay. My first wife I met here locally. She was from Plant City, and we were married 16 years, and got a divorce. I was divorced 12 years, and I met my second wife in Zephyrhills, and she was with a company in California that provided mortgage insurance—was part of this thing. It kept the housing bubble sort of going, because it allowed you to buy a home with mortgage insurance instead of a much larger down payment. And it was a good concept. There was nothing under-handed about it. But anyway, she had 20 years with them, and she was in charge of a team that would go to the various offices around the country and underwrite, you know, maybe 500 loans at one time. They’d be there a week, and as such, you know, they flew constantly, and we always had a whole stack of frequent flyer tickets on the dresser. And we flew to England, to Ecuador, to Hawaii, to Alaska twice, on frequent flyer passes [<em>laughs</em>]. And took her folks to Alaska. And she enjoyed her work and enjoyed the travel, and I enjoyed being able to grab those tickets and say, “Let’s go to jolly old England.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>That must have been very convenient.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>It was.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And do you have any children, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yes. I do. I have a daughter and two boys. And my daughter lives in Brooksville, and the boys are in the Atlanta[, Georgia] area.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>What are their names and ages, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay. My daughter is 46 now, and the oldest boy is 44, and the youngest one is 37. So they’re getting up there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Are they all from the first marriage?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>All from the first marriage. Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And, okay. Are they doing anything similar to what you did?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>No. My daughter worked as a—she did hematology studies for Smith Klein Beacham in veterinary medicine. And I thought she was going to stay with it, because it was, you know, an excellent field, and she got out, and got into, of all things, running a business, and she’s got a fairly large one. But have you noticed on the freeways, you’ll see a large load being hauled on the freeway, and there’s a truck ahead of it with a flashing light?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Mm-hm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Called a pilot car?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Well, she has a pilot car operation in Brooksville, and she’s the biggest company east of the Mississippi. And she covers the whole country, because she’s got contract drivers for her all over the country. That one driver can take the load from here to there, and then somebody else picks it up and goes on. And she even had a contract with NASA to escort those solid rocket boosters from the West Coast to the Cape. [<em>laughs</em>] And, you know, this was—she said, “Well, Dad will be proud of this.” And I was. And she asked—they would always—when they would ship these boosters back, they would send two engineers from the plant with them, because they were very critical insofar as temperature and pressures and so forth went, even though they were solid fuel. And one of the engineers told her one time, he said, “If you see smoke coming out of the casing for one of those boosters, run.” And she said, “Right, sir! But let me ask a question: which way?” [<em>laughs</em>] And I thought her sarcastic humor was a little bit funny, because, really, which way is it gonna go if it pops, you know? But, anyway, she does that.</p> <p class="Body">And the oldest boy, regrettably, had a stroke a couple years ago, and his, you know—he won’t be working anymore. And the young one works for a granite quarry in Atlanta—the north side of Atlanta—and is driving a truck, a dump truck. [<em>laughs</em>] So…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Very eclectic.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yeah. But he’s still—even in this economy, he’s still staying employed. So, you know, more power to him. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Definitely, sir. Could you tell us a little about your military experience?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Military experience. The first one—I was in the Army, and they sent me to Indianapolis for court reporter training, and I thought, “Wow,” you know, “A court reporter!” And after four months there, learning to transcribe, you know, court proceedings, they sent three of us to Alaska, and we got up there, and they had civil service court reporters and no need for us. So they assigned me to the Army dock in Downtown Anchorage[, Alaska], and it was one of those dream tours that you get one of in the service. There were seven of us assigned there. There was a captain, and two NCOs [non-commissioner officer], and the rest of us were enlisted.</p> <p class="Body">And during the summer months, when the port was open and—you know, real busy, you’d work sometimes 36 hours straight, and during the winter months, when it was froze up and closed, you’d pull secure watch for 24 hours and, you know, you were off 48. Well, it wasn’t missile science for us to get together and say, “Hey guys, let’s pull it for a week straight and take two weeks off.” [<em>laughs</em>] So I lived to ski though. I did. I loved skiing, and during winter months, you know, I’d work my week and then that was it. They wouldn’t see me again until two weeks’ time went by.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>You would have to be awake for a week straight, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Oh, you wouldn’t have to be awake. You’d just have to be on-duty there. The place was closed up and frozen over really. And you just had to be there and answer the phone. That’s all.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>And also pull fire watch, and whatever.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>No. I understand.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>But you didn’t do anything. There were only two TV stations in Anchorage at that time. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Got a lot of reading done, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Yeah. You did a lot of reading.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Caught up on world events?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] But anyway, I should have stayed in. I mean, I was—I made E[nlisted Rank]-4 after 18 months. and I had my private license at that time, and if you had any college at all—I had one year at Southern—Florida Southern [College]—you could apply for the warrant officer program, go to Fort Rucker, Alabama, and get helicopter training. And I always wanted a rotary wing rating. I mean, I wanted a chopper rating. But some little voice said, “Don’t do it.” Because if I had, I’d have been one of the first Huey pilots in [the] Vietnam [War].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>One of the first, ‘cause this was in 1959, and I would have gotten through warrant officer school and flight training by about 1961, and Vietnam was just starting to stir about then. And a good friend from high school here was the first commissioned officer killed in Vietnam, Terry Cordell. First one killed over there. And I knew Terry. He was our football captain, and he was a senior, and I was a freshman. Just a real nice guy. But flying an observation plane, got shot down. That was the end of Terry.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And then you got out of the Army. What after that, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Went out of the Army in 1959, and enlisted in the Air Force in ’62, and was in there until July ’64, when I got the medical discharge. And I was actually [<em>laughs</em>] —I don’t even like to tell people about it, but in—when I saw the end of the NASA thing coming, the Army had a program at that time called “Stripes for Skills,” and they offered me an E-5 and choice of assignment, which I took Denver, Colorado—but based on my NASA background. They wanted somebody that had some satellite experience, and so the deal was that I go through a little three-week refresher basic, and then would be assigned to Denver, Colorado, as an E-5. And they enlisted my wife at the same time. This was my first wife. She had court reporter experience, and they would put her through the same program, and she would have to go through the full wide basic, but they would assign us to both to go to the same base, and as much as they could, you know, in the military, would keep us together.</p> <p class="Body">But at that time, I’d had a medical discharge, I had three kids, I was overage, I had all kind of disqualifiers. And a retired general and old-timer [inaudible] there where I was working for NASA, said, “Go to the Pentagon.” And, like a dummy, I climbed in the car, and we headed off to the Pentagon, and got there at eight o’clock in the morning, and got in with the crowd that, you know, was going into work, and I fell in with this bird colonel, and he said, “Where are you going?” And I said, “Well, I need to see the Army G2.” And he says, “Oh, yeah?” [<em>laughs</em>] He couldn’t believe this—me and my wife and three kids. I mean, it blew him away so badly, that he took us and signed us in, and he says, “Stay right here.” And finally, somebody from that office came down, and saw all of us kind of sitting there, and he said, “What do you want?” I said, “I want a waiver for the disqualifiers that are keeping me out of the Minuteman program.” And I talked to the guy for about an hour, and I’ve got the letter that waives my disqualifications to go back in the Army. [<em>laughs</em>] You know, this was after a medical discharge, three kids, and overage.</p> <p class="Body">But anyway, I went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, went through this little basic training, which was kind of fun—learning the new weapons and new techniques and stuff. And then, everybody else left, and no assignment. Another guy and I were by ourselves in the outfit, and just the cadre people were still there, and finally, they came through and they said, “We hate to admit it, but the Army has enlisted about 10 people in that career field for every slot we have.” And he said—this was the [inaudible]—said, “We can’t offer you Denver, Colorado.” Or Fort—can’t think of the base there now—but he said, “We can offer you Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and E-3, and no concurrent assignment with your wife.” And I said, “Or what else?” And he said, “Or a discharge.” And I said, “Let’s go with plan B.” [<em>laughs</em>] So, I mean, I had a very short second enlistment in the Army.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>After all that trouble.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>After all that trouble, you know.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Shoot.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>But I didn’t really like the changes I’d seen in the Army either, at that time. I just don’t know. It just—there was a change in discipline, and attitudes, and stuff, that I would have had trouble with, because of coming from the Army of the late ‘50s to the Army of the mid-‘70s. And, I mean, there were guys, even in the training barracks, sitting in the dark smoking pot, and it was—I mean, I’m not that much against pot, but it was against Army regulations and against common sense. And to think like that, I was just this lad, and it didn’t work out, because I’m sure that would have gotten me in trouble, complaining about it—those kind of issues later on. So it’s just as well that I didn’t end up in that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And was that the end of your military experience then?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>That was the end of it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. Are there any historical events that come to mind, over the course of your entire life, sir? Like anything in your life that you felt like stands out or was, you know—that just changed your world, I guess I could say?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Well, being on the biomed[ical] council at Houston for the flight of the Apollo 8, the slingshot flight around the Moon, that to me was, it was just sort of a highlight in my life, because I was part of something that it was a first for us, for the U.S., that we were going to the Moon, and I’ll be in a small part. I was part of it. And I was just so impressed with the guys in the spacecraft. I was watching all their, you know—their biomedical functions, and I had no medical training at all. I was there being able to feed the biomed data that was being stripped out of the calorimetry to anyone in mission control that needed it for any reason. All they did was call me and say, “Give me biomed.” And I could patch that data to them, and I had to keep the equipment that stripped it out of the calorimetry downstream, had to keep that up and running, and it was real fussy stuff, because it was built very hurriedly. But, I was watching all of their, you know, their vital signs, and Frank Borman—Colonel Frank Borman—the mission commander’s pulse at T-2 was 80, and mine was way over 100. I mean, I was wound up. We’re going to the Moon! And, here he’s up there, “Okay, let’s—gonna go?” You know. And I was—I thought, <em>Wow. The ultimate test pilot</em>. You know, the thing could blast into a million pieces. You know, he was ready to take a chance on it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. That’s interesting.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>That was, that’s sort of a highlight, and the time in Israel was, that too was a definite attitude-adjuster for me because, you know, seeing the way those people live, the way they felt about their country, and their faith and everything, it just—and I felt that every American Jew, really—they can’t now, because of the mess over there—but I felt that back then, they should spend some time in the Holy Land and see, you know, where they came from, and get an experience with the people who still lived there. The attitudes over here are a lot more lax and whatever than they are in Israel.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Definitely, sir. Is there anything you’d like to discuss that we haven’t covered?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>That’s about it. It’s been a real pleasure discussing this with you.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Thank you, sir. It’s been a pleasure.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>And, you know, if you can send me a CD or something, I’d love to have it for the record.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I will definitely do that, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Whittington<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Charleston Naval Shipyard.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Project Gemini.</p> </div> </div> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/1e3d6a8903fd876f397fb8e874e95303.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of Charles Whittington</a> 2nd Street agriculture Apollo 8 Army Bill Kirchhoff celery Charles Whittington Charleston Naval Shipyard Charleston, South Carolina court reports Dick Woodington Downtown Sanford E-4 E-5 Enlisted Rank 4 Enlisted Rank 5 farmers farming farms Frank Borman gas stations genealogy gladiolas ham radios Historical Society of Central Florida Israel Israelis Jewish Americans Jews Joseph Morris laborers Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project machinists Model 8N Ford Model F Fordson Museum of Seminole County History NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration nematodes New York nuclear power Oak Avenue Park Avenue Project Gemini Richmond Avenue Sanford Saturn Second Street Seminole County Sinclair Oil Corporation Skylab Stripes for Skills Tel Aviv, Israel Telecommunications Terry Cordell tractors U.S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Navy Voyager Program World War II WWII Zephyrhills https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/3c62ab5226c0162840778fca22563c72.mp3 8b8bac30d1abdbc765005669668d9dcf https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/523e8a6a70e534b3685c4e331f44e28a.pdf 2224edda291f25627abc520209bde702 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 Morgan, Charlie Location <span> </span><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><span>, Sanford, Florida</span> Bit Rate/Frequency 1411kbps 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 Charlie Morgan Alternative Title Oral History, Morgan Subject Sanford (Fla.) African Americans--Florida Oranges--Florida Citrus--Florida Agriculture--Florida Segregation--Florida Construction Race relations--United States Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Celery Civil rights movements--United States Description An oral history of Charlie Morgan, conducted by Joseph Morris on September 21, 2011. Morgan was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1940, but migrated to Bookertown, an African-American community in Sanford, Florida. In the interview, Morgan discusses life in Bookertown, working in the agriculture and construction industries, segregation and race relations in Sanford, moonshine, civil rights, serving in the military during the Vietnam War, how Bookertown and Sanford have changed over time, and Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955). Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction and Bookertown 0:02:26 Working on farms 0:05:24 Segregation in education and sports 0:08:03 Farmers in Georgia 0:11:11 Picking oranges 0:15:08 Working in construction 0:16:12 Parents and sister 0:16:49 Bolita and moonshine 0:18:07 Race relations in Sanford 0:22:49 Personal hygiene 0:24:51 Potbellied stoves 0:27:42 Television 0:29:46 Civil rights 0:33:34 Spirituality in the African-American community 0:34:48 Race and socio-economics 0:36:22 Picking apples and cherries 0:39:40 Military service and the draft 0:55:12 Life after military service 0:56:20 Wife and children 0:56:20 Community involvement and civil rights 1:01:56 Charlie Carson 1:03:41 Plans for the future 1:04:15 How Bookertown and Sanford have changed over time 1:11:15 Mary McLeod Bethune 1:13:48 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Charlie Morgan 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>, Sanford, Florida. Type Sound/Podcast Source Original 1-hour, 14-minute, and 22-second oral history: Morgan, Charlie Interviewed by Joseph Morris. September 21, 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 Albany, Georgia Bookertown, Sanford, Florida Ace Theatre, Sanford, Florida Ritz Theatre, Sanford, Florida Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Vietnam Creator Morris, Joseph Morgan, Charlie Date Created 2011-09-21 Date Modified 2014-09-14 Date Copyrighted 2011-09-21 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 750 MB 212 KB Medium 1-hour, 14-minute, and 22-second audio recording 23-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Charlie Morgan. 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 Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Flewellyn, Valada S. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/320804616" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009. Transcript <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>This is an interview with Charlie Morgan. This interview is being conducted on the 21^st of September, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Would you care to tell us about yourself, Charlie Morgan?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Well, I was raised in the Lake Monroe area—a little community called Bookertown. It was established in 1926 by three white men and one black preacher. At that time, we couldn’t live among white people. We lived on the back side of the farms, in the little shanties. We didn’t have doorknobs. We had just a wooden latch to close the door. We were so poor that we didn’t have anything to steal. You had a little one room shack, and you took a sheet and made two rooms out of it. You had a wooden stove. You had to chop wood daily to cook our foods with. We had a little oven in the wood stove, and we had lamplight. We had wooden windows to the little shanty. We had to walk maybe a thousand meters to get water to heat up on the stove so we can take a bath. And we had to carry water for to drink, and water in—we had it in a bucket to keep. And we didn’t have a refrigerator. We had what they called an icebox, where you get about 25, 50 pounds and put it in there. It’ll last about a day and a half, two days, to put our foods on, our perishable foods. So those days we would have to hunt wood. The bottom—the roots of a pine tree, we called it lighter knots. And it’s the sap coming out of the bottom of the wood, and it would burn fast. And that’s what we’d start the fire with. And had oak wood to keep it going.</p> <p class="Body">So—and then, our parents would work on the farms, and we thought it was just farms all over the world. It’s just all we knew—farms. You know, we’d need us a cabbage, we’d go out in the backyard and get a cabbage. There’s a field right out there. Corn. And this one white guy was—he was trying to, you know, live a little bit better. He had him a cantaloupe farm. He got me to work with him, and so I worked with him. And he had to go somewhere while I picked the cantaloupes, and when he got back, I gave him the time I had worked. And he didn’t—I knew he didn’t have much money before, from the way he told me. He said, “Oh, no. That’s too much time. Too much time.” I said, “You told me to keep the time.” “Too much money. Too much money.” And I knew that he was trying to make it, like a, you know—but I couldn’t tell him that, because I wanted to make the little money. We wasn’t making that much money. We’d work on the farm, and the kids would get 40 cents an hour, and the ladies would get 50 cents an hour, working on the farm. And the men, if they were driving the tractors and stuff, they’d get 60 cents an hour.</p> <p class="Body">So, I wasn’t much of a farm boy. You know, they had okra and cabbage and stuff to cut out. I mean, I could—after they packed the bags, I could throw them on the trucks, something like that. But cutting the okra, you know, I tried to cut it with one hand. That’s the way they used to do it. And I was cutting the tops out the okra. [<em>laughs</em>] He told my mom—said, “Send him home. I won’t have no more okra if he’s cutting all the tops off.” [<em>laughs</em>] So those are some of the things that we went through. And there was a gentleman who we rented the house for $6 month—the standard little shanties. And we’d go up to their house. He had a big, nice house. He had lights in it and all this, and said to myself [?], “They’re rich,” you know. He had—he was a tall, slim, lean white guy, had a big brim hat, and he was—well, we said, “Mr. Buchanan.” We called him “buck-cannon.” “Mr. Buchanan, can we get some of those tangerines?” He said, “Yes. Get you a couple and go.” [<em>laughs</em>] We said, “Okay, thank you!” [<em>laughs</em>] I’d get a—they gettin’ more [inaudible], I got more than a couple. He was looking. He said, “Get along, now! Get along!” [<em>laughs</em>] I guess he didn’t want me to get them all at one time.</p> <p class="Body">So those were the days, and then we had—going to school—across the farm was a white school. Well, you know, it was segregation at that time. We had passed the white school walking, and we’d come going over to Bookertown from in the area of the post office. We had walked through there and go through the woods. And they had cows out there, and some time the cows was running, and you had to run through there and through a pass. But they tore down all the woods to build I[nterstate]-4, and so there’s no more evidence of that now. So a black man had probably about 21 or 22 acres. The Briar construction [Briar Team] bought that, and tore down all of those woods, and his intent was to build a complex, but it never materialed[sic] yet. But those were the woods we used to go through, and this black guy had a black baseball park there. People would come from Orlando and Daytona, Apopka. You know, all the black players, you know—we’d get out there. It really wasn’t that good, but, you know, those guys could throw that ball. Some of those guys were Puckwood[?] guys, you know. You know what Puckwood[?] guys are?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>No, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Well, they cut trees down, and had a certain method. They’d load them onto a truck. Those guys had muscles almost big as my head. You’d get some of those guys to pitching—that ball looking like an asteroid [inaudible] coming. [<em>laughs</em>] I didn’t never want to be a catcher. And I was a young guy, I was about 16 back in 19—was I 16 or 17? Somewhere in there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>What year were you born, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>1940.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah. I was born in Albany, Georgia. My mother brought me down here when I was one year old, you know. That’s when they—most the people would come and they’d tell the other people, ‘cause they wasn’t getting that much money in Georgia. So the white farmers down here were recruiting some of the peoples out there, but not telling the white farmers in Georgia. And what they would do—get their big truck, and they’d be communicating, and they’d come in two or three o’clock in the morning and load up these black people. And the thing was, they said, they’d steal one of the white man[sic] pigs. [<em>laughs</em>] And when they’d get by the white man’s house, said seemed like the old truck put to cranking more than ever, and said they’d hold the pigs off, until he—so he wouldn’t make any noise, and they hit the road. The next morning, white man get up, he don’t have no more help. [<em>laughs</em>] They’re on their way to Florida. They were making more money.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Farmers stealing other farmers’ workers?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Help. Yeah. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, man.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>And some of the older guys said, “Well, we can’t go back to Georgia. We stole that white man’s pig.” [<em>laughs</em>] He said, “Now, that many years—the man probably dead now.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">So they’d get down here, you know—and in Lake Monroe, that’s where a lot of celery, cabbage, and everything, done out there. Sanford was called “Celery City,” because of all the celery. Seventy percent of the celery was grown out there in the Lake Monroe area, and they had the, you know, black workers from Bookertown, Goldsboro, Midway, and Oviedo. They would get big trucks and haul them in, and they’d do the work. And they had pride in their work, you know. When they were planting the celery plants—cabbage plants, anything like that, you know—they would brag about how many thousand they set. You know, that was a big thing. And now, if the white farmer would have a tractor, and they drove that tractor, oh, man, it was like they were riding in a Cadillac. They loved it. They’d go down to the end of the row. I don’t know how they did that. You know, I never was—I never did learn how to drive a tractor. And those guys would get to the end of the row of a field and they would spin that thing around on one wheel and be ready to go down. I just looked at it. It was amazing to me. I never knew how to drive a tractor. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">And then, uh, you know, in the ‘60s, there was a lot of orange picking. Around in this area, there was a lot of oranges. And I tried to pick some oranges, but those thorns was hitting me so hard, and I tried to put it out of my mind, but by the time 11 o’clock, I couldn’t put it out of my mind no longer. Those thorns, they didn’t just tear your shirt all up. You know, it’d be this fight trying to pick those oranges.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>You’re talking about 11 A.M., sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah, 11 A.M. I mean, I’m just trying to pick those oranges. Trying to, you know, get a lot of boxes, you know. Just going, man, but those thorns was hitting me from everywhere. I couldn’t take it no more. I had to rest a little bit. Suck me a few oranges.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did they pay you by the day when you were doing oranges, sir? Or did they pay you by the box? Because you said you were trying to…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Pay you by the box.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I see. You were trying to…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah, you were trying to, you know, get a lot of boxes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>And so, I got by my dad one day, and he went out early. He was gonna really make him some money. We had to finish up a grove, and he was there about six o’clock that morning. And he had him a bunch of boxes, a few of them when we got there about nine o’clock. And I said, “I’m gonna get him to work today.” So I got beside him and then went to working, and when we got through with that grove, he didn’t have but one box more than me. He looked—well, he loved the competition. He didn’t want nobody to beat him, especially me, not his son. So, next we went to another grove. So, I said, “I’m gonna have me some fun today.” I put my ladder in the orange time we’d got there, and he throwed[sic] his up there too, and I ran up that ladder—I mean, just literally run up it with my orange sack. And just—I mean, I was just throwing them on through them orange limbs and leaves, with this flying. And he was going at it too. So I got a half a sack, and I went down and dumped them into my little bin. And he looked around. He thought I had a whole sack. He said, “Lord, Jesus!” [<em>laughs</em>] “Lord, Jesus!” There he was. He was picking and picking and I went, I ran up the ladder again, and come down with a half a sack again, enough to—oh, he was really—he was really fighting then. He thought I was really beating him. He said, “Lord, Jesus!” He was picking real fast, and he caught a cramp in his right hand. And he took his left hand, and tried to, you know, unfold it, and the left hand caught a cramp. [<em>laughs</em>] Both of them. Both his hands was all cramped up, and he couldn’t pick. He said, “Well, I’m not gonna kill myself,” and he went down. He had to be careful about holding the rungs of the ladder. And he got 90 cent down there without coming down with a half a sack again. [<em>laughs</em>] He went up that ladder with the cramps. [<em>laughs</em>] Oh, man. He beat me by one box. He beat me. He was not gonna be denied. He wasn’t gonna let his son beat him.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How old were you at the time, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>I was probably in my twenties, at that time.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How long did you pick oranges for?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Just between construction jobs. I worked construction jobs. I started them when I was in high school, because I wanted to make more money. I worked for a guy called B. Edwards[?]. He was on Third Street in Sanford, and he had a stucco crew. And we was doing a lot of stucco out in Sunniland. And I was learning how—starting, you know—some of the guys would teach me how to help those guys they called “plasters.” They would be stuccoing the inside of the house and the outside. And you had to mix the mud with the concrete with a hoe. You didn’t have a mixer then.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan <br /></strong>Oh man, my back would be so tired, but I had to survive. It was just me and my mom, then.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Your father had passed away, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>No. They just weren’t together. Just me and my mom. My sister—she couldn’t take it any longer. She got married and left. She said she wasn’t working on those farms. [<em>laughs</em>] So she went to Jacksonville. She met her husband there, and he was one of these guys—I mean, he was thrifty. I mean, he didn’t mind a little chasin’. He’d sell those numbers, what they called “bolita” I don’t know whether you ever heard about that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>No, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>They just didn’t do that in Cuba, and they would—you could hear it—Cuba [inaudible]. They knew they was doing that stuff. But it was supposed to be illegal here, but you had the police department, everything, you know. You didn’t give them a tip, then they’d carry you to jail. But so, they’d come by, and you’d give them their tip, they’d go head on.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>T</strong>he same as they would with moonshine. They’d make moonshine in the woods out there, Bookertown. And you didn’t get the police. The chief, you know, he would come in and get you. And then the Feds come around. They didn’t want the Feds to know that they was getting money on nothing. They’d let you know when the Feds comin’. And they would let you have a little bit of moonshine, there, then they’d come in and confiscate with the Feds and, you know, make the Feds think they’re doing their jobs. When the Feds leave, they’d bring you up there, they’d take you and your moonshine back out there. [<em>laughs</em>] Oh, man, it was a lot of things and all[?].</p> <p class="Body">And we loved it. We’d go to town maybe once or twice a week. And we’d walk to town. It was fun for us. We didn’t mind walking it. From Lake Monroe, we’d walk down [State Road] 46 all the way into Sanford. And we walkin’ and talkin’.</p> <p class="Body">And there was a movie called the Ace Theatre. It’s a vacant lot there on Third [Street] in Sanford Avenue. I don’t know have you been by there. But anyway, that vacant lot was where that Ace Theatre was. That was for black people. And the Ritz Theatre was for white people. The white people sat downstairs, but they wouldn’t let the black people go upstairs. You know how kids is[sic]. They’d go, you know—white kids would yell something, and black folks would throw some popcorn on them or else our drink. [<em>laughs</em>] And then, they had a—one of these—had a black guy that was supposed to be in control of the black kids and so, if he’d catch you doing that, then he’d put you out the movie. So, you know, I guess they was kinda integrating a little bit. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">And then we, you know—if we’d be uptown on Saturday, oh man, we’d come up and see the streets and everything, I mean, oh, it was—we was glad to see uptown, you know. We’d go up and go to the ice cream parlor, and get some ice cream. But if you want a hamburger or something, you have to go to a window with a hole cut in it, and you couldn’t go inside there, you know. Only the white people could go inside. And we’d get a hamburger. They just seemed like they was some good-tasting hamburgers. [<em>laughs</em>] But that’s the way it was.</p> <p class="Body">And the later years, you know—I think it was 1959 or ‘60, somewhere in there, the black kids said, “We want to integrate this[?].” And they’d go out down to the [Sanford] Civic Center. They didn’t like the black people going to Sanford Civic Center there. And so, they went in anyway. They called the police, and they go in and run the black people out of there. And they—one of my friends—he’s a professor now in Atlanta—he said, “I will return!” He sounded like General [Douglas] MacArthur. “I will return!” And they did return, and there the police was[sic] too. You know, they didn’t—as far as I know, they didn’t beat them up or nothin’.</p> <p class="Body">But they tried to keep them out, and they kept protesting ‘til they built a little center over in Goldsboro called the Boys &amp; Girls Club. I don’t know whether you know where that is or not. But they got that for the black people, but the black people still wanted to go downtown, too. [<em>laughs</em>] They originally wasn’t letting the black people go downtown. And you couldn’t drink out of a fountain that a white person drank out of. You know, you drank out that fountain, if that fountain said “white only”—oh man. Once on Park Avenue, a black guy—he was gonna drink out that white fountain anyway. He drank that, and it was something like a little service station. They had a drink box with the water on the side. He came out with his rifle and hit that black guy—the little young—probably about 17, 18—hit him in the mouth with that rifle and knocked a few teeth out, and he said that fountain was contaminated.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Ugh.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>“That’s contaminated! You contaminated it—that fountain!” So, same way it was with the outhouse. You couldn’t go in there if it had “white only.”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>You can “contaminate” an outhouse? It’s contaminated anyway.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah, you contaminate that outhouse if a black person go in there. White man wouldn’t wanna go back in there no more. He probably scrub it and scrub it. He probably get a black person in there. Scrub it with some bleach.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Well—and then they had what they called “octagon soap.” You would—you’d kill a hog and get the grease, and put lye in there, and you would cook this grease. And I don’t know what all they put in there, but they had it on a big, round, black pot. And it cooks a long time, maybe putting wood up under there, cooking it. And when it’d get cold, be in big cakes, and you’d cut out chunks for soap. Some of us bathed with this. Oh man, you’d be—with that lye in it, it wasn’t too good. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>You’ve had better soap, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Oh, yes, I’ve had far better soap than that. But back then, you just didn’t know. And then, you know, we used to bathe in a big tub, you know, tin tub. You didn’t have bathrooms. You’d get in this bath, in this thing, put some wood in the stove and heat up some water. And I was a little boy. My sister used to bathe me. And it was cold, man, and I was in that tub and I just kept moving, you know, ‘cause it was cold, and she was bathing me, and the warm water’s all right, but the house was cold. Didn’t have a—you could see the studs in the wall holding the house up. And then they’d get cardboard from the railroad, where that old icehouse used to be. That’s where everything was shipped out from. They’d throw the cardboard out, and we’d get it, put it in there for drywall. You know, like they do for drywall. Until the rats eat it up, then we had to get some more.</p> <p class="Body">So, then, sometimes we had these potbellied stoves to keep warm with in the wintertime. This root of the pine tree was full of sap, and it was easy to get started—to put the oak wood on there. And we’d put it in there—it was cold. I got up and we’d have about five or six quilts on there trying to stay warm, and I put too much of that fat lighter in there. And man, we had a stove pipe, you know, that comes up and then goes out the wall of the house. And man, that’s— the pressure couldn’t get out quick enough of that old stove. It was really red. You could see—was glowing, man. And when it got too much for the old stove, it was coming up off the floor, you know. It was, “woof, woof, woof.” The feet was actually leaving the floor. And then the stove pipes come off. Oh man, we had to scuffle to try to get some rags and put the stove pipe back on there. The whole house was about to catch a-fire. It would have burned down about two minutes if we hadn’t a got it started. And so, we got them put back on there. So, we didn’t put that much in there before. That taught us a lesson.</p> <p class="Body">So, in 1960, I was tired of cutting wood. I told my mom, I said, “Mom, I’m not cutting wood no more.” Because the stove—the wood stove—had went bad. After cooking on it so long, where you put the wood in—in the wood stove had been—well, maybe, I don’t know what you call it—rotted away, something. And it fell back on some bread we had in the oven. Ashes all over itself. Said, “Throw that away,” and then we cooked some bread on top of the stove. And I said, “Mom, I’m not cutting any more wood.” I was working a little bit then. I said, “We gonna get a gas stove.” She said, “Oh, no! Oh, no! That food won’t taste right with no gas stove.” [<em>laughs</em>] I said, “Mama, I ain’t choppin’ no more wood.” [<em>laughs</em>] I finally got her to get a gas stove. We got the gas stove.</p> <p class="Body">We didn’t have a TV. So we finally got a TV in 1953. And we was the last people living in the little quarters. They ran some poles down there, and brought electric down there too. And we got a TV. Oh, man. I felt we had something when we had that TV. That was something. We said, “Oh, yeah. We got a TV now.” Yeah. We loved to watch <em>The Lone Ranger</em> and Tonto. That’s—oh, man. We’d get brooms and, you know, we’d be Lone Ranger, we’d be riding those brooms. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">But we didn’t know how poor we was, and it didn’t bother us. We just adapted to the situation. Made the best of it, and kept moving. Not that we didn’t try to prepare for a better future, but we didn’t have time to worry about how poor we are. Our mind was on the future. And a lot of us did live a little bit better. And I lived a little better. I worked hard. And it wasn’t a problem—working hard—because you knew where you wanted to go, what you wanted to do. And that’s what stayed on our mind. Not that we wasn’t getting that much. But we punished this body. It was the mind that we were thinking about. We didn’t worry about maybe our children can do better. This is what we were concerned about. Then, we were taught, not—I know the people I knew—not to hate nobody[sic].</p> <p class="Body">So we in charge of ourselves. Even though we’d been oppressed, we’re not gonna worry about the people oppressing us. We gonna do what we know to do, and keep going. Somebody will see our problem. And just like, back in the Northern states, it was more people, you know, integrated than it was in the South.</p> <p class="Body">So, they was having problems, and this white lady named Mary [White] Overton—she got with the black people in the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], ‘cause they had a movement called the Niagara Movement with the other blacks, so they can be treated better, you know. Because a lot of black people were being hung lately, in 1909. So, they named after Mary Overton, got it in folk [inaudible] form for the blacks and they called it the NAACP, National Advancement[sic] for the Advancement of Colored People.</p> <p class="Body">And so, all those, that’s what started the civil rights advocates came in, Martin Luther King[, Jr.] Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson—a lot of those guys, you know, fighting for freedom in a lot of places. And most people resisted change. And so the white people didn’t like—clearly, said, “It’s not time to change.” And black people coming out there. And the police, they didn’t like that either. They’d get the dogs, sic the dogs on you. They’d be biting you. They’d run the fire hose on you, and slide you down the street—that fire hose. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">And so, you know, sometimes you have to suffer through things to get better. So, if you didn’t accept things just the way they are, and don’t fight for it, sometimes you gonna—some people gonna die, and some gonna get hurt, but you got to resist being treated bad. And don’t think of hating nobody. You think of giving them all the love you can. That’s loving them so they can’t do you no wrong. [<em>laughs</em>] And so, with that attitude, there was a change in heart and a lot of white people, they were seeing what was wrong. It’s a lot of white people didn’t like the way blacks was treated. It’s a lot of them. But they couldn’t do it, because the government had this thing set up. So the people in high echelons could get rich, and they kept all the black and white people fighting while they got all the money. And we knew that, because a lot of white people helped black people back then. But they had to be careful how they did it. They had to do it undercover, because it’s some white people didn’t like it either. They would come beat them up, because they would call you a n—well, a[sic] “N”-lover. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>So these are some of the things that people have to think, and mostly where we come through was the spiritual thing. We believed in Him—God—and we trusted Him, what the Bible say, and stuck with it. And, just like they said—they always tell you—prayer changes things. And it does. I had experiences. Prayer changes things. You don’t do evil for evil. Some people, you know—some people don’t know that they’re doing wrong until they’re proven that they’re doing wrong. Only thing people was[sic], you know, having a hard time. They was looking out for number one—their family. Said, “The heck with you! My family got to be all right.” [<em>laughs</em>] But then some people looked at that better. Said, “Well, I can be better.” And they can, too.</p> <p class="Body">But then, the way the world is, and the way the governments do it all over the world, they want somebody to be on the little—on the totem pole below them, so they can take care of those that greedy after that money. So somebody have to work, and go through these things. Well, the blacks was the low on the totem pole at that time. They’d bring some Puerto Ricans, and some people from Bahamas, different islands and stuff, and they’d work and they’d get them together some crops. But then when so many minorities start coming in, then the blacks started getting moved up a little bit, and so they had to be the one that worked, just like the Mexicans and the Puerto Ricans now, you know. They mostly be picking our oranges and picking their apples in New York. ‘Cause those apple and cherry farmers would have black people a long time ago picking their apples. You go up there and, oh man, well, you making a lot of money up there, more than they was up here. That was big money, you know.</p> <p class="Body">I’ve picked some apples and cherries, and [inaudible]. We’d be going after ‘til I went to a private place. They paid a little bit more. It was hard too—picking them. You had to be careful how you handled those apples. If you squeezed them too hard, you could bruise one of them. So, you learn all of that.</p> <p class="Body">But when they brought the people up on old school bus from down here, you couldn’t stop eating at the restaurant and eat. You had to go in a—maybe a convenience store or something—back then, and get you a little of some bologna, and moon pies or something, and a soda. And they wouldn’t let but so many blacks come into the store. They wouldn’t be able to watch you. Said, “They might steal something.” And then you didn’t have no bathroom to go to. You had to stop by a wooded area and go out there in the woods somewhere. This is rough.</p> <p class="Body">When you get up there, I remember one place. You seen a chicken coop? Those big chicken coops? Where you can stand up and walk in them? Well, they partitioned that off and made rooms for the people to stay in that time that they was up there. And you would work by what they called the “piece.” You’d get so much a box for certain things, you know, like apples, or cherries, or onions. And they had one guy would be over the rest of them. They called him the “crew leader.” And once they took us up there and the work wasn’t ready, you know, for us to go to work. And so they went around into this Italian restaurant, and got this old hard bread. This stuff that the people didn’t eat and stuff. Gathered it up, and they put it in a[sic] old pot, and one man brought a bunch of bullfrogs over there. And they skinned those bullfrogs up. And, man, I didn’t want no bullfrogs. [<em>laughs</em>] They said, “Come on,” and the man said, “Come on! Come on! Come on, and let’s eat this. Eat some of this.” They called it the son of a—son of a “B.” “Come on, get some of this son of a ‘B’!” And he was just boiling and bubbling in there. Had all some of everything—little steak, little, some all kind of little meats, and it was cooking in there. It was bubbling. Man, I don’t want none of that. That’s, I gotta leave here. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, sir, I know you also mentioned earlier, before the interview, that you worked in the military. What time did you, uh—why did you join the military? When did you do that? Because I know you said you were working these other odd jobs—construction, a lot of agriculture. What prompted the move?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Well, I didn’t join. I was drafted.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>They was drafting people at that time. I had went to Philadelphia[, Pennsylvania] to live with my sister, because I wanted to make more money. And my mother was here, so I had to send her money home to her—to help her. I was making about $80 a day up there doing that construction there. Oh man, that was big money.</p> <p class="Body">And I was 23 years old. I thought the draft people had forgot about me. I said, “They have forgot about me.” And I was working, and I wanted to get me a trade. I said, “Well, I wanna do automatic transmissions.” I said, “That’ll be a good trade for me.” So I went up in there, they had this sort of thing for free. And they got—when I approached them about it—about the application— he said, “Well, by the time we get you trained, Uncle Sam will be calling you.” And he wasn’t lying, ‘bout two weeks later I got a letter. “Greetings from Uncle Sam!” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">So I didn’t want to go from up there. I wanted to see my mom before I go, and so I came home. And we went downtown there to the bus station, and they—you know, the guy—was calling the names off and everything, and we got on the bus and went to Jacksonville, you know. They’d check you out. You know, sees[sic] you, in case [inaudible], you know, you’re physically ready. And so by the time they get through with us, the bus had gone that was gonna take us to Fort Jackson[, South Carolina].</p> <p class="Body">So they told us to wait ‘til October the 17^th. And I was here, I walked down to the Cape with the construction, where they were shooting those rockets off of pad thirty-nine, and the VAB building. I seen all of that. And then October 17^th, got ready to catch the bus, and we caught that bus. That bus driver was late, and he was driving. I had dozed off to sleep, and he had waken me when he drove off the road. Was trying to—he was driving. I said, “This man gonna kill us before he get us there.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">I got—we got—there to Fort Jackson, and we got off with our duffel bags. Well, we didn’t have the duffel bags at that time. We just was in civilian clothes. And then those guys had been there for a while—we was getting off the bus—said, “You’ll be sorry! You’ll be sorry!” Oh, and there was bald head sergeant running upside the bus before it even stopped. I mean, time you’d get to the door, he’d snatch you off. [<em>laughs</em>] Man, it was scaring me, ‘cause he had a bald head and everything. And then—“Get off, you ‘D’-heads! You will hate me before you leave here!” Oh man, they was really—and so, we went through the reception center, went there, and we went to Fort Benning[, Georgia,] they had our duffel bags there. And time we got there, it was worse then. Those drill sergeants and all, they just run up to that bus. He was looking wild and crazy. The guy was in front of me, he had on his hat, like this one—like that—he had on this hat, you know. And coming in there, the hat was too big for his head. They always give you clothes too big for you.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>And he grabbed that guy, snatched him off the bus, and snatched his hat from him. He snatched him from under his hat, and his hat fell on the ground. That guy had a heart attack. [<em>laughs</em>] I don’t know did he die or not. So, I had the chance to get on off. He didn’t get a chance to grab me. And them[sic] boys was saying the same thing. “You’ll be sorry!” And, you know, we—some of the guys—would be talking and everything, and later that night, we wasn’t used to having bed check, you know. Ten o’clock, you gotta be in bed. He’d come in, you’d be in there and have them lights on. They’d come in there, man, and get you out, two or 2:30 in the morning, drilling you. “You gonna hate me before you leave here!” [<em>laughs</em>] And so that was a good experience, you meet guys that you had never met before. And you meet, you get to mingle with the white guys, the Puerto Ricans, all different races of people. Of course, I had had experiences.</p> <p class="Body">In 1953 and 1954 I went to school with white people in New York—in Port Byron, New York—and Lyons, New York. You know, it wasn’t a big thing. People was just people, far as I was concerned. I had enjoyed it, you know, because they really treated me nice. Man, we’d go out there every night having a good time, you know, playing and everything—the kids, you know. And they—when I got ready to come home, they didn’t want me to come home. I said, “I gotta go with my parents.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>“You’ll be sorry.”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah. “You’ll be sorry!” Then we got to AIT [Advanced Individual Training]. And they was training. They was—these people said basic training, but basic training wasn’t nothing to AIT. Oh man, we had to do 144 exercise. And you started off running two miles, then we got ready to go to Vietnam, we was running eight miles. And do 144 exercise, run eight miles, come back do 10 pull-ups, then you go to breakfast. After you come from breakfast, you go in there and shine those floors, and buff it. Then you get out for your daily training, a 20-mile road march, and after you do that, you do squad tactics. It’s a way to fight.</p> <p class="Body">We was in 2^nd or 23^rd infantry at that time. We was mechanized. And they had, you know, big deuce and a quarter, stuff like that. So, as the Vietnam War was going on, they had a few advisors in Vietnam. And they was taking some of them. And as the war got worse, they sent the colors from Korea to be exchanged there because the KF couldn’t come back to the station until they were winning colors.</p> <p class="Body">So, I was honor guard there for a minute at that time. They do shiny helmets and all, and they exchanged the colors and they got us ready for Vietnam. Became a chopper outfit. Used to fly choppers just about every day, repelling from those choppers on ropes, just like those Navy Seals did. We started that. And they had thousands and thousands of choppers. A lot of them was falling because the blades would spit. They didn’t know anything about why those blades were spitting, so they sent us a vehicle mechanic up, and he found out what was going on, and radioed back to the ground and told them that the blades was spitting, but that chopper crashed and he got killed. So, they modified the blades and we did a lot of flying, and we had operation in the Carolinas called Hawk Tower 3. We were 17,000 strong. And Colonel Moore—he was a colonel at that time, who was in charge of the KO [Contracting Officer]. He was a guy—he wouldn’t keel to the devil in hell. Oh man, he didn’t play. And we was men [inaudible] to Carolina, they had the [Lockheed] C-130 [Hercule]s. That plane would—at ankle-deep it would take off in mud. It’s a troop-carrier. It would carry a little over 41 men. The same as that helicopter that looked like a hot dog. It’d carry 41 men.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>I know what you’re talking about, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah. And we was all over the Carolinas—North and South Carolina. And we had called us—we was training. We’d call in a jet from Jacksonville, and they’d be there in five minutes. Boom. Dropping bags. It sounded like they were bombing down there. And then sometimes the guys would get so aggravated, they’d be wanting to fight war. They’d be angry. Tired, tired of doing this. They’d wanna— “Let’s go to it!” And I said, “Oh, I don’t wanna go to it.” [<em>laughs</em>] And when they got ready to go to Vietnam, it was—we’d get out every morning running eight miles, singing this song: “Watch out, VC [Việt Cộng]. Here we come. Watch out, VC. Here we come.” And I always liked to start something. I said, “Goin’ home. Too much. Here it come.” And it was sergeant, he didn’t know who had said it. “Returning home? Who is the damn wise guy?” Nobody would tell on me. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>If you wanted to keep friends…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And so, it started us off again. “Watch out, VC. Here we come.” I said, “Going home, VC. Here I come.” “Who is that damn wise guy?” And then no one would tell on me. I said, “I better stop, before somebody have to tell.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Wise decision, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. And so, I didn’t have that, you know. October the 15^th was my ETS [Expiration of Time and Services]. And so, I was with a bunch of the guys, they had a month to go longer than me. And those were the guys that was in that big battle, and I was with them when we got ready to go. I felt so bad, because we was[sic] more—we was training better than they was[sic]. But they put up one hell of a fight. I mean, they killed over 2,000 VC. That was an area that you didn’t supposed to come out of, and they fought good[sic].</p> <p class="Body">I learned how to fire everything. I fired a 3.5 rocket launcher, a 5DM 60 machine gun. I fired the M16 [rifle]. I was expert on everything I fired, ‘cause I wanted to know how to do everything. I didn’t know what I’d have to use. Of course, they train you that way anyway, but I wanted to be good. And I had metals with expert levels for sniper. I fired in there. I was a door gunner in the choppers at times, but that’s when they’d be trying to get that door gunner. They’d be able to shoot that door gunner. [<em>laughs</em>] I didn’t realize that was a dangerous place to be.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Sir, door gunner? Come on, you’re sticking your head out there!</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Man, see, you got that M16 machine gun—550 rounds per minute. Man, you—they gonna want to get that man out of there, ‘cause he can kill up a lot of people, that door gunner. ‘Cause you firing that thing, you don’t know what you’re gonna hit. When that chopper is, you know, shaking, you just hope you hitting something. Somebody said I was good at it. You don’t know what you’re gonna hit. And I could be sitting close to, you know, a foot away from you in that chopper. I couldn’t hear a word you saying, it made so much noise. And we a-flew a lot of those choppers, man. Sometimes they killed—it was so many—it was 17,000. They could not keep up with us. Sometimes we’d be a day and a half trying to get food. And we had [Type] C-rations sometimes. We had some that were back in 1945. You know, it was vacuum-packed. It was good, man. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, “good” is not the word I would use.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan <br /></strong>So some of the guys— “I can’t eat that junk!” I said, “Give it here.” [<em>laughs</em>] They called me the “eatin’-est man” in the battalion. Man, I never did get sick out there. And so, if we training, and it’s going to raining, you’re not gonna stop training. Used to be a saying, “It don’t rain on them. It rain in them.” [<em>laughs</em>] You keep—after we get soakin’ wet, and it still rainin’, they said, “Find the driest place and go to sleep.” And man, you’d be so tired, I just fell over the puddle of water, went to sleep.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>I can imagine, sir. How long did you stay in the service?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Two years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And then what’d you do afterwards?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan <br /></strong>I came out and I started back doing construction work, getting a dollar and a half an hour in Deltona. We were building—Michael Brothers was building those houses. And that was all we could do. And you know, after I left there, I went down to the Cape. There again, working down there, so I was getting three dollars and 90 cents an hour. Oh man, that was big money then. So, we’d ride down, which was all about 70 miles riding one way. But to get three dollars and 70 cent compared to a dollar and a half—oh, we took the trip. [<em>laughs</em>] And I stayed in construction, and I joined the union and all them, Labor Local 517. And they was, they had insurance and everything. And by that time, my oldest kid was born. And, uh…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>When did you get married, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>I got married to Josephine. She was Josephine Morgan at that time. And then we separated, and she got married again. So, I still stayed in touch with my daughter, and me and her are still friends today. And my daughter’s grown, she got me some grand[kid]s, and I got some great-grand[kid]s. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>What’s your daughter’s name, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Pamela. Name Pamela [Morgan] Brown. It was Pamela Morgan. And then I got another one was born 10 years later.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Another daughter, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah. The one when I was 10 years married out there working in Lake Mary.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay, sir. With a new, a second wife?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And your second wife’s name?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Name Jeanette [Morgan].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>And the last daughter was named Belinda—was Belinda Morgan. She’s married, and her husband’s an insurance adjuster. She— =they are both very aggressive, and they try to live better. And they all checks[sic] on me. Checks[sic] on old man. You know, gotta make sure he’s all right. I said, “Papa ain’t what he used to be. Come see about him.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">So, I just worked all the time. I said, “I’m happy to punish this body to help my kids, so they won’t have to go through what I went through.” I want them to be a[sic] good citizen[s]. America is a good place to be. I never been out of the [United] States, but I see it on the movie. All those different places. And I know I wouldn’t—even when we was oppressed, we were living better than them people over in those other countries. They didn’t hardly have food to eat. We wasn’t never hungry. We had clothes and shoes. So, we were better off than most people was in different countries. We didn’t complain. We knew what we had to do, and we did it, and we was rewarded for it by being a good citizen. Now I just, I—after I got hurt, in construction scaffolding fell on me. And then I’d already hurt in the military too, playing football. And so I just, I said, “I gotta do something for mankind.”</p> <p class="Body">I joined the, I joined the NAACP, and I fight for justice. And then I joined the historical society uptown there. That’s where I met Charlie Carlson. And, you know, a lot of the people felt the NAACP was against white people. And it’s not that. A lot of white people join the NAACP. And they did this fight for injustice, you know. And you know, you’d be surprised, the companies that are in the NAACP. [Walt] Disney [World], they give money, 10, 20 thousand dollars a year. Florida Power &amp; Light [Company], a lot of these banks. Because it’s nothing, you know. You don’t treat people wrong. This is what they’re fighting for. They see what they’re doing, and a lot of people see that just like, you know, you got the Ku Klux Klan and Black Panthers, and all that. They don’t go for no wrongdoing, whether it’s the Black Panthers or not. They’re not gonna do that. They’re for justice.</p> <p class="Body">And then I got to be a representative for all Seminole County for helping people in need. Then I worked with the police department. They was having festivals out there in Bookertown. They brought the honor guard out. And I was in the paper just about every week. Oh, man. Everywhere. And I wrote these books, and man, the people got jealous, and said I was out there [inaudible]. They got jealous. They thought I was going to get rich, man. I said, “How can I get rich? I ain’t get but $6 for a book. I had to pay almost $3 to get it done.” [<em>laughs</em>] And you know, they wanna say, “Well, this didn’t happen, and this didn’t.” I said, “Oh, yes, it did. You told me that. I can’t do anything unless you tell me, and I wrote it down.” Oh, they got jealous, and they got jealous about the festival, about me being in the paper every week.</p> <p class="Body">Charlie Carlson was helping me, you know, with the—he told me about his [inaudible]. He was doing some books, too. He did a lot of books for the society, and he did some out here too. And right now Charlie Carlson is big. Well, he been all over the state, everywhere. Barnes &amp; Noble got him. And he got agents, and I haven’t been able to see him that much. [<em>laughs</em>] Occasionally. I said, “He’s big time now.”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Doing what, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Writing books.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. And what does he write about?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Some of everything. He wrote about strange Florida. He told me one time, said he like to got ate up by a panther out there in the woods. [<em>laughs</em>] But he didn’t mind going all over in the woods. Can’t eat you out there. And I was raised out there in the—those woods. He said, “Charlie, there’s[sic] snakes out there, man.” [<em>laughs</em>] He walked up. But I went on out there. We got some history and everything. So some of the writers from <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em> come over to the house. I guess like you and me are doing. And it’s a lot of people they interviewed. They went out there, as I told you, to the UCF [University of Central Florida]. And I spoke out there, and I sold about 30 of these books. You know, just giving them away, just getting my history out there. I wasn’t making no big time money.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>What I want to do, though, at some point, is get some videos and talk about it, what happened at different areas on the farms where we used to live at, and all that kind of stuff. And I think that would be good for people that like to sit back and look at that on a CD, you know. So, I haven’t got to that point yet. So, I’m planning on do it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I hope for you will, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah, so....</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>So where do you live now? In, uh…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah. I live in the same little place out there where we went to school, that historical little old black community. And I got two houses out there. This little place—at the beginning, most of the streets were dirt streets. You couldn’t—two cars couldn’t hardly pass. And you had little saw palmettos was[sic] out there. You know, you had to walk through little paths to go to another house. And it was snake-infested out there. And people worked hard, and you know, get these grubbin’ hoes and dig up those palmettos at the elephant place out there now.</p> <p class="Body">And the old school that I went to—the elementary school—is still out there, but it, you know. Nobody’s going to that school. They use it for the Civic Center. And they would, you know—the county would bring us—at Christmastime, they would bring us some candy, and some apples, and some oranges, and stuff, you know. And oh, we’d be happy about that stuff, man. But man, we’d do some things that we shouldn’t, and teacher would come and get us, and bring us in and tell us to bend over the seat. Said, “We gonna put you on the hot seat. Put your hands in your pockets and pull your pants tight, and bend over.” And they’d take some of those long palmettos, you know, with the stickers on them. They’d trim the stickers off. And get that red, man. They said, “If you get up, that’s gonna be some more licks added!” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body">And so we didn’t have any lunchroom. We just had, you’d bring your little greasy bag. You know, peanut butter and jelly. And had an icebox, but didn’t have any ice in it. You put it in there. You had a little bench on the outside. When you get ready to eat at lunchtime, and you go and sit outside and eat. And we just—it was just—we had an old cowbell out there. You rang that thing, “boing, boing, boing,” for, you know, recess. You go out there in a few minutes exercise, play a little ball, and then they rang it again, “boing, boing, boing.” You go back in. And it’s a two-room building. They had a divider. First, second, and third in one room and fourth, fifth, and sixth in the other. So, they had—our principal—he was the teacher, and they another teacher on the other side. That’s the way we learned. And then when we would get to the seventh and eighth grade, we’d go to Crooms [High School]. That’s where everybody would meet up, from—all the black people from Oviedo, Goldsboro, Midway, Bookertown, Altamonte [Springs], they’d all meet up at Crooms and go to high school. That’s the way they did it. And a lot of the kids were very smart, because those teachers didn’t play. You was[sic] gonna learn. And you was[sic] gonna learn. They said, “You gotta be twice as smart as the white man.” Said, “You got to learn.” And that’s what motivated, you know. If you get the same job that white man got, said you gotta be twice as smart. And one black girl won <em>The $64,000 Question</em>, and oh, that motivated the black people, ‘cause it was on TV.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, yeah?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah, oh, man, she—black people start studying, man. They was really studying. And a lot of those kids come along and some of them are professors, some of them work at the White House, are mathematicians. I mean, this was a lot of smart people coming out of the area. Where we was. ‘Cause they had something to motivate them that looked. They tried—they had a goal. They tried to do better in life.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>And see, the white people were competition. [<em>laughs</em>] Competition is good. And, you know, they, you know, some of them now seem like they done lost their motivation. Maybe they need to pick someone out to have competition with. [<em>laughs</em>] ‘Cause a lot of our black kids is[sic] dropping out of school. Maybe they don’t got[sic]—they say they get things so much, they’re not motivated. So I’m trying now to get the [Seminole] County, along with the other guys out there, to redo that school and try to educate some of those kids who said that we can’t [inaudible], and try to pull some of those kids out the street and show them there’s a better life than drugs, you know.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>I mean, it’s just a lot of white guys be comin’ out there too. They be buying the drugs. And white girls, I mean, you know—it used to not be no white people living out there in Bookertown. Man, there be a lot of white people out there in Bookertown. [<em>laughs</em>] They all be[sic]—a lot of them be[sic] on them drugs. And it’s a—my cousin was married to a German woman. And it’s another black guy, he was married to a white woman. And she was real smart. She, you know—he knowed[sic] how to do automatic transmission. He taught her, and she’d do it. But he passed away. Me and him grew up together. We, you know—a lot of black and white people be out there. Hispanics—they get babies and stuff. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, sir, we’re about to—we have to start wrapping up.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Is there anything else you want to make sure you mentioned before we conclude? Anything—like anything you remember, any circle of events, or any kind of memories from your childhood, or any kind of—something you just forgot about earlier?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. I remember our teacher was very influential, lady called Miss Hogan. And her friend, I mean, yeah—well, her friend that taught her in college was Miss Bethune, and she came out to our school one time when I was little, but I didn’t think that’s somebody, you know. This, you know, you remember Mary McLeod Bethune? They got the [Bethune-Cookman] University over there in Daytona [Beach]?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morga<br /></strong>Yeah. She came to Crooms out there and talked to us one time. And, you know, that’s a lot of history. Did you read her history?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>No, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Oh, man. She came there from [South] Carolina. It was a dollar and a half. And they had United Methodist Church. They helped her. And she started a learning place in a little old broke-down shed. She started helping a lot of people, and then you heard some white people started helping her too. And the United Methodist, some other companies. And they dealt—they had her speak at the—what the name of that college? Oh, Rollins [College]. At first, they didn’t want her to speak there, because she was a black woman, but they find out how smart she was, and they let her come back the day she had spoke. [<em>laughs</em>] And she was a president advisor. And see, she scold the president one time, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>It’s a lot of history. It’s good to read about her.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Sir, she came to your school and talked to you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah. Well, I was a little boy. I can vaguely remember. I was a little fella, but when she came to Crooms, I remember her then. I remember her. But I just figured she was just educated, that’s all. I didn’t, you know—little country boy, didn’t know nothin’. You know, only thing I knew about was cabbage, corn, and celery. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And okra. Not to cut the top.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan <br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Yeah, okra. And killing squirrels and rabbits, you know. And turtles. We ate those, ate those turtles, man. We ate so many turtles out there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, it’s because they’re not gonna get away from you very fast.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Oh, man, no.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>You see a turtle, he’s toast.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan<br /></strong>Yeah. You know, we had—we could have had and used him [inaudible], with the shells. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, thank you, sir for coming out today and sharing all this with us.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morgan <br /></strong>Okay. Anytime you need me. I’m glad to come in and be of service.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Appreciate that, sir. Thank you.</p> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/3c62ab5226c0162840778fca22563c72.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of Charlie Morgan</a> 3rd Street African Americans African-American community agriculture apples B. Edwards Belinda Morgan Bookertown Briar Team Buchanan cabbage cantaloupe celery Celery City Charlie Carlson Charlie Morgan cherries cherry citrus Civil Rights Movement construction Crooms Academy Crooms High School Downtown Sanford farming farms Hawk Tower 3 Hogan honor guards Jeanette Morgan Joseph Morris Josephine Morgan Labor Local 517 Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Mary Jane McLeod Mary Jane McLeod Bethune Mary McLeod Bethune Mary White Overton Michael Brothers Moore Museum of Seminole County History NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Niagara Movement octagon soaps okra oranges Pamela Brown Pamela Morgan Pamela Morgan Brown potbellied stoves race relations Sanford Sanford Avenue Sanford Civic Center segregation spirituality Sunniland televisions Third Street TV Viet Cong Vietnam Vietnam War https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/c029b526adde1ed71bc387154f356231.pdf f58b4d529ac6f08d7707ee3b8f190450 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 History Harvest Collection Alternative Title History Harvest Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Schools Elementary schools Grammar schools High schools--Florida Description The Student Museum Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Student Museum History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2013. Is Part Of <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 Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum, Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx" target="_blank">Student Museum</a> <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center/Student Museum</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">Public History Center</a>." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/. "<a href="http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx" target="_blank">Student Museum</a>." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Miller, Mark Interviewee Kinlaw-Best, Christine Location <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida Original Format 1 digital audio/video recording Duration 9 minutes and 40 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 263kbps 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 Christine Kinlaw-Best Alternative Title Oral History, Kinlaw-Best Subject Sanford (Fla.) Oral history--United States Elementary schools--United States Grammar schools Schools Description Oral history of Christine Kinlaw-Best, interviewed by Mark Miller on March 2, 2013, for the UCF Public History Center's History Harvest. In the oral history, Kinlaw-Best discusses how she found information about the History Harvest, her family's attendance at the school building at 301 West Seventh Avenue since it opened in 1902 as Sanford High School, her family's report cards from the various schools that were housed in the building, what changes have been made to the building, how students were transported to the school when her grandmother attended, how children helped their parents farm when the school year ended, and the different schools in Sanford.<br /><br />Sanford High School was originally established at 301 West Seventh Street in 1902. The building was designed by W. G. Talley in the Romanesque revival style. Due to an increasing student population, a new school building was constructed on Sanford Avenue in 1911. The original building on Seventh Street served as Westside Grammar Elementary School, which was later renamed Sanford Grammar School. In 1984, the building was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places and converted into the Student Museum. The building reopened as the University of Central Florida's Public History Center in 2012. In 1927, a high school campus was designed by Elton J. Moughton in the Mediterranean revival style and constructed at 1700 French Avenue. The school reopened on January 10 and was renamed Seminole High School. In 1960, the high school moved to a new campus at 2701 Ridgewood Avenue and the former building on French Avenue was converted to Sanford Junior High School, which was later renamed Sanford Middle School. The old building was demolished in the summer of 1991 and replaced by a $5.77 million school complex. As of 2013, Seminole High School offers various Advanced Placement courses, the Academy for Health Careers, and the International Baccalaureate Programme for students. Abstract Oral history interview of Christine Kinlaw-Best. Interview conducted by Mark Miller at <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a> in Sanford, Florida. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:31 Reasons for attending the History Harvest 0:01:00 Items contributed for scanning 0:04:00 Experiences at Sanford High School and Sanford Grammar School 0:07:04 Sanford grammar schools 0:09:14 Closing remarks Creator Miller, Mark Kinlaw-Best, Christine Source Kinlaw-Best, Christine. Interviewed by Mark Miller. UCF Public History Center, HAR1063414P. March 2, 2013. Video record available. <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Date Created 2013-03-02 Has Format Digital transcript of original oral history: Kinlaw-Best, Christine. Interviewed by Mark Miller. UCF Public History Center, HAR1063414P. March 2, 2013. Video record available. <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 133 MB Medium 9-minute and 40-second digital audio/video recording 8-page typed transcript Language eng Type Moving Image Coverage Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Seminole High School, Sanford, Florida Accrual Method Item Creation Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Mark Miller and Christine Kinlaw-Best and owned by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to the resource is held by the <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Contributing Project <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a> History Harvest, Spring 2013 Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank"> RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">Public History Center</a>." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/. "<a href="http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx" target="_blank">Student Museum</a>." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. "<a href="http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank">Seminole High School</a>." Seminole High School, Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Transcript <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>My name is Mark Miller and I am interviewing…</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Christine [Kinlaw-Best].</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Christine. Alright. And this is March 2^nd at the History Harvest at the Public History Center—2013.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>And we just want to ask you a few questions on what brought you here or what is it that you are sharing with us.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>I found the notice on Facebook and so…</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Very nice.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Uh-huh. I had you know—how you click, like, on the Public History Center and so I saw the notice on Facebook and saw the call for the local artifacts for the school. And so I gathered up some of my things for this school and brought them down.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>And what are there—what are some of your things?</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>I brought—my whole family went to this school from the time it was built—when it opened its doors in 1902. Two of my older great-aunts though moved away, so I don’t have their report cards, but I did bring report cards of one of my great-aunts<a title="">[1]</a> from 1907, when the building was just five years old.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>That is exciting.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>A brand new building. So I have her report card from then. And I brought a picture of her so she would kind of go with the report card. And then her younger sister—my grandmother<a title="">[2]</a>—attended here also. I brought one of her report cards that’s a hundred years old. It’s from 1913, when she was here in the third grade. And I brought my uncle’s<a title="">[3]</a> report card from 1914, so that’s 99 years old [<em>laughs</em>]. And then my mom and dad both went here. I happen to actually have one of my mom’s report cards from here that actually, you know—it’s like the rest. It’s Sanford Grammar [School] and that one’s 80 years old. It’s from 1933. And then I went here all through elementary school, in this building.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Oh, wow.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Fifty years ago. So, our whole family went through here. And by the time my kids came along, of course, obviously the school had then been closed and not in use anymore as an elementary school.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Did your whole family collect this or was this your idea?</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Ah, it was—well, my aunt had her things, and when she passed away, my mom got it. And when my mom passed away, I got it, so it’s been as, you know—generations have passed on, then it’s all made its way down to me.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>So this has been a personal experience for you.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Uh-huh.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>The entire school. Everything about that.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Is there, uh—for instance, what are the significance of these items to you personally? I mean…</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>It’s, um, my family [<em>laughs</em>]. That’s the best way I can think of it. Its significance is preserving my family’s stories. Just as my granddaughter now is excited about things, because I went to Seminole—well, we go back once again, Seminole High School, which is here. It was Sanford High School first, but my granddaughter likes to brag that six or seven generations have all gone to the same high school. And, of course, Daddy went to Seminole and played football for them. I went to Seminole and now my 16 year old granddaughter is at Seminole High School. So, you know, that’s what these mean to me, is, ah, carrying on the family.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Yeah. You—I think you have a unique story. I’m sure there’s not too many along those lines.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Uh-huh.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>We want to thank you very much for bringing this in—it’s a tremendous asset. We want to thank you for that.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>You bet.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Is there anything you might want to add about your experiences or anything you had in this school—I mean of this sort…</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>One thing I’d like to try to think of and remember is when my great aunt was going here in 1907, it was only just this building. The two wings didn’t exist yet and so when you—even though this looks so big from the outside, when you stop and think about it, you can see why they needed to add the wings almost immediately, because there really aren’t that many classrooms in just this building. Because so much of it was upstairs was auditorium and, of course, even when I came here, we didn’t have a lunch room in the building, we had to go out and into the back and have lunch out back.</p> <p>So my grandmother told stories of—I was just telling one of the girls in there—when she came to school here, of course, there was not a “motorized” school bus. And so the horse’s hooves—it was a horse-drawn buggy thing, like a big trailer that had rows of hard seats and a top on it and it had canvas sides that rolled up. And Grandma used to always talk about how you could tell when it was time for the bus, because Sanford’s cobblestone streets—you would hear the <em>clup, clup, clup, clup, clup</em> of the horses coming and the kids knew to run outside and the bus would pull up and you got in the wagon. If it was hot, the sides were rolled up. If it was raining, the sides were rolled down and they drove you here to the front of the school and dropped the kids off. And then the “bus-driver” [<em>laughs</em>], with his horse, would literally park out back here, right behind the school. And he would just hang around all day. And ‘cause school was only a few hours then too, they only went about three or four hours a day here. So then when they were finished, he—the kids just all loaded back up in the wagon and he proceeded to drive all around Sanford and let everyone out again in front of their house. So that’s a special memory to me of Gram telling me about “the Bus” for this school.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Everybody had their chores to get home to and…</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>And most everybody worked in the field. Everybody was farmers here, in Seminole County. So you had to get home and work in the fields. They also went to school like four months out of the year. </p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>That was a whole school year. So the rest of the time you were helping your parents with farming. So…</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Was it the same with you when you attended here? Was it…</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>When I attended we were already back to the whole full long day. Uh-huh.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Alright.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>So, I say that like “long day.” I guess every kid thought that about their school then. So anyway, that’s mostly about it.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, with the wings and the rapid growth, it is a testament to how quickly Sanford was growing.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>And your family was definitely part of that.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>One thing I did want to just mention to you—because for so long it was called just “Sanford Grammar”—but this school had a long period it was called “Westside Grammar” [Elementary School] too, and I know a lot of people think maybe that it might be a different school, but it’s not. This—this building was west—all through the 60s was called “Westside Grammar,” because at that time we had Eastside Grammar, which is the little bitty school over on Palmetto [Avenue] and we had Southside. All of them had original names. Westside, Eastside, and Southside. But Southside is over off of Thirteenth Street and so this building was called Westside Grammar for at least through the 60s, when I went here. All of my report cards and even the class pictures are all stamped Westside Grammar. So I just wanted to put that in too, so there’s not any confusion if ya’ll look at those and go, “Oh, that’s not Sanford Grammar,” ‘cause it is. It is still Sanford Grammar. It’s just for a while there was called “Westside Grammar.”</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>So Eastside was the original grammar school? Or…</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Ah. Eastside is the one—the little—it was the Tajiri Arts Building, it’s on Ninth [Street] and Palmetto. And that one was built around 1880. That building is still standing. And that was the original and only elementary school and that’s why this was the high school and that was the elementary.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Oh. Okay.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>But it was called “Eastside Primary.” and Southside is still standing. It’s a retirement home now—in the school. And this was Sanford Grammar and then Westside Grammar and then back to Sanford Grammar again. [<em>Laughs</em>]. So…</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Which is the Little Red Schoolhouse?</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>That’s the one I’m talking about. Over on, uh-huh…</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Eastside Grammar. I have pictures of it with the big sign across, over the door that says Eastside Primary. But all the celery farmers and the kids from the Eastside,like going out towards the beach—towards New Smyrna [Beach]. That’s—those kids went there and the west-side farmers, which were out First Street, like going towards Seminole Towne Center Mall. That’s where I grew-up. You came here, because you were the “westside kids,” and then the kids to the south of the city went to Southside.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Oh. That’s great!</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>So…</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>If you have—want to share those pictures, you know, you said you have pictures of these time-lines. Anything of that nature, where you’re interested in, especially someone of such great experience with the school system in this area.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Excellent.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Well, thank you very much.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>You’re welcome.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>It was tremendous and we really appreciate everything.</p> <p><strong>Kinlaw-Best<br /></strong>Thank you. You bet.</p> <p><strong>Miller<br /></strong>Alright.</p> <div> <br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Versa Woodcock.</p> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Madge Woodcock.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Colla Woodcock.</p> </div> </div> </div> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a title="http://youtu.be/WnTFTaBP28M" href="http://youtu.be/WnTFTaBP28M" target="_blank">Oral History of Christine Kinlaw-Best</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">UCF Public History Center</a>, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. References "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1508" target="_blank">Sanford High School Report Card for Versa Woodcock, Fall 1907</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1508. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1545" target="_blank">Sanford High School Report Card for Versa Woodcock, Spring 1908</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1545. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1543" target="_blank">Sanford High School Report Card for Versa Woodcock, Fall 1908</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1543. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1546" target="_blank">Sanford High School Report Card for Versa Woodcock, Spring 1909</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1546. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1547" target="_blank">Sanford High School Report Card for Versa Woodcock, Spring 1910</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1547. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1544" target="_blank">Sanford High School Report Card for Versa Woodcock, Fall 1910</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1544. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1552" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Report Card for Madge Woodcock, Fall 1913</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1552. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1531" target="_blank">Versa Woodcock</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1531. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1530" target="_blank">Versa Woodcock with Umbrella</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1530. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1549" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Report Card for Colla Woodcock, 1914-1915</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1549. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1528" target="_blank">Seminole High School Report Card for Stinson Kinlaw, 1929-1930</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1528. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1542" target="_blank">Sanford Grammar School Report Card for Geraldine Rigney-Kinlaw, 1933-1934</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1542. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1541" target="_blank">Madge Geraldine Rigney-Kinlaw at Seminole High School</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1541. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1540" target="_blank">Colla Woodcock</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1540. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1512" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School First Grade Class, 1960-1961</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1512. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1536" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Report Card for Christine Kinlaw, 1960-1961</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1536. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1533" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Notice of Pupil Assignment for Christine Kinlaw, 1961-1962</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1533. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1513" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Second Grade Class, 1961-1962</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1513. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1537" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Report Card for Christine Kinlaw, 1961-1962</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1537. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1534" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Notice of Pupil Assignment for Christine Kinlaw, 1962-1963</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1534. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1515" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Third Grade Class, 1962-1963</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1515. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1538" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Report Card for Christine Kinlaw, 1962-1963</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1538. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1532" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School May Day Program</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1532. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1535" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Notice of Pupil Assignment for Christine Kinlaw, 1963-1964</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1535. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1516" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Report Card for Christine Kinlaw, 1963-1964</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1516. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1539" target="_blank">Christine Kinlaw on Westside Grammar Elementary School Christmas Parade Float</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1539. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1511" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Fifth and Sixth Grade Class, 1964-1965</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1511. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1550" target="_blank">Sanford Grammar School Report Card for Christine Kinlaw, 1964-1965</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1550. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1514" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Sixth Grade Class, 1965-1966</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1514. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1551" target="_blank">Westside Grammar Elementary School Report Card for Christine Kinlaw, 1965-1966</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/1551. Source Repository <a href="http://www.publichistorycenter.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">Public History Center/Student Museum</a> 1st Street 7th Street 9th Street Eastside Primary School elementary school First Street grammar school History Harvest Kinlaw-Best, Christine Kinlaw, Christine Little Red Schoolhouse Miller, Mark Ninth Street Palmetto Avenue Public History Center report card Rigney-Kinlaw, Madge Geraldine Sanford Sanford Grammar School Sanford High School school Seminole County Seminole High School Seventh Street Southside School Student Museum Tajiri School of Performing Arts & Academics Westside Grammar Elementary School Woodcock, Colla Woodcock, Madge Woodcock, Versa https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/8dc754f78542e2b20a29fd8e3a923981.pdf 90a8914bd4d2c5bdbbead62142908165 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 Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection Alternative Title Lone Sailor Collection Subject Veterans--Florida Orlando (Fla.) United States. Navy Navy Sailors--United States Description Collection of digital images and oral histories related to the former Recruit Training Center Orlando (RTC Orlando) for the United States Navy. The training center transformed raw recruits into highly effective sailors. This process took place over an intensive eight-week training period, commonly referred to as "boot camp." RTC Orlando occupied roughly one half of the former Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando), which was located at present day Baldwin Park, Orlando, Florida. Between 1968 and 1994, over 650,000 men and women graduated from RTC Orlando. Contributor <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/ "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Connie Reuter Alternative Title Oral History, Reuter Subject Veterans--Florida Navy Orlando (Fla.) Description An oral history interview of Martha Reuter (b. 1964), who is nicknamed Connie. Reuter was born in Abingdon, Virginia, on March 20, 1964. She enlisted in the U.S. Navy (USN) on May 7, 1984, and completed her service on April 1, 1988. Reuter re-enlisted just six months later in the U.S. Naval Reserve (USNR) and was discharged on October 31, 2005. Reuter attended Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando). She later served at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Naval Air Station Ingleside in Ingleside, Texas.<br /><br />This oral history interview was conducted by Leanne Wiggins on March 6, 2014. Interview topics include Reuter's background, enlistment, naval training, attending boot camp at NTC Orlando, serving was a woman in the Navy, graduation from boot camp, Liberty Call, the USS <em>Blue Jacket</em>, the Grinder, serving as a photographer's mater, the Naval Reserve, and the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:35 Background<br />0:02:12 Enlistment<br />0:04:12 Boot camp at Naval Training Center Orlando<br />0:08:49 Training as a woman in the Navy<br />0:11:15 Responsibilities and social interactions at boot camp<br />0:15:09 Training<br />0:17:19 Proudest and memorable moments<br />0:19:54 USS <em>Blue Jacket</em> and the Grinder<br />0:22:48 Chapel and chow hall<br />0:24:12 Graduation and Navy memorabilia<br />0:26:56 Serving as a photographer's mate<br />0:32:04 Naval Reserve<br />0:34:44 Values learned from the Navy<br />0:36:59 Lone Sailor Memorial Project<br />0:41:49 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Martha Reuter. Interview conducted by Leanne Wiggins at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/223/" target="_blank">Reuter, Martha</a>. Interviewed by Leanne Wiggins. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/294/rec/1" target="_blank">Item DP0014908</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a><a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a>. <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 43-minute and 30-second oral history: <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/223/" target="_blank">Reuter, Martha</a>. Interviewed by Leanne Wiggins. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/294/rec/1" target="_blank">Item DP0014908</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Naval Training Center Orlando, Orlando, Florida Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas Naval Station Ingelside, Ingelside, Texas World Trade Center, New York City, New York Creator Reuter, Connie Wiggins, Leanne Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-03-06 Date Issued 2014-09 Date Copyrighted 2014-03-06 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 373 MB 172 MB Medium 43-minute and 30-second DVD audio/video recording 14-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Leanne Wiggins and Connie Reuter and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/lone-sailor-history/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/lone-sailor-history/. "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/223/" target="_blank">Reuter, Martha</a> Transcript <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Today’s date is Thursday, March 6^th, 2014. I am interviewing Martha “Connie” Reuter, who served in the United States Navy. She served on active duty between May 1984 and April 1988, and as a [Naval] Reserve between October 1988 and October 2005. My name is Leanne Wiggins. I am interviewing Ms. Reuter as part of the UCF Community Veterans History Project and as research for the creation of the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. We are recording this interview at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. Ms. Reuter, will you please start us off by telling us when and where you were born?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>I was born in Abingdon, Virginia. March 20^th, 1964.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>And what did your parents do for a living?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and, um, my dad was a, um, pastor—Lutheran minister.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>And do you have any brothers or sisters?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>And, uh, one older brother.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Growing up, where did you go to school?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, we moved, uh, a couple of times during my childhood. Um, started out, uh, around Shenandoah, Virginia. Moved to Martinsville, Virginia. I spent most of my, uh, ah, years in, uh, Martinsville, and then, um, moved to, uh, Newton, North Carolina, for, uh, my junior and senior year of high school.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>And what did you do before entering the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Uh, I was, uh, uh, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life [<em>laughs</em>]. So I was working, um, at a Hardee’s. I had gone to school for retail merchandising. Um, decided, uh, not to go that route. Was trying to figure out what to do, and, uh, one of my friends came through and said “Connie, let’s join the Navy.” And we were going to go in on the [Navy] Buddy [Enlistment] Program. And, uh, I went to a recruiter about three times. The fourth time I said, uh, “If I’m going to go, I’m going to go now.” and, uh, I signed on the Delayed Entry Program in February, and I left for boot camp in May. My friend did not go [<em>laughs</em>]. So it was just me.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So why did you choose the Navy, as opposed to other branches of the military?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>As, uh—basically, I had no clue. I just, uh—like I said, when she came through and said, “I got a[sic] idea. Let’s join the Navy,”—’cause her boyfriend had joined, and, um—uh, was like, “Great.”</p> <p>I have, uh—some of my relatives, um, are—have also been in the military. My cousin, who was in the Air Force, my uncle, uh, in the Army, and then my grandfather was in the Army. But it wasn’t, uh—I didn’t live near any big military bases, so I really didn’t—didn’t know. So I said—when she decided—when she said, “Let’s join the Navy,” I— Alright.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>How did, uh, your family members feel about you joining the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Uh, I think they were—they were definitely, uh, proud. Um, shocked, because I did all that and, uh, going to the recruiter and everything, um, without telling them [<em>laughs</em>]. So, um, after I had already join[sic], came home and told them.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So where did you attend boot camp?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Uh, eh, Orlando, Florida.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>And were you trained to do—what were you trained to do for your career in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Uh, while I was [inaudible] —I came in non-designated, so I didn’t decide ahead of time what career I wanted to do in the Navy. So I, uh—after, uh, boot camp, I went to Airman Apprenticeship Training School. And, um, from there got my, um, first duty station, talked to the Navy career counselor, and decided from there.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>When did you begin your training at NTC [Naval Training Center] Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, May 7^th, 1984.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Before coming to NTC Orlando, what did you know about the region, militarily or otherwise?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Nothing, uh, military-wise. And, of course, for Orlando, all you basically hear about is, uh, Walt Disney World. I had, a, uh—a [sic] uncle and cousins, who lived here. And so we had come down, um, once to visit them, and we went to Walt Disney World when I was a kid. And, um, so that’s all I knew. I had no idea about the military.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>How long were you at NTC Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Uh, I did the, uh, eight weeks of boot camp. And then, I believe Airman Apprenticeship Training was an additional four weeks. And, um, so then I left, all total, ‘round September.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>When you first arrived, what was your first impression of the base or the area?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Uh, well, when I first arrived, it was at night. Um, I was 20 years old, and that was my, uh, first time being on a commercial airplane. So, um, the MEPs [Military Entrance Processing] station was in Charlotte, North Carolina. So I flew from Charlotte to Orlando, as my first time on a commercial airplane. And, uh, it was at night. Uh, don’t remember much [<em>laughs</em>], okay?</p> <p>Uh, I know we had a bus, came right to the base, um, uh, everybody—when I came into the barracks, most of everybody was in their bunks already going to sleep. Um, I remember getting in my bunk, and then, uh, realizing I had to go to the bathroom. Scared to ask if I could get up and go to the bathroom, But I did, [<em>laughs</em>] and, uh—um, so then, I went back to sleep and woke up the next morning and that’s when it all began.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So what were your first days of service like?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Pretty, um, uh, regimented—routine. Start dinner routine, start, uh, issuing, um, uniforms. uh, even though I had, uh, cut my hair short before I came to Orlando for boot camp, um, because I thought that, uh, you know, <em>If I’m going to have my hair short, I want to be able to kind of, you know</em>—<em>well, do it myself</em>. [<em>laughs</em>] Well, it didn’t matter. You still went to the barbershop. They still cut some more off, even though it was already short. So I had, uh, um, short hair for the first time in my life [<em>laughs</em>]. And, um, uh, like I said, everything was pretty much, uh, just routine. You did as you were told. You stood where they told you to stand, listen to instructions, and everything. And if you listened well, you got along great.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So what was it like to be a woman at NTC Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Uh, it—it really didn’t, uh, bother me at all being a woman at NTC Orlando. Um, I didn’t have any problems at boot camp. Um, I know some of my bunkmates, uh, uh, did. Um, and it wasn’t necessarily—I don’t think—because of a woman. It’s just a—a different—it’s an adjustment.</p> <p>Um, but, uh, uh, we—the boys were still around. Uh, we had—went to classes with them. Um, saw them in the—at chow halls. All that. But we didn’t march with them, didn’t have them in the barracks, uh, and on—or anything. But, um, I remember we called them “trees.” and you were not allowed to look at the “trees” or anything.</p> <p>But, um, one of the best pieces of advice that I got before I left for boot camp, was my friend’s boyfriend, who was in the Navy already. He said “When they first ask you to raise your hand—to be on either the color guard, drill team, flag guard—raise your hand.” So I was like, “Okay.” So as soon as my company commanders, you know, asked that question, I raised my hand and they picked me and it was the best advice I had ever gotten. Uh, I had a really good time being on the drill team. Uh, you were on the drill team with the boys, so therefore you could talk to them [<em>laughs</em>] and meet them. Um, uh, I got out of a lot of other inspections, a lot of the PT [physical training], um, all that, because we had to go to drill practice. And so again, that was the best advice I could have ever gotten.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So besides your responsibilities with the drill team, what were—did you have any other primary responsibilities?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>No. That was it in boot camp. just, uh, keep everything in shipshape, um, make up your bunk correctly, have your clothes folded correctly, um, clean the barracks some, uh, go to classes, and, uh, that was about it.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So what was your overall impression of the recruits and their training during your time at the base?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>I felt it was very good. Um, uh, as—I felt comfortable. Um, I felt like I could trust them. Um, I said I didn’t have any problems. Um, when they yelled—you know, the company commanders yelled or—or whatever, but, you know, it didn’t bother me. I just let it roll—roll off my back. You know, do what they say. That’s it. Um, it, uh, definitely taught me a lot. Um, for, uh—everybody should go through it [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So who did you interact with on a daily basis?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>It was mainly my, um—the bunkmates that were closest to me. So, um, I was in the lower bunk, so, uh, my shipmate, who was in the top bunk, uh, we became very good friends. And the shipmate pretty much right next to me, we became really good friends. And, um, uh, other than that there was, uh, one of—one of my, um, boot camp, uh, ladies that were[sic]—that was in my company, she got stationed at the same place I did for the first duty station. So, uh, when I went to my first duty station, I already knew one person. So that was great. Um, and then a couple years later, while I was there, uh, one of, um—another girl that I was in, uh—I was in boot camp with, got stationed there, and so we became really good friends after that.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Who were your instructors, and what were they like?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>We had, uh, the company commanders, um, was[sic] Hines[sp] and Merritt[sp] —um, Petty Officer Hines and Petty Officer Merritt. Um, of course, I do not know their first name, [<em>laughs</em>], because you don’t have first names in boot camp. Uh, everything is by your last name. But, um, again, like I said, when they—they would, you know, yell if they had to.</p> <p>Um, I remember one time, you know, they asked you about what a gig line is, and I had no idea. And, um, you know, they would go around and ask everybody, and none of us knew, but we learned awfully quick[sic] what a gig line was. And [<em>laughs</em>] that’s something you’ll never forget.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What was a gig line?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>That is the line on your shirt that overlaps, it lines up with your belt buckle all the way down. That’s the gig line.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What was the hardest thing that you remember doing at NTC?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>[<em>sigh</em>] Oh, gosh. Um, I don’t know about the hardest. There was, uh, a couple—uh, we did go in the gas chamber, and, uh, so it was kind of scary. Um, and, uh, you know, you all go in as a group. They tell you to take your mask off. You start feeling the, uh, um, burn. And, uh, uh, [<em>laughs</em>] I remember one of our girls in the company, way in the back, was like “Help!” And she had such a high pitched voice and everybody started laughing. And, um, so then, um, they—by that time, they finally—they opened the door and you all came out. But, um, you experience that.</p> <p>You experienced, um, putting out a fire and, uh, putting out a fire on a ship with a big hose and working together as a team. Um, you experienced, uh, swimming, and how to survive in swimming and using your clothes as floatation devices.</p> <p>Um, that’s the first time I’d ever shot a gun, uh, I think it was a, uh, .45 [caliber handgun]. And, um—so that was an experience. Um, so I can’t really say anything was really hard. I was already fairly physically fit before I went in. um, and I could—I listened well and took instructions well.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What was a moment that you felt the most proud?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Oh, gosh. Um, graduation [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What was graduation like?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, uh, my parents had come down, and, um, my uncle had come over. And, uh, uh, it was a good time. And we went also went on a Liberty Call. And, um, I went with my parents, and—and, uh, couple of my, um, uh, friends from boot camp. I went to SeaWorld [Orlando], and, uh—yeah.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Can you tell me a story of a time at NTC Orlando that you’ll never forget?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Oh, let’s see. There’s several. Um, oh [<em>laughs</em>], I’ll never forget—um, after boot camp, I was at a—I went to, uh, Airman Apprenticeship Training School, which was, uh, another additional four weeks. And during that time, we could have, uh, Liberty Call at around 16:00 to 16:30— somewhere around there. Never failed. Orlando, during that time frame, would, uh—there would always be a huge thunderstorm downpour, uh, right at Liberty Call. So right when you were getting ready to go out on the [<em>laughs</em>] town or whatever, um, and have a little bit of your own time, they would have to cancel Liberty Call. And it would only last about an hour, and then Liberty was open. So it [<em>laughs</em>] —never failed. And still to this day [<em>laughs</em>] [<em>sniffs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>How would you describe the USS <em>Blue Jacket</em> and its function?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, I think, uh, back then, it was, uh, a very good replica of a Navy ship. And, uh, I said that is where we went to learn how to, uh, fight a fire on a ship, to work as a team. um, and, uh, even though, during my Navy career [<em>laughs</em>], uh, I never went out to sea—I was on the land on shore—but, uh, I’m sure, uh, it was—it was a good replica for the real thing.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What was the official purpose of the Grinder, and what was its significance to you and the recruits?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>The Grinder was, uh, where you marched and you marched [<em>laughs</em>]. And, uh, you also did the PT out there. Uh, the Grinder was a large, um—uh, what was it? Concrete or asphalt area. Um, big rectangle that you just marched up and down. And, uh, so you learned how to march in a straight line, you learned how to, uh, take the corners while you’re marching, and, um, you spend a lot of time out on the Grinder [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What other trainings went on at the base?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, well, again, as I said, I went to Airman Apprenticeship Training School, and, um—but there were also, um, Nuclear Power School out there, and—um, which of course, while you’re in boot camp, you don’t know that anything else is going on around you, except for your little area. But, um, uh, during Airman Apprenticeship Training School, you could, uh, get to know a little bit more of the base. And, uh, you could go to the, uh—also during boot camp and afterwards, go to the chapel on Sundays, and—and, uh, so you get to learn a little bit more.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Were there any other areas on base that were of particular importance to you?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, besides the chapel? It was, uh, the chapel [<em>laughs</em>]. And, um, another thing I will also never forget is: when you march up, getting ready to go into the chow hall, there is, um, uh, a recruit up there who has this big spiel about, uh, “You have 20 minutes, and 20 minutes only to eat your fine Navy chow.” and, uh, I know that there’s more, but, uh, [<em>laughs</em>] that’s the line that I remember. And, uh, you just went into the chow hall, got your food, ate. There were always huge, um, bottles of peanut butter on the tables, because peanut butter, uh, was more sustaining, and to—to help you keep full, if you needed to or whatever. But, uh, uh, you would always put peanut butter on, on the, uh, uh, chocolate bars, the ice cream, or make peanut butter sandwiches, or something, but there was always a huge jar of peanut butter.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>[<em>sniffs</em>] So what did it feel like to graduate and finally put that hat on?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] This was, uh, um, my cover that I got from, uh, boot camp. This was issued to me during boot camp. Uh, one of the, uh, things that I realize now is that, uh, we, back then, wrote our full Social Security [Insurance] number in, uh—in our, some of our gear. Uh, so I still have [<em>laughs</em>] my full Social Security number, uh, written in here. But, uh, it definitely has all of the stains from, uh, many years of—of wear.</p> <p>Um, I was also issued, uh, “birth control glasses.”<a title="">[1]</a> So I still have my “birth control glasses,” that, uh—and you could not wear contacts. You had to wear these “birth control glasses” during boot camp, and after, um, boot camp, during Apprenticeship Training School, then I could, uh, wear my contacts. But, uh, these were lovely [<em>laughs</em>], But hey. Everybody that needed glasses had them. Uh, we all, for the most part, looked the same.</p> <p>This is, uh, still my, uh, uh, tie that was issued in boot camp. I still have, uh, my initials, um, engraved—or, uh, inked on there. That was another one of the things that as soon as you were issued your gear, you all, uh, went in a line and, uh, with the stencil, and then, uh, stenciled all your gear. So, uh, this was the first time that I was issued.</p> <p>And, um, this was, uh, the picture of my mom and dad at, uh, graduation. And this was just a picture that they took of me in, uh, front of the sign. And then this was just my, uh, first, uh, photograph.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Did you want to share anything else of the memor—memorabilia you brought?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, well, later on, uh, when, I got to my first duty station, and finally decided what I wanted to be in the Navy, that is when I decided to, uh, uh, be a Photographer’s Mate. And, uh—so I went and, um, during that time, the Photographer’s Mate rating was open, meaning that they needed people to be photographers in the Navy, so I was like, “I can take pictures.” So I decided to [<em>laughs</em>] —to go that route.</p> <p>And, um, this is my, um, rating badge. Uh, that is, uh, no longer, uh, used in the Navy. This, uh, was, uh, the Photographer’s Mate rating badge, it’s an IFKA[?]. And the wings represent, uh, that we were—that it was the air-dealt rating. So um, now the Navy has combined three ratings into one. So, uh. Now there are no more Photographer’s Mates. They have a new rating.<a title="">[2]</a></p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So tell me a bit more about your experience as a Photographer’s Mate.</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Again, that was, uh, very, um, thrilling, and, a lot of fun. You were up front, uh, of everything, because you had to get the picture. And, um, you also got to tell, uh, some of the officers, uh, what to do, where to stand, and, uh, you know, what to do. So that was always fun [<em>laughs</em>]. And, uh, um, there was always some, some—some, uh, great opportunities.</p> <p>I, uh, had to take pictures of, um, a wheels-up landing. I was stationed in, uh, Corpus Christi, Texas. And, um, a [Beechcraft] T-34 [Mentor] was coming in for a landing, and the wheels would not come down. The landing gear would not come down. So, um, we—me and another Photographer Mate went out to shoot, um, pictures of this wheels-up landing to document it. And I was shooting the stills, and he was shooting the video. But, uh, at first, I was nervous and—camera was shaking while I was trying to take the pictures [<em>laughs</em>] but, uh, you know, we had the fire trucks there, and they just came right in on the belly of the plane—skid right in—and, uh, they were fine. Thank goodness.</p> <p>But, um, uh, I also went to take pictures of, uh, Naval Station Ingleside[, Texas], which is no longer there already [<em>laughs</em>]. The Navy’s already sold it back to Corpus Christi. But, uh, uh, we took the groundpreak[sic]—groundbreaking pictures of, um, Naval Station Ingleside.</p> <p>And, uh, so it’s just, um—it was always cool to be a part of history—document history. Um, uh, document, uh, happy occasions, lots of, uh, changes of command ceremonies, lots of promotion ceremonies, retirement ceremonies.</p> <p>Um, and uh, document some not-so-good things. You also were on duty, um, and when it was your duty day, and you got called, I had, um, three different suicide attempts. So you had to go and document, um, the scene and what had happened. And, uh, one guy had tried to slit his wrist, so you’re documenting all the blood and all that. And, uh, um, another person had jumped out a second story window. Um, so you have to go, you know, just document. And, uh, so, you never knew what was going to happen. What you were going to be called to do. So it was—it was exciting.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Do you recall the day that your active service ended?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, well, I was on active duty for four years. And, um, as I said, I was stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas, and that was my first duty station. And from there, uh, I had met my future husband, so I decided—we got engaged, and I decided to, um, get out of the Navy, uh, so we could get married.</p> <p>And, uh, from there, I stayed in the Reserves. So, um, the remaining of my time, I, uh, did the, you know, uh, weekend-a-month, two weeks a year Reserve drill. Uh, still as a Photographer’s Mate. And, uh, that worked out well, because I was able to do my Reserve duty anywhere that, uh, he was stationed, because he was still active duty Navy.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So when you were not doing your Reserve duties, what were you doing otherwise?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Well, I was very lucky to be able to, uh—once we had our first child, to stay at home. And, uh, so, uh, the majority of my time was as a stay-at-home mother. Uh, we ended up, uh, with three children, so [<em>laughs</em>], uh—and fairly close together, so that…</p> <p>[<em>vacuum cleaner</em> <em>turns on</em>]</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Kept me busy. But, um, uh, we, uh—I also would do, uh, other different things, uh, besides my Reserve time, to, uh, just stay active as far as, uh, either within their school, being a substitute teacher, going and helping out and volunteering. Um, uh, doing, uh—did the realtor for a couple of years, did pampered chef for a couple of years. So anything that I did, I made sure that my schedule, I could still be home.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What values or characteristics of the Navy do you believe made an impression on your life?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Hm, um, [<em>sighs</em>] I think I had, um, a lot of good values, um, already instilled in me from my parents, uh, that the Navy and the military, um, uh, you know, uh, possesses, and that’s, uh, good character, uh, teamwork. There’s the honor, courage, and commitment. Um, uh, I always felt that, uh—I said, “If they were your shipmate, uh, and you were in trouble, they would be there to help.” um, so just—just a little bit more of, of continuing of what my parents had already told me.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What was the most valuable lesson that you learned, um, in your time in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Hm, um, as I said, just be a—be a team player. It’s—it’s not about you. It’s getting the job done, keeping everybody safe, um, keeping the country safe, um, being a team player.</p> <p>[<em>vacuum cleaner</em> <em>turns off</em>]</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>How has NTC Orlando base or the Central Florida region changed since the time you originally spent here?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Oh, goodness. A lot. Uh, when we—my family and my husband—me and my husband and—and our three kids—um, moved back to Orlando, because, uh, he was being stationed here at NAWCTSD [Naval Air Warfare Center Training System Division], um, I was like, you know, [<em>laughs</em>] “Let’s go see where, uh, NTC Orlando was.” Where was I? Where did I go to boot camp? Uh, I knew that the base had been closed, but—I don’t know. I guess I was expecting to see something, um, and there was really nothing. Nothing there to show that the Navy had been here, as far as a, um, boot camp. And like, you know—like we’ve talked about, with the, um—the Grinder, the—the big replica of the, you know, the <em>Blue Jacket</em> ship, uh, um, there was nothing. Uh, the chapel [<em>laughs</em>]—and nothing and so I was very surprised.</p> <p>And, uh, I said, I was, um, very pleased to, uh, find a group who was trying to do something about that. And, um, so since that time, I have, uh—me and my husband have volunteered to be on the, uh, committee, to get, uh, something to show where NTC/RTC [Recruit Training Center] was. um, so that people can not only come to take their kids to Disney World or SeaWorld or, um, Universal Studios [Orlando], uh, but if they went to boot camp, they can bring them to an area, uh, that they can show their kids where they were during that time frame. I, um—when I retired, the Lone Sailor [Memorial Project] statue was the, um, one thing that I wanted as a retirement gift, and so I’m very proud.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>So when they come back to visit the memorial, what do you think Naval personnel would like to see?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, I think they would like to see, uh, um, pictures of, uh, the way—to—to show the way it used to be—what was really there. Because, you know, now it’s a Baldwin Park community. um, so it’s just really, I feel, interesting to see, um, old pictures of—of when we were there, Um, maybe a little write up of the history, um, and, um, of course, not only a—a male Lone Sailor, but a, hopefully, one day, we get a female Sailor statue there also, to represent, um, the men and women who went to boot camp there.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>What do you think is the lasting legacy of the NTC Orlando or the Navy to the Central Florida region?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Uh, just that it—it, uh—it’s a lot of good people. It, uh, helped a lot of people grow up, and become, uh, great, um, adults—giving adults—back to their communities and country, um, sacrificing what you have to have sacrifice for the good of all.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Is there anything else that you would like to share about your Navy experience?</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Um, it was definitely, uh, a good, good experience. Lots of, uh, memories. Lots of opportunities. Lots of opportunities to travel to different places, um, meet different people, uh, lots of—build lots of lasting friendships, um, see and do many different things.</p> <p>Uh, during one of my two weeks of active duty, I was in New York City for Fleet Week, and during that time was when they, um, brought out the last beam for, uh, the World Trade Center. and I was manning the rails as they brought out the last beam, and I was all the way down—the bottom of World Trade Center—and, uh, at Ground Zero. And, uh, to just be down there and look up—amazing.</p> <p><strong>Wiggins<br /></strong>Well, I want to thank you very much for your time and for giving this interview, and for all of the wonderful experiences that you have shared with me.</p> <p><strong>Reuter<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> G.I. glasses.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Mass Communications Specialist.</p> </div> </div> Abingdon, Virginia active duty Airman Apprenticeship Training School Baldwin Park basic training Beechcraft T-34 Mentor birth control glasses boot camps chapels chow halls church churches cold war Community Veterans History Project Connie Reuter Corpus Christi, Texas CVHP Delayed Entry Program DEP drill teams education educators enlistment eyeglasses females firearms Fleet Week G.I. glasses gas chambers gig lines glasses graduations Ground Zero guns Hines inactive duty Ingelside, Texas instructors Leanne Wiggins Liberty Call Lone Sailor Memorial Project LSMP Martha Reuter memorials MEP Merritt military education Military Entrance Processing military training NAS Corpus Christi Naval Air Station Corpus Christi Naval Air Station Ingelside Naval Air Warfare Center Training System Division Naval Training Center Orlando Navy Buddy Enlistment Program NAWCTSD New York City, New York NS Ingelside NTC Orlando orlando peanut butter Petty Officer, Second Class photographer's mates photographers photography Recruit Training Center Recruit Training Center Orlando recruits RTC Orlando sailors ships suicides T-34 teachers The Grinder training U.S. Naval Reserve U.S. Navy USN USNR USS Blue Jacket veterans weather woman women World Trade Center WTC https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/e4b7f6422abac4d4b5353edbed6399c7.pdf 26c6287bc13290321f910fbed6b0c442 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 UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection Description As part of RICHES of Central Florida, UCF intends to record, archive, and make accessible oral history interviews of Central Florida veterans. Diversity is a main focus for this project since there are many different subgroups under the group veterans, all with important stories. While the histories will be largely archived and made available through the UCF library, a portion will be contributed to the ongoing Veterans History Project based out of the Library of Congress. Contributor <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries, University of Central Florida Alternative Title CVHP Collection Subject Veterans--Florida United States. Army Army United States. Navy Navy United States. Air Force Air Force United States. Marine Corps Marine Corps Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Jacksonville, Florida Orlando, Florida Honolulu, Hawaii Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Great Lakes, Illinois Long Island, New York Newport, Rhode Island Norfolk, Virginia Germany Qaasuitsup, Greenland Keflavik, Southern Peninsula, Iceland Azores Islands, Portugal Mediterranean Sea Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Curt Sawyer Alternative Title Oral History, Sawyer Subject Veterans--Florida Army Description An oral history interview of Curt Sawyer (b. 1954), who served in the U.S. Army from 1986 to 1994. Sawyer was born in San Francisco, California, on May 1, 1965, but grew up in Tennessee. While living in Fort Myers, Florida, in 1986, Sawyer joined the Army. During his service, he participated in training exercises with the French Foreign Legion in Corsica and served at Guard Post Ouellette in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea. Sawyer achieved the rank of First Lieutenant and received the Expert Infantryman Badge. He was also a graduate of the Army Ranger School, Army Airborne School, Army Air Assault School, and Army Rappelling School.<br /><br />This interview was conducted by Robin Dunn at the University of Central Florida (UCF) on November 13, 2014. Interview topics include attending the United States Military Academy at West Point, Airborne School and Air Assault School, serving in South Korea, the 1st Ranger Regiment, meeting his wife, his post-Army life, and training with the French Foreign Legion. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:40 Background<br />0:01:28 Enlistment<br />0:03:33 United States Military Academy at West Point<br />0:05:53 Army assignments <br />0:07:22 South Korea<br />0:10:52 Airborne School and Air Assault School<br />0:12:38 Rest and recuperation in South Korea<br />0:14:35 Savannah, Georgia <br />0:18:35 1st Ranger Regiment<br />0:20:33 Breakout of the Persian Gulf War<br />0:22:15 Wife<br />0:28:07 Post-military life<br />0:30:04 Training with the French Foreign Legion<br />0:34:44 Staying in touch with friends from the military <br />0:36:03 Impact of Army on life<br />0:37:38 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Curt Sawyer. Interview conducted by Robin Dunn at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida on November 13, 2014. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/464/rec/1" target="_blank">Sawyer, Curt</a>. Interviewed by Robin Dunn, November 13, 2014. Audio/video record available. Item DP0016000, UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 20-page digital transcript of original 39-minute and 53-second oral history: <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/464/rec/1" target="_blank">Sawyer, Curt</a>. Interviewed by Robin Dunn, November 13, 2014. Audio/video record available. Item DP0016000, UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage United States Military Academy at West Point, West Point, New York Fort Benning, Georgia Guard Post Ouellete, Demilitarized Zone, South Korea Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea Eglin Air Force Base, Okaloosa County, Florida Savannah, Georgia Corsica, France Creator Sawyer, Curt Dunn, Robin Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-11-13 Date Issued 2015-01 Date Copyrighted 2014-11-13 Format application/website application/pdf Extent 342 MB 218 KB Medium 39-minute and 53-second Digital (DAT) audio/video recording 20-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Robin Dunn and Curt Sawyer. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Kim, Kwi-Gon. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/857709227" target="_blank"><em>The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of Korea: Protection, Conservation and Restoration of a Unique Ecosystem</em></a>. 2013. Si-woo, Lee, and Myung-Hee Kim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/754765257" target="_blank"><em>Life on the edge of the DMZ</em></a>. Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2007. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/464/rec/1" target="_blank">Sawyer, Curt</a> Transcript <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Today is November 13^th, 2014. I am interviewing Mr. Curtis Sawyer, Associate Vice President of Administrative Affairs at the University of Central Florida, who served in the United States Army for eight years, achieving 1^st Lieutenant as his highest rank. My name is Robin Dunn. We are interviewing Mr. Sawyer as a part of the UCF [University of Central Florida] Community Veterans History Project. We are recording this interview in Orlando, Florida. Good morning, Mr. Sawyer. How are you?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Good morning, Robin.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>I’m doing fine. Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Alright. We’re going to start with some easy questions. Um, when were you born?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>[May 1^st,] 1965.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay, and where were you born?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>San Francisco, California.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And what did your parents do for a living?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer <br /></strong>Hm, my father originally was a college English professor, and then he switched careers about midcareer and went into real estate, and that’s what—so those were his two primary careers. My mother was homemaker.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>And did you have any siblings?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>I have one older sister.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>She’s three years older. Her name is Dojuan [Sawyer].</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Dojuan?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Dunn <br /></strong>And, um, what is—did she have any military history, as well? Did she enlist in…</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>No, her husband did. He was enlisted man in the 82^nd Airborne [Division] and he used to jump out of airplanes for a living. So he and I had quite, uh—a little bit of a common background.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>And when did you enlist in the service?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Hm, I went in in [June 30,] 1986.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>And what made you enlist into the Army?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Well, um, I actually went in as an officer, and so, um, it really wasn’t something that I had thought about, when I was a kid growing up in the country in Tennessee. Um, I always really liked playing war games, and, um—so my little toy soldiers, and, um, tanks, and—and I was just set up these elaborate massive battles, and that’s what they [inaudible], and then I’d go outside and whittled out swords and—And, um, play Army, but that was really the extent of what I thought I would do with that desire to do military stuff.</p> <p>When I was living in Fort Myers[, Florida] in 1986, our [U.S.] senator,<a title="">[1]</a> who, at the time, senator was Senator<a title="">[2]</a> Connie Mack,<a title="">[3]</a> sent out a new letter to us and my dad saw it and it was a little blurb that said, “Hey. Anybody interested in applying to a service aca—academy, um, here’s what you do.” And so, um, my dad said, “Hey, Curt. You should try to do this. You will never get accepted, because you don’t know anybody political, but you can just go ahead and do it for the experience.” and so I did. I went through the process, I interviewed with the co—committee, I did all the PT [physical training] tests, I did the medical exams, I finished  my grades, I showed all the stuff that I had done, and then I forgot about it, and, um, I had gone to community college, as well, like what you did. Edison Community College. Now it’s [Florida] SouthWest[ern] State College. and I was going to graduate from there and then I was either going to go to the University of Florida or Florida State [University], whichever school had the higher ratio of females to males.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>That was my criteria for de—deciding. and so one day, in the mail, came this official looking binder, and, um—and I opened it up, and I looked at it, and it said, um, “The United States Military Academy is pleased to offer you a letter of-of ac—of, uh—of acceptance to the class of 1986”—the class of ‘90—“at West Point.” So that’s how I started my military career.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Mmhmm, and so you went to West Point?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>I did.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay. So how was West Point? What was your experience at West Point?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Hm, you know, um, it was something that I—I did not really prepare for. When I got there, um, a lot of my classmates had already prepared they knew what they were up—so There’s a lot of reading, a lot of memory work you have to do. It’s called “bugle notes.” it’s that thick. You memorize it all: insignia, rank, history, sayings, important figures that graduated—all that stuff. Um, they knew all that stuff, they knew how to shine their shoes and their boots, and they knew how to do a proper salute, and they knew—and I knew nothing about that. So it took me a while to figure that all out, and, um—but once I did it went well enough. Um, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Is there anything, um, memorable about West Point? Do you have any, like, experiences that you enjoyed there?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yeah, I think every single minute of my four years there is seared into my memory. Um, so it—I’m very proud, um, of my West point experience. I’m glad I went. At the time, it was a little bit—I’ve always been a little bit of, um—of an independent type. Um, kinda a little bit of a free thinker. Not in a really kind of a weird or aggressive way, but just always been independent-minded, and that’s not what West point is about. So, um, it’s been around since [March 16,] 1802, and so there’s a history, and there’s a structure, and there’s a way of doing things, and you either comply with it and you do well, or if you don’t, then you really kind of—you just don’t make it. So, um—so once I kinda came to grips with that, um, I did well.</p> <p>I, you know—the experiences were very rich. The classmates, which[sic] I still keep in contact with, um, the things I did, the training that I did. During the summers, we really wouldn’t have summers off in military training for vacation. We would go on military training. So I went to Air Assault School<a title="">[4]</a> and I got my Air Assault wings [Badge], went to Airborne School and did that, went to Germany for six weeks, and so just a lot of kind of—life at a hundred miles an hours.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>And what did you do after West Point?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Well, um, with West Point comes, um, a commitment—a military commitment in the Army, and so, um, I went into the Army and did that for four and a half years. I was stationed at—at different places and did different things. Do—do you want me to share that with you?</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Yeah, yeah. Where—where were you stationed?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Okay. So once I graduated from West Point, um, my parents bought me a trip to, um, Cancún[, Quintana Roo, Mexico] with a buddy, and, um, so we did that to kind of celebrate the four years of hard work, which is where I met my wife, Uh, by—By the way. She was my travel agent. I’ll tell that story a little bit later.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>And, um—and so then after that, I went to the Officer Basic Corps in Fort Benning, Georgia, and then I went to Ranger School, um, and then, um—and then my first duty assignment was in [South] Korea, and, um, did Korea for a while, had a regular line. It’s called a “line platoon,” which is a platoon of—in infantrymen, at the time, and then, um, there I took over—it’s called a “scout platoon,” which is a smaller unit—but basically we would go out and were kinda the eyes and ears of the overall battalion, and, um, once I left Korea, then I came back to the United States and went to Savannah, Georgia, and I served with the 75^th Ranger [Regiment] battalion. So the first—first Ranger battalion in Savannah, Georgia, and did that for a while, and then I wrapped up my service.</p> <p><strong>Dunn <br /></strong>Now, you said you went to Korea. Um, what—what was it like going to Korea? What were your first experiences and thoughts, while you were in Korea?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yeah, um, you know, it was kind of a surprise that I even went to Korea. The way West point does it is that everything you do, um, counts against your rank, and so there is roughly 1,000 of us that entered, um, our plebe year, and so roughly 900 graduated. and so what they do—so every PT, every—every test that you take, every PT test you take, every academic grade you get, every sport that you play, every demerit that you get, everything goes into this basically a formula, and you’re rank-ordered from number one all the way down to the bottom. So you always know where you stand, in terms of the rest of your classmates, and so, what you do then, is you pick the branch that you want to go, and generally most folks get that they want. I always wanted to go infantry, and then what happens is, at some point in time, several couple month before we graduated, they take you into an auditorium, and we’re all in there, and your names are all—all 900—and then all of the available slots that are available worldwide, in terms of duty stations, right? And they’re all there. They’re all on the board. So the number one person…</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Who, in my class, was a guy by the name of Ed Hoyt, was just this—photographic memory—he is the first choice. So the—the best slots always go first. Vicenza[, Veneto], Italy, always goes first, Hawaii goes, Fort Ord, California, always go first. All the cool place go, and then they work down the list.</p> <p>So I was about mid-pack. I was like around 450 or so, and I had planned—I was dating this girl, and we was all serious, and it was love and all that sort of thing, and so we had agreed that we were going to—that I was going to go to Fort Lewis, Washington. I was going to stay stateside, and, um, we were going to continue the relationship. and so when it can time, when they called my name, Cadet Curt Sawyer, I stood up and fully expected to say, “Fort Lewis, Washington,” but what came out of my mouth was “the Republic of Korea.” and honest to goodness, [inaudible] I’m like—and my friends all looked at me, and I looked at them, and I’m like, “What have I done?” And, um—and that’s where I went, and so, um, the relationship ended pretty quickly thereafter, and, um, I went to Korea.</p> <p>So Korea was cool, just because, um, back then, it was fairly tense still. There’s still no formal treaty ending the [Korean] War between North Korea and South Korea. So it—it—it could be tense on the Demilitarized Zone—the DMZ, and, um, so I spent quite a bit of time on the DMZ, with—with the, eh—there—there’s a couple of guard posts that are right there. One of them is Guard Post Ouellette, and it’s actually surrounded on three sides by North Korea. So it kinda jets out and, um, it’s pretty tense, and we would do patrols, and—and look for the North Koreans, and they would look for us, and that sorta of thing.</p> <p>So I wasn’t married. I didn’t have, um, commitments, and so it was a time that I really dove into my craft of learning to be an Army officer, and doing as well as I could. Um, there were several of my classmates that[sic] I went to West Point with, and I went to Airborne School, and I went to Ranger School—they were over there, and so we were pretty close, and we were just we really, really trained hard, and—And, um—yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay, and you said you went to Airborne and…</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Air Assault.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Air Assault School. Do you want to talk about those? And how those experiences helped you?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yeah, um, those are kinda expected. Those are schools that are kinda expected, um, as an Army infantry officer, um, especially someone that wants to go to, um, Ranger School, and then serve in a Ranger battalion. you—you really—it’s hard to be in a Ranger battalion and not have—be airborne qualified, because of a lot of what Rangers do is you parachute in and do your mission, and so it’s just one of those things, and Airborne School is pretty straightforward. I went to it my junior year. They call it a “cow” at West Point. Your junior year, you’re—you’re a cow. Yeah. It goes: plebe, and then yearly, and then cow, and then firstie, right? And so, um, straightforward. You do five jumps, and then you get your Airborne wings, and you put it on, you wear them, you walk around like somebody special, because you—you jumped out an airplane five times.</p> <p>So it was cool. It was hot, and then Air Assault School is where you—you—basically, you repel out of helicopters, and, um, it’s—it’s pretty straightforward. It actually was a hard course—not the physical part. It’s just you had to learn how to—to rig items, Jeeps, equipment, and that sorta thing, in order to be able to transport them, and so it’s pretty technical, and that was kinda hard. But, um, and that as in Fort Kentu—um, that was in, um—I forget the name—and in Kentucky. That was really hot. Everything I did, all the classes, or courses, were in the middle of the summer, it felt like. So they were good. It was good training. It helped me in my craft as an Army officer.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay. Um, now, while you’re in Korea—we’re gonna go back to Korea—um, what did you do when you weren’t working? What was your, like, R&amp;R [rest and recuperation], while in Korea?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Um, yeah, you know, there wasn’t that much time that we were off, um, because we were, um, either at the home base, um, getting ready to go back to the DMZ or, um—or we were recovering from out last mission to the DMZ, or, um, we were actually at the DMZ—the Demilitarized Zone, and what that is: it’s basically a line that—the 45^th Parallel [North] that divides North and South Korea.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>And, um, the few times that we—the times that we had off, we would go into the city of Seoul[, South Korea]. So we learned how to take the train and—and the sub—and, uh, the subway—and go into Seoul, and there’s a little place called Itaewon, which is were a lot of us would go. Um, I can’t tell you too much about it, because it was one of—it was kind of a younger, wilder, um, time that was a little bit of a blur.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>That’s okay [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>]I will tell you this: they have this stuff “soju,” right? Which is—it’s kinda like our white lightning. It’s—it’s, um—really, really, powerful, clear alcohol.  And so you can’t drink it straight, ‘cause it’ll kill ya, I mean, it’s like drinkin’ gasoline. So [<em>laughs</em>] whatcha do though is you is mix it with, um, different kinds of Kool-Aids [<em>laughs</em>], and honest to goodness—and so, um, you know—cherry Kool-Aid, or grape Kool-Aid, or whatev—and so it tastes like Kool-Aid. You can’t taste the—the booze in it. So you drink a couple of those, and you just really kind of, you know, be all you can be as a young, American soldier in a foreign country.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>And how long were you in Korea for?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>A year.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay, and when you came back, you said you went to Savannah, Georgia?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>That, um—so I was in Korea And, um—and so the scout platoon became available, so I got selected to do that, which is—which is kinda of an honor, because, um—it just is. Um, ‘cause there is just one scout platoon in a battalion, and, um, and the thing about scouts is, um, you—you have to go out, and you have to be very tactical, you have to be very—you cannot be seen, Right? So you kind of—you integrate.</p> <p>Well, we had a colonel that was, um—came from the old guard in Washington, D.C, and those are the ones—the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. So they walk, and all the pomp and the ceremony, and all that sorta thing. Well, that stuff is great, but it doesn’t really work when you’re out in the field, you know? There it’s more about performance, more—it—more about getting the bad guy before the bad guy get you, and so I didn’t wear full uniform that—that he wanted. He thought I should.</p> <p>For example, I would take my helmet off. When you’re out in the woods, you know, it’s really kinda hard to hear, and—and, um, be stealthy and crafty when you have this big ol’ thing on your head that’s covering your ears. So I’d take that off, and I would have the boys put—called “watch caps” or “balaclavas.” Well, he caught wind of that, and really, really, um, really, kinda hit the roof, and was determined that he was just going to kinda ruin my military career off of that, and, uh, the thing about him though: he was West Point, so he knew I was a West Point, and he said, “Well, let me give this,” you know—‘cause a lot of folks were really kinda rooting for me saying, “No. this guy is little bit kinda on the wild side maybe, but he’s really, really good at what he does, and so give him a chance.”</p> <p>So what he did is like, “Okay, Lieutenant Sawyer. I’m gonna go on a mission with you, alright? And I’m gonna see if you’re as good as what people are sayin’.” And so, um, so he showed up and—and, of course, we have all our equipment, you know? For example, I would carry two radios, in order to communicate with higher headquarters, plus also my—my soldiers that[sic] were all spread out all over kind of Korea.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>And, um, so between all that equipment, it’s maybe 70-80 pounds of weight, and so he showed up with just his little—this kind of thing, with his water and his radio, and said, “Okay, Lieutenant Sawyer. Let’s go,” and I’m like “Sir, where’s—where’s all your equipment?” And he’s like, “I got my Jeep tailing me, so, um, don’t worry about me. You just show me what ya got.” So, um—so I’m like, “Okay.”</p> <p>So I— told my platoon sergeant “Alright. Sergeant Iver[sp]. Get ready. Um, we’re gonna climb the tallest mountain I can find,” and, um— and so we did, and, um, a lot—a lot of it was climbing on our hands and knees, and it took most of the day to climb the mountain, and we got to the top, and then we set up camp, and, um—and then I deployed all my different scouts, and—and, um—and basically, we did such a good job that the colonel changed his mind, and, um—and so therefore, um—but then the next continuation of that is that the Rangers came recruiting to Korea, and, um, all my friends were like, “Rangers. That’s—that’s the pinnacle. We wanna go. Um, we wanna be a Ranger.” so, like, “Let’s go, Curt.” and I’m like, “No. I have only about a month left in Korea and I already have orders.” I’m gonna go to Fort Smith, Arkansas, with a—it’s called a “Joint Readiness Training Center”—the JRTC. I’m fine with that. I’ve come to grips with that. I’m kinda looking forward to it. I’m not really much interested in this Rangering stuff, and so they’re like, “Well, at least come along with us.” And, um, so I went with them, and I interviewed with the Rangers, and then, um, eh, strangely enough, I was the only one that—that was accepted, and was offered, um, an invitation to join the Rangers, and so once that happened, I thought, <em>Okay. Well, I guess this is too good </em><em>an offer to refuse, and </em>so I ended up going to Savannah with the 1^st Ranger battalion.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay, and what was your job in the 1^st Ranger battalion. What was—what did you do exactly?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yeah, um, yeah. Uh, Rangers are—are part of [United States Army] Special Operations [Command], and so my job was a platoon leader to lead, and—and their big platoons, so it’s roughly 55, um—55 men, and, um, our job was different things: to raids, to do ambushes. We would—we would parachute in most of the time and—and do our—do our mission, and then get extracted. um, sometimes, it would be fast strobing—it’s called “fast strobing,” where you have a helicopter that comes in, and then basically, you jump out, grab the rope, and—and you slide down, and jump out of the way, and the helicopter keeps moving like this, so you go, and you kinda just go, and you assemble and move off.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Um, so ambushes, raids. Um, a big part of it was, um, airfield seizures—airfield—airfield takes downs, which is actually pretty cool, ‘cause we had a special vehicles, that, um—special vehicles Land Rovers, that were made just for the Rangers, that would fit into the airplanes. So the [Lockheed] C-130s [Hercules] and the [Lockheed] C-141s [Starlifter] [<em>sniffs</em>]. Um it—it’s called “Jeeps” and “bikes.”</p> <p>So, uh, [<em>laughs</em>] it’s pretty cool. So you’d drop the ramp of the—of the aircraft, and then you’d drive your Jeeps up there, and we also had dirt bikes, and, um, our job was, um, once other members of the platoon would go in—jump in, and secure the airfield, make sure there was no debris on the runway—We would come in, drop the ramps, disembark, drive off, and then establish blocking positions, so that the enemy could not retake the—the airfield. So different things. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>And, um, uh, did you see any combat at all?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>No?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>No, I did not. When I was in Korea—Korea—since Korea has just kind of a—kind of a special mission—because we’re at peace, but we’re not really—um, I did not go to the First, um, Iraq War.<a title="">[5]</a></p> <p>When I was in Ranger School, um—I remember in January of ’91, we were doing a patrol at Eglin Air Force Base, and so we had just jumped into our—our rubber boats, called “Zodiacs” or “RB-15s,” and we were doing a mission. It was the last mission of that phase of Ranger School, and we were all just really tired and really weak, and, we just wanted to be kinda done with it—just done with it, and, um, course, it’s night. All the—all the missions you do in the military are—are at night, um, and so we had just pushed off, and we were just about to start rowing, and then this big ol’ colonel—this big ol’ colonel that[sic] I have never seen before—he must have of weighed 250 pounds—came running and jumped into our—our boat, and then, we—we could see just enough in the moonlight that he looked like he had some rank that kinda outranked us, or we were a little bit different, and he was listening to a radio, and that’s when we had first started bombing. That’s when we first went into Iraq, and he was listening to it and said, “Alright, Rangers. This is for real now. We’re goin’ to war. Every single one of you.” you know, gave some colorful adjectives, um, “Will be over there, um, inside of two months. So you better that this seriously,” which we already were, But, um—and so we were momentarily kinda pumped, you know, because when you’re in the military and that sorta thing that we’re doing, you kind of—you wanna go into combat, you want go where the danger is, but then after that, we were mostly worried about this big ol’ colonel was just gonna make our jobs harder to row, and—and, so, um, that’s what we’re mostly worried about.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Um, did you stay in touch with your family, while you were over there?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Well, um, that gets in the story of my wife. So do you wanna hear about this? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>I won’t tell you all the details.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>But, um—so when I graduated from West Point, my parents sent my best friend and I to a trip to Cancún, and so, um, we had to go to a travel agent. My mother, for some reason or another, got so upset with our normal travel agent. So we said, “We’re just not gonna go to her anymore. We’re gonna go fine a different travel agent.”</p> <p>So back then you didn’t really have the Internet. You couldn’t pull up your—your PDA and see where the—we just went driving, and so we saw a “travel agent,” and Mom said “That’s it. That’s the one.” [<em>sniffs</em>] And so we walk in there, and there was this really, really pretty girl with really, deep green eyes, and I’m like, <em>Hello.</em> I didn’t say that.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>I was thinking that, right? And, um, so we sat down, and she arranged it, and I’m looking at her, and I’m thinking <em>Wow</em>, you know? Um, I—I—I think, um—and you can kinda tell, she kinda was mildly intrigued with me—not overwhelmed—but mildly, and so, um—and so when I get back from Cancún, I’m gonna come back and I’m gonna ask this—this lady out, Right? And so then when I came back, um, I—I remembered her, and I had every intention, and then I end up meeting this other girl, who actually was a cop in Miami[, Florida], who was also a lawyer, but she put the law thing on the side, and she wanted to work a cop in one of the most dangerous areas of Fort Lauderdale[, Florida], and so I got kinda sidetracked with that nonsense for about five months, until was finally able to get outta that—get out of that. That was really not a good relationship.</p> <p>So then I got my orders to go to Korea, right? And, um—so I had to fly commercial, so I went back to the travel agent, and then when I walked in, I’m like <em>Hello.</em> I—I kinda, like, forgotten [<em>laughs</em>] all about her, but then when I saw those pretty green eyes, I[sic] like, <em>Whoa</em>, you know? And it was a mess. I was young, right? We were all young, and, um—and so then, I ask her out, and, um, so we dated for a week, and then I went to Korea, and the way Korea is, back then, you really don’t come back, and there really wasn’t a whole lot of e-mail back then. Um, so, we wrote. We hand wrote letters, back and forth, and she saved every single of them. She still has them. We’ve been married 22 years. She saved every single one of ‘em, and I was—and I was faithful to her, um, until about eight months through, and then—and I know this sounds funny—I mean, [inaudible— I met the colonel’s daughter. Literally, I met the colonel’s daughter, and, um, [<em>laughs</em>] and so, um, started dating her, and so I wrote Lisa [Sawyer]—my Lisa—a “Dear Lisa” letter, you—you know? And bought a 12-pack, and got liquored up, and wrote it, and she saved that doggone letter</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And she still has that doggone letter. So alright—and anyways, so I’m like, “Sorry. Met the colonel’s daughter. It’s been nice knowing ya.” we only dated for a week. What’s the big deal, right? And, um [<em>sniffs</em>]—and that was that. So the colonel’s daughter came back—she was in Texas. I came back, and, um, thought everything was good, right? Unbeknownst to me, while I was I Korea, my parents took Lisa up under their wings, and really—they really like her, and so they stated to take her to church with them, and—and really kind of mentored her, and developed this close relationship.</p> <p>So when I got back I said, um, “Dad and Mom,” uh, you know, “Lisa and I are no longer together.” “Well, what happened?” So I explained it all, and they’re like, “Well, that’s no good.” um, “That’s not the way to do it. We’re not happy with—with that, but that’s your decision, but you do not do that via a letter.” I’m like, “Alright. I’ll call her.” and they’re— “Nope. You gotta go see her and tell her face to face that you’re sorry.” And, um, and but you’re formally— I’m formally ending the relationship. They’re pretty old school. Um, I respect that now. At the time I was like, <em>Ugh</em>.</p> <p>So I call Lisa up, and said “Lisa, this is Curt. Um, I—I wanna come see you.” She hung up on me. So I went back to my parents, and said, “Hey, I’m off the hook. She doesn’t wanna talk to me.” They’re like, “No, no, no.” [<em>laughs</em>]. “You’re a Ranger. It doesn’t work that well. Figure out a way.” So I called her back, said “Lisa,” you know, “The way my parents are. They won’t get off my back, until I come see you. Can I come see you? Just, eh, five minutes. Don’t even have to walk in the door. Just need to see you, check the block, then my parents are off my back. Help me out.” She was like, “Okay. Come over.”</p> <p>So I went over to see her. She opened out, uh—the door, and I’m like, <em>Hello</em>, you know? The—I know, and, um, she ended up inviting me in. so, um—and so the long story short of it is: um, I broke it off with the colonel’s daughter, and then Lisa and I started dating again, and we got married six months later, and, um, so even with all that nonsense of how that started out, um, eh, she’s just been a blessing, and I’ve been absolutely faithful to her for 22 years, and she’s just more than I deserve. So that was kinda that.</p> <p>Then the colonel’s daughter, right? So she was flying into Orlando, but flying out of Fort Myers. So I still had to go pick her up, and she was pissed at me. She was pissed. So I went to pick her up, didn’t speak a word for like three-quarters of the trip, and then the floodgate’s going, “How could you do this?” I mean, and, uh, I’m like, “What can I say? I’m sorry. I know I—it’s on me,” you know? So then, I put her on the plane and—and that was it. No more drama.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Okay. Um, what did you do when you—after, with your wife and—meeting her—what did you do after coming home from Korea and after you got out of the service? Like, what did you do afterwards?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yeah, um, when I came back—so I did the Rangering thing for a while in Savannah, and, um, deployed quite a bit. Did a lot of, um—did a lot of trainings—did a lot of training. Really enjoyed it, really enjoyed the Rangers, and really enjoyed the Army. Um, When I was at West Point—even though I really appreciated my West Point experience and I’m very proud of it, very proud of the mission it has, and what—the impact it continues to have—but I said, <em>You know, if the Army is anything like West Point, then I want nothing to do with it. I’m just gonna do my time, and I’m going to get </em>out, and, um, the Army was completely different from the West Point, for the most part, and, uh, then I got out, um, from West Point into the Army, I—I tried all the stuff that I was taught. You know, it’s gotta be formal and—and all this sorta thing, and they laughed at me. Like, “Get over yourself, Lieutenant. That’s just not the way it works.” Well, I’m like, “Okay. How does it work?” “Just be yourself, just lead the men, just lead, alright?” I’m like, “Oh, okay. Well, that’s great.” so I scrapped all this stuff. It—it really wasn’t scrapping all the stuff, but it was truly being a leader and taking charge, and, um—so yeah, um, therefore, I really, really, um, really enjoyed the military. Um, really enjoyed what the Rangers did and what they stood for.</p> <p>Um, Lisa and I got married while I was still in the military, and then um, we wanted to start a family and that sorta thing. So, um, decided to get out, and then after that, went into the, um—the private sector. Worked for three Fortune 500 companies for 14 years, before I came to UCF.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Now, you really seemed to enjoy the Army. What was your most memorable experience? Or something you really enjoyed in it? Like, what was—like maybe a good story, or hanging out with your friends? What was something you really, really enjoyed?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Hm, hm.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>It can be multiple. It doesn’t just have to be one.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yeah, you know, I—I really, um—when I was with the Rangers, um, we de—we went and, um, trained with the French Foreign Legion, um, in Corsica, France. So, um, three companies of the, um—of the batta—um, three platoons of the company went to Belgium, and they did their training, and my platoon was selected to go and train with the Legionnaires, and, um, that was really cool, because not many military—not many American units are able to do that—to lay claim to training with the French Foreign Legion, which, when you’re in military circle, that’s—they’re well-known. They’re pretty hardcore. Um, Rangers—we considered ourselves hardcore, so it’s, —it was kinda cool for two hardcore entities to get together and train together.</p> <p>They trained differently from us. Um, by that, I’ll give an example. We were running a live fire, and, um—in France—and kinda showing them American tactics, and right in the middle of that—American tactics—the—the military officers are very much involved in that—coordinating, that sorta thing. My counterpart—my French counterpart pulled me off the side and said, “Hey, Curt,” you know? He didn’t call me Curt. It was Lieutenant Sawyer. “We gotta go over here and do lunch.” I’m like, “What is that?” [<em>laughs</em>]. “What do you have in the basket?” And he pulled out a loaf of bread, and he pulled out some cheese, and he pulled out a bottle out a bottle of wine/ and he was kinda just wanting to sit up on that p—hillside and just kinda watch it all, and I’m like, “Thank you for the offer, but I can’t do that. I got live bullets flying down range, and it’s a very dangerous situation, and I need to be…” so he—he was—was just different tactics, and the other thing I would say that’s kinda interesting is that we—we actually parachuted with them, you know? They had these old planes, and we looked at the plane—My Rangers all looked at the plane, and were, “We’re gonna jump out of that thing?” It’s called a [Transall] “C-160.” It looked old. It was old, and, um—and they were like, “Yup, and we were like, “Okay,” you know? And so we waited, and we sat there on the tarmac out on the airfield, and we waited and we waited, and we’re like, “Where are the pilots?” and they’re like, “They’re still, um, having lunch.” and so they were inside having lunch, and drinking wine, and kinda getting half crocked. So when they came out, they were kinda a staggering a little bit, and, um, I’m like, “We’re not gonna jump with these guys. It’s—it’s a little bit…”</p> <p>Plus, there’s a thunderstorm coming, the wind was picking up. When you—when you jump out of airplanes, the one thing you don’t want to do it jump out when the wind is blowing too hard, because you can’t control were you land, and, um—and basically they said, “Well, I thought Americans were tough,” you know? “You gonna let a—a little wind, a little wine kinda…” so, of course, we had to, and so we went up and—and we jumped, and, um, it was really, really windy. What they do is they throw a—it’s called a “dummy.” Um, it’s—it’s kind of, you know—it’s a stuffed—supposed to simulate a—a man—a grown man, and they throw it out, and then, wherever it goes, they adjust where the jumpers go out, and generally, you—the best case scenario: you throw the dummy out and the dummy just goes straight down. This time, he threw the dummy and the dummy went <em>wick</em> with the wind, and we’re like, “Whoa.” And so we jumped, and, um—and—and the wind is just taking us haywire, and, um, outside the compound—the compound was rimmed with—with [inaudible] or wire, and all that sorta thing, and, um—and as we’re going down and—and thinking, <em>Well, this is gonna really kinda be painful</em>, I saw my platoon sergeant just go <em>fwoomp</em>. He just was dropping like a rock, and I’m like, <em>Whoa. What’s going on with that?</em> And so I looked at him, and he figured out a way to really kinda make his parachute drop a lot faster. Basically, pulled his risers down, put his feet in ‘em, pushed them down, and it made him just go down. So I’m like, <em>Let me try that</em>. So I did it. So he and I were the only ones to land kinda where we were supposed to, and all the rest of the boys landed in the wire, or on the roofs, and on trees, and all that, and it took us the rest of the day to clean us all up, but nobody got hurt, and, um—so yeah. Things like that. Just kind of hardcore training, and, um, strong relationships, and, um, just standing ready to kinda serve our country, whenever we were called.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>And you said you made a lot of friends at West Point. Um, do you stay in contact with people from West Point? Or any people from the Rangers, as well?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer <br /></strong>Yeah, I do still. Some, you know—over—over the course of 20 years, you know, things drift, people change. That’s one things we really noticed is that we’ve changed. My wife and I really changed, and so, um, what used to interest us, just in terms of likes and—and [inaudible] and that sort of thing, they really—not so much anymore, so—inevitably too, but, yes, we have kept in touch with some of my classmates. Some of them are still in. some of them are now getting to the point they’re—they’re, um, becoming generals, brigadier generals—which is kinda cool, ‘cause, you know, we remember each other from just doing spirit missions at West Point, and getting hazed, and just doing silly things, and getting trouble over it, and that’s[sic] the memories a lot of us have, and now they’re—they’re national leaders, you know? A lot of my classmates have gone on and are part of the NSA [National Security Agency], and CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], and FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], and—and, um, into politics, and—and really had done well for themselves. So, yeah. It’s kinda cool to keep up with them. Um, Facebook, obviously, we see a lot. A lot of my classmates have children that are now at West Point, so, um—so, yeah. It’s kinda cool.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Um, has[sic] your experiences in the Army impacted your life?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Sure. Um, inevitably. One: it was just, uh—I think with anybody that that’s in, it’s just a special time. It’s just a really special time, because you’re so focused. One: you—I don’t think you will find anybody—you will—it will—rarely, that you will find someone that doesn’t really, really strongly believe in the mission of what we did, and so a lot of times, what we do—we go into the business world, we go in the corporate world, we—we get jobs in that sorta thing, and say, “Well, what’s your mission? What is your purpose?” and well, if you’re in the corporate world, it is to make somebody else money. It’s to make money. So you—you put that and you stack that against serving and honoring and protecting my country. Well, it’s kinda hard to compare with that. So when you put that—people strongly believe in that—then everything has a greater sense of urgency, just in terms of training, and—and awareness, and wanting to—to hone your craft, In order to be able to stand ready, when you’re called</p> <p>So, yeah. It’s just kind of a special time, and, um—and certainly, some of the characters—the—the discipline—discipline, and the focus, and, you know—and the—the mentality that you’ll never give up, ‘til you accomplished the mission, you know? The mission manifests itself in many different ways, depending on what you do, but still, at the end of the day, still an objective or a mission, and the military just teaches you how to be creative in how you’re going to figure out how to do it.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>So that makes sense?</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Yes, yes [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Um, well, um, we are getting to the end. So, um, would you advise anyone else, um, today to enlist? Since you enlisted, would you advise anybody else who would like to enlist that it’s a good thing, a bad thing?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Yeah, I think it’s a great thing. You know, there’s[sic] two different ways about going about it. One is through the officer, um—through the officer channel. The other is through enlisted, you know? And so each have its attractiveness for—depending on what people’s goals are.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>You know? So I always wanted to do the officer thing, just because I wanted—I wanna be a leader, you know? You—you’re either a leader, or you’re kinda not. So, if you’re a leader, you kinda wanna be right in the middle of things, and—and you have more impact as an officer, generally. Um, um, I—I know as an NCO—a non-commissioned officer—you can still have that, but it takes longer to get that so, but certainly, as enlisted, I think that’s a very noble profession. Um, and it certainly helps with the GI Bill, and benefits, [U.S. Department of] VA [Veterans Affairs] care. A lot of folks don’t think about that from an early age.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>But once you serve in the military, you have access to VA—Veterans Administration care the rest of your life, and, um, that’s kinda a bid deal, and a lot of the other benefits that come along with it. So that’s not the primary reason why you should join, but certainty, I think it’s part of the consideration, and, um, the other is: there’s not a whole lot of pensions around anymore. If you do your 20 years in the military, then you get a pension, and, um—so, yeah. I would strongly encourage folks that[sic]—that[sic] are really, truly want to serve their country to—to consider it, and—regardless whether it’s Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard—all that. I’ve never been one to say, “Well, it’s gotta be Army only.” Yeah. We all serve.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Uh, is there anything else you want to talk about? Any stories you wanna tell us? Anything that comes to mind?</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Hm, no. I don’t think so.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>No? Okay. Well, I would like to thank you for sharing your story with us, and myself, and the UCF community, and we will be in touch with you once the copy of the interview is done.</p> <p><strong>Sawyer<br /></strong>Okay. Well, thank you.</p> <p><strong>Dunn<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: Representative.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: Representative.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Legally named Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy III.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Officially the Sabalauski Air Assault School (TSAAS).</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Also known as the Persian Gulf War, First Gulf War, Gulf War I, Kuwait War, and Iraq War.</p> </div> </div> 45th Parallel North 75th Ranger Regiment Air Assault Badge Air Assault School Airborne School aircraft airplanes alcohol alcoholic beverages Army Air Assault School Army Airborne School Army Ranger balaclava bugle notes C-130 C-141 C-160 Community Veterans History Project Connie Mack Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy II Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy III Corsica, France cows Curt Sawyer CVHP Demilitarized Zone Democratic People's Republic of Korea Department of Veterans Affairs deployments DMZ Dojuan Sawyer DPRK DZ Ed Hoyt Edison Community College education Eglin AFB Eglin Air Force Base enlistment fast strobing firstie Florida SouthWestern State College Fort Benning, Georgia Fort Myers, Florida Forty-Fifth Parallel North French Foreign Legion GI Bill Guard Post Ouellette Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea Iver Jeep Joint Readiness Training Center JRTC Jump School Korean War Land Rovers line platoons Lisa Dojuan Lockheed C-130 Hercules Lockheed C-141 Starlifter military benefits military education military training North Korea Officer Basic Corps parachutes planes plebe years plebes R&R Ranger Ranger Regiment Ranger School RB-15 Republic of Korea rest and recuperation Robin Dunn ROK Sabalauski Air Assault School San Francisco, California Savannah, Georgia scout platoon scout platoons Seoul, South Korea Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment soju soldiers South Korea Special Operations Command Tennessee training Transall C-160 TSAAS U.S. Army U.S. Army Special Operations Command U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs United States Military Academy at West Point USASOC USMA VA veterans Veterans Affairs watch caps West Point yearly Zodiac https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/76f4012612b74ffc2d3959ee492ca03c.mp3 5e5e7d20145b23115d9e1e1033d09a9b https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/1d01d866c4d73633d8dacba2107b5135.pdf 20e30c3a4e2cf06f05cc432aa1d4ba5d 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 Orlando Remembered Collection Alternative Title Orlando Remembered Collection Subject Orlando (Fla.) Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/46" target="_blank">Orange County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/20">Orlando Collection</a>, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Downtown Orlando Information Center, Downtown Orlando, Florida Orlando Public Library, Downtown Orlando, Florida Orlando Regions Bank, Downtown Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://orlandoremembered.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Remembered</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://thehistorycenter.org/Orlando+Remembered+Committee/" target="_blank">Orlando Remembered Committee of the Historical Society of Central Florida, Inc.</a>" Orange County Regional History Center. http://orlandoremembered.org/. <span>"</span><a href="http://www.historiciconsoforlando.com/" target="_blank">The Historic Icons of Orlando</a><span>." Orlando Remembered. http://www.historiciconsoforlando.com/.</span> <span>Bacon, Eve. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2020029" target="_blank"><em>Orlando: A Centennial History</em></a><span>. Chuluota, Fla: Mickler House, 1975.</span> <span>Rajtar, Steve. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70911136" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a><span>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006.</span> Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records contributed by the Orlando Remembered Committee of the Historical Society of Central Florida, Inc. Orlando Remembered was created to in response to the proposed demolition of the San Juan Hotel at the northwest corner of Orange Avenue and Central Boulevard in Downtown Orlando, Florida. Orlando Remembered began creating exhibits to "showcase artistic renderings of the time depicted, with artifacts and historical memorabilia from the location in an effort to preserve the memory of Orlando's history while acknowledging the potential of the City's future." In the Summer Semester of 2014, UCF history intern Rachel Williams digitized two of the exhibits created by Orlando Remembered. In the Fall Semester of 2014, Dr. Anne Lindsay's undergraduate class will be digitizing several more of the many exhibits in Downtown Orlando. Contributor <a href="http://orlandoremembered.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Remembered</a> Herrera, Angelena Jeffries, Andrew W. Lindsay, Anne Randall, Robert Williams, Rachel Williamson, Ryan Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/126" target="_blank">Downtown Orlando Information Center Collection</a>, Orlando Remembered Collection, Orlando Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/110" target="_blank">Orlando Public Library Collection</a>, Orlando Remembered Collection, Orlando Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/111" target="_blank">Orlando Regions Bank Collection</a>, Orlando Remembered Collection, Orlando Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Baldwin, Caitlin Interviewee Pottinger, Dann Location Orlando, Florida Original Format 1 audio recording Duration 34 minutes and 38 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 128kbps 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 Dann Pottinger Alternative Title Oral History, Pottinger Subject Orlando (Fla) Historic preservation--Florida Description An oral history interview of Dann Pottinger, conducted by Caitlin Baldwin on November 9, 2015. Pottinger was born August 14, 1947, on the British Bay Island in Honduras. He moved to Orlando, Florida as a small child and attended primary school in the area. Pottinger spent most of his working career as a banker in the Orlando area, however he describes himself as an historian. Pottinger has been involved in a number of historical groups and was an early member of Orlando Remembered, which is a community group, dedicated to preserving memory of Orlando's downtown landmarks. To date, the group has constructed approximately 18 displays, which are located in building throughout the Downtown Orlando area. Pottinger was president of the group in the early 2000s. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:02:10 Growing up in Orlando<br />0:03:58 Orlando Remembered<br />0:06:28 Goal of Orlando Remembered, snow birds, and horse trotting<br />0:11:48 Air Force Bases<br />0:14:45 Designing exhibits<br />0:21:16 Favorite exhibits and lost materials<br />0:24:21 Personal goals for Orlando Remembered and community involvement<br />0:27:43 Historical Society of Central Florida and the Orange County Regional History Center<br />0:30:28 How to become involved in Orlando Remembered and expanding outside of Orlando<br />0:34:06 Future of Orlando Remembered Abstract Oral history interview of Dann Pottinger. Interview conducted by Caitlin Baldwin in Orlando, Florida, on November 9, 2015. Type Sound Source Original 34-minute and 38-second oral history: Pottinger, Dann. Interviewed by Caitlin Baldwin, November 9, 2015. Audio record available. <a href="http://orlandoremembered.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Remembered</a>, Oviedo, 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="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/106" target="_blank">Orlando Remembered Collection</a>, Orlando Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 16-page digital transcript of original 34-minute and 38-second oral history: Pottinger, Dann Interviewed by Caitlin Baldwin, November 9, 2015. Audio record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Downtown Orlando, Florida Creator Baldwin, Caitlin Pottinger, Dann Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Contributor Beiler, Rosalind J. Date Created 2015-11-09 Date Modified 2016-01-07 Date Copyrighted 2015-11-09 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 31.7 MB 203 KB Medium 34-minute and 38-second audio recording 16-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Caitlin Baldwin and Dann Pottinger, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</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 Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://orlandoremembered.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Remembered</a> Curator Barnes, Mark Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://orlandoremembered.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Remembered</a> External Reference Rajtar, Steve. <em><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70911136" target="_blank">A Guide to Historic Orlando</a></em>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Transcript <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Okay, where and, uh—where and when were you born? The address and year, please.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>I was born in 1947 in August, but I will tell you this: that I am not a native-born Orlandoan, though my family has been here for many, many, many years. I was born on the British Bay Islands off of Honduras, which, uh, were, uh, for many years a British possession, and, uh—and where my mother’s family, the Kirk-Connells, are from. So in any event though, my family, uh, originally—my, uh, parents, uh—my—my dad’s family came to Orlando and brought him to recover from the great influenza [pandemic] of 1917<a title="">[1]</a> that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and a million people around the world. He was a, uh, cadet training at the University of Kentucky, and many of ‘em got it. They were able to, uh, come from their home in Kentucky down here and spent the winter, and nursed him back to health. He went back, graduated from UK in ’23, and by ’26 he was back here as a full time resident. So that’s how we got here. Uh, my mother’s family a little the same. they maintained a home in Tampa. Uh, My grandfather—her father—was, uh, a sailing ship captain, and, uh, came back and forth to Tampa Harbor, and, uh, she was born in the Bay I—British Bay Islands,  Honduras, and, uh—which are a neat little thing, if you look at a map. They’re only three major islands of it and a bunch of little keys, but Honduras is the only country in Central America that faces north, and that’s where, eh, we’re all related with the same families in the Cayman Islands. So a—anyway, the indigenous to the Caribbean [Sea], uh—that’s how I got here.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Hm, very interesting. So how old were you exactly when you moved to Orlando?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>I was just a—a baby. yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>So what would you say was your favorite part about growing up in Orlando?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>I think the neighborhoods of Orlando and then the friendships that we had in a small town. Uh, a wonderful place to grow up. Uh, you—particularly among the families that had been here a long time, uh, you knew each other across town. I mean, when I was, uh, young dating and what, uh, I went to Edgewater High School, but I dated girls from Boone High School, and in the afternoon, the little motor scooters—or later, the cars—would cross the boys from Boone going to Edgewater, ‘cause, of course, they were prettier girls, and the boys from Edgewater going to Boone, because they were beautiful girls. So that’s kind of the way, uh, we all grew up. we knew each other. Uh, it was a relatively small town, and, uh, that changed—the first change of that was Martin Marietta [Corporation] moving here from Baltimore[, Maryland], and, uh, bringing eight thousand families. Uh, I think I’m right on that figure, but, uh, eh, the—the—the life and breath of Orlando, uh, breathed around their ups and downs at Martin Marietta, uh, when, you know, armaments and so forth—missiles and such—were big. Things were booming and when they laid off three thousand people, Orlando was in dire straits.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>So like, what time of year—what year…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>That would have been the late ‘50s.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Okay[?].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Yeah, that was all dairy land. All dairy.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Very interesting. Um, how and why did you become involved with Orlando Remembered?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>I’ve always been a historian. Uh, I—I know it. With contemporaries of mine, it—it probably bored them to death, uh, but I was, uh, uh, a language person, and—and I was a history person. I wound up being a banker, but mathematics was never my long suit. I just, uh—people were—and—and that provided well for me in life. So, uh, that’s, you know—that’s kind of the reason I be—got involved. People asked me to come to get involved with Orlando Remembered, and it was my pleasure and has been all these years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Very interesting. So you were not one of the founding members of…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>No, I was not, uh, because, at that particular time, I was spending a little time out of here, and, uh, uh, the—the origin of it started at, uh, the Beacham Theatre. That’s where the first meeting—and I could not be there that particular time. Uh, We had a, uh, place in North Carolina, and, uh, like so many Floridians that grew up in the days before air conditioning, if you had 50 cents to clink together in your pocket, you either rented or you owned a place, as we did in Islands[?], North Carolina, or somewhere up that around Asheville—western North Carolina. Anyway, I was not here for that. So—but I soon right[?].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>So you’d been there almost the entire time.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Almost the entire time.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>You just missed the first meeting?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Just wasn’t at the very first meeting, which I consider were the founders. I knew every one of them, um, there—there were some wonderful—The Serroses, the Pajo[sp], Vandenburg[sp]—Pajo[sp] Pounds, we all knew her as. So forth and so on. A lot of them that were very active in that time. Grace Chewning[sp], um…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Are a lot of the founding members still…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>There are still a number of them, surprisingly enough, still—still around. Uh, Andy Serros is, uh—that I mentioned earlier—and his brother, Bob [Serros], is[—is active, but, uh, Andy passed away a few years ago and he was one of the original founders, and there was, uh—there were a couple of others that have passed away.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>What is the overall goal of Orlando Remembered?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger <br /></strong>To preserve, uh, the memory of areas and locations, and landmarks in the city, and, uh, we’ve—we’ve  done that in several ways, but, uh, I think one of the—the best ways is the, uh—the location of displays in various spots around Downtown Orlando, and a couple outside of downtown, uh, with memorabilia, uh, of that area, and, uh, You know, at some point in time, I’d love to take you on a walking tour and—and show you some of those things. Just to stroll down, uh, Orange Avenue, and you can see the way it looked in the—sometimes as far back there’ll be something there from the 1890s, from one of the hotels—from the hotel that my grandparents stayed in, when they came that year in 1918—at the Wyoming Hotel. Uh, there’s a set of china and—and some se—tableware that I believe are in the display at the Orange County Courthouse. Uh, go in the courthouse—for any of you that might want to make that tour and see—walk in the front, leave your holstered items in the car, because you’re going to go through the, uh—the, uh, security thing there, but go over to the left and you’ll see it, uh, in the lobby there. You’ll see a great one. Uh, it tells all about what’s happened on that street and that block and that area around there. It, uh, uh, had the Wyoming Hotel on it, which was only a winter hotel, as many in Florida were. It closed in the summer, like Park Avenue did.</p> <p class="Body">Uh, my in-laws had a, uh, store on Park Avenue for over 40 years, and they were one of the very few that stayed open year-round. Uh, Most of ‘em were—would head back in the cooler—warmer months of Florida. They’d go to cooler locations, uh, whether the hotels or the shops, like there—not—that wasn’t so in Orlando, necessarily. it was a year round, but in those winter destinations like that and such, they’d go, uh, up to Algonquin, you know, up to Maine, up to, uh, uh, Vermont—wherever they might be, and, uh, open a shop up there for the summer months and come back. So our whole, uh, life around here was really dependent on those northerners coming down, and, uh, in the early days, before Martin Marietta and such, in the winter time, we had not only the casual tourists who came down, because—to try and get away for a week or two—we had those that came down, as later my grandparents did, after enjoying it so much and—and many others, and spent time down here.</p> <p class="Body">Some of them spent the winter, some—excuse me—spent six months, but we also had the, uh, we were the winter, uh, trotting horse capital of the United States, and it brought a lot of revenue in. Uh, it was at—held out at Ben White [Raceway], which was a raceway that was at the corner of about what’s Lee Road and—and [U.S. Route] 441. Uh, It’s now a big athletic fields, and there’s some stables, I think, still in the back, but it was a huge, uh, money infusion in the winter. Those people came—the owners of those—that was—it was always considered a, uh, uh, society kick above, uh, horse racing. Uh, the trotters and pacers were brought down, and, uh, they stabled them here, and, uh—the races. It—it—you knew when—you knew when Ben White opened, because traffic picked up. Now that would sound ridiculous with today’s horrible traffic in Orlando…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>But back then there weren’t that many cars on the road and—and, uh, man, you’d see these automobiles come into town and up on the hood was a, uh—a metal, stainless, pretty thing of a, uh, trotting horse and a—and a sulky[?] behind it, You know? You knew they were involved in that. Eh, It just, uh—one of the things that—that, you know, came across that kept our town going before Martin Marietta and before [Walt] Disney [World Resort] and such.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Mentioning the horses, do you have an exhibit that features that aspect yet?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger <br /></strong>You know…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Aspect yet?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>We—we have some pictures of it in one or two, but we don’t have anything, because there’s no facility out there left at Ben White to put it in. We would do that, because there—there—there’s enough, probably, memorabilia from those days, but what we try to do is locate what was on those various blocks. Maybe not just a block, maybe an area, in other words.</p> <p class="Body">We’ve—in some cases, we’ve helped spon—helped sponsor a plaque, uh, like for the air base that was in town. Where Herndon Airport<a title="">[2]</a> is today. It was the Orlando [Army] Air Base before it was the Navy base.<a title="">[3]</a> So, uh, you know, there are—there are—newcomers, or what maybe consider themselves long time Orlandoans—that remember a Navy base out there, but I remember when it was the Orlando Air Base, and—and we had another air base that opened, uh—was Pine Castle Air Base, and, uh, that’s, uh, now the Orlando International Airport. The runways were there for the big bombers and it was a SAC base—a Strategic Air Command, and again, both of those things brought in a great deal of money when they came here.</p> <p class="Body">Uh, the—the closing of Orlando Air Base was going to be a pretty big blow, and at that time, the owner and publisher of <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em> was a man name Martin Andersen—always with an “EN” at the end. Never—you could always tell somebody new to town when they write it as “Anderson,” but Martin Andersen was a Texas boy who knew LBJ,<a title="">[4]</a> and, uh, Johnson was president and, uh, he persevered on it and got a branch of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center to be established on the base, on part of what had been, uh, the—the air base, and, uh, it—it brought in not just recruits. It brought in families. It brought officers, enlisted men. It brought a whole lot of payroll coming in here. It was wonderful. Ah, uh, again, another mile stone that came along through connections or coincidence—whatever it might be. Uh, the same thing with the—the air base out here. Uh, it was going to close and MacDill [Air Force Base] in Tampa was going to take over as the air base for Florida—the major one, and, uh, the facilities were there for many years. The terminal was a big, uh, round-top hangar that had been used by the, uh—by the, uh, Air Force itself, and there was a lot of housing out there. There’s still some housing, uh, in—in that area out there, but, uh, there—There’s a, uh, Naval exchange, uh, where, you know, those that are qualified can—retirees and so forth—can go shop and so forth. Uh, a lot of other services were—were left in place and the city has had good use out of it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Good, good. How does the group decide which sites to commemorate with exhibits?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Well, usually, it’s sponsored. Someone, uh, finds someone, uh, you know, that—that owns a building in that location, uh, and we—sometimes the building owner contributes financially to building—the displays are not cheap to put together, and, uh, you know, they’re—they’re—they’re housed—they’re lighted many of them and so forth, but, uh, it also takes someone who—who might have worked in that building or—or owned a building there and, uh, they have memorabilia, and, boy, we seize on it when we do, and, uh, they’re—they’re scattered throughout mostly in the downtown area. Uh, I mentioned the courthouse. The big Bank of America tower has one that we’re redoing in there now —I dedicated that when I was president of Orlando Remembered. Uh, I did a number of the—of the dedications of those, e—e—either when I was involved as—as one of the officers or not, but, uh, we have one in what was the Rutland building and that was a well-known building. That’s the corner of, uh—of Jefferson [Street] and—no, no—Jack—excuse me, uh—I believe it is on Orange Avenue at the corner of Washington [Street] —Washington and Orange. Uh, A building that once housed the most prestigious, uh, men’s store and lady’s store in downtown, when they were private companies, not big, you know, uh, uh, department stores—nation chain—national chains and such. Uh, We have another one in the SunTrust [Center] tower downtown that we’ve had there in the, uh—what was originally the CNA Building, but where the Citrus Club is, and that name has changed a number of times on that building.</p> <p class="Body">So—but, uh, they’re—they’re throughout there. They, uh—and again, usually it’s—it’s because someone has a real interest in it or a financial interest in getting one of those, uh, displays in there. Uh, eh, It’s, uh—it’s a job to maintain them. They need periodic cleaning and dusting. The city has—has helped us with one. There’s one at the, uh, Bob Carr [Theater] auditorium, uh, that shows—that used to be the Orlando Municipal Auditorium. It was the auditorium and it wasn’t as big as it is today. If you go inside and you really look, you’ll see the old front is 20 feet back from the front now, uh, and it’s where people gather outside and so forth, but it’s air conditioned and then—so forth. It’s—it’s an anti-room to the—to the auditorium itself. We’re hoping that—that it’ll stay that way. There’s talk of tearing it down, and it’s a treasure that, uh, those of us that—that love Orlando, uh, would hate to see come down, and, uh, it—it—it’s a memory. I mean, we went to, uh, plays, you know, eh, when we were in junior—I mean in the grade school—went there. Uh, the Junior League used to put a play on every year there, and all the school children in Orlando got to take turns going down to see it in busses and so forth. I remember that as a—a child. It—it was great.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>So you mentioned the exhibits are usually started by somebody who’s interested. Eh, like—I’m sure a lot of people are interested in creating different exhibits. How do you decide which exhibit’s going to be created by that person?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Well, we can only do one at a time, because we’re—we’re—we have no continuous funding basis. So a lot of times, it also depends on the owner of a building. who’s going to, first place, give us the space and the electricity and so forth, and might want one of those in there to draw, uh, attention to their own building or, you know, it’s a lot cheaper than buying a, uh, painting to put on the wall, probably, for ‘em, over the long run, uh, and It—it gives—it’s on tours many times. Uh, I’ve done those tours and taken people, you know, and I think the, uh—the museums now has[sic] a tour basis. I’m pretty sure that includes that, and—and their brochures that—that you can get, you—today you go online and you can find out where they all are and it’s even a map, I think, in there to—to follow through.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>How does Orlando Remembered pay for the exhibits?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinge<br /></strong>With contributions from its members, uh, from, uh, the owners of the building. Uh, most of the material that goes in there—in fact, t—to all of it, it is given to us. It’s donated to that particular, uh, point to—to some—someone that may have worked in—the one, you know, where there was a department store. Uh, hey may have the old nametag out of the back of a sweater or something. Uh, you know, to one that had a, uh, restaurant in it, there’s some china from that Wyoming Hotel, I tell you about, and some, uh, other things. So the materials that go into it, we don’t pay for. We just need the—the cabinetry and so forth—is—is all custom done and it’s done attractively. So it’s thousands of dollars to do it, and, uh, uh, uh, I’m talking, you know, uh, uh, five figure in thousands. So, eh, you know, it’s—it’s, uh, not something that you just decide because you have some china that you’ll put it in there. You need—you need a, uh, sugar daddy that’s—that’s there to contribute.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Roughly how many members of Orlando Remembered are there?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>I can’t tell you that. I really don’t know. I’m—I’m a, uh, you know—I—I just—I can’t recall a—a recent number.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Okay. In your opinion, what’s your favorite Orlando Remembered exhibit?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Well, I love the one in the courthouse, as I said. Uh, There’s, uh—there are several of them downtown that, uh—that the, uh, one at the Municipal Auditorium—that’s another one that I like. The one that was in the Rutland building, and at, uh, one time, I’m not sure we still have the one that was at the, uh, back of Central Avenue-side of, uh, the northeast corner—southeast corner of Central and Orange, which was originally Yowell’s[?] and became Yowell’s[?] -Ivy’s Department Store. Uh, it’s an office building now, and who knows what’s in the downtown—downstairs. It rotates constantly, but, uh, that was a good one. SunTrust has an[sic], uh, good one.</p> <p class="Body">Some of ‘em, you know, we’ve had to track down, because all of sudden somebody goes by and looks, and it’s gone. Someone has, you know—the manager of the building has decided to put it in a storage room, hopefully. Uh, we’ve—we’ve lost a couple of ‘em that, uh, you know, uh—the materials We’ve had to buy back a janitor or custodian—whatever it would be—keeper of ‘em—at, uh, one of those corners at Central and Orange—took a lot of it home and we had to repurchase things, because it had been given to us, and, uh, you know, you—you just—it can happen in a moment, and—and it can, you know—I mean, we are not a—a business that goes by and checks it every week. So, you know, months can go by and one of our members doesn’t notice it, and no one calls us and says, “You know, there was a display in, eh, the lobby, but it’s not there anymore.” Well, I don’t know that we—we don’t really have a—an office phone number to call.</p> <p class="Body">So, uh, we—we’ve been through all of that with it, but, you know, determination and a love for the city and to continue its history has kept us going, and we continue to provide these. So we’ll—it costs money to maintain them. Again, as I think I mentioned earlier, they have to be cleaned. They have to be opened. they’re sealed. It has to be a, uh—it’s not a, uh—take a—a rag down there and—and clean the outside. You gotta clean the inside, you gotta clean the displays, gotta clean the linings, and so forth. So it—it takes—it takes upkeep and it takes, uh, continuous maintenance.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Who’s responsible for…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Well, the…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Cleaning and everything?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>We’ve—get someone to do it—a professional to do it, and again, that’as part of—of maintaining these. Uh, we—we don’t have any huge balance, so we have to do it as we can.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>What are your personal goals for Orlando Remembered in the future?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>I’d like to see it continued on and on, and, uh, the, eh, eh, you know—for those of us that are, as I am, near 70, uh—and—and we’ve got members that are, you know, 85 years old, and so, uh, uh, you know—but we’ve got members coming along that have lived here 35 years, 50 years, 60 years. There’ll be things that they remember that have changed dramatically in Orlando that—and there’s space to make, uh—to put a display up, uh, and—and I think that, uh, they’ll be active in that. Uh, we’ve tried to get some other organizations, and then[?]—I won’t mention the name, but, uh, there’s one that’s a lot of young ladies your age—under 40, I think—and you go inactive[?] or something, if I remember right.</p> <p class="Body">My wife and daughters were—daughter was in that, but, in any—in Junior League—and, eh, you know, we may indeed get them interested. So there are things like that, that, uh—that—that will be of interest to someone later, and the displays that we did will be of no more interest, uh, in many cases. Some we hope, but once you lose the generation that remembers what was in that building, it becomes something for the history museum, not something for an active mind to draw you back to your own personal memories of it, and, therefore, you need to continue on, and, o’ course, downtown now, you’ll have to have a great memory of which nightclubs were where…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>‘Cause that’s about all there is in those buildings downtown anymore. So—but, uh, you know, there—there are spots for it everywhere.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Has Orlando Remembered had—had a lot of success at attracting younger generations and everything?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Uh, I think we’ve—we’ve done alright. We’ve got a good, uh, variance of age groups. Uh, we’d like to have more younger people. We’d love to have people your age. We’d love to have people from the university, and, as you are doing, take an interest. We welcome you. There are no dues to come, uh, help us. We’d love to have it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>How does Orlando Remembered interact with the community?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Well, we try to do it with these displays and—and by keeping them alive. A little bit of writing the newspaper has done well with us, and we’ve been able to, uh, get some good publicity when we open these, and, uh, once in a while, we do an interview, like this one is—is being done, and we have others. We’ve—I’ve[?] done a TV interview and a—a show. So, I mean, it’s—it’s, uh, eh—I’ve also gone around to schools and some of—not specifically to talk about Orlando Remembered—but I try to bring out when I talk about history to them, the, you know—go see the displays that are—that are available, and, uh, it—it’ll—it’ll—and take your parents with you, because they’ll remember a lot of those things that are in there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>What was the connection between Orlando Remembered and the Historical Society of Central Florida/the Orange County Regional History Center?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Not really anything in the—in the years other than cross membership. Uh, it’s two separate accounts and, uh, two separate organizations. I was also president of the Orange County [Historical] Museum<a title="">[5]</a> and the historical society—Orange County Historical Society, before it moved downtown, when—the last year that it was at Loch Haven [Park], in what is—I’m trying to think what’s there in that theater thing now—but anyway, um, it—it was there for many—it was originally in an old, red brick courthouse when I was a little boy. That’s where that park in front of the historical museum is. Uh, in the front was an 18, uh, 88- or 1892- courthouse, and it was the—the 1927 courthouse where the museum—museum is today—was there and active as the courthouse. This red brick building was start—had the—the museum in it, that was all volunteer, run by the Antiquarian Society, which was a group of prominent family ladies who gathered memorabilia and—and volunteered hours up there, and, uh, it was relatively small, but it was the beginning of the history center. Some of those volunteers’ children or grandchildren had been active in the historical society and in Orlando Remembered.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Which organization were you president of first?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Uh, the museum, I think, uh, eh, eh, if my memory serves, but I think—yes, I’m certain of it. Uh, again, age hits you</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>You try to remember which one was which, but I—I was president of the historical society and the museum, uh, and I think that was 1999 or 2000 [inaudible]—something like that—and, uh, after—following that—that I really got active in—in Orlando Remembered. I had been a little bit active, but I’ve given you another line—something else to do. You know, when you get finished being the president of an organization, the greatest thing you can do is to step aside and let the new people have it, and don’t hang around from it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Sometimes that’s the hardest thing though.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>It is hard. It is hard, but, uh, in any event, uh, it—it—it was a good break and I’ve—I’ve enjoyed it. Both of ‘em.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>How does—how does one become involved with Orlando Remembered?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Oh, our meetings, and—and, uh, I can give you an address—you may have it—for Grace, uh, and she is, uh—she is our recording secretary and a great person, and you do have that, uh—that address—e-mail. Uh, she can put you on a mailing list. We’d love to have—and if there are other students that would like to come sit [inaudible]—to some, it may be very boring, you know, and—and we talk about the same thing—about trying to get a display. I don’t know how long we’ve gone on trying to put together getting a display on the Navy base of some<a title="">[6]</a>—what would I call a Navy base—but out at Baldwin Park. Not just a little sign, but a—a real display of what used to be there— the glass-cased display. It’s gonna happen one of these days, but gosh, you know, even somebody that’s a member gets tired of hearing, “Well, we’ve made no progress on the,” you know, this and that, and the next thing over and over, but we—we—right now, there’s a lot of, uh—a lot of our displays are[sic]—have[sic] hit the age and stage of maintenance, and so, that’s been our—our push this last year, rather than new ones, but we’ll continue on, and perhaps we’ll go beyond just Orlando. You know, Winter Park area has others and, uh, you know, a, uh—a couple of the—the fine families out in West Orange County have done a great job in Winter Garden. Uh, they’ve—they’ve really done a super job. If you’ve not been to Downtown Winter Garden, don’t miss it. It is as pretty, if not more beautiful, than Park Avenue in Winter Park. It’s, uh, uh—it’s two streets with a park—little park down the middle, and some great restaurants. Good place just to go out and sip one in the evening or to eat lunch or something.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>I was actually just there last week for their [Central Florida] Railroad Museum.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Oh, wonderful.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>So that’s a very…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>That’s great.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>It’s the first time I’ve ever been Downtown Winter Garden.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Isn’t it…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>It’s so pretty.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>A cute little town?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>It really is, and—and it was dilapidated—is not the word for it—15 years ago. I mean it—but again, several families, uh, have, uh, the Chicones and a few others have put together some—some wonderful things out there. Uh, Again, I urge you to go out there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>So I know you mentioned that like, downtown’s all just nightclubs and stuff and Orlando Remembered does exhibits. Would Orlando Remembered ever try to preserve an entire building, you think? or is that too far out of the question?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>No, I think it’s too far beyond what—what, uh—again, we have no source of—of continuous income. So it—it wouldn’t, uh—unless someone donated a building to us, and, uh, you know, it’d be wonderful, and, uh, you know, you could do vignettes on, uh, you know—throughout the building, or—or a home, you know, that showed various spots. That might even be safer than the way we do it where we’re putting our display—an expensive display in the lobby of a building. Again, without constant control, we don’t know when it winds up at the janitor’s garage at home. So, you know, you—you just need a continuous thing, and, you know, we have no employees. It’s not—it’s just volunteer. All of it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Baldwin<br /></strong>How do you believe Orlando Remembered will change in the future?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Pottinger<br /></strong>Well, I know there’ll be changes to it, but I think some of ‘mem will be good, because I, eh—just like this right now, I see more interest in young people with history, uh, you know, than—than there were—was in my day growing up. It—it—there was very little interest in—in, uh—I was—I was a rarity to be a young lad, and, uh, uh, I don’t know of another soul…</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: 1918.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Now called the Orlando Executive Airport.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Naval Training Center Orlando.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Lyndon Baines Johnson.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Present-day Orange County Regional History Center.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Naval Training Center (NTC) Orlando.</p> </div> </div> Andy Serros Antiquarian Society Baldwin Park Bank of America Beacham Theater Beacham Theatre Ben White Ben White Raceway BHS Bob Carr Theater Bob Serros, Pajo Pounds Boone High School Central Avenue Chicone Citrus Club CNA Building Connell Dann Pottinger Downtown Orlando Downtown Winter Garden Edgewater High School EHS Grace Chewning Herndon Airport historic preservation Historical Society of Central Florida horse racing horse tracks horse trot horses Junior League Kirk LBJ Lee Road Loch Haven Park Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson Martin Andersen Martin Marietta Corporation MCO Naval Training Center Orlando NTC Orlando OCRHC Orange Avenue Orange County Courthouse Orange County Historical Museum Orange County Historical Society Orange County Regional History Center orlando Orlando Air Force Base Orlando Air Force Base, Orlando AFB Orlando Army Air Base Orlando Executive Airport Orlando International Airport Orlando Municipal Auditorium Orlando Remembered pacers Pako Park Avenue Pine Castle AFB Pine Castle Air Force Base Rutland SunTrust Center The Orlando Sentinel trotters U.S. Route 441 US 441 Vandernburg Washington Street Winter Garden Winter Park Wyoming Hotel Yowell Yowell-Ivy’s https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/aa68d21807557616253d866a6f0c7a7d.mp3 efcdc05ec3e8d4bb65aebe6b0b721b6e 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 Marie Jones Francis Collection Alternative Title Francis Collection Subject Midwives, African American Midwives--Florida Midwifery--United States Georgetown (Sanford, Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) African Americans--Florida--Sanford Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the life and work of Marie Jones Francis. Francis, the "midwife of Sanford," lived at 621 East Sixth Street in Sanford, Florida. Francis, the "midwife of Sanford," left behind a successful hotel and restaurant she owned in Sarasota in 1942 to return to Sanford and become a midwife. World War II caused a shortage in doctors and nurses, so Florida's Children's Bureau sent Francis to Florida A &amp; M to acquire her practical nursing license in 1945. She specialized in premature babies and returned to Sanford to aid her mother, Carrie Jones, at Fernald-Laughton Memorial Hospital before they opened the ward in their home. "When her health starting failing," she recollects in a newspaper article, "I took over." Francis converted her house at 621 East Sixth Street to also serve as a maternity ward, where she delivered over 40,000 babies over her 32 year career. She became a midwife in the same vein as her mother, Carrie Jones, and together they ran the Jones-Francis Maternity Hall in Georgetown.<br /><br /> Francis served her community in several ways. She delivered babies for both white and black families from Seminole County, primarily patrons who either preferred natural births or could not afford deliveries at a hospital. In the 1950s, it cost $70 to stay nine days where soon-to-be mothers were taken care of. Francis was assisted by her sister, Annie Walker, who did the cooking. The house and ward also served as a school, where Marie Francis taught nurses the art of midwifery. Nurses would come from across the state to learn how to delivery infants naturally. A heavy burden on a single working mother, Marie Francis had three daughters, Cassandra Clayton, Daphne Humphrey, and Barbara Torre. Clayton and Humphrey became school teachers and Torre became a purchaser at Seminole Memorial Hospital. Contributor Firpo, Julio R. Humphrey, Daphne Francis Language eng Type Collection Coverage Georgetown, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/buildingblocks.php" target="_blank">Building Blocks</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Firpo, Julio R. Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Dickinson, Joy Wallace. "<a href="http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/02/24/3287685.htm" target="_blank">A Very Rich Trail: Florida’s Black Heritage is Celebrated in an Updated and Expanded State Publication</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, February 24, 2008, page J1. http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/02/24/3287685.htm. Moore, Stacy. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2922" target="_blank">Midwife on Job Here 32 Years</a>." <em>The Little Sentinel</em>, April 4, 1979, page 26. Jeria, Michelle. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2933" target="_blank">Sanford's Birth Place: Marie Jones Francis Delivered More than 40,000 Babies in Her Sixth Street Home</a>." <em>The Sanford Herald</em>, Feb 16, 2003, page 1C. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2944" target="_blank">Midwives Supply Needed Service Community</a>." <em>The Sanford Herald</em><span>, July 24, 1964, page 3.</span> Flewellyn, Valada Parker, and the Sanford Historical Society. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/320804616" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2009. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Firpo, Julio R. Interviewee Humphrey, Daphne F. Location Altamonte Springs, Florida Original Format 1 audio recording Duration 1 hour, 29 minutes, and 47 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 1411 kbps 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 Daphne F. Humphrey Alternative Title Oral History, Humphrey Subject Sanford (Fla.) Georgetown (Sanford, Fla.) African Americans--Florida--Sanford Education--Florida Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Midwives--United States Maternity homes--United States Description Daphne F. Humphrey was born in Sarasota, Florida, but migrated to Sanford at age 5. In this oral history, she first describes Georgetown, an historic African-American community in Sanford. She then talks of her mother, Marie Jones Francis, the "midwife of Sanford," in great detail. She then spends time speaking of her own life and becoming a teacher.<br /><br /> Marie Jones Francis, the "midwife of Sanford," left behind a successful hotel and restaurant she owned in Sarasota in 1942 to return to Sanford and become a midwife. World War II caused a shortage in doctors and nurses, so Florida's Children's Bureau sent Francis to Florida A &amp; M to acquire her practical nursing license in 1945. She specialized in premature babies and returned to Sanford to aid her mother, Carrie Jones, at Fernald-Laughton Memorial Hospital before they opened the ward in their home. "When her health starting failing," she recollects in a newspaper article, "I took over." Francis converted her house at 621 East Sixth Street to also serve as a maternity ward, where she delivered over 40,000 babies over her 32 year career. She became a midwife in the same vein as her mother, Carrie Jones, and together they ran the Jones-Francis Maternity Hall in Georgetown.<br /><br /> Francis served her community in several ways. She delivered babies for both white and black families from Seminole County, primarily patrons who either preferred natural births or could not afford deliveries at a hospital. In the 1950s, it cost $70 to stay nine days where soon-to-be mothers were taken care of. Francis was assisted by her sister, Annie Walker, who did the cooking. The house and ward also served as a school, where Marie Francis taught nurses the art of midwifery. Nurses would come from across the state to learn how to delivery infants naturally. A heavy burden on a single working mother, Marie Francis had three daughters, Cassandra Clayton, Daphne Humphrey, and Barbara Torre. Clayton and Humphrey became school teachers and Torre became a purchaser at Seminole Memorial Hospital. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:23 Growing up in Sanford<br />0:01:12 Interaction between black and white community<br />0:02:12 Layout of Georgetown<br />0:03:25 Sanford Avenue<br />0:12:04 East Sixth Street<br />0:13:00 Locust Avenue<br />0:14:37 Hickory Avenue<br />0:15:06 Goose Hollow<br />0:34:42 Marie Jones Francis and Carrie Jones<br />0:16:45 Students trained by Francis<br />0:19:15 Memories of her mother and her childhood<br />0:26:56 Experience as a teacher<br />0:30:01 African-American businesses and people in Georgetown<br />0:39:53 Parents<br />0:47:52 Age and mental retention<br />00:51:26 Education, employment, and siblings<br />0:53:38 Childhood neighborhood<br />0:57:31 Reflections on life<br />0:59:53 Growing up in Sarasota<br />1:02:46 How children have changed over time<br />1:04:26 Friends and family<br />1:11:24 Working at a health food store<br />1:12:18 Former students<br />1:15:11 Importance of being polite and respectful<br />1:16:16 Importance of reading<br />1:18:08 Daily plans and the RICHES project<br />1:19:39 Goldsboro<br />1:23:58 Childhood neighborhood <br />1:29:40 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Daphne F. Humphrey. Interview conducted by Julio R. Firpo at the home of Daphne F. Humphrey in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Type Sound Source Humphrey, Daphne F. Interview by Julio R. Firpo. Home of Daphne F. Humphrey. April 8, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie Jones Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage John R. Hurston House, Georgetown, Sanford, Florida Jones-Francis Maternity Hall, Georgetown, Sanford, Florida Creator Firpo, Julio R. Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Contributor Humphrey, Daphne F. Date Created 2011-04-08 Date Modified 2014-03-19 Format audio/mp3 Extent 906 MB Medium 1-hour, 29-minute, and 47-second audio recording Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Julio R. Firpo and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/buildingblocks.php" target="_blank">Building Blocks</a> Curator Firpo, Julio R. Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference Dickinson, Joy Wallace. "<a href="http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/02/24/3287685.htm" target="_blank">A Very Rich Trail: Florida Black Heritage is Celebrated in an Updated and Expanded StatePublication</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, February 24, 2008, J1. http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/02/24/3287685.htm. Moore, Stacy. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2922" target="_blank">Midwife on Job Here 32 Years</a>." <em>The Little Sentinel</em>, April 4, 1979, 26. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2922. Jeria, Michelle. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2933" target="_blank">Sanford's Birth Place</a>." <em>The Sanford Herald</em>, Feb 16, 2003, 1C. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2933. Flewellyn, Valada Parker, and the Sanford Historical Society. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/320804616" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2009. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. 6th Street African American childbirth education educator Francis, Marie Jones Georgetown Goose Hollow health food store Hickory Avenue Humphrey, Daphne F. Jones, Carrie Locust Avenue maternity home midwife race relations reading retail RICHES of Central Florida Sanford Sanford Avenue Sarasota shop Sixth Street store student teacher https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/14b93c17287a076148840608e8dc9534.pdf 9a986791d7846893de4742a36fcb83af Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection Subject Museums--Florida Schools Elementary schools Grammar schools Sanford (Fla.) Description The Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection encompasses a broad range of materials and items ranging from the late 19th Century into the present. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, documents, videocassettes, and other historical records pertaining to the history of the Sanford Grammar School, the Sanford community through the years, and the history of teaching and learning within the United States from the 19th century to the 2010s. The Student Museum has collaborated with the University of Central Florida and established the UCF Public History Center (PHC). All of the Student Museum's collections are presently housed at the PHC. The goal of the PHC is to promote access to history through ground-breaking research connecting local to global, provide cutting-edge hands-on educational programs for students and visitors, and to engage the community in contributing to and learning from history. Contributor Student Museum UCF Public History Center Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum, Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project Student Museum UCF Public History Center Curator Marra, Katie Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Alternative Title Student Museum and PHC Collection Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Reisz, Autumn Interviewee Grace, David C. Location UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video recording Duration 34 minutes and 56 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 194kbps 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 David C. Grace Alternative Title Oral History, Grace Subject Oral history--United States Fort Myers (Fla.) Museums--Florida Gardens--Florida Army Veterans--Florida Okahumpka (Fla.) Native Americans--Florida Description Oral history of David C. Grace, the Master Gardener and docent at the Student Museum and Center for Social Studies, located at 301 West Seventh Street in Sanford, Florida. Grace was born in Wichita, Kansas, on December 2, 1942. He attended Wichita State University and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Army in 1965. He performed missile maintenance at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, until he retired after three years. He accepted a job with United Telephone and moved to Fort Myers around 1970. When United Telephone purchased the Winter Park Telephone, Grave migrated to Central Florida. After being laid off, he decided to become a Master Gardener for the Student Museum, while also working as a Chief Financial Officer for the Florida Safety County. This interview was conducted by Autumn Reisz in Sanford on October 30, 2012. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:03:42 Student Museum<br />0:10:20 Garden maintenance<br />0:16:32 Being a docent<br />0:28:01 Favorite stories<br />0:29:50 RECORDING CUTS OFF<br />0:29:50 Favorite stories<br />0:33:30 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of David C. Grace. Interview conducted by Autumn Reisz in Sanford, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Grace, David C.. Interviewed by Autumn Reisz. UCF Public History Center. October 30, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a>. <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/31" target="_blank">Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 34-minute and 56-second oral history: Grace, David C.. Interviewed by Autumn Reisz. UCF Public History Center. October 30, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Coverage Fort Myers, Florida Ocala, Florida Winter Park, Florida Student Museum and Center for Social Studies, Sanford, Florida Creator Reisz, Autumn Grace, David C. Date Created 2012-10-30 Date Modified 2012-10-30 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 248 MB 183 KB Medium 34-minute and 56-second audio/video recording 13-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Autumn Reisz and David C. Grace. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the UCF Public History Center and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project UCF Public History Center Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository UCF Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Exhibits." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/Rq-r1Elhi_s" target="_blank">Oral History of David C. Grace</a> Transcript <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Okay, alright. Here we go. So I’m going to do a little intro, uh, that—I am Autumn Reisz and I am interviewing David [C.] Grace this morning, and we’re gonna talk about, um, his experiences and work at the Student Museum in Sanford, um, as a Master Gardener and also a docent, and then—so if you want to start with telling us where you grew up, and went to school, and—and how you ended up here in Florida.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Okay, uh, how I wound up in Florida goes back in history. I am from Wichita, Kansas, where I was born in 1942. Went to, uh, high school there at Wichita [High School] East. One of my close buddies was [Robert] “Bob” [Michael] Gates…</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Nice.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Uh, the Secretary of the Defense, formerly. Went to Wichita State University, graduated, unfortunately, four years later. Uh, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I say “unfortunately,” because I graduated with a business emphasis in accounting, and I was also commissioned as a Second Lieutenant United States Army in 1965. So I tried to work on a Master’s Degree, and that didn’t work too well. So I found myself going on active duty and Redstone Arsenal in [Huntsville,] Alabama—missile command. So I was a missile maintenance officer for three years. Then I, uh, then I decided to retire early, after three years. I interviewed with a number of companies, and, uh—Firestone [Tire and Rubber Company], um, uh—some other companies in the Midwest, but then somebody offered me a job in Fort Myers, Florida.</p> <p>Now my connection to Florida goes back to 1914. My dad was born here in Okahumpka in Lake County. Uh, my grandparents—my grandmother grew up in a little town called Bloomfield, Florida, which no longer exists. It’s on the south side of, uh, Lake Harris—close to Yalaha. My dad was named after, uh, the kaolin pit. Kaolin is a white chalk used as a filler in paper, china, that sort of thing. So, uh, things did not work out, eh, the price of kaolin went south, so the family had to move to Central Georgia, where the Kaolin was better quality. Dad decided in, uh, about 1937, he didn’t want to be a pig farmer, or be in Central Georgia, where it was just a mining town. He went to aviation school and was later hired by Walter Beech—Beech Aircraft<a title="">[1]</a> in Wichita. So, uh, that is where my mom comes in and, uh—so my, uh—so, uh, that’s where my life started in 1942.</p> <p>Now, you know, we’d always go to Grandma’s house in Central Georgia every year, until I was 17 years old, and from there, we’d always venture down to Florida. So I knew something about Florida and I guess that one of my decisions about going to work for United Telephone [Company of Florida] in Fort Myers. I’ve been here in Florida basically since 1970. I followed the purchases of, uh, Florida Telephone Corporation in Ocala. So I was there in Ocala for a few years, came here in 1978, with the purchase of Winter Park Telephone [Company], and, uh, now we know United Telephone has the, uh, the company that is Sprint [Corporation], and the other company is right now called CenturyTel. So that’s how I got here.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Nice. That is quite the journey [<em>laughs</em>]. So how did you become involved with the Sanford museum?<a title="">[2]</a></p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Uh, when I retired, and I was at the regulatory with the phone company, the regulation went away. The telephone company was deregulated. Uh, so in 1997, at the age of 55, they said, “The regulation has gone away and so are you.” So I retired and, uh, [<em>clears throat</em>] one of the things that I wanted to do was be a—a gardener. Moving to Florida and being a gardener—you have to understand that things don’t grow like they do in Kansas. So, um, I guess I wanted to be a Master Gardener. So I took the 14-week course, which is one day a week—essentially from 9 to 3. After that time—time you become a Master Gardener. So the day that I graduated from being a Master Gardener, I also went back to work with a, uh—as a CFO [Chief Financial Officer] for the Florida Safety Council. So I gave that up after three years. Now, what was beautiful about, um—about workin’ at the Central Florida Safety Council, being a Master Gardener—which requires 35 hours a year of volunteer service—every last Saturday of the month, here at the Student Museum was an opportunity to volunteer in the gardens. The gardens started here in about 1997-98 time frame. So over a period of three years, I was up here once a month to get my 35 hours a year, and after that, I just kinda hung around.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Um, can you tell us a little bit about the teaching gardens? Um, and how they are used to teach the students?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>[<em>c</em><em>l</em><em>ears throat</em>] Okay, well, when I retired the second time, I was asked to come in and be a docent, and, uh, I used to teach the majority of all the rooms here, but I did fall in love with Native American history [<em>clears throat</em>]. The individual that started the gardens was, uh, Walter Padgent, who, at that time, owned Higgins House [Bed and Breakfast], just up the street here, and he was also in the same class as I was for the Master Gardener organization. So, uh, being here, at the—at the Student Museum, I kind of fell in love with [<em>clears throat</em>] Native American history, and, uh—and Walt Padgent—that’s how the gardens started—was he had this vision of—and he used to be, I believe, a pioneer docent. So he wanted something out here—immediately right outside the windows here—uh, where the first grounds of a vegetable garden, or pioneer garden, which allowed the fourth grade students to come here, dig a trench, plant their beans, cover it up, water it, and end the exhibit part outside.</p> <p>Couple of years ago, I challenged a lady—and I didn’t actually challenge her. I just said to her one day, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a three sisters garden out here?” The three sisters—corn, uh—three sisters garden are corn, beans, and squash, and it, uh—it’s part of the—we gave up painting faces, which was about a 10-minute mission there, in the Native American [Exhibit: Life in an Ancient Timucuan Village] room, and what else are you going to do with the 10 minutes? I said, “Well, let’s take them out to the gardens.” ‘Cause out here, in the teaching gardens, we did have the three sisters garden. We showed the kids. It’d be surprising that maybe some kids don’t what corn looks like, other than what’s on the breakfast cereal box, and of course, the three sisters are complimentary to each other. They give a balanced diet to the Native Americans. You—you get your carbs from corn, you get your protein from the beans, and you get a well-balanced, nourished diet from squash.</p> <p>So, uh, we also have, out here, the coontie plant, which became a major industry here in Florida, because it was a source of, um, uh, starch. Everybody needs a li’l starch. The coontie plant would provide that starch, and it became an industry, uh—it was an industry up until 1909. Up here in DeLand, Florida, a company manufactured coontie starch. So I show the kids that, because the Native Americans used that. Uh, it is a poisonous plant, uh—with the red berries. It is kinda common. Nowadays, it’s become more popular in the local landscape.</p> <p>Then we move on over to a beautyberry—the American beautyberry bush—which at this time of year, has some really beautiful purple berries on the stems, and we tell ‘em that grandma used to make jelly from those. Uh, Native Americans can use that as, uh, some—sometimes they say there’s a little color in there. It could get used for body paint, or ‘bout the best use I know of is it’s a good insect repellent.</p> <p>Uh, we also stop at the herb garden, and, uh, most kids don’t—they understand what an herb might be, um, but they probably have never seen one, like rosemary. Uh, I try to show ‘em like four different kinds of herbs: rosemary—aloe that we use for sunburns—thyme—you could use for casseroles and soups—and there’s another—there’s another one out there I throw in there if it is out there in the herb garden.</p> <p>We go around and talk about the sassafras tree, and then lastly I take them to yaupon holly. We have a weeping yaupon holly here in our gardens, and, uh, the botanical name for that is <em>ilex vomitia</em>, and it doesn’t take too long for the kids to understand there’s something about the word <em>vomitia</em>. Uh, the yaupon holly was used as a ceremonial tea—a drink. Every morning, the chief and the elders of the tribe or branch would partake of yaupon holly tea—or we know it today—they called it “black drink.” It’d make you—it’d make you sweat profusely. Uh, I’ve told it has six or seven times more caffeine than a cup of coffee. It’ll keep you awake for 48 hours. So the hunters of the tribe would drink this. Uh, drink all they could get, throw up which was good luck. Uh, and they’d go out to the hunt and they would—would, uh, be in the stand—the steer dan—deer stand for 48 hours, and, uh, that was the hunt.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Wow. How so—do you do plantings that are seasonal here? Do you change as the cycle goes around? Or do you try and continue to keep the same basic things around to teach the students?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Um, we replenish, like the herbs, and we plant, of course, the three sisters garden. We didn’t have irrigation here, until about 2003, which meant before that, uh—that in the summertime, we just covered up the gardens with plastic, go home, and don’t come back until September.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Now we have irrigation year-round. Um, so it’s all up to the climate and, uh, we’ve been a mode for the last several years, probably since about—since 2005, and that mode is—is what you’d basically call “maintenance.” Maintaining what we have because of the, uh, things that we heard about the school’s gonna close up. It’s gonna be sold, and some Master Gardeners even thought about coming here and digging up the plants, and moving back to the extension, which to me is called trespassing. So what’s good about the gardens right now, we’ve maintained them. Haven’t done a lot of planting, other than what we do here for the students: the vegetable garden, the herb garden, uh, butterfly garden. We kinda keep up on that, but the other plants and the other gardens, like our shade garden, subtropical garden, our wildlife habitat, is going wild and is flourishing, and we can stand back and trim and prune, as necessary.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah, do you have to do any extra maintenance with the roses or anything like that, other than regular pruning, or do you just let them be?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /> </strong>You’d be surprised that the roses we have here, which are maintained by the Orlando Area Historical Rose Society. Uh, they’re the ones that set it up back in 1997. They are what we call “antique roses.” They have very little response to, uh—in other words, they don’t get black spot. They don’t get diseases. Um, you can get an antique rose of any size, any color. We have one rose out there, which is probably about 15 feet in diameter—about 8 feet tall. Beautiful rose—pink rose. Ah, we have the other roses that crawl on the ground, like a ground cover. Uh, the rosarium that takes care of that rose garden right now is the president of that society. So he’s an expert on roses, and, uh, while a homeowner might not think that, uh, they need a lot of care. I don’t really care. I have some in my own yard. They don’t get a lot of care. So they’re by themselves. They’re happy, but, uh, as an exhibit here, he comes out maybe two or three times a year. Gives ‘em—gives ‘em a good heavy feeding of fertilizer, uh, in the fall, we try to round up at least 20 bags. I mean big bags of leaves—oak leaves—and spread them in the rose garden, as well. So is there a lot of maintenance? Not really.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>We just make ‘em happy.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah, make them happy. Um, I saw online—I looked up, um, the Master Gardeners, and it—there’s a newsletter called <em>The Seminole County</em>, uh, <em>Green Thumb</em>.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Yup.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>It mentions that people can stop in and ask questions of the Master Gardeners.<a title="">[3]</a> Do you get a lot of, like, adults coming in to ask you questions about planting—Florida planting—anything like that? Or they just come in and see the gardens?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Especially they just come in on special occasions, and, uh, hoping that UCF [University of Central Florida] here—that we get people to—when they come in the front door, you want to get them to go out the back door, ‘cause that’s where the gardens are, and, historically, uh, people that have come and visited the gardens do ask questions, but, uh, sometimes getting traffic back here to the garden has been difficult.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah. Possibly that will change, since they changed the parking situation as well, since people have to see the garden…</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Right, right.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Before they go in. Um, how much time do you devote to the gardens now? I know you had said that you were doing, like, one Saturday a month to get your yearly. Is that the same? Are you doin’ more time? Are you doin’ little less time?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Historically, we found out, over the years, that people get more active on the weekends.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Especially at this time of year when there are a lot of festivals going on, and this is the best time to come out to the gardens and work. So, uh—and it’s difficult to get volunteers to come here. The Master Gardeners—the main membership is probably about 40—maybe 50—members, and a lot of times they take the classes for one or two purposes. The guys come out—maybe they run a landscaping business—they want to become a Master Gardener and have that in their portfolio, so they can sell their services. We have a lot of ladies that come out. The last class of 24, uh, attendees—23 of them were women, and so the odds are in my favor, because, uh, today, if maybe it was a little warmer, I’d have at least three ladies here on Tuesdays. So, uh, we quit having the Saturday end of month work day. It just was not working out. People were not coming out. They’re more active with families. So, uh, I try to designate, as each graduating class comes along. I tell ‘em come on out, get interested in a project, uh, tell me when you can come out, and, uh, Tuesdays have become a favorite day. Uh, trying to get Thursday and maybe another day. Some people come out here on a—on a monthly basis. The ones I associate with on Tuesdays, come out on a weekly basis. We spend anywhere from—uh, right now, a day like today, we could work out here for six hours and think nothing of it. When the church bells ring across the street at noon, I call it quits.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Okay, so we talked a little bit earlier, um, about you being a docent with the museum. Um, when did you become a docent?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>I was asked to come inside, uh, to be a docent in the year 2001, after I had retired the second time.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>And then you said—you had mentioned you, um, you had taught the Native American room. Did you teach any of the other rooms?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /> </strong>I’ve taught—one of my favorite ones—which I can get emotional about sometimes when I taught it—is Grandma’s Attic.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Because I’m old enough to realize that, when I went as a young man—to grandma’s house or to a great aunt’s house that lived down in Florida or Kansas, uh—you still had to go to the well to get your water. The outhouse was out in the back. Uh, we tried not to take a bath, because basically a bathtub did not exist. So you get all those, uh, things lined up and you try to tell these kids, uh, how life was. In fact, the—teaching Native American history and pioneer history and Grandma’s Attic—which is about a 100 years ago—wasn’t that much different, and I taught the other rooms, as well.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Geography [Lab: Where in the World Are We?]. Um, it was kind of interesting. When I came here, uh, my life as a young man, uh—going into adult—it kind of fits. I was in accounting for 30 years. I did so, because that’s how you make money. Dad says, if you want to make a decent salary, uh, be an accountant—be in business. That didn’t really fit like a glove.</p> <p>Uh, my dad and I used to look for Indian artifacts in—in Central Kansas, ever since I was five years old. Uh, we were members of the rock society, Wichita Gem and Mineral Society for, uh—I quit paying dues about five years ago. Uh, so I’ve been involved in archeology, paleontology, minerals—you name it. Uh, I fit here.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>And, uh, I love Native American history, ‘cause I’ve been involved in that. We may have talked on the phone about—I was a member of Indian Guides. For Indian Guides, you’re a Cub Scout in Wichita, Kansas. It’s about Native American history. For Eagle Scout, Order of the Arrow. So all my life, in the summertime, we used to go out to the camp—Boy Scout[s of America] camp, every week, ‘cause we were a special troop. We had, uh, costumes, you might say, and we danced for the audience. So, uh, Native American history been a part of my life, even though I am 50 percent German and 50 percent English and Scottish.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Um, was the Native American room your favorite room to teach? Or was Grandma’s Attic your favorite room to teach?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Native American is probably one of the favorite rooms to teach. Grandma’s Attic coming in second. Ah, [Turn of the Century] Classroom[: Lessons from 1902] coming is third. Pioneer [Pioneer Exhibit: Before the Settlement of Sanford] room is fourth, I would say. Geography, uh—it comes in fifth, and, uh, when I started here the coordinator—the program coordinator—she was the one that taught geography. So the other three rooms I—I used to teach the classroom. It was okay. It takes a special person. We had a special person, by the name of Florence. Uh, she is a little older than I am, but she knew how teachers were in 1902, and she demanded that same, uh, discipline. So that’s kinda cool. Pioneer, uh—since I’m not a native Floridian, I don’t really understand that, until I read that book <em>Remembered Land </em>or [<em>A</em>] <em>Land Remembered</em>. I could really find out something about the pioneers of Florida. So, uh, being a collector of artifacts, uh, since I was a kid—we’re talking about 60 years plus. I’ve donated artifacts, fossils to the museum, so that’s where I fit.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Do you have a particular, like, favorite teaching tool with the kids in any of the rooms? I know, that, um, for a lot of the docents—like especially with Grandma’s Attic or the Native American room—they’d have one particular artifact that they really used—liked to use to teach the children. Did you have anything particular like that?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Well, one of the things that kids would always come and ask, the number one question: “Is this real?” So it kinda irritated me for some time, so I said, “Don’t ask me that question. I’m going to tell you it’s real, even though it’s not.” A lot of the materials we’ve had here—they’re not exactly real, of course. You don’t expect things to be real that go back to about 1500, but in my collection, we used to collect a lot of artifacts out of Central Georgia, which are approximately three to four to five thousand years old, and I bring those with me. Sometimes, I’d wear pants that have the mini pockets and I’ll fill the pockets up with anything from shark teeth, Uh—I’ve brought in a couple of meteorites that I found in Texas in a parking lot that was a gravel parking lot. Just so happens to be something I picked up, and it was determined by the University of Kansas to be a meteorite. I bring that in and I pass it around.</p> <p>Uh, sometimes I, uh, go out bounds. Sometimes, the, uh, program director sometimes gets a little—little irritated with me. Sometimes I go out of bounds, and—and teach some things and touch on some things that, uh, they don’t want me to teach, but I—I bring artifacts. Uh, that’s one thing I liked about Grandma’s Attic. Before UCF came, it was all cluttered. It looked like an antique store. So just about everything I looked at or touched is a memory. So it’s kinda like the same thing with Native Americans, even though I didn’t go back to 1513. It’s about artifacts, pottery, uh—I’ve brought in pottery shards of different designs, and asked the kids, “Well, how did this pattern get on this piece of pottery?” It was done with a paddle. It was done with pine needles. So I’ve tried to bring in the real stuff, and I use the artifacts—the things in the room—uh, to get their attention. I like the “wow” factor. I like to challenge the kids, that when they leave they might go to the library, and grab a bunch of Native American books, and go home and read ‘em, ‘cause I think it is the most fascinating history about how that—how it’s all about survival. The hunters, the male [inaudible], the female [inaudible], okay? That was survival. The lady had to fix the guys buttons. The guy had to fix his meals. I ask the kids, “When you go home, who do ask—who do you ask in your family what’s for supper? Do you ask your dad?” Probably not, ‘cause he’s in the living room. He’s being a warrior. His face is painted orange on one side, blue on the other side, and he’s got a big bowl of popcorn. Mom, she’s slaving in the kitchen fixing your dinner for you. That’s the person you go and ask. So nothing’s changed over—since 1500. The men are still hunters—still warriors. Mom does everything else.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>So what is it like teaching fourth graders? How do you keep the children focused and—and engaged in what you’re telling them?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Well, sometimes that’s interesting. It depends upon, the, uh, school that comes, unfortunately. I used to have a list of—<em>Okay, this, uh—this school’s coming this week. Okay, I’ll bring some of my artifacts</em>.‘Cause I—‘cause I know, in the past they—I can get their attention real quick. Some of the other schools—little bit differently. So I just go down the middle of the road, and stick with the subject matter, ‘cause some of the kids that come here, I—I extend myself. Um, some of the other students, I can almost figure it out, based on which elementary school comes. They’re about the same as last year. So sometimes the days are difficult. Um, you know, chaperones—I don’t know if I can say this on tape—but we have chaperones that like to chit chat, when I am trying to present my presentation. Sometimes, the teachers are down here looking at stuff we’re trying to sell in a rummage sale. So it’s kind interesting just to see as each group comes through. They’re all unique. They’re all different, and as a volunteer, uh, sometimes you have a problem with discipline. Can’t figure out how to do that. Sometimes, being an old codger like I am, uh, I’ve got in trouble a couple of times. In Grandma’s Attic, I point to the back and say there’s a blue outfit. Give some clues. I might say, you know, it was a Victoria’s Secret original. I’d say, <em>Oops. I just stepped in it. </em>‘Cause it is a swim suit that goes back to 1907. Uh, okay. So I’ve been called down for that, but what the heck? I’m a volunteer.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz <br /></strong>Yeah, is it hard to stay on, um—with the kids that you’re really engaged in, Um, I know you said you do go off script. Is hard to make sure you cover everything that is set out in the curriculum, while still covering the things you think are important?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>I’ve been kind of a rebel the last few years. Um, I guess it is because when I first came on board, who taught me how to do this was the program director or the secretary. The secretary was very knowledgeable, because she was called upon numerous of times to do teaching. Secretary—yeah. Well, I gotta go teach that, close the door and, uh, ‘cause I’ve gotta go teach Grandma’s Attic or be a school teacher today. They’re the ones that taught me what to say, uh, and it continues today. I’ve gone through, I think, three program directors, and the same wording I heard—what I learned—specifically is still used today. I mean, we go outside and we meet the school bus, and talk about Romanesque revival architecture, and I’ve learned this since day one. You ask a student—you ask a class, “I wonder where Roman architecture comes from?” If a kid says, “Rome[, Italy],” okay. He gets a pat on the head. After 14 years, they still get a pat on the head. I mean, it’s just like going around telling a story from number one to number 20. I seem to stick with the idea that ,when a student gives a correct answer, give ‘em a pat on the shoulder—or, “You’re a straight A student today.”</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Do you have a favorite story about, um, either the gardens or, you know, being a docent at the Student Museum? Is there a favorite moment with a child or story with a child? Or even just, you know…</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>One…</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Working in an exhibit?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>One of my favorite stories—again, this is something I don’t know if it’s unique to our education system. We used to have animals in, uh, the Native American room. We used to have a bobcat, and, uh, I’d tell the story when things were getting kind of slow. Or, you know, this is—again, being kinda like a rebel—I’d tell the legend of how the bobcat got its, uh, spots on its fur. Well, he was chasing a rabbit one day, and, uh, the rabbit went into a tree trunk—a hollow tree trunk. Well, the rabbit knew he was gonna get caught, ‘cause here comes the bobcat. The bobcat knows he’s in there, and the rabbit tries negotiating. <em>What am I going to do now? </em>So he says, “I know you’ve got me now. So why don’t you just set this tree trunk on fire?” Sometimes, the kids ask, “Well, how does the bobcat set the tree on fire?” I just say, “Well, that’s for another time and I’ve got to keep this story kind of short.” So when he set the tree trunk on fire, smoke and sparks were billowing out of the top of the tree trunk, and, uh, all of the sudden the bobcat realizes that these sparks are landing on his fur. Well, he’s got to pay more attention to these little fires that are now appearing on his fur, and he loses attention of, well, you know, what happened to the rabbit. Now that the bobcat has all these spots on his fur, the rabbit is now gone. He’s on up the trail. He has escaped. <strong> “</strong>That his spots come from this story about 5,000 years ago.” So I think it is a kind of a cool story.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah, I think so.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>It is legend. It’s[sic] stories. It’s, in some cases, superstition, and I’ve been—I’ve been careful to be—not to say a whole lot about superstition. It’s like our three sister garden is—is grown in a circle, and that circle is because they believed that there were higher frequencies or things out there in the universe that were focused down on a—on a circular garden. Same thing with a dunce cap. Sometimes—sometimes, I tell the kids that you won’t learn this when you go to the classroom, but the dunce class—the dunce cap that you will see in there was invented by Mr. [John] Duns [Scotus] in England in the 1700s. It was for a therapy of—of slow learners. Again, the dunce cap is in what form? A cone. So that cone focused down all this knowledge for you to absorb between your ears. Like, in the 1800s, of course, the dunce cap became a disciplinary method, but again, that’s going back to superstition.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>It’s common. You find it all over the place today. Go down to the local café, and underneath the counter you’ve got these little books that all about fortunetelling, uh, things you can do with your dog and get his emotions straightened out. Kinda cool.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Very cool. Any other stories you’d like to share? About the museum? Your experiences here?</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Well, you know, it’s—it’s, uh, somebody mentioned today that, since they did the tenting of the termites, that the place smells better. I said, “You know, I kind of miss that—what it really used to smell like,” ‘cause you can imagine, when you walk around here [<em>clears throat</em>] a lot of times, you’d say, <em>If only the walls could talk. </em>This building goes back to 1902. Sometimes, we—we don’t really tell the whole story. [<em>coughs</em>] Like, uh, what happened during the [Great] Depression years? What did the kids wear to school? I know most of the kids—or a lot of the kids—came to school barefooted. A lot of the girls wore the same—uh, their dresses looked the same. Why is that? That’s because their dresses were made by feed bags. Their mom sewed the—the feed bags. The lady down the street did the same thing. The girls came to school wearing basically the same thing, and you wonder, <em>Well</em>, you know, <em>it must’a been cooler around here in Florida</em>. Which to me, I’ve thought about, <em>Why didn’t I move to Florida? </em>If it wasn’t for air-conditioning, I know I wouldn’t be here. So it’s—it’s kinda cool. We’ve had visitors drop by that came here to school in the [19]50s, they relate to, uh—there was no air-conditioning. Uh, the railroad yard was just down the street belching out—the steam locomotives in the morning belching out smoke and soot and whatever comes out of locomotive stacks, and settled all over the city here. Imagine what, kind of—when—when you’re walking to school as a kid, you hear the school bell ring, I mean, it’s so cool.</p> <p>Those are the kinda things—I like—this public history, because I forgot to ask my grandmother what life was back when she was a kid. So that’s what I like about public history. Reminds us to, uh, start asking questions about how life really was—not about dates, people, things. I don’t care about what— [Thomas Alva] Edison invented the light bulb. We have light bulbs, but it would’ve been nice to ask him, “What was life like in Fort Myers in 1900 or—er, 1900?” I don’t care about your light bulb. I want to know about your life. “How’d your friend [Harvey] Firestone get down here to Florida?” I mean, I’m still trying to find out—my relatives came from Bearaboo, Wisconsin, and settled in Lake County, which was—at that time, was Sumter County, in about 1870. How’d they get here? I have no idea. From Bearaboo, Wisconsin. They came here. Why? ‘Cause somebody said, “You’ve got a child with asthma?” “Yeah.” I had a great-uncle that had asthma. That’s why they moved to Florida. I still don’t know how they got here.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Wow. Thank you very much. Um, we’ve covered everything that I wanted to ask about the gardens, and then your work as a—as a docent. Um, if there’s anything else feel free. If not, I think we’re all set.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>I think that’s about it.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>I really don’t talk about—or I generally don’t talk much at all [<em>l</em><em>aughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Well, I’m glad you talked to me. Thank you very much.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>That’s why I am out in the garden, ya know?</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>G</strong><strong>race<br /></strong>Dig a hole, fertilize[?] it, fill it in.</p> <p><strong>R</strong><strong>eisz<br /></strong>Fill it in, yup.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: Beechcraft Corporation.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: Student Museum and Center for Social Studies.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Seminole County Master Gardener Program.</p> </div> </div> 7th Street A Land Remembered aloe American Beauty berry bush antique rose archaeology beans Beech Aircraft Beech, Walter bobcat Boy Scouts of America butterfly garden Central Florida Safety Council Central Georgia CenturyTel CFO Chief Financial Officer coontie corn Cub Scout docent dunce cap Eagle Scout Edison, Thomas Alva exhibit Firestone Florida Safety Council Florida Telephone Corporation Fort Myers garden gardener Gates, Bob gems geology Grace, David C. herb herb garden Higgins House Bed and Breakfast ilex vomitia Indian Guides Lake Harris Master Gardener minerals missile command missile maintenance officer museum Native American Exhibit: Life in an Ancient Timucuan Village Native Americans Okahumpka oral history Order of the Arrow Orlando Area Historical Rose Society Padgent, Walt paleontology pig farmer Pioneer Exhibit: Before the Settlement of Sanford rabbit Reisz, Autumn Robert Michael Gates Romanesque revival architecture rosarium rose rosemary Sanford Grammar School sassafras tree Scotus, John Duns Second Lieutenant Seminole County Green Thumb Seminole County Master Gardener Program Seventh Street shade garden Sprint Corporation squash Student Museum and Center for Social Studies subtropical garden superstition thyme Turn of the Century Classroom: Lessons from 1902 U.S. Army UCF Department of History UK United Telephone Company of Florida University of Central Florida, UCF University of Kansas vegetable garden veteran Wichita Gem and Mineral Society Wichita Gem and Mineral Society, Inc. Wichita High School East Wichita State University Wichita, Kansas wildlife habitat Winter Park Telephone Company WSU Yalaha yaupon holly https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/03a88ca58a56dab47b91cb25405eb5a6.pdf 58f3f272d87e37d0e5b10fbf884c9fdb 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 Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra Collection Alternative Title Orlando Philharmonic Collection Subject Philharmonic orchestra series Orchestras Music--Florida Musicians--United States Orlando (Fla.) Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, located at 812 East Rollins Street Suite 300 in Orlando, was inspired by the closing of the Florida Symphony in 1993. The orchestra performs in more than 125 concerts each season. In June of 2013, the Philharmonic made plans to purchase the Plaza Live, located at 425 North Bumby Avenue in downtown Orlando, for office space, a rehearsal hall, a music library, and a music hall. Contributor <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span>." Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. http://orlandophil.org/.</span> <span>"</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span>." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil.</span> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/140" target="_blank">Central Florida Music History Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/145" target="_blank">Classical Collection</a>, Central Florida Music History Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Rights Holder <span>Copyright to this resource is held by the </span><a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span> and is provided here by </span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a><span> for educational purposes only.</span> Curator Cepero, Laura Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee Shillhammer, David Duration 5 minutes and 47 seconds 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 David Schillhammer Alternative Title Oral History, Schillhammer Subject Orlando (Fla.) Philharmonic orchestra series Orchestras Music--Florida Anniversaries Conductors (Music)--United States Composers--United States Musicians--United States Music education Description Episode in the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra's 20th Anniversary video series, chronicling the orchestra's history in Central Florida. This episode features an interview with David Schillhammer, Executive Director since 2010. Topics in the video include performing at the Grand Opening of Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter, being conducted by John Williams, sales and programming, the concert experience, the involvement of musicians on the Board, the Orlando Philharmonic's track record of fiscal responsibility, and educational programs offered by the orchestra. <br /><br />David Schillhammer was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont, and received his Bachelor of Music in Bassoon Performance from the Eastman School of Music. He has also served as the executive director of the San Antonio Symphony, general manager of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and production and education coordinator for the Rochester Philharmonic. On April 30, 2010, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer declared April 30th to be "David Schillhammer Day." <br /><br />The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, located at 812 East Rollins Street Suite 300 in Orlando, was inspired by the closing of the Florida Symphony in 1993. The orchestra performs in more than 125 concerts each season. In June of 2013, the Philharmonic made plans to purchase the Plaza Live, located at 425 North Bumby Avenue in downtown Orlando, for office space, a rehearsal hall, a music library, and a music hall. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:13 Grand Opening of Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter 0:01:54 Sales and programming 0:03:06 Involvement of musicians on the board 0:03:49 Fiscal responsibility 0:04:05 Educational programs 0:05:40 Closing credits Abstract In celebration of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra's 20th Anniversary season, this video series chronicles the orchestra's two decades of history in Central Florida. In this episode, Executive Director David Schillhammer talks about his history with the orchestra. This video was produced by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown and Lisa Mills with the guidance of Stella Sung and Emily Lindahl. Type Moving Image Source Original 5-minute and 48-second video by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills: "<a href="http://youtu.be/t7b_mapVRfQ" target="_blank">The Orlando Phil's 20th Anniversary | Executive Director David Schillhammer</a>." <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, October 25, 2012: Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a>. Application software, such as <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a>. Coverage Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Orlando, Florida Creator Gennaro, Joe Brown, Timothy G. Mills, Lisa Publisher <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Contributor Shillhammer, David Sung, Stella Lindahl, Emily Date Created 2012 Date Copyrighted 2012-10-25 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Medium 5-minute and 48-second video Language eng Mediator History Teacher Humanities Teacher Music Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills and published by the <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</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 Loan Contributing Project <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> External Reference "<a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>." Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. http://orlandophil.org/. "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil. "<a href="http://orlandotheater.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/hope-youre-celebrating-its-david-schillhammer-day/" target="_blank">Hope youre celebrating: Its David Schillhammer Day</a>." <em>Orlando Theater, April 30, 2010. http://orlandotheater.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/hope-youre-celebrating-its-david-schillhammer-day/.</em> "<a href="http://theparkpress.com/orlando-philharmonic-orchestra-to-purchase-the-plaza-live/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra To Purchase The Plaza Live</a>." <em>The Park Press<em>, June 6, 2013. http://theparkpress.com/orlando-philharmonic-orchestra-to-purchase-the-plaza-live/.</em></em> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/t7b_mapVRfQ" target="_blank">Oral History of David Schillhammer</a> Transcript <p><strong>Schillhammer<br /></strong>In my 13 years with the Orlando Philharmonic [Orchestra], there are so many great stories, but I think one of the really great highlights and one of the great honors bestowed upon the Orlando Philharmonic was the opportunity to play for the grand opening of Universal [Studios Florida]’s Wondrous—Harry Potter's Wondrous World.<a title="">[1]</a></p> <p>And that, in of itself, was an honor enough, but we were conducted by the great John Williams, who of course has composed all of that great music and is truly, you know, um, America's genius. As soon as he picked up his baton and started conducting, it transformed the sound of the Orlando Philharmonic. The conductor can have that. It was so inspiring for the musicians of the Orlando Philharmonic—for those of us who were there to witness it—to see the kind of music making that he could bring to the Orlando Philharmonic.</p> <p>He had put his foot down. He wanted either the London Symphony [Orchestra] or the Boston Pops [Orchestra], and they were going to have to fly in these orchestras from either London[, England, United Kingdom] or Boston[, Massachusetts], and, uh, that was, those were his demands and once we sent him recordings of the orchestra and once, uh, some people from Universal came to the concerts, they knew they had a prize-winning, award-winning orchestra right here in their backyard. And he penned the most genuinely, kind, sincere complimentary letter, um, that we have ever received. He didn’t have to do that. And, um, I get goose bumps right to this day thinking about what a great thrill it was performing with John Williams.</p> <p>We have had incredible success with ticket sales. It is an enormous increase. we've had double-digit growth increase in subscription sales each and every year during what has been the worst [Great] Recession in American history since the—since the Great Depression. and people have remained passionate about the programming of the Orlando Philharmonic. Our mantra is “exciting programming marketed well.”</p> <p>You have to have both. We have to have exciting programming and we have to tell the story about why it’s exciting programming. I like to think and I—I do believe that every Orlando Philharmonic concert is an event. And the musicians are some of the best in the country, if not the world. I mean, our performances are as good as any American orchestra. I’ll put us up against anybody. And, uh, uh, people respect and appreciate that and they come in record numbers.</p> <p>We elevated the musicians from what is generally the bottom of the totem pole and put them at the top of the totem pole, equal setting with the—with the community board of directors. Our bylaws mandate that 25 percent of the positions on the board of directors be filled by musicians in the orchestra—unheard of to this day. Most American officers have no musicians on the board on purpose. Uh, some might have one or two. Um often, they’re non-voting, and they're never on executive committee, where the real decisions are made and we break down all those barriers. We have a musician who serves on the five-member executive committee, and we talk about things open and honestly at every level, no matter how difficult it is.</p> <p>Well, we have a tremendous track record of fiscal responsibility. I really give credit to the founders and to the Board of Directors. We all work together to ensure financial equilibrium each and every year. We've never had a penny of red ink.</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>Okay, now if I take that down a half step [<em>plays trumpet</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schillhammer<br /></strong>Our educational programs are something for which we’re very proud. Our young people's concerts—every year we perform 28 young people’s concerts for close to 60,000 elementary school students in Orange, Seminole, and Osceola Counties. It’s one of the largest of its kind in the country.</p> <p>We also have “Tiny Tots” for daycare centers we have “Notes in Your Neighborhood” that goes into the school, primarily in those critical after school hours. We have our young composers challenge which is also very special. It started out as the Orlando Young Composers Challenge and now it's the National Young Composers Challenge.</p> <p>I think that you'll find this event has all drama of a spelling bee combined with the passion of great music making.</p> <p>We have adult classes. We have, uh—it’s called “Sounds of Music in Adult Music Appreciation” class we have about a hundred people who sign up every year. They want to know more. They go to the concerts and there’s mysteries about symphony orchestras. They want to know this information and when they know this information they can enjoy the performances more. They become more passionate supporters. And, uh yeah. So our adult music appreciation classes have been really great. So we’re—we’re out there as much as we possibly can, nurturing people’s interests and passion for symphonic music.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter.</p> </div> </div> Date Issued 2012-10-25 Has Format Original 5-minute and 48-second video by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills: "<a href="http://youtu.be/t7b_mapVRfQ" target="_blank">The Orlando Phil's 20th Anniversary | Executive Director David Schillhammer</a>." <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, October 25, 2012. http://youtu.be/t7b_mapVRfQ. Is Part Of <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/140" target="_blank">Central Florida Music History Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Extent 114 KB 20th Anniversary Boston Pops Orchestra composer conductor executive directors Great Recession London Symphony Orchestra music music education musicians Notes in Your Neighborhood OPO orchestra orlando Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra Orlando Young Composers Challenge philharmonic orchestra Rollins Street Schillhammer, David Sounds of Music Tiny Tots Twentieth Anniversary Universal Studios Universal Studios Florida Williams, John Wizarding World of Harry Potter Young Composers Challenge Young People's Concert https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/122bd69c4f99aa8ced815097f468da93.pdf e73adb342c71e1c173c32c8b88afe3a3 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 Sanford Collection Description The present-day Sanford area was originally inhabited by the Mayaca/Joroco natives by the time Europeans arrived. The tribe was decimated by war and disease by 1760 and was replaced by the Seminole Indians. In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain and Americans began to settled in the state. Camp Monroe was established in the mid-1830s to defend the area against Seminoles during the Seminole Wars. In 1836, the United States Army built a road (present-day Mellonville Avenue) to a location called "Camp Monroe," during the Second Seminole War. Following an attack on February 8, 1837, the camp was renamed "Fort Mellon," in honor of the battle's only American casualty, Captain Charles Mellon. The town of Mellonville was founded nearby in 1842 by Daniel Stewart. When Florida became a state three years later, Mellonville became the county seat for Orange County, which was originally a portion of Mosquito County. Citrus was the first cash crop in the area and the first fruit packing plant was constructed in 1869. In 1870, a lawyer from Connecticut by the name of Henry Shelton Sanford (1832-1891) purchased 12,548 acres of open land west of Mellonville. His vision was to make this new land a major port city, both railway and by water. Sitting on Lake Monroe, and the head of the St. Johns River, the City of Sanford earned the nickname of “The Gate City of South Florida.” Sanford became not only a transportation hub, but a leading citrus industry in Florida, and eventually globally. The Great Fire of 1887 devastated the city, which also suffered from a statewide epidemic of yellow fever the following year. The citrus industry flourished until the Great Freezes of 1894 and 1895, causing planters to begin growing celery in 1896 as an alternative. Celery replaced citrus as the city's cash crop and Sanford was nicknamed "Celery City." In 1913, Sanford became the county seat of Seminole County, once part of Orange County. Agriculture dominated the region until Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971, effectively shifting the Central Florida economy towards tourism and residential development. Alternative Title Sanford Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) 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> <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/" target="_blank">Sanford Historical Society, Inc.</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Is Part Of <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 Sanford, Florida Curator Marra, Katherine Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. <span>Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank"><em>A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</em></a></span><span>, 1975.</span> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Holcomb, Susan Interviewee Scott, David Location <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 Original Format 1 audio recording Duration 55 minutes and 53 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 196kbps 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 David Scott Alternative Title Oral History, Scott Subject Sanford (Fla.) Nursing homes--Florida Description An oral history of David Scott, conducted by Susan Holcomb on April 9, 2010. Scott was the son of Grady Scott, who served as Superintendent of the Old Folks Home, formerly located at 300 Bush Boulevard in Sanford, Florida. The property has since been converted into the Museum of Seminole County History. In this interview, Scott discusses the layout and residents at the home, his responsibilities as an employee, growing up in Sanford, and how Sanford has changed over time. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:20 Old Folks Home<br />0:02:38 Residents<br />0:05:10 Responsibilities as an employee<br />0:11:31 Dining room and kitchen<br />0:12:43 Willie and Lily<br />0:13:31 Stories about residents, father, and siblings<br />0:18:59 Livestock and agriculture<br />0:21:34 Stories about residents and pet dog named Pooch<br />0:24:04 Laundry room and furnace<br />0:25:43 Life as a teenager<br />0:26:52 How Sanford has changed over time<br />0:27:55 Siblings and education<br />0:30:15 Pasture, orange groves, and freezer locker<br />0:32:53 Agricultural Building<br />0:34:44 Cattle ranchers and the railroad<br />0:38:03 Father's employment history<br />0:39:50 Oak tree memorial<br />0:41:23 Disciplining children and residents with dementia<br />0:44:13 Living room<br />0:44:55 Gender and racial segregation<br />0:45:45 Layout<br />0:54:29 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of David Scott. Interview conducted by Susan Holcomb 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>, Sanford, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Scott, David. Interviewed by Susan Holcomb. April 9, 2010. <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 <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="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/43" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Old Folks Home, Sanford, Florida Museum of Seminole County History, Sanford, Florida Creator Holcomb, Susan Scott, David Date Created 2010-04-09 Date Modified 2014-10-02 Date Copyrighted 2010-04-09 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 564 KB 188 KB Medium 55-minute and 53-second audio recording 21-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Susan Holcomb and David Scott. 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.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/about-the-museum-of-seminole-county-hi/" target="_blank">About the Museum of Seminole County History</a>." Department of Parks and Preservation, Seminole County Government. http://www.seminolecountyfl.gov/departments-services/leisure-services/parks-recreation/museum-of-seminole-county-history/about-the-museum-of-seminole-county-hi/. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/7hueqmkChCQ" target="_blank">Oral History of David Scott</a> Transcript <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Today is April 9^th, 2010. My name is Susan Holcomb. I’m here interviewing David Scott about his time when his dad<a title="">[1]</a> was Superintendent here at the Old Folks Home. David, thank you again for your time today.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Okay. You’re welcome.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>You were telling me about the office here.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yes. This where I’m standing now in front of the fireplace. This was the superintendent’s living quarters. This is where we lived—my mom<a title="">[2]</a> and dad, and my sister, my brother, and myself. We lived here. This was the entrance—the main entrance—the office. That’s where we kept all the records. There was a driveway that came up in the front here and made kind of a turn and people would come up and stop in front of the office. And whatever their business was, we would take care of it here, because we lived right next to the office. So it was real convenient. But this was where we lived. We lived in here. It was good. This has been opened up. The partitions—this has all been opened up into the dining area. That was all closed when we lived here. It looks small now, but it was large then. But it was a lot of fun here. This was back in the late [19]50s-early ‘60s. But my sister and my brother stayed on this side—in the superintendent’s side—and I stayed over in the office where Kim [Nelson] is right now, that was my room. There was[sic] two rooms where the office is—two small rooms. They opened that up and now she’s in—where her office is that was my room where I stayed.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>How about that. So there were two rooms there and you had one of them?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>And how old were you again when you lived here?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>I was around 15—15 years old.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /> </strong>And how many years were you here?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>We were here approximately four years living here. But I got used to the elderly folks, and it was a good part of growing up. It was a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, and things that I listened to back then—stories and all. They were fantastic. It was just like reading a book, when you talk to some of the people that were here. And it was great.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>That’s interesting. About how many residents were here then? Do you know?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>I would say probably 10-15 in this section. We had the infirmary in the back. Of course it’s not there now. Rachel Lee ran the infirmary with a nurse, and she had her patients, and sick people were there. And there was the colored section where they lived and there was probably eight people living in there. But there would be people coming and going, but most of the time we kept the same ones. They just lived here ‘til something happened to them.</p> <p>But it was good that this road came around from the front of the office. It came around the building and all the way around that building, and made a loop, and came out over there where you parked your car in the parking lot, and came back out to the road. And the ambulance—if they had to pick up someone from the infirmary or the doctor or whatever, they could make a loop and all the deliveries and everything.</p> <p>Now when you pull up—we’ll walk to the kitchen here. This was our entrance right here in the kitchen on the superintendent’s side. We parked our cars out there. There was an oak tree. This was all field out there. To your right, on the south side, there was a garage and a chicken coop. It was probably 50 by 50 and we probably had 150 chickens to 200 chickens. Behind that was the wash shed—the infirmary. And the coloreds stayed in their building. We would take—certain days we would go out and gather up the chickens and we would have to slaughter up the chickens. We had fresh chickens and put them in the freezer. We also had pigs and cows and stuff like that. We had plenty of meat, plenty of milk, and it worked out good for everyone here.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>That[?] sounds like it. What were some of the responsibilities you had here, if any?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. Yeah. Back in the day you did your part. I would get up in the mornings, and I’d get dressed and sometimes put on an old pair of pants. Not my school clothes, but I would come over and back up between the little trellises out here. This is the dining room and kitchen here, and I would back up there with the truck. We had a five-gallon pail with leftover milk, scraps. And we would get commodities like cornmeal with bugs in it or something once in a while and I would take all that, throw it in the five-gallon bucket with milk, put it in the back of the truck, drive down the road, and I’d slop the hogs every day. That was my morning chore. So the reason why I said about pants was that sometimes it would spill on ya, so you had to be real careful. But I had to do that and a bunch of little things in the morning. Make sure everything was in its rightful place, kinda do a little walk round—my dad did and I did. It was a family thing. Then we’d walk down to the road and catch the school bus, or drive to school, or someone would pick us up.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>You said you went to Seminole High [School]?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>I went to Seminole High on French Avenue on top of the hill back then in ’59. The road out here—the four lane—was just getting finished. It was two lane. They were just finishing it. That made it nice.</p> <p>But it was good. In the afternoons, I would come in after school and I’d kinda go through the same process of changing clothes and getting everything. We had a Snappin’ Turtle lawn mower—one of those old mowers with a turtle head on the front—and we would mow grass. That was part of it. We’d mow grass and Will—he was one of the black guys. He was on crutches. He would be at the barn at a certain time, and all the cows would come in, and he’d milk all the cows. I’d go through the orange grove—that was all orange grove on that side then—I’d go down through the orange grove to the barn, and I would bring the milk back, because he couldn’t do it. And I’d carry the milk, bring it back to the kitchen so they would have fresh milk. Usually we’d have two full buckets. That was part of my job in the afternoon. There was[sic] always things to do. Sometimes in the afternoons or on the weekends, I would even go to the infirmary or in the back where the blacks lived—the colored folks lived—and pick them up and take them across—here’s a lake in Lake Mary you could go through the woods and around, and the man that had the lakefront property would let them fish. So we would go fishin’. There’d be four or five that’d want to go over. Sometimes we’d leave ‘em for two-three hours with water and everything and then go back and get ‘em. They’d bring the fish back, clean them, and the kitchen people would cook ‘em. So that’s the way it went.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>So every once in a while you had fresh fish too?</p> <p><strong>Scott <br /></strong>Oh, yeah. It was great really, really good. It was a good life living out here. I enjoyed it. Kept us all busy and you got to see a lot of people and that’s what it was all about really.</p> <p>Sometimes I’d be sitting in here—and another part of my duties were, someone pull up—there was a funeral home in Sanford and they’d bury folks in the [Seminole] County cemetery here by the college. They would pull up in the hearse, and I would go to the office, and give them a number, and they would have all the paperwork. Or they would give me a number. I forget how that went back then. I would go over to the cemetery with them and they would have a hole. They had someone—they would drop him off and dig the grave. Sometimes the graves weren’t real deep, because of the water table. But they had a pine box, and I would help them lower the remains—the body—down in to the gravesite and basically, you know, cover it up. And I’d bring back the number or whatever and it would go into the book. But that was just another thing that I did. But yeah. I helped bury a number of people over there. Sometimes the cows would get out of the fence and they’d trample through over there and you could see where they stepped in. it was just a common thing though. It was something to be expected when you had animals like that in a cemetery.</p> <p>We had a guy that was in the infirmary—Sam McFadden was his name. I was 15 years old and I told him—I said, “Sam, when I turn 18, I’ll take you back to Oviedo.” That’s where he was from. He was a black guy. Really a nice person. He had no legs at all. He was over there probably six-eight years. I forget how many years. So the week I turned 16, and got my regular license, I pulled around, got him down the ramp, picked him up, put him in the passenger seat, and we went to Oviedo. All day long. He hadn’t been over there in years. So I drove him all around Oviedo so he could see people he knew. He would show me where to go and tell me which way he wanted to turn. He had a wonderful day. People gave him money and everything. That probably made his day, you know. He remembered that the rest of his life. He was a real good person. I liked doing things like that. It was part of the experience I got from living over here. He was a great person. Just a little thing I could do to help out.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>That’s fantastic. I bet he did enjoy that.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. But he didn’t weigh much. I could pick him right up, with no legs.</p> <p>But, uh, this area—this area was the dining room and they would eat their breakfast, dinner, and supper in here. The kitchen was right through there and they would cook everything. Where the books and all are, that was the pantry. That’s where we kept all the food and stuff. And the little walkway out here— where the colored dining room was. They came up, they ate out here, and the other folks in here ate in here.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>So they essentially put the kitchen in the middle.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>The kitchen—right. It’s where it is now. I guess it’s still a kitchen in there. But that’s what that was. I don’t know if they’ve done anything with the little extension out here or not, I think it’s basically for storage now.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>What was—what was that? The storage [inaudible]?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>No. The dining room.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Got it, got it, got it.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. They would sit on the porch down there. And there was two—there was Willie and Lily. She was ‘bout as big around as she was tall—real short. But they would go down here on [U.S. Route] 17-92—there was big oak trees down there then. They would take their chairs—they had a couple chairs they left down there. I took them down for them, and they would sit there and watch the traffic and wave. People got used to seeing them every day just about. Some people would actually stop and give them money. They’re the same ones that we would take fishing. They loved to fish. It was really great. They enjoyed it. It was something for them to do. ‘Cause you know a place like this you get a certain age, it gets a little boring and a little excitement—you see new people, new cars.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>And somebody stop to chat.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. People would probably knew[sic] them—that knew they were here. You know, there’s a lot of sad things. People that you get acclimated to living in this area with older people. And you’re a teenager, and you hear all the stories, and you like these people. Then they get sick and pass away. It’s kinda hard on you. But it’s an experience that you never forget. It’s good really. It was really good for me. And I remember a lot of the stories. They were great. Like back years ago when Florida had dirt roads and people rode horses and things like that were some of the stories.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>So you heard some of those?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Well, that’s fascinating.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>‘Cause some of the people—back in 1960, they were 80 years old, so you know they didn’t have the cars. That’s the way it was. All the women stayed in one section and the men stayed in the other. Sometimes they would get to arguing—well, older people like that is—was—kinda comical. But they would. They would get serious and would start arguing. We had one out here named Beautiful Lee. That was his name. He had a business here in Sanford. We had another here, Mr. Barfield. And they didn’t get along too well. Sometimes you had to straighten them out. My dad—he had his hands full.</p> <p>When we first got here, the beds were really bad. The mattresses were old and soiled. The first thing he did was go to the [Seminole] County commissioners to get funding to where Echols Bedding Company years ago. Came out to haul the mattresses out and put all fresh mattresses in. And like—the people we buried out there. They were just buried—buried without any nice clothes. And dad got to where—they might’ve got them from Goodwill [Industries International, Inc.] or wherever back then—but they had suits when they were buried instead of being buried in a pine box. It was the little things that mattered. He was good about that.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>So you’re saying your dad went in front of the commission to get the beds?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. When he needed something. Homer Little was on the board of county commissioners back then, and he talked to him about a lot of things. He would go to the meetings and whatever he would bring it up—whatever he really needed. There wasn’t a lot of money, but still yet you know things needed to be done. Because, to be honest with you, it still happens every day. And I hate to see it, but people bring their parents out after they get sick and everything and they can’t help themselves. They bring them out here and sell their house. The kids get their house—get everything. And for the first week or two they’re out here continuously visiting. Then it starts dropping off. Then it’s two weeks. Well, then it’s six months. Then maybe it’s birthday or Christmas. And that’s the way it happens. It happens all the time. It’s sad, but it’s true. I would say 85 percent. Of course, it might be a little different now. I’m sure it is. But it was still sad back then. That’s just the way life is.</p> <p>But it was nice. We had one man back there next to me—next to my room. And back then, you could smoke. He had emphysema so bad. So they gave him cigarettes for his emphysema that he could smoke that, I guess, helped him or something. Those things smelled so bad. I remember his smoking at night or in the daytime, the whole hallway would smell of his cigarettes. I would have to go to my room and I didn’t like that.</p> <p>But, uh, it was nice. My brother and sister—they did a lot of work too. There was a little pool right out here in the front—a fishing pond—concrete fishing pond. It’s not there now. My sister, when she was in her teens, would walk up and down take pictures of her walking, because she thought she was something. She had her little small waist and all that then. That’s just the way it was.</p> <p>I had an old car. I put it in the garage back there that I worked on a little bit when I wasn’t real busy. It was good. The road department was real small down here, and if we needed something from the road department, we could get it and bring it back. It was pretty decent out here. Everyone seemed to work together.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>There’s so many things I really can’t remember. I know with the hogs—we would take them and—Mr. Humphrey was his name—from Lake Mary. He was really big man. He would come over a certain time of the year when it was cool and we would butcher the hogs. They would get so big and so fat from the milk and everything. We would butcher the hogs and then we’d take the hogs up to the freezer and, as needed, we would go there—get the meat—bring it back, and they would cook it. So we always had fresh meat. It was really good. We had beef too. We raised a few bulls and stuff like that once in a while. It was always something. It never stopped.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Doesn’t sound like it. A very self-sufficient organization too, with as many chickens as were out there.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Right. Yeah. We had chickens. We had the pork. Beef. We had eggs. We didn’t buy any eggs. We had like the commodities the corn meal was brought in. The government had left over stuff. And someone hit a deer or something like that, or poached one, they had venison. That’s the way life was back then. We had plenty of vegetables. People would bring stuff like different vegetables out here, and oranges. There was an orange grove all around the place. There was oranges galore. Course, they’re all gone now. Anytime you wanted a real nice orange, just go out and get it. And they did. The people that were able. The rest of them that weren’t able. They looked out for them.</p> <p>We had a pickup truck that we used. I would use it to go get things when I got my license. I would drive it back and forth in the mornings to feed the hogs—slop the hogs—and stuff. We also had a station wagon that we used. My dad would take the people that live here to the doctor, or to take them to town or something instead of taking them over to the infirmary, if they needed x-rays or something.</p> <p>There was one black lady. She was really young. I say young—she was probably in her 20s. She was in an accident or got shot or something. I forget what it was, but she couldn’t walk. She was in the infirmary. She didn’t have any money. The county had to take care of her. They took her back and forth to the doctor, kept taking her, not giving up on her. And you know she got to where she could walk. She got out on her own. From what I understand she got married and had kids. But that’s another one of the stories.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>That’s amazing.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. There’s a lot of stories. If I could remember a bunch of them…</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Any time you remember one, give us a call.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah, yeah. We did a lot of things out here. I don’t know. I get to thinking about—there’s a few movies that I have. They’re the old 8mm. if I could ever get them off and transferred them over onto something—one of these days, it shows cars parked out here and where we were living we’d be coming in and out of this door, and the garage, the chickens, the whole area. It’s just a small video, but maybe I could put it together.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Oh. That would be fantastic.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. We had out little dogs and stuff. A little dog out here. I had one. We had a wreck down here on the side of the road, and my uncle had worked for Ratliff’s Towing. So I was over there, and walked down to see the car that had been left down there on the side of the road that had been there a couple days. I heard a little noise and there was a puppy under the seat. But it was part Chihuahua. It was a little, small dog. So I brought it back and named it Pooch. That was my dog. And she had the run of the place. Everyone loved her around here. She had the run of the place. Everyone played with her. She was really smart. The newspaperman would come up and make the circle and throw the paper out and we had—there was no air conditioning in here—we had fans. There was the screen door. She could hit it and open it up and then she’d run out. When I saw him coming up, if she didn’t hear him I’d say, “Paper, Pooch,” and she’d run out and get the paper and bring it back in. She was a smart little dog [<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. It was basically self-sufficient. We took care of everything here. Laundry and the whole nine yards.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Where was the laundry?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>The laundry was back here behind the garage. There was a building back there. That’s where the maids did the laundry. We had, I think, one or two maids that helped. My mom made out all the menus. She did the menus and helped with the cooking and the cleaning in here too. And the maids did the laundry and all in the back—back here.</p> <p>And my dad—if you go out the back and you go down, there was a boiler down there, and probably still is. That’s how the heat was in here. We had the big radiant things. They had a furnace down there. Actually, it was coal to start with. And we used to have to go down there at night and fill that thing up to keep it warm in here. Then they changed it over to diesel fuel or kerosene or something. Yeah. It had a coal chute. A truck would back up and dump it down in there. That was another job. There was[sic] always things to do. Always.</p> <p>But they’d get together—a lot of people would get together, like the folks in the back. They would get together sometimes on Sundays and sing and have a good time down there. We all did.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>It sounds like it. Did they keep you cracking on your homework—your schoolwork?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. Well, I kinda would go against the grain. You know how that goes. I still had to do it. Yeah. You gotta do that afterwards and everything. But on the weekends, being a teenager, you could go somewhere—to the drive-in or the skating rink that used to be up here on 17-92. Course, you didn’t need but a couple dollars. You could get a hamburger, hot dog or whatever, you know, for 25 or 30 cents. It wasn’t very expensive back then. Couple dollars’ worth of gas—you could go everywhere. We’d go—a couple of us would get together—two or three guys—ride around a little bit, go skating, or go to the movies, or hang out. The Movieland Drive-In was here then, years ago. Or the old Ritz [Theatre] downtown. There was a lot to do on the weekends. You could go to the beach.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>There’s not a lot of traffic like there is now. On [Florida State Road] 415, you didn’t run but about 55-60 miles an hour. The old cars would run real fast, but you didn’t run real fast, because you didn’t want to burn it up. You had to save it. But yeah, a lot of things have changed since way back then. Some for the good, some the not so good. Back when I lived in here it’s not like today. Life was simple. It wasn’t expensive. Taxes were cheap, and everyone knew everyone. Now it’s not that way. A lot of people you can’t even speak to them, because you don’t know what language they’re speaking. It’s completely different than what it was back then. But it was really down-to-earth and basic, even though you know it was hard, but it was good. It was really good.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Sounds likes it. Um, you were talking about a brother and sister here at the time too. Were you the oldest or the youngest?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>My older sister, Helen [Scott], her last name is Atkinson now. I was in the middle. My younger brother is Edward Scott. He’s younger than me. Our parents are gone, but we stay in touch. They did a lot of work out here too. We all pitched in.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>And you said you moved to the area when you were six?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yes. I started at Lake Monroe School in 1950, I think. It was just a small school out there. It’s still there. They sold it and a doctor lives in it now. They converted it into a house. Back then, you see guys in first grade that was probably 10 years old, because they were late starting school or they didn’t come to school very often. They progressed on up they were older in the sixth grade. But it was a good school. I had a lot of fun there. Then I went to Sanford Junior High School on Ninth [Street] and Sanford Avenue.</p> <p>And then from there to Seminole High, out on the hill out there. And then the new Seminole High was built and I started my sophomore year there. Freshman year on the hill and then the new high school. They built the one that’s out there now. And it was all just palmettos and pine trees when they were building that. You just had to go out through there. Yeah. I went to high school there. Back where the college is here—that was just a nothing. It was just a power line road that went through. It went over to Lake Mary. That’s what we would use to go to the lake the back way. And some of us—myself and my brother—we would take our old clunker car. We didn’t have a license, but we would drive the back road through the woods and everything. It was a lot of fun [<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>The power line road was the one you were talking about taking people fishing?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. You would go down to the road department, and turn left. Then go down, and then you could make a right, and it would take you back out to the cemetery and to Lake Mary Boulevard. It wasn’t much of a boulevard then, because it would dead-end up there before they opened it up and did all that. Or you could go to the road department and make a left, then it would take you down and around. It was just a mud hole on each side. It was a road built up for the power line use and it was a shortcut to Lake Mary. We’d go over there and go swimming or whatever sometimes. But there was nothing back there then. There was a lot of orange trees all around. This out in the front was a pasture. The pasture actually went out and all the way around and ended up almost past the cemetery almost to Lake Mary Boulevard back where the houses are.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>So the orange grove went that far? Or the pasture?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>The pasture did. The orange grove started from the road department—the end of their little road and then all back around this whole place around here was orange grove. This whole place around here was orange grove. Even back on this side, there was an orange grove going back. So there was a lot of oranges.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Sounds like it.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>I think we had five cows. I think Will milked about five cows. Plus, when they would have a calf, we would raise it up for beef or sell it or something or butcher it up. I’m not sure what happened to most of them. I know we always had plenty of meat in the freezer in town. I forget the name of the locker. It was there on Thirteenth Street where we kept everything. But they would cut it, dress it, pack it, freeze it, hang it or whatever we needed.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>You said up on Thirteenth Street was the freezer locker?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>That’s where it was. Back when Sheriff Poppy[sp] was the sheriff here years ago. I don’t know what else you need to know or if there’s anything you can think of.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Um, I had a question about what they call the “Agricultural Building” now. The building back behind that’s part of the museum. That wasn’t here though.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>No. Back where the new building is now?</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>The loop went around the back of this building, because nothing was here. Made the loop and that was the infirmary. That’s where the infirmary was. Rachel Lee was the nurse there.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Okay. But that area is where the infirmary was, but it’s not the building that was the infirmary?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Right. The infirmary was when you walk out this one door here, you go straight across the driveway and that was the infirmary. And then on the other side was where the coloreds lived—in their section there, in the corner down there. And the loop went all the way around the place.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Okay. You were saying earlier about the big tree up front providing shade.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. The camphor tree. I was telling you earlier that I would go out on the porch with all the old men here, and I would sit out on the porch in the afternoon. It was a real good shade, and we would sit out there with the breeze blowing. That’s where I heard most of my stories from all the old folks. The men—they would sit out there, and they would tell me about the history of when they moved to Florida—whenever they’d come. And they rode horses, and they drove Model Ts, and there was a dirt road going to Orlando and all kind of stuff .and I guess that’s where the Crackers come in were popping the whips and stuff. It was interesting. We would sit under that tree, and it was a big tree then, on the porch.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>That’s interesting. Were they—did any of them work in cattle ranching? Any of the stories that you heard?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /> </strong>Oh, yeah. They would move cattle in Florida for miles, especially around the Kissimmee area way back then. It was mostly swamp—a lot of it was swamp. They would talk about some of the things that occurred moving one herd of cows to the next place or wherever. Some of them, like I said, even in 1960—they were up in their 80s, so they knew a lot about this before any of us was even thought of.</p> <p>They lived a good life, a lot of them. And this was their last place. The last stop was here. They didn’t have anything else to do and here I am—15 years old—and I’m sitting out there just listening, and they loved to tell me their stories. Sometimes I’d hear the same story over two or three times, but it was still interesting.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>I bet so. Any railroaders? I was looking at some video when the railroad marker dedication was, but I didn’t know if anybody here when you were here who was involved in that.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>No. Actually there weren’t. I can’t remember anyone that worked for the railroad that was here years ago, but I do remember a lot of the trains. Growing up, I remember the diesels—when they first started running the diesels and stuff like that. I’ve seen steam engines and stuff. Not a lot of railroad people that I remember lived out here. Basically railroad people—I think the reason for that was when they worked for the railroad, they got a retirement. And see, their retirement took care of them when they got sick and that was basically the reason why they didn’t put them in the Old Folks Home. People that were out here were—they worked all their life and didn’t have anything left—basically, no retirement or anything else so they qualified for the [Seminole] County to take care of them, and that’s where they ended up. Their folks put them in here.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>So they were more the ones who worked for themselves in a way?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Right. Some of them had businesses they were really doing good[sic] through the years. But like I said earlier, when they get to a certain point in their life or they get sick and their family can’t take care of them or don’t want to take care of them, and so they basically take away everything so they ended up here. It’s a cruel way to look at it, but they were actually better off here. They got waited on, they had plenty to eat, they had a nice place to sleep, and whatever, you know. If they really wanted to go visit someplace, their family would come up once in a while and take them out and bring them back so it wasn’t bad. It made it easier on everyone probably.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Um, I had thought of another question. What type of work did your dad do before he got this job?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Uh, my dad [<em>coughs</em>]—he was a used car salesman actually. He was in the Military. He could do about anything, really. Carpenter work or whatever. Whatever it took growing up to make a living, that’s basically what he did. But he was a car salesman. He was in a dealership. Well, I think the guy that he worked for and him were the only two, but they had a real nice car lot and he was selling cars. Buying and selling cars [<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Interesting. Was it there in Sanford then?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yes. It was in Sanford. Of course, there’s[sic] buildings there now. Where his car lot was—actually years ago, when he first started selling cars was there on Second [Street] and Sanford Avenue. If you know where the post office is downtown, but there’s a lot right there with a big oak tree on it where Larry’s [New &amp; Used] Mart used to be. Well, it wasn’t years ago, but that was a car lot. The tree wasn’t so big back then. They had cars all around on that corner there. Then they moved up like on Ninth [Street] and Sanford Avenue and sold cars up there. But yeah it was interesting. I always loved cars, I still do. I’ve got old cars and trucks. It gets in your blood. But, yeah. That’s what he did.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Uh, you mentioned earlier too—one of the trees out back here on the property on the Old Folks Home was an oak tree?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. There was some oak trees. They were having a fundraiser—or I don’t know what it was—but they wanted to sell oak trees for $100, or whatever it was when they were doing it. And you could dedicate it or whatever to whomever you wanted to for the members that was here, and I got one in memory of my mom and dad, Grady and Flora Scott. But they didn’t put any markers or anything on it, so when you go out there, you think it’s just like another tree planted. I would like to see them one of these days go back in the records to find out who did that and put some little something in recognition of who it’s for. But they haven’t done that, and I’m sure it’s an oversight that never got taken care of.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>I’m sure it is too. I would like to see—if you don’t mind, when we’re wrapping up, if you’d show me which ones they were out there we can get that documented.</p> <p>Anything else for your childhood that sticks out for you—growing up here or even before you got here—that makes you chuckle now?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, there’s a lot of things [<em>laughs</em>]. I was a middle kid. I’ve got a younger brother and an older sister. I was the one that was in between. Growing up, if you got in trouble in school, you got tanned a little bit by the principal. Then you got home your mother did it. Then when your dad got home he took care of it. So it was one, two, three. And you didn’t do that anymore. I basically raised my kids the same way—in a way that I would set them down when they got in trouble and we would talk about it and we’d determine the punishment. It would be kinda up to them. They turned out really, really great. Hopefully my grandkids will be the same way. But it’s not like it was. It’s a little harder. There’s not a lot of “Yes, sir,” “No, sir” stuff anymore.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Not a whole lot. No.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>My two boys still say, “Yes, sir” to me. They’re in their 40s. There’s a lot of things that I try to instill in people, especially the younger generation—my kids, my grandkids, or whatever. Because I’ve seen so many people that’s passed on—I’ve been with them when they’ve passed on. Even at a young age, like I was out here, and you miss them.</p> <p>But when you see a person that’s 80 years old or 60 years old or whatever, and they’re sick and you’ve been knowin’ this person for a long time—it doesn’t matter if you know them or not. But when you see them there and they don’t recognize you hardly but they try—don’t think of that person as what you see. Think of that person that you knew. That same person’s still inside there. Talk to them just as if they were 20 years old or 30 years old, or when you knew them and times were good. Talk to them the same way as when you knew them, because they’re still the same person. I don’t care if they weigh 60 pounds with cancer and they’re 80 years old and they’re dying. They’re still the same person as they were when they were 15 years old or 25, and out here dancing and having a good time. And that’s what I like to see people think of instead of, you know. I don’t want to be around them. That’s the wrong attitude to take. The person’s still in there. That’s the way I look at it.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>That’s great advice.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>It works for me.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>There’s a lot true in that.</p> <p>Um, yeah. We could walk around there to the trees and then we’ll see what we can make note of here.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Sure.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Back out this way, right?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yes. This was the living room.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>This was the living room?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>This was where they sat around and watched TV. Like I said, my room was down there on the end where Kim’s office is. And where your office is, that was two rooms too I think.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yeah. It probably was.</p> <p>So the—and then, were the—you said the women and men were separated?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yes. The women I believe lived in this area and the men lived in the other wing.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>And then the colored section was out there?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Okay.Thanks. I’m trying to orient.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>I thought they had some pictures out here. I don’t see anything.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Well, they do change the pictures around.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Every now and then too. Sorry. Excuse us. That’s okay. I just don’t want to step on it. Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>This right here was the colored dining area.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Right. We use that for storage now.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>The driveway came here around the building. About where those gates are was a building—a big wood building—and that was where the colored folks lived. And that was orange grove. Straight on down—probably about where that stop sign is, where that car just went through—through the orange grove that was the barn. The cows would come across the road in the evening. They would walk right across, and Will would milk them, and I would go down and bring the milk back up to the kitchen here. This is the kitchen. Straight across here was the infirmary where the new building is. The driveway went around to the infirmary. To the left back in this area was a washhouse. Right here was a garage, and the other side of that was a big chicken coop. That’s where we had the chickens. On down in the front down here, across from the barn on the right, was the hog pen, and that’s where I had to take the hog slop. This was all orange grove, even all the way around in the back. Where that building is over there that was orange grove. This was a field out here all the way over to where the fire station is. We had to keep a lot of that mowed.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>You said the pasture came up this way?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>The pasture part actually started in front of the building right here to the left of the driveway. That was pasture all the way around. On the other side of the road, all the way around way back past the cemetery. There’s a lot of acreage back there. It was all pasture. I’m sure you know where the cemetery is.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>I haven’t been, so I don’t have an idea.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>It’s just on down past the tower. But that was basically the layout of the place here. We had deliveries. In between here you go down to the bottom. That’s where the boiler room…</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>So in between these two porches here?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. Let’s take a look.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>You go through there and go down to the right. And you’ll see it looks like a cellar, but that’s the boiler room. They’ve changed it now. The oak trees have got to be this oak tree, that one. I think they’re planted all around.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Now were you here when any of them were planted?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>No. It was probably four or five years ago. Now this was all driveway here. And by where we’re standing now is where the garage was. And the chicken coop was on up. There was some big oak trees planted there, that’s where we parked the cars on the superintendent’s side.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Because this was the front?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Right. This was our entrance. We used this entrance. The office is in the front right there. Deliveries would come around back up between the two buildings here and go into the kitchen. They’d back the trucks in there to drop things off and pick things up.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>It makes sense, but it’s different to see it, because what is the front entrance now was the side.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Right. The office was the main thing back then. Back in the late ‘50s, this was a two-lane road. Then they started to changing[sic] it and made it into a four-lane. And they finally opened it up. There was some oak trees down there. I think they’re gone now—the big oak trees—but there’s where Lily and Willie used to sit and watch the traffic under the oak trees.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>On the other side of this road here?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. Right there on the edge of 17-92. That’s where they would sit and people would blow their horns at them.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>You said it was two-lane then?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Well, actually it was four-lane, but the road wasn’t finished until about 1960. Then it was four-lane. There used to be a little tavern right there. I guess the building’s still there. They had some bad wrecks people pulling out after it was four-lane, because they weren’t used to it.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>I bet.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>I do have some movie clips of coming up here and parking cars and walking to the garage and stuff here. Some of my friends—when I was a teenager, we’d come back from the beach and walk up and down through here, play with the dog and stuff. If I could ever get them all together. But the oak trees, I guess, are these. I’m not sure. You can see them planted all around. I have no idea how many they ended up planting.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>I don’t either. We’ll see what we can find out about that.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Well, it would be nice. Even if there was just one little sign that said, “Oak trees planted in memory of…” Or something like that. That’s a nice building.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yes. It is. It’s a great space in there too, for displays and presentations. I’m sure you’ve seen it.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>The infirmary was there and that’s when I pulled up there. There was a ramp to the infirmary. And when I was 16—I turned 16—I pulled the car around and I saw Sam McFadden, with no legs—black guy. I would visit him. He’d come out and get a little sun once in a while. I told him, “Sam, I’m going to take you to Oviedo when I get my license.” And he just couldn’t wait. When I pulled up there that day, and they wheeled him down in the chair to the car. I had the door open. I set him in that car. His face was all lit up. He’d been in there for so many years. He loved it. I think it did me more good than it did him.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Sure. Doing something like that for somebody else.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>When they closed this place down, I tried to get in touch with him and the rest of them. They moved him to [inaudible] and whatever home. I don’t know what happened to him. I tried to do a follow up, but I never could.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Is that home in Sanford?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. It was on West Ninth Street I believe it was.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>West Ninth?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>They changed a few things around.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /> </strong>Like I said, I don’t know where the pictures are out here. They used to have I don’t know how many pictures.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>I’m sure we still have them somewhere.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. Probably.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Thank you very much for your time, Dave. I appreciate it.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>It’s not a problem. I enjoy doing it. I ramble on too much sometimes when I get to talking because most of the memories are really good. I try to delete all the bad stuff.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>]Well, for our purposes the rambling is good [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>Yeah. There’s some bad stuff. Sam lived right here in this one room right here and he was an old man. A good friend of mine. He was real quiet. He loved it when I moved back here, because he had someone to talk to.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Was he the one with emphysema?</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>No. That was another man. They had moved him in there afterwards—after Sam passed away. Then I missed him. Then the other guy with emphysema cigarettes—oh, that about killed me. Then he passed away too. People—some of them stayed here a few years. They hung around. But a lot of them were really bad when they brought them in.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yeah. I imagine so.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /></strong>But that’s about it.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /> </strong>Okay. Thank you again.</p> <p><strong>Scott<br /> </strong>If you can remember anything or want me for anything, just give me a call.</p> <p><strong>Holcomb<br /></strong>Yeah. Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Grady Scott.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Flora Scott.</p> </div> </div> assisted living Barfield Beautiful Lee burials camphor trees cattle ranchers cattle ranching cemeteries cemetery chickens Chihuahua crackers David Scott dogs Downtown Sanford Echols Bedding Company Edward Scott elderly Flora Scott Grady Scott graves Helen Scott Helen Scott Atkinson Holcomb, Susan Homer Little Humphrey Kim Nelson Kissimmee Lake Mary Lake Monroe School Larry's New & Used Mart Movieland Drive-In Museum of Seminole County History nursing homes Old Folks Home orange groves oranges Oviedo pastures pigs Poppy race relations Rachel Lee Ratliff Towing retirement homes Ritz Theatre Sam McFradden Sanford Sanford Junior High School segregation Seminole High School Susan Holcomb https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/a6bcd1754d4f695e222e5ef92110abb1.pdf f75ddc9a62d9fd1e6c781d49409879ba 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 LGBTQ+ Collection Is Part Of LGBTQ+ Collection, RICHES Program Digital Collection <div class="element-text"><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES MI</a></div> <div class="element-text"> </div> 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 Debbie Simmons Alternative Title Oral History, Debbie Simmons Abstract Oral history interview of Debbie Simmons. Interview conducted by Sara Raffel in Orlando, Florida, on June 16, 2018. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/Ly8kvgJG7D4">Oral History of Debbie Simmons</a> Subject Orlando (Fla.) Gay culture--United States Trade associations Gay & Lesbian Pride and History Month Description An oral history interview of Debbie Simmons, the co-owner of Shelbie Press and a founding member of the Metropolitan Business Association (MBA), an organization supporting LGBTQ businesses in Orlando, FL. As MBA president, she also helped found Come Out with Pride and the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida. This interview was conducted by Sara Raffel at Shelbie Press in Orlando, Florida, on June 16th, 2018. Some of the topics covered include attending the first gay pride parade in Orlando, founding the Metropolitan Business Association, facilitating a network of allies and inspiring activism, working with the Human Relations Board of the City of Orlando, building an LGBTQ+ community and collaborating with other groups, forming Come Out With Pride, the history of the gay rights movement, preserving the history of the LGBTQ+ community, her favorite memory from work at GLBT History Museum of Central Florida, organizing the first exposition of the Metropolitan Business Association, how the small business community impacted the LGBTQ+ community, omitting references to homosexuality in the organization’s name, and goals and challenges for the GLBT Museum of Central Florida and the Metropolitan Business Association. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:00:54 Attending the first gay pride parade in Orlando and founding the Metropolitan Business Association <br />0:07:21 Facilitating a network of allies and inspiring activism<br />0:12:49 Identifying items in collection <br />0:13:52 Working with the Human Relations Board of the City of Orlando <br />0:16:40 Building an LGBTQ+ community and collaborating with other groups <br />0:19:05 Forming Come Out with Pride <br />0:27:03 The history of the gay rights movement <br />0:31:35 Preserving the history of the LGBTQ+ community <br />0:36:57 Favorite memory from work at GLBT History Museum of Central Florida <br />0:41:07 Organizing the first exposition of the Metropolitan Business Association <br />0:44:55 How the small business community impacted the LGBTQ+ community <br />0:48:11 Omitting references to homosexuality in the organization’s name <br />0:51:42 Goals and challenges for the GLBT Museum of Central Florida, the Metropolitan Business Association and the LGBTQ+ Community Source Simmons, Debbie. Interviewed by Sara Raffel, June 16, 2018. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 1-hour, 1-minute, and 2-seconds oral history: Simmons, Debbie. Interviewed by Sara Raffel. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a>, Orlando, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/207" target="_blank">LGBTQ+ Collection</a>, RICHES. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a> <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Type Moving Image Coverage Shelbie Press Print &amp; Copy, Orlando, Florida Metropolitan Business Association, Orlando, Florida LGBT+ Center Orlando, Orlando, Florida Joy Metropolitan Community Church, Orlando, Florida Orange County Regional History Center, Orlando, Florida Lake Eola Park, Orlando, Florida Pulse nightclub, Orlando, Florida Creator Simmons, Debbie Raffel, Sara Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> <a href="http://glbthistorymuseum.com/joomla25/index.php?lang=en" target="_blank">GLBT History Museum of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2018-06-16 Date Copyrighted 2018-06-16 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 4.57 GB 256 KB Medium 1-hour, 1-minute, and 2-seconds audio recording 20-page digital transcript Language eng Accrual Method Item Creation Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Humanities Teacher Provenance Originally created by Debbie Simmons and Sara Raffel and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> and the<a href="http://glbthistorymuseum.com/joomla25/index.php?lang=en" target="_blank">GLBT History Museum of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> <a href="http://glbthistorymuseum.com/joomla25/index.php?lang=en" target="_blank">GLBT History Museum of Central Florida</a> Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Manes, Billy. "<a href="http://www.watermarkonline.com/2017/05/15/orlandos-metropolitan-business-association-receives-award-national-gay-lesbian-chamber-commerce/" target="_blank">Orlando's Metropolitan Business Association receives award from National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce</a>." <em>The Watermark</em>, May 15, 2017. Accessed March 27, 2019. http://www.watermarkonline.com/2017/05/15/orlandos-metropolitan-business-association-receives-award-national-gay-lesbian-chamber-commerce/. "<a href="https://comeoutwithpride.com/about/history/" target="_blank">History</a>." <em>Come Out with Pride Orlando</em>. Accessed March 27, 2019. https://comeoutwithpride.com/about/history/. Ogles, Jacob. "<a href="http://www.advocate.com/pride/2016/10/06/pride-orlando-will-take-new-meaning" target="_blank">Pride in Orlando Will Take on New Meaning</a>." <em>The Advocate</em>, October 6, 2016. Accessed March 27, 2019. http://www.advocate.com/pride/2016/10/06/pride-orlando-will-take-new-meaning. Hyman, Jamie. "<a href="http://www.watermarkonline.com/2016/06/16/community-rises-mass-shooting-orlando-gay-nightclub-kills-49/" target="_blank">Community rises up after mass shooting at Orlando gay nightclub kills 49</a>." <em>Watermark</em>, June 16, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2016. http://www.watermarkonline.com/2016/06/16/community-rises-mass-shooting-orlando-gay-nightclub-kills-49/. Transcript Raffel Uh, today is Saturday, June 16th, 2018. My name is Sara Raffel and I’m conducting an oral history with Debbie Simmons of Orlando, Florida. The interview is being conducted at Shelbie Press in Orlando, Florida. Uh, so, Debbie, could you please state your name? Simmons Yes. I’m Debbie Simmons. Raffel And what brought you to Orlando? And how long have you lived here? Simmons I moved to Orlando in 1978, uh, shortly after high school. And I, um—my father had moved here in the early 70s. Uh, we had moved from Miami up to Central Florida, but in a more rural area. My mother and that side of my family. And so when I turned 18, I didn’t want to stay in the rural, uh, community that I was living in. So Orlando seemed the logical choice to start a new life. Raffel And you’ve mentioned that, uh, your involvement in the first gay pride parade in Orlando in 1991 started your community activism. Can you describe what led up to that and why you first decided to march? Simmons Yes. Um, in 1990, uh, my partner and I bought a house. And we went through all of the machinations at that time that we had to do in order to buy a house together as a couple. Um, and we had two friends—close friends that invited us to attend the first gay pride parade in Orlando. Um, to say we were nervous is putting it mildly. But we did attend. And four of us—there was[sic] about 100 people at the parade total: participants and, uh, people observing. We were the last four in the parade. And by the time we get to the end of the parade route, what a sigh of relief. Uh, we didn’t see any Ku Klux Klan that year. So that really, uh, set the stage for me. Um, I started getting really interested in the people that had put that together because I thought they were so courageous and I wanted to know them all. And I wanted to do whatever I could to make a change for our community so that it would make it easier for all of us to buy a house together. To start a business together. Uh, just to live our lives and not be discriminated against. Um, so, uh, the next thing that happened is[sic] I started attending meetings at the Center. And, um, the editor of the Centerfold newspaper at the Center put a—a blurb in the newspaper and said—it said something to the effect, uh, “If you’re interested in starting a business guild—is it time for Orlando to do that—come to the Center on January 15th, 1992, and let’s talk about it.” So a dozen of us showed up at that meeting. And then, um, from there we started, uh, identifying—fortunately someone had brought bylaws, uh, not to the very first meeting, but from Atlanta and from Tampa. And so we utilized their bylaws to put our own together and to start the Metropolitan Business Association . Um, things moved, it seems like, at a really fast pace from there. But then when I look back it took a long time. Back then we didn’t have social media. We didn’t have cell phones. So we had to do everything the old fashioned way, which was literally have one-on-one relationships. We spent a lot of time together. Got to know each other. Um, developed the organization. Started having monthly meetings. We met at places. Back then it was a lot different than it is now in that people were really nervous about going into any establishment that was identified with the gay community. Um, but we did have a lot of our meetings at Joy Metropolitan Community Church. We had some meetings at The Center. Um, and so we developed the board of directors and then, um, set our mission in place, filed papers with the state, uh, and, uh, identified the Metropolitan Business Association. Raffel Alright. And who were some of the people that were on that first board of directors that were instrumental in starting it? Simmons Well, this is where I get into trouble, like I said, with the names. Um, the first president was Keith Morrison. Uh, I was the vice president. Dorothy Coleman was the treasurer. Mary Brooks was the secretary. Uh, Karen Goode was the programs director. Vicky Meechum was the membership director. Dick Shaw was the, uh—became the vice president when I became the president in ’92. And, uh, Sam Singhouse, Sandy Fink, Tom Dyer. Uh, those were the really—the beginning folks. Um, Mary Brooks, who was the secretary for five years—she and I carried the MBA banner in the 1992 parade. Um, and in that parade there were seven of us from the MBA. Um, and Mike Sipoligo that had put the ad in the paper—that was the editor of Centerfold at The Center. Uh, he also walked with us with the banner. Um, Dorothy Coleman, uh, she is still living in Montverde, but she’s quite a bit older than me. She’s in her eighties. And she—I admired her so much when I met her. Her and, um, Dick Scholl. Dick has passed away. Uh, to me they were beacons of hope that—I hoped that by the time I got into my fifties, sixties, um, that I would s—you know, have the—the life that they had. And, uh, the desire still to make change. And, um—so, from there we—let’s see. This is again where I get into trouble. [laughs] I gotta have some—something to help me go along. So after we walked in the parade, uh, let’s see—in the first, uh—in August of ’92, we signed a, uh, contract with the Radisson Hotel downtown at Lake Ivanhoe, uh, to hold our meetings for over five years. Our general meetings. And we did that so that we could overcome that hurdle of people being afraid to walk into a gay s—gay establishment. Um, we had those meetings—we structured those to help the community to come out, obviously. We helped, um, them to be more confident in their job. Um, as far as networking with a group of pro—professional people. Simmons We worked to develop educational materials for people to start their own businesses or to strengthen their businesses. We hosted, uh, political candidates’ forums. We did that early on. Uh, those were some of the more nerve-wracking and difficult meetings. Getting, uh, folks that were campaigning to become an official or those that were in elected o—elected office. Uh, we did, um, work to get the mayor of Orlando, Glenda Hood—at that time, uh—in ’94. She had become the mayor in ’92, so we are—we were kind of linked together for a number of years while she was the mayor until 2002. Um, we had approached her office, Tom Dyer specifically, who’s the—uh, he was the founder—or was the founder of Watermark and he’s still involved. Uh, but he doesn’t own it anymore. Um, he was instrumental in getting Glenda Hood, uh, to attend the—the first meeting. Um, and it was not an easy task because she did everything that she could—I shouldn’t be so critical, but looking back, it was a whole different time. And I understand now more than I did then what she was dealing with and why she didn’t want to attend our meeting. Um, they had every excuse. Her office and—and she did—for not coming to one of our meetings. Finally, in ’94, she did come to the meeting. And it was explosive in a lot of ways because there was a big interest in our community, uh, so we had big attendance. And often times our candidates’ forums and our political events like that—we did have large attendance. Um, she was asked some very direct questions about supporting the gay community and non-discrimination. And she stood right at the podium and said, “I will not be a champion for your cause.” And when she said that it was—it—it—right behind that she said, “but I encourage you to get involved in your—in your local government. I encourage you to get on boards. I encourage you to run for elected office.” So it wasn’t—I heard both sides of what she was saying. A lot of people that were there that night—what they heard was, “I will not champion your cause.” And that—that’s why I say it was explosive, because it made a lot of people really energized. That okay—well, now we’re going to be on the steps of City Hall asking, “Why not?” Because we all pay taxes, too. So that to me was, um—it was a milestone in what happened with—it was eye opening for the community. It was energizing. And it, um, made us realize that in the very beginning, when we talked about developing our mission and our bylaws, we had talked about using the—the terms, um, the MBA to be a political and economic force. And some people found that a little bit too much. To use the word “force” and to use “political” in there. “Economic”, well, that’s one thing. It’s the Metropolitan Business Association. It’s a business association like any other chamber, but the political side of it—some folks were pretty nervous about it. I was nervous about it, too. I mean, that’s, uh—that’s saying a lot. Well, it turned out that that’s exactly what the MBA became in short order. Because we were the ones that were going to folks that were running for office or that were in office and saying, “Okay. What we’d like you to do is sign a pledge.” And it was the Human Rights Campaign pledge at the time. It was a couple of sentences that basically just said that they would implement into their policy and procedure that there would be no discrimination against the LGBT community. Gay community. I think it said “gay and lesbian” at that time. Um, and it was a great piece to ask them to sign because it was simple. It wasn’t asking for the world. It was just asking for equality. Uh, and that really, um—with Mayor Hood, uh, in ’94, there was no way she was going to sign that. She wouldn’t have signed anything like that. But by the time—I’ll fast forward a little bit—by, um, I believe it was the ’98 election, uh, she came to our—our meeting. Um, we had scheduled a—a joint appearance with her and Orange County Chairman Linda Chapin at that time. Um, unfortunately, a police officer was shot in the line of duty that day, so Glenda [Hood] had to postpone. Um, so Linda [Chapin] came and we had a great meeting with Linda [Chapin]. Uh, and then shortly thereafter, we resched—rescheduled with Mayor Hood and she came. And I may be mixing this up a little bit, um, because I know she was—I think she had to postpone because of something else. And the night she was coming to the meeting was the night that the police officer was shot. And we were afraid she wasn’t going to show up, but she did, in fact, come. Um, and that night we asked her if she would sign the pledge of nondiscrimination. And, um, she said that she would. So, uh, I called her office—and, again, I might be mixing dates up a little bit. I have to look back at all the paperwork, which I’m going to give to you. Um, she did sign that pledge, but it—it didn’t happen that night. It happened right before the election in March. I had to call her office and pursue the signature. And had—their, uh—her office faxed it like the day before the election or the day of the election. So, it became very, very clear to us then that, okay, now we really do have that clout that we were looking for. Simmons And we were asked all the time, um, during that process—and then fast forwarding a little bit to 2000 when we were working with Human Relations Board of the City of Orlando and Mayor Hood’s office, uh, trying to get the, uh, city code amended to include sexual orientation. Simple thing again, like the pledge. Um, it was—I forget where I was even going with that. There I go [laughs]. Raffel [laughs]. Simmons It was—okay, let’s see. So we were getting her to sign the pledge, uh—she was, by 2000, telling us that she was supporting what we were doing, uh, even after we had fought for the rainbow flags to be hung in 1998. That was a huge spectacle and a fiasco. That was another thing that drew the community closer and closer together. Not just the gay community, but all of our allies. I mean, they came out from everywhere. The same thing happened in 2000 to 2002 when we were holding the—or the downtown develop—or, uh, Human Relations Board was holding the meetings, um, to amend the—the policy. Mayor Hood was acting in public as if she was more supportive then she had been. Um, and then when we pulled the public records—which I had been chosen on the Orlando Anti-Discrimination Committee to be the one to pull the public records—um, found out that she and Commissioner Vargo—Vicky Vargo—were actually working with our adversaries. Um, and they were trying to pack the meetings. Um, and—and they succeeded in—in getting some people flown here and bussed here, um, with the Christian Coalition, um, uh, Family Research Council, Liberty Council, some of those folks, uh, to speak at the hearings when in fact they were telling all of us that you needed to be a resident of the City of Orlando in order to speak. If you had a business in Orlando you could speak. Um, and they were not telling the truth even on their appearance forms, which we found out, too, by pulling the public records. So we found out a lot about who was who and what was happening during those two-year—tho—that two-year period. Simmons So, fro—in the ‘90s, it was really us getting our legs under us, working with the community to build the community, create that strength, the unity, the relationships. Like I said, we didn’t have social media so we’re talking on the phone. We were meeting in person—a lot of meeting together face-to-face. Um, so a lot of us became friends in addition to working together to make the changes. Um, and in the early 2000s, after going through that two-year battle, um, we were stronger than ever but bruised after listening to all those terrible things that were said by the groups that the adversaries—that had been put together. Um, so we dusted ourselves off and 2003 to 2004 and 5 we were trying to, um—the MBA, the Metropolitan Business Association wasn’t really organizing the parade. We were participants in the parade. Um, and the parade was like it is around the country: the—the pride event where people get together and are able to spend that time together really being out in the street marching for their rights, representing themselves. Um, and our parade had started to fall apart. And we were seeing in dwindle and dwindle for reasons that we weren’t quite sure why. The—the parade had gone through various groups that were organizing it. Um, and then by July of—you know, June/July of 2005, it had completely dissolved. And so we had talked about it over the years because we wanted to do everything that we could to support the parade, but we didn’t want to step on the organizers’ toes either because we didn’t want, you know, to crau—cause dissention. And we didn’t want to take it over ourselves. [laughs] We didn’t want that responsibility. Simmons Um, but by the time it fell apart, it was—it had been on our radar long enough, and been on the agenda, that the board of the Metropolitan Business Association finally said, “Okay. Well, let’s start a new organization.” And that was the way that Come Out with Pride was born. Um, we decided that, okay, June had passed. It had always been a discussion about how hot it is in June. It’s always raining. The weather was always brutal at the parade. So let’s, um—what can—what other date can we pick? And what can we do between now and the end of the year to actually do a parade? And so we identified, um, October as National Coming Out Day on October 11th. Uh, National Gay and Lesbian History Month. Um, so it made perfect sense. We thought maybe the weather would be cooler, although that’s not proved to be true [laughs] since 2005. It seems like it’s been hot every year. And we’ve even dealt with a hurricane. So—but anyway, that was the whole thought process behind it. And from July to—to October, we put the event together. And we had it downtown. Um, we partnered with the students at UCF —with the Gay and Lesbian Bisexual Student Union. We thought that putting the business owners and professionals together with the university students, who always had an event at UCF, made perfect sense. Um, and we partnered with the History Center—Orange County [Regional] History Center—so when the parade was over, everybody landed at the History Center. Uh, the History Center was great. They let us put a[sic], uh, exhibit inside. So all the students got together and the different organizations got together. Everybody made all of their displays and we put the displays up. Um, the first year we did the simple thing of developing a t-shirt that everybody could wear. A bright yellow shirt. Uh, we had “volunteer” on the back. So everybody that came to the event knew these are the people with Come Out with Pride. And that’s what we named it. Um, and the first year I believe, um—and again, I don’t—I don’t have those numbers with me, but we had, uh, several thousand in 2005. 2006, we did the same thing, um, and landed at the History Center. Uh, we did a brunch the first year in 2005 as well. And Mayor Dyer attended that—Buddy Dyer. Um, that was one of the first times—and Buddy, when he was running for office, came to our functions and actually asked for our vote. And was very open and accepting of our community. So—but when he spoke at the brunch that day, that was him really coming out himself to the community. Uh, so by 2006, we did the same thing. Um, we had a larger turnout. 2006. We realized that the parade route needed to be enlarged. But more importantly than that, the History Center venue in the front of the History Center was not conducive for what we were trying to do. Um, so we talked with the city about moving the event to Lake Eola [Park]. Um, and believe it or not, even in 2007 that was not an easy process. Over the years, we had encountered problems with the City of Orlando, the City of Maitland when we were trying to have our first expo with the MBA in 1994. We got the excuse, ironically, from both, about double-booking. There was a double-booking problem with one of the first parades that the MBA didn’t have anything to do with, uh, organizing. That was Orlando Regional Pride Parade. Uh, they said they had double-booked. And so that year the parade shifted first to City Hall. Uh, one of the instrumental people on that, um, b—b—board was, uh, Phyllis Murphy and Patty Sheehan. Um, gosh. I should be able to again—to remember all—everybody’s names. Uh, there was a core group of people. Eileen Bell, Brian Hubert—De Hubert-Arbagast. He had a long last name. So, anyway—so they had a double-booking there. Couldn’t do it. Then we had that happen at the Maitland Civic Center when we tried to have our first Expo. So 2007 [road noise]—hello. 2007—sorry for the traffic. Uh, [clears throat] when we wanted to move to Lake Eola, it was still—there was still some of that—even though Buddy Dyer was the mayor—there was still some of that unease with the gay community. And there was definitely a—a pushback that they didn’t want us to have the even at Lake Eola. But it happened. Long story short, we went through the pro—a—all of the process. Um, of course, renting the space, paying all the various fees. And the fees are amazing. Uh, I—I don’t know what’s changed. I’ve been retired now since 2000, uh, 8. But, um, it seemed as though for a number of years, uh, I did five, six, seven and eight—in eight, I was the logistics director. It seemed as though our group had to pay for the things that other people didn’t have to pay for. We had to do things that other groups weren’t required to do. Um, such as, uh, selling alcohol in the park. We had to pay for barricading the entire area to the cost of $10,000. Um, and so there was still some of that, you know, hangover. Um, now 2008 or 2007, I believe that there was, um, 70,000 people. Or that might have been eight. And the last few years there’s been over 150,000 people. And that’s according to the police department. That wasn’t our count. We always relied on whatever th—you know, they said because they’re the official law enforcement to determine the numbers so that we weren’t inflating the numbers. It became a wildly successful event. And then, to back up to 2005, when we were first forming Come Out With Pride, we had the meetings. Um, what we did was we took, uh, myself and two other MBA members with the GLBSU students, um, and we identified—i—it had always been something that I thought was really important that we maintain our [beeping] own history for our movement. Did you hear that? Raffel Yeah. Simmons [laughs] I don’t know what that was. Okay. Electronics gone wild. Um, but the—the history of our community. Because of the people that I knew when I got involved in 1991, the people that I met and got to know over the course of those 16, 17 years—um, and I—I knew that they had a history—like Dorothy Coleman and Dick Scholl being so much older than me—that there were those folks that had endured the Stonewall Riots in ’69. Uh, in ’78, when Harvey Milk was murdered in San Francisco, he had formed the first gay business guild there. Um, I knew that there was all of this history here, too, of people that had been part of the movement. And so I thought we needed to develop a history committee to maintain all of that history and to develop it and to get it from those people that were still alive. Um, and, at—I mean we were part of—in 2005, from m—the MBA from ’92 to 2005, the amount of—of change that had happened over those 13 years, it was like a blur when I think about it now. Um, but since the MBA just celebrated its 25th year last year, and the board has asked me over time to, you know, put—put these materials together—I mentioned that I have 20 plastic cartons full of archives from all of the things that happened during the course of MBA in the 16 years that I was the president. Um, I think that this is a, uh—a monumental civil rights movement that is—the African American community’s Civil Rights struggle was huge and it—it’s still happening now for hundreds of years, whereas the gay community have remained closeted for, you know, years up until ’69 when Stonewall happened. That seems like—I know there were other things that happened, but that was a big benchmark. So in looking at—and I hea—I‘ve heard people talk about from ’69 to 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled gay marriage as legal, that it’s astounding that the gay community did what it did over the course of that short period of time. And I’ve heard it—heard people reference our activism and how we work together as a community to make those changes happen. So I thought it was so critical that we maintain that history. That we make sure that we present it not only to get recognition to those people that did all that work and put their lives on the line, but for other movements that are obviously going to be necessary. When you look at the political environment that we’re currently in, um, I feel like our—the lessons that we learned in organizing our community are invaluable. And now, uh, with social media, with the internet, with all of these tools that we have with our, uh, immediate access with our phones—cameras, video, all of that—that coupled with the knowledge that the community has can really continue to make huge impact on oppression and equal rights for all. Raffel Can you describe, um, some of the sort of first portions of the history project, and maybe some of the people who were first involved in getting that formed? Simmons Sure. Um, I do have that, um, on the committee list here. Let’s see. That would have been, uh, 2005. Um, the first year I did chair, uh, the history subcommittee. Uh, Charlene Bell. Mary Brooks. Mary Brooks, who was the first secretary of the MBA, she got back involved. She, uh, was the secretary for five years. Um, but we had the meeting at her and her partner’s house. Phyllis Murphy. Phyllis and Mary actually met at an MBA meeting I believe in ’93. So they’ve been together for 25 years. Um, Ken Kasmerski. Uh, Patty Sheehan came to one or two of the first meetings. And, uh, Mallory Wells from UCF GLBSU . Um, we met at Mary and Phyllis’s house, um, and, um, all agreed about the importance of securing our history. Uh, and shortly after that, I asked Ken if he would be—if h—if would be the, um—the chair of the history project. And so, then he developed the history project from there. Added on, uh, more committee members and they developed, um—was it six or seven? I—‘cause in—in 2005, when we put all of those displays that were put together by everyone in the History Center, it was only for that one day. So that display then became part of the development of the actual—the timeline of the community, and um, developing and working with the community to gather up all of those archives. And, uh, by 2007, we had—I can’t remember in ’06 if we had—we had—I think we had the history project back in the History Center if I recall correctly. And it had gotten larger. And I think it was in one of the—the rooms that was, um, a courtroom. It ha—actually had the—you know, the bench and whatnot. I think that’s the way that ’06 was. And then 2007, we actually had an air conditioned tent at Lake Eola. And the—they put the wall of remembrance of the folks that had passed. They had developed a—a timeline. Um, and they were great. I mean they—they worked that thing all day long. And people were in and out of that tent all day long looking at all those. And I believe that that [exhales] really, um, inspired people, too. Because there were people there—I went in and spent some time myself to cool off, um, and to say hello to everybody. But in watching, uh, what I saw was people that had no idea who some of these folks were. Had no idea about the timeline of our movement here. Um, and then I saw others that were touched because they remembered Jimmy Brock , who was the pastor at Joy MCC , who had passed away. Um, and others. They—they remembered them, and so they were moved. And I—I could see the young people and I’ve th—I kept thinking about—I always did this whenever I went to Come Out With Pride—think about how I felt in 1991, when I went to that first parade. And that I was scared to death. I was just coming, you know, coming to—I had come out already, but just—I felt like coming into adulthood even though I was 31, you know? Um, starting to, uh—we hadn’t started Shelby Press yet. We started it in ’92. Uh, the MBA started—or not—or we started Shelby in ’93, but we started MBA in ’92. But I thought about—I—I still think about, you know, that it’s important that we inspire the young people to be confident in who they are and to accept themselves and to live their life to the fullest. And how better for them to get some insight into that then to see the timeline. To see those people that did that work. That made a difference in the lives of all of us—being able to live a healthier, more secure life. Raffel And do you have a favorite memory from your work with the history museum? Simmons [meowing] Um, and that was Louie giving his two cents. Raffel [laughs]. Simmons Our kitty cat. Um, my favorite part of—of being involved with the beginning stages of the history project was seeing someone like Ken. Ken Kazmerski, who’s a little older than me, knowing his history and how he had worked with the students at UCF and Gay and Lesbian Bisexual Student Union. Um, and Phyllis and Mary. Phyllis Murphy and Mary Brooks. Um, knowing Mary and working with her side-by-side. Knowing Phyllis and her work on Orlando Regional Pride with the first few parades. Um, come back, uh,—it—together with the young people from UCF. To me, it wa—it—it’s—I—that’s what I’ve always thought. Um, and now there were a couple of people I will say that couldn’t see that. Couldn’t see that the—the wisdom of bringing the young people in. Because what are they—what are they going to contribute? And the majority of us though kept saying, “This is to encourage and to inspire future leaders. Because they need us and we need them.” So, to me, that was—that—it was that and it was, um, knowing that—that they were serious about remembering. Remembering how we got to 2005. What the community had endured here and what happened. When I went to the March on Washington in 1993 and 2000—uh, especially 2000—there was[sic] even newspaper articles written in the [Orlando] Sentinel. Um, one of ‘em I had on my—had framed in my den for a while—um, said well, you know, [meowing] most people are staying home and why—why go to a March on Washington again in 2000? We—those of us that got together and went—knew that it was going to reenergize us. It was gonna recharge our batteries. Excuse me. Bye bye. [laughing] It was to—for us to be re-inspired and recharged. So Come Out with Pride and the history project. And having a festival and a parade and bringing young and older and old, um, gay and straight and bi and trans and every ethnic—everybo—bringing everybody together that’s still alive to remember those that aren’t with us anymore. That’s what the history project did for me in 2007 with the tent. Walking around and looking and everything. That’s what I re—I thought about—is all those people, many of whom I knew. I knew them. And they were inspirational for me. And so, I was so happy that everybody that walked through there got to see that. Everybody experienced it differently based on their—their own life. Who they are and whatnot. But that’s—that was the—the—the real moving part I guess for me. Raffel And just to kind of go backwards a little bit, you mentioned I think briefly the first, uh, expo that the MBA held. Can you tell me a little bit more about what—sort of what led to that and the—and the difficulties you had finding space? Simmons Um, in, uh, 1994, at—at a—I believe it was a—it might have been ’93—Sandy Fink had come on to the board. She was a veterinarian. Um, and she had—let’s see. She was the networking chair in May of ’93. And then the membership director in December of ’93 to May of ’98. I remember when we were at a board meeting and, um, she and the networking and expo committee she put together—or I don’t think she put the committee together yet. She started talking about it. Um, and I didn’t know that our community was ready to have an expo of all of the—the businesses. I knew we had identified, uh, people that had businesses in the community. We had—we had identified some, uh, allies in the community. Not big corporations, but people that wanted to be part of our association. But when she said that we should do a business expo, uh, some of us were like, “Wow.” You know? “Are we really ready for that?” And so, she was—put together a structure. Um, put together a committee, and—Louie [laughs]. By, um—by the time we got—we had several board meetings, talking about doing an expo. We were all on board. Uh, because they—they were ready to go. But where to have the event? So they identified the Maitland Civic Center on Lake Louie. And it was a—a great place. It still is. Um, and we, uh, signed the contract. We were ready to go. And it was—we’d already advertised. We had already printed our first, um, uh, uh—it became the buyers’ guide or the membership directory. Nut, uh, uh, an expo directory of, you know, who was going to be there and whatnot. Um, we had a map. And then we had everybody listed in there. Um, and Maitland Civic Center said that we couldn’t do it because they had a double booking. So, um, Sandy went to civil court. And we were just talking about it leading up to the 25th anniversary of the MBA. And, uh, she reminded us, and reminded me especially, about her going to court. And she was nervous because she said, you know—she wasn’t really out, out. And there she was in civil court and she said it was the first time she’d uttered “gay and lesbian” in public. In a courtroom, no less. And she said the place gasped. She said she could feel it. Um, but because the contract was signed before the other contract—they were just pulling that double-booking thing to try to stop it. Once they—I guess some people decided, “Oh, it’s a gay and lesbian business association. No. We can’t do that in Maitland. We’re not gonna have that.” Um, but, we won. And so, we had our event. Simmons We had 89 vendors at that expo. And that was a—that was another big turning point for the professionals and the business centers in this community. Um, people started to recognize that we—back then, we didn’t have corporate support. So the small businesses—we were the backbone of the community. We were the ones that funded, um, things, um, uh, paid the membership dues, paid extra money, sponsored different things to make things happen. Um, and that we were the ones that were—were going to work together to even build it larger. To build our business structure larger. To encourage professionals that were contemplating starting their own business or practice to do so. And they did. Um, uh, a number of people—now not going back that far, but, um, there are some that have—have formed, uh, in the last 20 years instead of the last 25 years. Uh, but Tom Dyer, um, at Watermark—he’s an attorney. And he was working for another practice. And it wasn’t—and don’t quote me on this, but it wasn’t long before Tom started his own law practice. Um, and I believe he started Watermark in, uh, ’94. And so, he—he—I heard him talk about that recently. About, you know, seeing what was happening in other big cities and newspapers and this and that. And he thought that Orlando could really do with having its own newspaper. Plus, he dealt with the—the political scene here, like I had said, with Glenda Hood. And knew that we weren’t getting the coverage. Um, we weren’t getting the representation that we should. Uh, a—something as simple as Mary Brooks, who I have mentioned a couple of times—that was the secretary. She w—worked at the Orlando Sentinel. She was a reporter. And at that time, we couldn’t even have our, uh, partners’ names listed in our obituaries. I mean it was just things like that. Everywhere we turned we had, um, discrimination. So, yep. ’94, we had 89 vendors. And then we had six business expos. Um, and that kind of hand-in-hand worked with what we wound up doing with Come Out with Pride in having the festival in the park. The festival in the park is really a business expo. It’s where we b—we brought the politicians together with the non-profits with the large corporations and with the small business centers in the MBA. So we had developed that experience in order to put together that part of Come Out with Pride. Raffel And was the discrimination in the community—was that one of the reasons that, uh, you didn’t put LGBT or i—in the name of the business… Simmons Yes. Raffel …association? Simmons Yes. And we had talked a lot about it. Um, it wasn’t as if we were hiding who we were, but we were trying to again, um, protect those that wanted to come to our functions that were advet—advertised at the Radisson, The Metropolitan Business Association. Well, that’s not saying it’s a gay and lesbian function. Um, and there were a number of times that we had functions there that, um—I’ll never forget one night that we were having a function there that John Butler Booke, who is a—was—I don’t know if he’s still alive—a—a minister pastor in Apopka. Uh, he was one of the biggest voices against us in the ’98 controversy to hang the rainbow flags. Uh, he came to everything and anything. Well, they were having a separate event at the Radisson. And some people that were coming to our event were on that elevator with him. And he didn’t know who they were. They knew who he was. And I remember them coming in. And I can’t tell you even who it was specifically. But came in and said, “Oh, my gosh. You’re not going to believe who I just saw in the elevator. John Butler Booke is here.” And so that was just reaffirmation for us, you know, that those five and a half years or so that we were at the Radisson, that was a period of time where we built strength and confidence and encouragement for the community to, you know, come out and to be more confident in being themselves. Being authentic. Uh, but when we, uh, talked about the name of the MBA—I believe we were at Metropolitan Community Church, and Sam Singhouse and Marcy Singhouse’s, uh, sister-law—Sam was instrumental in those very—in the very beginning. He owned the big bang club downtown Orlando. A—and he and Marcy were always there. And Sam Singhouse is Miss See—Miss Sammy. Everybody knows Miss Sammy. Um, and we were talking about the name. And Marcy was the one that actually wound up coming up with the Metropolitan Business Association. And, um, it –I mean everybody was like, “Yes, that’s it!” And so it stuck. And we never changed that. Um, the logo changed a few times over the years, but it was still, um, the Association. That’s what we were is all—you know, we—like I said in the beginning, uh, we—we developed relationships with one another that lasted for years and years. And sometimes lifetimes. Like Mary and Phyllis. Um, whether it be a—a—a marriage, which now we’re allowed to actually have marriage, um, or just a lifelong friendship. Raffel And what do you see as some of the maybe next steps or next big goals for organizations like the MBA and the LGBTQ History Museum? Simmons Well, um, I’m really glad that the—the History Museum is continuing and evolving and growing. And, um, as far as the MBA goes, I know that they’re really working on, um, corporate diversity and making sure that with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber, uh, that you have certification. And that—there’s that association. That group of large businesses that will buy from—recognize a gay and lesbian, trans—a tran—LGBTQ business as someone that they want to buy from. So they’re working on that. I know that they’re, uh, focused on, uh, transgender and gender equality. That’s very important. Um, it’s—I know we—we’ve talked about this. Um, in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal , um, we had—that was in June of 2015—there was this sense of elation. Um, and I remember people saying—asking me and saying to me, “Do we really have a need for the Metropolitan Business Association and, um, the History Museum?” Of course. I mean, yeah. That’s gonna go on as long as people are alive to develop—to continue to develop all those archives. Um, but is it really needed anymore now that we have, you know, gay marriage? It’s legal. Well, it’s a lot more than that. It’s, um, uh, transgender. It’s gender equality. It’s—uh, you can still be fired from your job if you’re gay. Um, and we knew that there were—I knew, and I’m sure that most people knew, that there would be a backlash. Um, but still there’s that sense of elation. I remember it was just three years ago, um, that everybody was—eh, I was going around getting every newspaper I could get. I was online looking at everything. Reading everything. Recording everything that I could during that. So amazing. And Prop 8 . And the fact that it was David Boies and—what’s his name? Theodore, uh—it’s gonna—and I—he was a con—he was the conservative that, um, represented Bush after the 2000 election. Olsen. Ted Olsen. Ted Olsen and David Boies. That they were the—the lawyers worked together. The conservative and the liberal. Um, and Prop 8 was overturned in California. All these things happened. And people were elated. And, my gosh, for us to just have—I mean, a lot of terrible things have hap—had happened between 2015 and 2016, with these mass killings and shootings. Um, but when Pulse happened in 2016 in June, um, it was—I—I still have a hard time even articulating how I feel about it. Um, I couldn’t even talk about it because I knew the—the—the impact that it had had on—i—i—it squashed immediately that feeling of elation. Yes. It was a huge victory. But—that we—we achieved gay marriage. But, my gosh, what a gut punch. And have all of those people murdered. Um, regardless of the murderer’s motives, it was in a gay nightclub, um, owned by Barbara [Poma], a heterosexual. Um, to give Pulse and life to her brother’s life. Um, you know, it—I mean the way it—it—it’s just all come together, to me it’s a—it’s a—a reminder that the work is never finished. That it’s important. I mean, I’ve been trying myself for the last ten years. I’ve been retired from my—my, uh, volunteer work and focused just on working for a living. Uh, sometimes I wonder how I worked 40 hours plus at work and 40-plus hours with the Metropolitan Business Association. Again, this goes to the age thing. I was telling you earlier, um. Uh, I’ve been trying to figure out what—what I can do now to participate. I don’t—I still haven’t been able to really—like I said, I can’t even articulate how I feel and it’s been two years since Pulse. Um, when the anniversary rolled around last year, um, it—very somber with everybody that I know. Um, and I thought this year would be, you know, a little bit—not easier—but a little bit better. But it’s not. Um, and I can’t even fathom what the families are going through. Um, we have a—a young person that has come to work with us. Uh, she’s 26 and, um, she’s heterosexual. Not that that’s really relevant. But it is because she was impacted. And she asked me about posting on Shelby Press, uh, on Facebook—on our page—something about Pulse. And she had put together some—some language, um, and—just us all here trying to talk about it. And talk with her about it. It’s just, um—like I said, it’s hard to talk about it. Cause I just don’t even know what to say. And I—I feel like putting something on social media now like, uh, the thing now that the students from Parkland have made very clear. Um, we call BS on thoughts and prayers. Because that’s not—that’s not gonna do it. So, yeah. It’s important. It’s important for all of the organizations. For the Metropolitan Business Association. For the History Museum. For Come out with Pride. For the Center. For, uh, Parents and, uh, Friends—PFLAG—uh, for GLBSU at UCF. For everybody to continue doing their work. And to never think, no matter what—what—how many steps we make forward, that we should ever let our guard down. And that we be out there representing our community and thinking about going back to what I had said earlier about our struggle for our civil rights. That the Constitution affords us those rights, as it affords every citizen of this country. Um, that our struggle is, and will continue to be, a model for the rest of the community to say, “Yes we can.” Love that about Barack Obama. Yes we can. Yes we will. And y—y—you might kick us down, but we’re gonna stand up again. And we will not let hate win. Ever. Raffel Thank you so much. If you had nothing to add. That’s all my questions. Simmons I know we skated all over it. Raffel That was great. Simmons [laughs]. Raffel That was perfect [laughs]. Simmons I mean I—I didn’t even, uh… Raffel [laughs]. Simmons Wow. Thank you so much. Raffel Thank you, Debbie. 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting activism activists Barbara Poma Brian De Hubert-Arbagast chamber of commerce Charlene Bell Christian Coalition civil rights Civil Rights Movement David Boies Debbie Simmons Dick Shaw discrimination Dorothy Coleman Eileen Bell Family Research Council Gay and Lesbian Bisexual Student Union gay marriage GLBSU GLBT GLBT History Museum of Central Florida GLBTQ+ Glenda Evans Hood government gun violence Harvey Bernard Milk homophobia homosexuality Human Relations Board of the City of Orlando Human Rights Campaign James T. “Jimmy” Brock John Butler Booke John Hugh "Buddy" Dyer Joy Metropolitan Community Church Karen Goode Keith Morrison Ken Kasmerski Lake Eola Park lesbians LGBT LGBT+ Center Orlando LGBTIQ LGBTQ LGBTQ+ Liberty Council Linda Welch Chapin Maitland Civic Center Mallory Wells Marcy Singhouse marriage equality Mary Brooks mass shootings Metropolitan Business Association Mike Sipoligo National Coming Out Day National Gay and Lesbian History Month Obergefell v. Hodges Orange County Regional History Center orlando Orlando Anti-Discrimination Committee Orlando Regional Pride parades Phyllis Murphy Prop 8 Proposition 8 Pulse massacre Pulse nightclub Pulse nightclub shooting Radisson Hotel Group Sam Singhouse Sandy Fink Sara Raffel Shelbie Press Print & Copy Stonewall Riots Ted Olsen terrorist attacks The Center on Mills The Watermark Tom Dyer UCF University of Central Florida University of Central Florida Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Student Union Vicki Vargo Vicky Meechum 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 War in Afghanistan Collection Alternative Title Afghanistan Collection Description Operation Enduring Freedom is the official name for the "military conflict" commonly known as the "War in Afghanistan," which is a group of military actions within the Global War on Terror (GWOT). The operation in Afghanistan is an ongoing conflict between Afghanistan, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) against two Islamic fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan: the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996, the same year that international terrorist and Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden immigrated to the country with the invitation of the Northern Alliance. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States presented the Taliban with a five-point ultimatum to the Taliban government, which was suspected of providing asylum to Al-Qaeda terrorists. After the Taliban rejected the ultimatum and the U.S. rejected Taliban proposals to try suspected terrorists under Islamic Shari'a law, the United States and the United Kingdom initiated military action on October 7, 2001. Although the U.S.-led coalition removed the Taliban from power initially and severely damaged Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the operation has overall had little success in defeating the Taliban insurgency. Operation Enduring Freedom has been transformed into a full war and has thus far lasted significantly longer than expected. Contributor <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Subject Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001- Global War on Terror, 2001-2009 Veterans--Florida Coverage Afghanistan Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a><span>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/.</span> Center of Military History. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/55079497" target="_blank"><em>Operation Enduring Freedom: October 2001-March 2002</em></a>. Washington, D.C.: [U.S. Army Center of Military History], 2004. Neumann, Brian F., Lisa M. Mundey, and Jon Mikolashek. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/856994805" target="_blank"><em>Operation Enduring Freedom</em></a>. 2013. Tripp, Robert S., Kristin F. Lynch, John G. Drew, and Edward Wei-Min Chan. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/427704785" target="_blank"><em>Lessons from Operation Enduring Freedom</em></a>. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2004. Wright, Donald P. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/316737060" target="_blank"><em>A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), October 2001-September 2005</em></a>. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center, 2010. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Key, Jeff Holroyd, Jade Interviewee Henry, Derek Mason Original Format 1 Digital (DAT) audio recording Duration 41 minutes and 11 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 253kbps 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/. Creator Key, Jeff Holroyd, Jade Henry, Derek Mason Description An oral history of Derek Mason Henry's experience serving in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Henry enlisted in the United States Army and served in the 2nd Battalion, the 124th Regiment, the 53rd Infantry Division. Interview topics include overseas service, Henry's family, enlistment, the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, the attacks on September 11th, basic training, service in Afghanistan, and the National Guard. Language eng Subject Army Veterans--Florida Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001- Global War on Terror, 2001-2009 Title Oral History of Derek Mason Henry Alternative Title Oral History, Henry Type Sound Medium 41-minute and 11-second Digital (DAT) audio recording Extent 75.1 MB Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/48/" target="_blank">Henry, Derek Mason</a> Abstract Oral history interview of Derek Mason Henry. Interview conducted by Jeff Key and Jade Holroyd at Henry's home. Table Of Contents 0:00:10 Interviewee information<br />0:00:34 Branch of service and rank<br />0:01:00 Experiences overseas<br />0:02:14 Mission<br />0:03:16 Which war served in<br />0:03:32 Family<br />0:04:00 Wife<br />0:04:15 Before service<br />0:04:30 Age joined<br />0:05:22 Family in military<br />0:06:00 Reason chose Army<br />0:06:40 Deployed for hurricanes 2004 and medals<br />0:07:10 National Guard<br />0:07:30 Deployed after 9/11<br />0:07:40 Furthering career<br />0:08:20 Job as officer<br />0:09:20 Basic training<br />0:10:50 Air assault and friends<br />0:11:30 Action while deployed IEDs<br />0:13:17 Keeping in contact with family<br />0:15:27 Recreation<br />0:16:00 Job schedule while deployed and recreation<br />0:18:10 Indirect fire<br />0:19:00 Awards, souvenirs, coins<br />0:23:00 Dogs of War Awards continued<br />0:24:59 Didn't engage enemy<br />0:25:08 Range and use of 50 cal<br />0:26:01 Return home<br />0:28:00 Readjusting to civilian life<br />0:29:00 Keeping in touch with friends<br />0:30:17 How old experiences effect you<br />0:31:28 Metals on Class A, Air Assault<br />0:34:30 ROTC, difference from enlisted<br />0:36:25 Civilian job with National Guard<br />0:37:10 Pictures from overseas<br />0:38:38 David Tell pictures<br />0:40:00 Conclusions<br />0:40:30 Life lessons<br />0:41:11 Visuals of souvenirs Source <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/VET/id/37" target="_blank">Henry, David Mason</a>. Interviewed by Jeff Key and Jade Holroyd. UCF Community Veterans History Project, DP0011890. February 28, 2011. Audio record available. University of Central Florida Libraries, <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/University" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, Orlando, Florida. Date Created 2011-02-28 Date Copyrighted 2011-02-28 Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/96" target="_blank">War in Afghanistan Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> Format audio/mp3 Coverage Leesburg, Florida Afghanistan Accrual Method Donation Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Jeff Key and Jade Holroyd and owned by <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/University" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>. Rights Holder All rights are held by the respective holding institution. This material is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. For permission to reproduce and/or for copyright information contact <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/University" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries, (407) 823-2576. http://library.ucf.edu/SpecialCollections/. Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalCollections/" target="_blank">UCF Digital Collections</a> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository University of Central Florida Libraries, <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/University" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a> External Reference Center of Military History. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/55079497" target="_blank"><em>Operation Enduring Freedom: October 2001-March 2002</em></a>. Washington, D.C.: [U.S. Army Center of Military History], 2004. Neumann, Brian F., Lisa M. Mundey, and Jon Mikolashek. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/858278725" target="_blank"><em>Operation Enduring Freedom</em></a>. 2013.; Tripp, Robert S., Kristin F. Lynch, John G. Drew, and Edward Wei-Min Chan. <em>Lessons from Operation Enduring Freedom</em>. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2004. Wright, Donald P. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/316737060" target="_blank"><em>A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), October 2001-September 2005</em></a>. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center, 2010. .50 Caliber 124th Regiment 2nd Battalion 53rd Infantry Division 9/11 Afghan War air assaults Army basic training Class A Derek Mason Henry Dogs of War Global War on Terror GWOT Holroyd, Jade IEDs improvised explosive devices Key, Jeff National Guard OEF officers Operation Enduring Freedom Reserve Officers' Training Corps ROTC Second Battalion September 11th sergeants Tell, David Truck Commanders U.S. Army War in Afghanistan 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 Daytona State College Collection Alternative Title DSC Collection Subject New Smyrna Beach (Fla.) Daytona State College (Fla.) Contributor <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">Daytona State College, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus, School of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/75" target="_blank">Volusia County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/84" target="_blank">New Smyrna Beach Collection</a>, Volusia County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Contributing Project History Skill Building Project 2013, <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">School for Behavior and Social Sciences</a>, Daytona State College Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">Daytona State College, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus, School of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/catalog/facts/history.html" target="_blank">History of Daytona State College</a>." Daytona State College. http://www.daytonastate.edu/catalog/facts/history.html. Sweett, Lawrence J. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/77551284" target="_blank"><em>New Smyrna Beach</em></a><em>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2006.</em> "<a href="http://www.cityofnsb.com/index.aspx?nid=198" target="_blank">History</a>." City of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. http://www.cityofnsb.com/index.aspx?nid=198. Cumiskey, Kate. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/491915106" target="_blank"><em>Surfing in New Smyrna Beach</em></a><em>. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010.</em> Coverage Daytona State College-New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach, Florida New Smyrna Beach, Florida Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records contributed by the New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater campus of Daytona State College. Items in the collection focus on the history of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. In 1758, the first European settlers arrived in present-day New Smyrna Beach and Dr. Andrew Turnbull established the colony of New Smyrna. Most of the colony's settlers were from Greece, Italy, and Minorca, Spain. Turnbull planned for the town to produce hemp, sugarcane, indigo, and rum, but the colony quickly collapsed due to insect-born diseases and raids by nearby Native American tribes. Most of the survivors resettled in St. Augustine. In 1887, New Smyrna was incorporated. In 1892, Henry Morrison Flagler expanded his Florida East Coast Railway to the area, sparking growth in the city. During the Prohibition of the 1920s, New Smyrna served as a site for moonshine stills and hideouts for rum-runners. In 1947, the city was renamed New Smyrna Beach when it annexed Coronado Beach. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer McCormick, Zachary Interviewee Yeaton, Diane Location <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College</a>, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus in New Smyrna Beach, Florida Bit Rate/Frequency 138kbps 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 Diane Yeaton Alternative Title Oral History, Yeaton Subject New Smyrna Beach (Fla.) Restoration ecology--Florida Description An oral history with Diane Yeaton, President of the Board of Trustees of the Marine Discovery Center, located at 520 Barracuda Boulevard in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Yeaton migrated to New Smyrna Beach from Rhode Island in 2002. The Marine Discovery Center, Inc. (MDC) was founded in 1998 for the purpose of protecting the Indian River Lagoon. Founders include New Smyrna Beach Mayor, James Vandergrifft, as well as various civic leaders, biologists, and other members of the community. Table Of Contents 00:00 Opening credits 00:17 Introduction 00:32 Memories of Central Florida 01:15 Involvement at the Marine Discovery Center 01:51 Education at MDC 02:18 Restoration of the Indian River Lagoon 02:45 Yeaton's role at the MDC 03:20 Fundraising and grants 04:12 Environmental group partnerships 04:56 Marine wildlife rescue 05:57 How students can get involved 06:38 Favorite marine animals 07:07 Benefits of being a MDC employee 07:47 MDC's plans for 2014 08:25 Purpose of oyster bed restoration 09:57 Experience in education 10:32 Relationship with the Marine Science Center 11:04 How to help an injured animal Abstract Oral history interview of Diane Yeaton. Interview conducted by Zachary McCormick at <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College</a>, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Original 12-minute and 12-second oral history: Yeaton, Diane. Interview by Zachary McCormick. <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College</a>, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus. October 29, 2013. Audio/video record available. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College</a> History Skill Building Project 2013. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/85" target="_blank">Daytona State College Collection</a>, New Smyrna Beach Collection, Volusia County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Marine Discovery Center, New Smyrna Beach, Florida Marine Science Center, Ponce Inlet, Florida Mosquito Lagoon, Florida Indian River Lagoon, Florida Creator McCormick, Zachary Yeaton, Diane Publisher <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College </a> Contributor Grigas, Carol S. Ritten, Cody Haley, Shannon Grooms, John Robert, Jr. Jones, Ian Botta, Karen Date Created 2013-10-29 Format video/mp4 Extent 66.3 MB Medium 12-minute and 12-second audio/video recording Language eng Mediator History Teacher Science Teacher Provenance Originally created and published by the Daytona State College <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">School for Behavior and Social Sciences</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to the resource is held by <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College</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 History Skill Building Project 2013, <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">School for Behavior and Social Sciences</a>, Daytona State College Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="https://www.daytonastate.edu/maps/nsbmap.html" target="_blank">Daytona State College New Smyrna-Edgewater Campus</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.marinediscoverycenter.org/about-us/" target="_blank">ABOUT MARINE DISCOVERY CENTER</a>." Marine Discovery Center. http://www.marinediscoverycenter.org/about-us/. Sweett, Lawrence J. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/77551284" target="_blank"><em>New Smyrna Beach</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2006. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/AoRy8RNzcyk" target="_blank">Oral History of Diane Yeaton</a> animals bird rescues birds Board of Trustees Carol S. Grigas clams Cody Ritten conservation Daytona State College Diane Yeaton dolphins DSC education Florida Wildlife Commission fundraising grants History Skill Building Project horseshoe crab monitoring horseshoe crabs Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute Ian Jones Indian River Lagoon internships John Robert Grooms, Jr. Karen Botta lagoons Manatees mangrove restoration mangroves marine biology Marine Discovery Center marine life Marine Science Center MDC Mosquito Lagoon Mosquito Lagoon Enhancement Center New Smyrna Beach oyster beds oyster recycling oyster restoration oysters pelicans Ponce Inlet Port Orange restoration restoration ecology Rhode Island Rose Bay salt marsh salt marshes School of Behavioral and Social Sciences seagrass seagrass monitoring seagrasses Shannon Haley Southeast Aquatic Resource Partnership St. Johns River Management volunteers Volusia County Eco Rangers Volusia County Environmental Management Volusia County Mammal Stranding Team water quality water taxis Yeaton, Diane Zachary McCormick https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/0814329076fb17c9b9a60e64d2441092.mp3 4d3afc70af6c37f5e5e08db488b666b7 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/d89fff5fd36fe539e5c1da44e20fcbd8.pdf 9c12d807cbfc067d407afae47676996f 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 Groskey, Dick 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 Groskey Alternative Title Oral History, Groskey Subject Orlando (Fla.) Altamonte Springs (Fla.) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (U.S.) NASA Air Force World War II--United States Metalworking industries--United States Description An oral history of Dick Groskey, conducted by Joseph Morris on October 28, 2011. Born in Springfield, Ohio, Groskey migrated with his family to Orlando, Florida, in the early 1950s. In the interview, he discusses migrating to Florida, growing up in Ohio, how Orlando and Central Florida has changed over time, his experience contracting with various companies and government institutions, the metalworking industry, business taxes, his service in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, and his wife and children. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:22 Migrating to Florida<br />0:02:37 Starting own business0:04:13 Growing up in Ohio<br />0:06:43 Decision to migrate to Florida<br />0:10:31 How Orlando and Central Florida has changed over time<br />0:15:15 Contract work with large companies<br />0:17:39 Working with government organizations<br />0:20:25 Metalworking industry<br />0:22:38 Business taxes<br />0:24:14 Current state of business<br />0:27:50 Positive changes in Central Florida<br />0:30:15 Serving in the Air Force during World War II<br />0:44:00 Returning to civilian life<br />0:45:00 Wife and children<br />0:50:18 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Dick Groskey 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 Orlando, Florida. Type Sound Source Groskey, Dick. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. October 28, 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>, Orlando, 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>, Orlando, 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 Orlando, Florida Altamonte Springs, Florida Walnut Hills, Dayton, Ohio Myitkyina West, Kachin, Burma Creator Morris, Joseph Groskey, Dick Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-10-28 Date Modified 2014-10-10 Date Copyrighted 2011-10-28 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 34.7 MB 211 KB Medium 51-minute, and 23-second audio recording 25-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Dick Groskey. 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 Antequino, Stephanie Gaub, and Tana Mosier Porter. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/783150094" target="_blank"><em>Lost Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Pub, 2012. "<a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/Links/wtour.pdf" target="_blank">Downtown Orlando Historic District Walking Tour</a>." City of Orlando. http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/Links/wtour.pdf. Rajtar, Steve. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70911136" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Transcript <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>It is October 28, 2011, and I am talking to Dick Groskey in his place of residence. I am Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Sir, could you tell us a little about yourself?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>What?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Could you tell us a little about yourself and your life?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, what would you like, what would you like…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, where were you born, sir? Where were you raised?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Springfield, Ohio.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And when did you come down to Florida, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, right after I got married in the early [19]40s. I got out of the service in ’46, and we got married the same year, and we came to Florida in the real early ‘50s.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And did you move originally to...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. We—we were going to Miami, and I blew out a tire. It was over on U.S. [Route] 1, and we blew a tire out on the car, and it was late at night on Sunday. We stopped in a motel over on U.S. 1. The next morning, we got up and I asked where the local garage was, and they said, “Oh, it’s clear over in Bithlo. Over Dave Shaw’s garage.” So there happened to be a fellow there that was going that way, and so he took my tire, and we throwed[sic] it in the back of his truck, and he took me over Dave Shaw’s garage, which was right in the middle of no place. Well, Dave got the tire fixed, and one thing another.</p> <p class="Body">And in the meantime, while he was fixing the tire, I thought, “Well, I’ll look at the local newspaper.” So I’m just thumbing through it. There’s an ad in there: “Machinist wanted.” So I asked Dave Shaw, I said, “Well, where is this place?” “Oh,” he said, “That’s over in Orlando, which is short ways from Bithlo.” So I put a dime in the telephone—it was a dime at that time—and I called this man up, and he was from Youngstown, Ohio. And I told him, I said, “Well,” I said, “I’ve been a toolmaker all my life.” And he said, “I got a job for you.” He says, “Come on over!” So I said, “Well, wait ‘til I get my tire fixed, and I’ll come over.” So he gave me the directions, and I came over to Orlando, and I went down on Sligh Boulevard—and Tool Engraving on Sligh. It was Trade Tool Engraving— was the name of the place. And he said, “I’ll let you run a screw machine second shift.” I said, “Great.” [inaudible] easy. I’d run one before. So I went back to Titusville, told the missus. I said, “Well, we’re gonna have to stay here tonight, but,” I said, “tomorrow we’re going to Orlando.” And she said, “Well, what’s the matter with going to Miami?” I said, “I got a job.” She said, “You got a job?” I said, “Yeah. I go to work tomorrow night.” And I’ve never been out of work since.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Wow, sir. So, why were you going to Miami?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>I don’t know. I just thought that was a place where it was warm and there was a lot of something going on.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Got distracted by Orlando?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>And well, we got stuck here and been here ever since.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Then how long did you work at the...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>At Trade Tool?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Only, well, best part of a year. And that’s when the Martin [Marietta Corporation] company came here, and I helped build the Martin plant. Then I went to work industrial engineering. And I stayed out there about a year and a half, I guess, and then I started my own thing, and been keeping it going ever since.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. And how did you start your own business, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>One tool at a time.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And how long have you been in business?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Oh my gosh. Never [<em>laughs</em>]—I’ve always had a shop. We moved the shop down when I moved down from Ohio.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh really, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>So you were doing this up in Ohio as well?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>The, um…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>I had a shop in Brookville, Ohio, and then we left Brookville to come to Florida, and I had our furniture in the shop in a—on a semi. We was gonna move it down here, and we moved, after we had the blowout over Titusville, and I got a job there, we went over here on [U.S. Route] 17-92 and rented a three-room apartment over there.</p> <p class="Body">And I had all the shop equipment come down then after we got established, and I rented a place over in Altamonte Springs. It was a little—about a four-story—I mean a four-office little building that Merris Walker—he owned the whole town practically. He built this building—just a little commercial building—and I rented one of the offices in there. We put all the machinery in there. And at that time, I was working at the Martin company, so we got our little shop going. So I went, quit the Martin company, went back out there, went to purchasing, I said, “I’d like to bid on your work.” And we’ve been going ever since.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And could you tell me a little about the place where you grew up? I know it was in Ohio, correct?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Mmhm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Have you been back?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Only when my dad died in 1966. I haven’t been back since.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. What was it like growing up out there?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>It was right prior to World War II, and things were tight, but it was a lot—a lot easier. Better times than what it is now. It wasn’t near as fast-paced. People had more of value than they do now. Smaller things meant more. Our—we lived in a middle-class neighborhood where everybody worked, and everybody went to school. Everybody had a car. And we played croquet at night in the backyard. We played football down at the local park. We played baseball at the local park. We played horseshoes. There was always something to do. The local park was just a matter of trees, a drinking fountain, and a shelter house, but there the city provided ball gloves and tennis racquets and things. So you’d go in there, sign your name and get a ball, go up and go play ball.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>And that was kind of the center of activity of the whole community. We lived in what they called Walnut Hills. It was a very clannish type situation, because at that time, in that area—National Cash Register, General Motors [Company], Frigidaire, Dayton Rubber [Company], and those bigger companies—a job was something that there was nothing to be concerned about. That was something that your dad—your dad’s dad probably worked at these same companies over the last three or four generations, because that’s the way things were. You didn’t have to hunt for a job. Shop like I got now—a job shop—there was[sic] hundreds of them in that town. You’d pick up the phone call and say, “Hey, what do you got going? You got 30 days’ worth of work? I’ll be over this afternoon.” And you had another job. That’s job shopping. But if you wanted to go to the major companies like Dayton Rubber, Frigidaire, or one of the big ones—Master Electric, where they made motors—you’d go in there, hire on. They’re expecting you and your kids’ kids to work there. It was job security, which of you have none today. Today, it’s feast or famine. We get a job today, you finish it up two o’clock, goodbye. Go home. There is no security in jobs today, unless you create your own security. </p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>There is nothing that—you can’t depend on the other man for anything.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And how—so you left. You just wanted a change of scenery? You came down to Miami for that reason? Or you were on your way to Miami for that reason?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. I spent—like I said, I spent a lot of time over in China and Burma and India. And it was all hot weather. Very hot. We came home in February, and it was just kind of the tail end of the winter, but there was a lot of snow and ice on the ground, and after being in the tropics for that long, and coming in to snow and ice on the ground—and I got married, I told her when we got married, I said, “Look, we’re going someplace else.” I said, “I’m not gonna shovel snow.” I said, “I’m not used to this.” My later teens and then early twenties, I was overseas, and I said, “Boy, I’m not going home and shoveling any snow.”</p> <p class="Body">So we told her parents, we told my parents, and my dad says, “If you take her and them[sic] kids out of Ohio, I’ll disown you.” Which he did. We never got one dime from him, and he was a wealthy man. When he died, I got just exactly nothing, because I took her and came to Florida with the kids.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And that was your dad or her dad?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. That was my dad.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. Her dad was more lenient. He was from Georgia, and was a farmer from Georgia. He had a pretty nice business going, and he said, “Well,” he said, “I can understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.” And he says, “If we can help you, we will.”</p> <p class="Body">But my dad was from the old school, and if it ain’t his way, it’s no way. It was that, but, he said, “You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re leaving the whole security and this and that and everything else.” I said, “No. I’m not.” I said, “Now I was in the service. I’ve been clear around the world.” I said, “I’ve seen other places. I’ve been other places and done other things. I’m not gonna sit here and shovel snow. I’m going someplace else.” “Well, if you do, you’re disowned.” And he did.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>What did your dad do for a living? Did he work in one of these...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>He was vice president of the [International] Typographical Union.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. I can definitely see why, after going to the tropics, that Miami might have come to mind.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>That was the only—Orlando—it was just a wide spot in the road, like Kissimmee, that was just a few cars walking up and down the road. But Orlando did have a name, but it didn’t have a name like Jacksonville or Miami. Now, my wife’s from Georgia, and some of her relations—her dad, or her uncle—was warden of the Duvall County farm up there. So we came down—prior to moving, we came down here and visited, and we talked to her uncle at great length, and he was a very, very, very knowledgeable man, and he knew basics of life right here in Florida. So I asked him a lot of pointed questions. He gave me the answers. He says, “It’s gonna be up to you.” He said, “There’s[sic] opportunities here. It’s up to you to make them.” He said, “You can go out there and hustle around.” He said, “You’ll make them.” He said, “Florida’s growing.” He was born and raised there. I figured, “Well, you know what you’re talking about.” So that changed our opinion on going to Miami. After talking to people who had been there and back, and one thing another, salesmen and people who had went down there to live, and got out of the Little Havana area—whatever—they said, “Stay up in Orlando area.” Been here ever since.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, so after you moved here, you were still thinking about going down to Miami afterwards?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Just talking to these people.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. That was it. That cancelled that out. I only went to Miami one time since we moved to Florida. We had a subcontract on the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] building in Miami, and we supplied a lot of the high-pressure ductwork down there. We built it. And we had to get down—as owner of the shop, we had to get down to physically see that our work was in that job. It was a government job. Our work was in that building and that contract—blah blah blah blah blah. And I had to go down there about three different times. Other than that, I never went back.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>That’s where Miami and me[sic] ended.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>That’s where you and Miami have just parted ways?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yep.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. Well, how has Orlando changed from when you moved here to now?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>They have ruined Orlando.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Really, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>In what way?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Due to the fact that the people that were responsible—once Orlando was established as a town, and the multitude started moving into that town—the way Orlando was originally set up was a farm town that was easygoing and whatever. As soon as it started to grow with a vast amount of people, which happened in the ‘50s, it really blossomed, and when it did, they lost reality with what Orlando was all about.</p> <p class="Body">When we moved here, you could drink the water out of Prairie Lake. You could go along, there was water along the ditches on every main road out at the main area of the town here. There was[sic] fish in these ditches. People would be along the side of Route 50<a title="">[1]</a> fishing, and water wasn’t that deep, but there was fish in them. I worked at the Martin company, and when I’d come home at night, I’d take the boys, and we’d go over to Lake Monroe and sit there on the seawall, and in an hour’s time, I’d have a bucket so full of fish you could hardly pick it up. Where’d they all go? Where’d the mullet go? Where’d the blue crabs go? Everything has been polluted.</p> <p class="Body">They ruined Central Florida. Now we’ve got crime. A lot more. A shooting in Central Florida back in the ‘50s—unheard of, unless it was a hunting accident. Somebody pulled out a gun and shot his own foot. It was unheard of. Now it’s an everyday occurrence. You go to Pine Hills today and somebody’s gonna shoot somebody before you can drive through it. They have ruined Central Florida, because that is the element that follows growth. There’s that type of person that will follow growth, and try to reap what they can off it, and they have ruined Central Florida.</p> <p class="Body">Central Florida—I won’t even go to the coast. You used to be able to go anyplace up and down the east coast. You could pull off the side of the road, cross the dunes, and go fishing. It’s all barricaded off. Chain-link fence. “Keep out.” Don’t come here, don’t go there.</p> <p class="Body">When we first moved, when we first got ourselves established in Altamonte Springs, I went to a council meeting, and several of the management meetings Downtown—city of Orlando. And most of the people down there—a lot of the people down there were from Baltimore[, Maryland]. Baltimore entered big in Central Florida, because the Martin came here. Martin company came here. They brought all their people with them. And come to find out, most of the people that came with the Martin company from Baltimore were the odd falls they wanted to get rid of anyway. And that’s how the Martin company started here. Well, I went—I helped build the building, then I went to work in it, and I know firsthand.</p> <p class="Body">But, at any rate, I had a shop in Altamonte Springs. I had the first screw machine in Seminole County. So I went to one of these meetings down there, and I got a chance to speak my voice. I got up and I said, “Well, you fellows don’t have any manufacturing base here.” I said, “You got high-acreage use plant.” I said, “You got two or three big packinghouses. One Blue Goose [Growers packinghouse].” And I said, “You’ve got another packinghouse over in Maitland, but,” I said, “you don’t have anything that’s making anything. You don’t produce any. You don’t have any sawmills. You don’t have any manufacturing, no welding shops, no nothing. Why?” “Because we’re tourist-oriented.” That’s the famous saying: “We’re tourist-oriented.” And still to this day, they’re still leaning away from manufacturing. They don’t want any manufacturing in Central Florida. I tried to explain to them how the economy in Cincinnati and Dayton was based on all these little job shops that was doing something. Now what have you got? Blacks running up and down the ladder picking oranges. That ain’t gonna help the economy. Not one nickel’s worth. The grove owner’s gonna make money, but you and I aren’t. I said, “You have to have diversified activity in that community.” And you know, they said, “Well, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea, but we don’t wanna hear no more.” And that’s where they shut it off, and I said, “Well, to hell with you. Goodbye.”</p> <p class="Body">And it’s still today the same situation. They want tourists. Get them in, fleece them, send them on a plane back home. They don’t want nothing here permanently. Go downtown. What have they done for the people who live here? If you go someplace, you’re gonna pay money dear for it, because you’re gonna pay just like a tourist. They don’t give the local people anything. They don’t say, “Hey, show me your driver’s license. You come in for two bucks.” “Hey, it’s $28.00? We might charge you $30.00, because you live here.” Uh-uh. I’m soured on [inaudible]. Believe me. That’s why we’re out here on our own little domain. I have nothing to do with them.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris            </strong>Okay, sir. So, um, this kind of might be a little bit of a weird question, then—so you’re not a—you don’t go to—or have you ever gone to any of the theme parks that attract the tourists?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>I have never. I have done work for [Walt] Disney World and Universal [Studios Orlando] and everybody else, but it’s always on a bid-item basis. The only reason I will go there is to take a job out, give them a purchase order, and hope I get paid. That’s the only way. As far as spending my money to go to their park, I wouldn’t spend a dime.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yeah. They are expensive, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>I wouldn’t spend a dime.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>When you say “hope” you get paid, have you ever had a problem with receiving payment from these companies?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Martin company and Disney started out the same way. Thirty days on invoice, 60 days on invoice, 90 days on invoice. Martin company got 120 days on invoice. I took the last invoices right down to personnel, right into payroll. I said, “I want to get paid for these.” “Well, we’re a big company, you know. It takes time.” And I said, “Now, you’re not that big.” I said, “I’m a little guy. We started out 30-day invoice, okay. 60, I can live with. 90, I’m hurting. 120, I can’t do it. Anymore work we do from you, COD [Cash on Delivery].” Now I’m a little guy talking to a big guy, and I said, “That’s it.” They needed us at that time more than we needed them, because there was nobody else except Martin [inaudible] out here that had a shot.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, so they kept trying to put you off?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>That’s right. They kept stringing us out, stringing us out, and stringing us. “Well, we’re a big company!” I said, “Yes, you ought to be able to do it twice as fast. Because you have more facilities than we do. You ought to be able to make your pay the same day.”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>So, I said, “C.O.D.”</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>So your business work with these companies has not been the—all you wish they could be?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, the Martin company, as you know, right now is one of the largest defense contractors there is in the United States. And had we—at that time, had we had somebody on our side that could go internally there, today we’d probably be a multi-million dollar corporation. Because they made some big companies out of what happened at Martin company throughout the United States.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, but because you couldn’t get anybody, or you didn’t have anybody to work with you there...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>We—as an outsider, we had nobody on the inside.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Now, when the shuttle’s arm<a title="">[2]</a> came up at the Cape [Canaveral], when the shuttle’s arm came up, the robotic arm, we were doing NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] work at the time. So I went out to procurement, and I said to them, I said, “Well, we’d like to bid on this robotic arm.” And he said, “Okay, fine.” He said, “You’re qualified. You’re DoD [U.S. Department of Defense] and checked out and everything. Fine.” We got a set of drawings, we come back, and we figured it out. We could make the complete thing except the one base had a milled slot about 12-14 feet long. We couldn’t mill it. I had a friend in Winter Haven that had a big Niles Planer [Machine]. He could do it.</p> <p class="Body">We submitted our bid. We were second—number two. Now, we’re a little shop, and that was a big job. There was only, I think, four of them to start with, and they were over a period of two or three years. The man out in IOA [inaudible] got the job. We went out and protested. He don’t have enough money in his bid to buy the material to do the job. The purchase agent out there on that contract was a woman. She said, “Well, Mr. Groskey,” she said, “I’ll tell you. We can’t control where he gets his material from. He may have a warehouse full.” That’s the only out I got. He may have a warehouse full. We had to buy it. He had a warehouse. I said, “Okay.” Less than 30 days, they came back and said, “We want you to pick up the contract. He went bankrupt.” I says, “Goodbye.” That’s what I told NASA. I wouldn’t touch it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh really, sir? But you worked with NASA afterwards, right?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Just not on that contract.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Not on that one. Nope. We dropped that one right by the wayside. They wanted us to come back and pick up the ball, and clean up the mess, and sweep the dirt. I said, “No dice.” We don’t get it going in, we don’t want any part of it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. Could you tell me more about the work you’ve done with NASA? Because that does a lot for the local community and the local area.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. The only thing that we got out there was small stuff that they couldn’t buy it for here [inaudible]. Onesie-twosie things that, like certain types of bearings and special screws, and just little nit-picking stuff. Nothing big.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Nothing big. No big contracts. Nothing. Biggest contract we had was from the Navy over here—the [Orlando Naval] Training Center. And we did Navy work, but there was too much red tape in all that work. I’d rather have work off the street. The last Navy job we had, they made four change orders on it. They went through a nuclear submarine. And there was[sic] four change orders. And after the second or third change order, the fourth change order went right back to the first change order, and that—we’d already scrapped it. We had to do it all over again. They don’t know what they’re doing.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir. So, um…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>We’re very, very, very selective if we take work out that we don’t know the people that we’re gonna do it for. I would rather do a hundred percent commercial work. 100 percent. But right now, the customers we’ve got—we’ve got all the good customers in Central Florida—that they bring work to us. If we take something out to one of those customers, and it’s not according to what maybe they think they want, or they really need, they’ve already given us okay to do it, or purchase orders behind it. We make it, we fab it, we take it out, and if it’s not exactly what they want, it goes right in the dumpster and we get paid for it. Because that’s the way we do business. This is what you wanted, and this is what you got. Now, if you can’t use it, that ain’t my problem. You got what you ordered. And that’s the way we do business.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir. Okay. Could you tell me a little more about the business here then? I know we discussed earlier, but could you tell me more about what kind of work you do, and who you do it for?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, we do sheet metal work, welding, and machine work, general machine work for the complete population. No matter what industry or what kind of a business they have going, we make. We’ve made everything you could possibly think of. We’ve made parts for outboard motors, typewriters, telephones, fishing equipment, hunting equipment, dies, jigs, drill jigs, fixtures, screw machine parts. You name it. If it was made out of metal, we made it. We make high-pressure ductwork, sheet metal ductwork. We make low-pressure ductwork. We make all kind of turning veins, fittings, the whole gamut. Whatever there is in small metalwork, we do.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And, could you tell me how…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>We’ve only been stymied once or twice, and that was when we had something that was a—it was more of a compound angle, and we didn’t have facilities to do it with, but I have a friend out in Apopka that’s got a water jet machine. We took it out there to him, and he water-jetted it, and we went merrily on our way. So we have an out. We take them all.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir. Okay. Can you tell me how your business has changed over the years or grown?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>The business—we try to—according to the tax structure—the way it’s set up—we’re allowed a tax deduction to amortize a piece of machinery over a five-year period. And I understand [Barack] Obama has allowed small businesses to amortize that machine in one year. And I like when we bought our big boring mill down there, that’s a $12,000 machine, we could take a tax write-off in five years for that machine for the $12,000. Well, if you happen to have a good year, that $12,000 would mean a lot if you could deduct it, but you can’t deduct it except for in a five-year period. So you wind up paying more taxes for spending more money, and that’s not right. If you’re spending more money, you should be able to deduct it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>If it’s shop equipment, it’s capital equipment. But now—I think they got it set up now to where you can deduct that in one-year or two-year period, rather than a five-year period.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And you said “amortize,” right?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>What does that mean, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>The government would only allow you to deduct off of your taxes—say I bought something for $1,000—a piece of machinery for $1,000. Every year I could get a $200 reduction on that piece of machinery.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>A tax write-off on that machinery. And at the end of five years, I had a tax write-off of that $1,000. Then that machine could no longer be amortized anymore. That machine was a dead piece of equipment in that business. It was part of the business, it made the business worth that much more, but as far as taxes go, you’re done. There’s no more relief on taxes for it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. So, well, I know we talked about this a little bit earlier, um, how is business doing these days?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Very bad. Our little shop down there was doing great up until 2002, and I could see then it was starting to slide, because we’d have customers the whole gamut of Central Florida. We’d have everything from photographic shops to big truck manufacturers, truck garages, and the likes of that. The whole gamut. We made parts for everybody. And all of them now have started slowing down, slowing down, slowing down. Because I’m interested enough to ask, “Well, Bill, how’s it going? Is your business going?” “Yeah, we’re up about 10 percent.” “We’re up 15 percent.” And it’s this way across the board.</p> <p class="Body">There’s only one person that’s got a business in Central Florida that’s got more business than he can handle, and that’s the auctioneers. Now, Don [M.] Dennett in Sanford—[D. M.] Dennett Auctioneering—has been a friend of mine since he was in high school, and Don is running a very good business today. We went to a sale last week over here in Casselberry. [inaudible], a multi-million dollar company, a beautiful shop, bankrupt, up for sale, it went on the auction block. I said to Don at the sale, I said, “Don,” I said, “Why in the world would something like this happen?” He said, “There’s no volume.” There’s no volume of work. He happened to have an Air Force contract that kept him going for the last two or three years. When that contract ended, he was done, because he had so much invested in big equipment, nothing to do. He had to sell out. Don says, “I could have a sale—an auction a day, if I wanted to. There’s[sic] that many people going bankrupt.” But he only has one a week, because the market will only handle so much. Otherwise, you’d have people there buying shares for a dime and the likes of it. He waits until the smoke clears, then he’ll have another auction.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>But he is busy all the time, believe me. Right now he’s ready for two more auctions. I talked to him yesterday. He got two more shops that went out, and a bunch of restaurant equipment again. A couple more restaurants went broke, and he’s gonna sell them at the auction. But he has got more work than he knows what to do with. Because that’s people’s downfall that he’s advantaged—he’s taking advantage of.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>This is not a problem you’re having though, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. We’re sitting tight. We’re solid. We don’t owe a dime to anybody. We have one thing. We buy steel on a30-day basis. We buy sheet, plate, angle, and beam, and bar from three different companies. We pay our bills at the end of the month, every month, religiously. Every 30 days, we pay our invoices up and they’re done. We run no credit with nobody, pay cash for everything.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. The proper way to run a business, right?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>And 90 percent of the people—I’d say 95 percent of the people that we work for appreciate that fact, because their paperwork don’t carry over month to month to month to month. When they deal with us, and come out, if we don’t have a prior agreement of 30 days on invoice, they pay cash and bring a check with them, because that’s the only way we’ll work. We won’t chase any money. You can’t spend your time chasing bad debts. And over the last 40 years, I don’t think we’ve lost a hundred dollars, and that’s because somebody died, and there was no heirs. That’s the only reason.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir. Well, I know you said that they ruined Central Florida.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yep. That’s right. Yep.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Would you say there’s anything good in Central Florida, anything that—I mean, you discussed what had gone wrong. Would anything in your mind have gone right?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, sure. What Florida did, by them having all of their eggs in one basket with tourism, they’ve helped other industries and other things grow with them. The motel industry grew, the restaurants and the stores, the retailers and one thing another. A lot of those people now have picked up to where they rely on all of these people that’s coming in. But when people come out of the airport, and they go to Disney World, they’re more or less captive at Disney World. Now, most of them are here say two days, three days a week, something like this. their money is limited to what they can do, and when they have to spend $75 to go up to that gate, they’re gonna think twice about having to go outside to buy something. Disney’s smart enough to know this. That’s why they’ve got them captive. Restaurants, hotels, motels, the whole nine yards. Get them in the gate and keep them.</p> <p class="Body">But there’s[sic] still a few people who want to see Central Florida. They want to get out and look around. “We haven’t come out here.” But that—Central Florida in that respect has grown along with all the tourists, and it’s helped the people that did stay here by giving them more of an opportunity to do things. Bowling alleys, and your arts, and a lot of your museums have grown. Your arts and science have grown. Everything has helped the local people, and I consider myself to be part of the local people. But they have given us an opportunity of more things which weren’t here.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>So you can give them the benefit of the doubt. They—their finances and their establishment created an environment that people wanted. So it kind of rubs off on us local people. We’re able to go take advantage of it too.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. That’s a—I was going to say, that’s a very interesting perspective, because you never go to those parks. You never do any of those things.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No, no.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>But the benefit—the side benefits they bring with them…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Right. Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, sir. I know before you mentioned you were, that you had served in the military.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>The military?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Could you tell us about that, sir? Like what branch? Where? When? What were you doing?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, I was in the military prior to—oh, what the hell they called it? Well, when the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>And I was in Fort Knox[, Kentucky] in the regular Army before the Japanese hit Honolulu and Oahu[, Hawaii]. Now, when I went into Fort Thomas, Kentucky—I went from there to Fort Knox. I went to Fort Thomas, Kentucky, there wasn’t enough of us in that barracks to keep the fire going at night. We had to take shifts to keep the fire going at night. They declared war. The next day, they were standing in the hallways. They had to have so many people pouring into that place. There was a mobilization overnight. Believe me.</p> <p class="Body">Well, when I enlisted in the service—I enlisted, I was never drafted—I enlisted in the Air Force. There was[sic] no openings. So I left Fort Thomas, Kentucky, and went to Atlantic City, New Jersey, for basic training. Well, when we got out there, of course the wartime conditions and everything—blackout at night and the whole story, everything was all window-curtains [inaudible] and the likes of it, no headlights and everything. Well, I left there and went out to Chanute Fields,<a title="">[3]</a> Illinois, and joined the Air Force. They had an opening, so I got transferred from the Third [United States] Army into the Air Force, which I had enlisted for to begin with. I wanted to get in the Air Force. So I went out there to Chanute Fields and went through tech school, graduated from tech school, and got assigned to a regular Air Force unit, and was with them for quite a while. And then, well, we stationed in California, and stationed in Texas, and stationed in New Mexico and quite a few places.</p> <p class="Body">And then, as the [World] War [II] progressed, they took our unit and broke it up into four units, and made air combat cargo units out of them. So what we done was to air-drop supplies, ammunition, and equipment to the troops that were on the ground. That was our main—we were a transfer. I’d say an airborne trucking outfit. But on our mission, whenever we took what we had there, if there was another outstanding hospital in the area, we went to that base and haul a load of wounded back. “Litter patients,” we used to call them. So, we’d take a load of supplies over wherever we were going, and bring a load of litter patients back to the next general hospital. And that was our total obligation. And I did that in China, Burma, and India.</p> <p class="Body">Now, when the war ended, we were flying into Chongqing[, China] when the war ended, from Myitkyina [West], North Burma. That was our last big U.S. air base in that part of the world. And when I say “big air base”—it was a grass, dirt strip with landing mats, but that was still—in that part of the world, that was a big air base. We flew [Douglas] C-47 [Skytrain]s, [Curtiss] C-46 [Commando]s, and [Douglas] C-54 [Skymaster]s. And when the—when the Japs—we had moved out of Myikyina and went down to Bhamo, Burma right at the war’s end.</p> <p class="Body">And we were flying in into Saigon[, Vietnam],<a title="">[4]</a> and when the war ended, then our orders—the way our orders were written that, at the war’s end, we will be dis—our organization, equipment, will be disbanded by the most expeditious means. And our colonel, who was Colonel Scannel[sp] [inaudible], was a 36-year-old [United States Military Academy at] West Point man and a full-command pilot. Now that’s a hard nut to crack. That’s as good as you can get in the Air Force. We were all sitting down at what they called the “bomb crater.” We had a movie that night. Just a big bombed-out hole in the ground. We was all sitting around. They suddenly flashed the lights on the camera, and he says, “Boys, it’s all over.” And it took about a minute for it to sink in—the fact that the war was over. And it was. And then two days later, we pulled out of there, loaded our planes, we went back down into Tasgaon, India. But when we left, all the tents, all the equipment, the toolboxes, everything that was left on that strip, was either given to the hill tribes or was destroyed in the fire. We closed the base up, and that’s the way we left.</p> <p class="Body">Now, one story that vividly sticks in my mind was at Myitkyina—that’s M-Y-I-T-K-I-N-A<a title="">[5]</a>—Myitkyina, North Burma. Before the war, it was a big town. Well, the Japanese, in order to go on their route from Japan—through China into India—that’s what their object was. They’d already just about taken over China, and they were into India pretty deep. Well, our object was to see that they didn’t get any further. We were kind of stopped dead [inaudible] in the middle. MARS Task Force and Merrill’s Marauders [inaudible] were the ground troops, and we’d get everything they had—ate, fed, shot, and whatever—we supplied them—air-dropped whatever to get to them. Well, one day, on the south end of our strip, was[sic] two fighter groups that supported us as air cover while we were flying and dropping supplies—the 82^nd and 93^rd fighter group. There was [North American Aviation] P-51 [Mustang]s and [Republic] P-47 [Thunderbolt]s. Now, most of these fighter planes, they were bombing down at the—in the Mekong valley [inaudible], and they were down around the bridge over the River Kwai.<a title="">[6]</a> That was one of their last bombing missions.</p> <p class="Body">Well, the line chief and I were standing alongside the strip, and we was[sic] watching it. They’d take off about five, six, seven planes at a time. They’d fly together as a group, low-altitude bombing on these targets, like roads and bridges and commercial buildings that was of value to Japanese. So, Master Sergeant Hinky [inaudible] and I were standing there with a hot—typical hot day—and we was watching these P-47s take off, one right after the other. Well, when a fighter plane’s carrying a thousand-pound bomb under the belly of it, they got a load. Well, they would start up there at the end of the strip, and they’d tow [inaudible] them. They were full-throttle. By the time they got halfway up the strip, they’d be just about off the ground. And at the end of the strip was rice paddies and jungle. Well, we watched these planes—one, two, three. And the third one coming down the line on all of a sudden, he went straight up in the air. And line chief said to me, said, “Well, look at that damn fool.” And I said, “Yeah, but look at there.” And a thousand-pound bomb had let go of the bottom of that plane, and here he was coming down the middle of the strip tail first—a thousand-pounder. So Hinky looked at me, and I looked at him, and I said, “We better duck.” And we went under the first thing that was there, and it was a big truck, and we went under it. Well, that bomb went right at the end of the strip, went right out in the rice paddy, and just settled down as nice-you-please and didn’t explode. It went “poof” right in the mud. We crawled out from the trunk and Hinky said to me, he said, “Damn, that was close.” I says[sic], “Too close.” And I said, “Yeah, but look where we were.” And we were underneath a tanker full of hundred-octane gasoline. Oh, boy. That was a nice experience to have. That was just one of the little things that happened throughout the war.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>When did you, what age were you signed up, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>My 21^st birthday. I was in combat.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. When did you, uh—but you said you signed—you enlisted prior to World War II, correct?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah. I was 18.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay. And did you enlist right after high school?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And, um…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Matter of fact, about—I went to trade school.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>That’s how I got my start to shops [inaudible]. I was going to trade school, and we had just finished. The way our school worked—it was called Dayton Cooperative High School. They had—well, all the instructors were professional people. They were professional in their trade. Well, the shops is what I was in basically, and of course, all of the instructors were master toolmakers. Well, when the war started, my class was just about ready. We went to school two weeks and worked two weeks. That’s the way co-op[erative] was set up. You had to carry a[sic] 80 average to go to school. If you didn’t maintain your class grades, as well as your shop grades, you got pulled out. You had to go to a regular school. You could no longer become a craftsman. You had to be interested and have a know-how to what you wanted to do. You had to want to know what you were doing. Well, at that time—that was in—oh, I think we graduated in December that year—and I went into the service September, just prior to that. And I’d say 90 percent of our class—males in our class—all went in about the same time. The whole class of ’41 just about all went in the military just about the same time. And I don’t think—of course, we lost track of all of them—but I don’t think after graduation—that year after graduation—it wasn’t more than a handful that even graduated after that because they all went in the service.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Was that very normal at the time, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yes. Very much so.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey <br /></strong>The patriotism was extremely high. They had—Japanese had submarines out off the East Coast, they had submarines off the West Coast. They were at our back door.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Hm. Okay, sir, and you said you served for five years?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Mmhm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And did you—was that when the war was over, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah. Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And you came…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>I was in the 1348^th air combat—air drop unit. And, when that—our orders were cut in North Africa before we left Algiers[, Algeria], when we was sent into the CBI (China-Burma-India] Theater, the general that wrote our orders for our outfit said that, “You will be there for the duration plus six months.” Now that’s just like a life sentence. How long will it last? You gotta be there, and six months more. But luckily, when it ended, we was gone out of there off of our former base in two days—three days at the most.</p> <p class="Body">We went what they called “down the valley” into India, then we stayed there to be “disoriented”—is what they called it—to be re-civilianized. We had to turn in our guns, and all of our grenades, and all of our fighting equipment, and try to be civilians. Well, that didn’t—took longer than that to do. But anyway, we stayed there, I’d say, for a period we was in Tasgaon, India—for about a month. And then we got on the [USS] <em>General</em> [<em>M. B.</em>] <em>Stewart</em> and came home. We came home first-class on a big general ship, which was a well-relief. We could have hot meals. You had a bed to sleep on. I mean, you wasn’t[sic] sleeping on the ground. I mean, we’re civilians now. Yeah. This is really living.</p> <p class="Body">Well, anyway, we got back into Camp Atterbury, Indiana, which was a discharge center. And the man in charge of the center—our whole outfit was there. We had 1,300 men and officers with our whole complete unit. All of our pilots were drafted civil pilots—Delta, Eastern, all of them were commercial pilots. They hated the military. Between them and us, the ground people, we got along fine, because we didn’t like it either. We got along great. Well anyway, when we got into Camp Atterbury, we got all the shots and all the rest of the stuff, and turned everything in, and got all the paperwork done, the commanding officer of that base had our commander, General Scannel—or Colonel Scannel—stand up, and he said, “Colonel,” he said, “we want to offer you people, your outfit, 1,380 men, all an increase in rank, one rank, with a one-year contract.” The Colonel says, “I would like to speak for our men, in behalf of them.” He said, “We have 1,500 hours, most of us, of combat flying.” He said, “We want to go home and stay there. It’s your baby. We quit.” And that’s the way it ended. There wasn’t one man re-enlisted. We had it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>You had your fill?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>We had it. Don’t want no part of it. But I’ll tell you still today—still today, there’s[sic] things at night flash through my mind of what we had done and what we did.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, thank you for your service.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>It sticks in your mind. At that time, and the way the elements, and the way everything was, you don’t forget things like that. No, I don’t care how old you get, you will not forget them. You try to, but there’s[sic] things that always come back, like things that got blew[sic] up, and things that got burnt out, and stuff. You don’t forget it. I don’t care what you do. I’d be down running lath, and sometime you remember that time or something like that.</p> <p class="Body">We changed an engine [inaudible], and we used to call him “Tokyo Joe.” There was a zero. He used to come over about two o’clock every afternoon, and he’d drop what they called cluster bombs. Small, little ones. Just enough to worry you. Well, one of them hits your tent—boy, you got a mess. Blow everything up. Tokyo Joe would come out every afternoon two o’clock, and he’d drop a few cluster bombs, and back over the mountains he’d go.</p> <p class="Body">Well finally, one day, we had a [Lockheed] P-38 [Lightning] group that was going into Saigon. And this one pilot, he said, “Well, you know,” he said, “I’m gonna get that S.B.” He said, “I can fly higher than he can.” So here come old Tokyo Joe over one afternoon right after chow, and we seen[sic] this boy fire that P-38 up and he went straight up in the air, and Tokyo Joe knew something was happening. He turned tail and started to run, and before he got over the base of the Chin Hills, he blew him out of the sky. That was the end of the Japs. That was the last time we had him.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>No more Tokyo Joe?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No more Tokyo Joe.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, what would you do with your afternoons after that, then, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Oh, we worked, we worked round the clock. We had them—our planes flew seven days a week, 24 hours a day.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. How long after you got back before you moved to Florida? How long did that take? Did you have to shovel snow for a winter?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. it wasn’t too long. A couple years. Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, I was just feeling things out to try to become a civilian again, and decide which way I wanted to go. I knew I wanted to be into metalwork, but I didn’t know how I wanted to approach it. I didn’t know exactly how I wanted to do it—how I wanted to really get things started. And then, as we got married, and we had a couple kids, and one thing another started, I said, “Well, I gotta get my own business going. That’s all there is to it.” I just can’t—I can’t work for somebody else, because he’s not only going to take the cream of the crop, and I’m going to do all the dirty work. I want to be in a position where I can do the dirty work, take the cream of the crop, and try to establish some new business. Try to build a new product. Try to do things.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Makes sense, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Without being a number in somebody’s shop. So that was the way it started, that’s the way Reg Co. came about.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. Can you tell me about your family?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Like who they are, how old, what year were they born?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Okay. Well, we got married in 1946. And Larry [Groskey]—Larry is the oldest one. He come along a year later. And Ronnie [Groskey] was the next son born, about a year or two later. Then the twins came along about two years later.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Two boys? Two girls?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Karen [Groskey] and Sharon [Groskey]. And then Rusty [Groskey] came along about a year after that, and then that was the end of our family. We had five children.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And what’s your wife’s name, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Mary Ann [Groskey].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay. And what are your children doing now?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, the oldest one, Larry, is up in De Leon Springs. He’s got a rat farm. He raises rats commercially. These people that have reptiles and all kinds of weird people—they—he’s got a steady stream. He’s got quite an operation going, many buildings full of these rats. And he sells them all over the world. Now, there’s that many kooks out there, but he’s got a real good business going.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Now, the other son, Ronnie—he’s got a drywall business. He does drywall work and painting. The girls—Sharon, my one daughter, is a schoolteacher over in Sanford. Karen is an expediter for Fed Ex downtown. And Rusty works in the shop with me.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay, sir. And, do you have a—how did you meet your wife?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Well, that was a long story too. At—we both worked at National Cash Register. When I came out of the service, I went to work for National Cash Register, because my dad had worked there all his life, her dad had worked there all his life. So it was just a simple matter of walking in, getting a job, because that was where you—if you decided to work there, you had a lifetime job. They didn’t hire people and fire them the next day. There was enough business in that company. It was self-sustaining. When they made National Cash Register, they went all over the world and there was boxcar loads of material coming in every day. It was its own entity. When you went to work there, you quit looking for a job, because if you couldn’t make it one department, they’d transfer you to another department. There was 38,000 people working in that building—in that factory. They could find something for you to do.</p> <p class="Body">They had a huge restaurant. So at noontime one day, the fellow that I was kind of running with at the time—he was a Navy man. We got along real good. He was running screw machines. So was I. So one day at noontime I said—well Friday, they always had fish fry, and boy, it was good fish. So Friday we’d go to the mess hall and eat lunch. Well, while we were sitting there eating lunch, Annie and her girlfriend—she worked up in Building 4. It was assembly—some kind of assembly job. Well anyway, her and her girlfriend was down there eating too. One of them had dropped a spoon on the floor. And I don’t know whether Mike picked it up or I did, but one of us picked it up, and we handed it to them, and we got to talking, and that’s how it started.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. Something as small as a…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>It was obscure as obscure can be. So I said to her, I said, “Yeah, my name’s Dick.” She said, “My name’s Ann.” And she said, “I work over in Building 4.” I said, “Well, we work in Building 27.” And we got to talking there for a few minutes, just at lunch period, and I said, “Well,” I says[sic], “where do you live?” She says, “I live out off of Smithville Road.” And I said, “Well, I live out in Walnut Hills”—both parts of east Dayton. And, I says, “Well, what are you gonna do Friday night?” She said, “I don’t know.” I said, “Well, you want to go bowling?” She said, “Sure.” I got her phone number, and that was it. We started going together. We got married, and she got laid off, because at NCR, you couldn’t have two people in the same family unless they were married, and once they got married, you couldn’t hire them. Two people can’t work there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>She got married. She got laid off. Well, that’s how it started. So we got married, she got laid off, and I went out, I bought a little piece of property, and I started building a house, and over a period of about two years, I got the house built, and we had all the children then. Well, most of the children then. And one thing led to another, and we outgrew that, and we went out in the country, and I bought five acres and built a house out there, and when all the children were in school, that’s when we came to Florida.</p> <p class="Body">Things got real bad up there, up there in the ‘50s. You couldn’t buy a job. It got the same way here, except it was localized. And I went to Indiana, went to Kentucky, I went all over. There was[sic] no jobs. Nobody was hiring. So I said, “Okay.” I said, “We’re not shoveling more snow.” I said, “We’re loading up and we’re leaving.” So I hired a local trucker. I said, “Now, I want you to move my shop.” We took just the prime equipment out of there, just enough to know we could make a living. Drills and saws, a couple laths, and one thing another. Everything else, had a public sale. Sold the house, the farm, everything. We got in the truck and we moved, come to Florida. Been here ever since.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Had a lot of reasons to come to Florida.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>Yep. And like I say, when I went to work at Trade Tool Engraving, we’ve never gone out of a job since. I went back to the motel in Titusville, I said, “I wanna pack a sandwich and a couple apples or something.” I said, “I’m going to work tonight.” She says, “You’re doing what?” I said, “I got a job over in Orlando.” She says, “You kidding me?” I says, “No. here’s the paper.” And looked at it, and she said, “Well, I’ll be damned.” Been working ever since.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, there you go, sir. Do you feel like there’s anything we haven’t talked about that you’d like to talk about?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>No. We’re just about as plain as you can get. Everybody in this part of the world knows us and knows what we do. We’ve got a reputation for doing a good job quick at a fair price. We—I don’t think we’ve had more than one or two disgruntled people that needed something done, and that was the fact that they were the type of people that nobody could satisfy. They have never come back, and I’m glad of it. Now, as you see, we have no advertisement whatsoever, yet we’re busy all the time. That speaks for itself. We do good work on time at a good price. And people always come back.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>The ones you want to come back [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>And they will tell somebody else. I always give them a business card. I said, “Now, your neighbor wants something done, here it is.” That’s the only advertisement we got.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. Well, thank you, sir, for taking the time out today.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Groskey<br /></strong>I’ll show you one of my cards here. Yeah. There you got them right there.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Florida State Road 50.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), also known as Canadarm 1.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Chanute Air Force Base (AFB).</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Present-day Ho Chi Minh City.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Correction: Myitkyina.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Khwae Yai River.</p> </div> </div> Altamonte Springs Atlantic City, New Jersey auctioneering Bithlo Brookville, Ohio Canadarm 1 CBI Theater China-Burma-India Theater contractors D. M. Dennett Auctioneering Dave Shaw Dayton Cooperative High School Dayton, Ohio Dick Groskey Don M. Dennett Florida State Road 50 Fort Knox, Kentucky Fort Thomas, Kentucky Historical Society of Central Florida Japan Japanese Joseph Morris Karen Groskey Larry Groskey Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project little patients Martin Marietta Corporation Merris Walker metalworking Miami Morris, Joseph Museum of Seminole County History Myitkyina West Myitkyina, Myanmar NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Cash Register orlando Orlando Naval Training Center Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Reg Company Ronnie Groskey Rusty Groskey Sharon Groskey Shuttle Remote Manipulator System Springfield, Ohio SR 50 SRMS tax taxes Tokyo Joe tourism Trade Tool Engraving U.S. 1 U.S. 17-92 U.S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Navy U.S. Route 1 U.S. Route 17-92 USS General M. B. Stewart veterans Walnut Hills World War II WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/7186274496a92a2c204a62c071c1ef36.pdf 8d96ba9401b0d6568c989b5224e5087e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection Alternative Title Creative Sanford Collection Subject Seminole County (Fla.) Folk plays Sanford (Fla.) Description <span>Creative Sanford, Inc. is a non-profit organization created to manage <em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em> community theater productions. The original idea for the Celery Soup project came from Jeanine Taylor, the owner of a folk-art gallery on First Street in Sanford, Florida. Their first production was </span><em>Touch and Go</em><span>, a play focusing on the people of Sanford and their determination to overcome various obstacles, including the Freeze of 1894-1895, the fall of Sanford's celery industry, and the closing of Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford in the 1960s. In the process of producing the show, Creative Sanford decided to rehabilitate an historic building, the Princess Theater, which is located on 115 West First Street and owned by Stephen Tibstra. The Creative Sanford offices are housed in the Historic Sanford Welcome Center, located at 203 East First Street.</span> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Historic Sanford Welcome Center, Downtown Sanford, Florida Princess Theater, Downtown Sanford, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">WHO IS CREATIVE SANFORD, INC?</a>" Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about. <span>"<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/" target="_blank">About: History and Purpose</a>." Celery Soup. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/about/.</span> "<a href="http://www.communityperformanceinternational.org/sanford-florida" target="_blank">Sanford, Florida: How do you make Celery Soup? Add stories, then stir</a>." Community Performance International. http://www.communityperformanceinternational.org/sanford-florida. Contributor <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Thompson, Trish Interviewee Harkey, Dick Quentin Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Dick Quentin Harkey Alternative Title Oral History, Harkey Subject Ft. Lauderdale (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Theme parks West Palm Beach (Fla.) Republican Party--United States Insurance--Florida Railroads--Florida Sanford (Fla.) Description An oral history of Dick Quentin Harkey (b. 1942). In 1942, Harkey was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the fifth child in his family. In 1957, his family moved to Gainesville, Georgia. Harkey attended Young Harris College and the University of Georgia, graduating with a degree in psychology. He worked first for Great American Insurance in the Claims Department and married a woman that he met at the University of Georgia. After living in Atlanta, Georgia, for some time, Harkey was transferred to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1967. He moved back to Atlanta for a couple of years after getting divorced, but later transferred to Orlando, on March 25, 1971. Harkey met a schoolteacher, Cheryl Harkey, through the Young Republicans in April 1973. The couple married in December and had their daughter, Marianne Harkey, on February 11, 1978. After working for Great American Insurance, Harkey went to work with IMA and then later for CNA Financial. In this oral history, Harkey discusses the story of how his family came from North Carolina, stories about when he worked for Channel Nine, and stories about his time as a lawyer for insurance policies. He was active within the Republican Party and discusses the political and economic implications of the SunRail for Sanford and the surrounding areas. He also speaks briefly about racial tensions. Type Text Source Harkey, Dick Quentin. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. 2009. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Format Of Digital transcript of original oral history: Harkey, Dick Quentin. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. 2009. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida. Coverage Charlotte, North Carolina Atlanta, Georgia Fort Lauderdale, Florida Orlando, Florida Magic Kingdom Park, Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, Florida West Palm Beach, Florida Sanford, Florida Florida Hospital Health Village, Orlando, Florida Creator Harkey, Dick Quentin Thompson, Trish Contributor Román-Toro, Freddie Date Created 2009 Format application/pdf Extent 184 KB Medium 17-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Economics Teacher Provenance Originally created by Trish Thompson and Dick Quentin Harkey. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a> <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a> Curator Román-Toro, Freddie Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Celery Soup</a>." <em>Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play</em>. http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/. "<a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com/" target="_blank">Florida Federation of Young Republicans</a>." Florida Federation of Young Republicans. http://www.ffyr.org/. "<a href="http://rpof.org/" target="_blank">Republican Party of Florida</a>." Republican Party of Florida. http://rpof.org/. Taylor, Tate, et al. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/748435864" target="_blank"><em>The Help</em></a>. Burbank, Calif: Touchstone Home Entertainment, 2011. Transcript <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Tell me about where you’re from—where you were raised.</p> <p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, I was born in North Carolina—Charlotte—and I’m the youngest of five, and my middle name is Quentin. The reason my mother named me Quentin is because, in Latin, “Quentin” means “the fifth.” That’s how I got my middle name.</p> <p>My father was a regional sales manager for a big national food company. my mother was a social worker. When I was 15, my father got transferred to Gainesville, Georgia, so we moved there. It’s about 50 miles north of Atlanta[, Georgia]. My first year, I went to Young Harris [College] and then I transferred to the University of Georgia. In fact, the senator from Georgia was a professor there. I got my degree in psychology. and after, I went to Atlanta and walked the streets trying to find a job.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Where’d you end up?</p> <p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>You get discouraged. And I finally went to one of these personnel agencies, and this guy had a connection with insurance companies, and I ended up getting a job with Great American Insurance [Group] in the Claims Department. I went to work for them as their trainee, and they had a class in New York City[, New York], at their home office at 99 John Street, so I went up for that. There were about 15 of us, and I ended up being number one in the class. They decided to transfer me to Fort Lauderdale. This must have been in the summer of [19]67.</p> <p>And while I was at the University of Georgia, I met a young lady and got married and she was from [inaudible] Georgia. We moved to Atlanta, and we rented a place on Peace Tree Hills Road. And our real estate agent was Johnny Isaacson, and now he’s the Senator from Georgia. Actually, I was in [Washington,] D.C., and taking a tour of the White House, and I ran into him. And he says I still own that house—the one on Peace Tree Hills.</p> <p>I moved to Fort Lauderdale and was there for a couple of years. Unfortunately, I got divorced, moved back to Atlanta, and was there for a couple of years, and said, “I want to go back to Florida.” I transferred back to Orlando in ’71, and I’ve been here ever since.</p> <p>One of the interesting claims I handled was when the tower for [WFTV] Channel 9 collapsed in [inaudible]. I found out that they were going to install a cable for [WMFE-TV] Channel 24, and apparently they took out a cross member at the lower level of the tower. and in doing so, they caused it to collapse. It killed three or four people. I remember taking a statement from a farmer. He was out farming on his tractor and saw the thing come down—sort of telescope down—and it went so far and it fell over like a tree. But you had these [inaudible] wires that had been holding it up, and they were the size of a man’s leg. They were pulled out of the ground and several of the people working out there were pushed into the ground when it hit the building. Channel 9 was off the air for about three days, and then they brought in a temporary tower to get them back up and running. That ended up being a very expensive loss for—I was working for IMA at that time.</p> <p>Over the years, you have very interesting cases—when I was in Fort Lauderdale. Once this couple was from Michigan, and they had a [inaudible] where they had their horses. And then they were going to build a place in Fort Lauderdale around [inaudible] Mile, and they had rented an apartment while their house was being built, and it was on the second floor of this apartment house. It was around Christmastime, and she had gone to the bank to get her jewels [inaudible] out of the vault. Apparently, these guys were following her. On this particular evening, her 13-year-old son went downstairs and opened the door to get a drink out of the Coke machine. They were watching, so they came in, went upstairs, and said, “We want your furs and diamonds.” They said, “What are you talking about?” And they said, “Don’t give us any lip.” and they started pistol-whipping her with the gun. They said, “Our son’s coming back. please don’t shoot him.” Anyway, she looked like Natalie Wood and he looked like Sebastian Cabot. All we had was a [inaudible] homeowner’s policy. And when I was taking their statements, he had these gold coins from Rome[, Italy] he had converted into cufflinks, and she had a $50,000 diamond ring. And this was back in 1967. and these furs—the most we could pay was $10,000, but I took the statement from the husband outside of the [City of] Fort Lauderdale Police Department in her Rolls-Royce, and she had her initials on the side “SAS.” They hired a bodyguard to protect them and [inaudible] said, “Hey, what’s going on here?” She went in with the bodyguard to look at mug shots while I took the statement from the husband. That made the newspapers.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did they ever find the guy?</p> <p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>I don’t remember. It was two or three guys.</p> <p>I had another case where this couple was from Vancouver[, Canada]. And they’d come down to Fort Lauderdale in the winter, and they had a place right on the Intracoastal. They were about six floors up. and they put in a claim, because their jewels, watches, and wallet had been stolen one night. We came to find out that one of these cat burglars had come across the Intracoastal, and had a grappling hook and pulled himself up to the first balcony. And here you are—if you’re overlooking the Intracoastal, you don’t think about locking your sliding glass door. Basically, what he did was go from one condo[minium] to the next all the way to the top. Apparently, he had some kind of aerosol spray, because when they woke up they felt nauseated. He sprayed something to sedate them so they wouldn’t wake up. All he took was the watches, diamonds, and jewels. And when he got to the top, he left with his gunny sack full of goodies. He had some accomplice waiting for him waiting on the street.</p> <p>I had a case where this woman had been an actress on Broadway from about 1910 to about 1920 or ’25, and she had been a friend of Fannie [inaudible]. She was telling me the story of how Nicky Bernstein beat her up. And she told me the story about how her husband was a rich furrier[?] in New York City. And when the [Wall Street] Crash [of 1929] happened, he had such a loss that he went to commit suicide. He tried to do that in New York City, and he jumped off the building. And I forgot how many stories she said it was, but he hit the canvas canopy and slid off. And the doorman went to help him, and he said, “No. don’t help me.” It didn’t kill him. And she said he went to Chicago[, Illinois] and found a taller building and did himself in.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I shouldn’t be laughing, but you’d think he would realize that God had a different plan for him when he jumped off a building and didn’t die.</p> <p>Tell me—I want to hear stories about you when you were young. Stories about Central Florida and what you remember of how things have changed.</p> <p><strong>Harkey<br /></strong>Well, I moved here March 25^th, 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^th 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^th 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^th 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/80f3e607d88a320d64598c3e159524e3.pdf b4e544691632fb7971ca4d0e461cc58a 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 Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection Alternative Title Lone Sailor Collection Subject Veterans--Florida Orlando (Fla.) United States. Navy Navy Sailors--United States Description Collection of digital images and oral histories related to the former Recruit Training Center Orlando (RTC Orlando) for the United States Navy. The training center transformed raw recruits into highly effective sailors. This process took place over an intensive eight-week training period, commonly referred to as "boot camp." RTC Orlando occupied roughly one half of the former Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando), which was located at present day Baldwin Park, Orlando, Florida. Between 1968 and 1994, over 650,000 men and women graduated from RTC Orlando. Contributor <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/ "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Weeks, Andrew Glen Interviewee McClendon, Doris Location <a href="http://www.ucf.edu" target="_blank">University of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida Original Format 1 DVD/MP4 audio/video recording Duration 56 minutes and 48 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 1200kbps 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 Doris McClendon Alternative Title Oral History, McClendon Subject Orlando (Fla.) Legalmen (United States Navy) Miami (Fla.) Homestead (Fla.) Jacksonville (Fla.) Navy Veterans--Florida Description An oral history of Doris McClendon, a former member of the U.S. Navy. This interview was conducted by Andrew Glen Weeks at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, Florida, on April 11, 2014. The interview was conducted as part of the UCF Community Veteran's History Project (CVHP) and background research for a memorial honoring the for Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando).<br /><br />McClendon attended recruit training at the NTC Orlando in 1976. At that time, the training center was the only naval facility to train both male and female recruits. In this oral history, McClendon describes her experience as a female recruit at NTC Orlando. She also talks about her role as a legalmen in the Navy. McClendon left the Navy in 1995 with the rank of E-7. Table Of Contents 0:00:26 Biographical information<br />0:02:00 Decision to join the navy<br />0:07:59 First impressions of basic training<br />0:14:10 Family life in the Navy<br />0:18:24 Recruit training at NTC Orlando<br />0:26:03 Having children in the Navy<br />0:27:40 Memories of boot camp<br />0:30:10 Assignments following graduation<br />0:36:27 Fondest memories of the Navy<br />0:48:35 Legacy of NTC Orlando Abstract Oral history interview of Doris McClendon. Interview conducted by Andrew Glen Weeks at the <a href="http://www.ucf.edu" target="_blank">University of Central Florida</a> in Orlando, Florida. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/280/rec/1" target="_blank">McClendon, Doris</a>. Interviewed by Andrew Glen Weeks. UCF Community Veterans History Project. April 11, 2014. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Community Veterans History Project (CVHP)</a>, Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/vets/. Coverage Pine Villa Elementary School, Miami, Florida Mays Junior High School, Goulds, Florida South Dade Senior High School, Homestead, Florida Naval Training Center Orlando, Orlando, Florida Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida Pearl Harbor, Hawaii USS Arizona Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii Jacksonville, Florida Newport, Rhode Island Norfolk, Virginia Blue Lagoon, Iceland Naval Air Station Keflavik, Keflavik, Iceland Germany Creator Weeks, Andrew Glen McClendon, Doris "Dee" Publisher <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries Contributor <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-04-11 Date Copyrighted 2014-04-11 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 528 MB 183 KB Medium 56-minute and 48-second DVD/MP4 audio/video recording 21-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance <p>Originally created by Andrew Glen Weeks and Doris McClendon, and published by the University of Central Florida Libraries <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>.</p> Rights Holder All rights are held by the respective holding institution. This material is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. For permission to reproduce and/or for copyright information contact <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries, (407) 823-2576. http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Barnes, Mark Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalCollections/" target="_blank">UCF Digital Collections</a> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">University of Central Florida, Special Collections and University Archives</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Navy Memorial of Central Florida. http://www.lonesailorfl.com/. "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. Ebbert, Jean, Marie-Beth Hall, and Edward L. Beach. <em><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41090799" target="_blank">Crossed Currents: Navy Women in a Century of Change</a></em>. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1999. Godson, Susan H. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/46791080" target="_blank"><em>Serving Proudly: A History of Women in the U.S. Navy</em></a>. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Rajtar, Steve. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70911136" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/280/rec/1" target="_blank">Oral History of Doris McClendon</a> Has Format Digital transcript of original 56-minute and 48-second oral history: <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/280/rec/1" target="_blank">McClendon, Doris</a>. Interviewed by Andrew Glen Weeks. UCF Community Veterans History Project. April 11, 2014. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Transcript <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Alright. Today is April 11th, 2014. I am interviewing Doris [“Dee”] McClendon who served in the U. S. Navy. We are interviewing Mrs. McClendon as part of the UCF [University of Central Florida] Community Veterans’ History Project and as research for the creation of the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. We are recording this interview at UCF. Will you please start off by telling us where you were born?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I was born in Miami, Florida, Andrew.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>And what year was that?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I was born in 1958.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>What did your parents do for a living?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>My dad was a laborer and my mom didn’t work so she was kind of like a stay at home mom. She did kind of odd and in things. Clean houses or you know [inaudible]. It was kind of like a—I guess you would say like a cleaning lady type of thing—but yeah. As far as a full-time job, no, she didn’t work. She stayed at home.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Do you have any siblings?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Yes. three brothers and three sisters. I am the second oldest of seven children. There are six of us now. I have a sister that passed away in 2009.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>And where did you go to school?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I went to school. Elementary school—Pine Villa Elementary School. I went to Mays Junior High School and South Dade Senior High School. All in Miami, Florida.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Did you do anything in between school and joining the Navy?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Just a summer job I worked. Obviously I was a full-time student and then for the summer, I would do odds and in things. Summer jobs, [inaudible] type of things, but my first real job was of course the military.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>And when was that?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>In [19]76.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>‘76. Why did you choose the Navy specifically?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I chose the Navy, because—and I’ll tell you the story of how I actually joined the military and I’ll never forget it. We were—I was at a high school pep rally. We actually had a Navy recruiter come to the pep rally and of course a recruiter’s job is to recruit. So he came and we were all sitting there and kind of just talking—all the kids and stuff—and he actually just walked across the stage to the podium and there was something about him that really struck me. I liked the way he presented himself. I loved the uniform. The ribbons stood out and he was selling and I bought it. I was really impressed. Of course, obviously—and I guess by the same token, it could have been the [United States] Army. But there was something about him and at that point I made the decision then to join the military. Of course, my parents supported that and that’s really how I got there.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Do you have any other family members in the service?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Yes. My brother, Michael. United States Army. My son actually is [in the] United States Army and my daughter is [in the] United States Air Force, and of course my husband United States Navy.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>All around. So, I take it your family was pretty supportive.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Absolutely. Absolutely, they were. And actually, my plan was, after I graduated high school—South Dade Senior High—my plan was to go to the University of Miami. That’s where I was actually slated to go, but that recruiter really changed my mind. I remember after his spiel, I went up to talk to him and said, “You know what? If I didn’t have plans to go to college, I would join the Navy.” And he says[sic], “Well, you have the best of both worlds. You can still do the military and still get your college degree.” And I said, “Wow. The best of both worlds.” And he said, “How would you like to go to college in Hawaii or wherever the military may send you?”</p> <p>And I tell you what, it really came full circle. My very first assignment after basic training was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I know. Everything just fell in place. It was meant to be. Best decision. Best decision I ever made. I ever made. So—and of course, I was still able to go to school. I worked. And of course, when military didn’t call, when I didn’t have duties or assignments there, I would go to school at night. I did have the best of both worlds.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Where did you attend basic training?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Basic training was right here at Recruit Training Command in Orlando, Florida.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>And what were you trained to do for your career in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I made it known in the beginning, because I was always was fascinated with law. I grew up watching Perry Mason. So I grew up in shows about law and order and jag. All this stuff really fascinated me. So my plan was to go to college, get a college degree, and go to law school. So that was my plan. But since my plan was changed, I went into the military. Of course, I went in without a college degree so I started as an E[nlisted Rank]-1, but I made it known—my very first assignment—I made it known that that’s what I wanted to do after basic training and then what I did was—when I enlisted—I enlisted with guaranteed school. So I just made it known early on that that’s what I wanted.</p> <p>It was actually after basic training—of course I went to administrative school, because you have to start there—but from there, I went to my very first assignment. Made it known that I wanted to be a paralegal or the military—they’re called legalmen. I was sent to school there. After school, that’s the career I followed and to this day, I am still doing the same thing, although retired from the military. I’m at the courthouse and I’m doing the exact same thing. Working on the second retirement so to speak.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Did you have any experiences here in Orlando before you came for training?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>No. Did I have any experiences in Orlando before I came? No. But you know what? Growing up in my household, obviously chores was[sic] not unique to me. Getting up in the morning and making my bed— that was a requirement in my household. Washing dishes, mopping the floor, all of that, none of that.</p> <p>And of course, coming from Florida, the weather didn’t bother me, because—I know to some of the recruits, especially coming from cold climates, to come to Florida in the heat, none of that bothered me. I didn’t have any problems with recruit training. Didn’t have any problems taking orders or any of that. And that was instilled just as a child.</p> <p>My parents, you know—they were parents. We were just taught early on to do what you’re told. Be respectful. You don’t work, you don’t eat. Obviously those types of things. Again, chores were not foreign to me. So in the military, first thing you did when you get up, you get that bunk made up and those corners better be tight. Obviously, they had to teach me how to make the corners tight. But making up my bed, I was used to doing that. To this day, I get up out of the bed, first thing I do. I made it up. It’s just instilled in me. Wonderful experience, the military was.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Tell me about your first impression arriving at training.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>My first impression of course—it was very scary. It was very scary, because here I am— I’m not under my parents’ roof. I’m under Uncle Sam’s roof. And I get off the bus, and oh my gosh—company commanders. They were just that. Company Commanders.</p> <p>So it was a scary situation, because I arrived here, it was late, late, late in the evening and I guess just the fear of the unknown. I was scared. I was scared. But at the end of the day when it all washed up, it was all for nothing. It was all for nothing. Then, of course, lonely. Here I am, I left my mom and dad back in Miami, all my sisters and brothers. Now I’m on this bus. I just got on this bus and there’s[sic] 80 women. We’re all scared. You could tell we’re all scared. Some of them crying, some of them not. But it really worked out. It worked out. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>What were your primary responsibilities?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>At basic training?</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Do whatever they say do. That was my primary responsibility. And of course, obviously it was very structured. We had PT—physical fitness. We had studies. So we had training time physically and we had training time mentally. So we were taught what the standing orders were. We were taught the chain of command structure. So we were taught all of that and that’s the purpose of it to prepare you for the fleet. To prepare you to walk outside the gate and be prepared to defend your country, but all along, obviously it’s a learning process.</p> <p>You don’t learn everything in basic training. You don’t learn everything. So because basic training was six and a half to eight weeks. There is no way you’re going to learn about any military in six to eight weeks, but it was all a learning process. It’s just like with your job. You’re not going to start a job, and in six weeks, know everything there is to know. I guess some people may do that, but I didn’t pick up that quick. But it was a learning process but you’re equipped with the basics for sure.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>What was your impression of other recruits?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>You know what, Andrew? At first, I would look at them and my heart would go out to a lot of them, but we were all in the same boat. We were all scared. We all didn’t know what was going to happen. Of course, my recruiter prepared me. My recruiter didn’t tell me that, “Okay, Dee. When you get off the bus, there will be a red carpet there and they’re going to walk you down the carpet. They’re gonna lead you to the…” So my recruiter didn’t tell me that. I was prepared to be broken down individually and be raised up with the team, with the unit.</p> <p>So when I got off that bus, it was all about Dee, but when I left, I wasn’t that way. It was about that person in that bunk next to me who would probably have to defend my back one day. So it was all about that. So I realized the purpose was to break you down individually so it’s not about self. A lot of soldiers and sailors are depending on you to know your job and they’re depending on you. You know, as far as support goes. So I did take a look at a lot of the recruits and we were all scared but, by the end of that basic training, who would have known? Who would have known? Yeah and a lot of those—we’re best friends today. A lot of those contacts, I still have them in my address book and we’re very good friends to this day. We just kept in contact.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Wow. Was there any kind of social life on base then?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Yes. There was. Now, in basic training, there was no social life. You didn’t have any time for anything. So, no. No social life in basic training, because it was all about preparation, preparation, preparation. You lived for mail call—to get a letter from home. You lived for that. But no there was no social life whatsoever. That didn’t begin.</p> <p>Actually for me, there was no social life actually as I got more acclimated and knowing my duties. Of course, every duty station was a different assignment. It was a different location, different people, different bosses, different staff, but eventually, as you get more comfortable—I started to get more comfortable as years progressed, of course. After basic training, my very first duty station as an E-1. I made number one and I’m looking at my boss who has all these stripes on his arm. I’m scared half to death. I’m scared half to death. But all of that was for nothing. Met the best people and the support that you get is just—I can’t even begin to explain it.</p> <p>But yeah. social life didn’t begin until after I had had some years under my belt, because I spent all my time studying, because my goal was—and I knew in basic training that I was going to retire. I just knew it and my goal was, <em>Dee, while you’re here, we should make this work for you. You wanted to go to school. You’re gonna go to school.</em> And I was able to do everything. All my goals. I was able to do everything that I had on my list. I knew I was gonna retire day one. I was scared to death, but I knew. I woke up that next morning and said, you know what, I’ll be here for 20 years. I will.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Mmhmm. I was just that comfortable with that. I’ve never regretted the decision. I’ve never woken up and said, <em>Oh my gosh. Why did I do this?</em></p> <p>And there have been times where, you know, I’ve had to leave my kids and when what I was saying—I was just so fortunate that—I mean, I eventually married the love of my life who’s also in the military. And back then, we were just fortunate enough that we were never ever away at the same time. So it was always one of us home. Either he was TAD—temporary additional duty—or I was. It just worked out that we were never gone at the same time. I know it’s not like that anymore, but it was when I was there. We were just blessed and fortunate that there was always one of us there, because eventually—my kids who are now in the military.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>When did you meet your husband?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I met my husband in ‘78. And I met my husband at the very first duty station, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I was in Hawaii. Met him in Hawaii and it’s what? Thirty something years later?</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Did you know?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>No. No. [<em>laughs</em>] No. No. No, I didn’t know that. I was saying—no. I didn’t know that. But anyway—but yeah I met him and we’ve been together ever since. That I didn’t know. But, yeah everything was further down. I’ve been truly blessed.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Tell me what your instructors were like during basic training.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>We had, of course—I had female instructors, but we trained together. We trained—I was in an integrated company so males and females—we trained together. Although their job was to be rough and tough, which they fulfilled. And I think they went a little overboard, which they fulfilled, but of course their job wasn’t for me to like them. wasn’t for any of us to like them. Their job was to give us orders and for us to make sure that we carry them around and they are the ones that prepared me. That’s the only contact that you have—your company commander.</p> <p>So a lot of responsibilities are placed on that person and their job is to prepare you for the fleet. Obviously, when we screwed up—you betcha. But when once a person screwed up, “Oh, it wasn’t Dee.” It wasn’t one person screwin’ up. It was the entire company. If one failed, you all failed. So, no. It’s not one person, it’s the company. So it behooved you to get it right or, if you messed it up the first time, trust me, you won’t make that same mistake again. You won’t make that same mistake again. It was never one person and my company commanders.</p> <p>And of course, at the time I would say no. I didn’t like them. Didn’t care for them. Of course, obviously, orders were barked at you. That didn’t bother me, because I told you, my household—my parents didn’t, as they say, play the radio. But I realized early on what the big plan was. I realized early on what the goal was. what their job was. I never took any of it personally, because you could—oh my gosh—because again, and I say I think the purpose was to tear you down individually so you’re not thinking about yourself and you’ll get back up as a unit. There were 80 females in my unit. Can you imagine what we all thought of ourselves? On my gosh. Can you imagine that would have been? Mmm mmm. Before it was over, I thought of my shipmates. I put them first even before me. I’ll tell you what. We got there, we would eye each other and kind of size each other up. On day one, you’re talking about some crying. When that was over, when basic training was over and we each parted our ways, some of us met again in another place. Some of them, I’ve never seen since, but I always remembered them</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>What was a basic day like?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>A basic day was like—obviously we would have—we would get up early in the morning., and when I say early, I’m talkin’ four o’clock. It would be like four o’clock in the morning to get up, because obviously we have to be prepared and be standing at attention in line ready for inspection when our company commanders got there. So you figure that’s a company of 80 girls. So we all got in, got showered, got to change. When they say “military showered” —got to change. When they say “military showers”—two-three minutes. Because there’s[sic] 80 girls that got to get in and get ready. And then get ready, stand in line. If we know the company commander’s gonna be there at eight o’clock , you best be there standing in that line in front of your bunk ready for personal inspection. Ready for your bunk inspection and that was first thing in the morning.</p> <p>Obviously everyday consisted of PT [physical fitness] on the grinder, which they called “the field. “Every morning consisted of calisthenics PT. After PT, there would be breakfast and it just depends on which week we were in, because—believe it or not—there was week one. There was a schedule. Week one, week two, three, four. Of course, obviously, early on, we would see company commanders on the weekend, but as you got more—as the weeks went by, you would start to see them less and less, because then at that point, we didn’t need them as much as we did in the beginning.</p> <p>But of course, weekends—normally Saturdays—we would have to ourselves. Later on, not in the beginning—Sundays—it was up to you. There was[sic] church services. You could pick what church service you want to go to. Go to church services. I think everybody went to church. Everybody would be there. We’d would be huggin’ and cryin’ and—“Lord, when is this gonna be over? When is this gonna be over?” And then, what I loved about it is the company that sat in front, that was your last week. So your goal was to make it to the very front of that church, because you know that that’s the company that’s gonna be graduating that weekend. So that was your last week.</p> <p>And so there was a schedule and company commanders set a schedule—week one through week eight. But it was definitely calisthenics every day. Definitely there were studies every day. Then of course, we did have time for ourselves. Not a lot. Not a lot in the beginning, but like I said, you live to get that letter from home. We had time to write letters and then normally that would be on your downtime. And again, in the beginning, there wasn’t a lot of downtime, because the object is to get that mind trained while it’s fresh. But toward the end, there was a lot of downtime.</p> <p>As you got closer to graduating, you would have a weekend where you could do whatever you want. I remember going to [Walt] Disney [World] and all of that. I wish I had been to Disney before, because I was born and raised in Florida—in Miami. So I had gone to Universal [Studios Orlando]. I had gone to Disney. And actually, we did that on our senior trip—on our senior trip in high school. By the time you get to week five, you’re—oh, like it’s pretty much downhill now. <em>Oh, I got this. I got this. Yeah.</em> You know how you’re doing academically and obviously you have to pass tests.</p> <p>And even today, there’s physical fitness tests. You gotta be—I’m not sure what the standards are now. It’s your different age group. Obviously a 19-year-old should be able to run a mile in less time than a 40-year-old so depending on your age, the standards were different, but there is a physical fitness standard in the military. All branches. You gotta be physically fit. I mean, you know, you can’t be tryin’ to get up a hill carrying whatever you need to carry and be all out of breath. That’s not gonna work. So, that’s not gonna work. Even today, you gotta look sharp in that uniform.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Was it difficult for you at all?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>No?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Not at all. No. I had no problem with the physical fitness portion. Now, I will admit I wasn’t used to getting up at three-four o’clock in the morning going out there doing—on the grinder doing military sit-ups and mountain climbers and all of that. So I wasn’t used to doing that, but you conform. But no, it wasn’t a problem. No. It wasn’t a problem, because I was very—even in high school—I was very athletic and so that didn’t bother me. None of that did.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>You mention that you lived for the letters—letter day.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Oh, letter day. yes.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Who would you write letters to and who would you get letters from?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I’d get letters of course from my parents, my sisters and brothers. “Oh, I miss you guys. I miss you.” And I’m like, “Well, you weren’t telling me that when I was there.” Then of course, I was the oldest girl. My siblings looked up to me. I had one brother older than I am, but I think there is something special about being the oldest daughter. Of course, when I left—and I say even my baby brother—I just think, <em>Oh my gosh.</em> I think he thought I was his mom for a little while, because he’s a lot younger than I am. But it was like, “Oh my gosh. Our sister is gone.” That was the first time that family was detached.</p> <p>So I was the first one to leave home. And I’ll tell you what, when that recruiter came to pick me up to take me to the train station, and—from my parents’ house to the end of the walkway to the car was his car—the recruiting car—that was the longest step. Oh my gosh. I thought I would never—and maybe I was just walking real slow[sic]. I don’t know what it was. I said that was the longest driveway. I just looked at the car like I was gonna never get there. And obviously I know it was all mentally now. Just the fear of—was all ready to go, ready to go, ready to go. But when the day actually came—because I looked back, my mom was crying. I said I can’t look back, because if she’s crying, she’s gonna start me. Because obviously, I was going to miss my family. That’s with anything. That’s with anything. Even if I had gone off to college, I would have still had the same feeling, because I’m gonna miss them. I’m gonna miss them. I didn’t tell my siblings that often, but yeah. I was gonna miss them.</p> <p>But yeah. We lived for letter day. We had time to write letters so I would just catch up, see how things were going, and we would just do it through letters. There were opportunities that we would do phone calls and when I went in—I mean, I was able to call my parents. I don’t know whether it’s like that anymore, but I was able to call just to let them know—do what we call a “well visit” or a “well phone call” or whatever they call it today, just to let your loved ones know that you made it safely and you’re here. And to tell them that, “Okay. now just so you know, don’t be expecting letters every day. Don’t be expecting phone calls, because we’re here now and I just wanted to let you know that we are safe and we made it safely. Now, the fun begins.” So yeah.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>But anyways—and I am hopeful they still do that, but I don’t know. Well, yeah. Because I know my son called me. My son—my older son grew up and went into the Army. It was a couple days later, but he did call me to let me know that he was there. So I understood all of that, because I lived it. Because I know one of the questions—a friend of mine—“Oh my gosh. Your children are going into the military. How can you stand it? Oh my gosh. You’re gonna let him go?” And I say, “Well, it’s going to be his decision just like it was mine. My parents supported me and I’m going to support him.” I mean I lived it so I know.</p> <p>When my daughter, who is stationed in San Antonio, Texas—United States Air Force—when she calls, I can relate. You know, my son, who is in the Army stationed in Germany—I can relate. Me and my husband—we can relate, because we’ve lived it. I supported their decision. Didn’t realize they were going in the military though. Being raised in the military though. Being raised in the military, I thought, <em>Oh my gosh. That’s they last thing that they would do.</em> But they went in. Out of three children, two of them went into the military.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>You mentioned the grinder earlier. Tell me about the grinder.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Alright. the grinder is just a field. Imagine—all it is—that’s what they call it in the military. The grinder is just a—it’s similar to—just imagine a basketball court with no goals. All it is just a slate of concrete. It’s all mapped out, because a lot of the time you’re doing different exercises on there but the grinder—you do your calisthenics on there. As you start getting closer to graduation, you do your formations on there. You have to practice different formations. It’s really big. Each company—you could have—oh my gosh—quite a few companies out there practicing formations and the formations they issue, you gotta be able to line up properly. There’s a flag bearer in the front with the flag and you got to be able to position that right, carry that right, you got to be able to line up and there was a whole bunch of different things we used to and that’s all that is. It’s just a big field with no grass. All I guess concrete. In the military, they called it a “grinder”. So what that came from, what that name comes from, I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a reason.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>So what did it feel like to finally graduate?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Mixed feelings. Believe it or not, I cried. I really did. I cried. Because I knew there was going to be some relationships that would probably—some of my friends that I would probably never see again. I was definitely ecstatic. Definitely happy that it was over. Then—<em>Oh my gosh. I did it. Oh, I did it. I did it. I did it.</em> Then, at the same time, I was sad, because, believe it or not, those company commanders who got on my last nerve—I was gonna miss them, because that was it. That was your family. You’d be surprised how closely you could bond. So our company commanders, boy, were we gonna miss them. I think everybody cried. Even our company commanders. Those two harsh, tough company commanders—you just saw a different side of them. You saw a different side of them. So yeah. it was happiness and sadness. When they put the orders in your hand for that next assignment, and you’re like, I’m never gonna see them again. We’re never gonna wake up together again. we’re never gonna sit there. Because, believe it or not, I had 80 sisters. And although that sounds—oh my gosh—80 sisters? How’d I even deal with three? Now I’ve got 80. So it was like leaving 80 of my family members.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Tell me about your first assignment.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>My very first assignment—after basic training, I went to school. And my very first assignment was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I think I told you that. That was my very first assignment. I worked in a legal office. I was at Fleet Training Group in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. So what I used to do is—I had to take a little small boat— that’s what they called it—similar to like a little dinky, I guess—little small boat. And every morning, because I worked on an island, a little boat would take me to [inaudible] island. And every morning I would pass the [U.S.S.] <em>Arizona</em> Memorial. We would pass it every morning and I would look down and it seemed like I could see the bubbles. You could still see down there. I took that little boat to work every morning and I was there for three years I think.</p> <p><strong>Weeks <br /></strong>What did you do?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I worked in the administrative field and they put me in a law office, because I made it known in the beginning that that’s what I wanted to do. Remember the female Perry Mason part? Yeah. So I made it known early on that’s what I wanted to do. but being a legalman or a paralegal, you had to be an E-5 in order to be able to convert to that rank. But one of the requirements before you could do this—you had to have an administrative background.</p> <p>So after basic training I actually went to school in Meridian, Mississippi—Yeoman A School. And from there, I went to my very first assignment, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. And I made it known then that that’s what I wanted to be. You know what? Every assignment that I had was always in a law office. I mean, you hear stories—you got to do your duties and work in the galley, peel potatoes, and swab the decks—and I guess I was put in a position where I was always needed—the services were always needed. They were always shorthanded so even as an E-1, I was in a legal office. So I never got a chance to enjoy that—the swabbing the deck and peeling the potatoes and the galley and all the other stuff you hear. I never did any of that but it all worked out just the same. Always in a law office, every duty station, every assignment.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Where did you go from Hawaii?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>From Pearl Harbor, Hawaii—I’m trying to think here. I left Hawaii and I went to Jacksonville. I went to AIMD—Aircraft Intermediate Makers Department—in Jacksonville, Florida. There I worked in an administrative office, as well. I worked in the admin office there as well. Of course, it was an aircraft intermediate maintenance department, so I worked in an admin office where there was nothing but hangars with planes. That’s what they did—kind of just fix the planes. My job was, of course, obviously to process paperwork, make sure the records are processed, those types of things.</p> <p>From Jacksonville, Florida, I went to—because like I said, you had to be in an administrative field, you had to be an E-5. So as soon as I made E-5, I went to legalman school or paralegal school. and, from that point on, my rate changed, because I was an administrative yeoman and my rate changed to legalmen. All along, even as a yeoman, I was always in an office. So I went to Legalmen A School in Newport, Rhode Island. I left there gone to my first assignment as a paralegal.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>How long were you there?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>My school in Newport, Rhode Island?</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>My school was four or five months. Four or five intense months. One thing too, —it’s like any other specialty or any other job, even in the military, you’re constantly training, because the law changes all the time and a lot of your opinion on what you’re doing, even as a civilian—a lot of times you’re required to, even as a civilian, you are—a lot of times you’re required to maintain your certification so you’re required to—as things change, you go to different schools to learn what the new changes are. That’s the same in the military no matter what your job is. Every time there’s a change, there’s[sic] different schools you go to, to learn the new equipment or learn the new structure or what.</p> <p>So after [inaudible] school in Newport, Rhode Island—then, I left Newport, Rhode Island and I went to my very first assignment as a paralegal. I think that was in Norfolk, Virginia. So from then on—that was all in Norfolk, Virginia. Of course, I worked for the Navy Marine Corps Trial Judiciary. It was myself and another senior chief. We were staffed for at that time eight JAGs [Judge Advocate Generals]—eight judges—military judges. Our job was to do their scheduling. Get their scheduling done, set hearings. Whatever it was that day. And that’s what we did. Hearings, hearings, courts, trials. It was actually trials. At that time, I was there, there were eight jags.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Did you enjoy that?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Oh, yes. I did. I did. I did. I’ve always been fortunate enough to be around good people. In the military and outside the military, and even now, I work for a good group of people.</p> <p><strong>Weeks <br /></strong>When you think about your experiences, what would you say, if you could, your fondest memory of your time in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>My fondest memory of my time in the Navy—of course, obviously graduation. Graduation from boot camp is one of them. Actually, you know what? I really can’t pinpoint any one thing. I loved all my assignments. I enjoyed it. I made every assignment work. Obviously, I been[sic]—early on, you go where the needs of the military are. You don’t have a choice of where you go, so you go where they send you and I look at it this way: Had it not been for the military, I probably never would have saw[sic] Hawaii. Absolutely. I probably wouldn’t have saw[sic] it. All the places that I’ve traveled—had it not been for the military, I probably never would have had the opportunity to see that. So I loved all the travels. I enjoyed all the people that I met. My assignments—I loved that. I would think that to come full circle, graduating from basic training and then retiring. All the stuff in between was just gravy, I think. I think that was my—the very first fond memory definitely was graduating basic training. <em>Dee, you made it. You made it.</em></p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>I want to ask you about the Naval Training Center [Orlando] a little bit. Were there ever business that would come there—family members, outsiders?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>At the Naval Training Center?</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I’m sure there was. Now, I was here in Orlando at the Naval Training Center, but I worked at recruit training command. The base was broken up into two sections. On one side of the base was recruit training command where the recruits trained. Then the other side was the actual training center, which obviously, you didn’t have recruits on that side. I’m sure there was[sic] over where I was and I was on the recruit training side. The only time visitors were there was when you were close to graduating and you could have your family members—you know, you’re getting ready to pass—review for your graduation. You could have visitors. I remember when I was in, I never saw any visitors. Half the time I was scared to death anyway. On the recruit training side, no. There was[sic] no family member visitors if that’s what you’re saying, but once you’re graduated—and that’s the thing—two totally separate things: basic training is one thing.</p> <p>But once you graduate, to me, it was a regular job. Obviously there were restrictions and there were extra things. In other words, I was required to stay on duty. I was required—if they needed me to go on assignment, I was there. Other than that, when I wasn’t working, that was my free time. So it’s that the military had hostage over me. It wasn’t anything like that. It was a regular assignment. Whatever my work schedule was, I would do my work schedule. When I’m off work, I’m off work. Obviously though, you’re in the military 24 hours a day. And you should carry yourself that way, because when you’re out there, people don’t say, “Oh, look at Dee.” They say, “Oh my gosh. She’s in the Navy? She’s out there doing that.” So, they don’t see that. They don’t see you. They see the military. “That’s how they act in the military?” So you’re always in the military, 24 hours a day while you’re in it and you’re representing your country the entire time that you’re in, but your free time is your free time. It was just like a regular job to me.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>So did you travel off base a lot?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Yes I did. I traveled off base a lot. For my first years, I lived on base. The weekends was[sic] mine. Pearl Harbor, Hawaii—that was my very first assignment. When I wasn’t working, I was out at the beach at [inaudible] and all those other ones. And I would see things, go to the beach. Oh, yeah. I used that opportunity to see things, because I probably would have never saw it but you know what, you never know. But I couldn’t imagine I’d be going to Hawaii had it not been for the military. Only because that probably been the furthest thing—that wouldn’t have been on my bucket list. Let me put it that way. Probably wouldn’t have been on my bucket list, so I probably wouldn’t have made it there. But yes. My free time—I would do traveling.</p> <p>Then, we were in Iceland and my free time—of course, we had a few Icelandic friends who would take us to see Blue Lagoon and here it is. it’s freezing. Snow is on the ground, but you’re in the water and it’s just this warm and the vapors are coming up. Different things—I wouldn’t have had any thoughts of going to Iceland. See, I would never think of going to Iceland, but I was there two—for another year. My husband and I—our child. We had a son born there.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>In Iceland?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>In Iceland. yeah. I had a son born in Iceland who has dual citizenship, but I never would have saw Iceland had it not been for the military. Never would have saw Germany had it not been for the military. I mean it wasn’t on my list. <em>Okay, Dee, you must go to Iceland. You must go to Germany.</em> That would have never been on my list. I don’t think.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>What was your favorite place that you traveled?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I loved Germany. I loved Germany. I think at the time I traveled there, I had a brother stationed there. so I was able to see some things. He took us on tours. We were able to see the castles and all the old artifacts. So I loved Germany. Germany and Iceland was[sic] my favorite. Germany and Iceland was[sic] my favorite.</p> <p>Even though I wouldn’t say that when I first got to Iceland. I tell you, it’s so cold there you can barely see your hand in front of your face. I mean they have what they call “white outs.” It is so—I mean, the snow and everything and the wind is blowing. You can’t even see your hand in front of your face. That’s how cold it is. I got off the plane and my sponsor was waiting there for me with a big parka. It looked like an Eskimo parka with a hood and the fur. That thing must have weighed ten pounds. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed Iceland, as well. And I enjoyed Germany. But you know what? I just enjoyed—I made the best of every place that I was at.</p> <p>We did a tour in Key West[, Florida]. I hated to go there, but somebody had to do it. We did a tour in Key West, but you know what? When the military said, “This is where you’re going.” The first thing I do is—<em>Okay, Dee. What’s unique about this place? That’s what you want to see. You’re gonna be there. Make it work for you. </em>So that’s what I did. Well, just in case I never get back again, I’m gonna make sure I see this, this, this, this, when I can. So that’s what I did. I just viewed it differently. I didn’t view it like, Oh gosh, I don’t want to go there. No. I didn’t view it that way. I said, <em>You know what?</em> I just view it as another opportunity that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Did other people have that same kind of mindset?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>And you know what? I don’t think so. You talk to people and I just believe that you like it or you don’t. It’s probably not appealing to a lot of people. Every two or three years you’re picking up. I mean every two-three years you’re just getting settled. Now you’re picking up and moving to another assignment. Oh my gosh. Now you’re going to some place where perhaps you may not even speak the language. It could be a country—a foreign country in Italy or some place. Or it could be a place they’re sending you where your language is not the dominant language. Now, if you have a family—oh my gosh. I just got my kids settled or now. I’m just in school myself. Now it’s time for me to transfer.</p> <p>I just believe that you either like it or you don’t. For some people it works. For some people it’s not their cup of tea. Some people say, “You know what? Let me just try it.” At the end of that term, “You know, I don’t think that was for me, but I wanted to just give it a shot.” It just depends. I think that’s the main thing. Even in the civilian sector—I mean, you walk into a job now, either you like it or you don’t. <em>You know what? Let me just stay here until something else better comes along.</em> You either like it or you don’t or you make it work for you. <em>You know what? I like it. My job is to be there. Whatever I’m gonna do is whatever I need to do. If I need more schooling, if I need community service, I’m going to walk in with where I want to be in that company and you just start and you work toward a better</em> [inaudible]. Again, like I said, you talk to some people and they don’t like it. I just think it’s different for everybody.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>You mentioned that your son was born in Iceland. How did the birth of your son change your time in the military?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>You know what? It didn’t. When we got there—actually, I was pregnant with the child when we got there. My son was born probably about maybe three-four months after I had gotten there. We enjoyed Iceland. Our original tour was only for two years and we enjoyed it so we asked for a year extension. I enjoyed Iceland, in addition to seeing some of the other countries. You know, I like the Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland.</p> <p>At the time when I was in, you lived aboard what they call the greeting area. Everybody lived on base. You’re not allowed to live off base. Of course, just the closeness and the comradery between the sailors was very good, because we were all there together. For me, we had an added benefit, because my boss at the time working at the Naval Legal Services Detachment at the time. His wife was Icelandic, so we got to go to places that we probably would never have gotten to go, because we just don’t know the country. We just don’t know the country, so I really enjoyed that. We just wanted to stay an additional year and it would have been nice and I probably would have stayed a little longer, but, I mean, career-wise, I think it was just time to move. I didn’t want to stay dormant in one place too long.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>One thing that we ask everyone who has been to the Naval Training Center is what do you think its lasting legacy in Central Florida is?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>I think the lasting legacy is—and I’m just going to speak toward when I was there. I think one of legacies is going to be—that’s the only facility where men and women train together. That’s what I remember. The men and the women trained together—one of the first bases to have integrated companies. Nowhere else did they ever do that. They didn’t do it in California. They didn’t do it in Great Lakes. We trained together, which made sense to me. We’re going to fight together, so why can’t we train together? I think that’s one of the lasting legacies.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Why do you think other training centers didn’t allow women?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>You know what? That’s a good question. I don’t know, because the only other centers were out in California and Great Lakes. Maybe harassment? “Oh my gosh. Men and women can’t train together. Oh, what would that do?” I never knew the reasoning behind that. If a war broke out, men are not going to be on this side and women on this side. We’re all going to be together. That’s the legacy that I remember.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>What do you think visitors would like to see or be reminded of when they visit the site of the base?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>What they would like to see?</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>When they revisit the base here? You know what? What I miss is the [USS] <em>Blue Jacket</em>. I miss the <em>Blue Jacket</em>. I really do miss the <em>Blue Jacket</em>. Of course, we got a tour there. I missed the bear. We had some beautiful compounds, but I really do miss the <em>Blue Jacket</em>. Even now, when I go down that street—there’s a park down there—when I go down that street to go to the VA [Veterans Health Administration] hospital for my appointments, I always look over there. I look over there and I’m like, <em>Oh my gosh. I remember that. I remember the tour.</em></p> <p>Everybody gets the tour that comes at basic training, because obviously—Navy—you go to sea. You’re on the boat and it’s a replica. It’s exactly how it looks. It’s exactly how it looks. So you get to go down those hatches—those itty bitty small hatches that you can barely fit in. You go down those hatches—the bells. Permission to come ashore. permission to come aboard. You do all of that. It’s a true replica. They train you exactly the way it is in the military. The way it is once you leave those gates. They really prepare you for the outside. Now whether you chose to use that or not it’s really up to you but they prepare you. They really do. I can only speak for my two company commanders. They do an excellent job at preparing us for the fleet.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Tell me about when you were getting ready to leave the Navy.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>When I was getting ready to leave the Navy, of course—mixed emotions. Of course, it was the only thing I knew and actually even after I retired, I was looking at different high schools trying to get on as NJROTC [Navy Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps] instructors. It was a really big adjustment for me, because that was the only thing that I knew and it was so totally different in the civilian world.</p> <p>Number one: now there’s no uniform now. Just to hang the uniform up was a big adjustment for me, because for years, every morning I didn’t have to decide what shoes go with what. I knew it was going to be the black boondockers. Okay. you’re going to put on your whites or your blues. So just to not get up to put the uniform on was a big adjustment. It was really an adjustment period for me.</p> <p>I tried for years to get back on. Obviously, on retirement, I couldn’t come back in. Even now—I’m too old now—but if they called me and said, “Dee, we need you.” I’d be just—“Let me get my sea bag ready. I’m ready.” They wouldn’t do that now. I’m just too old now to go back in.</p> <p>But yeah. it was a big adjustment. Retirement was bittersweet. It really was bittersweet. Number one—<em>Oh, Dee. what are you going to do? Put us under—put to the side everything that you’ve known for all these years. Now you’re going to embark on something different.</em> Just the thought of, <em>Oh my gosh. Now I have to go on an interview. How do I interview? What do you wear to an interview? What do you wear to an interview?</em> Just the thought of having to look for a job, that was kind of scary. Once you get through all of that, it all worked out. Walked into a job and it’s been there ever since. It was bittersweet. Bitter, because it kind of left a bitter taste in my mouth, because I was walking away from everything that I knew. And sweet, because now you get a chance to live the rest of your life. You dedicated the first portion to the military. Now you get a chance to build the rest of your life. Whatever that entailed. I knew I’m going to work in somebody’s legal office, because that’s all I knew how to do and that’s what I enjoy. So why change what works for you?</p> <p><strong>Weeks</strong>If it ain’t broke…</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>Absolutely. [<em>laughs</em>] Absolutely. It was just bittersweet and to this day, do I miss it? Yeah. I still do and I’ve been retired for a while and I still miss it.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>What’s the most valuable thing the Navy taught you?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>That I can do whatever I set my mind to do. That I can do whatever I set my mind to do. It’s pretty much—and I will say military—although the military has taught me that, I think that really stems back just from my parents, my childhood. They encouraged all of their kids. You know what? If you can see it, you can do it. You can see it, you can do it. You can dream it, you can do it. That’s what I try to do to my children. Now, if you see that right there, that means you can aim for it. It’s right in your path. go for it. If you can see it, you can do it. I believe that.</p> <p><strong>Weeks<br /></strong>Is there anything else you would like to add that I didn’t ask you about?</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>No. I think we pretty much covered everything. Such a wonderful interviewer and you did a wonderful job. No, there’s nothing I would like to add.</p> <p><strong>Weeks <br /></strong>Well, thank you so much.</p> <p><strong>McClendon<br /></strong>You’re very welcome.</p> administrative schools administrative yeoman administrative yeomans African Americans AIMD Aircraft Intermediate Makers Department basic training Blue Lagoon boot camps calisthenics Community Veterans History Project Company Commanders CVHP E-1 E-5 Enlisted Rank 1 Enlisted Rank 5 Fleet Training Group Germany Goulds Grinder Homestead Honolulu, Hawaii Jacksonville JAG Corps JROTC Judge Advocate General's Corps Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Keflavík, Iceland legal assistants legalman legalmen Legalmen A School Lone Sailor Memorial Committee Lone Sailor Memorial Project mail calls Mason, Perry Mays Junior High School McClendon, Dee McClendon, Doris Miami NAS Keflavík Naval Air Depot Jacksonville Naval Air Station Keflavík Naval Legal Services Detachment Naval Station Key West Naval Station Newport Naval Station Norfolk Naval Station Pearl Harbor Naval Training Center Orlando Navy Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Navy Marine Corps Trial Judiciary Navy Memorial of Central Florida Newport, Rhode Island NJROTC Norfolk, Virginia NTC Orlando orlando paralegals Pearl Harbor, Hawaii physical fitness Pine Villa Elementary School recruit training Recruit Training Command recruiters Rhode Island San Antonio, Texas South Dade Senior High School TAD temporary additional duty U. S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Navy UCF UM Uncle Sam University of Central Florida University of Miami USS Arizona USS Arizona Memorial USS Bluejacket VA VA hospital veterans Veterans Health Administration Virginia Weeks, Andrew Glen yeoman school yeoman schools https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/857f2e7d6754774ca0524f1b2c3be13f.mp3 529d983a4d476472e2c7af2bc648d3ed 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 Georgetown Collection Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of Georgetown, an African-American community in Sanford, Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. Georgetown was established by the city's founder, Henry Shelton Sanford, in the 1870s. The neighborhood spans along Sanford Avenue, with its commercial district between First Street and Fifth Street, and its historic district between Seventh Street and Tenth Street. Though originally much smaller, Georgetown spanned to its present boundaries from East Second Street to Celery Avenue and from Sanford Avenue to Mellonville Avenue. Georgetown thrived at its height from circa 1880 to 1940, particularly in agriculture and transportation. Alternative Title Georgetown Collection Subject Georgetown (Sanford, Fla.) Sanford (Fla.) Contributor Firpo, Julio R. Rock, Adam Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. 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. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Georgetown, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/buildingblocks.php" target="_blank">Building Blocks</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Flewellyn, Valada S. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4497409" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=483" target="_blank">Pathways to History - Historic Georgetown</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=483. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Firpo, Julio R. Interviewee Refoe, Annye Location Sanford, Florida Original Format 1 audio recording Duration 1 hour, 33 minutes, and 36 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 1411 kbps 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 Dr. Annye Refoe Alternative Title Oral History, Refoe Subject Sanford (Fla.) Georgetown (Sanford, Fla.) African Americans--Florida--Sanford Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Segregation--Florida Nashville (Tenn.) Description Annye Refoe, the daughter of Herman L. Refoe, Jr. and Shellye L. Refoe, was born on January 29, 1951. Since her parents both taught at Midway Elementary School, Refoe also attended the school, as opposed to attending Hopper Academy in Georgetown, an historic neighborhood in Sanford, Florida. Refoegraduated from Seminole High School in the class of 1969. After her treatment in the newly integrated Seminole High School, Refoe decided to enroll in a historically black college/university. She graduated from Fisk College in Nashville with a bachelor of arts degree in English in 1973. Upon her return from college, Annye began teaching in August 1974 at Lake Howell High School in Winter Park. In 1982, she started teaching at Seminole Community College, where she later became the Dean of the Arts and Humanities. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:32 Growing up in Sanford<br />0:01:36 Richard Wright's depictions of the South<br />0:03:09 First time being called "nigger"<br />0:03:48 Education<br />0:04:15 Comparing Georgetown and Midway<br />0:11:56 Growing up in Georgetown and attending Crooms High School<br />0:15:31 Desegregation at Seminole High School<br />0:20:02 Interaction with white people in the business district<br />0:26:38 Working at a drug store<br />0:30:54 Seeing <em>The Great White Hope</em> at the Ritz Theatre<br />0:32:00 Seminole County Public Schools<br />0:34:51 White teachers' reactions to having black students<br />0:37:44 Ku Klux Klan riots<br />0:38:59 Experience at Fisk University in Nashville<br />0:41:25 Majoring in English and dream of being the first female sports columnist<br />0:42:37 Interacting with communities in Nashville and student protests<br />0:45:30 Moving back to Sanford and then to Winter Park<br />0:46:50 Influence of her parents on her life and the community<br />0:54:51 How Sanford changed oved time<br />1:00:17 Teaching at Seminole County College<br />1:00:24 RECORDING CUTS OFF<br />1:00:24 White teacher barred from teaching ballet to African-American children<br />1:02:08 Returning to Sanford and employment after college in the 1970s<br />1:07:21 Experience as teacher and later as dean at SCC<br />1:13:58 Experience teaching right after college and being called "nigger" by a student at Lake Howell High School<br />1:19:20 How Refoe distanced herself from Sanford<br />1:21:03 Disintegration of sense of community due to integration<br />1:23:02 Need for preserving past<br />01:23:37 Annye's definition of Sanford while growing up and in the present<br />1:27:56 Annye's gratitude for being a teacher<br />1:30:10 How people connect to Sanford<br />1:33:50 Sanford and other small towns losing their history Abstract Oral history interview of Annye Refoe. Interview conducted by Julio R. Firpo at the home of Dr. Stephen Caldwell Wright in Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Refoe, Annye. Interview by Julio R. Firpo. Home of Dr. Stephen Caldwell Wright. April 15, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank"> Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Georgetown, Sanford, Florida Midway Elementary School, Midway, Sanford, Florida Crooms High School, Georgetown, Sanford, Florida Seminole High School, Sanford, Florida Goldsboro, Sanford, Florida Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee Lake Howell High School, Winter Park, Florida Creator Firpo, Julio R. Refoe, Annye Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Contributor Wright, Stephen Caldwell Date Created 2011-04-15 Date Modified 2014-03-17 Format audio/mp3 Extent 944 MB Medium 1-hour, 33-minute, 36-second audio recording Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Julio R. Firpo and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/buildingblocks.php" target="_blank">Building Blocks</a> Curator Firpo, Julio R. Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference Flewellyn, Valada S. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4497409" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009. "<a href="http://croomsaoit.org/#about" target="_blank">About Crooms Academy</a>." Crooms Academy of Information Technology, Seminole County Public Schools. http://croomsaoit.org/#about. Postal, Leslie. <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2001-11-23/news/0111230278_1_crooms-academy-seminole-sanford" target="_blank">"Historic Crooms Academy Embraces A High-tech Future</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, November 23, 2001. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2001-11-23/news/0111230278_1_crooms-academy-seminole-sanford. Robison, Jim. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-08-04/news/9108030386_1_crooms-academy-sanford-hopper" target="_blank">Professor's Legacy Lives On In Seminole School History</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, August 4, 1991. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-08-04/news/9108030386_1_crooms-academy-sanford-hopper. "<a href="http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/The-Education-In-Goldsboro.html" target="_blank">Education In Goldsboro &amp; Sanford</a>." Goldsboro Historical Museum. http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/The-Education-In-Goldsboro.html. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Cohen, Rodney T. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53874175" target="_blank"><em>Fisk University</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2001. "<a href="http://www.seminolestate.edu/about/who-we-are" target="_blank">Who We Are</a>." Seminole State College of Florida. http://www.seminolestate.edu/about/who-we-are. African American ballet Brooks, Gwendolyn CHS Crooms High School Dean of the Arts and Humanities demonstration desegregation education Fisk College Francis, Daphne F. Francis, Gayle Georgetown Goldsboro Haley, Alex high school historic preservation Hopper Academy Humphrey, Daphne F. integration JHS Jones High School KKK Ku Klux Klan Lake Howell High School LHHS Midway Midway Elementary School Nashville, Tennessee protest race relations racism Refoe, Annye Refoe, Herman L., Jr. Refoe, Shellye L. riot Ritz Theatre Sanford Sanford Avenue SCC school SCPS segregation Seminole Community College Seminole County Public Schools Seminole High School Seminole State College SHS South SSC student movement The Great White Hope Winter Park Wright, Richard Wright, Stephen Caldwell https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/628788766e24e93f7383b9a5edee00f0.mp3 8180464787fb2eacf5400459a2c010bd 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 Goldsboro Collection Alternative Title Goldsboro Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of Goldsboro, an historic African-American community in Sanford, Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. On December 1, 1891, William Clark, an African-American store owner and businessman, organized 19 other black registered voters to incorporate the town of Goldsboro, which was the second African-American city to be incorporated in Florida. Goldsboro's early economy was driven by rail yards, fields, groves, ice houses, and produce houses. A year after its incorporation, Goldsboro opened a school led by Katie Stubbins. Goldsboro, which is located near Sanford, prevented that city from expanding further west. Instead, the City of Sanford passed a resolution to absorb Goldsboro, despite opposition from the latter town's officials. Nonetheless, the Florida State Legislated revoked Goldsboro's incorporation to allow its absorption into Sanford on April 6, 1911. The identity of Goldsboro began to erode as the City of Sanford renamed several of its historical streets. In 2007, Goldsboro was included in plans for Sanford's revitalization efforts. In 2011, the Goldsboro Historical Museum was opened in the town at the site of its original post office. Contributor Firpo, Julio R. <a title="Sanford Museum" href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=456" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Goldsboro, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/buildingblocks.php" target="_blank">Building Blocks</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/The-History-of-Goldsboro.html" target="_blank">The Rich History of Goldsboro</a>." Goldsboro Historical Museum. http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/The-History-of-Goldsboro.html. Robison, Jim. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-09-01/news/9108310447_1_sanford-goldsboro-hurston" target="_blank">Political Sham - The Rise and Fall of Goldsboro</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, September 1, 1991. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-09-01/news/9108310447_1_sanford-goldsboro-hurston. Robison, Jim. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-09-01/news/9108310447_1_sanford-goldsboro-hurston" target="_blank">Political Sham - The Rise and Fall of Goldsboro</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, September 20, 1992. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1992-09-20/news/9209180388_1_sanford-railroads-goldsboro. Imperiale, Nancy. "<a href="http://www.greenwood-cemetery.net/history.htm" target="_blank">Discovering A Lost City Historian Finds Surprising Past Of The Goldsboro Community</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, May 20, 1990. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-05-20/news/9005190395_1_sanford-goldsboro-elliott. González, Eloísa Ruano. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-11-12/news/os-goldsboro-history-museum-20111112_1_goldsboro-avenue-novelist-zora-neale-hurston-museum-documents" target="_blank">New Goldsboro history museum preserves town's forgotten lore</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, November 12, 2011. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-11-12/news/os-goldsboro-history-museum-20111112_1_goldsboro-avenue-novelist-zora-neale-hurston-museum-documents. Flewellyn, Valada S. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4497409" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/16" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Firpo, Julio R. Interviewee Wright, Stephen Caldwell Location Sanford, Florida Original Format 1 audio recording Duration 2 hours, 2 minutes, and 17 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 1411 kbps 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 Dr. Stephen Caldwell Wright Alternative Title Oral History, Wright Subject Sanford (Fla.) Georgetown (Sanford, Fla.) Lakeland (Fla.) Daytona (Fla.) St. Petersburg (Fla.) Boca Raton (Fla.) Miami (Fla.) Atlanta (Ga.) Indiana (Pa.) African Americans--Florida--Sanford Segregation--Florida Integration Description Dr. Stephen Caldwell Wright was born and raised in Goldsboro, an historic African-American community in Sanford, Florida. He lived in Sanford for most of his early life, except for one year in Lakeland for ninth grade. He attended Goldsboro Elementary School and Crooms High School, where he graduated in 1964. For his college education, Dr. Wright attended Volusia County Community College (now Daytona State College) in Daytona for one semester, Gibbs College (now merged with St. Petersburg College) in St. Petersburg for the first part of his Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton for the second part of his B.A. in English, Atlanta University for his Master of Arts degree in English, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania in for his Ph.D. in Linguistics and Rhetoric. Table Of Contents 00:00:00 Introduction<br />00:00:31 RECORDING CUTS OFF<br />00:00:32 Introduction<br />00:01:16 Education<br />00:02:45 Growing up in Goldsboro<br />00:04:40 Wright family<br />00:07:00 The community's role in Wright's upbringing<br />00:07:50 J. R. White<br />00:11:20 Crooms High School and segregation<br />00:15:46 Teachers and teaching black history<br />00:16:29 Comparing Crooms to high school in Lakeland<br />00:18:24 Working while in school<br />00:22:49 Decline of Sanford Avenue's commercial district<br />00:25:27 Comparing Goldsboro to the white part of Downtown Sanford<br />00:26:51 Interaction between Goldsboro and Georgetown<br />00:29:47 Crooms High School<br />00:31:48 Volusia County Community College<br />00:33:35 Integration<br />00:36:55 Comparing communities in Daytona, St. Petersburg, and Boca Raton<br />00:41:23 Florida Atlantic University<br />00:48:14 Interactions with Cubans, Hispanics, and whites in Boca Raton<br />00:55:13 Atlanta University<br />00:59:11 Miami and its poetry scene<br />01:01:11 Comparing Miami and Atlanta<br />01:02:02 Experience in Indiana, Pennsylvania<br />01:13:35 Teaching at Crooms High School<br />01:20:09 Teaching high school and teaching community college<br />01:22:24 How Sanford changed over time<br />01:24:59 Race relations in Sanford<br />01:27:03 How Goldsboro changed over time<br />01:29:11 Naval Air Station Sanford<br />01:31:37 Vietnam War<br />01:36:24 Sanford during the 1980s, the 1990s, and today<br />01:47:57 How students changed over time<br />01:53:10 Sanford's aging population<br />01:57:20 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Stephen Caldwell Wright. Interview conducted by Julio R. Firpo at the home of Dr. Stephen Caldwell Wright in Sanford, Florida. Type Sound Source Wright, Stephen Caldwell. Interview by Julio R. Firpo. Home of Dr. Stephen Caldwell Wright. March 27, 2011. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank"> Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Goldsboro, Sanford, Florida Georgetown, Sanford, Florida Crooms High School, Goldsboro, Sanford, Florida Lakeland, Florida Volusia County Community College, Daytona Beach, Florida Gibbs College, St. Petersburg, Florida Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania Creator Firpo, Julio R. Wright, Stephen Caldwell Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2011-03-27 Date Modified 2014-03-18 Format audio/mp3 Extent 1.2 GB Medium 2-hour, 2-minute, 17-second audio recording Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Julio R. Firpo and Stephen Caldwell Wright and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/buildingblocks.php" target="_blank">Building Blocks</a> Curator Firpo, Julio R. Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference Flewellyn, Valada S. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/4497409" target="_blank"><em>African Americans of Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009. "<a href="http://croomsaoit.org/#about" target="_blank">About Crooms Academy</a>." Crooms Academy of Information Technology, Seminole County Public Schools. http://croomsaoit.org/#about. Postal, Leslie. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2001-11-23/news/0111230278_1_crooms-academy-seminole-sanford" target="_blank">Historic Crooms Academy Embraces A High-tech Future</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, November 23, 2001. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2001-11-23/news/0111230278_1_crooms-academy-seminole-sanford. "<a href="http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/InsidetheMuseum/Crooms.aspx" target="_blank">The Crooms Academy High School Exhibit</a>." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/InsidetheMuseum/Crooms.aspx. Robison, Jim. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-08-04/news/9108030386_1_crooms-academy-sanford-hopper" target="_blank">Professor's Legacy Lives On In Seminole School History</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, August 4, 1991. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-08-04/news/9108030386_1_crooms-academy-sanford-hopper. "<a href="http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/The-Education-In-Goldsboro.html" target="_blank">Education In Goldsboro &amp; Sanford</a>." Goldsboro Historical Museum. http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/The-Education-In-Goldsboro.html. "<a href="http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/The-History-of-Goldsboro.html" target="_blank">The Rich History of Goldsboro</a>." Goldsboro Historical Museum. http://www.goldsboromuseum.com/The-History-of-Goldsboro.html. Robison, Jim. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-09-01/news/9108310447_1_sanford-goldsboro-hurston" target="_blank">Political Sham - The Rise and Fall of Goldsboro</a>" <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, September 1, 1991. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-09-01/news/9108310447_1_sanford-goldsboro-hurston. Robison, Jim. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1992-09-20/news/9209180388_1_sanford-railroads-goldsboro" target="_blank">A Tale Of 2 Cities In Sanford's Past: Goldsboro And Georgetown Get Credit For Creating A Hub</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, September 20, 1992. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1992-09-20/news/9209180388_1_sanford-railroads-goldsboro. Imperiale, Nancy. "<a href="http://www.greenwood-cemetery.net/history.htm" target="_blank">Discovering A Lost City Historian Finds Surprising Past Of The Goldsboro Community</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, May 20, 1990. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-05-20/news/9005190395_1_sanford-goldsboro-elliott. "<a href="http://www.goldsboro.scps.k12.fl.us/Home/QuickLinks/OurHistory.aspx" target="_blank">Our History</a>." Goldsboro Elementary School. http://www.goldsboro.scps.k12.fl.us/Home/QuickLinks/OurHistory.aspx. "<a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/catalog/facts/history.html" target="_blank">History of Daytona State College</a>." Daytona State College. http://www.daytonastate.edu/catalog/facts/history.html. "<a href="http://www.spcollege.edu/pages/dynamic.aspx?id=2147484171" target="_blank">History of SPC</a>." St. Petersburg College. http://www.spcollege.edu/page/dynamic.aspx?id=2147484171. Homan, Lynn M., and Thomas Reilly. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/48885718" target="_blank"><em>Lakeland</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2001. Atwell, Cheryl, and Vincent Clarida. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41649394" target="_blank"><em>Daytona Beach and the Halifax River Area</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 1998. Rooks, Sandra W. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53003501" target="_blank"><em>St. Petersburg Florida</em></a>. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.fau.edu/explore/history.php" target="_blank">History of Florida Atlantic University</a>." Florida Atlantic University. http://www.fau.edu/explore/history.php. Curl, Donald Walter. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/45710790" target="_blank"><em>Florida Atlantic University</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2000. Thuma, Cynthia. <em><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53621963" target="_blank">Boca Raton</a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003.</em> Bramson, Seth. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/85822162" target="_blank"><em>Miami: The Magic City</em></a> Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2007. Cohen, Rodney T. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/46367480" target="_blank"><em>The Black Colleges of Atlanta</em></a>. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Pub, 2000. "<a href="http://www.aucconsortium.org/history/" target="_blank">The AUC Consortium's Rich History and Legacy</a>." Atlantic University Center Consortium. http://www.aucconsortium.org/history/. "<a href="http://www.iup.edu/upper.aspx?id=2067" target="_blank">Brief History</a>" Indiana University of Pennsylvania. http://www.iup.edu/upper.aspx?id=2067. Wood, Karen, and Doug MacGregor. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50678367" target="_blank"><em>Indiana, Pennsylvania</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2002. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. External Reference Title African American Atlanta University Atlanta, Georgia AU Boca Raton CHS college color barrier Crooms High School Cuban Daytona Daytona State College desegregation Downtown Sanford DSC education elementary school enlistment FAU Florida Atlantic University Georgetown Gibbs College Goldsboro Goldsboro Elementary School high school higher education Hispanic Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, Pennsylvania integration IUP J. R. White Lakeland Miami NAS NAS Sanford Naval Air Station Naval Air Station Sanford prejudice race racism Sanford school segregation skin color St. Petersburg St. Petersburg College university VCCC Vietnam War Volusia County Community College Wright, Stephen Caldwell https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/04510635174e81e5ea6f3d3a9146efca.pdf 662c717c7a532bcff96e4980fcd28e48 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection Subject Museums--Florida Schools Elementary schools Grammar schools Sanford (Fla.) Description The Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection encompasses a broad range of materials and items ranging from the late 19th Century into the present. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, documents, videocassettes, and other historical records pertaining to the history of the Sanford Grammar School, the Sanford community through the years, and the history of teaching and learning within the United States from the 19th century to the 2010s. The Student Museum has collaborated with the University of Central Florida and established the UCF Public History Center (PHC). All of the Student Museum's collections are presently housed at the PHC. The goal of the PHC is to promote access to history through ground-breaking research connecting local to global, provide cutting-edge hands-on educational programs for students and visitors, and to engage the community in contributing to and learning from history. Contributor Student Museum UCF Public History Center Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum, Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project Student Museum UCF Public History Center Curator Marra, Katie Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Alternative Title Student Museum and PHC Collection Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer McLaughlin, Ian Interviewee Richards, Storm Leslie Location Geneva, Florida Original Format 1 DVD/DAT recording Duration 19 minutea and 4 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 125kbps 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 Dr. Storm Leslie Richards Alternative Title Oral History, Richards Subject Oral history--United States Sanford (Fla.) Museums--Florida Grant writing Historic preservation--Florida Historic sites--Florida Longwood (Fla.) Walt Disney World (Fla.) Urban sprawl United States. Navy Navy Nuclear weapons Archaeology--Florida Urban development Archaeologists--United States Geographers--United States Conservation--United States Lake Monroe (Seminole County and Volusia County, Fla.) Tourism--Florida Traffic Description Oral history interview of Dr. Storm Leslie Richards, an archaeologist and environmental consultant for Storm L. Richards &amp; Associates, Inc. Dr. Richards was born in Patuxent River, Maryland, on August 20, 1950, but his family migrated to Sanford, Florida, in 1953. He graduated from Seminole High School in 1969 and received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D from the University of Florida in Tallahassee in 1973, 1978, and 1987, respectively. Dr. Richards also wrote the grant for the Sanford Grammar School, located at 301 West Seventh Street. This interview was conducted by Ian McLaughlin at Dr. Richards' home in Geneva on October 24, 2012. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:03:25 Grant writing and rehabilitation for the Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies<br />0:07:21 Other historic preservation projects<br />0:09:18 How Seminole County has changed over time<br />0:12:45 Impact of Walt Disney World Resort<br />0:15:42 Father’s experience in the Navy<br />0:17:57 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Dr. Storm Leslie Richards. Interview conducted by Ian McLaughlin at Dr. Richards' home in Geneva, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Richards, Storm Leslie. Interviewed by Ian McLaughlin. UCF Public History Center. October 24, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a>. <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/31" target="_blank">Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 19-minute and 04-second oral history: Richards, Storm Leslie. Interviewed by Ian McLaughlin. UCF Public History Center. October 24, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Coverage Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies,Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, Florida Cuba Creator McLaughlin, Ian Richards, Storm Leslie Date Created 2012-10-24 Date Modified 2012-10-28 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 46.9 MB 155 KB Medium 19-minute and 4-second DVD/DAT recording 6-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Ian McLaughlin and owned by UCF Public History Center. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the UCF Public History Center and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project UCF Public History Center Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository UCF Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Exhibits." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. "<a href="http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank">Seminole High School</a>." Seminole High School, Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/OjlBRZidNQ4" target="_blank">Oral History of Dr. Storm Leslie Richards</a> Transcript <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Alright, today is Wednesday, the 24^th of October, 2012. It is 3:05 PM. I am with Dr. Storm [Leslie] Richards at his home in Geneva, Florida, and we’re going to discuss his experiences as related to historic preservation in Sanford, specifically concerning the Sanford Student Museum [and Center for the Social Studies].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>We moved to Sanford in 1953. My dad was in, uh, the Navy at the time, and, um, we came here, uh, when Sanford was a very small community. It was very agriculturally-oriented. Um, there were many, many schools in Sanford. Uh, I went to, uh, about four of them, uh, from about elementary school through high school—all in Sanford, and then I went to Seminole Community College,<a title="">[1]</a> which was what it was called at the time in the 1970s, uh, and got my Associate of Arts degree, and went on to the University of Florida and finished my Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate at, uh, the University of Florida in Gainesville. Um, did some graduate work at Tulane University, but, uh, for the most part, I was always at the University of Florida, and I had a very strong interest in historic preservation and archaeology and, uh, urban—urban development, and I think, uh, first time that I really became—became directly, um, associated with the school [inaudible] was I was asked to help write a grant. Um, he grant was originally through the Division of Historical Resources, which is part of Florida Department of State for doing architectural reconstruction and rehabilitation. Um, one of the things that came to me from the very, very beginning was that the school—the [Sanford] Grammar School was such a tremendous resource in terms of historically where[?] Sanford had been. It was constructed in 1907, I think—’02-’07, and, um, it had always been a real focal point for—for education for—for young kids, and I think, uh—I didn’t go to school there and—and I always remember the school having, uh, teeter-totters and having, um, jungle gyms and the having the maypole, uh, swing that the kids would swing around and stuff like that. It’s—it’s the kind of thing where you still remember the kids yelling and screaming, and just, uh, it was a very fun place. Um, academically, I can’t really speak for it, but, uh, I can remember that—that there was always a lot of activity there, and the school, uh, that I identified with the grant that I worked on was a very important hub for Sanford and for Seminole County to—to look at something historic and say that so many people had gone there and so many people’s lives had been involved. I just thought it was a wonderful focal point, um, to try to keep, and, uh, at that time, they were really the first time that they were getting into the notion of it being an historic properties, and being important for a museum, and—and I was just really, uh, excited about that for the kids to be able to go back and look at things the way they were a hundred years ago.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>All right. Um, in what capacity were you involved, specifically with the grant-writing process?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Um, because I was—I am a certified archaeologist, and I have a really strong background in historic preservation with the University of Florida and the Urban Re-Use and Planning Department, I was asked to—to come in and take a critical look at if the site was really historic. Now, it had already been designated on the [U.S.] National Register of Historic Places, which one would assume would make it very important, uh, but because it’s part of a district, um, that’s not necessarily the case, and you really want a building like that to stand on its own, be—because the importance not of just the neighborhood, but the importance of it being, uh, the structure that was there, uh, and so I put together, uh, all of the documentation on, uh, why it was historically important, and what it meant to the community, and why the state should look at it as being not just some local landmark, but as something that was important to the county and the State of Florida.</p> <p>So I wrote that up, and what really ended up happening was that the state looked at that and felt that there was enough merit there that it was designated on a, uh, state list of very important, uh, uh, schools for the State of Florida and it was designated as such with that important notice. I think that the other thing that I did was, uh, I contacted a number of commissioners and a number of people that had on a say on, uh—on how money was being spent, whether it was the school board of, uh, Seminole County, because it was certainly a focus of not just the City of Sanford, but the county also, uh, and told them the importance of preserving that, because at a certain point, older buildings have a way of just deteriorating to the point that they can no longer be used, and it takes an investment, and sometimes, that investment can actually cost more than—than new construction, you know? Rehabilitation’s a very expensive proposition, but what it does for a community, in terms of identifying the importance of a city, and importance of schools, and importance of looking at the people who got an education there and what they went on to do, and is—and it is far more important than any single dollar value.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Right, I see. About how long did that process take from start to finish? From the beginning to the end[?]? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>It took probably—the grants program probably took six months.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>I think though the writing that I did, because I had a familiarity with it, was probably in days.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>I’m very quick at what I do, and so I think I wrote the, uh, four- or five-page report of why it was important in—in a day or two days.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Excellent, and what year was this again?</p> <p><strong>Richards <br /></strong>You know, I think it was probably about, uh, 10 or 15 years ago. I mean, it was probably in the [19]90s—[inaudible] or something like that.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>So like 90s?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Right, and who all—do you remember which people from the museum you worked with?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Se—Serena [Rankin Parks] Fisher…</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Serena Fisher.</p> <p><strong>Richards <br /></strong>Uh, she was, you know—and I’ve known her for years and years before that, because she’s a geographer and an educator, and—and I’m a geographer also, and so I knew her from the Florida Alliance, um, which was a group of educators who try to—to convey the importance of educating children, and she was working the museum, and, uh, it was the kind of thing that I felt real honored to help her with, because of the possibility of helping people, and, uh, when you drive by the school even today, which I did,</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Um, it’s one of those things that you can go look at and be proud that it’s still there, because it could be somebody’s patio brick, you know?</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>And—and so it’s a real good place for kids to go and look at the way that things used to be.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Excellent, and were there any other instances in Sanford, in which you helped with local preservation efforts?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Um, yes. Uh, the Hopper Academy, which was the African-American school, h, over near the stadium. Uh, I put together the environmental assessment and some of the feasibility studies for—for looking at the rehabbing of that and making that, uh, another focal point, and because it was a wooden building and it had a lot of decay, it was really difficult, and the neighborhood, uh, didn’t lend itself to, you know—there were a lot of transients in the area, and people were sleeping near—in the school, and people were doing a lot of things that were just destructive. I’m not sure that worked out as well as I would have liked, but it was a real, eh, effort for someone to go over there and say, “We’d like to see, you know this—this kept for the community,” and so I worked on that, and, um, also, when I was the senior planner with Seminole County and worked, um, on comprehensive planning, I—I worked very hard to try to get a conservation element that reflected the importance of archaeological and historic sites, um, in—in Central Florida and Seminole County.</p> <p>In—in the profession that I have now, we do an awful lot of work in Seminole County. Uh, we worked for the airport in Seminole—the Orlando-Sanford [International] Airport. We’ve identified historic sites and identified preservation, uh, concepts for them. [inaudible]. We’ve worked for the Division of Historic Resources on the railroad sites[?] that existed here that came from the 1900s, when they were shipping an awful lot of, uh, produce out throughout—throughout the state and throughout different parts of the country, and so I’ve, you know, worked a lot on different aspects on Seminole County on—on cultural[?] resource assessments and evaluations, uh, both historic and archaeological resources for the county, and provided information for the of State of Florida.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Excellent, and here’s a little bit of a different question. In your experience working in Seminole County and living here and growing up, how has it changed environmentally? You—what do you think are probably the biggest ways that it’s changed?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>You know, I think—the—the interesting part of that story—and it just hits me immediately—is how recently—this year, someone burnt down the big.<a title="">[2]</a> They got inside the tree and they lit it on fire, and you have a tree that is older than the for—the 1400s. Before [Christopher] Columbus and…</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>This country.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>And the tree was there, and they burnt it up and destroyed it, and it was considered an “accident,” and it was considered of no great significance, and I can remember riding my bike out to the tree when I was a child from Sanford. It’s—it’s probably halfway between Sanford and Longwood on [U.S. Route] 17-92. Uh, I can remember there was a wonderful book written by [Elvira] Gardner, it was called <em>Ezekiel’s Travels</em>.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>And—and Ezekiel, a little black boy, rode his bicycle out to the big tree and they documented that in the 1930s.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>You know, and—and—and they burnt this tree up and it was considered just kind of a…</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>An accident.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>An accident. So, uh—and I think that—it really has an impact, you know?</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>The—the other thing that I can remember that’s changed so much is, when I was, uh, very young, I used to ride my bike down to the—the band shell, and to the, uh—to Lake Monroe, and used to fish there, and there used to be just the band shell, and just the sea wall, and in the last 25 years, you know, they’ve built, uh—they built hotels there, and, uh, they built, uh, mixed used development there. They have had varying degrees of non-success.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Uh, but it’s taken away much of the character, you know? I can remember when the zoo was in Downtown Sanford, and, you know, it was a very small zoo. Sorta not like the really nice complex that they have now, but—but Sanford was [inaudible], you know—libraries were there, and it was a place that—that kids went, and young people went, and it was just very different. The [Sanford] Civic Center was a big, big deal, and they had dances every week, and it was just, you know—it was just a place that people went all the time, and, uh, I don’t see that in Sanford anymore. I don’t see that.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>You think some of the character is gone?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>I think—I think the character—and I think that, you know, its—its, um—its environment, and its, um—the neighborhood, and it’s, um—it’s just the changes that have taken place, you know? I can remember the parades in Downtown Park Avenue, and just, um, very large parades that everybody in the community got involved in, and we have something like that now, but [inaudible]—it’s just a, uh—an agglomeration of people with big bands, and—and crazy things happen from early afternoon to way late</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>[inaudible], and it’s just not something that I’m interested in participating in, you know? Probably there are a lot of people that do, but it’s—it’s just very different from when I was raised in Sanford.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Yeah. As far as developmentally, what effect do you think that the arrival of like Disney Corporation<a title="">[3]</a> and things like that had on the change, if any?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Yeah, eh, Disney is a very large beast.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin <br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>And it has a lot of beasts that, uh, have attracted to it—whether it’s the whale beast or the, you know, uh, any number of other international destinations that I think that it’s affected probably not just all of Florida, but the Southeast. It’s the number one tourist destination, you know, in the world, u, and I think it makes Interstate [Highway] 4, which used to be a wonderful opportunity to go to Orlando and you just got on the interstate and ten minutes later, you were in Orlando, and today, it’s, um—it’s questionable if it even functions at all.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>You know, we have a—we have a toll road system, in which, uh, I was assigned to that. I was Deputy Director of the toll way [inaudible] before they actually started developing it, and it was supposed to relieve the traffic and make traffic a lot different in Central Florida, but Central Florida is so densely populated that it was probably nothing can significantly change that. You know, whether it’s a rail system that they won’t put in,  it will cost billions of dollars, whether it’s increasing lanes on I-4, or whether the [Central Florida] GreeneWay builds out. It’s—it’s not going to make the quality of life significantly different, in my opinion, you know, but that’s just part of the price you pay.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Yeah. Just out of curiosity, how many lanes did I-4 use to be? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>You know, I think it was always six—divided six.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Divided six?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Yeah, um, eh, it—it had fewer ramps.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>And so they put in more ramps and more access, and it’s—it’s—the speed is much quicker today than it’s ever been. Uh, the Fairbanks [Avenue] curb is a problem that people have been having for years, and everybody’s looking at the engineering and saying, “It’s got to be engineering.” They say, “It’s got to be, you know, your problems,” you know? People are traveling between their ears if they don’t pay attention to traffic, and that’s why we gotta have people at such a quick pace today, you know? It used to be if you made it to work at 8- 8:30, you know, or if you, you know, were just there. Now, everybody fills the building up at 10-to-8, and, you know, so consequently, everybody gets on the interstate and it’s as fast as they can go, and it reminds me a little bit of Atlanta[, Georgia].</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>You know, if you’re not doing 80 [miles per hour], you’re not getting there.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>I think that the—I think that I-4 is quickly approaching that. If you’re not doing 70, you’re probably not going to make it.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>You know, that’s just part of reality, part of the [inaudible], and the—the—it’s the quickness of what happens today. It wasn’t like that in the, you know, 1960s.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Okay, before we go, if you could—would you like to share the story about your father</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>And what he did at the Navy base?</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>We moved to Sanford in—in ’53. My dad was stationed in Jacksonville, um, before that in the, um—in the Navy, and—and when we moved here, my dad was a navigator bombardier and a mechanic, and when the first jets, which were the [Douglas] A-3D[ Skywarrior]s came from California, my dad was part of the crew that flew the jets from California to Florida. That was before the [North American A-5] Vigilantes, before the larger aircraft. These were, you know twin-engine jets, but their total design and their total purpose was, uh, to launch a, uh, nuclear strike, and—and art of what Sanford, you know—Orlando-Sanford Airport today has the bunkers that they kept the nuclear weapons in, and they were going to load onboard the A-3Ds and—and go to Cuba, and my dad was the slim pickins’ of the aircraft, because it was his job to arm the nuclear weapons—To go back in the bomb bays and arm the nuclear weapons with, uh, I guess a detonation device that you screwed in the—in the nose of the bomb, and that was his job. It—and it was very, very stressful, and you know, at the time, I can just barely remember—I guess I was probably about seven—six or seven years old that all these young kids from the Navy would come over to the house, and they would have parties and stuff, and—and what they were doing was, h, the vanguard of changing the world, if—if they had to, and they all agreed to that—that that’s what they were going to do, and my dad was a really big part of that, and I guess there’s—there’s some pride in that, but there’s also some looking back and saying, “Is this really where we were?”</p> <p>You know, and [inaudible], and I know today—you know, 2012—we’re still talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis and trying to figure out what really happened, and when you think about the people that were going to do whatever they were told to do, you know, there’s a lot of frighteningness[sic] there, and there is a lot of, <em>Have we gone that far?</em> Or, <em>Are we still in the same place?</em> I kinda think about that occasionally.</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Do you have any other thoughts about Sanford or Seminole County or the Student Museum that you would like to share with us before we…</p> <p><strong>Richards<br /></strong>I think that the Student Museum is, you know—it—it—it—it’s probably a lot bigger than most people really think. It’s—it’s not a matter of postcards and maps and little things that you can touch or handle, but it’s the notion of where we come from and where we’re going, and will people identify those things in 10 years, in 20 years, in 30 years, and say that, uh—that there was something that was very valuable here? It was something that was very important to a lot of people, and I hope we can still see that, and I hope that that’s, uh, a multicultural thing that—that, uh, everybody can look at and say, “This is—this is where we were, and this is where we are, and lot of good things have taken place.”</p> <p><strong>McLaughlin<br /></strong>Excellent, and once again, my name is Ian McLaughlin, and I’m interviewing Dr. Storm Richards at his home in Geneva, Florida. Today is Wednesday, the 24^th of October, 2012.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Present-day Seminole State College.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> The Senator.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Correction: The Walt Disney Company.</p> </div> </div> 17-92 7th Street A3-D band shell Big Tree Park Central Florida City of Sanford Columbus, Christopher Cuban Missile Crisis deputy directory Disney Disney Corporation Disney World Division of Historical Resources environmental consultant Ezekiel’s Travels Fairbanks Fairbanks Ave. Fairbanks Avenue Fisher, Serena Florida Alliance Florida Department of State Garner, Elvira Georgetown grant writer Greenway Hopper Hopper Academy I-4 Interstate 4 Interstate Highway 4 maypole McLaughlin, Ian mechanic National Register of Historic Places navigator bombardier Orlando-Sanford Airport Orlando-Sanford International Airport parade Park Avenue Patuxent River PHC Reconstruction rehabilitation Richards, Storm Leslie Sanford Civic Center Sanford Grammar School Sanford State College SCC School Board of Seminole County Seminole Seminole Community College Seminole County Seminole High Seminole High School Seminole HS senator senior planner Seventh Street SHS SSC State of Florida Storm L. Richards & Associates Storm L. Richards & Associates, Inc. Student Museum Toll Way TU Tulane Tulane University U.S. Route 17-92 UCF Public History Center UF University of Florida Urban Re-Use and Planning Department Vigilante WDW zoo https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/96ef7c2cbd663cfba7044fdc015e951d.pdf 3ce052d3842e4f16e2ff28def70d7638 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 Vietnam War Collection Alternative Title Vietnam Collection Subject Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans--Florida Description The Vietnam War was a Cold War Era "military conflict." The war was originally waged between Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. The United States became involved as a preventive measure to combat communism. The date of the war has been disputed, but a study in 1998 by the Department of Defense definitively put the start of the Vietnam War as November 1, 1955. The first combat military troops 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade didn't arrive until 1965. With the arrival of the combat troops came the first traditional battles of combat fighting in the war. During the Vietnam War, not only did American military go into battle with and for South Vietnam, the military also trained members of South Vietnam to fight alongside during the war. Peace talks were attempted, with France moderating, beginning on May 10, 1968. These talks were unsuccessful and lasted over three years. The longest battle of the Vietnam War began on January 21, 1968 and didn't end until the U.S. reclaimed Route 9 on April 8, 1968, 77 days later. While the military conflict ended in April of 1975, it was a long process towards reunification and redevelopment as a country. The conflict left Vietnam in both political and economical ruins. Contributor <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Vietnam Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a><span>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/.</span> Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. "<a title="American Experience" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html" target="_blank">American Experience</a>." Public Broadcasting Company. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Hanke, Gabrielle Interviewee Blank, William "Bill" Location Orlando, Florida Original Format Digital (DAT) Duration 45 minutes and 8 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 157kbps 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 Dr. William "Bill" Blank Alternative Title Oral History, Blank Subject Veterans--Florida Army Persian Gulf War, 1991 Cold War Global War on Terror, 2001-2009 Yom Kippur War, 1973 Iraq War, 2003-2011 World War II--United States Description An oral history of Dr. William Blank, who served in the U.S. Army (USA) from 1971 until 1974. Dr. Blank ultimately reached the rank of Specialist 4 and was stationed in Mannheim, Germany. Now the Director of Career Development at the University of Central Florida (UCF), Dr. Blank discusses his experiences during and after his military service. Some of the topics include the Yom Kippur War and the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, benefits of being in the military, personal experiences in Europe, the evolution of the military and public opinion of veterans, working with international students, and opinions of the military today and modern conflicts. Table Of Contents 0:00:01 Introduction 0:00:32 Entering the Military 0:03:32 Training and assignment 0:04:59 Feelings on the Vietnam War 0:07:17 First experience in Germany 0:08:41 1972 Summer Olympics 0:10:28 The Yom Kippur War 0:12:42 Personal benefits of being in the military 0:14:06 Post-military experiences 0:17:13 Preparation and thought process in the Army 0:18:52 Personal time in Germany 0:20:58 Destruction of the Berlin Wall 0:22:17 Evolution of the military and public opinion of veterans 0:26:09 Issues with government 0:27:43 Homecoming 0:28:22 Family feelings on enlistment and war 0:29:07 Feelings on assignment 0:29:47 Relationships in the Army 0:31:39 Fun in the Army 0:33:00 Travel experiences and relationship with host family 0:34:43 Working with international students 0:35:12 Summary of international experience 0:35:32 Stand-out memories 0:37:13 Opinion of entering military today 0:41:16 Opinion of recent wars 0:43:37 Admiration for evolution of military and public opinion Abstract Oral history interview of Dr. William Blank. Interview conducted by Gabrielle Hanke. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/264/" target="_blank">Blank, Bill</a>. Interviewed by Gabrielle Hank. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, 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://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/92" target="_blank">Vietnam War Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 45-minute and 8-second oral history: <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/264/" target="_blank">Blank, Bill</a>. Interviewed by Gabrielle Hanke. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Mannheim, Germany University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Munich, Germany Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Cheyenne, Wyoming Marine Corps Base Quantico, Triangle, Virginia Vietnam Watergate Office Complex, Washington, D.C. Bad Tölz, Germany Bastogne, Belgium Kehlsteinhaus, Germany Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France Creator Hanke, Gabrielle Blank, William Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-11-21 Date Copyrighted 2014-11-21 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Medium 45-minute and 8-second oral history 21-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Gabrielle Hanke and William Blank and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html" target="_blank">American Experience</a>." Public Broadcasting Company. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html. Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. Rottman, Gordon L., and Duncan Anderson. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/190967872" target="_blank"><em>The US Army in the Vietnam War 1965-73</em></a>. Oxford: Osprey, 2008. Rabinovich, Abraham. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52464595" target="_blank"><em>The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East</em></a>. New York: Schocken Books, 2004. <span>Herzog, Chaim. </span><a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1500167" target="_blank"><em>The War of Atonement: October, 1973</em></a><span>. Boston: Little, Brown, 1975.</span> Transcript <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>Okay. Today is the 21^st of November, 2014. My name is Gabrielle Hanke and I am here interviewing Dr. William "Bill" Blank. He served in the Army from 1971 until 1974. He ultimately reached the rank of Specialist 4 and was stationed in Mannheim, [Baden-Württemberg,] Germany. I am interviewing him as part of the University of Central Florida’s [Community] Veterans History Project and this interview is being conducted in Orlando, Florida. Alright, so let’s start off with your early years.</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Okay. Um, well as with most military vets, I would guess they would say a couple of words that might define their experience would be “conflict” and “adventure.” I think, you know, traditionally, that the military definitely offered both of those, and when I think of the conflict, I actually think of conflict here at home rather than abroad. Um, that was a—a pretty tumultuous time, um, in our society regarding world events, world affairs, and the military’s involvement in those events, um, specifically looking at the Vietnam War. And uh—it—it really began after I had already begun college.</p> <p>I was a—a college student. I’d been going to school for several months and, uh, back in 1971. In the fall of 1971, they had the lottery, and it’s not like you think of the lottery today where you can win a million dollars, but rather, the lottery was determining who was going to be getting a draft notice. And, uh, my number happened to be 31. And up until about 100, those individuals could be expecting to get a draft notice. And so, uh, we—we had a—an opportunity—I guess I’m going to call it, uh—if you knew you that you were going to be getting a draft notice, you had several months typically to enlist as a—a prelude to getting that draft notice or—or in lieu of getting that draft notice. What were the advantages of that? One was that we—we had—we were actually kind of transitioning into what they called the “all-volunteer Army,” which began a year later. So this was really a year to sort of field test some of the constructs of that all-volunteer Army. And by enlisting prior to getting the draft notice, we were able to go in under something they called the “buddy system.”</p> <p>And so my best friend from high school—who was coincidentally my college roommate—who also had a very low number for that lottery, we decided together to go ahead and enlist in the Army and that would give us the opportunity of going in under the buddy system. And what that really meant is that we were able to go through basic training together. And if you can imagine a couple of kids from a small industrial town, uh, in North Central Wisconsin, who had not previously ventured far from their backyard, were going to be going somewhere around the world, um, experiencing this major adventure. And so by at least starting off by having that kind of security blanket, that—that familiar face going through basic was really important and, um—and it actually meant a lot, I think, to many people, um, who had that opportunity.</p> <p> So we went in, we volunteered, uh—enlisted. Uh, we—we went to basic training together. And then the second benefit of enlisting rather than actually getting the draft notice was we had the ability to have input in terms of what we would be doing in the military. And since I had taken electronics classes in high school, uh, they had determined to send me to a—a communications technician program—electronics training basically—which worked well for me.</p> <p>And then the third benefit of enlisting was that—although it was not a guarantee—it—it really came down to the demand of the military at that time, but, um, you could at least give preferences for where you wanted to be stationed. um, and one of mine was to—to be able to go to Germany and, uh—actually, when we finished our training, I—I started off with orders for Vietnam, but because they were starting to pull back on the numbers of people they were sending to Vietnam, uh—they backed down on the Vietnam, uh, orders and transitioned them to Germany, and so I did get to go to Germany for three years. So I thought that was going to be a pretty positive experience for me.</p> <p>And—and, um, to—to maybe give just a little bit more background, it was—it was a really difficult time actually, um, for young men primarily—although there were some women that were also going in—but men were the ones that were getting drafted, because of the societal views on the Vietnam War.</p> <p>It was not a righteous war. Um, America had not been threatened. Our interests abroad had not been threatened. And so for many people in the country, um, there was resistance to the war and—and that was especially evident, um, on college campuses. Uh, having been a college student, you know, we all—we all had kind of a common perception of the war and, um, and that probably peaked in 1970, when at Kent State [University], the [Ohio] National Guard killed—I believe it was four or five students and then many others were injured as well, when the Ohio National Guard opened up on—on a group of protesters at that institution.</p> <p>Um, and so, going into the military, going from student to—to soldier literally in a couple of short months created, I guess, a great deal of, um, cognitive dissonance, or at least it made me really question my values and philosophies about living and learning versus, um, you know, doing my duty and, um, you know, agreeing to uh, protect, and pr—um, protect society, uh, which—which was something that, um—in my family, you know—it was pretty conservative. That was kind of a—a passed down value, um, or—or philosophy, I guess, on life.</p> <p>You do what you’re told to do by the authorities and—and you do it gladly. And uh, my grandfather had been in World War I and I—I remembered talking to him frequently and seeing all of his photographs. And so there was kind of that sense that, um, I need to pick up the torch in my family system and—and do my job for the military. So, two—two conflicting, um, life views really. Um—and—and I was not alone. That was pretty common I think for many young people at that time.</p> <p>But nevertheless, I ended up going to Germany. And, um, one of my very first experiences in Germany, ironically, was being the point person, um, in a riot squad. When you think of a riot squad as a “V” and—and they ask for somebody, or they told somebody, “You’re going to be the point person.” And that was developed because of some of the international protests to the Vietnam War. Uh, [President Richard Milhous] Nixon had been doing quite a lot of carpet-bombing, where he would just saturate the country with explosives and—and so European students were protesting, as well. So I’m a student one day and a few months later, I’m actually wearing a uniform with an M-16, with a bayonet on it, and I’m the point person with students from Germany, um, attempting to infiltrate our base or—or surge our fences—and—and that put me in a really awkward position as well. Fortunately, um, nothing happened to the extent that we had to make contact with them, um, but—but nevertheless, it—it really made me question what I was doing and—and whether or not it was a valid, um, experience. Uh, so—so that was my introduction to Germany.</p> <p>And then, um, just about a year later, I was actually going to teletype school, which was just outside of Munich[, Bavaria, Germany] in a small town called Bad Tölz [, Bavaria, Germany]. Teletype was sort of the prelude or the precursor to, um, e-mail. And, uh, just a—a few weeks into that training, uh, there was an attack at Olympic Village.<a title="">[1]</a> the—the 1972 Summer Olympics were going in Munich, by, um, a group of, um—uh, I guess for a lack of a better word, I would call them “terrorists”—the Black September [Organization] group—the—they were known as, attacked Israeli athletes and ended up—they kidnapped them initially in exchange for, um, over 200 prisoners that were in Israeli jails, uh—Arab prisoners. And, um, when Israel did not negotiate with them, they—they actually ended up killing all of the athletes, along with a German police officer. And, being in Munich at that time, all of the American soldiers were put on alert and, um, it was a pretty tense few days not knowing if that terror would—would, um, transition into some of the American facilities. Um, Mark Spitz was a—a—like a five—I think he won five golds that year for swimming. Uh, they—they rushed him out of Germany and—and flew him back to the United States being a—a Jewish athlete. So again, political, um, unrest and violence across the world, um, was starting to really boil. I think that was probably a, uh, maybe a—an omen of what was to come for America up the road, um, with the Middle East.</p> <p>And—and we got through it and things seemed to settle down a bit and then, literally a year later, um, my armor unit, we had about 30 to 40 tanks in—in the unit that I was stationed with in Germany, um—80-ton tanks—60-ton tanks, I guess they were. And each year, we would go up to Northern Germany to qualify those tank crews on the firing ranges. And in 1973—in the fall of ‘73—we were up there doing just that, when, um, a number of Arab countries, um, attacked Israel, um, and—and that that was led, um, primarily by, um, let me see. I need to—to—to kind of just refresh my memory. The coalition of Arab states<a title="">[2]</a> was led by Syria. Egypt and Syria were the two countries that were really kind of spearheading that attack. Um, they were trying to win back, uh, land that was lost years earlier in the Three Day War. This was called the Yom Kippur Wer[sic]—Wer[sic]—War, because it was occurring during that holiday—that Jewish holiday<a title="">[3]</a>—um, and also the Arab<a title="">[4]</a> holiday of Ramadan. And so, um, it was kind of ironic that we’re celebrating these two religious holidays, and in the midst of them, they—they create another war.</p> <p>At any rate, um, literally overnight, all of our tanks were, um, repainted in desert camouflage to—to make us ready to, um, be transported to the Middle East to intervene. Both Russia and the U.S., uh, really mustered their forces in terms of supplies and armament to their respective allies in the Middle East. And—and—and we came this close to, um, a world war with Russia at this point—the two superpowers colliding. Um, fortunately after three weeks, a—a ceasefire though occurred and, uh, that was, uh, the beginning of, um, a series of peace talks that helped to create a little bit more harmony in the Middle East.</p> <p>Uh, so at any rate, I—I had a number of conflicts that were right on the edge of reality, in terms of drawing my unit into all of them. And so, probably not unlike with most soldiers, there’s always that, um, impeding war or that impending, um, “police action”—as Vietnam and Korea were called—uh, on the cusp of—of every morning.</p> <p>Um, but—but in spite of all of that, I would say that I—I got a great deal out of the experience that I had in the military. I think when—when I look at, um, what that did for me, in terms of just the confidence and the self-responsibility, um, just the—the, um, I—I think ability to—to live my life more independently and autonomously. Um, the military was truly responsible for that. I think, in addition to that, there were relationships that were forged while in the military that were like no other relationships since, in terms of being very authentic and—and really, um, having that sense of cohesion that common bond or shared reality with other soldiers. Um, those relationships really truly turned out to be lifelong relationships.</p> <p>And then, in addition to, um, being able to benefit from the GI Bill [Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944], as a first generation college student, I was able to—to get my education—undergraduate and graduate education—um, at least partially funded by the military. um, gave me the opportunity to really get back to the, uh, goal of—of living and learning life, helping other people, uh, develop academically as a—an educational counselor and—and educational teacher. I think ultimately, all of that cumulatively allowed me to give back to the military in that, after getting my—my graduate degree in counseling, I was able to, um, develop a course for chronically unemployed Vietnam vet[eran]s, and—and, um, administer that six-week course throughout the state of Wisconsin, resulting in a national award with an over 80 percent placement rate at the end of that year for—for these, uh, participants.</p> <p>And then, beyond that at other institutions, um, at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne[, Wyoming], I—I taught ongoing workshops for military, who are retiring after 20 or 30 years, to help them more easily transition into civilian life and the civilian workforce. And then even here at—at UCF [University of Central Florida], I have the opportunity to work closely with veterans.</p> <p>When we had the war with Iraq, and many of our UCF students were called out who were National Guard or Reservists, I actually created a—a long distance career counseling service for those veterans and extended it to all of their cohorts. um, and—and helped them to really, um, evaluate their life experiences in—in the face of being a warrior and how that was influencing changing career goals and helping them to adjust their academic programs, and then also to help assist them with the transition once they came back to college. Um, so, and—and then more recently, with the—the veterans academic resource grant that we got, I’m one of the committee members for that grant, and I’ve been able to really help infuse some professional development programing for veterans with job fairs and things of that nature.</p> <p>So ultimately, you know, I—I can go back 40 years and I can see how the military really shaped me and—and how that military thread has consistently woven through my life, um, to, you know, my—my early 60s, where I am now, and—and how that’s been such a—a, I guess a pivotal experience in my life. It shaped me truly more than any other experience I’ve had thus far. So, that’s—that’s the summary of my story and, um, I stand by it.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>Well, that was very good. Um, if we could go into some more details such as, uh, how were you trained during this time of there was conflict, but then there wasn’t almost. Like, it was a very iffy time. Could you tell me a little more about that?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Well, I—I think with—with anyone in the military at any time, you’re—you’re on constant alert and you’re involved in continuous training and we were always prepared for the worst. Um, we were ready to be mobilized as with, uh, the war, uh, in the Middle East. Literally in a few days, our entire, uh, battalion would be ready to transition over to the Middle East from Germany. Um, constant training. And I think, uh, there was also, um, quite a lot of educational programming, um, helping us to—I—I think, understand where we fit with all of the world events that were going on. Um, I don’t think we were discouraged from challenging ideas and beliefs, but I think because we were the military, there was always that, um, underlying focus on it’s our job to—to go in the event that we’re called out and do what we’ve been trained to do. It was our duty—our responsibility. So no matter where one might have been, um, in terms of their political ideologies, they were ready to do their job. And I am absolutely confident that—that we all would have done what we would have been asked to do as—as were soldiers in every war before ours.</p> <p><strong>Hanke</strong>Okay. And then, um, I know there was, um, the issue of the Warsaw Pact<a title="">[5]</a> coming around. Um, what was it like uh—I mean like the air? The aura almost of being in Germany—being so close?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Well I—I did, because I was in Germany and—and because I so much enjoy and appreciate history, I did spend a—a great deal of my personal time while there learning about the history of, um, all of the events of World War II and how Europe had transformed as a result of the war.</p> <p>And then with the Berlin Wall going up around, um, the time of my birth, uh, it was interesting to learn more about that and—and experience what it was like behind the Curtain—the Iron Curtain. And while I was there, I spent all of my—my vacation time, uh, travelling throughout Europe, um, going actually to Southern Europe to, um, the—the Third Reich headquarters, um, and Bavaria[, Germany], and seeing some of the—the facilities—the Eagle’s Nest<a title="">[6]</a> that [Martin] Bormann had built for [Adolf] Hitler.</p> <p>And, um, and then also going to some of the countries that had been, um, uh, freed as a result of American intervention in the war. Um, France, and going up to Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, seeing where the Battle of the Bulge occurred in Bastogne[, Belgium]. Um, and talking to people up there and actually living with a German family for the three years. I was there and hearing their stories. They were terrified of the Nazis,<a title="">[7]</a> I think, as any European may have been at that time. Um, it—it was really interesting to get that personal perspective from people and—and talk to people who had actually been there during those wars—during that war—and, uh, hearing their, um, personal life histories.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>Yeah. That’s very interesting. And then, um, let’s see. How did you feel—I know you weren’t there at the time—but when the Berlin Wall finally came down?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Um, it—it was amazing to me. and—and I—I guess what—what I guess the personal connection for me—it went up the year I was born and it was torn down the year my sons were born.<a title="">[8]</a> And—and so I look at, within that lifetime, what a dramatic change. And that was certainly an indication of, uh, what was to come with some of the, um, eastern countries, and now the Middle Eastern countries as well, um, as far as that goes—in terms of democracy and in terms of people having freedom of choice.</p> <p>So when I thought about that, it helped to legitimize my involvement during the Vietnam period, again which was pretty tumultuous, um, politically- and society-wise, um, especially as a—an 18 year old not very knowledgeable about much in life at that point. Um, every experience I had, uh, was sort of a first time exposure for me. I didn’t have the—I guess the cognitive ability to—to maybe put it all in perspective early on, it really evolved over time.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>And then, um—how do you feel? Has the military changed in its attitudes? As you were saying, um, your generation—you did your duty. Do you feel that that has carried over to this generation?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /> </strong>It—it—it has, um, to my amazement and to my pleasure. I have seen amazing, amazing, changes. Colonel [Richard] Toliver talked about that even from, uh, pre-Vietnam era and World War II era—how things have changed. And I think for veterans, in particular—during the Vietnam era, we were either openly discriminated against, um, chastised, or we were politely tolerated at best, but we were never, never celebrated. I can honestly say that in 40 years, not one person ever even acknowledged my time in the service, much less thank me for it, until a couple years ago, um, here at UCF when—when the veterans’ memorial was—was opened up, about two years ago, I guess it was.</p> <p>And now, it’s totally amazing, is that anytime people realize that—that I had been a veteran, if I have my—my flag on or if I go to a—a veteran program here, um, they all say “Bill, thank you for your service.” I came into work on Veterans’ Day and—and there was a—a card taped to my door and all my staff had signed it, uh, thanking me for my service. And that’s like something I never ever would have expected to happen. I mean, you can’t imagine, unless you lived through it, um, you know, returning war veterans being spit upon and—and criticized and—and yelled at—to—to being thanked. I mean, that is a true, positive transition. I think it speaks volumes about how the American military is viewed in this country, at least today. Um, I had an opportunity to go to the, um, the Marine officer training school in [Marine Corps Base] Quantico[, Triangle, Virginia], and, uh, it was amazing how—how they were so excited about the opportunity to—to put themselves in harm’s way to protect their country. Um, a real different attitude, not just by society, but by soldiers as well.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>Do you have an opinion on what caused this?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Well, you know the concept of nationalism. During World War II, there was this wave of nationalism. We were attacked and we were going to defend our country. We were going to do what we needed to—to protect our families and our way of life. And, um, now again, with the attack on the World Trade Centers[sic] and—and the terrorist attacks coming from the Middle East, we have been threatened. And, um, our—our interests abroad have been threatened. Um, our—our homeland has been threatened and, indeed, attacked. And so, that’s what it requires, I think, for that wave of nationalism to occur.</p> <p>During Vietnam, again as—as I said earlier, none of that was threatened, and there were so many questions about why are we there, what we were doing. Um, are we causing more harm than good? And so, when—when the war’s not a righteous war, you’re not going to get that support. When the war is righteous, that support with be there. Hopefully, um, our s—our government, our politicians, you know, learn something from that and they—they won’t be too eager to go to war un—unless there’s just cause.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>Yeah, and, um, speaking of politicians, I know it was around the Vietnam War where things were really—people were starting to question it and especially with Watergate [Scandal] —what do you remember of that?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Yeah. Watergate actually happened when I was still in Germany, but I remember coming back and, um, you know—how that—that was the—I guess you could call it the—the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak for Nixon. Um, as early as the—the late 60s, he was—Nixon was—was being viewed as the person who was escalating the Vietnam War. Um, I think already there was a—a tide of resistance about him and then Watergate pretty much cinched it for him.</p> <p>Um, but it—it—it didn’t help to sort of regain confidence in government. I think it helped to further, um, support the concept that the government doesn’t always make good decisions and—and they’re not always, um, principled and ethical people who are running government. And so I think for—for Vietnam era veterans, you know, it—it sort of justified the views that they may have held about government. And—and we were separating military from government. A lot of people in the military didn’t necessarily support what heads of government—heads of state were—were doing and—and the kinds of decisions that they were making.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>And then, um, what was your homecoming like? Did people distinguish between you were in Vietnam or you were in Germany? Or did they…</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>No. If you had a uniform on, you weren’t seen in in a positive light. And so veterans quickly learned to not present themselves as returning veterans. Um, as soon as we got back, um, I can vividly recall my duffel bag with all my uniforms and gear went into a Goodwill bin. Um, the first thing I did was grow my hair out so I wouldn’t look like a veteran. Um, I didn’t want to be, um, targeted and—and truly they—they were. We were.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>And, um, how did your family feel about you going into the military at this time and…</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>They didn’t really want me to, quite honestly. But again with—with the draft, there wasn’t really an option. I—I think they were probably ambivalent about the war as well. and when literally every single night for a—at least a full hour on the national news, we were seeing clips of Vietnam with—with people’s sons and husbands and fathers being killed left and right and in large numbers. Um, there—there wasn’t a lot of support from family members for their sons to go into that situation.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>So, now you said you were initially, um, listed as going to Vietnam, correct? How did…</p> <p><strong>Blank</strong>Right. Right.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>How did you feel about that?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>I—I was concerned about it, but, you know, if—if that’s where they needed me to be, uh—just like every other individual who went through basic training or advanced individual training, you went where they told you to go. The military was very effective at, um, kind of creating that—that cohesion and that common bond where you go and support your fellow veteran—your fellow, um, soldiers, rather.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>And then, um, you said uh, it was thr—through the military you made these very unique relationships. Do you still keep in contact with people?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Um, not—not so much anymore at this point in in my life, um, but for the first decade or so after getting out, um, there—there was ongoing contact. Unfortunately, um, probably of the—the two or three people that I really bonded tightly with in my unit, uh, one of them was killed, um, in Germany, um, through—through an accident. And, uh, the other one relocated back to Pennsylvania, which was on the other side of the country as me. I was, um, in Wisconsin and then ultimately Colorado. So we—we sort of lost touch as well.</p> <p>But, um, one of my coworkers picked up grandparents the other day from the airport, and took them to Lakeland, where her grandfather was reconnecting with a—a military cohort from his time during World War II. And she was sharing with me how rewarding it was when she saw them, um, connect, um, for the first time. and—and they embraced each other and literally, uh, began crying because, I—I think when—when you see those people after so many years, it’s that whole flood of emotions that that come to the surface. Colonel [Richard] Toliver talked about that when he wrote his book,<a title="">[9]</a> um—how it’s a bit difficult, because so many of the emotions from wartime resurface. But—but I think they can be positive emotions too. It’s not just all negative memory. It’s—it’s the relationships that were so crucial, I think, to that lifelong, I guess, association with the military.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>And, um, I know it was a very serious time, but what did you guys do for fun?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Well, that’s the, uh, the other side I talked about, you know, for everybody going in the military. It’s conflict and adventure. And—and it’s kind of a strange combination, because sometimes they may be one and the same. But, um, being in an armored unit, um, as an 18 year old kid and we have these 60-ton tanks, uh, it was pretty amazing to be able to play with them. We—we had some areas where we would practice, um, driving them. And—and Americans would discard cars in that area that they couldn’t take back to the States, because they didn’t have seatbelts, safety glass, all of that. So imagine a Volkswagen with—with 60-ton tanks driving over it, one after another. Um, those—that was the kind of activity that made it pretty exciting.</p> <p>But then beyond what we did in the military, um, uh, you know, beyond when—when we’d go on maneuvers, I would be driving our operations major, scouting a place to camp out with—with you know 30 tanks and all the crews and support peoples. So I had a four-wheel drive Jeep and we’d—we would be going through the hillsides and having quite an adventure of it.</p> <p>But, in addition to all of that, when I wasn’t working, um, I traveled a lot. I got my international driver’s license as soon as I could, bought a car, and every single weekend I was gone. I was visiting all parts of Western Europe. In a weekend, you could go just about anywhere, because Europe is such a small landmass. Took all my vacations over there. Um, my parents came over, um, for a couple weeks to—to visit, and we traveled all over Western Europe to—to help them experience it, as well.</p> <p>Um, and then the German family I lived with, they—they sort of adopted me as a—a[sic] international, um, son—I guess for lack of a better term. And they—they took me everywhere with them when they would go off on weekends. They helped me to really experience the culture and the diversity of Germany and really learn to appreciate what Germany is today. And I think as a result of that, um, you know, knowing what it felt like to be a stranger in a foreign land and then to have people befriend me and kind of help me. Whether it was, you know, teaching me how to, um—say “vergaser,” which is German for carburetor, which I needed to know when I went to the auto-mechanic to tell him I needed a—a “neu vergaser.” Um, to—to, you know, teaching me how they celebrated, um, the holidays and—and what Christmas meant to them, taking me to church with them on Christmas Eve. Uh, all of that was really eye opening.</p> <p>As a result of that, I became an international student mentor here, um, for our international students, where each year I take one on and, um, have that mentor-mentee relationship to help them adapt and adjust to the United States and to UCF, and just guide them through the everyday issues that—that one faces when—when one is in a foreign land.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>That’s very good.</p> <p><strong>Blank <br /></strong>So a lot of adventure, um, and—and again, I think it’s that combination of coming into adulthood and experiencing, um, all of those new challenges and—and adventures that, um, people in the military never ever, ever forget.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>Is there, uh, any specific moments that stand out to you? That you can still see?</p> <p><strong>Blank <br /></strong>Um, well, one time, when—when we were on a maneuver—in terms of a memorable experience—the German forests are pretty dense and—and pretty rugged still. They have wild boars which—which have large, razor-like teeth, and—and—and, um, horns, and they can be literally deadly, if you’re caught out in the open with them—if they do attack you. And I recall one night—this may seem a bit bizarre—but having to relieve myself, I left the safety of the 60-ton tank and walked out into the woods, and I heard something snorting. And it didn’t take me but about two and a half seconds to get back on top of that tank. And sure enough, a herd of razorback came running by me, and, um, I felt fortunate I wasn’t out there.</p> <p>Um, and—and then—and then maybe, um, another time I—I guess I remember well—was actually a trip to Paris[, France] to do some sight-seeing. And—and I was able to really experience Paris and [the Palace of] Versailles and all the history, and—and I didn’t fully appreciate what I was witness to until I got back to the States and began college. And I was in a world history class where the professor was talking about the French Revolution, and, um, Queen [Marie] Antoinette, and—and the guil—guillotines, and Versailles and—and all the other students had kind of a blank look on their face. And I’m thinking <em>Oh, yeah, I—I know that, I was actually there.</em> When he talked about the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, I was there.</p> <p>Um, when they got into the World War II history and—and talked about some of the early meetings between, um, the different diplomats at, uh, the Eagle’s Nest, or Hitler’s tea house, I was there. Um, everything that was being discussed, I had actually been there in person and had experienced personally. Um, and so, it, I think it made me fully, at that point, understand what a treasure that was for me to have had that opportunity for travel and just seeing parts of the world unknown that I never would have been able to experience had I not been in the military.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>So, what would you say to someone who is considering enlisting in the military today?</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>It—it’s a—it’s a dangerous time to go in the military right now, uh, but I would never discourage it. Um, I actually teach a course—a graduate career counseling course—for, uh, graduate students who are preparing to go into school counseling. And every semester, I bring in, uh, representatives from the military to teach them about opportunities in the military, so that they at least are aware of them when they work with their high school students up the road. And—and I share with them, you know—it’s a personal decision for individuals, but we need to be letting young people know this is an opportunity.</p> <p>Um, war—war can certainly be dangerous, but there are so many benefits in the military and—and especially in terms of helping to, um, complete one’s education. The military is so supportive of that financially and otherwise. Um, and so, I wouldn’t discourage anyone. um, it—it’s awkward though, because I—I know there’s a good chance today that people could absolutely be, um, in a combat situation and, um, knowing what can happen in combat it—it creates a bit of dissonance with me. But I—I regret that young people today don’t have the same opportunity I did. They—they—young men, in particular—we—we needed that kind of safe haven to—to mature and develop.</p> <p>                        At 18, most young men are not ready for college and they’re not ready for life. And so to have that three year period where they—they have the protection of the military. Someone to feed and clothe and house you, but yet challenge you to mature and become responsible. I—I regret that young men don’t have that today. I regret that my own sons, who are 25, have never had that experience.</p> <p>Ironically, I’ve got a 29 year old, young man who works for me now—a new staff member—and, um, he’s never ironed his shirt. And in the military, we learn to press and starch all of our uniforms to great precision. And, um, this is probably my experience of the year—for me this year. He brought his ironing board, his iron, and a can of starch along with a shirt and a pair of pants and he asked me to teach him how to iron based on my knowledge of how to do that from the military. We—we took pride in our appearance and we were called on it if we weren’t attentive to it. And I—I try to encourage young men today to do the same. One—one of many, many, um, benefits or—or attributes to being in the military.</p> <p><strong>Hanke            </strong>Yeah. Um, uh, speaking of the recent conflicts in the Middle East, you said the conflicts that you experienced personally—you feel they were ominous almost?</p> <p><strong>Blank              </strong>Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Hanke            </strong>So, um, how did you feel about first [Operation] Desert Storm<a title="">[10]</a> and then the recent [Iraq] War?<a title="">[11]</a></p> <p><strong>Blank              </strong>Supportive of it, because their sovereign country had been attacked—Kuwait had been attacked. And—and, uh, I—I—I think, as—as, I believe, every past veteran would have seen, that was a—a just action.</p> <p>And, um, I think the difference though there versus in Vietnam, um—they put the full military behind it. In Vietnam, uh, there—there were so many restrictions about how that war was approached. And—and as a result of that, it went on. It actually started in in 1954 with [President Dwight David] Eisenhower, when—when he showed political and financial support for South Vietnam.<a title="">[12]</a> Um, but then, as it continued, uh, into the 60s—with the advisors and over war, and then escalated numbers of U.S. soldiers going there, um, it was never looked at as, “Here’s a war. Let’s put the full force of the military behind it.” But it was rather a trickle of U.S. soldiers going, um, for an extended period of time, not getting the kind of support that that they needed to—to do it right. And—and I was proud—proud of—of the military for the way they handled the first Iraq War.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>Now with, um, these most recent wars, they’ve been going on for quite a while.</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Yeah, the—the face of war has really changed. Starting with Vietnam, you didn’t know who your enemy was and—and same today with terrorism. But, because terrorism directly threatens the United States and all of us who live here, um, it has to be addressed. You know, I—I don’t see other options than to continue to be involved in in what we’re doing.</p> <p><strong>Hanke <br /></strong>And then, um—I think you’ve answered almost everything. Um, so, is there anything else you’d like to talk about?</p> <p><strong>Blank <br /></strong>Um, I—I think just my—my delight at how things have changed with the military. Um, when we—we saw, um—we hosted the film <em>Red Tails</em> in our office. The Tuskegee Airmen, and—and it was during [National] Veterans [Awareness] Week. Um, it was really amazing to see the pioneers for, um, bringing equality into the military, which, in my era, then continued with women coming into the military.</p> <p>And then I think the second major thing that I’m really pleased to see is that not only has the military, um, really come to a point where they honor diversity and recruit for diversity, but I think they—they also now are being valued more. All—all veterans of every war are being so much more highly valued than was ever the case, from my perspective. And that brings me great joy to—to just know, even after having waited four decades to—to see that, finally, you know, people are supportive. The—the general public is supportive of what the military is doing and—and honoring those past veterans as well.</p> <p><strong>Hanke<br /></strong>We’re good? Time is good? Okay. Alright. Well, that concludes the interview, and I would like to personally thank you for both your time and your service.</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>You’re welcome.</p> <p><strong>Hanke <br /></strong>Thank you very much.</p> <p><strong>Blank<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Munich Massacre.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> The coalition also included Iraq, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, as well as Cuba.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Yom Kippur.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Correction: Muslim holiday.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Kehlsteinhaus.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP).</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> 1961.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[9]</a> <em>An Uncaged Eagle: True Freedom</em>.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[10]</a> There is only one Operation Desert Storm.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[11]</a> Operation Iraqi Freedom.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[12]</a> Republic of Vietnam.</p> </div> </div> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/264/" target="_blank">Blank, Bill</a> Date Issued 2015-01 Extent 387 MB 203 KB 1972 Summer Olympics 9/11 Attacks Adolf Hitler all-volunteer military An Uncaged Eagle: True Freedom anti-war protest anti-war protests Arab-Israeli War of 1973 Bad Tölz, Germany basic training Bastogne, Belgium Battle of the Bulge Bavaria, Germany Berlin Wall Bill Blank Black September Organization BSO buddy system carpet bombing carpet bombs Cheyenne, Wyoming Christmas civilian civilians cognitive dissonance cold war college colleges conscription Desert Shield Desert Storm diversity draft lotteries draft lottery draft notices drafting Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David Eisenhower Eagle's Nest educator educators Egypt enlistment Europe Francis E. Warren AFB Francis E. Warren Air Force Base French Revolution Gabrielle Hanke Games of the XX Olympiad gender segregation Germans Germany GI Bill Global War on Terror guidance counseling GWOT Hall of Mirrors Halloween Massacre homecoming Ike Eisenhower international students Iraq Iraq War Iron Curtain Israel Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Kehlsteinhaus Kent State Massacre Kent State Shooting Kent State University KSU Kuwait Mannheim, Germany Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen Marie Antoinette Marine Corps Base Quantico Mark Spitz Martin Bormann May 4 Massacre MCB Quantico mentors Middle East military military assignments military drafts military training Munich Massacre Munich, Germany National Guard National Socialist German Workers' Party National Veterans Awareness Week nationalism Nazi Germany Nazi Party Nazis Nixon, Richard, Milhous North Central Wisconsin NSDAP October War Ohio National Guard Olympic Village Olympics Operation Desert Shield Operation Desert Storm Operation Iraqi Freedom Operation Wrath of God Palestine Persian Gulf War police actions protesters Ramadan Ramadan War razorbacks Red Tails Republic of Vietnam Richard Milhous Nixon Richard Nixon Richard Toliver riot squads riots Russia segregation September 11 Attacks Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 South Vietnam student protests Summer Olympics Syria tanks teachers terrorism terrorists Third Reich Three Day War Treaty of Friendship, co-operation, and Mutual Assistance Tuskegee Airmen U.S. Army UCF universities university University of Central Florida veterans Veterans' Day Vietnam Vietnam War volunteer military volunteers war protests WarPac Warren AFB Warren Air Force Base Warsaw Pact Watergate Watergate Scandal wild boars William Blank Wisconsin woman women World Trade Center World War II WWII Yom Kippur Yom Kippur War https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/e0925df2f817076cfa68167fdaae4154.mp3 8e1cbd93d7fd002c1f25b20904601bd6 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/40fe75a4bd3f3d22520d0d3201d0b7e7.pdf a04627bc46fd2c35f2e4d4afb75215fd 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 Winter Park Collection Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of Winter Park, Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. The first known residents of the Winter Park area were the Seminole Indians, who were a creolized culture resulting from the intermingling of the Muscogee (also known as the Creek) people and the Chotaw people. In 1858, David Mizell, Hr. purchased a homestead between Lake Virginia, Lake Mizell, and Lake Berry. The settlement around his homestead was first called Lake View, until it was renamed Osceola in 1870. When a South Florida Railroad track was laid nearby, the area began to develop. Loring Chase and Oliver E. Chapman began planning the town of Winter Park around the late 1870s and early 1880s. Rollins College, Florida's first four-year college, was founded in 1885 and the Seminole Hotel opened the following year. 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> Cepero, Laura Lynn Alternative Title Winter Park Collection Subject Winter Park (Fla.) Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/46" target="_blank">Orange County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Winter Park, Florida Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://cityofwinterpark.org/" target="_blank">City of Winter Park</a><span>." City of Winter Park, Florida. http://cityofwinterpark.org/.</span> "<a href="http://www.wphistory.org/explore-history/winter-park/" target="_blank">WINTER PARK HISTORY</a>." Winter Park History Museum, Winter Park Historical Society. http://www.wphistory.org/explore-history/winter-park/. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/152" target="_blank">Albin Polasek Museum &amp; Sculpture Gardens Collection</a>, Winter Park Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Youngers, Stephanie Interviewee L'Heureux, Ed Location <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><span>, Sanford, Florida.</span> 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 Ed L'Heureux Alternative Title Oral History, L'Heureux Subject Winter Park (Fla.) Rollins College (Winter Park, Fla.) DeLand (Fla.) Insurance--Florida Authors--United States Historians--Florida Race relations--United States Segregation--Florida Hurricanes--Florida Orlando (Fla.) Tourism--Florida Description An oral history intervied of Ed L'Heureux, conducted by Stephanie Youngers on November 12, 2010. L'Heureux was born in Gloversville, New York, in May of 1939, but migrated to Winter Park, Florida, at the age of five. In the interview, L'Heureux discusses growing up in Winter Park, fish fry events, his wife and family, his careers as an insurance agent and as an author, Rollins College, <em>The Yearling</em>, race relations in Winter Park, hurricanes, his father's trucking business, his service in the military, and the effects of the development of Walt Disney World on Central Florida. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br /> 0:00:11 Migrating to Florida<br /> 0:01:16 Memories of Winter Park<br /> 0:02:15 Fish fry events<br /> 0:03:06 Educational history<br /> 0:04:49 Careers as an insurance agent and as an author<br /> 0:07:39 Wife and children<br /> 0:10:49 Rollins College<br /> 0:12:35 <em>The Yearling</em><br /> 0:14:05 Race relations in Winter Park<br /> 0:18:36 Hurricanes in Central Florida<br /> 0:21:13 Father’s trucking business<br /> 0:27:24 Military service and college education<br /> 0:30:43 Walt Disney World<br /> 0:38:54 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Ed L'Heureux. Interview conducted by Stephanie Youngers 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>, Sanford, Florida. Type Text Source Original 39-minute and 25-second oral history: L'Heureux, Ed. Interviewed by Stephanie Youngers. November 12, 2010. <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="http://www.adobe.com/reader.html" 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/34" target="_blank">Winter Park Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Creator Youngers, Stephanie Contributor L'Heureux, Ed Dombrowski, Diana Date Created 2010-11-12 Date Modified 2014-09-16 Date Copyrighted 2010-11-12 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 397 KB 1601 KB Medium 39-minute and 25-second audio recording 19-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Stephanie Youngers and Ed L'Heureux, and transcribed by Diana Dombrowski. 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://cityofwinterpark.org/" target="_blank">City of Winter Park</a>." City of Winter Park, Florida. http://cityofwinterpark.org/. Transcript <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Hello, my name is Stephanie Youngers. Today is November 12, 2010. And I am interviewing Mr. Ed L’Heureux here at the Museum of Seminole County History. How are you today?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I’m fine today.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Good. We would like to begin by asking where and when you were born.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I was born in Gloversville, New York. Upstate New York. In May of 1939.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And how did you make your way into the Florida area?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>My dad and mother moved from New York to New Jersey during World War II. He was in the Coast Guard and my mother inherited some property in Central Florida at the end of the war when her uncle died. And we came down to seek it out. We sold a little farm in New Jersey, and loaded things on a truck like the Okies going to California, and came to Florida with no turning back. And we didn’t like the property. My mother didn’t like it. It was rattlesnake-infested. But we decided to stay, because we liked Florida.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh, well good. And about how old were you when you…</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I was five. Five years old.</p> <p><strong>Youngers  <br /></strong>You’ve been here a long time, then.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Since I was five.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>You might as well be a native.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I wish I could claim the other five years.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Whereabouts did you live when you moved here?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>We moved to Winter Park. Winter Park.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So, wow. When, I mean, do you have memories of Winter Park, as far as the way it looked, and…?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Oh, absolutely. There were wooden sidewalks on two blocks in Winter Park, just like <em>Little House on the Prairie</em>. You know, out west in that TV show. Wooden sidewalks. You’d clop along, and then they were torn down about two years later to make way for a bank, but it was a frontier town.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Really.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>All the old cars were still around. People came in the winters and went back up north in the summers. A couple of garages close to Park Avenue in Winter Park, you would see the old Pierce Arrows and Cadillacs and Packards that were there. They’d take the train back up north and leave the car here for next winter. So it was a sleepy, beautiful little town in those days.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh, wow. Well …it’s still a pretty little town.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>It still is. It still is.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>It definitely has gotten much larger.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux  <br /></strong>Yes. Regrettably.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Did they have any kind of local gathering or events or anything in Winter Park that you attended?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>One of the first things I remember were fish fries. They had mullet fish fries. The Lion’s Club put them on and brought concrete blocks to the grammar school playground. Put wooden planks on top for tables, and concrete blocks and wooden planks for benches, and they’d cook this mullet and they’d deep-fry this mullet, you could smell it a block away. And it was delicious.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And it was a whole town event that everybody attended?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Well, it could have been a town event. Anybody could come and pay maybe for a dollar for the dinner. And the Lion’s Club put it on about three or four times a year, and everybody came and they strung lights on the playground. Those naked yellow lights—the little bulbs—and a little music in the background. And it was tremendous.</p> <p><strong>Youngers  <br /></strong>Oh, very neat.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>The whole fish fry. Yeah. I remember it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>So, the schools you attended?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Winter Park Elementary, which is part of Rollins College today. It has been torn down now. But old Winter Park Elementary and Winter Park High School was built in 1923. Went to all three public schools there and loved it dearly. It was a great town. Great town. Nobody locked their houses or their cars. Literally.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. You can’t do that now.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>No. You can’t do that now.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So, did you go to college from here?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I went into the Army right after high school, and got out fairly soon, had a little period of time. Went to Stetson University up in DeLand about 40 miles away. I went to DeLand and graduated with a history degree there, went on to law school, and moved back to Orlando and Winter Park and have been in that area ever since.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And you still live there now?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>I live in Winter Springs, which is close. It’s north. But that whole area has been my home for the longest time. When I give speeches, they say I’m a native when I’m introduced, but I can’t claim that first five years.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>Sure you can.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>Wish I could, but…</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>Did you work as an attorney when you came back?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>No, no, no. I never practiced law at all. I dropped out before I was through. There was a lady there—I fell in love with her and we both didn’t like the law that much, for some strange reason. We both dropped out and we were married just under 40 years.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh, wow. That’s good.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>She passed away in ‘03 of cancer, but we had a long life together.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Good. What did you do, as far as a career and things?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux  <br /></strong>I was in the insurance business. I had an insurance agency. I had a Nationwide Insurance agency. I never liked business particularly, because I was trained a[sic] historian and I always wished that I’d been closer to that. And now, late in life, in my sixties and seventies, I’m a public lecturer on a myriad of Florida topics. And I write books. I’ve written 15 books, and I’m doing what I should have done as a younger man. And late in life, I’m able to do what I wish I had done earlier. So it’s kind of nice.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So, you’re writing books. Is that just a passion you always had?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Yes. I had a joint major in Stetson—History and English. And I always wanted to write books. And I always wanted to write books about Florida—novels. And in my insurance career, which was somewhat boring—I hate to say that, but it wasn’t really a stimulating thing for me. I had a family to raise, kids to raise, and I went through it and did it and was able to accomplish it, but the fire was not in the furnace. And my dad saw that melancholic hue when I was in my early forties, and he said, why don’t you dust off your pencil and pen and write again like you did in college? Because in college, I wrote for the paper. Wrote feature articles for <em>The DeLand Sun News</em>, up in Stetson at DeLand. And one day, I was out walking in a field and I saw a story. It just came to me. And I wrote it, and I wrote a second and third and fourth, and took it down to Rollins College, to a friend of my dad’s who was in the English department, and he thought they were very good. And my career was launched.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So you’ve been doing this now since you were in your forties?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Yes, yes, over 20 years.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh, very nice. And when you do public lectures and things, what do you talk about?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I have a slate of, oh, about 35 topics. All aspects of Florida history. Current, old history. Civil War. Seminole Indian Wars. Many of the industries—citrus, cattle, timber. The early founders. The early explorers. The treasure coast. Over 30 lectures I’ve crafted and researched and I deliver all around to all manner of places.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>And you do them at the local colleges?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Yes, I do college level. Civic clubs, retirement centers, private organizations—business enrichment for companies that want to enrich their employees with a lecture. All kinds of ways and things. And I’m doing that now, currently in retirement, and I love it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Well, you said you were married, and you mentioned you had children. Do you have a special courtship story?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. Funny you’d ask that. It’s not staged. I’ll never forget it. We were in law school together. And I had noticed her, because there were three women in the law school, and the rest were men. And she cut a pretty nice figure and I noticed her early on. And we had never spoken. We had seen each other and she had noticed me and I had noticed her. We were both freshmen. She had come in a semester before me. I had come in on the off-semester. And oh, maybe two or three weeks had gone by, and I had heard that everyone was dating her, and I found out that nobody was. It was just a rumor. We sat next to each other on a bench before class. The first words she said to me were, “I wonder what colors eyes our children will have.”</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh my.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Just like that. Just like that. And for once in my life, I was speechless. She said it just like that. And the answer was blue and brown, but not on the same child. So we had a son and a daughter, and they were brown-eyed and blue-eyed. The first thing she ever said to me. So I guess that’s a courtship story.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>That was very forward. And that’s right.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>That’s exactly what she said.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>That’s awesome.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>It just—I wonder what color eyes our children will have.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>That’s very good.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Isn’t that amazing?</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Yes, that’s awesome. And do you have any special family heirlooms or keepsakes that your kids share? Do your kids share your passion for history?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Not particularly. That’s strange. They don’t. My wife was trained as a journalist. And I had the English major, and History, and I had been writing. We both were writers. She wrote in industry.</p> <p>My son is a[sic] entrepreneur of sorts. He’s a very successful businessmen. He went to Georgia State [University] on a tennis scholarship and was an excellent student all the way along. And he operates and owns a company. And he’s a businessman and a coach. He coaches his daughters—my granddaughters—in lacrosse. And he’s steeped in the business world, but also with his church and philanthropic things. He likes history, but not with the same passion I have.</p> <p>My daughter is in the insurance business. Similar to what I did for a long, long time. I think mine was 27 years—something like that. And she’s got two children. My son has two children. She’s too busy to read much about history. So I don’t think—even though they’re smart children, they were exceptional in school, and I don’t think they have that historic bent. That happens a lot. But they’re both successful in their own right, and I’m happy about that.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>You all lived in Winter Park for a long time. Do you remember any historical events that happened?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Yes. I do. A couple I could mention. Rollins College had a very close union with Winter Park. They were joined at the hip, and they loved each other, and they just cooperated all the way through. It was wonderful to see. Rollins had something called <em>The Animated Magazine</em>” where people would come and speak and tell their life story, or a portion thereof. Some of the greatest notables of the age came. And I was selling newspapers there as a young boy, in my teens and even younger—10, 11, 12, 13. And I saw some great people. James Cagney, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings—the writer—Mary [McLeod] Bethune—the educator—all kinds of people from all walks of endeavor. And that made a great impression on me, because I knew some of these people. I knew their plaudits, I knew their successes, and yet I could see them speak from a stage. And here I was scurrying around trying to sell newspapers there. They held it every winter, in one of the months without a lot of rain. They held it outdoors in February. It’s usually cool. And I remember in the early days, when I was just a little boy, the women and men would come all decked out. Women would wear hats, you know, all women wore hats until somewhere in the ‘40s—‘50s, I guess it was. And they’d wear their fox stoles with little beaded eyes, you know—and foxes, all heavy coats in the winter time. And men would dress up with hats. I remember that. And I think I got a lot of history from that.</p> <p>One thing from my youth that I recall, when Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote <em>The Yearling</em>, the famous book which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. The movie came out in the late ‘40s. With Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman. And the theaters thought so much about it that they decked the theaters—the lobbies—in a Florida motif. Hanging moss, they had a possum in a cage, they had a raccoon in a cage, they had palmetto bushes in there, just like the big scrub that she wrote about. And it was—everybody was decked out in old frontier days, and you walk in the lobby, you thought you were at Cross Creek, where she lived. And you can’t get that today.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh my. And that’s the theater in Winter Park?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Well, the theater in Winter Park, the Colony [Theatre], and the theater in Orlando, the Beacham [Theatre]. Today, you’ve got a multiplex. You know, you’ve got 20 little theaters. Nobody talks to anybody, you just go in, and there you go. And you can never get that today. But they thought so much of her movie, after she won the Pulitzer Prize. They decked the lobby of the theaters in Winter Park and Orlando in a Florida backcountry theme. Literally. You know, you could see a possum in a cage, and a raccoon, and moss dripping down, you know. Palmetto bushes, which were cut up and put in there as props. So I remember those things.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. Were there—when you were attending school and things, during the times of segregation and things, do you recall anything as far as when those differences came in? Were there any notable things in the Winter Park area or even Seminole County area that you remember as far as that?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Well, I remember never playing ball against any black boys or African-Americans. Never. You know. They had their own schools. And it was a shame, because they were great athletes. I never interacted with them in high school in any manner. We knew where they were, they knew where we were, and we were friendly to them, you know. But I look back and remember the colored restrooms, where they were marked “colored,” where the African-Americans had to go to separate restrooms.</p> <p>I remember my dad’s business. He was in the trucking business. And he would hire casual labor every day down in Winter Park in Hannibal Square. And we’d go down there and they’d come up to the door of his car and ask whatever he was paying, and they’d negotiate the pay, and then they’d get in the back seat and go for a day’s labor. When I was out on the trucks with him—because I worked on my dad’s truck from the time I was 12 years old—hauling freight, hauling furniture. We’d go to a diner, and get something to eat sometimes at lunch, and if we didn’t bring our lunch. And the black laborers would have to sit out back. Sit down on the ground out back. And my dad would order a sandwich for them. They would go through the kitchen, go out the back door, and they’d sit and eat it out back. They weren’t allowed in to sit.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>And they didn’t even really have a dining area?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>No. There was no dining area, even. And we took the bus a lot in those days, from Winter Park to Orlando. I used to go down to Orlando to a bookstore—McVicker’s—go down to the theaters there when I was a small boy—10, 11, 12. On the bus, by myself. If I use “colored,” “blacks,” “African-Americans” —it’s interchangeable, because they called themselves those things at various times. But they would come on the bus, and they’d march right to the back of the bus. And sit, and there’d be no question about it. And if one was sitting and a white woman came on and there was no place for her to sit, they were expected to give up their seat.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>So I was in the terrible segregation days. Grew up in it. It was terrible. I loathe the fact that it took place. I would like to have interacted with them. I played baseball—sports—in high school. We never played against blacks ever, that I can ever remember.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Once they made that change, how did the community react?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Well, some fought it for a long time, because they always wanted something to lord over people. You know how people are. A lot of people embraced it, were happy about it, and glad it came along. But it was a very begrudging thing. It didn’t happen overnight. We had <em>Brown v. the Board of Education</em>—the lawsuit and the legal argument at the Supreme Court—but it wasn’t like turning a light on or off, you know, all of a sudden. There was a transition period of several years. Several years.</p> <p>I remember when I was at Stetson—my senior year, I was in charge of homecoming. And we had a black entertainer come from New York for a homecoming dance and a concert. His name was Roy Hamilton, and he was excellent. He wasn’t quite as famous as Johnny Mathis in those days, but this is in the late ‘50s—‘59 or ‘60—and I was in charge of getting him lodging, for he and his wife, and his bass player, and his piano player. And no motel would take him. No motel would take him. And I had to put him up in a couple of houses in the black section of DeLand. And this—this guy was a New York entertainer, he was an RCA Victor recording artist. He was big. Roy Hamilton, back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. And I couldn’t find lodging for him. He drove—drove down from New York and I was so embarrassed. No hotel would take them. So, to answer your question, it was a long process. It didn’t happen overnight.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>It is. It is. Is there any other things, like those type of events, that you can recall? I mean, I know the history of just this area—they had the freeze, and they had hailstorms, and the fires, and hurricanes, and things.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Well, hurricanes, yes. I can tell you stories about the hurricanes. The Weather Bureau [National Weather Service] was so embryonic in its stage, and so much in its infancy. We didn’t have good rapport with the Weather Bureau, because they didn’t have good rapport with the storms. And we had our radios in the early days before TV. We had our little Philco radios. And they’d scratch and you could barely hear them sometimes.</p> <p>And the indicator of hurricanes was not somebody coming on the TV or the radio to tell you, it was the Australian pines. Australian pines were brought to Florida as a windbreak. And also, a windbreak against hurricanes. And also, because they looked kind of pretty in margins of road and along canals and this kind of thing. My dad had Australian pines on our property. Our warehouses were next to our home, because we lived in a rural part of town. And the Australian pines would whoosh and you’d hear them make a sound that was different than just a little storm. The hurricane sound was unmistakable. It was a wail—an actual wail. And we’d hear it, and then we’d say, “There must be a storm coming.” And a lot of times, it’d be a hurricane. It would be a hurricane, and this was the late ‘40s, the early ‘50s. And I can remember some terrible storms that came through Orlando. Rowboats on the street, you know, and the water off, the lights off, for days. But the early warning for hurricanes was so backward, because we didn’t have the technology for it. And we missed school all the time. And it would rain for days when the storms were around. I remember distinctly, storms in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s that were rough that came through here. Trees down, and power out, but we had no notice. It wasn’t like the hurricanes in ‘26 in Miami and ‘28 that came across Lake Okeechobee. When they were there, you knew they were there. But not any notice. And even in the ‘40s and ‘50s, we had almost no notice of hurricanes.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>Wow. Wow. That’s—kind of makes you wonder what we would do without these things.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Exactly, today.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>You were saying earlier too that your father ran a trucking business?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>My dad had a trucking business, and there’s a great story there. He bought an old truck—a 1934 Ford—in New Jersey, where we had our farm. He was in the Coast Guard and almost farmed by night. He farmed with the lights on on[sic] the tractor. He’d farm at night, because we was trying to make a living. And my mother would take the produce and sell it downtown. In an old Pontiac car with a running board, and my sister and I were three, four years old, and we’d go with her.</p> <p>He bought this truck to transport our belongings from the farmhouse to Florida. My mother inherited this property out near Rock Springs, out near Apopka. And he had money from the sale of the farm. And he built our house that summer. The war was over that summer. And the goods coming in, like [inaudible] nails to build a house were slow. My dad had never built a house. My dad was afraid of nothing. He built a house and not knowing how to do it. He built it. The footers, the concrete block foundation, the rafters—he just built it with the help of two men from town, and had a little money from the sale of the farm.</p> <p>The summer—and by fall, the money was low, and he had no job. The house was up, we were in the house. So he took the truck down to the railroad station, when the Rollins co-eds were coming in for the year. And in those days, almost nobody drove a car to college. You took the train. Literally. And Rollins was a fancy, expensive school, even in those days. He met somebody down in Winter Park. “I’ve been here all summer. I need a job.” “We built our house. We’re in our house. I need a job now.” He had that truck. The man said, “Why don’t you go down to the train station and walk down through the cars when they stop and tell them you’ll haul trunks to the college—to the dormitories?” He said, “Taxicabs have been doing this for years.”</p> <p>So my father took his truck down there, and in competition with the taxicab drivers, he walked up and down the train saying, “We’ve got a truck outside to haul your trunk.” So he started hauling trunks to the college for about 10 days, till everybody was down and school was in session, and he was out of work ,because he had worked for 10 days. So he ran an ad in the paper in Winter Park. He had a caption that read, “We will move anything”. And he put it in the paper with a phone number—four digits. You could talk to the operator. And this was right after World War II. And he set up a moving business. And he was in the moving business 28 years.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Trucks and warehouses, and that’s how he had his start.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow, that’s really cool.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I think so. He had a truck and no job, and he put the truck to work.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. And your mom—did she stay home?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>She stayed home and ran the office. And he was in the early years out there in the truck, hauling with everybody else. And then he graduated to giving advice and direction behind the scenes as he got older and his business grew—flourished.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow, that’s a really cool story.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I think so.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Well, is there anything that you would like to discuss that I haven’t really brought up?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Well, yes. I guess. Let’s see. I was very fortunate in living as a young boy and young man through probably as wonderful a time in Florida history as there could be. That was from the end of World War II until the early 60s, when all the riots started and all the national trouble with the Vietnam War. There were about 15, 18 years in there that were just marvelous. And I—it was all my grammar school years, my high school years, my college years. It was just a remarkable place to grow up. It was remarkable.</p> <p>I would ride my bicycle—you are not going to believe this. Nine and 10 years old, I’d ride my bicycle two and a half miles to Downtown Winter Park, go to the police station, and say, “I was going to lock it in one of their little racks. Would they look after it?” I’m telling you the truth. I was taking the bus to Orlando for the day. And I’d get on the bus at age nine or 10, by myself. You know, you never thought about bad people. You never heard of them. And I would go to Orlando on the old bus, go to McVicker’s bookstore and buy a Hardy Boys book. They were popular then. Go to a Saturday matinee and see Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and eat popcorn and Coke. Spend all day in Orlando. Go by the Cub Scout den, the Yowell Drew Ivey’s—a great department store. Look for the next badge I was going to get, or a new hat, or whatever. And come back in the afternoons, after being in Orlando for six or seven hours, claim my bicycle from the police rack, unlock the thing that locked it, and ride home at night, and be gone all day. Nine, 10 years old. I’m telling you the truth. Nobody thought a thing about it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Today, you couldn’t even—I was in grammar school! I remember going once when I was 10 years old to Orlando with a $10 bill for Christmas presents. And I bought my dad a fishing lure at Denmark’s Sporting Goods store, which was a landmark—Denmark’s. I went to the Yowell Drew Ivey’s, and bought my sister a little gift, a Nancy Drew book. Because Nancy Drew was like Hardy Boys. Nancy Drew was for girls, and Hardy Boys was for boys. And I went over to Dickson [&amp;] Ives, went up the floor in an elevator, and bought my mother a nice handkerchief. And I had lunch down there. I had bought a gift for my sister, my father, my mother. And went to the movies and came home and still had change from the $10 bill.</p> <p><strong>Youngers <br /></strong>Oh, my goodness.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>I remember it, I was about 10 or 11 years old.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>And it wasn’t that I was particularly brave or anything. It was just that you didn’t have any worries. Nobody accosted you or anything. There was never any trouble. I’d go to Orlando alone for the day.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow. I don’t even go to Orlando alone right now.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Exactly. Exactly.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>So, you’d mentioned too that you had served some time in the army?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Did you serve in the war?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>No, no. I’m not particularly proud of that, but it wasn’t my fault. I had the wrong age. I was too young for [the] Korea[n War] and too old for [the] Vietnam [War]. Now, I would have been old enough for Vietnam, but I was married by then, had a child by then, and I didn’t go.</p> <p>But I signed in the Army Reserves when I was in high school. I went to Reserve meetings when I was a junior in high school. And senior. That’s pretty young to be out there—a soldier with men. I was only 16. And then I went in the active duty after high school. And got out—and we only went six months to active duty, and we were in Reserves seven and a half years.</p> <p>And I was going to go to Davidson College in North Carolina, because some friends went and I was accepted there. I came back in January, after six months in the service, from June to January, and some friends talked me into going to Stetson for just a semester. Because if I didn’t go to school, I was going to be on my dad’s trucks hauling furniture. I promise you—I hated to go home on the weekends form college, because I’m going to be on his truck working. So I said, “Going to college is better than working on Dad’s trucks.” So I went to Stetson and liked it and never went to Davidson. I went on through Stetson the whole time. But that’s how that worked out.</p> <p>We used to—when I finally got a car at Stetson, I could get a tank of gas a week if I’d come home and see Mom and Dad. It was only 34 miles from DeLand to Winter Park. And I would run the gas down to near the E-mark, because I knew how far it was. There was a Pure station in our neighborhood—an old Pure station—and I could get a tank of gas. And of course, I always bought my dirty linens home in a big duffel bag for Mother, you know. I would, time and time and time again. One time, I got down to Casselberry, and I thought that I was going to run out of gas. And I pumped nine cents. Nine cents of gas. And the gasoline was about 32 cents a gallon. I got enough to get me home. Nine cents!</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh, my goodness.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>There are more, you know, people that are older—a hundred years old—remember the early 1900s, which is even more archaic than what I’m talking about. But you asked me what I remember. That, from end of World War II until the Vietnam War, America was at its zenith, its power, its influence, its peacetime.</p> <p>And it was a marvelous time to grow up in Florida. Florida was booming. The tourism was starting. The [Lockheed] Martin Company came to Orlando. The Cape [Canaveral] was starting to make some rumbles, and Orlando was really growing. I know in my graduating class—and my sister’s—we were about the same size, the year before me. We were 56, 57, 58. We’re all about the same. Two or three years later, the class size had doubled, because of the Martin Company and all the Allied Aerospace Company [Allied Aerospace, Inc.]. People were flooding into Florida in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. But it was a great place to grow up. I miss it. It’s gone. It’s gone.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>I can understand that. Do you remember when they first built [Walt] Disney [World?</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux <br /></strong>Oh, yes. I remember “B.D.”—“Before Disney”. Oh, I do. I do. I went into the brokerage business and met a man who made a lot of money by being on the inside looking out, and bought land as a speculator. He ran a service station in Beverly Hills. And he owned it. He was blue collar, but he owned it, and all the stars would gas up there. And he flew an aircraft, along with a couple of his buddies. Had a little piper cup group. And the word is, that Disney was coming east. They had Disneyland, and they were coming east, and they thought it was going to be St. Louis[, Missouri]. Proved not to be St. Louis, because Mr. [Adolphus] Busch from Busch—Anheuser-Busch [Companies, Inc.], heard something that they weren’t going to serve beer, and he said something at a big gala unveiling, “you can’t come to St. Louis and not sell beer.” And Walt Disney didn’t like that. So St. Louis was crossed off.</p> <p>The next option was either Ocala or Orlando. So this man from California that owned an old Standard Oil gas station—he was a thousand-aire, he wasn’t a millionaire. He knew some of the stars. And they leaked that this area might be it. So he and three of his buddies flew—took a month off—flew piper cubs[?] to Orlando Executive Airport—the old airport—checked into a motel, hired Kelly [Service, Inc.] girls to post themselves in the various county seats—Kissimmee, Tavares, Sanford, Orlando—to see if anything unusual was being recorded— anything deeds or anything. They ate four meals a day, trying to eavesdrop scuttlebutt. They got their hair cut every week whether they needed it or not. They got their shoes shined. They wanted to be where scuttlebutt was, where gossip was, because they were trying to bankroll the buying of land if Disney was going to buy in Orlando. They’d meet every night and confer. “How’d your day go?” “Where’d you go?” “Oh, I ate four meals in restaurants,” and this and this and this. And they’d move the Kelly girls around every day. The girl that was in Orlando would be in Sanford and then the next day she’d be in Tavares so she wouldn’t be suspicious. And they had a map they put across their bed in the motels there. “Where were you?” It was like a war. They were trying to find out if Disney was coming here. So then money was going.</p> <p>This is a true story. He gave this story in my living room. In fact, I did business with him. He’s dead now. I shouldn’t use his name. The money was up, and darn it, we didn’t find it. Nothing. Because it was really—only three people in town knew it. The man in charge of <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, the man in charge of First [inaudible] Bank of Orlando. I mean, it was like keeping the A-bomb secret. Because Disney knew the prices would escalate.</p> <p>So here’s the story. And it’s true. They checked out of their motel rooms. They got their planes at Orlando Executive Airport. And they had flown during the month around to see what they could see from the air too. They flew out to present Lake Buena Vista that had a wind sock little airstrip there owned by a family-kind of a mom-and-pop business. Little wind sock, you know. And piper cubs[?] would land. A place to gas up. So they landed there to gas up. It was a two day flight to California. They were flying to Texas and then on to California. Little piper cubs[?], they go about 120 miles an hour, tops.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>There was an old boy there at the little airstrip with an old cracker hat on, piece of straw in his mouth. You know, and he was making conversation with them. And they were glum, because they were there and spent a month’s salary and nothing. And this guy—and this is a true story. He told it in my living room. You could hear a pin drop. This guy said, “What’s going on around here? Mr. Brown down here, he’s got his farm for sale. Mr. Smith down here, he’s under option with some other people, and Mr. Miller down here, he’s selling out too.” “And Mr. C.”—I’ll call him “Mr. C.,” because he’s gone. I want to protect him. He said, “Oh, really? Oh really, really? People around here auctioning their farms? Yeah, we don’t know what’s going on. It’s crazy over here right now.” Well, it was at Bay Lake, right by where it was. And they came in and made some deals with farmers under the rug, and so Mr. C. and his buddies got back in the airplanes, went back to the motel, which was on Colonial Drive—across from a place called Ronnie’s Restaurant, which was famous—checked back into the motel, and redoubled their efforts, and found it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Oh, my goodness.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>And they begged, borrowed, and stole every buck they could from California—their friends, their relatives. And in two short years, they were all multi-millionaires. The guy at the gas-up station at the little family-owned airstrip spilled the beans.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Now, that’s a true story, and isn’t that a great story? Yeah, it’s funny, but…</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>It’s great that that’s how you find out stuff, though. It might not be in the middle of the city. It might just be…</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>That’s right. They had Kelly girls they hired. They were everywhere. Listening—listening in the corridors of courthouses. All of them got fat, he said, because they were going in every restaurant, every diner, trying to sit and hear something, you know. They got their shoes shined when they glistened, you know. Got their haircut too often. They just wanted to be places to get gossip. Because they’re trying to bankroll big money. Thirty days—nothing. They leave town, they gas up, and the guy at the place spills the beans. And he said, “It was the greatest thing he had ever heard.” He said, “Oh, really? This, Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown?” That probably was not the names, but those were the names he used. It was somebody that was selling out to Disney. And this was all prior to the announcement. So they went back, and said, “We found it.” And it was Bay Lake. And they found it. And they searched for 30 days and couldn’t find it.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Well, now, did it really help the area? Initially it brought in a lot of income, and…</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Well, I’m an environmentalist. You know, my books have that theme. I love nature. I love the outdoors. And yes, it’s done a lot of good, but I like the old Florida. I write about the old Florida. The backcountry roads, the way it was, you know. The animals. Not that we had them running loose, because we had cattle fencing and all, but I guess it’s helped. If you’re on I[nterstate Highway]-4 in gridlock, and a tractor-trailer’s across the way and you’re two hours late for an appointment, you’re not liking it.  There was no turning back once Disney came. It was just—it was just frantic. It was the most frantic thing I’d ever seen. The people coming in here with jobs, and the growth, it was just unbelievable. I like the old Florida. I like the old days.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>But that story about Mr. C. is a true story. I did business with him and we had him out to the house one night for beer and popcorn, and had some of my friends over, about 10 of us. Maybe a little more. And we all sat around listening to him tell that story. And that’s just a fantastic story.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>It’s hard to imagine what Florida would be like without that aspect of it, especially Central Florida.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Well, it would have grown despite Disney. It was growing early. The Cape—the aerospace industry really took off after the war and in the early ‘50s, it would have grown without Disney. People had pensions. They had retirements for the first time. And they wanted to get out of the cold. So it had started to grow long before Disney. But not at the rate that Disney brought after that. When they came, it was much different than it would have been. It would have been a gradual increase. It wouldn’t be like it is today. But it still would have been a very big state. So we can’t blame Disney totally.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>No. Well, if you don’t have anything else.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Stephanie, I think this has been fun. And enjoyable. And to learn that you came from the Okeechobee area, which I know also. And I went to college with many people from the towns around Lake Okeechobee—La Belle—also and I so enjoyed being interviewed by you today.</p> <p><strong>Youngers<br /></strong>Well, good. I’m glad.</p> <p><strong>L’Heureux<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> Coverage Orlando, Florida Hannibal Square, Winter Park, Florida Beacham Theatre, Orlando, Florida Colony Theatre, Winter Park, Florida Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida Stetson University, DeLand, Florida Winter Park Elementary, Winter Park, Florida Winter Park, Florida active duty Allied Aerospace, Inc. Australian pines authors Beacham Theatre Brown v. the Board of Education Busch, Adolphus Cape Canaveral Colony Theatre Davidson College DeLand Diana Dombrowski Downtown Winter Park Ed L'Heureux fish fish fries fish fry Gloversville, New York Hannibal Square historians hurricanes insurance agents insurance industry Kelly Services, Inc. lecturer lecturers Lion's Club Lockheed Martin McVicker's mullets Museum of Seminole County History National Weather Service Nationwide Insurance orlando Park Avenue race relations Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan Rollins College Roy Hamilton segregation Stephanie Youngers Stetson University The Animated Magazine The DeLand Sun News The Yearling tourism trucking industry U.S. Army U.S. Army Reserve Walt Disney Walt Disney World Walter Elias Disney Weather Bureau Winter Park Winter Park Elementary School Winter Park High School https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/89a483209f72bf0724ecf58fa0c0fb83.pdf edf8fc91f7d3e5f53bcb271f08a1b601 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Dossie, Porsha Interviewee White, Edwin White, Carolyn Location Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video recording Duration 13 minutes and 25 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 195kbps 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 Edwin White and Carolyn White Alternative Title Oral History, White Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Horses--Florida Description An oral history interview of Edwin White and Carolyn White, conducted by Porsha Dossie on April 18, 2015. Around 1967, the Whites moved to Oviedo, Florida, where they established a horse ranch. In the interview, the Whites discuss how Oviedo has changed over time, their horse ranch, and the wildlife that lives around their property. Due to technical difficulties, the first six and a half minutes of the recording lacked audio and were edited out of the final version. Table Of Contents <br />0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:02:10 How Oviedo has changed over time <br />0:05:58 Horse ranch <br />0:08:50 Staying healthy <br />0:10:58 Bath Lake and the surrounding wildlife <br />0:13:17 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Edwin White and Carolyn White. Interview conducted by Porsha Dossie on April 18, 2015. Type Moving Image Source White, Edwin and Carolyn White. Interviewed by Porsha Dossie, April 18, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 14-page digital transcript of original 13-minute and 25-second oral history: White, Edwin and Carolyn White. Interviewed by Porsha Dossie, April 18, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Tally-Ho, Oviedo, Florida Oviedo, Florida Creator White, Edwin White, Carolyn Dossie, Porsha Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2015-04-18 Date Modified 2016-01-21 Date Copyrighted 2015-04-18 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 482 MB 147 KB Medium 13-minute and 25-second audio/video recording 14-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Julia Edwin White and Carolyn White and Porsha Dossie, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6302" target="_blank">All English Horse Show Set for Tally-Ho Farms</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6302. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/0wcqcuguoSo" target="_blank">Oral History of Edwin White and Carolyn White</a> Transcript <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>And then, uh…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>At church.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Got married. Yes.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Met at church.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>First Baptist [Church of Oviedo], and, uh, we moved to the Oviedo area then in about [19]60—67.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Something like that.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Or something like that, and, uh, built a small horse ranch out in the Black Hammock.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>And Carolyn [White], uh, had horses, and a pony from the time she was that high, and, uh, always wanted to have one. So then we, um, started that and had, uh, stable there, and, uh, she started riding lessons and trained horses, and had about 50 students a week, didn’t you?</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>A long time, and then, it got a little too—more than we wanted, so we moved down, um, to Chapman Road, here in Oviedo, but we’ve been in this area since back in the ‘60s, and, uh, both our boys grew up here and, uh, went to all the schools here, and, um—and they have also stayed in Oviedo, so shows ya it’s a nice place to live.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Yeah, Lars [D.] White is our son.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>He’s Oviedo fire chief, and Don White is our other son, and he lives nearby, but he’s more like standoffish, so [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>So he doesn’t come to the meetings and so on, but he’s still a good person [<em>laughs</em>], but anyway, uh, here we are, and, um, we still love Oviedo. We still have eight acres, and we just love it, and I still teach riding and train horses. Keeps you young [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>We were here when, uh, UCF<a title="">[1]</a> was FTU.<a title="">[2]</a></p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>And when they first thought about doing it down—building it down there, and we thought it would end up something like a junior college, or [<em>laughs</em>], you know—now, it’s what? The second largest…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>In the state.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>In the…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>United States.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>It’s unbelievable.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Yeah[?].</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>So…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>But, uh…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Anyway, there’s a lot of traffic on Alafaya Trail now.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>More than ever, and, um, it’s just grown and everything, but we’ve still stayed the same. We still do what we do, and enjoy it, and—and still love Oviedo. So that’s our story [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[inaudible]. So I’m just going to talk you guys a little bit about the changes you’ve seen in Oviedo, and then…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Just go from there, ‘cause you’ve been here since…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Well…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>The ‘60s.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah, there were two-lane roads. There was nothing any larger than that, and…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Yeah, Alafaya…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Most of ‘em…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Trail was.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Were dirt.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Dirt?</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah, the—Chapman Road, leading up to [<em>clears throat</em>] where our…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Mitchell Hammock [Road]?</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Property is, was just, um—it was like a washboard road, and, uh, Oviedo was much, much smaller than—I can’t even give you the size of it, but, uh…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>It was…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>It has grown [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>It was a farmers’ town.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah, it was…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>They grew, uh…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Water…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>When we built out in the, um…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Black…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Black Hammock…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Area, uh, they were growing cabbage, celery…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Watercress.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Watercress on large acreage, and that was the main, uh, products back then. So it has grown now, and of course, with the water situation like it is and everything, most of the farming has moved on out where more water is available, and watercress is down near Lake Okeechobee, where they do have enough water to take care of that.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>And lots of orange groves around too.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Lots of orange groves, which there aren’t a lot of those left. Uh, everywhere there was an orange tree, there’s a house now.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>But, uh, we still love Oviedo, but, um, we sometimes think we liked it better…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>We like less traffic [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Less traffic, but we do have more conveniences, because here we are, so far out, and when you came from Orlando to Oviedo then, you felt like you were taking a day’s trip.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>But you weren’t, but, uh, it was, um—it was nice out here then, but it’s—it’s changed an awful lot. We do like the conveniences of a mall, and…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Publix right around the corner, and—in fact, Carolyn used to ride her horse from where we are on Chapman Road—rode all in the, uh, shoppin’ center area.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>We, uh, ran through Publix.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Used to ride right through Publix.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Right where the bank was, and…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Uh, it—it has grown a lot, and we could take—we could go out the back of our property and, uh, take a, um, hayride and go all in through…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Ceme…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Where the…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>The cemetery.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah, the cemetery that was there and the, um—where the shopping center is actually. So we’ve seen it grow a lot. Mitchell Hammock Road is, um, now—what is it? Six lanes?</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Yeah [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah, it’s about…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Just[?]…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Three each way.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Huge [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>And, uh, it was just dirt.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>So it’s brought conveniences. It’s brought a lot of problems, and so on, but you can’t get around it. You…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>You have to go with the flow.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>That’s[sic] about sums it up. Don’t ya think, Ed[win White]?</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah, unless she’s<a title="">[3]</a> got…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Uh, is there anything else you guys would like to add that you—I haven’t covered? [inaudible] you guys have givin’ me a lot of information already, but if there’s something you think you should add, feel free.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Well[?]…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Because you came in 1967 to Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>‘Bout ’67, yes.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Um, what were you doing as a job then? Were you working as well?</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>She would—actually, we had the horse farm.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>And…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>I was—I had, like, 40 students a week. I was—had a lot of business. I mean, everybody wanted their kids to have lessons, and I had adults in the morning, and I taught kids in the afternoon…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>In group lessons and usually had private lessons in the mornin’. So I’ve been doing this for a long time. Kinda know what I’m doing [<em>laughs</em>] by this stage, and I still enjoy it, and I think it keeps, um, the physical—the physicality of it…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Keeps us young. I mean, we’re outdoors all the time, and it’s, um—it’s just part of our lifestyle.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>And we live on a small lake,<a title="">[4]</a> and, um, it’s really funny, because when we were looking for property, I was so sick of Black Hammock and it being so wet—very wet. If it rained, it rained in the Black Hammock. We were just indulged[?] with rain, and we just got so tired of it, and so finally, we just wanted to get out of there, and get where it’s high and dry, and that’s why we came over to this side of town, versus being down in the Black Hammock, and we were lookin’ for high-and-dry property, and found it. One of my riding students told us that there was property down the street from them, and so we came and looked and bought it right away, ‘cause we just—we really wanted to be high and dry, and so we just, um—my business followed me over here, and, um, still teach and still trainin’. I just don’t give group lessons anymore, which I gave—I used to do a lot of that. So I still enjoy what I’m doing [<em>coughs</em>], and it keeps us healthy. So we still love Oviedo [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>During that time, we were boarding horses for the people that lived in town also, so—in Orlando and Winter Springs and, uh, Winter Park, and, uh—so that brought a lot of the kids out ever[sic] day after school. They would come out to ride their horses and take their lessons and so on. So…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>And[?]</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Both our—both our boys loved having all the girls coming out every afternoon…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>After school [<em>laughs</em>], and it kept the boys at home too.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Because the girls came to them [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>And your—both your sons grew up in Oviedo and attended, uh, the Oviedo schools?</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Did they go to Oviedo High School?</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yes[?].</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>And—and the grammar school.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Yeah, and, uh, we—we just fell in love with Oviedo, and we just, um, became more a part of it, being uptown now, not back in the Black Hammock, and, uh, so we’ve enjoyed it a whole lot. We enjoy church here and met a lot of friends in church, and you finally just grow into the community. That’s what happened to us, and we still love it, and we still love what we do. We still keep healthy that way. I keep telling him that [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah, it’s—it keeps me going and…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>It’s making me healthy.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Uh, and during that time, we were, um—she was taking care of the boarding and the, uh—and I was an IRS<a title="">[5]</a> agent, so I did that until I retired, and then, um—since I retired, I’m still doing the horses.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>That’s helping.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Not[?] doing me [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>So…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>But we’ve met a lot of nice people, and we still run into ‘em occasionally at, uh, the grocery store or something like that, and—so it’s been an interesting life.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Lot of people ask us, “How do you keep so young?” You know, ‘cause we’re physical[sic] good shape, except for my neck [<em>laughs</em>]. So I had an accident, and, um, so I had neck surgery. So the past couple of years has been a little bit rough on me—getting’ over it, but I’ll get over it again. So anyway, we still love what we do. We still love workin’ outdoors. We—we just—I just feel like we’re blessed to have good health.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>I think when you get our age—I mean, goodness—and you’re still goin’ strong, and you’re still able to do physical work, you know, and I don’t think anything by[?] goin’ out and trimmin’ trees and doin’ all kinds of stuff, ‘cuz we’ve always done it, and livin’ on the lake, we had to keep the lake clean. So if—we’ve got that lake pretty well cleaned by now.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>What lake do you guys live on?</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>It’s, um…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Bath Lake.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Bath Lake.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>B-A-T-H.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>It’s kind of a funny name…</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Because it’s a smaller lake, but it’s nice, and it’s clear water and everything. So we’ve kept the lake nice and clean, and—and, uh, keep our property up and enjoy it. We—we enjoy our work. So I don’t know how many people can say that at our age.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>And even though…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Oviedo is grown so in the traffic and, uh, all the houses [<em>clears throat</em>], we still, on our piece of property, have the deer coming through, um—going from one location to another, and they pass through our property most[sic] every night, and we have the fish out there, and we have all kinds of water birds, and, uh, we, right now are…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>We have…</p> <p><strong>Edwin</strong>             Going through the, uh, sandhill cranes, which have been coming through our property eighty[sic]…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Eight…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Eight years.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Eight or nine years.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>And they, each year, have a—an offspring, and so this year right now, they have a little one about that big. Well, [<em>laughs</em>] he’s grown…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Already in a week, and we have, uh, all sorts of animals around, and right now, there’s a, um, [great] blue heron—two blue heron[sic] that have built a nest in the top of a pine tree…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Down…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Down by the lake, and they have offspring in there right now. So…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>They’re huge. Blue…</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>There’s always something…</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Blue herons.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Exciting happening.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>They’re beautiful birds. They’re huge too. When, you know, they go up there and they build this humongous nest—I mean, it—thing is probably that big.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah, it looks like an eagle’s nest. It’s so huge.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>And they—I know they have at least one—maybe they have two babies in there, but they’re quite noisy, and they’re raising them. So that’s our first for that—with the blue herons puttin’ their nest up there. So the blue herons just hang out at our place. We have eagles once in a while that’ll land, and it’s—it’s just interesting. That pretty well sums it up, I think, Ed?</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>Well, I thank you guys so much for talking to us and taking out the time to come[?] here.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dossie<br /></strong>This is really nice.</p> <p><strong>Carolyn<br /></strong>Thank you for inviting us.</p> <p><strong>Edwin<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> University of Central Florida.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Florida Technological University.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Porsha Dossie.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Bath Lake.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Internal Revenue Service.</p> </div> </div> Alafaya Trail birds Black Hammock Carolyn White Chapman Road colleges dirt roads Don White Ed White Edwin White Florida Technological University FTU great blue herons hayrides horseback riding horses Lars D. White Mitchell Hammock Road Oviedo ponies pony Porsha Dossie ranch ranches sandhill cranes stables streets Tally-Ho Farms traffic UCF universities university University of Central Florida https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/015dea079c2bff50258a4f23ba24650c.pdf 7165340f0c29989db1de005b3c42e3ae 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 Bridges, Elizabeth 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 Elizabeth Bridges Alternative Title Oral History, Bridges Subject Sanford, (Fla.) Energy--United States Description An oral history of Elizabeth Bridges. Bridges discusses what life was like in Singapore as a child in the 1960s. She also talks about how she met her first husband, Victor Green. Green worked on an oil rig in the Pacific Ocean for HuffCo. Bridges tells what it was like for her husband to work for that company. She had to learn how to cook Southern food and adapt to life in America. Her first husband died of lung cancer in 1991. She then met her second husband, Jack Bridges, and married him in 1998. After her husband overcame his alcohol addiction, he ran for city commissioner in 2005. He brought many positive changes to the city and was a well-known and successful attorney. Type Text Source Bridges, Elizabeth. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. 2010. 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 Transcript of original oral history: Bridges, Elizabeth. Interviewed by Trish Thompson. 2010. Audio record available. <a href="http://www.celerysoupsanford.com//about" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc.</a>, Sanford Florida. Coverage Singapore Indonesia Sanford, Florida Ritz Theatre, Sanford, Florida Creator Bridges, Elizabeth Thompson, Trish Date Created 2010 Format application/pdf Extent 208 KB Medium 23-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Provenance Originally created by Trish Thompson and Elizabeth Bridges, and transcribed by Freddie Román-Toro. 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 Symposium on the Development of Petroleum Resources of Asia and the Far East, United Nations, ECAFE Petroleum Symposium, and Symposium on the Development of Petroleum Resources of Asia and the Far East. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/246028555" target="_blank"><em>Case Histories of Oil and Gas Fields in Asia and the Far East: (Third Series)</em></a>. New York, NY: United Nations, 1971. Yancy, George, and Janine Jones. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/810119075" target="_blank"><em>Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics</em></a>. Lanham: Lexington Boos, 2013. Transcript <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Tell me a little bit about how you and Jack [J. Bridges] met.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Jack was a former attorney for my first husband, Victor Green. They don’t call him Victor Green. He goes by his middle name “Mapes.” Mapes and I were his clients.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Is that his mother’s maiden name or something like that? That’s an unusual name.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yes, because they didn’t want to call him Victor or Junior, so they called him by his middle name. He’s known here in Sanford. Everybody knows Mapes, but he was another generation. so the Greens and the Bridges were here in Sanford and they didn’t live too far from one another—3 Grandview Boulevard,<a title="">[1]</a> which is the former airport. So Alfred Green worked on the railroad with Jack’s daddy, and I think Alfred Green was the supervisor. He was higher in rank than Alfred. We have always seen Jack as our attorney. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p>When my husband passed away in [19]91, we were all living in the same neighborhood, and Jack was divorcing in ’91 too. I think he and Beth [Bridges] separated when they were [inaudible] April, and they got divorced in ’91. My husband died in December of ’91. A year later, Jack and I met, and he was patrolling the neighborhood, but he has a very commanding voice. I had always heard that he was a very good trial lawyer, and he would speak to me with that tone. I would have to remind him that I’m not his client and that we’re not in a courtroom—to tone his voice down.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, Jack was a fabulous attorney. I always heard it. I was never a client of his, but if anybody was ever going to be in a trial with him, they were scared.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I think it was because of his practice with Mac [Cleveland]. They gave him all of the cases that came along, so he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, so he tried them all.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Okay, so Mac Cleveland wasn’t a trial lawyer? Did he do more estate work?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I don’t know anything about what he did, but I know Jack was a junior attorney at that time, and Mac would let him do a lot. I think that in ’91, they split up the firm. Mac wasn’t practicing that much and Jack was doing a lot of cases ,so he told him he’d like to split it, so that’s why the name of the office used to be, “The Law Office of Jack J. Bridges.” Jack didn’t do too well either. He was on his own with…</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, a little bit of drinking.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>But later when he quit that, his business picked up.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I didn’t realize that his business went down because of his drinking.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yeah, it was bad. When his business picked up, even the lawyers would call him so he would represent them. He would do it.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And then he was city commissioner.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Originally, he wanted [inaudible] to run city commissioner and all this is new, because he had two positions before. So he told Jay [Bridges], “You should take this.” He wasn’t too sure if people would accept him. I’ve heard other people ask Jack, “Why didn’t you become a politician?” Jack says he couldn’t have, because people could not accept him, because of what he was.</p> <p><strong>Thompson <br /></strong>Did he not have confidence?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I think his past—it took him a little while before—we got married in ’98, and he ran for city commissioner in 2005, so it took him a couple of years. He wanted to get established and let people know he really meant what he said.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I remember that Mayor [Linda] Kuhn just loved him to death and everything he said was golden.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Well, he knew—he knows his business and he always looked ahead for the city. Remember the parades every Christmas? They always had parades, but Christmas was the only time that families would join in and throw candy. After I went to one of the parades, he told me to quit giving out candy. and it was because of me that they had to quit giving out candies. Jack was sitting on my right and I was on his left, and when I throw candy it’s kind of hard for me to throw this way, because I’m right-handed. So since he was in my way, some of the candy fell and he was very afraid for the kids. He told the mayor that they couldn’t allow it any longer, because they would sue the city if any kids came by.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So he was always looking out. You did a really good thing.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, I was embarrassed. I thought, <em>It was just because of me.</em> I felt bad. Then they had that “splash pad.” Do you remember that they had that “splash pad” when they built that? Everything went well. They had it built and all, and Jack thought about it and says, “Have you ever thought about the lightning that comes with this Florida weather? We have no insurance and if the kids get hurt…” So they had to look into that and I think they got insurance, but then they made sure to close the splash park. when the rain was coming.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I know they do that at [Walt] Disney [World] at one of their wave parks. Because I remember being there one day, and they said we had to leave. And we thought it was weird, because it was sunny out, but they said, “No. we have radar and there’s a storm six miles away.” Everybody had to leave. and it was the worst storm in the world when it came.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>This was just a splash pad, but if lighting comes—so he warned the city. When he sat on the Board, he and Nicky always wanted to move Sanford forward and not backward. Sometimes I can see that he gets very frustrated. They move forward one step and move back two steps. He says he doesn’t enjoy that part.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Does he have any stories about his famous cases or when he was a kid?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, he doesn’t share the cases that he tried, because of client-attorney privilege. They’re confidential, so he can’t share.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, I’m thinking more of personal stories that he might have shared with you of growing up. Anything about his parents or about how Sanford was when he was growing up?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I can’t think of too much right now, but he was raised very poor. He said he was very quiet when he learned in school. He always made better grades and the teacher would compare his grades to his brother’s, and his brother didn’t like that. His teacher expected his brother to make grades as good as Jack’s.</p> <p>Jack was always quiet in school and I think it was because of his background. and I told him that there’s nothing wrong about being raised poor. A lot of the rich people were poor when they were growing up. I say, “At least you’re humble and honest.”</p> <p><strong>Thompson <br /></strong>Well, tell me stories about you when you were a little girl.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Let me finish one part of Jay and Jack working on the Ritz Theatre. He was the usher, and then he became a chief usher. And when he’s home, he can watch movies over and over again and I have seen those movies so many times.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>He can watch the same movie over and over?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>That doesn’t bother him. He’ll watch different movies. If it comes on, it doesn’t bother him. He’ll watch it.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Probably because he was an usher at the theatre and he watched the same show over and over again [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Then he’d pick up little words from the movie. He’d say, “Buzz off.” Don’t you remember they’d say that in that part of the movie? I couldn’t remember what show it was and say, “Okay.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So he would quote movies to you? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I’m not Americanized. We weren’t raised with televisions, you know? We don’t have American movies. We’ll watch every now and then, but we don’t have that. I don’t understand the humor and all of those things, because I was raised in Singapore. They taught us the King’s English. When we were at home, we spoke Hainanese. It’s one of the dialects. They’re so many—Cantonese, Hakin, Taichu, etc. If they write in Chinese, I can read it and tell you what they’re saying, but…</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So the written word is the same, but the dialects are all different?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>When I went to school, we would have to learn English, so we wouldn’t speak English at home. Only in school. We have Indian neighbors now that are Muslims. We don’t understand what they speak at home, but if you speak English, we could all communicate. We also had to learn Mandarin as a language, just like you do Spanish here. In my later years, when my brother went to school, half the subjects were taught in English and the other half were taught in Mandarin. They wanted everybody to be bilingual.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So Mandarin was the official language there?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>It was the official language for all Chinese people.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>When you were in school and you learned the King’s English, did you have an English professor from England that taught you?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, they were all local, but they went to English schools. We<a title="">[2]</a> got our independence in ’57. That was the year I was born, so when I went to school in the ‘60s, we were all taught by English teachers.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Then you came to the United States?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yes, I married my first husband, and I met him as he was working in an oil field in Indonesia. When he had his break, he came to Singapore. My friend introduced me to him. That was Mr. Green.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, so he worked in the oil fields? See, I thought he was agricultural. I don’t know why.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He was in charge of all the heavy equipment—the ship, the boats, the crane, the fleets, etc. He was the supervisor and the Indonesians loved him and did the work.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>What did he do when he came back home?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>When oil prices went bad in the ‘80s, it was much cheaper for them to hire the English and the Australians than to hire the Americans, so they didn’t want to renew the work permit, so they sent us home. When they hire the Americans over there, they give us vacation time one week every six months. Another six months later, and we have 35 days to come to the states, and they pay for it. Other families that have kids in elementary school—they have their own schools over there. They bring the teachers over there. But when they go to high school. they have to send them to Singapore. If they want to come to college, they come stateside. Then the mother gets to come here twice a year, and the kids fly over there three times a year. All of this is paid for by the company. They pay for the schooling too. They provide housing, cars, gasoline. The house is furnished, etc.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Which company was that?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Roy M. Huffington, Inc. was the company. Have you heard of <em>The Huffington Post</em>? It was from Houston, Texas.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh my goodness.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yes, they were big companies.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Boy, they sound like they were wonderful to their employees.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>We didn’t have to pay for the house. We didn’t have to pay for the utilities. If a light bulb needed to be fixed, you would just get on the phone and call them and they’d come and fix the light bulb. The pay was about $65,000 tax-free. That was the incentive. The only thing you have to pay is food and clothes. My husband would tell me, “Enjoy.” I didn’t understand, because we didn’t have a home here, but then we came back and I saw what he was talking about.</p> <p>We had our own bowling alley and our own swimming pool. We had our own commissary too. We could buy our own food. Every other month, a shipment would come in off the coast of Texas.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Now, did he have to go out on oil rigs? Could he come home at night?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, it was close to home. That was the second job. On the first job, he had to go away. On Monday morning, a bus would come and then they’d fly them over on a helicopter. On Friday evening, they’d come into town [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>The honeymoon’s every weekend [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yes, they had to do it that way, because they figured it was cheaper. For a while, they would work two weeks and then they’d have one week off. All the families would stay in Singapore. We were civilized there, but when you moved to Indonesia, you had to stay in the jungle.</p> <p>Everybody has to get along with everybody, so what the women would do was, they would have cooking class. Have coffee once a month. I would go to Sears[, Roebuck &amp; Company] and buy this sewing stuff and bring it over there. I like the felt stuff. You know how you sew on it? I don’t like the glue stuff. I like the sew-on like stockings and stuff. Some people were good at cross-stitching and needlepoint and they’d teach. That’s how we entertained one another.</p> <p>We had cooking classes too. Sometimes you get to know your neighbor well. She was from Houston, Texas, and she taught me how to cook American food. She’d write me a recipe and I’d go back and look at the ingredients and call her and ask, “What does half-and-half mean?” [<em>laughs</em>] I would ask her, “What does ‘a stick of butter mean?” That’s because our butter would come in one pound, and she said, “You have to cut it length-wise.” I’d say, “Okay.” That was a big help, because that prepared me for when I came to the states.</p> <p>A lot of people overseas don’t ever lock their doors. You can knock on the door and come in. The coffee pot’s on, you pour yourself a coffee, and sit down. Over here, I don’t know my neighbor. We feel so lost, but our friends are scattered all over the United States. We would get in a car and go all the way out to Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, etc.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>To visit all your friends who were in Indonesia with you?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Then they’d come and reciprocate, because of Disney World.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I bet you had a lot of company with people going to Disney World. It’s wonderful that you made such life-long friends.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Even now, I still communicate. There’s this lady in Boise, Idaho. She’s a widow now. She used to do needlepoint and she’d even do weaving. She loved to lace stuff and she would crotchet. She must be up in age too. We write once a year. We send Christmas cards.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, it almost sounds like the military. My parents were Navy and they made life-long friends with the people in their stations. When they got out of the service, they always kept in contact.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I know of a lady from Texas who would babysit her neighbor’s children. When the wife went out of town, she’d take one kid, go out, and get some dental work done, and leave the other kid with her husband. Now, you know men can’t cook. so she would take the kids when they got out of school and she’d feed the husband too. They would do the same, so they were all very close. Once you get to know a few families, they’re all very close.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>When you came here did you find a family that you could be friends with?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, I don’t know them very well. I kind of miss that.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>There’s good Oriental contingency in Seminole County, I know. Not very…</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I don’t practice that anymore. I don’t cook the food anymore. I don’t long for the Chinese food anymore. Not like some Vietnamese that I know like [inaudible] fiancée. They always have to have their rice. They always have their Chinese food. They cannot sub, but I can, because my first husband was American and now I’m with Jack. I say, “If I don’t have bread, I’ll have potato.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p>I found out that they have their Chinese squash and everything, but the zucchini is almost the same stuff. You can use it to sub for the Chinese squash. But they have to have it exactly the same as before.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Isn’t that strange that they can’t adjust?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I have a friend in North Carolina and she could adjust. There’s some who can’t and they go back. They say, “America is not for me.” It’s a cultural shock. I couldn’t do that, because I made up my mind, because I married an American. I said, “I married an American. This will be my country and you have to adjust.”</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And you learned how to make your first Southern food. What did Mr. Green say when you made your first Southern food?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He didn’t like my biscuits. He said they were too hard. [<em>laughs</em>] Everything we had to do was from scratch. We didn’t have the stuff that you do. It’s very convenient.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yeah, you can have it frozen. “Oh, you want biscuits? Here’s half a bag.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I used to make my own bread and hamburger buns. We used to invite our neighbors and ground beef meat was very expensive. They’d say, “These hamburger buns are so good.” My husband would say, “That’s because they’re homemade.” In Singapore, the bread didn’t last very long, and the flour would have weevils in it, and American women would teach me, “You take it and sift it twice.”</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>To get the weevils out. Why were the weevils—because they’d been in storage?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /> </strong>I think that it’s because when they shipped it, they shipped the old stuff to us. By the time it cleared customs, the humidity would get to it. We were so excited to have American stuff. We loved Cheetos in a can [<em>laughs</em>]. We would all grab American stuff. We would grab toilet paper, because we didn’t like the local stuff. It was stiff. It wasn’t soft, so we’d buy a whole bunch. We figured that if we left the country another family would buy us the stuff. When we knew there was a new shipment, we’d run to the coast and load up, because you don’t know when the next shipment would come in.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So you were doing “bulk” before Sam’s [Club] ever showed up [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Over there we just buy a bunch of stuff. We buy our meat. We buy the whole piece—the whole pork loin. We would go to the supermarket, buy it, and tell them to freeze it. We’d tell them when we’d want it picked up, so they’d wrap it up and put it into boxes. Then they’d tie it and tape it and all, and we’d pick it up and we’d bring it to the hotel and tell them, “We want it in your freezer.” Then we’d tell them at what time we’d come to get it and our bus would come to pick us up and take us to the airport.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>To go from Singapore to Indonesia?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>The flight would last two hours and 20 minutes. Then we’d rest and catch a 45-minute flight. If you pack them well and you only open them once, you should be pretty good. Prime rib was $15 a pound. This was back in the ‘80s.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh my gosh.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>We’d usually try to bring a few pieces of meat. We’d live on seafood a lot over there. When you buy fish, you have to buy the whole fish—head and all—and the fish 50 cents a kilo.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>A fish for 50 cents? Amazing.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Usually the fish is about two to three pounds, but it was fresh. We’d also have a lot of shrimp and lobster too.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I bet you know a lot of great recipes for shrimp, lobster, and fish, don’t you?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, I didn’t have to cook very much over there. I buttered them a lot and broiled them. Seafood was abundant. [inaudible] I would go to the local market. They would always have some trouble with us, because they don’t encourage you to go outside the city.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Was it dangerous?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>It wasn’t dangerous, but if an American like you—a Caucasian—goes there, you’ll be surrounded and you’d be shot. They don’t like Americans. For me, I’m Asian with an Asian [inaudible], so it’s a little bit better. I learned that when you carry your basket to town, you just let the boys carry it so they don’t bug you. You pay them 100 rupees. That’s 10 cents and they walk with you while you buy your groceries and they put it in a cart for you.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So if one of the boys that you see on the street comes, he attaches himself to you and then none of the boys bother you? That happened to us in the Dominican Republic. A boy attached himself to my mother and he went everywhere with us throughout the whole day.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>This was only in the market though. That way you get rid of them, because they all want to help you, and you end up paying extra money. I also found out that we’d pay the lawn boy $5 a month and we’d pay the maid $15. $15 is the maximum, and they say $10 is the going rate. One of our doctors from Texas would pay $15 and the maid would carry laundry from the city every day. After they worked for the Americans, they’d go work for the nationals expecting to get paid $15 a month, but the nationals would only pay them $10 maximum. They’d say, “That’s not fair.” They’d tell us we couldn’t spoil them.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>You see? We’d look at that as entrepreneurship. If you do the best, you get paid more.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Right. They also liked blue jeans, so what we’d do is come to the states and buy blue jeans and give it to them as a Christmas gift. That’s why they like working for the Americans.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, your husband was very right when he said, “Enjoy it.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Well, I didn’t understand, but now I do.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>What was your first shocking experience when you came to the [United] States? Did you come in through Texas?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, we came in through Maryland. Yes, because his Army friends stayed at Fort [George G.] Meade, so we’d stay with our friends. The men would go somewhere else and the women—was very nice. She took me to the commissary. I said, “I want to go to the commissary.” I walked in and I said, “Oh, look at the eggplant. It’s so nice. Look at the lettuce.” Because our lettuce is terrible-looking, but we still ate it, because that’s the best they had to offer. She just looked at me. [<em>laughs</em>] I said, “I want to buy this. I want to eat this.” Of course, we had more money than they did, so we paid for the groceries, but she let me pick what I wanted. The green peas were so green and narrow, but over there they were kind of bulky.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So the first big shock was the groceries? I bet the food was a lot cheaper too, wasn’t it?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yes, because any canned food that came over into Indonesia were three times more expensive than here.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did you ever go back?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I went back to Singapore, but not to Indonesia. It’s not the same for me anymore. I guess I’ve been gone too long. The heat and the humidity is like Florida weather in the summer. I can’t take it. [<em>laughs</em>] Jack always wanted to go there, but he never made it. I went back in 2004, when my brother had just died of lung cancer. And Jack wanted to go but he couldn’t. so I said, “I’ll go.” Do you remember the bird flu<a title="">[3]</a> that went around? They said that if I came back, I’d have to be in quarantine for 10 days. Jack was a little sick at that time. I think I wanted to go in November, but I went in the spring.</p> <p>Jack said he always admired the Chinese culture. He handled one or two cases and he said he had yet to see a broke Chinese person. I was raised Chinese. During the New Year, you have to pay off all your debts. We didn’t owe anything. Jack said, “What about your mortgages?” I said, “Well, I guess that’s one thing that you can’t pay off, but everything else has to be paid off.” Another thing is that you never lend to friends or family, because you’ll never get it back. That’s very, very true. Jack would say that the Chinese and Egyptian cultures are very, very old but he likes them more.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It’s also a very good practice. You’re not in debt. So many Americans are in debt.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yeah, but when I was talking to Jack’s mother—she’s old school. It parallels what the Chinese do.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yeah, not to be in debt, because she lived in the [Great] Depression. She’s of that generation.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yes, and she’s very frugal just the way I was raised.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>What did your parents do?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>My mother was a homemaker and my father was the chief electrician, so he was gone a lot. My mother raised us, and when my father came back, we would like it, because he would spoil us. He let us go to school early, and my mother didn’t like that. We started school at 7:30 and were off at 1:00. The next year, you go from 1:00-5:00. That way they use the school, so the school isn’t sitting there empty.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Did they always have a group in there?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yes, all the time. They alternated it so one year a student goes in the morning and the next year he goes in the afternoon.</p> <p><strong>Thompso</strong>And then it’s hotter. It’s cool in the morning and hot in the afternoon.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /><br /></strong>Yeah [<em>laughs</em>]. That way the school is used many times, so that they don’t have to build that many schools. Property is very expensive in Singapore. It’s like Hong Kong. Everybody lives in patmas. They call it “flats.” The government will build them and let you buy them. and you could use your Social Security number to buy them.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So they’re like condos, and they’re subsidized by the government. And anybody can buy one?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Not everybody. They have three or four bedrooms, so it depends on your family’s size. The government will tell you if you’re eligible.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So you can’t just have four bedrooms for two of you [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bridges <br /></strong>And you can tell them what location you want. Not a problem. If they build, you put your name in and they were very cheap. I remember my mom got a three bedroom for 15,000 in the ‘70s.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Wow. That was a wonderful deal. Even back then.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>The dollar was like two to one. That’s cheap. Now, you can’t buy a patma for that cheap, but it’s subsidized by the government, and the government wants everybody to live better in wooden homes, because they take up a lot of land. They don’t want that. The island isn’t that big. It’s 25 miles across from east to west and 15 miles from north to south, and it’s got a population of two million people. It’s the cleanest city in the world.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>The crime rate is very low. They will not tolerate drugs. It’s a law and order country. Do you remember that Michael Fay went down there and got caned? He got caned, because he took the stop sign down, and his family got sent home.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yeah, I had heard that about Singapore. That was an international incident.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>[Bill] Clinton, the American president, pleaded and the government said, “This is a law and order country.”</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And there are no exceptions.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>This lady brought drugs in. I don’t know if she’s Australian or what, but they asked the Queen of England<a title="">[4]</a> to plead and they said, “No.”</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>The Queen couldn’t help. Well, just think—if it’s 25 miles long and 15 miles wide, it’s the same size as Sanford’s 22 mile square. so your whole island is probably the size of Sanford. It has two million people there and we only have 54,000. People don’t understand how lucky they are to live in a place like Sanford.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Right, because over there it’s very competitive. You have to do well in school. If you don’t do well in school, you get a terrible job. My mother always said, “You see that road-sweeper? That man that sweeps the street? That’s where you’re going to end up. Digging the ditch.” [<em>laughs</em>] Then when they came up with that machine that cleans the street and she said, “See? They don’t even need you anymore.” [<em>laughs</em>] She pushed education, because both my parents were raised on a farm on Hainan Island in China. Do you remember where our plane landed in China? It got confiscated by the Chinese government.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>No, I don’t remember that.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>An American plane landed there and they wouldn’t let us take our plane home. They had to go through and check, because they wanted to check out what the Americans had in equipment and technology.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So it was probably a military jet that crash-landed there or something?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I don’t know how it landed there, but I know it landed there. The Chinese government got involved and I remember saying, “It’s Hainan Island. That’s where my mom and dad were born.” My mother said that the communist government would give you two pieces of material and that’s all you get. She patched them and they would look like embroideries, and she was very frugal raising us.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So it was two pieces of material per person in the family or just two pieces?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>It was two pieces a year. That’s all you get. We always had hand-me-down clothes because my aunt was from American Families, and the kids had all the clothing, and we got to pick what we wanted to wear. so if I said, “I don’t like this dress,” she wouldn’t throw it away. She would pack it up and send it to China. It was for her nieces, you know?</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yeah, so whatever you didn’t like went on to another family.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Right. She wouldn’t give it to the neighbors or friends they could use it. She would send it to her family. My mother—she didn’t work, because she raised us. but she knew that education was very important. When we’d come home, we’d speak the dialect. We didn’t speak English. And we’d bring our report cards and she’d say, “What does it say? And “You’d better tell me the truth, and if it’s not what it says here, you’re in trouble.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So she taught you how to be honest.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>She didn’t mind us going to school, because that was the only way we were going to do better than her, and many Asian communities are the same way. A lot of my cousins are in Virginia. My aunt does not speak English and my cousins speak broken English, but their children are very educated. They’re honor students. They’re doing real well and they’re taking care of their mom and dad.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well now, did you ever have children?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So you have step-children from…</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>My first and second husbands.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, both. That’s wonderful. Do you see them?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Originally, [inaudible] lives in Orlando and the other two live in Pennsylvania, but now they’re back in Florida. They love the Florida weather. We brought them to Florida. We took them to Disney World. they always have a place to stay, and they loved it so much. They got tired of the snow.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Who wouldn’t be? I like Florida too. My sisters wanted me to move to Tennessee, and I said, “You know, I like Florida. I love you, but I don’t love your weather.” [<em>laughs</em>] She said, “But you have hurricanes.” I said, “But I don’t have snow.”</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Well, Jack’s son was born and raised here. Jack only had one child.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, is that right? Is it John?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, Tory [Bridges] is his child. Tory’s mother, Mary Carly, is in the insurance business on Lake Mary Boulevard when you pass—that’s Jack’s first wife.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, Debbie or something?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>She married Brent Carly. He owns the insurance business on Lake Mary Boulevard.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I know Mark Carly. He’s Brent’s brother. I know him better than I know Brent. I believe it was you, Jack, and Jack’s brother that made it out to the restaurant one time and I was able to meet her once.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yeah, she’s in assisted living now—Spring Lake Hills on Lake Mary Boulevard, across from the forest. She has a bad case of dementia and she gets very excited. She can’t sit down for too long. I think that’s part of the disease. When I went to see her right after Jack died, she kept asking me where Jack was and we told her. And her cousin, Linda, told me that when she went to Jack’s service, she thought she was at her husband’s funeral.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Oh, so her dementia was really bad.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>When I see her she asks me how Jack is and I hate repeating it to her, because it hurts me to tell her to tell her that Jack’s gone, because I’m grieving and it’s hard for me, so I say, “He’s okay.” Then later she says, “Oh, he’s gone isn’t he?” I go, “Yeah. he’s gone.”</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So sometimes she will remember that he did die.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Now instead of saying that Jack is coming to take her home, she says that her mother is coming to take her home. They go back. They revert to their childhood. She doesn’t remember her other son, Stevie [Bridges]. Stevie does not come around too often.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well that’s the one everybody compared to Jack, so he didn’t feel too good about it.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yeah, but they always favored Stevie a lot. Stevie stayed at the house with them, but he later moved out. Maybe they catered to him, because Jack was a family man. They figured he was married and Stevie never got married, so they took care of him more. I don’t know.</p> <p><strong>Thompson <br /></strong>What kind of work does Stevie do?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Well, he went to college and got his degree from University of Florida. I don’t know what he majored in, but he decided he didn’t want to use what he learned in school, so he worked for a welding company and became the chief welder.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yeah, because I remember seeing him in work clothes, like a working person—blue collar.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Right. They told him they would give him a desk job, but he said no. He preferred to be blue-collar. That’s what he wanted. Then they let him go and he was applying for other jobs. I don’t know. It didn’t work out.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So he’s not working at all now?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He turns 60 in February and he said he’s going to wait and draw retirement and Social Security [Insurance].</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, he’s got two years until he can do it.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He has a big payout and Jack was trying to tell him how to invest. and I told Jack, “If he was smart enough, he would have gone back to work and worked ‘til he was 65, and let that money build and draw better Social Security.” That’s what I’m doing.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, I worked ‘til 62, but my husband was very ill. So I just went in and said, “I’m closing the restaurant.”</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I don’t blame you. You had your hands full. That’s different. Being a caregiver takes all your energy.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It does. I had two years with him. We were very lucky. On July of 2008, I walked in the door and said, “We’ve got parties that we’re doing on the 4^th of July and we should be out of food by next Wednesday.” I said, “We’re closing the doors of The Rib Ranch forever on the 8^th and 9^th of July.” I put a big sign up saying, “Come and say goodbye.” Everybody came and got barbecue, but on July 2^nd, the guy who owned the business right next door to me made me an offer for my property, and I took it and we had our closing 15 days later. I had two years completely free to be with my husband, because he couldn’t drive anymore. He was going blind. He had a lot of physical problems. I spent a lot of time going to doctor’s offices.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>It’s like what Jack said towards the end. his social calendar towards the end was all doctor’s appointments. Jack got sick in 2009. He was in this hospital and then they told him they had to send him up to Shands[?]<a title="">[5]</a>, because he had abdominal blockage. They said, “You need surgery. There’s a tumor right there. That’s why it’s doing that. Shands might be able to get you in.” The doctor that tried to get him in just got back from church and he said, “There’s a bed available.” So he was happy, and I packed four days’ clothes. stayed there three and a half weeks. He wouldn’t let me come home. He said, “Don’t leave me.” He was very lonesome.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>He needed you.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I had a lot of vacation time, so I called Penny Fleming and she said, “Take it.” I was planning on coming home and working Monday through Friday and then go up on weekends, and she said, “Well, whatever you want.” Then I decided, “Well, maybe half a day on Friday.” She says, “That will be better and you won’t have to drive during the night.” Then I told Jack what she said and Jack said, “No.”</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>He needed you there.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He wanted me there.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, the thing I found out about, when your husband’s sick, is that even though I depended on him being smart and understanding everything. He was being stoic, but he wasn’t comprehending what the doctors were saying, because, internally, he was panicked. He would say, “What did he mean by that?” I would have to research it and find out what the doctor meant, because he wouldn’t tell him he was scared.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Jack was the opposite. Jack was very sharp and he still had a sense of humor. I remember they almost put him on a ventilator one time up in Shands. Scared me to death. Jack didn’t like too much medication, but they gave him medication and he crawled to bed. And when he came in, there was this person sitting in his room and he woke up and said, “Oh, have you met my warden?”</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Who was the person sitting in his room?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>It was the nurse. And they had to explain that he was trying to climb over the bed. When he was up there, he would tell me to do things he wasn’t supposed to do. He wanted a Slurpee and he said, “Go get me one.” and I’d say, “The doctor says you can’t have anything.” He’d say, “If you don’t get it for me, then I’ll go down to get it.” I said, “Then what do you want?” He said, “Strawberry.”</p> <p>At that time, he had that abdominal problem and they had to pump it out. There was a little container behind him and the doctor could see the red from the strawberry and he panicked, “Oh, it’s blood.” Jack said, “No. I just had strawberries.” [<em>laughs</em>] The doctor shook his head. Jack said, “My mouth is very dry, so I asked her to get me that.” The doctor said, “How about changing the flavor?” Oh, he was something else.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So what’s happening with you now?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I’m just back to work. I’m just doing my routine and putting in my time working at the Sheriff’s Office until my retirement. I’ve got 10 years to go. I’ve already got 14 years. I hate to retire so early, because what am I going to do for health insurance? If I retire right now, I’ve got eight years. 62 is early retirement. They penalize me five percent for every year under. I figure I don’t have much going right now, so I just try to keep myself occupied.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I think that’s a good thing too. If I didn’t have all this, I’d be going crazy.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>But I sure miss him though, because every time I go to the parades, I see all the people and politicians and it kind of depresses me a little bit.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, what do you think he would have said about everything that happened with Trayvon [Benjamin Martin] and the city?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I don’t think he would have let the case go as far as it did, because he would know how to tell them. Who is it [inaudible]? He said he didn’t know the legal procedures or the steps to take. He said it wasn’t right that [Bill] Lee didn’t arrest [George Michael] Zimmerman. but if you can’t prove anything yet, how can you arrest somebody? There’s no evidence.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I thought it was really strange that people don’t understand that the police investigate, but it’s the state attorneys that say they have a case and have them arrested. My illustration was, “Haven’t you seen <em>Law &amp; Order</em>?” Half the show is about what the police do and the other half is about what the attorneys do.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Well, I think that on the legal side, you have to have evidence to show before you can convict and arrest a person, but there’s nothing to prove him guilty. People were so upset. They wanted them to do it now and it got worse and worse. When it came to the commissioner, people were saying Commissioner Lee wasn’t doing his job.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>And none of those commissioners…</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>They don’t understand the legal system.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>It would have been good if Jack were still there.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Linda would have been good too, because she worked at the state attorney’s office. It would have helped the city.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Maybe if we had had a better city attorney. I mean, I don’t know Lonnie Grout, but maybe a stronger criminal lawyer mind would have helped. Who knows? Jack is really missed.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yeah, I feel like he served. The Lord wanted him home, and I feel like Jack knew he was sick but he did not tell me. He knew what was going on. He was talking to Dr. [inaudible] about it. Remember when they put the shunt in? He [inaudible]. I think when they pull it out too fast it can create a clog. That’s what my friends told me. Linda [inaudible] said that was a clog when she saw his hand, and she was right. His hand just got bigger and bigger like my thigh. I asked the nurse, “What happened?” She said, “Oh, nothing wrong. We’re just trying to stabilize.” When Dr. [inaudible] was talking to him, I came in at the tail end of the conversation. Dr. [inaudible] said, “If we have to, we’ll remove it.” I found out after he died by talking to Dr. [inaudible] that he knew he was going, but he didn’t tell me.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I don’t think my husband knew he was going.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He didn’t want me to be upset, and I feel that it’s not fair. At least he could have prepared me, because he went in on a Friday, assigned Saturdays all over the weekend. I had to bring him his Jell-O mixed with fruit. He didn’t want the hospital Jell-O. He wanted iced tea mixed at home. He wanted chicken noodle soup. He didn’t want the can one, so I’d bring the hot broth to the hospital for him to eat. I saw him Saturday, Sunday, and I called Jack’s son about Friday or Saturday to let him know, because we’re working people. We’re always so busy. Maybe we would have more time on weekends. He could have come to see his father, but he didn’t come to see his father until Monday. Jack’s secretary was there on Monday too, and she said, “What is Tory doing here?” I said, “I told him he could come see his father, but I didn’t tell Cathy that she could come.”</p> <p>During one of our meetings in the room, the doctor came in and he was a very good cardiologist and I liked the doctor very much. And she started asking him questions and the doctor felt—I could see the look on his face. he didn’t want to be interrupted, and he looked at Jack and me. He knew who I was, but I didn’t introduce myself. He didn’t like it. I said, “Next time, I won’t let her come to the hospital to see him, because what if the doctor has to come in and she interrupts everything?” That time she called me from outside the hospital and says, “Can I come inside?” What can I say? She’s already at the hospital, so I told her to come up. After everybody had seen him, he said he’s tired and that everybody has to go.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>This was Monday?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, it was Monday night. I said, <em>Okay. I guess he wants me to go home too so he can rest.</em> Everybody left and I was packing my stuff and he said, “No. you stay a little bit.” I stayed and he said, “Give me a hug.” He wanted me to kiss him. I think he knew. He must have known it was getting close. so on Tuesday I worked half a day. I was going to do a whole week. On Tuesday, I got a message from the doctor saying, “Come right away.” I dropped everything.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So you had just gotten home and then you had to go back and he had died?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>No, I was heading towards the hospital to bring his stuff, but when I got the message I just went straight and left everything. He said, “Come right away,” but he was already gone by the time I got there.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, you can be angry with him, but…</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>But we had a good life. It was a short time with him, and Jack and I had an age difference of 11 years. We both had November birthdays, and we’re 11 days apart. When he died we were married 11 years and 11 months.</p> <p><strong>Thompson <br /></strong>Oh, 11 is a really important number then.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>When he started having the cancer in December, he said that he would like another 10 years, but if God would give him five he would take it.</p> <p>In December, he showed me he wanted to go to church. I’m a converted Catholic. Every now and then he’d go to the church. He got very bored. I was surprised he went, and that was the last Christmas.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, it’s tough when we lose them like that.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Jack changed his whole life around from what he was. He went to the opposite end of the spectrum.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>He really did, because he was a rounder. He was a party guy, wasn’t he?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He was. I remember when he told me, “When we get married, I like to go out with my boys once a month.” But he never did it after we married. I let him run as far as he wanted to, but he never did. He always wanted to come home. He knew he had a home to come to. I think that when he was struggling with his alcohol, there was no one to communicate with him emotionally. With my military upbringing, he learned how to be soft to people and love them. I think he felt most sturdy and he said I was his rock.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>You were the stability that he needed.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He turned his life around after that. He learned how to give and found that it was very rewarding and he turned into a public servant. He got what he wanted. He had the intelligence to go along with serving the city. I’m very happy for him. I hated seeing him go, but he achieved what he wanted to do in life.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I think that’s great. I had a different situation with my husband. I’m so happy that he’s gone, because I loved him so. He was a sports lover and he loved <em>Sports Illustrated</em> magazine. He had to read about his sports. He told me on Wednesday, and he died on a Saturday, “Cancel my subscription to <em>Sports Illustrated</em>.” That just floored me. I think now that he passed away, that if he had lived the two years they said he would, he would have been blind. He was in renal failure, so if he lived through that, he would have been on dialysis. He had diabetes and he was losing his legs, so this is not the life he would have wanted. This wouldn’t be living. This would be torture. He wasn’t a man who had the will to live through anything. He had his comforts. I’m so glad he was able to go the way he wanted to go, before these awful things came. He was a very proud man and very private. He hated having nurses having to help him go to the bathroom or go take a shower. It got to me that he had to go through that.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>The last two years of Jack’s life, he was sick and he knew it, and he cried. He said he didn’t deserve it. He was throwing up and there was nothing but liquid coming up all the time. I had to empty his can, because I didn’t want him to smell that all the time. He was already sick. I made sure everything was close by and the less he moved, the better he felt. I’d get his medication, <em>Sports Illustrated</em> magazine—whatever he needed. He said he didn’t like being sick like that. He would say to me, “You’re too good for me.” and he’d cry.</p> <p>It got me emotionally, and when I’d get to the kitchen, I’d cry.  I’d almost be in tears, but I wouldn’t look at him. He’d ask, “Are you alright?” I’d say, “I am.” Then I’d go to the kitchen and cry, because I didn’t want to show him I was weak. But he was ready to go.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Mine was too. At the time I was mad at him for leaving me, but I got over it. Now I’m just grateful that I had him for as long as I did and that he’s not suffering.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>My first husband went very fast. He was up and walking and he fell. One of his blood vessels burst. They called it a “pontine hemorrhage,” because of the pons. It’s like an aneurysm. I was kind of mad, but they say—I was shocked. I didn’t know he was going to go. There was no goodbye or anything. Then God was graceful enough to put God in my life. I had only been in this country for six years—’85-‘91. I didn’t know my way around. I had to learn how to drive when I got here. And my sister and brother-in-law were very good to me and helped me with the funeral arrangements. Then Jack came into my life and I said, “Oh God. At least you could have prepared me.” I didn’t know he was going to get sick. It takes a lot to be a caregiver. You’re not prepared, but that’s life. Jack went so fast, no one expected it. We thought he was doing so well when he came from Gainesville, and they detected cancer and he went for his radiation [therapy] and chemo[therapy]…</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>How long had he been back from Gainesville?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He had surgery in August.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Yeah, but when did he come home? Because when he came home, we had an appointment and I think he died the next week.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He died in March.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>So he wasn’t in the hospital in the spring?</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>Yeah, he was in the hospital. He went in on Friday afternoon and he died Tuesday afternoon.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>I’m thinking of a month before that.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>He had been in and out of the hospital then. They had to put him in hydration, because of his radiation and chemo. They said he got very dehydrated and he had been in and out several times.</p> <p><strong>Thompson<br /></strong>Well, I talked to him on the phone and he was either in the hospital—it might’ve just been the day before he died. I can’t imagine that though. But I talked to him. maybe a week was either right before he went into the hospital or the day before he died. Because I was completely shocked.</p> <p><strong>Bridges<br /></strong>I didn’t expect him to go into the hospital. Maybe you talked to him that Monday and he was fine, but then the next couple of days, his arm just got worse. By the end of the week, I figured he better go to the hospital, because doctors are not around on weekends, so I needed to admit him. I couldn’t get a hold of his doctor so that’s why he went in on a Friday.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: Grandview Avenue.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Singapore.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Avian influenza.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Elizabeth II.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Possibly the University of Florida’s Health Shands Hospital.</p> </div> </div> alcoholism Beth Bridges Bridges, Jack J. Bridges, Mary Celery Soup: Florida's Folk Life Play Chinese Chinese culture city commissioner Cleveland, Mac Clinton, Bill Clinton, William "Bill" Jefferson cooking Creative Sanford, Inc. cuisine Elizabeth Bridges Fay, Michael Fleming, Penny Fort George G. Meade Fort Meade, Maryland Gainesville Grandview Avenue Green, Alfred Green, Elizabeth Green, Victor "Mapes" groceries Grout, Lonnie Hainaese Hainan Island, China Indonesia Jack J. Bridges King's English Kuhn, Linda Lake Mary Boulevard Law Office of Jack J. Bridges lawyer Lee, Bill lung cancer Mandarin Martin, Trayvon Benjamin Mary Bridges oil field Ritz Theatre Seminole County Sheriff's Office Singapore Southern cuisine Sports Illustrated Spring Hills Lake Mary The Rib Ranch Thompson, Trish Zimmerman, George Michael https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/c20009fd747d934827e4fb7335c31c26.pdf 0799da4ded85e4da02adc7ea62130277 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 Orlando Gay Chorus Collection Alternative Title Gay Chorus Collection Is Part Of Orlando Gay Chorus Collection, RICHES Program Type Collection Digital Collection <div class="element-text"><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES MI</a></div> <div class="element-text"> </div> Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Dance--United States Gay culture--United States Description The Orlando Gay Chorus (OGC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and humanitarian organization, and part of the Gay and Lesbian Association (GALA) of Choruses. Founded on Valentines Day 1990, OGC is not only one of the largest mixed gay choirs in the United States at over 100 members, but they also boast four smaller ensembles that perform annual concerts, cabarets, and a host of community events, such as Come Out With Pride, Orlando Museum of Art’s Festival of Trees, and World AIDS Day memorial services. In 2017, the group performed at over 105 events, including 15 performances for the first anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. Members come from all walks of life and all sexual and gender orientations, including straight allies. OGC lives by the motto “Singing the World to a Better Place” and strives to use music to change attitudes and build a stronger community. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Emmanuel J. Agon Kresky Alternative Title Oral History, Emmanuel J. Agon Kresky Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Mass shootings Memorials--Florida Gay culture--United States Description An oral history interview of Emmanuel J. Agon Kresky, a member of the Orlando Gay Chorus. The interview was conducted by Sarah Schneider at the University of Central Florida Center for Emerging Media in Orlando, Florida, on November 17th, 2016. Some of the topics covered include joining the Orlando Gay Chorus, his favorite productions, the 2012 and 2016 Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses festivals, the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub, the Orlando Gay Chorus’s response to the Pulse tragedy, the community, national and international responses to the Pulse tragedy, the significance of Pulse before and after the tragedy, the role of social media in the aftermath of the tragedy, and the long-term consequences of the tragedy. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Joining the Orlando Gay Chorus and favorite productions <br />0:02:51 Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses festival <br />0:05:12 Mass shooting at Pulse nightclub <br />0:09:43 Orlando Gay Chorus’s response to Pulse tragedy <br />0:20:11 Community response to Pulse tragedy <br />0:22:31 National and international response to Pulse tragedy <br />0:24:57 2016 Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses festival <br />0:29:10 Significance of Pulse before and after tragedy <br />0:32:57 Role of social media in aftermath of tragedy <br />0:36:23 Long-term consequences of Pulse tragedy <br />0:38:52 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Emmanuel J. Agon Kresky. Interview conducted by Sarah Schneider in Orlando, Florida, on November 17, 2016. Type Moving Image Source Kresky, Emmanuel J. Agon. Interviewed by Sarah Schneider, November 17, 2016. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/206" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus Collection</a>, LGBTQ+ Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 40-minute, and 37-second oral history: Kresky, Emmanuel J. Agon. Interviewed by Sarah Schneider. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida. Coverage Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Orlando, Florida GALA Choruses Festival, Denver Performing Arts Center, Denver, Colorado Lake Eola Park, Orlando, Florida Orlando, Florida Camping World Stadium, Orlando, Florida Parliament House, Orlando, Florida Publix Supermarkets, Inc., Orlando, Florida Pulse nightclub, Orlando, Florida Creator Kresky, Emmanuel J. Agon Schneider, Sarah Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2016-11-17 Date Copyrighted 2016-11-17 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 1.17 GB Medium 40-minute and 37-second audio recording 16-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Humanities Teacher Music Teacher Provenance Originally created by Emmanuel J. Agon Kresky and Sarah Schneider and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Ahlquist, Karen. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62281651" target="_blank"><em>Chorus and Community</em></a>. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Boedeker, Hal. "<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus marks 25 years</a>." <em>Orlando Sentinel</em>, October 18, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2016. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html. Ogles, Jacob. "<a href="http://www.advocate.com/pride/2016/10/06/pride-orlando-will-take-new-meaning" target="_blank">Pride in Orlando Will Take on New Meaning</a>." <em>The Advocate</em>, October 6, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2016. http://www.advocate.com/pride/2016/10/06/pride-orlando-will-take-new-meaning. Hyman, Jamie. "<a href="http://www.watermarkonline.com/2016/06/16/community-rises-mass-shooting-orlando-gay-nightclub-kills-49/" target="_blank">Community rises up after mass shooting at Orlando gay nightclub kills 49</a>." <em>Watermark</em>, June 16, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2016. http://www.watermarkonline.com/2016/06/16/community-rises-mass-shooting-orlando-gay-nightclub-kills-49/. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/KGGSKVhkBrg" target="_blank">Oral History of Emmanuel "Manny" J. Agon Kresky</a> Transcript <p><strong>Schneider <br /></strong>[<em>beep</em>] Today is Thursday, November 17^th, 2016. My name is Sarah Schneider and I am conducting an oral history interview with Manny [Emmanuel J.] Agon Kresky of the Orlando Gay Chorus. The interview is being conducted at the UCF [University of Central Florida] Center for Emerging Media in Orlando, Florida.</p> <p>So thank you for being here today.</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>And can you start off by telling us your name please?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Sure. Um, my—my full name is Emmanuel. Emmanuel J. Agon Kresky.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Thank you. And to start off, can you tell us where were you born and how long have you lived in Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Um, I was born in South Florida. I was born—born in Hollywood, um—Hollywood, Florida. My parents lived in Dania Beach[, Florida]. Um, grew up in South Florida and went to college in [Washington,] D.C. After college, I went back to South Florida. And then moved to Orlando[, Florida] in, um, maybe 1998 or so. 1998 or 1999.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay. And how long have you been a part of the Orlando Gay Chorus?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Since, um, early 2000s. So maybe like 2003. I’d have to double check, but I think around 2002, 2003.</p> <p><strong>Schenider<br /></strong>And what brought you to join the chorus?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Um, let’s see. I had—I had sung with, um, Candlelight—uh, the Candlelight, uh, Processional over at Epcot. I sang with cast choir there. And after performing with Disney, I kind of wanted to continue singing after the holidays. And I had attended one or two OGC[1] concerts. And, um, I auditioned after maybe the second time seeing them perform.</p> <p><strong>Schenider<br /></strong>Okay. And, um, can you tell us about some of your favorite productions or…</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>…performances you had?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Um, sure. So the—the—the holiday concerts always[sic] the most popular ones. The ones that people get, uh, most excited about. Um, I think my personal favorite was the one that had the format of a radio show. And so there was an MC[2] and, um, it was like a broadcasted concert. It was like a, um—it was—it was more structured. Um, it was a more structured concert.</p> <p>Another one that I—that—that sticks out in my mind was one of the earlier ones. And it was called, um, “From Sissies to Superstars”. And it told the story of Oliver Button. I think that was his name. Oliver Button. And, um, it told of a story of a—of a—of a kid who was a little different. Um, and how he navigated through some challenges in his life.</p> <strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mm. Um, and have you participated in the GALA[3] events? <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yes. I go—for whatever reason, I did not go to the ones that were actually closer to home. So there’s one in Tampa[, Florida] and there was one in Miami[, Florida]. Uh, I didn’t go to those. Um, my first GALA festival was in Denver in 2012. And we returned this year, um, to—to Denver for the 2016 festival.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>So you—you have—you’ve been there twice for GALA events.</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yes. Even though I have been in the chorus for longer, for whatever reason I, um, did not join the rest of the chorus members by doing the festival up until 2012.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm. And, um, what has your experience at the GALA events be[sic] like—been like? Can you tell me a little bit more about what that event is like?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>2012 and 2016 were very different. Um, and a big part of that was because of Pulse[4]. Um, it was just very, eh—eh, [<em>sighs</em>]—it was—it was affirming. It was humbling. Um, there were—there were just a lot of random people who’d come up to us. And because they knew that we were from Orlando, they would give us words of encouragement. They would hug us. Um, they would thank us for coming. Um, it was just very—very humbling.</p> <p>Um, 2012, being that it was my first GALA, was a different experience, where it was like, “Oh, my god. I can’t believe this is my first year coming. I don’t know why I didn’t go to the one in Tampa. I don’t know why I didn’t go to the one in Miami.” Um, we did a great set. It was just very uplifting to be surrounded by so many likeminded people. And i—in 2012, it was just a more joyous celeb—celebratory kind of feel to it. It was also when I started dating Nick [Nicholas Agon Kresky]. So, um, that will always have a very, um, you know—an important, uh, piece of my heart. Uh, 2012.</p> <p>But, yeah. Two very different experiences. Uh, both great experiences. Just very different.</p> <strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, and so, getting to Pulse, um, can you tell us how you first heard about what happened? <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yeah. So, um, I guess it was Sunday morning. Um, I—Nick had already gone—Nick, my husband, had already gone to work at Universal [Studios Florida]. We were having some work done upstairs in our house, so we were sleeping downstairs. For whatever reason, I checked my iPhone from work. Um, I don’t always do that on the weekends. Um, but for whatever reason, I did. I hope my boss isn’t watching this because I—I check my iPhone all the time [inaudible] [<em>laughs</em>]. Um, so i—the —for whatever reason, I—I—I scroll through, uh, my messages. And I work for an online travel agency. And there was a message from one of our operational, um, departments—is—mi—mentioning that there was an incident. And, um, they were trying to ascertain whether or not any of the travelers that booked through our website were impacted by it.</p> <p>And so be—this was before we knew the extent of it. We knew that there was a shooting. We didn’t know that—how many people were injured. How many people were dead. Um, and then—so, um, I read it. I didn’t—again, not knowing that it was a terrorist or it’s somebody who is mentally disturbed, um, I—I knew that the operations people were looking, um—looking into it.</p> <p>Um, I didn’t think that anyone that I—I knew would have been at the club at the time of the day—or time of night. Um, and then—so I think I sent out a few emails to my hotel partners saying, “Hey. Um, I heard there was a shooting. I hope every—all of your guests are okay.” And then I—I didn’t really put that much thought into it.</p> <p>Um, later that same morning, I started getting texts and Facebook messages from—from my friends outside of Florida asking if I was alright. And, um, you know, wishing that I was safe. And, um, telling like that they hope I’m doing well. And just—you’re kind of like awestruck. It’s like I—why is this happening [<em>laughs</em>]? Like who—uh, why are people reaching out? Again, not knowing the extent of how many people lost their lives. How many were injured at, um—at Pulse.</p> <p>Eh, gr—I grew up in South Florida. Went to school in [Washington,] D.C. So, sad to say, shootings were not unheard of. And so, again, not realizing the extent of the damage that was done to the patrons that were there. Um, to the community. Just mindboggling. And then, um, you know, I started watching the news. The—you know, it’s hard to go back to sleep. Right? So you [<em>laughs</em>]—you watch the news. And then, um, just kept the TV on. And then, you know, more messages, um, about what’s going on.</p> <p>And, uh, I think I worked—I had to work that day, so, um, we were hearing about—I think one of the West Coast cities was having their pride event. And there might have been some hubbub about, um, somebody, eh, going to one of their pride events with maybe ammunition—with guns in their car. Wondering what the extent of this attack was going to be. Again, at—at this time, we don’t—I don’t think we knew that much information on—no—I don’t think we knew the—who the perpetrator was on Sunday afternoon.</p> <p>So just very—you know i—it was just not anything that I could relate to. Like 9/11[5], like I was—I was born. I mean I was—I was alive during 9/11. But it was—it was much more remote. Right? Um, and this one hit a lot closer to home. Because while—while I don’t think I knew anyone there that night, I knew that pe—other people did.</p> <strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm. And so can you tell me a little bit about the Orlando Gay Chorus’s response, um, in the days and weeks following the shooting? <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yeah. So, um, I think Carol Studer,[6] um, and J.D. Casto[7] were just on top of it—on top of everything. So there were many requests for us to, um—to perform at various events. It was—you—there were so many—there was—it was—it was almost impossible if you had a, um—i—if you have a job or other commitments that you could actually make every event. Um, because the chorus was, eh, pretty much in high demand. And, um, y—you know, some were m—more uplifting than others. Right? So there were, eh—the—the ones—the—Cory [Connell]’s outside of Publix [Supermarkets, Inc.] was—was hard because, um, it was unlike some of the other ones where we were trying to raise awareness or create a sense of community or strengthen the sense of community or raise money or something like that. It was like, <em>We’re at somebody’s memorial service</em>. Um, you know, quite—quite sobering for that.</p> <p>Um, so there was—there was Cory’s event. Um, there was the—there was prayer vigil at the cathedral that we go to. The Episcopal cathedral that we—we go to. [Cathedral Church of] St. Luke’s. We went to that. There were two events over at Dr. Phillips Center [for the Performing Arts]. One that was put on by the local arts community, um, and one that was actually, uh, Broadway folks. They came down from New York for a fundraiser. Um, more recently, there was a vigil, um, actually at Pulse. And, um, some of the survivors, uh, w—were—were invited. And it was the first time back at Pulse for many of them. Um, and up until that time, nobody could go through the fence. Um, but that night that we were there, uh, they opened up the fence and we actually, um, sang inside—inside the—the fence.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>And what were you feeling and thinking as that was going on? What was that—the atmosphere like at that—what you just described?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Um, I mean we can’t feel—I mean i—it’s like—it’s—it’s—I—I guess the only thing I can equate it to would be if you’re going to—if you’re going to a place of worship and regardless of whether it’s your church or somebody else’s church or synagogue, um, you—y—you j—you just know enough to be respectful. And then you, um, you know, talk in hushed tones. And you can smile at your friends, but you’re not—it’s not necessarily a time to be joyous per se. Or happy per se.</p> <p>Um, it was, um—they had—they had murals on the wall. They had, um, eh, i—th—I don’t think it was—it was a permanent mural. It was more like a canvas or paper. I’m not sure exactly what the material was. But people were saying their goodbyes or writing down the names of their loved ones. Um, and it was—we were honored to be there. Uh, but it was very, um—I don’t know if sobering is the word. It’s kind of—I hope your other interviewees are much more articulate than I am [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>I—it was—it was—it was—we were honored to be there. We were honored to be there. And we, um—we—we sang “True Colors”, which is fitting for the event. Um, another one that we didn’t sing that night, but, um, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Those seem to be the—the two most requested songs from us. Or—or the ones that we seemed to be the most appropriate for the type of event. [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, and do you have any other moments in those vigils or memorial services that stand out to you? Um, or things about them that you think—or you’d like to share?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>The, um—the—the church we go to—the cathedral—St. Luke’s Cathedral did a—did a wonderful, um—wonderful job, um, of—and I think there—there was media there, so there might be—there might be a t—a tape or something of it. Uh, of that night. But it was sh—they—they had one candle on the altar for each and every single victim. They had 49 candles. Each candle was—was different. No two candles were alike. Um, it was very—i—it was very nice. It was very, um—it was something that only like the cathedral could do because there was a sense of, um, kind of pageantry to it. But so tasteful. And so respectful. And just—just—it was—it—I felt that it was the right, um, um—th—the right, uh, feel to it. If that makes sense.</p> <p>Um, later that night, after we had cleared out of the cathedral, they had a vigil on Lake Eola. So this might have been [<em>sighs</em>] a week. The Sunday after Pulse. Right? A week after. Um, the vigil at Dr. Phillips [Center for the Performing Arts] on the lawn the day after Pulse, um—I—I was not able to make it because I had to work. Uh, Nick [Nicholas Agon Kresky] went, but I was unable to make it. So, um, fo—for me, that was like the big, massive gathering event where you could actually—after leaving the cathedral, we walked over to Lake Eola, which is just maybe a block away. And then you could see the entire border of the lake surrounded with people with candles.</p> <p>Um, it was just very nice to see that many people come together. Whether it was the LGBT community. Whether it was the Latinx community, um, coming together. Whether it was just people who wanted to put an end to gun violence. It was just really nice to see the—the city coming together. That probably stuck out the most.</p> <p>Um, another one actually that sticks out—not a vigil. Much more, um, joyous, um, was actually Orlando City Soccer [Club]. Like I never thought I enjoyed soccer until we were invited to sing at the halftime show. And they had the entire, um, stadium decked out in a rainbow. So it was one section was red, next one was orange. All the way around. And they had 49 seats up in the bleachers left empty for, um, the victims of the shooting. And there was a candle—or not a candle, but a balloon on each of the seat[sic] to commemorate them. And you could see those balloons from anywhere in the stadium. It was just very—it was very nice to see. Um, I think it was 49 minutes into the game. They actually stopped the game for a moment of silence. So—never was interested in soccer before [<em>laughs</em>]. It’s like, <em>Wow. I really like soccer now. And I really like this team</em>. Because I think that was the first, um, major sports event after the Pulse shooting. I think it was the—I think it was the Saturday after Pulse that they did that. Then they had their—their game.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>And what did you think about singing in the stadium? What was tha—what’d that feel like—the actual performance element?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Um, [<em>laughs</em>] from a—from a technical standpoint, there were some learnings[sic]. Um, there was a—I guess there’s a delay. So I don’t know how we sounded. The people that saw us on TV soun—heard—uh, said th—that, uh—that we sounded—we sounded good. Um, i—it was very welcoming. I never—I’ve never necessarily been the victim of—of—of a hate crime. I’ve never, eh—I don’t believe that I’ve been discriminated before in the past because of my, um, sexual orientation as an adult. And I don’t—in Orlando, I don’t really expect that anyway. Um, but these soccer fans seemed very, very welcoming. And there were just so many rainbow flags that night at the soccer stadium you would have thought it was a Pride event. Um, it was just very uplifting. Very affirming. Uh, very welcoming. Yeah.</p> <strong>Schneider<br /></strong>And what did you think about, um, the reaction of the community—the local community to what had happened? You touched on this a little bit already… <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>…but is there anything else you—you had thought or—or felt in the communi—in response—the community’s reaction?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Eh, um, i—it—it’s unfortunate it takes something like this to actually bring people together. Um, but—but in a—in a sense that’s—that’s what happened. People came together. And, um, I think, you know, i—the people at—the people at work kind of gave me my space, um, because [inaudible] go through all sorts of emotions. I think every day for a week I cried at some point. Listening to the radio. Watching TV. Talking to somebody. I would—I would cheer up inevitably. Um, in the car on my way to work. And—and occasionally, I’ll watch a clip or something on YouTube and I’ll start tearing up. People would just say, “Hey. If you need somebody to talk to, I’m here.”<br /><br />Um, the week following the incident, I reached out—well, I didn’t take any time off. I just continued my work. But I have some gay partners. I—I work for an online travel agency, so we have, uh, partners that are—that work in hotels. And I reached out to all my—my gay friends [<em>laughs</em>] that worked in hotels. And it just been m—meet with them—one—one for lunch. Um, you know, ‘cause you never know when somebody’s not gonna be there anymore. So it was a—a nice time to reconnect and kind of, um—kind of reconnect. And then I—kind of like process together. And thank God for Nick. Because y—you know, we have each other to make—to try to make sense of it all. Um, not that we did make sense of it, but th—we have each other to—to lean on, which I was very grateful for.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>And, um, what did you think about reactions to the Pulse shooting from people outside of the local community? So either nationally or even internationally. Um, did you s—did you feel any of that or think about that?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yeah. I—I think w—[<em>sighs</em>] you know, when I would cheer up in the car or watching TV or—or YouTube, it wasn’t really tears of sadness. I think it was just feeling the love from the other—the other cities. Um, seeing pictures of, you know, the White House decked out in rainbow colors. The Sydney Opera House. All these, um, landmarks. And seeing them as just from the people around the world sending their love to Orlando.</p> <p>Um, the other—I work for Expedia. That’s the online travel agency. I’m not sure if you have to edit it—that out. But, um, the other Expedia offices, um, sent us, you know, “We Love Orlando” signs. And they took a picture of their, um—of their team holding up rainbow flags, banners and stuff like that. It’s—it’s quite unfortunate that after—after Pulse, you know, we were doing the same thing for the offices in France. And I think there was—there was[sic] a few with gun violence and terrorist attacks in Europe that we—we did the same for them. Right? Um, because you never think it’s gonna happen to your—your—your own city. Right? There was New York. There was Boston. We might be a big—“big-ish” city, but we’re not the same par as the size of those cities. Right? So you don’t think that we would be a target for—for a terrorist attack.</p> <p>Um, but yeah. The—the f—oh, my God. And talk about Festival GALA, you know, just—the love that we got from there—from—from our fellow choruses from around the world. They had these huge banners. Um, “We Are With You, Orlando”. “We Are Orlando”. Just like huge banners. Um, I think one’s at the [Orange County Regional] History Center. But probably—I don’t know. It seems like the length of this—of this room out there in the other room on the—in the foyer area. Um, just lots of love from the other cities.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm. And, um, what else did you i—I know you talked about how different 2012 and 2016 were at the GALA events, but can you say more about, um, what the 2016 event was like and—and, um, yeah—how Pulse impacted…</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yeah. So…</p> <p><strong>Schenider<br /></strong>…that experience?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>…um, we had—we had gone into, um—into rehearsals with a totally different set. Um, and Nick is actually probably a little better versed at talking about what we actually intended to sing originally before Pulse. After Pulse, it’s like, <em>Okay. W—we—this set does not—is not fitting anymore. We need to have a new set. </em>And we came up with a new set.</p> <p>Um, so “True Colors” again. It was probably the song that we sung[sic] most often at the—at the events. And then we ended with, um, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.[8] And I hope there’s a—I—I know there is on YouTube, um, our director speaking to the audience.[9] Packed audience. Um, when we performed there were people who tried to get in that couldn’t. Um, everyone wanted to see Orlando from what they tell us. But there was—we—we—he spoke about what it was like waking up that morning. Um, similar—similar experience. Like, <em>Why are these people contacting me? Why—why am I getting all these texts? Why am I getting all these Facebook messages?</em></p> <p>Um, and we were just a mess. The chorus members [<em>laughs</em>] were just like trying to hold it together. We had gotten through almost every song. We knew that “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, um, was—was gonna be the next song. And it was just—it was—it was very hard to—to—to get through his introduction of that song. Um, and then when we sang, he had invited the entire, um, audience to sing along with us. Because there was no way we were getting through that song without crying if we weren’t already crying. Um, and then we ended on a—on a different song after that to kind of show people that, y—you know, Pulse is not—I think Mayor [John Hugh “Buddy”] Dyer said that Pulse is not going to define us. We weren’t gonna end on a sad song. Right? “You’ll Never Walk Alone” can be a little, um, solitary. It’s a little melancholy. So we ended with up with, uh, “We Are Family”. And then we had pink boas and pink glasses and little things in our hair. And it was just a—a—a—a fun number to end on.</p> <p>Um, but yeah. Eh, tha—I think [<em>sighs</em>], uh, that was, um—eh, I—they—they said that the s—our set was the set that everyone was trying to get into to see.</p> <p>And then the other—the other choruses actually—many of them made reference to, uh, the gun violence or homophobia or, um, something along those lines in their own set. And they made—a lot of times, they made mention of it. Um, now that I think about it—because while we performed, we’d also watch other people perform as well.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>And, um, was there anything else you wanted to say about the interactions between you and members of the other gay—uh, the other choruses at that event, you know, outside of the performance?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Was there anything else…</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Schneider</strong>       …you heard from people?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Um, just a lot of—a lot of hugs from random people [<em>laughs</em><span style="text-decoration:underline;">]</span>. I—so I, um—I’m not always the most “huggy” person [<em>laughs</em>]. So it’s like, <em>Oh! Why are you hugging me?</em> Um, but no. It was, um—I—I—I always appreciate when people say, “Can I hug you?” Or “May I…” It’s like, <em>Sure.</em> You know? I know it’s coming. Um, but yeah. There was[sic] a lot of people who wanted to welcome us. To thank us for being there. Reaffirming.</p> <strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mm. And I’m curious what the, um—Pulse as a place—if it meant anything to you as a place before what happened. And if now i—it has any significance in your mind as a location and site. <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yeah. So, um, I was, um—I am acquainted with one of the old managers there. Uh, with Ron Legler. I—I met him through Florida Theatrical Association. And so, um, he—he moved to Baltimore[, Maryland] a—a little while ago. I don’t know that I’ve been to Pulse since he left Orlando. Um, so for me, I—I’ve been a few times. Usually as his guest. Um, it’s not a place where I f—I frequented. It was no—my—my place was actually Parliament—uh, not—well, Parliament House nowadays. But, um, back—back when I was younger, um, we used to go to Pleasure Island [Walt Disney World Resort] on Thursdays. So it was usually [<em>laughs</em>] in—in my twenties—in my late-twenties, it was Pleasure Island on Thursday and Southern Nights on Friday. And then Saturday night: Parliament House. On those rotations that I went out every single night of the weekend. I don’t do that anymore. Um, now it’s like maybe once a month there’s a show over at Parliament House we wanna see. We’ll go to Parliament House.</p> <p>Um, so, eh, Pulse kind of opened up—kind of as—as—kind of off of that “go every weekend” kind of phase of my life. Um, but Ron’s partner, Andrew—Andrew Springer, had his birthday party there. So there was a reason to go to Pulse. Right? Um, so if there was a birthday party. If there were friends coming in from out of town, then we might go to Pulse.</p> <p>Um, I—I think some of the—some of the stuff that the newscasters said after Pulse could be true for any of the gay clubs. That it was a safe place. That for many in the community, it was, you know, their place of worship if you will. I thought that was a change—it was strange, um—a strange, uh, term to use. But I—I know that a number of people have used gay clubs in general as a—as a—as a—as their place of worship. As their church. Um, so I—I appreciate it for that. Um, for that aspect of it. While it wasn’t necessarily my place of worship, um, I do respect it for being a safe place where people would gather. Where people would feel safe. Um, where people can be their—themselves. Right? Um, yeah.</p> <p>And now that I’m older, it’s like I don’t know that I can stay out past midnight [<em>laughs</em>]. So I—had I been out, I think I would’ve been in bed way before—way before 1:45 at that point.</p> <p>But if it was—you know, as you think about how if it wasn’t Pulse and if it was Parlia—and if it was Parliament House. And if it wasn’t 1:45, but it was twelve midnight or something like that, it could have been any one of us. Right? Um, you never know.</p> <strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, you mentioned briefly, um, Facebook and things like that. People contacting you after it happened. Did you see social media playing any response in—or any, um, part in the time following the shooting in people’s response to the shooting? Or did you feel like that wasn’t really a big part of—of people’s reactions? <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Before Pulse, I never knew that there was a feature on Facebook to mark yourself safe. And while I was appreciative of that so I can see which of my friends were, um—were safe, I was like, <em>Oh, my God. Why is this even necessary? Or like what kind of world to we live in that this is necessary that they built this?</em> Um, I don’t know—eh, you know, I like to think that, for the most part, Facebook is—is neutral. And so I don’t know that they did anything to either, um, promote awareness about Pulse or downplay it. Um, obviously, so much of what we see on Facebook is just who we decide to follow on Facebook. Um, so lo—lots of posts from, um—lots—lots of posts about, um—from—from other—from other cities wishing us well. From other gay choruses wishing us well. Um, lots of that stuff, which was quite uplifting.</p> <p>Um, eh, there were th—you know, there were the—the pictures of—of the outside of Pulse. As people were driving by. Um, I—I never visited either the hospital or Pulse while the memorials were up. Before, eh, the [Orange County] Regional History Center started protecting the—the—the stuff left behind. Um, but there was[sic] many pictures of the memorials were laid out. Either—and there was actually—they were laying stuff out on the lawn, too, of Dr. Phillips. Um, so saw many pictures of that on Facebook as well.</p> <p>It was helpful to find out, you know—to promote certain things. Like, um, the little arts organizations did the “Beautiful Together” event over at Dr. Phillips. So there was lots of, um, you know, <em>We’re trying to—to—to promote the event. And then so, you know, we’re sharing stuff on Facebook.</em> Um, [<em>laughs</em>] I don’t know how much of it you could share for the—for the—“From Broadway with Love[: A Benefit Concert for Orlando]” because I think that the event sold out almost immediately. Um, but there was—there were[sic] lots of mention about who’s coming to the event and who confirmed. And, um, during the event and after the event, lots of pictures of—of—of, you know, the celebrities interacting with the—with the locals, which was nice to see.</p> <p>Yeah. But for the most part, I think that—I like to think that Facebook is pretty neut—neutral. And then, uh—it’s just a tool that we use, in that, you know, we’re—we’re—we see [<em>door closes</em>] what we choose to see and who we choose to follow on Facebook.</p> <strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Do you have any thoughts about the long-term impact of Pulse, um, and the shooting, whether the impact, um—what—let me—let me s—ask that question again. What would you think the long-term consequences of the shooting might be for the Orlando gay community and for the larger City of Orlando? <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Um, gun control reform I think would be a big one. I—y—you know, the perpetrator wasn’t from Orlando. He came from outside of Orlando. So I think that just educating people I think would help. Um, but, you know—but then, you know, we wonder like, <em>Okay. Are—do we need to go outside of Orlando to educate people there? </em>Um, you know, when somebody shoots somebody like what’s—in any fashion, it’s like, <em>What the heck’s going through their mind?</em> Like <em>H—where did this come from? Where did this hate come from? Where’d this ignorance come—came—come from?</em> And y—you like—we can’t always dictate how people think. I don’t think we should dictate what people think. But I think that we can—we—we can put laws in place that prevent massive harm through—through assault rifles. Through guns. Through gun violence. Whatever. Um, I think they go hand in hand. I think we need more [<em>sighs</em>], um—I think we need gun control that makes sense. I think we need to—to reform some of the stuff that we have out there. Um, but at the same time, I think we need to continue to educate. Um, part of our mission statement for the—for the Orlando Gay Chorus is about changing people’s hearts and people’s minds. And I think that we need to continue doing that so that this doesn’t happen in the future.</p> <strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, do you have any other reflections about the Pulse shooting or about your i—involvement in the Orlando Gay Chorus or anything else you’d like to talk about? <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Um, I w—I’m appreciative of you—being given the opportunity to do this. Um, the chorus has been—you know, it’s family.  It can be dysfunctional. We don’t always get along. There’s sibling rivalry. Um, but we’re lucky in the sense that we had a family to fall back on. And we had our own support group. I don’t know how many other people, um, have that luxury. Right? Um, that have the ability to—to seek the support of someone as easily as we had it. Um, we’re—we’re able to be there for each other. We’re—we’re definitely very appreciative of that. Um, you know? So i—this would’ve been totally different if it wasn’t for the chorus I think. And if it wasn’t for Nick. Um, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Well, is there anything else you didn’t talk about that you’d like to share?</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Um, I’m sure I’ll think of something as soon as you turn off the camera. But [<em>laughs</em>] for…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Kresky<br /></strong>…right now, I’m good.</p> <p><strong>Schenider<br /></strong>Okay. Well, thank you so much for participating and sharing your story with us. We really appreciate it.</p> <strong>Kresky<br /></strong>Yeah. <div><br /><div> <p>[1] Orlando Gay Chorus</p> </div> <div> <p>[2] Master of Ceremonies</p> </div> <div> <p>[3] Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses</p> </div> <div> <p>[4] 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting</p> </div> <div> <p>[5] September 11 attacks</p> </div> <div> <p>[6] Vice President of Orlando Gay Chorus</p> </div> <div> <p>[7] Public Relations and Marketing for the Orlando Gay Chorus</p> </div> <div> <p>[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClS4TKtZMk4</p> </div> <div> <p>[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1urPSxm7Gc</p> </div> </div> 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting Andrew Springer Beautiful Together Candlelight Processional Carol Studer Cathedral Church of St. Luke Cory Connell Denver Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts Emmanuel "Manny" J. Agon Kresky Epcot Expedia, Inc. Expedia.com Facebook From Broadway with Love: A Benefit Concert for Orlando From Sissies to Superstars fundraisers GALA Choruses Festival Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses GLBT gun control gun regulation gun violence hate crimes homophobia homosexuality J.D. Casto John Hugh “Buddy” Dyer Lake Eola Park Latinx community LGBT LGBTIQ LGBTQ mass shootings Nicholas Agon Kresky Oliver Button Orange County Regional History Center orlando Orlando City Soccer Club Orlando Gay Chorus outreach events Parliament House Pleasure Island (Walt Disney World) Publix Supermarkets, Inc. Pulse massacre Pulse nightclub Pulse nightclub shooting Pulse tributes rainbow flags Ron Legler Sarah Schneider social media Southern Nights Sydney Opera House terrorist attacks True Colors University of Central Florida Center for Emerging Media vigils We Are Family White House You’ll Never Walk Alone https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/051ee286f0903797947a051e97cf081a.pdf d6d7cde96721d18bba333d517c8663a9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection Subject Museums--Florida Schools Elementary schools Grammar schools Sanford (Fla.) Description The Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection encompasses a broad range of materials and items ranging from the late 19th Century into the present. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, documents, videocassettes, and other historical records pertaining to the history of the Sanford Grammar School, the Sanford community through the years, and the history of teaching and learning within the United States from the 19th century to the 2010s. The Student Museum has collaborated with the University of Central Florida and established the UCF Public History Center (PHC). All of the Student Museum's collections are presently housed at the PHC. The goal of the PHC is to promote access to history through ground-breaking research connecting local to global, provide cutting-edge hands-on educational programs for students and visitors, and to engage the community in contributing to and learning from history. Contributor Student Museum UCF Public History Center Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum, Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project Student Museum UCF Public History Center Curator Marra, Katie Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Alternative Title Student Museum and PHC Collection Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Kelley, Katie Interviewee O'Connor, Florence Location UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Original Format 1 DVD Duration 28 minutes and 57 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 127kbps 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 Florence Patchell O'Connor Alternative Title Oral History, O'Connor Subject Oral history--United States Sanford (Fla.) Museums--Florida Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Substitute teachers--United States University of Central Florida. Department of History DeBary (Fla.) Description Oral history interview of Florence Patchell O'Connor, a docent for the Student Museum and Center for Social Studies, located at 301 West Seventh Street in Sanford, Florida. O'Connor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 10, 1931. While living in Pennsylvania, she taught elementary school for nine years. After marrying, she moved to Marlton, New Jersey, and continued teaching and then substitute teaching until 1991. That same year, she moved to Florida. O'Connor worked as a substitute teacher, and began volunteering as a docent in 1996. This interview was conducted by Katie Kelley at the UCF Public History Center on October 11, 2012. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:55 Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies<br />0:05:00 Typical day at the museum<br />0:07:22 Teaching techniques<br />0:11:32 How the museum has changed over time<br />0:13:46 Teaching in a museum versus teaching in a classroom<br />0:15:30 Native American Exhibit: Life in an Ancient Timucuan Village<br />0:17:47 Pioneer Exhibit: Before the Settlement of Sanford<br />0:19:40 Memorable moments<br />0:21:50 UCF Public History Center<br />0:25:23 Lemonade Lectures at DeBary Hall<br />0:27:19 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Florence Patchell O'Connor. Interview conducted by Mary "Katie" Kelley at the UCF Public History Center, in Sanford, Florida. Type Moving Image Source O'Connor, Florence Patchell. Interviewed by Mary "Katie" Kelley. UCF Public History Center. October 11, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/31" target="_blank">Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 28-minute and 57-second oral history: O'Connor, Florence Patchell. Interviewed by Mary "Katie" Kelley. UCF Public History Center. October 11, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Coverage Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies,Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida DeBary Hall, DeBary, Florida Creator Kelley, Katie O'Connor, Florence Patchell Date Created 2012-10-11 Date Modified 2012-10-16 2012-11-08 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 350 MB 171 KB Medium 28-minute and 57-second DVD 9-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Mary "Katie" Kelley and Florence Patchell O'Connor and published by UCF Public History Center. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the UCF Public History Center and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project UCF Public History Center Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository UCF Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Exhibits." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. "<a href="http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank">Seminole High School</a>." Seminole High School, Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/mYUJ04qWmyY" target="_blank">Oral History of Florence Patchell O'Connor</a> Transcript <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Okay, I’m with Florence [Patchell] O’Connor. Florence was born November 10^th, 1931. Florence has been a volunteer at the [UCF] Public History Center since 1996. She started in the 1996-1997 school year, when it was still called the Student Museum [and Center for the Social Studies]. We are conducting this interview for the Public History Center’s History Harvest event and we’ll be hearing about Florence’s experiences as a teacher and volunteer at the Student Museum. Today is October 11^th, 2012, we are at the Public History Center in Sanford, Florida, and my name is [Mary] “Katie” Kelley. Okay, Florence. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, um—about you childhood and your experiences prior to, um, coming to the museum?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>About my childhood? I—I can’t remember that far back.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>But [<em>clears throat</em>] I am a school teacher. I don’t want to say former, ‘cause school teachers never die, I guess. Uh, I was in Pennsylvania teaching, and then when I was 29, I married my husband and moved to New Jersey. I was able to acquire two children through the marriage, so I did not keep teaching, but I stayed home to raise them and to raise the other three children that came along. However, I did do some substitute work at that time in New Jersey. Uh, we moved to Florida in 2000—no, we didn’t—in 19—uh, boo boo, right? 1991 and again we—our children were all gone by then, but we were co-parenting three grandchildren. So I was not able to go back to teaching right away, but by 1996, I was able to think about coming back, and you might be interested—I have, uh, notes here.</p> <p>You might be interested to know that the way I got to the museum was—there was an article in the newspaper and they were asking for docents, uh—people who would like to teach in the museum. My husband and I drove over. There was no one outside. He said, “My, this is a very busy place,” but I did go in, and, uh Serena [Rankin Parks] Fisher, who was the director at that time—[<em>clears throat</em>] pardon me [<em>clears throat</em>]—took me around the building and told me about the different rooms. We had no Geography [Lab: Where in the World Are We?] room at that time, or the [American] Ingenuity room. They were not open as far—as I recall. I like to joke that I always wanted to work in Williamsburg[, Pennsylvania], and to be one of those people there in one of the buildings. However, this, to me, was a poor man’s Williamsburg. I was able to dress up and, um, be, um, an active teacher in the different rooms.</p> <p><strong>Kelley             </strong>Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like when you first started volunteering at the museum?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Okay, when I first started, I truly did more in the Native American [Exhibit: Life in an Ancient Timucuan Village] room. For some reason, I leaned toward that room. I would do the others every once and a while, but, uh, that was my one I really liked the best, and then, I tried the [Turn of the Century] Classroom[: Lessons from 1902], and again, in the classroom you were wearing the costume of the day—of 1990—of 1902, where you would have a black skirt and a white blouse and you carried your hanky, ‘cause that’s what they did in those days, and you were very strict. Uh, [<em>clears throat</em>] Pardon me. Uh, I had fun. I wasn’t as strict as I am now, when I first started, it—it sort of eroded that I became more strict, and one of the things that I do make them do is to sit outside of the room and we discuss the fact that in 1902, children had to sit straight, had to sit with their hands folded, their feet flat on the floor, and put their hand up if they want to participate and talk to me [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Um, why did you decide to become involved, um—uh, you talked a little bit about this, but what—what was it about the fact—it was the poor man’s Williamsburg that made you want to volunteer?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Well, the thing is, as I say, “School teachers never die. They just sort of fade away,” and, uh, I wanted something extra to do. My grandchildren had moved on—back to with their mom—well, their mom was with us, but she remarried and they moved on, and I had really nothing to do. I was subbing—at that time, I was subbing at Wilson School, and I would keep Thursday open to come to the museum. That was my day. I did not take any substituting jobs on that day, because I was depended on here at the museum.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Can you describe what your typical day, uh, at the Student Museum has been like, or at the Public History Center has been like?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>I sure can. Okay, at the museum, what I would do when the children came in—again, it would depend if I was substituting or if I was just a docent.—when I substituted, I would do the, uh, verbal reading outside, and then we go upstairs and we talk a little more, and then we would go into a 45-minute class each time, and, uh, as I said before, they would start out in the hallway, and then I would take them in and they were not allowed to speak, and it was really cute to see that they really took on the character of the children in, uh, 1902, and then while I’m in the room—I think that’s part of this question you, uh—I would have them look around the room to see what was different from their classroom and what was different here at the museum.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Um…</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Do—do you have any—I mean, what else did you do when you, um—did you just teach or did you assist with lunch and that kind of thing? Or…</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Oh, with the children? Well, they would have two classes in the morning and then they would break for lunch, and again, it would depend on whether I was just a docent or a volunteer or in charge, because at lunch time, when we went upstairs, the director of the museum or the person in charge would talk about 1902 lunches and how they would not eat up there, because that was the auditorium, and then we also would show them, um, a box of animal crackers, which was first started—made in 1903, and why did it look the way it did, and the reason was the string was put on it to use to hang on the tree. It was a Christmas ornament. So they ate the cookies, they hung ‘em on the tree—the box—and then the box itself became a toy for them, and we shared all that and again, about their lunches with their bottles of soda and their water, you know? We would go out to the well and we would try to just show them, even at lunch time, the difference between 1902 and now, when they were eating.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Um, why was it so—why was it such an important teaching technique for you to show them the differences?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Well, I don’t think children realize how well-off they have things sometimes, and, uh, eh, it was one of those things where, um, they didn’t think about the differences, you know, when they—the flag in the 1902 classroom is a[sic] artifact from 1902, and big and dirty and they never—they would try to guess why it was different, and usually a child would put their hand up, stand up to talk to me, and realize there were fewer stars in the blue field than now, and that was what—and just comparing what they have now and what we had then.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>What do you think, um—what do you think was the value then for them in—in coming here? When they left, what do you think that the students walked away with?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>I meant to look up the sign and I didn’t come in time for it, but we have a sign that says, “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I might remember. Involve me and I will—it will become part of me.” Something like that, and I think that’s the whole thing, by them having hands-on. When we did—when I do the classroom, after they look around and decide different things, um, we would read from a McGuffey reader, again, trying to compare the difference from what their books are to our books now—or, uh, then rather—and, uh, we wrote on slates with the chalk, and I do have a—a funny situation, I guess, that could come in here.</p> <p>Um, when I do teach the classroom, I always have my hanky, and [inaudible] right before that, I do walk through the classroom with a ruler, and the children would say, “Are you going to hit me?” And I’d look at them and say, “Well, it is 1902, so if you don’t behave…” And, you know, I had the ruler, and then when their hands were folded, I—if a girl had nail polish on, I would hit the desk, and then I’d laugh and say, “I didn’t hit you now, but would you please stand up?” And they would and they’d be scared really, and, um, then I would point out to them—or I would ask them, “Why am I so upset?” Well, they had different answers, but the main answer is nail polish was not invented in 1902, and they would say, “Well, you’re not allowed to wear it in school,” “Children aren’t allowed to wear it.” No, it wasn’t invented, and then I would ask them if they brought their hanky to school, and, uh, of course, they didn’t. So I would blow my nose and put my hanky back in my pocket, and you should have seen the faces like…</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>You know, and I would say, “Well, what do you do?” And their answer was “Well, we use tissues.” So then I would ask them to explain a tissue to me, and basically they’d say it—“It’s paper,” and then I would be shocked and say, “You want me to blow my nose on paper when I have such a nice soft hanky?” And, uh, then I would explain to them that tissues—or Kleenex, whatever—were not made until 1929, and then we’d have a little laugh, because that’s when my husband was invented.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>And they think that’s funny, but that was the kind of thing—I do have an example and it’s sort of a funny one. I had them sitting like this and I saw nail polish, and it was a little boy that had nail polish on, and I had to continue, ‘cause I’d already told Katie or Mary to stand up, and I said, “Oh my goodness,” and he goes, “I have it on, ‘cause I made a bet with my sister and she said I wouldn’t do it and I’m getting five dollars.” So there again we just had a good laugh, and the children, uh—I asked if it was worth five dollars and some of them said, “No,” and some said it would have been, so that’s—that was that.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Do you think you—you’ve been here for quite a long time teaching at the Student Museum. Um, have your experiences changed from the early days until know with either how the students react, or with how you teach, or—what has been the difference?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Okay, there’s[sic] two things—I did make a list last night—you sort of—we sort of fell right into my next thing.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>I was teaching one day in this classroom, and after the—we were ready to go home, a little girl came up to me and she said, “Well, I liked your classroom, but I didn’t like you,” and I said, “Well, that’s okay, Katie, because I didn’t like you too much either,” and she looked at me and she said, “You can’t say that to me,” and I said, “Well, I just did,” ‘cause she was a little—little—you know, little 2011-type child who was just trying to rule the room, and another thing that I thought was so neat, um—I was the substitute at this time, and, uh, I did welcome the bus that came, and the group comes off with their chaperones and we take them upstairs, and at that time, we were not ringing the bell. The bell has been fixed and it’s wonderful. We can hear the school bell ring, but anyway, we went upstairs and I continued and the mother looked at—called me over, I guess, and she said, uh, “Are you from New Jersey?” And I said, “Yes, ma’am, I am.” Uh, “From Marlton, New Jersey?” And I said, “Yes, ma’am.” Well, here the mother was a child that I had taught—or when she was a child, I had taught here in New Jersey, and her comment was, “When I got off that bus and I saw you—I get the chills— saw you standing there, I couldn’t believe that I saw you again,” and that was a neat experience. I really—it’s a shame to think I didn’t change in those last 10 years, but, uh, she did remember me, and she lived right up the street from me. In fact, I believe she played with my older girls, but I’m not—not that sure about that.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>It’s a small world. My goodness.</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Isn’t that something?</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Uh, how does—speaking of your previous teaching experiences, how does teaching at the museum compare to the more formal classroom setting from when you were, um, teaching at a…</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Well, again, this is more hands-on. uh, as I do explain to the children going into the classroom, that I know that their teachers—and I will look at the teachers—allows[sic] you to talk a little bit, but eh, not in my room [<em>laughs</em>], you know, but each room is so different that it’s hard to compare, and again we only have them for 45 minutes, and you can almost put up with anything for even the—I al—I always will tell them that, you know, “If you don’t like sitting this way, realize in 45 minutes, you’ll be in the Native American room. You’ll be in Grandmom’s[sic] Attic. You will be able to walk around, but in my room, that’s the way we do it.”</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Are most of the children pretty willing to play along? Do they…</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Do they take on the role?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Yes, they really are, except sometimes, I’d ask a question and they wouldn’t put their hands up and I’d laugh. I’d say, “I think that’s because I make ‘em stand up.” You know, they just went [inaudible], but they—they really did behave. I mean, the—I, uh—I ran a tight ship. I really did, but it was fun, and that’s why I say I started out in the Native American room and it was more casual, and then for some reason, I was in the classroom and I liked it [<em>laughs</em>]. I liked being mean. The only think I didn’t like was one of our uh, form—uh, former—she’s former now. Uh, she would announce to the children that I was the mean teacher and I just wish she’d let them not know that till they got in my room, but that’s alright.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>So you taught in the Native American room? What were your experiences like in there?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Okay, I’ve done that. I’ve done basically all of them. I’ll start with Native American. Uh, y experience there was, uh—again, my way of teaching it—I had them come in and sit on the floor, and then we would discuss the room, and then I would send them on a scavenger hunt, and I would tell them the different things that, uh, are in the room, and one of them was a six-legged deer, and if they found it—you know, not tell the others—and I’d give them time to walk around and go in the buildings and—because we do have two buildings and one, uh, hut—and, um, they were not allowed to sit in the boat—in the dugout, because it’s so old—but they were allowed to pick up and look at and find—and then they’d come back to the circle and we would discuss what they found, and, uh, we have three bears in there, and we have—and the six-legged deer was just the idea that a Native American had the deerskin on him and that way he could come closer to, you know—to, uh, hunt, and then, uh, I would pick a child to be the fish and he had swim—and some of them are crazy, you know, and I would talk about the costume that they wore, and of course, there’s no costume we can wear, because the Native Americans went topless, and when I would tell that to some of the chi—some of the groups, some of the children—boys and girls—would sort of snicker, not often, and I would say, “Have you been to the beach recently? They don’t wear too much either,” and so we got over that hump, but, uh, it was fun. It was a fun room and they, uh—they liked it.</p> <p>We used to paint—long ago, when I first started, we used to put, uh, the paint on their faces, and that was to show them—it wasn’t war paint. it was the, uh, chief—I couldn’t think for a minute—chief and their family wore the—the painting on their body to show that they were the—and then it has slowly dwindled down, and we don’t do that anymore, and in a way it’s better, I think, really. They’re not walking around with their faces all painted up.</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Oh, and then if you want the other room—I’ve been in the Native—the, uh—oh, I can’t think for a minute—the Pioneer [Exhibit: Before the Settlement of Sanford] room, and there—in there, again, it’s a different format, because they do have clipboards and they go on a hunt there, but write things down, and again, the circle to introduce the fact about pioneers and anyone, even now, could be a pioneer, and they figure out by going to the Moon or going under the sea, and, um, we talk little bit about that, and then I break them into groups. Some go in the cabin with me, which is a three quarter cabin, and we again talk about that, and the others stay outside.</p> <p>You can always learn something, because I’ve been here since 1906—1906? [<em>laughs</em>] 1996, and Warren, one of our newer docents, taught me that in the cabin there’s a quilt that has no backing to it. Not at all. It’s just fabric, and I just never—I just used to tell the children, “There’s a quilt,” you know, and he’s pointed out to a group of children that that was used for privacy—that at night, they would drape that across the cabin so Mom and Dad would have privacy and the children—so you can always learn something.</p> <p>The Grandmom’s[sic] Attic was definitely set up as an attic. Really cluttered, and again we had the fun there. We dipped candles—we don’t do that anymore—and we churned butter, and again, there you’d talk a little bit, and then you divide them to go explore and do those things, and then the, uh, Geography Lab[: Where in the World Are We?] is, again, another exploring situation. Did I cover them all?</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>I think so [<em>laughs</em>]. Um, do you have any, um, really memorable experiences that stand out in your mind?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Well, as I say, the—one with the boy with the nail polish.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>I almost like—<em>What do I do now? There’s a boy with nail polish</em>, and then the little girl who didn’t like me very—oh, and there is another one—and then the lady who I taught years ago and it just was thrilling to see her, and then the other experience I had, basically, was there was a group of mothers—maybe three mothers in the back of the line while we were waiting to come in, and children were being a little noisy and I corrected them, but I corrected them not nicely. I corrected them as a 1902 teacher, because I was dressed for that, and you could see the mothers, like, <em>What is this woman doing talking to my child?</em> And I didn’t—I wasn’t nasty. I was—I just said, “Katie, stop talking.” You know? And, um—I’m using your name—and anyway, you could almost see the wheels turning, that I was so sure they were going to call the superintendent of schools and tell them this woman at the museum, you know—and all that. So anyway, I told the director, who was, uh, a different one now—than we have now, and they did come into my classroom, and again, I was strict, and she did speak with them and they said, “That teacher—we didn’t understand. she was so mean,” and so, uh—I can’t think of her first name, but the director said, “Well, once Mrs. O’Connor puts on the costume, she becomes that 1902 teacher,” and, uh, after the whole day was over, one of the women came up to me and told me what had happened and I said, “Yes, I noticed you were really upset,” and she said, “Well, I want to tell you that I understand and you did a very nice job.” So, what—whatever, right?</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>You have to be careful though. You do have to be careful.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Um, since UCF [University of Central Florida] took over with the Public History Center,<a title="">[1]</a> do you, um, [<em>laughs</em>] do[sic] want us to talk anything about that? I mean, is it…</p> <p><strong>O’Connor <br /></strong>I will. I—I think it’s wonderful.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>I do think you might want—after we get this done, you might want to take this part out. I am just very upset over Grandmom’s[sic] Attic. They have chosen to not have it be an attic. It’s set up as a class—not a classroom—as a room back in the 1900s, and, uh, we had such interesting things in there. It was a clutter. It really was cluttered, and if you don’t want that, I understand Dr. [Rosalind “Rose” J.] Beiler’s, uh, under—thinking, but the children that used to come were just so amazed at what they saw, you know, and they even had, in the room, my skate key, which might sound funny, but the museum had the skates that they used back in the 1930s, when I was a little girl, and I had the skate key. You had it on a ri—string around your neck and you had the key, so you could fix your skates—tightening them and all that. They didn’t have the key, so I donated my key to the museum and to go with the skates. I think they’re still in there in the room.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>And then another thing that happened was, uh, my one daughter, who’s now mother of two and, uh, in her early forties—she, uh, had a big brown bear and I had it. Don’t ask me why I brought it to Florida with me. I have no idea, but I had it and she didn’t want it, and so I donated that to the museum. I donated Cootie game to the museum and I don’t—I haven’t really been back in the attic too much, but I don’t know, you know, where they are, and it was just the toys were in one area and the children could touch them, play with them, see the difference in how that monkey was not like soft and cuddly like they are now, and, so I’d, uh—I—I miss that. We had a wedding dress in there from Serena’s mother, I believe. We had a 1900-bathing suit and I’d ask the children, “Well, what—what—where would you wear this?” “Oh, you’d go to a party.” “Really?” You know? And then we’d talk about that and how everything would be covered in 1902. The hat the glo—they even had socks, not gloves, and, uh—and then we also had a chamber pot, and I don’t think it’s back there now.</p> <p>So these are the changes and I have to roll with it. I mean, I have to understand it goes on, but the chamber pot was so funny, ‘cause they had two different sized potties and then a big glass one—or ceramic one—and I’d hold up the one and I’d ask, “What would this be for?” They didn’t have to stand up in Grandmom’s Attic, see? That was gone. They didn’t have—and it’d be, “Oh, we could cook our soup in that.” “No, I don’t think you’d want to do that,” and they’d ask, you know, and I’d say, “Well, that’s what they put under the bed because you didn’t want to go out to the outhouse in the middle of the night,” and then, “Who’s the oldest one here in your family?” Well, hands would go up and I said, “Because you would be the one to empty the chamber pot.” Well, then the hands would go down.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>But that’s my—my hang up. There’s[sic] things that I miss in Grandmom’s[sic] Attic and, uh—but I know progress moves on, and I know they’re planning something different, so…</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Well, that’s all of my questions. Um, I—I would like for you to share what you shared with me before the interview about the number of kids that you’ve, that you…</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>How you figured it out</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Well, last night I was doing my list of paper with—oh, I do have something else to tell you…</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Yeah, go ahead.</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>Before I do that. There’s a, eh—I don’t know what to call it, but they’re doing Lemonade Lectures over in DeBary at DeBary Hall. Every—this is a plug for them—every other Saturday, and it’s experts, and I don’t consider myself an expert really—come in and they talk about lighthouses, or they talk about, this, that and the other thing, and they asked me if I would go and talk about the museum, and I said, “Yes, I would,” and, um, I did bring—I took some artifacts over and some things over. The girls let me borrow them, and I went over there with my charts and my—my costume on, and I talked about that with them, and I guess it might sound conceited, but up until then, there weren’t that many people coming to the Lemonade Lectures. they were just starting. Well, they had to get extra chairs. People from John Knox [Village] came over, ‘cause it was in the paper…</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>About this lady who was gonna talk about a museum from 1902, and some of the people even went to school there, and that was fun, and then the other thing I pointed out there was that, in 1902—and I do it in the classroom too—that boys and girls did not play on the same playground. So I would ask that question, and of course, if they did [<em>claps hands</em>], they got a smack on the bottom from the principal and, uh—but that was something that I really felt honored that I did it. At first, I was a little scared, but that wore off, and the Lemonade Lecture was really fun.</p> <p>Now, Katie has asked me—I got thinking last night. Uh, I worked here at the museum for 15 years, and if I taught 30 children a day, and let’s say, uh, I worked 30 days out of the year, okay? That would be 900 children I’d see in a year, and then I multiplied it by the, um—[inaudible] did I do? Oh, yeah, that was 15—yeah. I added that, rather, what all did I do here? Oh, yeah, okay. I’m with it, I’m with it. The total of that would have been in 15 years—okay, I would have been working with 13,500 children in my career here at the museum. I have chosen to no longer teach here for health reasons, but I do want to still be a part. So they’ve asked me to be a greeter, and maybe a little later, I’ll become a substitute in the, uh—in the classroom. I don’t know.</p> <p><strong>Kelley <br /></strong>Well, that’s excellent. Well, thank you, Florence. Um, I don’t have anything else, unless do you have anything else you’d like to add?</p> <p><strong>O’Connor<br /></strong>I don’t think so, no.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Alright, well, thank you so much for sharing your experiences with me, and, um, you know, now your interview will become part of the history of this building as well.</p> <p><strong>O’Connor <br /></strong>Well, thank you for asking me.</p> <p><strong>Kelley<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: Student Museum.</p> </div> </div> 7th Street American Ingenuity animal cracker Beiler, Rosalind chamber pot Christmas Cootie DeBary Hall deer fish Fisher, Serena Geography Lab: Where in the World Are We? Grandma's Attic greeter History Harvest John Knox Village Kelley, Katie Kleenex Lemonade Lectures McGuffey reader nail polish Native American Exhibit: Life in an Ancient Timucuan Village O'Connor, Florence Ann Patchell Patchell, Florence Ann PHC Pioneer Exhibit: Before the Settlement of Sanford quilt Seventh Street six-legged deer skate key skates Student Museum Turn of the Century Classroom: Lessons from 1902 UCF UCF Public History Center University of Central Florida volunteer Williamsburg Wilson School https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cf54e641fa0d4b54defe352f173e3897.pdf c11b2eb95128c7178d7e692f93672926 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 World War II Collection Alternative Title WWII Collection Subject World War II, 1939-1945 Veterans--Florida Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Description Although Japan and China were already engaged war since 1937, September 1, 1939 is generally considered the beginning date of World War II. It was on this day that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the Führer of Nazi Germany, invaded Poland, inciting France and the United Kingdom to declare war. Through the course of the war, belligerents were general divided into two groups: the Allied Powers, consisting of the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, China, Poland, Canada, Australia, India, Yugoslavia, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Brazil, Denmark, Luxembourg, Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines, Mongolia, and Iran; and the Axis Powers, consisting of Germany, Japan, Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The United States did not join the Allies until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. War was waged for several years. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered to Soviet and Polish troops in response to the capture of Berlin just a few days earlier, in effect ending the war in Europe. The war in the Pacific theater did not end until Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, in response to the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II transformed the globe's geopolitical context. The United Nations (UN) was established and the United States and Soviet Union emerged as opposing superpowers, setting the stage for the 46-year long Cold War. Much of Europe was left in economic collapse and decolonization began in Asia and Africa. Contributor <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a><span>, University of Central Florida Libraries, University of Central Florida</span> Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a><span>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/.</span> Black, Jeremy. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51306184" target="_blank"><em>World War Two: A Military History</em></a>. London: Routledge, 2003. Maddox, Robert James. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/24066126" target="_blank"><em>The United States and World War II</em></a>. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992. Davies, Norman, and Norman Davies. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/104891528" target="_blank"><em>No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939-1945</em></a>. New York: Viking, 2007 Zeiler, Thomas W. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51905775" target="_blank"><em>Unconditional Defeat: Japan, America, and the End of World War II</em></a>. Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 2004. Ferguson, Niall. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70839824" target="_blank"><em>The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West</em></a>. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. Reynolds, David. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/646790595" target="_blank"><em>From World War to Cold War Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s</em></a>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Coverage Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Frank V. Boffi Alternative Title Oral History, Boffi Subject Veterans--Florida World War II Description An oral history interview of Frank V. Boffi (b. 1922), who served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945 and again from 1948 to 1952. Boffi was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, on May 18, 1922. He served during both World War II and the Korean War, and was stationed on USS <em>Bernadou</em>, USS <em>Hugh W. Hadley</em>, USS <em>Brownson</em>n, and USS <em>Fiske</em>. Boffi also took part in the Allied Invasion of Sicily, the Battle of Anzio, and the Battle of Okinawa. He received a Purple Heart, among other awards, and achieved the rank of 1st Class Machinist. This interview was conducted by Luis Santana Garcia at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. Topics discussed in the oral history include Boffi's background, his enlistment, fighting in Italy, the construction of the USS <em>Hugh W. Hadley</em> and its subsequent destruction, serving in the Pacific Theater, leaving the Navy, his medals and citations, and the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:30 Background and family<br />0:02:00 Entry into service<br />0:08:30 First days of service<br />0:12:37 Invading Italy as an American of Italian heritage<br />0:14:30 Experience during the battles in Italy<br />0:19:30 USS <em>Hugh W. Hadley</em> construction, training, and the Pacific Theater<br />0:23:23 Typical day and recreational activities<br />0:25:30 Life after service<br />0:27:50 Medals, citations, and values learned<br />0:29:42 VIDEO SKIPS<br />0:30:00 Future of the Lone Sailor Memorial Project<br />0:31:43 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Frank V. Boffi. Interview conducted by Luis Santana Garcia. Type Moving Image Source Boffi, Frank V. Interviewed by Luis Santana Garcia. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/VET/id/267" target="_blank">Item DP0014888</a>, <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/95" target="_blank">World War II Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Boffi, Frank V. Interviewed by Luis Santana Garcia. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/VET/id/267" target="_blank">Item DP0014888</a>, <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. Digital transcript of original 32-minute and 25-second oral history: Boffi, Frank V. Interviewed by Luis Santana Garcia. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Cranston, Rhode Island Downtown Providence, Rhode Island Newport, Rhode Island Boston, Massachusetts Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida Sicily, Salerno, Italy Anzio Beach, Italy Oran, Algeria Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands Okinawa, Japan Vatican Necropolis, Vatican, Vatican City Creator Boffi, Frank V. Garcia, Luis Santana Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Contributor Barnes, Mark Date Created 2014-02-26 Date Copyrighted 2014-02-26 Format application/website application/pdf Extent 12.1 MB 188 KB Medium 32-minute and 25-second Hi8 CD/DVD 15-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Luis Santana Garcia and Frank V. Boffi and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference Black, Jeremy. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51306184" target="_blank"><em>World War Two: A Military History</em></a>. London: Routledge, 2003. Maddox, Robert James. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/24066126" target="_blank"><em>The United States and World War II</em></a>. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992. Davies, Norman, and Norman Davies. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/104891528" target="_blank"><em>No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939-1945</em></a>. New York: Viking, 2007. Zeiler, Thomas W. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51905775" target="_blank"><em>Unconditional Defeat: Japan, America, and the End of World War II</em></a>. Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 2004. Ferguson, Niall. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70839824" target="_blank"><em>The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West</em></a>. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. Reynolds, David. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/646790595" target="_blank"><em>From World War to Cold War Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s</em></a>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/214/" target="_blank">Boffi, Frank V.</a> Transcript <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Today is February 26^th, 2014. I am interviewing Frank Boffi, who served in the United States Navy. He served in World War II and ended with a rank of Machinist MAT 1^st class. With me is Mark...</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Mark Barnes.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Mark Barnes. We are interviewing Mr. Boffi as part of the University of Central Florida Community Veterans History Project and as research for the creation of a Lone Sailor Memorial Project. We are recording this interview at UCF in Orlando, Florida. Mr. Boffi, will you please start by—start us off by telling us when and where you were born?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Cranston, Rhode Island, which is about nine miles north of, uh Downtown Providence[, Rhode Island]. I was born May 18^th, 1922, and I’m the, uh, youngest of seven boys. We were a family of 10 children. Raised during the Great Depression which is—was hell on life—on Earth, really. So we had to get adjusted to that— not having anything.</p> <p>I’ve been lecturing five high schools here locally about World War II and the kids don’t believe that, during the Depression, we had no allowance, we had nothing, and, uh—but anyway, I survived the Depression. I survived three battles in the Pacif—the, uh, Mediterranean [Sea], and the one battle in the Pacific [Theater]. So I consider myself a survivor.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>What did your parents do for a living?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>They were, uh, country folks. My dad worked—was a laborer, because in Italy they lived out on farms, and came over here had really no skills. and, um, he worked for—under the WPA systems, which was the Works Progress Administration—back in the [19]30s, uh, one of the programs set by President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt. So he was just a, uh, shovel—a reg[?] guy. He was working on the roads and the parks and stuff that the city was rocking[?] for him. That sort of thing.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>And when did you, uh, enter the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>I, uh, entered—first of all, I think it’s important to hear that we<a title="">[1]</a> got engaged December 6^th, 1941, which was the night before the Pearl Harbor attack. And, um, it’s so strange: these high schools that I’ve been lecturing—that’s the one thing those kids remember when I go back the next year after that. Yeah. I ask what they remember about World War II and they all say the same thing, “You and your wife got engaged the night before Pearl Harbor.”</p> <p>We got—I got married at, uh, 20 years old—August 1^st, 1942. And on September 15^th, 1942, I went down and enlisted in the Navy, because I did not want to be drafted into the Army. I was told that the Navy, you had three square a day and clean bedding, as long as you washed it. But the Army guys had to sleep in mud and foxholes and I didn’t want that kind of stuff.</p> <p>But, um, yeah. We were—I—my wife and I were married 71 years this past August 1^st, and then she died October 7^th, [inaudible] 2014. But, uh, it was a tough life, but we hacked it through[?]. It was just two young kids. She was 22 and I was 20, but we made it and it was a real sacrifice. We only had the one son who has—now has two children and six great, uh—six grandchildren. I have six great-grandchildren.</p> <p>My son is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, where he has a master’s [degree] out of the university. Um, He started in engineering, but he changed it over to psychology. And I asked him why he changed his major[?] over the subject—his degree in, and he said one of his friends dove out of the six—I think he said it was a six-story window. And He was on LSD [lysergic acid diethylamide] and he just dove out the window. And that was when my son decided to change his career and help the kids that were—that were on drugs. He was—he wound up being an administrator of six counties in east Nebraska—in charge of the drug program. But Now he’s a—he was a regional manager for Xerox [Corporation], and they moved him to Washington, D.C. area. And now he’s, uh—has his own business—he and his wife—as general resources. Um, he’s chief operating officer for AmeriCom. It’s a company that deals with the government, and their biggest account is the Air Force. And he is in, uh, San Antonio[, Texas] about every four or five weeks, because we have bases there. What else you want?</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Now, uh, you said you were—got engaged the day before Pearl Harbor. What was your reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>It was kind of a shock, but We, uh, I think we were prepared for it. The—the way things were going, we knew that some war was going to come out of it. It was so strange: in Downtown Providence—I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it—they had docks there. And, uh, my buddy and I—we used to go down there. we used to walk to Providence maybe two days a week, and there were all these old rust buckets loading up with all the, um, scrap iron, and we sold millions and millions of tons of scrap iron to Japan. And then—then four or five months, the war broke out, they were firing it right back at us.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Why did you join the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Like I told you, I didn’t like—I didn’t like being in a foxhole, and I didn’t want to join the Army. I had one brother in the Army and two—the one in the Navy, he joined long after I did. But, uh, my other two brothers were [Boeing] B17 [Flying Fortress] bombers.</p> <p>And, uh, I—I just liked the water. I thought I would be better off in the Navy. Might as well do something I like, than[?] rather[?]—I had to go no matter what. I didn’t want to be drafted in the Army.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Where did you attend boot camp?</p> <p><strong>Boffi <br /> </strong>I, uh, went to boot camp in Newport, Rhode Island. I reported there October 15^th, 1942 and got in out March 1943. And they sent me to [inaudible] Institute in Boston[, Massachusetts], which is an engineering school. And I came out of there with a, uh—with a second class machinist MAT training.</p> <p>It was so strange that, in those days, uh—that—that the commander of the school posted a notice one day saying anybody in the top five percentile for academics would be allowed the privilege of applying for Officer’s[sic] Candidate School. So I applied for it, and that’s all it says. And I walked up, and commander Cavinar[sp] was sitting at his desk, and I came in the door about that distance away, and he kind of looked up and says, “Frank, you don’t qualify.” I said, “But I’m in the top three percentile academically.” He said, “Yeah. Academically you can qualify, but you’re married.” They would not give you a rate[?] then—a commission [inaudible]. You had to be married first though—no. You—you couldn’t get married until after you got your commission. that’s what it was. So they refused to give me a commission.</p> <p>And, uh, then later on when I worked[?] the ship got sunk, I was supposed to make chief June 1^st, 1945. And we got sunk on the 11^th of May of 1945. That’s when I wound up in a hospital bed for the next four and a half months. So they wouldn’t give me the chief’s rating, because you had to be with an active unit.</p> <p>Now, today even, if you lost both legs, you’re still in the military, you get your rating or whatever. So, um, when they held its 90^th birthday, the chiefs down here at NAWC [Naval Air Warfare Center] made me an honorary, um, chief with them. So I have a [U.S.] DOD [Department of Defense] certificate stating that I’m part of the chiefs’ at NAWCTSD in Orlando. They—they kind of glorified it and they gave me the rate. I asked them about it—OCS [Officer Candidate School] now, but they wouldn’t allow me [<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>What was, uh, your first days of your service like?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Pardon?</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>What was the first day of your service like? First days.</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Well, the—the first couple of days were interesting, because we had some boys from the Midwest area[?] they were Arkansans. We had to sleep on hammocks. In those days, in boot camp. And the hammock was strung up to the ceiling and you had what you called the” jack stand.” That’s a bar, and you would jump up and grab it and you’d pull your body up. And if you knew how to do it, you would open your hammock line with one leg and then pop your butt in and then—otherwise, you would just roll off the other side. and that’s what was happening to this one boy from Arkansas. He couldn’t—he’d get in one side and roll out the other one. He couldn’t get himself—so one night, the chief told a couple of us to “Go help that kid get in that hammock.” And, Uh, We raised the sides up, but in the morning he tried to get out and he’d fall out all the time. He was a character. He never did adjust to a hammock. We kept our hammocks as part of our sea bag. And I’ve used it two or three times at sea out here in the Atlantic [Ocean]. When we had a hurricane or real bad weather, the ship would go rocking and rolling too much. My buddy and I would go out and string up our hammock underneath the gun tug, where it would be dry, and sleep in the hammocks. We just—like a baby rocking in a crib.</p> <p>But, um, yeah. The first ship was on was a 1918—it was commissioned in 1918—a World War I destroyer. It was an old four stacker, and we called them “rust buckets.” But Then [<em>clears throat</em>]—and we made the three invasions of, um, [inaudible] Sicily, Salerno, Italy, and, um—what was the last one? One of the—one—I forget the name of that one. Oh, [inaudible]. My memory is failing me, but we made the two—three invasions in Sa—Sicily, Anzio Beach, Salerno—Anzio Beach. That’s what it is. Anzio Beach, Salerno, and, um, you know, Sicily.</p> <p>We operated out of Oran[, Algeria], North Africa. That was kind of a[sic], uh, interesting—now that we have so much Muslim, uh, religion spreading out all over the world. There was a place in Oran that was called Medina. It was a, uh, sacred city with great big columns and you were not allowed in there unless you were a, um, Muslim religion[sic]. And my buddy and I didn’t believe it, so we started in there one day, and we get about three feet through the gates, all these Arabs started getting up from sitting on the sidewalk. And, um, we were lucky. I think I—I’m alive today, because the shore patrol was right there. They drive their Jeep in about three feet into the Medina, and told us to get in and they brought us back [inaudible].</p> <p>And they told us that one of my friends, uh, Bill Suey[sp], came from Cranston, Rhode Island—.he and I went through school together. He went through Medina one night and came back in just his underwear—just his skivvies. He was lucky he got his life, but they took everything he had—his uniform, cigarettes, and—and they stripped him. They didn’t want us there. Basically, that’s what it was. We were invading their country and—and they—they didn’t realize that we were there protecting them from the Germans. I mean, they were losing their country to the Germans till we got there. And, um, so we saved them, but they’re still Muslim and that scares me till today—what’s happening in some of these cities. [<em>clears throat</em>] It’s a damn shame that we have to go through stuff, but I see it happening right now.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Now, uh, as an Italian [American], how did it feel invading Italy?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>How did I feel being in Italy?</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>It was, uh, a good feeling. Because I was—my mom and my eldest brother came over in 1904. And this was 19—well, I didn’t get there until during the war, but I stayed in the Navy and I went back in 1950 with the ship I was on. And I got to meet my, uh, dad’s two brothers, and my cousins, and my mom’s half-sister.</p> <p>And her—this one half-sister has three—three daughters. And they came to my uncle’s house and the eldest—eldest daughter was, um, just—just under 18. She was a senior in—in high school—equivalent to our schedule setup. And, um, she was so excited that I was talking to an Italian in English and all that. And she kept patting my knee, and the moms kept telling them, “Don’t touch him. he’s an American sailor.” She said, “But he’s my cousin.” She said, “I don’t care if he’s your brother. Don’t lo—don’t touch him. He’s an American sailor.” But that was the kind of reputation we had all over the world. The—the sailors were people [<em>coughs</em>] [<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p>And I had one other cousin, who had a close friend of his who was a [Papal] Swiss Guard in the Vatican. So I got to, uh, go places in the Vatican that the general public had never been to. And we got way down deep into the catacombs,<a title="">[2]</a> where they used to bury all the priests and the bishops and whatever. There—it was kind of an eerie feeling being down there with all these caskets on both sides. And these guys didn’t realize that they’ve been buried there for a hundred years or longer. That was something that the general public never saw, but I got to see it because of my cousin’s—Tom’s—friend was a Swiss Guard. He allowed me to go down there [<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Now what—what was…</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>What your experience during the actual battles?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>What was what?</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>What your experience during the actual battles themselves?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Well, um, uh, the, uh—at the Anzio Beach location, I was on deck and that was a, uh, a 50 millimeter—50 caliber machine gun. And that really was the only action I’ve ever—I’ve ever seen. Because, um, normally, I would be engine room. You would not see any action. And, uh, It’s so strange that now I—you know, there were three destroyers in our squadron. We were all—we were all World War I destroyers. And they, uh, used us as decoys. The American government had no, um, um, information as to where the gun emplacements were. So they—the three destroyers were supposed to go in, approach the beach with all their lights out [inaudible]. And at midnight, put on our search light. We had a great big, regular search light they use at airports. And, uh, there was total darkness. I couldn’t see you guys as dark as it was. And all of a sudden, at midnight, when we put our search lights on, all hell—the beach just broke all out, and I jumped.</p> <p>And I found out later that that was a trigger, because I was subject to that for a long, long time. I mean, if we walked—if I walked in this room and someone tried to put the—somebody put the light on, I would react to it. And Now I—I found out that eventually, training with the VA [Veterans Administration] and, um—my son, um, met the woman who was the CO of the Purple Heart Association.<a title="">[3]</a> And she sent me a book, and then I read that—<em>Tears of a Warrior</em>[<em>: A Family's Story of Combat and Living with PTSD</em>] it’s called. I found out that that was only a “trigger,” that they called them. And so I finally got myself to overcome that, and it doesn’t bother me anymore now, but Going into this totally dark room and somebody put the light on. But—and I do it every night when I go home. It’s be totally dark in the house and I flip my own light on, but I don’t react to it anymore like I used to. ‘Cause I suddenly realized that it was just something that was back here and I had to weed it out of my system.</p> <p>But, uh, normally, I saw no action on my—the—on the [USS <em>Hugh W.</em>] <em>Hadley</em>. I didn’t see any action, until we got, uh, blown out of the engine room—came topside. And to this day, I don’t remember seeing any action then. And I found out from Captain [Doug] Aiken, who’s retired—he was a lieutenant on the <em>Hadley</em>. I asked him how long we were—were in the water, and he said about two and a half hours before we were picked up. And I’ve got—if you want me to email you, I’ve got the picture of that, uh—the ship picking up the survivors and I’ve got the DVD that I can send you and incorporate it with part[?] of yours. It shows a Kamikaze hitting the water and showed the—the bomb going off—something like that. I can get you a copy of those if you—if you wish. They’re not copyrighted at all, so you’re welcome to do with it what—whatever you want with ‘em [<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>And so you—you said you were—you were sent in as a decoy. Once—once, like, you complete your mission, did they figure out where the emplacements were and then did you guys leave after that?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Well, we didn’t really leave the battle area. We went out on, uh, screening. They called it “screening.” You had two or three destroyers. Well, that day, there were like 15 destroyers out there. And just—you stayed off the beach about three or four miles and tried to shoot down the planes that were coming in to attack our troops. And they were coming in to hit our supply ships [inaudible]. So we were on—on the screening most of the time, at the—Of course, I wasn’t there, but the ship was. I was in the hospital. That was—let’s see—May, June—two and a half months in the, uh, ten city hospital. We called it “ten city” in Tinian Island, which is part of the Marianas.<a title="">[4]</a></p> <p>And, uh, In July of ’45, they sent me to a naval receiving hospital in San Francisco, California.  stayed there a couple of weeks, and from there, they sent me to a psychiatric hospital up in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, because I was getting a severe—I mean, real bad headaches. It was the back of my head and they thought I was going crazy, I guess. It was just blast concussion. It finally settled down. And after about six—I think six or eight weeks in Coeur d’Alene, I was transferred on down to Sun Valley, Idaho, in which there was a naval recuperation hospital. And then, in October of ’45, they transferred me to Fort Lewis, Washington. And, um, from there, to Boston to be discharged in November of 1945 [<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Alright. And, um,what—when, uh—you said that you were on, um—what was the name of the first ship you were on?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>The USS <em>Bernadou</em>, B-E-R-N-A-D-O-U.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>And, um, how did you, like—and then you transferred to the <em>Hadley</em>?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>No. They sent me to school for—the <em>Hadley</em> was so called “new construction.” It was a, uh, bigger class destroyer, and it was higher pressure. We operated at 600 pounds of pressure steam on the <em>Hadley</em>, and the <em>Bernadou</em> was only 250. So I went to North Virginia to school for 12 weeks.</p> <p>And then I went out to, um, San Pedro, California, and I was part of the 14 people that was the skeleton crew to watch the ship being built. That was quite interesting. And, you know, we saw them lay the keel hull in the dry dock. And we—we had to be in the dry dock every morning at eight o’ clock. That’s where they held quarters. And we literally watched the ship being built. Every—every bit of welding they did, we were there. There were 14 of us: one officer, and, uh, I think two chiefs, myself, another 1^st class in engineering, and there, um—some other guys from other rates I don’t know—the yeoman[?] and [inaudible]. But, um—so I was on it when it went into the water in October of 1945—I mean ’44 — and we were sunk May of 1945. so it didn’t last very long.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>That was…</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>That was during the Invasion of Okinawa[, Japan]?<a title="">[5]</a></p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>And what—what was your experience in that battle?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>My experience? Well, I didn’t see any action, because I was down in the engine room all the time.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>When you were in the engine room, what—like, what was your job, per se?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Well, to keep the ship moving. We had to keep the engines running, and, um— because if you lose your engines, then you are a dead, still target. Then they just blow you out of the water. So, uh—as a matter of fact, Marc [Ennis] is in simulation, and we had no simulators in those days. And I was—I had my pump man and my messenger blindfolded when they were on the lower level, where all the pumps are. And they had the second level was the operating deck—the control deck.</p> <p>And I had them blindfolded, and the Chief Engineer comes down and he says, “Boffi, we don’t have any time for this blind man’s bluff games and stuff like that.” I said, “We’re not playing games, sir. I’m teaching these guys to know the engine room blindfolded.” That’s the first thing you lose on any situation is power. I mean, right now, if the power went off, we would be in a darkened room. So I said,” I’m trying teach them how to get out of there—this engine room.” And to this day, I think we all come[?]—[Don] Hackler, my master, was the last one to leave the engine room. We seemed to think he slipped down the ladder. he didn’t make it. Speedo, my bunkman, and myself got out. And that was the— Speedo got out first, and then I was second, and Hackler was—and he was only 17 years old. He had been in the Navy like 81 days. At the end of the war, they were taking real young kids in, with hardly any training at all. And, uh, Don Hackler—I think it was his name—and he was the only one that didn’t survive the—in that engine room. We lost, uh, everybody in the forward fire room, plus there were other people on deck. I think there were about 18 casualties that—fatalities that morning of the attack [<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Uh,Going back a little bit, what—what was…</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>[<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Saily life like on the Navy vessel?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>A normal day?</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Normally, you get up at about five—normally, you get up about 5:30 for regular crew. But in engineering, you’re—you’re on four hours and off eight. So we would be getting up at like 3:15 in the morning for the four to eight watch. And, uh, for the midnight watch, you got on—you had to be up by quarter to 12, and that ran to—to quarter to four, and that ran to quarter to eight. And, um, once you got in the engine room though, there was no—I didn’t do much. I just sat there, che—checked the other guys, and did some checking of equipment, and stuff like that. But—mostly management. I didn’t really do anything. There was nothing you could do. Just be ready to—if you did take a hit, be ready, you know, do—to you could react. Do what you had to do.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>And you told us about…</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>[<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Some of the, uh, recreational things you did while you were in Italy and Africa. Were there anything in the Pacific—any areas In the Pacific that you got to experience in the Pacific?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>No. I never got off the ship. We never had any liberty and such. So I know noth—nothing about the Pacific Ocean, other—other than being aboard a ship. We did hit Pearl Harbor[, Hawaii] before—on the way up there—that area. We had about three days in Pearl Harbor. and that was my only experience in Hawaii for a long time. But, uh, you know, you pull into a Navy base and you really have nothing to do. most of them are kind of isolated away from the normal public. We didn’t have the, uh—the glory of—the liberty, so to speak. We got four hours off. Didn’t have enough time to run into town, grab a couple of beers, hopefully get lucky and get a woman, and back to the ship [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>]. And, um…</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>[<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>What—What was it like when you left the Navy—like, coming home?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Well, I—I went to work for the power company. I—I wanted to—see, I used to work in jewelry—jewelry manufacturing, when I was in high school. After I got out of high school, and I told my wife—said, “I’m—I’m going to go into something that was going to be a career, like…” So I—I went to the power company, and after I got into trouble with that union, they run me off.</p> <p>So I got an insurance job as an engineer. And I inspected elevators and boilers, held safety meetings. Then I, um—April 1^st, 1970, when the OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Act] law came into being, it was signed by the President<a title="">[6]</a> as the—a law of the land. And I went to, uh, what is now the University of Southern Florida<a title="">[7]</a> and took a two day exam—two eight hour exams—for, uh, my—they call it Certi—CSP—Certified Safety Professional. And, um, I passed that, so they gave me the designation. That’s what I was when I retired—a Certified Safety Professional.</p> <p>When I was, uh, working for the insurance company, I—I did the service for a lot of power utilities and inspected elevators in a lot of buildings. My territory included Puerto Rico, the [U.S.] Virgin Islands, and [the] Bahamas. It was a tough territory to—to take care of. And, Uh, Every other month, my wife would go with me and go on the beach, where we would get the hotel in San Juan[, Puerto Rico]. I’d go do my job, and then we would fly over to Saint Thomas[, U.S. Virgin Islands] and Saint Croix[, U.S. Virgin Islands]. I—I really enjoyed it. I—I—I did 50 years in the insurance industry. The, um—I retired March 1^st of ’84, and then I re—they called me back. And then I retired again in—in 2001, I think it was. In 2006, they forced me to retire. They said I was too old at 84 years old to be inspecting boilers and elevators and all that kind of stuff, so I finally decided [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>And, Um, Were you awarded any medals or citations? [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>I have a Purple Heart for my injuries, and I’ve got, uh, three battle stars for the Mediterranean, three warzones, and three battles. And I’ve got, um, one battle for the, uh, Pacific. Other than that, uh, no high rating. Um, medals or anything.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Um,What values or characteristics of the Navy do you believe made an impression on—on your life?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>I think the camaraderie. There’s something about the Navy that the Army and the Marines never had. Uh, Like Mark, anybody would do anything for anyone else, if they were Navy. And I’m not sure that was true in the Army or the Marine Corps. My son became a Marine. He was in, uh, six years during the Vietnam [War] era. And, uh, I didn’t notice the camaraderie with them as I did in the Navy. And to this day, like I said, I go to NAWC every single day. They say I’m there more than people who get paid to be there. They don’t even show up and I’m there every morning.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>And What was the most valuable lesson that you learned during your time?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>I’m sorry?</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>What was the most valuable lesson you learned during your time in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Well, I think that you treat everybody that you would want to be treated, for one thing. The only thing that used to really bother me and still does to this day is these ethnic groups that come [inaudible]—the— immigrants—they come over here and they want us to change to be whatever they are, you know? The Hispanics or Chinese or—I mean, when you come over here, be an American. I can still hear my dad when I was a youngster, he kept saying this great…</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>And he, uh—to this day, I have arguments with some of these people. I am not an Italian. I’m of Italian heritage, but I was born in this country and I’m an American. I fought in several wars—battles—for the Americans. And I’d—I’d do it again if I had to, if that were necessary [<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>And What do you think former Navy personnel would like to see or be reminded of when they visit—revisit the site of the base<a title="">[8]</a> and the Lone Sailor Project Memorial?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>What do I think of the—I think it’s going to bring back a lot of memories of a lot of people. I—I just—befriended—well, ,I’ve been friends with him for about a year and a half at the Moose Club. I didn’t know he was a photographer in the Army. And then, when he go out of the Army, he took all the photographs to the Navy base, where Mark graduated from, and he took all the shots over the Cape [Canaveral]. He went for the Cape. So, uh, that was kind of interesting.</p> <p>He’s telling—he was telling Mark and myself about, um, incidents that had happened there before. And, uh, he’s going to be one of our guests at the next Navy League luncheon, I think. He can tell us some of the things that are interesting. Me[sic] and Mark were talking about those days.</p> <p>I had no idea that there was a boot camp here. I lived up in, um, Miami since ’66, and never had an idea that there was a boot camp in Florida. So That was kind of a shock to me that I got up here and found out there was a boot camp there. I probably would have come up every weekend and go there and visit. I—I would have befriended—I would have taken the, uh, transfer—my company travels insurance wanted transferred me up here in, uh, ’69, I think it was. and I refused it. I wanted to stay around the Miami area, but, uh, if I would have known there was a boot camp up there in the Navy, um, influence, I think I would have—would have transferred.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Is there anything else you would like to share about your Navy experience?</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>It’s really helped me a lot, both psychologically and physically. I see they treat people here at NAWC. They really respect me. They show me a lot of respect. They all treat me as though I’m family. Officers, business people, and whatever. I’m just part of their big family and I enjoy it. That’s why I go every day.</p> <p><strong>Garcia<br /></strong>Thank you, Mr. Boffi.</p> <p><strong>Boffi<br /></strong>Thank you very much, and good luck in your ventures.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Boffi and his wife.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Vatican Necropolis.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Correction: Purple Heart Foundation.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Northern Mariana Islands.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Richard Milhous Nixon.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> Correction: University of South Florida.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> Naval Training Center (NTC) Orlando.</p> </div> </div> Allied Invasion of Sicily Anzio Beach, Italy Arabs Attack of Pearl Harbor Battle of Anzio Battle of Okinawa battle stars Bill Suey boot camps Boston, Massachusetts camaraderie catacombs Cavinar Certified Safety Professional Coeur d'Alene, Idaho construction Cranston, Rhode Island CSP decoys destroyers Don Hackler Doug Aiken drafts engineering engineers FDR Fort Lewis Frank V. Boffi Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Rooosevelt Frontline of Anzio and Nettuno Great Depression hammocks health care hospitals immigrants immigration insurance Islam Italian Americans Italian Campaign Italy jack stands Kamikazes Lone Sailor Memorial Project Luis Santana Garcia machinists Marc Ennis Mark Barnes Mediterranean Seas mental health Moose Club Muslims Naval Air Warfare Center Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division Naval Training Center Orlando Navy League NAWC NAWCTSD New Deal Newport, Rhode Island North Africa NTC Orlando Occupational Safety and Health Act OCS Officer Candidate School Okinawa, Japan Operation Husky Operation Iceberg Operation Shingle Oran, Algeria orlando OSHA Pacific Theater Purple Heart Foundation Purple Hearts retirement San Francisco, California San Pedro, California screening skeleton crews Speedo Sun Valley, Idaho Tears of a Warrior: A Family's Story of Combat and Living with PTSD Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands training Trigger U.S. Navy UCF UCF Community Veterans History Project UCF CVHP University of Central Florida University of South Florida USF USS Bernadou USS Brownson USS Fiske USS Hugh W. Hadley VA Vatican Vatican City Vatican Necropolis veterans Veterans Administration wars Works Progress Administration World War II WPA WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/cf9a90938dac133de27d27af11cd8516.mp3 2e13c1253097ad7b2c897e42380c20bc https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/197874e145d3b17058cf363f3eab755d.pdf 8d026f907c6ee3fab4872f80183b7f5e 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^th, 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 &amp; 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/71a5f2fdec8a5e8c214d9cf29f22b692.pdf e3ea0bfd10f0ad36bfc81e8bcb2337db Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection Subject Museums--Florida Schools Elementary schools Grammar schools Sanford (Fla.) Description The Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection encompasses a broad range of materials and items ranging from the late 19th Century into the present. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, documents, videocassettes, and other historical records pertaining to the history of the Sanford Grammar School, the Sanford community through the years, and the history of teaching and learning within the United States from the 19th century to the 2010s. The Student Museum has collaborated with the University of Central Florida and established the UCF Public History Center (PHC). All of the Student Museum's collections are presently housed at the PHC. The goal of the PHC is to promote access to history through ground-breaking research connecting local to global, provide cutting-edge hands-on educational programs for students and visitors, and to engage the community in contributing to and learning from history. Contributor Student Museum UCF Public History Center Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum, Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project Student Museum UCF Public History Center Curator Marra, Katie Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Alternative Title Student Museum and PHC Collection Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Kaczmarek, Megan Interviewee Kruckemyer, Gene Location Univesity of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video recording Duration 11 minutes and 19 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 158kbps 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 Gene Kruckemyer Alternative Title Oral History, Kruckemyer Subject Oral history--United States Sanford (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Museums--Florida Bells--United States Historic preservation--Florida University of Central Florida. Department of History Newspaper editors--Florida Description Oral history of Gene Kruckemyer, editor for <em>UCF News</em> at the University of Central Florida's News and Information Office. Kruckemyer moved from Orlando to Sanford in 2004, following a series of hurricanes. He worked as a publisher for <em>The Sanford Herald</em> for three years and as an editor for <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em> for 33 years. This interview was conducted by Megan Kaczmarek at Kruckemyer's office at the University of Central Florida on October 31, 2012. Within the oral history, Kruckemyer discusses his involvement with the UCF Public History Center, located at 301 West Seventh Street in Sanford, Florida. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:02:30 Restoration of the school bell<br />0:07:10 Life in Sanford and working for <em>The Sanford Herald</em> and <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em><br />0:11:02 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Gene Kruckemyer. Interview conducted by Megan Kaczmarek at the UCF Public History Center, in Sanford, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Kruckemyer, Gene. Interviewed by Megan Kaczmarek. UCF Public History Center. October 31, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a>. <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/31" target="_blank">Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 11-minute and 19-second oral history: Kruckemyer, Gene. Interviewed by Megan Kaczmarek. UCF Public History Center. October 31, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Coverage The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, Florida University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum and Center for Social Studies, Sanford, Florida Public History Center, Sanford, Florida The Sanford Herald, Sanford, Florida Creator Kaczmarek, Megan Kruckemyer, Gene Date Created 2012-10-31 Date Modified 2012-11-04 2014-02-25 2014-04-03 Format video/w4v application/pdf Extent 27.7 MB 141 KB Medium 11-minute and 19-second audio/video recording 9-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Megan Kaczmarek and owned by UCF Public History Center. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the UCF Public History Center and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project UCF Public History Center Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository UCF Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://mysanfordherald.com/pages/about_us" target="_blank">About Us</a>." <em>The Sanford Herald</em>. http://mysanfordherald.com/pages/about_us. "<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/" target="_blank">Orlando Sentinel</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/. "<a href="http://knightnews.com/about/" target="_blank">About</a>." KnightsNews.com. http://knightnews.com/about/. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/uNCCbk3pQEM" target="_blank">Oral History of Gene Kruckemyer</a> Transcript <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Alright, uh, today’s date is Wednesday, October 31st, 2012. I’m interviews— interviewing Mr. Gene Kruckemyer in his office at University of Central Florida about his involvement with the [UCF] Public History Center and the Student Museum [and Center for Social Studies]. When did you first move to Sanford[, Florida]?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>I moved to Sanford in 2004. So I’ve lived within view of the museum for the past eight years. I can see it from my front porch.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Nice, and where are you originally from?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>From Orlando.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Oh, Orlando. Okay, and what brought you specifically to Sanford?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>Uh, back in 2004, when with a succession of three hurricanes coming through Central Florida. Uh, the first hurricane came—we had purchased a house in Sanford as an investment actually, and we weren’t going to move there, but, uh, the first hurricane came and knocked our power out in Orlando. Uh, we had the house in Sanford. It had power. We decided to just move up there until everything was okay back in Orlando, and then two more hurricanes came, and did the same thing, and we just finally decided to stay in Stan—in Sanford, uh, because we enjoyed living there. We enjoyed the town. We enjoyed the people.</p> <p><strong>Kaczmarek<br /></strong>Nice[?], and, um, you worked at <em>The Sanford Herald</em> for a while?</p> <p><strong>Kruckemyer<br /></strong>Currently, uh, I’m at the University’s News and Information office. I’m the news editor. Previous—previous three years, I was the publisher of <em>The Sanford Herald</em>, and for the 33 years before that, I worked at <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>.</p> <p><strong>Kaczmarek<br /></strong>Oh, okay, Um, and what did you do at <em>The Sanford Herald</em>?</p> <p><strong>Kruckemyer<br /></strong>I was a publisher.</p> <p><strong>Kaczmarek<br /></strong>Publisher? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Kruckemyer<br /></strong>Which is—which is basically the, you know, CEO [chief executive officer] of the newspaper. Making sure all the different departments worked together and…</p> <p><strong>Kaczmarek<br /></strong>And how did you first learn about the Student Museum?</p> <p><strong>Kruckemyer<br /></strong>Well, it was—in my time as publisher at <em>The Herald</em>, uh, while living right across the park from it. I, uh—I couldn’t avoid it, but—but the issues that were coming to the museum were that, uh—it was during a critical time, while I was the publisher, that—that the school—the Seminole [County Public] School[s] Board was considering closing the building down, because of economic reasons, and, uh, people in town and the county—the whole county—got involved and started creating committees to preserve the building, and that’s how <em>The Herald</em> got involved, and, uh, one of the things that we did was to, um, uh, redo the school bell that had not been used for decades. The building was built in 1902, and, uh, it was first used as a—as a, uh, senior high school.1 Uh, I think, in 1911, it became a, uh—a grammar school.2 And it was that until 1984, when it was put on the [U.S.] National Register for Historic Places, and it was turned to the Seminole County, uh, Student Museum—or actually they called it—it had a longer name like—you probably know what it is. It had like—it was the, um—uh, the Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies, but most people just called it the Student Museum, and it was a place where fourth graders go to learn Florida history, and it was a hands-on, uh, interpretive museum for other people come in during the week and learn different things about local history, and Florida history and, the native, uh, Floridians, uh, pioneers—a demonstration garden in the back show what people used to grow in the 20th, uh—at the turn of the 20th century. So it’s an interesting place.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>And how did you get specifically involved with the bell?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>Um, I did a column one time. Uh, it was a Q&amp;A with the building. I asked building questions and answered questions, and, uh, I talked to a friend of mine in Sanford—her name is Bette Skates—and she was student at the, uh—uh, I think she was there when it was a grammar school, and, uh, she said she wished that bell would be, you know—able to be rung again. It hadn’t been rung in decades. Nobody knows why it stopped being used, but, uh, in 1916, the building got electricity, so they put in an electric bell. Sometime after that, they stopped using the bell, which had a, uh—a pull cord that went from the bell tower to the principal’s office, but the—but the hole was blocked off, so it wasn’t used, and I was talking to Bette, and she said she sure wished that bell would be able to be used again.</p> <p>So, uh, I thought that’d be a good project for <em>The Sanford Herald</em>. We, uh—we decided to make it work. So I talked with the then superintendent, whose name is Bill Vogel, and, uh, we—we figured out how much it was going to cost, and, uh, I had, uh—I contacted a friend of mine in Sanford—his name is Steve Meyers[sp]. He’s a[sic] historic preservationist and he does construction work, and—and, uh, he and I went up one day and he did all the work, and I was the gopher[?], and I ran his errands, and he made a new channel for the rope and put a marine-grade rope up there, and, uh, now it goes to the principal’s office, and every year they use the bell on the first day of school to signal the start of school for each year.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Wow. Um, and what was—you talked a little bit about the process of restoration. Um, what was the community, um, reaction to you this project?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>Well, you can imagine, a lot of people that, uh, went to school there over the years had a—had a soft spot for the building. So, uh, they were objecting to the plans to either close the school on purpose, or just let it fade away, you know? Uh, so a lot of people formed committees to, uh, preserve the building. Um, uh, they raised money different ways. They had sales. I think—I think they still have periodic garage sale, at least until I think UCF [University of Central Florida] took over. They used to have periodic garage sales to help, you know offset the costs, ‘cause the school board was in some dire financial problems, because of the economy. So they didn’t have the money for it, but, uh, at least the community groups kept it going long enough, until UCF thankfully came in and, uh—and leased the building to use it for the Public History Center.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>And, um—let’s see. Are you—what—what other projects were you involved with the museum, if any?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>Um, that was—that’s pretty much, uh—as far as <em>The Sanford Herald</em>—I mean, uh, that’s pretty much right there in my neighborhood.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>[<em>l</em><em>aughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>So, uh, I’m sorta a—a watchdog to see if there’s anything that needs to be reported. That’s been going on so the only thing.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>And, how are you involved with the Public History Center now?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer <br /></strong>Um, I’ve been to several of the events that have been there.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>[<em>l</em><em>aughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>They just had the, uh, Pumpkin Fest, and I was there on the opening day of school, and, uh, there was another event recently I went to, um…</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>The open house?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>The open house.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>And, you’ve lived in Sanford for—since 2004. Um, have you seen a lot of changes within the community of Sanford, since the time you’ve lived there?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>Um, I—I live in the historic district, and the museum, er—the Public History Center was in the museum—in the—in the, uh, historic district. So we live in an area that doesn’t see as much change as a lot of places, uh, because there are[sic] a lot of restrictions of what you can and can’t do, but I don’t mind. I moved into the neighborhood not even knowing that was the case, and I think that history’s—or the, uh, historic district is one of the things that’s really saved Sanford, because people got interest in preserving the neighborhood, preserving the houses, preserving the way things used to be, and that’s something I enjoy.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Nice. Um, and when you said you worked at <em>The Herald</em>, what would—what would you say would be one of your more memorable experiences with <em>The Herald</em>? I know <em>The Herald </em>goes back and it’s a part of Sanford and that it’s been around for a long time. Um, what would you say would be one of your most memorable experiences as working at the smaller paper—as compared to <em>The Sentinel</em>—is?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /><br /></strong>Well, um, in my time there, I—I always maintained that the community papers were going to be the ones to survive, because, um, bigger papers—they carry a lot of things that you can get online at a hundred different sources. The things that are in a community paper are only in the community paper, and one of my goals was to—to make sure that we could provide to the community with what—what, uh—what they needed to know, and people seemed to respond. We did all kinds of, uh, reader interactive things and, uh, contests, and—and, uh, I started something called the “Centennial Forum,” which was, uh, like, uh, every edition. We’d have an, uh, opinion piece written by somebody from our, uh, town. We had all kinds of people running for supervisor of elections to, um, handymen, to teachers, to just everybody. So that was something that got a lot of positive response, and, uh, it worked so well that once I came here, I sorta, uh, hijacked that idea. Brought it to the university, and we started a similar thing called “UCF Forum,” and, uh, every Wednesday, we have an opinion piece by somebody that’s on our panel. We had nine people on the panel and they’d rotate, and, uh, so the, uh, opinion piece runs on the UCF website every Wednesday.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Very nice, and now, you said you had a column about—with the museum. What—can you tell me a little bit about that?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>Uh, the original one was a column I wrote when I was at <em>The Sentinel</em>, and, uh, that was the one where I had the Q&amp;A, where I talked about the building.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>And they asked how old it was, you know, and its interest and its favorite movies—that sort of thing [<em>l</em><em>aughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>[<em>l</em><em>aughs</em>] And what were its answers? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>[<em>sighs</em>] Oh, um, I don’t remember offhand. I know I asked about relatives, and it said it had relatives all over the world, like the Louvre, the Smithsonian [Institution], and…</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>[<em>l</em><em>aughs</em>] And how would you describe the community of Sanford to someone that doesn’t, like, know Sanford?</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>Uh, as I said, I moved 8 years ago, and, uh, it’s not as congested as Orlando is. Uh, it’s—it’s a community that I enjoy. In fact, they’re undergoing, uh, a program right now called Imagine Sanford [Community Vision and Strategic Planning]. It’s a, uh, group that’s been called together, and I’m on the committee to do that. Um, so we’re just looking to see what’s Sanford wants to be like within the next 10, 20, 30 years. What are the things we value? What are the things we want to improve? What are the things we want to change? Uh, so this something that we’re undergoing right now, and, uh, hopefully by next May, we’ll have a report to, uh, give to the [Sanford] City Commission to—to tell what we think should be done.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Wow. That’s really interesting. Well, thank you very much for your time. I really much appreciate you doing this interview with me.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>You’re welcome.</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>aczmarek<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>K</strong><strong>ruckemyer<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> 7th Street bell Centennial Forum historic preservation Imagine Sanford Community Vision and Strategic Planning Kaczmarek, Megan Kruckemyer, Gene Meyers, Steve museum National Register for Historical Places newspaper newspaper column newspaper editor oral history orlando PHC Pumpkin Fest restoration Sanford Sanford City Commission Sanford High School school bell Seventh Street Skates, Betty Student Museum Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies The Orlando Sentinel The Sanford Herald UCF UCF Department of History UCF Forum UCF News UCF News and Information UCF Public History Center University of Central Florida Vogel, Bill Westside Grammar Elementary School https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/8484ca00e529b1952c08d4ac340f7380.pdf 890d365fab807170fe38306cbad1935f 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 Vietnam War Collection Alternative Title Vietnam Collection Subject Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans--Florida Description The Vietnam War was a Cold War Era "military conflict." The war was originally waged between Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. The United States became involved as a preventive measure to combat communism. The date of the war has been disputed, but a study in 1998 by the Department of Defense definitively put the start of the Vietnam War as November 1, 1955. The first combat military troops 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade didn't arrive until 1965. With the arrival of the combat troops came the first traditional battles of combat fighting in the war. During the Vietnam War, not only did American military go into battle with and for South Vietnam, the military also trained members of South Vietnam to fight alongside during the war. Peace talks were attempted, with France moderating, beginning on May 10, 1968. These talks were unsuccessful and lasted over three years. The longest battle of the Vietnam War began on January 21, 1968 and didn't end until the U.S. reclaimed Route 9 on April 8, 1968, 77 days later. While the military conflict ended in April of 1975, it was a long process towards reunification and redevelopment as a country. The conflict left Vietnam in both political and economical ruins. Contributor <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Vietnam Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a><span>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/.</span> Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. "<a title="American Experience" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html" target="_blank">American Experience</a>." Public Broadcasting Company. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Scherer, Rose Marie "Judy" Interviewee McGuire, George G. Location University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video DVD/CD Duration 43 minutes and 22 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 157kbps 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 George G. McGuire Alternative Title Oral History, McGuire Subject Veterans--Florida Orlando (Fla.) Vietnam War, 1961-1985 Air Force Army Description An oral history interview of George G. McGuire, who joined the U.S. Air Force in 1963 and served until 1983. He was born on Summit, New Jersey, on October 17, 1941. A veteran of the Vietnam War era, McGuire achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.<br /><br />This interview was conducted by Judy Scherer on April 1, 2014. Interview topics include McGuire's background and family, his college education, join the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC), Whiteman Air Force Base, McCoy Air Force Base, duties as a procurement officer and a contract administrator, the Defense Contract Administration Services, serving in Bangkok during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (USAFOSI), the Rock Island Arsenal, military retirement, U.S.-Thailand relations, and his many travel experiences. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:02:33 College years<br />0:03:06 Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps and Whiteman Air Force Base <br />0:04:42 McCoy Air Force Base<br />0:05:42 George Washington University, Defense Contract Administration Services, and Bangkok, Thailand<br />0:07:05 U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations<br />0:14:55 Assignments in the United States<br />0:15:33 Bangkok and Mom Rajawongse Seni Promoj<br />0:21:45 Duties as a Contract Administrator<br />0:23:24 Interesting people and stories from Thailand<br />0:28:06 Communicating with family<br />0:30:23 Communicating with Thais<br />0:35:50 Visiting South Korea with his wife<br />0:39:42 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of George G. McGuire. Interview conducted by Judy Scherer at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/269/" target="_blank">McGuire, George G.</a> Interviewed by Judy Scherer, April 1, 2014. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/92" target="_blank">Vietnam War Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 43-minute and 22-second oral history: <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/269/" target="_blank">McGuire, George G.</a> Interviewed by Judy Scherer, April 1, 2014. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Summit, New Jersey Baton Rouge, Louisiana Fawley, England Durban, South Africa Statue of Liberty, Liberty Island, New York City, New York University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri McCoy Air Force Base, Orlando, Florida George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Defense Contract Administration Services Management Office, Naval Air Station Sand Point, Seattle, Washington Chokchai Building, Bangkok, Thailand Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia Washington, D.C. Yokota Air Base, Fussa, Japan Rock Island Arsenal, Rock Island-Moline, Illinois Warsaw, Missouri Osan Air Base, Pyeongtaek-si, South Korea Seoul, South Korea Creator McGuire, George G. Scherer, Judy Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-02-22 Date Issued 2014-09 Date Copyrighted 2014-02-22 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 358 MB 257 MB Medium 43-minute and 22-second audio/video DVD/CD 27-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Judy Scherer and George G. McGuire and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/269/" target="_blank">McGuire, George G.</a> Transcript <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>We’re ready.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Are you saying go?</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Today is April the 1^st, 2014. I am interviewing, uh, Lieutenant Colonel George G. McGuire. My name is [Rose Marie] “Judy” Scherer. Uh, please call me Judy. Um, his interview is being conducted at UCF [University of Central Florida] in Orlando, Florida. It is part of the UCF, um—the whole title is—is Community History Project—[Community] Veterans History Project. Um, so we are going to start with, um, the early days. I would like to ask you where you were born and grew up.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Alright. Well, I was born in New Jersey—Summit, New Jersey. And When I was, uh, a few weeks old, my family moved on to Baton Rouge[, Louisiana].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Wow [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Where my father worked in the oil refinery at Baton Rouge during World War II, and where I managed to acquire twin brothers and a sister.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Um, Shortly—well, not shortly. When I was about eight years old—eight or nine years old—we moved to England.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Where my father was building an oil refinery at Fawley, near South Hampton, for Esso in England.  After we had been there about three years, we moved to Durban, South Africa.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Where he was again a resident engineer for construction of an oil refinery—first one on the continent of Africa—and where I acquired a brother. I had acquired another sister in England, and now I had a brother in South Africa, so there are six children.</p> <p>We sailed back to the United States. This is now approximately 1954 on a ship called the <em>African Enterprise</em>, which was a, um, freighter—combination freighter and passenger ship that carried a few passengers. And we were the only children, so we had the run of the ship.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And that was great fun. We got back to, uh, New York in the middle of the wintertime. And my memory says it was in February, but that may not be right. And of course, being good loyal little Americans who had been out of the country for so many years, we had to stand up on the ship and watch Miss [the Statue of] Liberty as we came into New York Harbor.</p> <p>Uh, following that, we lived in New Jersey for a number of years. And then I went off to college at the University of Notre Dame. And shortly afterwards, my father quit his job and moved to Massachusetts.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And, uh, the bane of my life was that when I would go home for vacation to a place in Massachusetts surrounded by girls’ colleges, they all had vacation break at the same time as we did.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>So there was nobody there.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And of course, Notre Dame at that time was all men, and there were no women there, unless we found some in the local community, which was a very difficult thing to do.</p> <p>Uh, At Notre Dame, they had three R—all three ROTC [Reserve Officers' Training Corps] programs. This is 1959 when I started there. There’s a shooting [Vietnam] War going on in Asia. People are being drafted. I had no interest in being drafted and being given a rifle and go shoot people, so I said <em>Okay. I’d rather be an officer. And no, I don’t want to walk around in the mud, and I don’t want to sit on a boat bobbing up and down in the ocean. And since you have Air Force, I will go Air Force.</em></p> <p>Um, so I did. And when I was graduating Notre Dame, I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force and promptly sent to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.</p> <p>So one of the first things I did was I bought myself a car. I didn’t have a car at that point, so I brought a brand new, shiny red Valiant convertible. And that was a neat looking car. I shaw—showed up on base, and went into my first assignment, and the people I’m working with—one of them takes one look at that car and says, “I give you one year.”</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Uh huh. And, uh, he turned out to be right. Because a few months later, I met a young lady, and less than a year later, we were married. All fault is directed at that shiny red convertible, I suppose.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>About a year or so after we were married, I got orders to transfer to McCoy Air Force Base, which, of course that’s a hardship tour to come to McCoy Air Force Base, which is now Orlando International Airport, where I was the base procurement officer here.</p> <p>Now, they had assigned me to procurement when I went to Whiteman, and I didn’t know what “procurement” was. I only knew one meaning for the term, and it had more to do with what you did after hours than it did with buying anything the Air Force wanted. Anyway, I became procurement officer. “Procurement” just simply means that you’re the guy in charge of going out and buying stuff.</p> <p>So I was stationed here in McCoy, and, um, about that time, is when what was then called “Orlando Air Force Base” is transitioning to the Navy. And the last Air Force unit to transition out from Orlando Air Force Base was the hospital. So my two sons have the distinction of having been born in an Air Force hospital on a Navy base.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>From here, the, uh, Air Force sent me up to Washington, D.C., to go to George Washington University for a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, as my assignment for a year and a half. And then from there, to go to Seattle, Washington, to the, uh, Defense Contract Administration Services management area Office, otherwise known as DCAS.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Excuse me. What was it known as?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>DCAS. D-C-A-S.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>S.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Judy had a problem with this one earlier.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Which was at, um, Sand Point Naval Air Station, which was a little pimple on the side of the wealthiest area of ci—city of Seattle, a few blocks away from the University of Washington. Not very far from it. It no longer is a military installation. It’s now high-cost residential.</p> <p>Um, let’s see. from there, the next assignment was to Bangkok, Thailand, to be the, uh—one of the officers assigned to the Air Force’s Procurement Center in Downtown Bangkok, which was supporting all of the Air Force and some of the Army units, uh, throughout Thailand and, uh, Vietnam. And this is at the tail end of the Vietnam War.</p> <p>From there, I went back to the United St—came back to the United States to go to uh, Norfolk, Virginia, to the Armed Forces Staff College.</p> <p>And then from there, to the, uh, Air Force OSI—Air Force Office of Special Investigations—in Washington, D.C., to act as an in-house consultant on procurement matters. Air Force OSI had been founded la—years before, in the very early days of the Air Force, because of scandal having to do with contracting. And then they had gotten away from that and they had forgotten had to spell “contracting.”</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>As they got mostly inter—interested in chasing drugs. But in, um—somewhere around 1970, there was another big scandal that came up that didn’t have anything to do with the Air Force, but it did with the Navy. And the Air Force decided that it would be smart to get back into that business and pay attention, because we are spending just huge sums of money. We ought to be paying attention to it. And the first thing they needed to do was to find somebody who knew something about the procurement system and could come in and act as an in-house consultant to them, and so they chose me.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Really?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>So for two years, I taught OSI agents how to spell “procurement” and the kinds of things to look for. The big thing coming out of it was to find out just how honest the system really is at that level. There may be corruption at other levels, but at the level of the working people doing the job, it is a very, very honest system.</p> <p>Um, now what did I skip? Somewhere in here, I skipped something. No. I guess not. When that was finished, they sent me to Japan to be the Deputy Director of the Air Force’s Procurement Center in Tokyo—actually, at Yokota Air Force Base,<a title="">[1]</a> which is just in the western suburbs of Tokyo—in which I had the responsibility for all of the, um, in-country support for Air Force and Army, and staff responsibilities towards the, uh, Army Center—similar to it in Korea, that took care of Air Force and Army in Korea.</p> <p>And, uh, let me think for a moment. Oh, yes. One of the, um, cases that I had run in the OSI had been an accusation made against the Lieutenant Colonel who commanded the Air Force Procurement Center at Yokota Air Base—that he was corrupt, and that he was accepting bribes from, uh, one of the car companies , which the, uh, U.S had a contract with for small engines.</p> <p>Well, the truth of the story—it turned out, that the man was an elder of the Mormon Church,<a title="">[2]</a> as well, as being a[sic] Air Force officer. And he had led a church group on a visit to the plant. Just a visit to go see what the plant looks like. And his big mistake: when he got back to his office was he had written the thank you note on Air Force letterhead, rather than on Mormon Church letterhead. And that had kicked off all of these accusations that he was, uh, a corrupt and on the take from this car company, which of course, he was not. But we had spent a bunch of time going and checking it out, so I knew all about it [<em>laughs</em>] before I got there.</p> <p>Um, then that was followed by an assignment back in the United States to go to Rock Island Arsenal [in Rock Island-Moline, Illinois] to be the Deputy Director of the ammunition procurement division for U.S. Army Armament Material and [the U.S. Army Military Intelligence] Readiness Command, functioning as something called “Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition.”</p> <p>Army buys all the ammunition used by the military—all production ammunition, not development, but production—ammunition used by the military, of whom the Air Force was the second largest consumer. And therefore, the Air Force, to help with that mission, sent six officers to Rock Island to participate. And at th—this point, I am a Lieutenant Colonel. And so I became the Deputy Director of that division. We spent in that one division—and this is 1980—one and a half billion…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>gasps</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Dollars a year. This is peacetime. One and a half billion. Buying bits and pieces of little things, most of which costs less than one dollar a unit, and the most expensive one was ten dollars a unit. All over the country. And then, the things we bought would flow to the Army load plants to be made up into rounds of ammunition—most of them. And they spent another billion and a half or so putting the stuff together as ammunition.</p> <p>Okay. So I’m making decisions every day about how am I spending one and a half billion dollar budget. I’ve got a hundred people literally working for me. Uh, we are loading plants all over the country. We are making decisions about which factories we keep in business and which ones we don’t, and which communities stay in business because the factory’s there, and which ones don’t. And then I go home, and I have to be concerned if there was enough money in the checking account for my wife to go grocery shopping.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Whoa. A great[?] contrast.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>This got a little bit mind-bending at times.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Quite a contrast.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Hm?</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Quite a contrast.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Quite a contrast. Yeah. And then, uh, I retired.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>At this point. I had been in the Air Force for 20 years and three weeks</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And I decided it was time to go. I had three kids that needed to go to college, and they weren’t going to do it on Lieutenant Colonel’s pay, so I had to go do something else.</p> <p>And another interesting thing, to me at least, was that I had joined Air Force ROTC back there in college, because I had no desire to be anywhere near the Army or the Navy, but especially the Army. And so for my final tour of duty, I am winding up serving with the Army</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>As one of their officers [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /> </strong>Anyway, so that’s it.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>What—when were you serving for the Army? Was that duty procur—procure—procurement, or was that when you [inaudible]?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>No. That was with the Army. I was Deputy Director…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>For Ammunition Procurement.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Deputy Directory of Ammunition Procurement Division of that Army command.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Well, it all is very impressive, and I’m sure it was most important, but it sounds to me like your career was drug[?] running and buying guns [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Uh, no. actually…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Just joking.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>I might have bought some drugs along the way.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>To find out where [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But they would have been legal ones.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Um, Never bought any guns. Never bought an airplane, but I bought just about everything else.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Well, when you were doing procurement, the rifles—what were you actually…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Oh, I didn’t buy the rifles. I bought the ammunition that went in the rifles.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, you bought the ammunition. Sorry. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Somebody else bought the rifles.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, you [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>There was another group doing that.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And there was another officer.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Other officers assigned to that.</p> <p><strong>Scherer</strong>So you said you were in Bang—so—so you said you were in Bangkok</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>And then you were in Thailand—I mean, Thailand is Bangkok.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>And other places, but um, did you—did you do anything in the states? How long were you in the states at the end of the career?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Well, it was three years in, uh, Rock Island.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>It was three years at McCoy Air Force Base.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>So two years in Whiteman’s. So that’s at least eight years of doing procurement there. And it was two years in the OSI, advising the OSI people about procurement—participating in, uh—in their actions.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Could you enlarge a little about your stay in Bangkok, and tell us more about what you did, and how difficult or easy it was? Because of the place, of course, it is always very hot there. [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yes. As we were talking earlier, if you got a, um, weather report for Orlando and a weather report for Bangkok, for the months of July, August, and September, you could not tell the difference as to which city you’re reading the report on. It’s the same.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Interesting.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>The difference is, of course, that Orlando does cool down—some. Bangkok doesn’t. The, uh—Bangkok only has, um, three temperatures—hot, hotter, and hellatious.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Uh, Bangkok was a very interesting and very, very different, uh, type of assignment. At that time, the Air Force’s procurement office was in a building in the center of Bangkok. It was called the “Chokchai Building,” and it, uh—it wasn’t terribly tall. My memory says seven floors, but it might’ve been more. Uh, the city was built on swamp, so the building was constructed such that it floated. And its basement was a big concrete barge, and it was floating. Now, the technology has progressed, and you go to Bangkok, and there are skyscrapers all over the place. It’s a fairly modern city, but at that time it was not.</p> <p>And, uh, so I was there as one of the officers assigned to that position. My memory says there were four of us, at that point, and I was the fifth one kind of detached. And, um, we just bought all the goods and services that the U.S. Air Force required in Thailand. And at that time, we had several bases scattered all over Thailand. And we had, um, people working for us—enlisted, uh, men—working for us at each base, also during procurement, but they were doing it as our subordinates for the stuff that had to come really from the local community. But otherwise, uh, we would buy the stuff in Bangkok—things in Bangkok. And this would be stuff—oh, it would be food, it would be entertainment, it would be the gas for the propane heaters, uh.—you name it. We would be buying it in Bangkok.</p> <p>Um, We lived in a, uh compound, which was very much like a park, that was a little ways away from the, uh—from the office. And, uh, you walked in there and it was a beautiful little park-like area. It was lined with houses, all of which are rented to, uh, foreigners, like ourselves. Either American or Australian or somebody else, or the, uh, members of the diplomatic corps. And at the front of the—of the property, there was a very old, interesting Thai gentleman, and at the back of the property was his son and his family. And the fellow at the front—named [Mom Rajawongse] Seni Pramoj.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Seni Pramoj? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Seni Pramoj. Now Seni Pramoj is rather important in Thai-American relations. In World War II, the Japanese moved into Thailand, and Thailand declared war on the United States.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I never [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Seni Pramoj was the ambassador in Washington, D.C. He refused to deliver the declaration of war. United States chose to ignore it. When WWII ended, the United States chose—says, “Thailand was not an enemy combatant. They were an occupied country.” Other Allies had different opinions, and there’s[sic] arguments about it. And so the United States agreed, “Okay. We would take a little, tiny bit of reparations. We ‘ll take one house.” And it became the residence of the American Ambassador.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>That’s a fascinating story.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Seni Pramoj later was president of Thailand…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>At one time or another.<a title="">[3]</a></p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But at the time we met him, he is the landlord, sitting up at the front of the compound.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh[?].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And we didn’t see him very often, but we did—knew who he was. But, um…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I thought you were going to say he was the watchman. You know, because [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>No. We figured that the—there was very little obvious security in that compound. There was no real guard at the gate or noth—but there were gardeners all over the place, and we figured they were all Thai CID [Criminal Investigator's Department].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>]Well, one of them was very important.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And, uh…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>And I—I think that’s a story that is well worth recording, because it shows how a war was, uh—was, um, avoided by simple, you know…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah, um…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Simple contacts.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>So, America has been—had a treaty of friendship with Thailand since 1835, or something like that. It was the first one we signed with anybody in Asia.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, that’s interesting. [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>‘Course, at that time, I think Thailand was probably about the only independent Asian country that we could get into. Japan was closed. China was, uh, occupied by several people. The—the British had Burma<a title="">[4]</a> and Malaya, And Dutch had Indonesia, and the French had Cambodia and Vietnam. And Thailand was in the middle. And we signed a treaty of friendship with those folks.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>which I think has paid off very handsomely for us.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Too bad it’s so unique.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And it’s very unique.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>During the, um, Vietnam War, Thailand actively participated in the war. And Thailand provided us with access to their facilities, and that’s the only time they have ever done that for anybody that’s not Thai.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes[?]. [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>So, um, [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I wish—wish they had done the same thing in Vietnam.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Well…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>You know, after [Ngô Đình] Diệm [inaudible]. But I’m supposed to ask you questions, and you answer at length</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah. So…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>And I ask very short questions, but you’re asking at length very well [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>One of the…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>So I don’t have to ask you many questions.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>One of the jobs I had, while I was there in Thailand, was to be the Contract Administrator for the Thai security guard contract. We employed…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>That sounds like a Chinese title. It’s so long.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Almost.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Can you say it again?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Thai security guard contract. To be the contract administrator. We had a contract, and it was written as a regular Air Force Procurement contract, between ourselves and the [Thai] Ministry of Defense, whereby they provided, uh, Thai military reserves to act as the security guards for all of our forces—our locations, rather—all over the country of Thailand.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Interesting.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Every little—every U.S…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Space. Now, some of those were big. They’re big air bases. There’re lots of people. And some of them were little tiny listening posts…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Out in the jungle…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>With maybe one or two Americans—well, usually more than that—maybe four Americans, and four or five Thai security guardsman to take care of them, to keep them safe, and literally keep the tigers from coming into the, uh…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Into the post.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Mmhmm. That’s unusual.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah, and part of my duties were[sic] to go and inspect every one of those installations all over that country to make sure people are doing the job right.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Well…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Which I did.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes. I’m sure you…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Which was a very interesting [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I’m sure you did it very arduously, but it sounds very interesting.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>It was. It was very interesting.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Uh, so where do we go next?</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I want to ask you if you, in all—in all these different places you’ve been, if you met any characters that stay—stayed in your mind as being particularly interesting, either, you know, um, good, bad, or eccentric, or whatever?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Hm. Strange…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Because your experiences are so different from other people’s in the military.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Usually[?], they’re in a unit, or they’re on some ship, and so on. But you were all over the place with all kinds of people, from the important ones to the not-so important ones.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah, but some of them were just ordinary folk. Uh, like[?] I was. [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>But you had to find people who spoke English, I presume.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yes. And in most of the world, you can get by on English.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>That’s true.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Most educated Thais could speak some English.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>The, uh, officers on the Thai side, with whom I interfaced—one was an Admiral, the other was an Army Major, uh—spoke—spoke beautiful English.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes[?].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Um…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>That was—your stories are so interesting.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>That…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Can you tell another story that—of interest…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>From that…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Well, there is one other one of interest from that. I went to one of the bases, and the, uh—the guardsmen work on the base. They work for the American, uh, military police chief, whoever he is. And so, I was talking to him one day, and he was telling me about a young airman who wanted to get married. Now, before a serviceman can get married overseas, especially in a warzone, his, uh, bride has to be vetted through the American Embassy.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And most Americans, when they look at a Thai woman, cannot tell how old she is…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Until she is elderly, and then it’s obvious that she’s elderly. But as long as she is fairly young up through middle age, you’ve got no idea how old she is, when you look at her.</p> <p>So there was this, uh, one young fellow, who wanted to get married and this—this is, um—now, this is 1974 time period—to, uh, his Thai honey. And when they started checking on her, they found out that she had been a prostitute for the Japanese forces, when the Japanese had occupied this particular base 30 years earlier.</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Very interesting turnaround[?].</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] So our 18 year old—18 year old…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>American G.I. couldn’t tell she was probably 45.</p> <p><strong>All<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Interesting. That’s interesting story.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Do you have friends around the world that you made at that time?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>We did have for a long time, but then, um, over the years…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>They’re gone. The Admiral that[sic], uh, had been in charge from the Thai side—I kept in touch with for a long time, but then he died.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I’m not supposed to add anything to this, but I have to say that a prostitute who was a prostitute for the Japanese was[?]—was, uh—was quite often recruited and kept as a slave for soldiers.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Oh, more than likely.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>What did they call them? There’s a name for them. But anyway…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Uh, comfort girls.</p> <p><strong>Scherer <br /></strong>Comfort girls.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Or comfort women, rather.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>She—that could have happened to her. I mean, but still, she was old.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>It might have been.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But the point of the story wasn’t so much that she’d been a prostitute.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>That she was old.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>It was that she was at least 45 years old…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And our 18 year old airman couldn’t tell.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] That would’ve been an interesting—or a—have made a rather easy decision for the superior to make [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yes. I don’t think she got her clearance.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] So do you—yeah. Do you keep in touch with anyone that[sic] was posted in those places with you?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>No. By now, I have lost—well, with all, except one. I still keep in touch with the man I worked for when I was in Japan.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, yes.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But, uh…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>The rest of them, time has gone by.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Tell us about more colorful characters you’ve met.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>ike, I don’t, uh—Well, one of the most colorful characters was a fellow out there when I was a Thailand—American officer, who had lost the, um, first two joints of[?] one of his fingers, through some kind of accident. He cut it off with a saw or something. It wasn’t—it wasn’t particularly interesting. But the thing was he only had that much. Now in Thailand, you bargained at that time. You bargain for everything, and—but the currency is baht. So we would go and we would say, “Four baht,” and “Five baht,” “Ten baht.” whatever. Well, he could bargain in half baht.</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] I see why you remember him.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>That’s my main memory of him, is he could bargain in half bahts.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I’m going to ask you a two-step question. Number one: did you ever keep a diary or make notes of what you were doing? Um…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, that’s [inaudible]—that’s more or less the answer then. Because, uh, it would be interesting, and you probably would have forgotten by now some of the things. Some of the [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Oh, I’m sure I’ve forgotten probably most of it by now.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But no. I did—never kept any diary. I got movies and slides and stuff like that, but…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>So what about your family, that were in the states whilst you were doing all this? Did you keep in touch with them fairly well?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Well, my family was with me.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>No. Not your immediate family. I mean, your…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Parents and siblings[?].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>My parents, and my brothers and sisters and siblings?</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Oh, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>I still do keep in touch with them.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Now, my parents are long gone, but yeah. My brothers and sisters and I still keep in touch.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Well, of course, we didn’t have email or anything, so what did you do? Write to them?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah. We write—wrote letters. And every time you circulated that through the country, you would, um, go and see people. Um, yeah. My wife’s, uh, parents lived in War—in Warsaw, Missouri, which, uh, is kind of south and west of Kansas City[, Missouri]—a couple hundred miles out in the country at the head waters of the Lake of the Ozarks in the Missouri countryside—hill towns. And it was amazing how Warsaw became on the way to everything.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh [<em>laughs</em>]. Via Warsaw [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah. It didn’t matter where we were going.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>It was always by way of Warsaw…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Missouri. It could have been—it was Washing—Florida to Washington, D.C., is by way of Warsaw, Missouri. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Oh, that’s good.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Seattle to Alabama for Squadron Officer School is by way of Warsaw, of course. That’s not too bad.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But, uh, everything was by way of Warsaw.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Wow[?]. That’s funny.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And then…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Does your wife like traveling?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Did she—yeah. She did.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, I [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>She’s now passed, but, uh, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, I’m sorry.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>She did.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I didn’t know. Um…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Well, you’ve had a very interesting life.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah, ‘cause that particular—That first wife died about six years ago, but then she sent along a replacement, who ordered me up off of Match.com as her souvenir of her visit to America—the United States. And, uh, she’s Thai.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Well, how is your Thai? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>My Thai is good enough…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[inaudible] mai tai [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>My Thai—Yeah. I can order one of those. Um…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Mai tai [inaudible] [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>My Thai is probably good enough to tell you “Hello” and “Goodbye.”</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>All of which is the same word: <em>sà-wàt-dee</em>. And to ask, “<em>Hông náam yòo têe năi?</em>” “Where’s the toilet?” in Thai.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Good one[?]. Good phrase [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And I could say thank you: <em>kòp kun mâak</em>. And that’s about it. Uh, fortunately…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[inaudible] If you were in procurement, people must have been saying, “Thank you” to you often.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Oh, they were.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Okay[?]. Were you bribed at any time? Or tempted to be bribed?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>No. No. Though, uh, some people had trouble with the U.S. standards on that. And in one particular instance in Thailand, uh, the contractors just could not understand when we said, “No. We cannot take anything.” So one Thanksgiving or Christmas or something, they showed up with a lot of turkeys and stuff. “No. we cannot take it.” “But I can’t take it.” “Well, okay.” we gave it to the orphanage.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, that was a good idea.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But no.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>You must have come across a lot of interesting situations like that. That’s a—that’s…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>We came across a lot of things that were cultural differences.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes, but I mean in the actual process of what you were doing. First of all, you had to find out who to start with to ask for what you needed. And then you had to choose between them.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>You had to choose between—yes. You have to define what you need. You have to find the people that can fill your need. And then you have to make a choice as to which one is going to fill it, and you have to pay attention to a whole long list of social things, as to which person can have this particular contract. Um…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>So you had to do a lot of hard work?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is all goes with part of the job.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>The job. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Government procurement and commercial are not the same.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And the big difference is the rules that, uh, the government person has to follow. And people that[sic] I was—when I was teaching at OSI, one of their frequently raised complaints was: “Well, it would be so much cheaper if we did this, or if we did it that way.” And I would have to explain to them that the, um, military procurement regulations, which fill a space like this, were not designed for the efficient and economic acquisition of goods and services for the military. They were designed to fill the social aims of Congress first. And after you fill the social aims of Congress, then we do things to make sure we get stuff.</p> <p>But we have things like—you have Buy American Act [of 1933]. You have a, um, law that governs the amount of money that must be paid to the contractors on the job, which often is very different than the local prevailing wages. You have to procure from minority-owned businesses. You want to procure from women- owned businesses.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>They did that then? Back that far?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. They’ve done this for a long time. And it goes on and on and on. On certain type of business would be set aside, to be filled by only people who meet these social constraints. Whatever they were.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>To fill the social aims of Congress. Um, I [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Tell me what was your biggest disappointment during this time?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Something…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>I can’t think of one at the moment.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Go wrong after you went half way into it, or something like that?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Pardon?</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Did anything go wrong after you went half way into it?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>No. The only interesting thing was I never intended to stay there.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>I intended to do my first tour of duty, and then get out.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But by the time that, uh, point came up, Air Force requirement is four years of service after commissioning. And the point I had four years of service, and I had three little children. And I knew I needed a Master’s Degree, and there wasn’t any way that I was going to be able to support four little children and a wife and go get a Master’s Degree on my own. And the Air Force says, “We will send you to, uh, George Washington University for your MBA [Master’s of Business Administration], if you would like. All you have to accept is an extended service commitment of three times the length of that year and a half of school.” And then every time I did that, or I got promoted, or I got sent somewhere, there was always a service commitment attached to it. It wasn’t until I had 18 years of service in, that I could’ve get out if I wanted to. At that point, I stopped accepting any offers for anything that had a commitment on it.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I see. That’s understandable. And I think you [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>But by then, I was at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>I think—I think you’ve your judgments in order.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Because I—I admire what you put first[?].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>But you certainly had an intering—interesting career.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Tell me about something that—funny that happened whence you—when—when you were in one of these places.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Well, alright. Well, uh, the one we were talking about at lunchtime. Military people on active duty, and as a retiree, are entitled to fly space available on military aircraft from one point to another. ‘Course you have last priority.</p> <p>So we were in Japan, and my wife wanted to go to [South] Korea, which there were frequent flights between Yokota Air Base in Japan and Osan Air Base in Korea. So we went over to Korea, and on the way over we rode on a chartered airliner. And this just like riding in any other airliner, except this one is under charter with the [U.S.] DOD [Department of Defense].</p> <p>And we went shopping in Seoul[, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea]. She bought all kinds of stuff. We got back down to Osan Air Base with the—almost a pick-up truck full of, um, things that she wanted to take, and found out there was no space available going back to Japan. There were lots of people like us and no space going back. And furthermore, there were no hotel rooms available in this little town outside Osan to spend the night.</p> <p>So I called up my friend, who was the OSI boss in Osan, because this was shortly after my—my OSI tour, so I still knew the people. And he called around, and he called me back, and says, “Okay. Go down to this hotel,” [<em>clears throat</em>] “and they’ll take care of you and put you up for the night.” We did. And the next morning, I informed her that she had just spent the night in a whorehouse.</p> <p><strong>All<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>And how…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>That’s what it was.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>And how did you get back? [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>So we went back to the base to wait along with all of these other people, and the, uh, wing at Yokota sent a training flight over to Osan. The Air Force flies training flights all the time. They have to. To train the people. Keep their skills up. So they said, “Okay. Well, we got all these people waiting over there. We’ll send this flight over today to Osan to, uh—to pick these folks up.” And they did, in a [Lockheed] C-130 [Hercules]. The C-130 is a flying truck. You sit in the back end of this, and it’s like sitting in the back end of a big truck, on a canvas seat with very little in the way of heat or any sort of comforts whatsoever. So we all filed in there, put all of our luggage in there in front of us, and then…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>In front of you?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>All down the middle of the plane?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Down the middle. This is the bay of a cargo airplane. This is not an airliner.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>You—you’ve seen pictures though</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Now, they’re—they’re…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>In the movies.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>There—they’re about as—about like sitting in the back of a dump truck. Now, you load over the rear of that airplane. That’s how its tailgate goes down. And they can drive tanks, and trucks…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, I’ve seen</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And things like that. So everybody’s in there. We’re all sitting down, and the loadmaster goes to life the tailgate, and it won’t shut. Can’t get the door of the airplane shut.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>So he takes a piece of wire, wraps it around the door, holds it in place…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Take off to go back to Japan.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>All wired up [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And my brother-in-law, who is a—at that time, a paratrooper in the Army—uh, standard joke people ask him, “Why would you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” And his answer is “Because the Air Force doesn’t have any.”</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Oh, really?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>This was…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Very interesting.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>A perfectly good airplane by Air Force standards. You could wire the door shut and fly.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Is there anything else you would like to tell us before we end?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Oh, I guess that’s probably about it.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Well, you’ve been an easy person, because I was supposed to tell you at the beginning, that this is for you to tell your stories, and I’m just…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Okay[?].</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Just there to ask the questions. But it was, uh—I didn’t have to do that, because you had so many stories, and you told them so well, and it was really interesting, and I’m sure everyone who reads veterans’ stories will like this story.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>If we’ve got time for one more quick[sic] one…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes. We do.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>This is a funny one—to me, a funny one. Seattle is bordered on the eastern side of the city by a 20-mile long fresh water lake called Lake Washington. And One particular day, one of my friends up[?] there and I decided to check out some sailboats, because we had a—a sailboat, rather—as the Navy base had sailboats, and do sailing on Lake Washington. And we did. And we promptly knocked the sailboat down.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>And we got it back up, and then we promptly knocked it down again. Now, the big lesson that I learned about doing that was that a can of beer, if it has not been opened, will float.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Because the beer we had, we can’t—that hadn’t been opened yet—all of it just floated every time we knocked the sailboat over, and so we got it back up, and we got out beer back on board.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Oh, really? That’s interesting. Is it because there’s air in the can?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Sure.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Or because there’s not very much in it? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>There’s air in the can, and a can of beer is sealed. It can’t get out, and it floats. And I…</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Didn’t know until then that a can of beer will float.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Is there anything else you’d like to tell us…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /> </strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>We conclude?</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Now that I’m thinking about it, I could go all afternoon.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Yes[?]. Well, you were the easiest person to interview, I must say. Um, let’s see there was something I wanted to say to you, as well. Well, we—we thank you very much for being part of this program,</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Sure.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>And, um, I certainly enjoyed listening to your story, so I think you’ll be a great contributor. And…</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>I hope so.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>So thank you very much.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>You’re welcome.</p> <p><strong>Scherer<br /></strong>Good luck.</p> <p><strong>McGuire<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: Yokota Air Base.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Officially the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> September 17, 1945-January 31, 1946.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Also known as the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.</p> </div> </div> 2nd Lieutenant African Enterprise AFROTC Air Force Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps aircraft airplanes Ambassador AMC ammunition procurement division Armed Forces Staff College Army Materiel Command Army Military Intelligence Readiness Command BAA baht Bangkok, Thailand bargains Baton Rouge, Louisiana bribery bribes business administration Buy American Act of 1933 C-130 cargo Chokchai Building Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints CID comfort girls Community Veterans History Project Congress conscription construction consultants contract administrators contracting contractors corruption Criminal Investigator's Department CVHP DCAS declaration of war Defense Contract Administration Services deputy directors DOD Downtown Bangkok drafts Durban, South Africa engineering engineers Fawley, England Fussa, Japan George C. McGuire George Washington University GWU hospitals Judy Scherer Korea Lake Washington LDS Church legislation lieutenant colonel Lockheed C-130 Hercules McCoy AFB McCoy Air Force Base Ministry of Defense MIRC Missouri Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoj Mormonism Mormons NAS Sand Point Naval Air Station Sand Point New Jersey New York City, New York New York Harbor Norfolk, Virginia Notre Dame, Indiana OIA oil oil refineries oil refinery orlando Orlando AFB Orlando Air Force Base Orlando International Airport Osan AB Osan Air Base OSI planes President of Thailand presidents procurement centers procurement officers prostitutes prostitution Pyeongtaek-si,South Korea regulations Reserve Officers' Training Corps retirement Rock Island Arsenal Rose Marie Scherer ROTC sailboats sailing scandals Seattle, Washington Second Lieutenant Seni Pramoj Seni Pramoj, Mom Rajawongse Seoul, South Korea sex workers Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition Squadron Officer School Statue of Liberty Summit, New Jersey Thai Thai Ministry of Defense Thailand tour of duty U.S. Air Force U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations U.S. ambassador U.S. Army U.S. Army Materiel Command U.S. Army Military Intelligence Readiness Command U.S. Department of Defense U.S. Navy UND University of Notre Dame University of Notre Dame du La USAF USAFOSI veterans Vietnam Vietnam War Warsaw, Missouri Washington, D.C. Whiteman AFB Whiteman Air Force Base World War II WWII Yokota AB Yokota Air Base https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/aaf3e9e626e5f3a4b798bb5dfd7ca844.mp3 de2411b77ffa9c7a87d48d8bc30e0846 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/f7a66760aadfa6cd11872500514be8e2.pdf ccc52a4bda6f188e3deed01c2b5e7b6f 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 Jared Muha Collection Subject Lake Apopka (Fla.) Agriculture--Florida Migrant labor Apopka (Fla.) Description A collection of oral history interviews conducted by Jared Muha. Creator Muha, Jared Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank"> RICHES</a> Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank"> RICHES</a> Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank"> RICHES MI</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Geraldean Matthew Alternative Title Oral History, Matthew Subject Apopka, Lake (Fla.) Apopka (Fla.) Migrant labor Agriculture--Florida Race relations--United States Environmental justice--United States Description An oral history interview of Geraldean Matthew, a third-generation farmworker and advocate for environmental justice and migrant farmworkers’ rights. The interview was conducted by Jared Muha in Apopka, Florida, on October 30, 2014. Some of the topics covered include a summary of Matthew’s life, leaving home at age 13, her relationships with her mother and father, her slave heritage, her grandparents, segregation, traveling to the North, tramp trucks and maggot workers, life in labor camps, the replacement of African-American workers with Hispanic workers and the relationship between the two races, educational programs and retraining of the replaced workers, the effects of unemployment and underemployment on African-American families, working for environmental justice and farmworker’s rights, her contribution to <em>Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food</em>, a book about sexual misconduct by crew leaders, modern farms in Florida and the treatment of Hispanic workers today. Matthew passed away in 2016. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:04:47 Parents and leaving home at age 13 <br />0:09:04 Grandparents <br />0:11:32 Segregation and discrimination <br />0:17:25 Labor camps <br />0:22:31 Hispanic replacements for African American workers <br />0:31:11 Educational programs, retraining, and unemployment <br />0:38:27 Environmental justice and labor rights <br />0:42:08 Her Children’s Experiences as Farmworkers <br />0:42:53 <em>Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food</em> by Dale Finley Slongwhite <br />0:47:11 Sexual abuse by crew leaders <br />0:49:35 RECORDING CUTS OFF <br />0:49:35 Modern farm labor and Hispanic workers <br />0:51:28 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Geraldean Matthew. Interview conducted by Jared Muha in Apopka, Florida, on October 30, 2014. Type Sound Source Matthew, Geraldean. Interviewed by Jared Muha, October 30, 2014. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a>, Orlando, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/219">Jared Muha Collection</a>, Apopka Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES. Has Format Digital transcript of original 51-minute and 42-second oral history: Matthew, Geraldean. Interviewed by Jared Muha. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a>, Orlando, Florida. Coverage Apopka, Florida Belle Glade, Florida Lake Apopka, Apopka, Florida Creator Matthew, Geraldean Muha, Jared Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> Date Created 2014-10-30 Date Copyrighted 2014-10-30 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 47.3 MB 254 KB Medium 51-minute and 42-second audio recording 31-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Geraldean Matthew and Jared Muha and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Balogh, Christopher. "<a href="http://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/apopka-farmworkers-say-pesticide-exposure-caused-illnesses/Content?oid=2248681" target="_blank">Apopka farmworkers say pesticide exposure caused illnesses</a>." <em>Orlando Weekly</em>, June 1, 2011. Accessed July 11, 2016. http://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/apopka-farmworkers-say-pesticide-exposure-caused-illnesses/Content?oid=2248681. Slongwhite, Dale Finley, and Jeannie Economos. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/857802909" target="_blank"><em>Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food</em></a>. 2014. Comas, Martin E. "<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/health/os-apopka-farmworkers-lupus-20150918-story.html" target="_blank">Sick Apopka farmworkers hope for major study of their illnesses</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, September 19, 2015. Accessed May 25 ,2016. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/health/os-apopka-farmworkers-lupus-20150918-story.html. Giagnoni, Silvia. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/715188868" target="_blank"><em>Fields of Resistance The Struggle of Florida's Farmworkers for Justice</em></a>. Chicago, Ill: Haymarket Books, 2011. Rothenberg, Daniel. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38475492" target="_blank"><em>With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today</em></a>. New York: Harcourt Brace &amp; Co., 1998. McCauley, Linda A., Michael R. Lasarev, Gregory Higgins, Joan Rothlein, Juan Muniz, Caren Ebbert, and Jackie Phillips. "<a href="http://resolver.flvc.org/ucf?sid=google&amp;auinit=LA&amp;aulast=McCauley&amp;atitle=Work+characteristics+and+pesticide+exposures+among+migrant+agricultural+families:+a+community-based+research+approach.&amp;id=pmid:11401767" target="_blank">Work Characteristics and Pesticide Exposures among Migrant Agricultural Families: A Community-Based Research Approach</a>." <em>Environmental Health Perspectives</em>, Vol. 109, No. 5 (May, 2001): 533-538. Das, Rupali, Andrea Steege, Sherry Baron, John Beckman, and Robert Harrison. "<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/107735201800339272" target="_blank">Pesticide-related Illness among Migrant Farm Workers in the United States</a>." <em>International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health</em>, Vol. 7, Issue 4 (2001): 303-312. Rodgers, Bethany. "<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange/os-apopka-farmworker-geraldean-matthew-20161006-story.html" target="_blank">Pillar in Apopka farmworker community dies at age 66</a>." <em>Orlando Sentinel</em>, October 9, 2016. Accessed October 10, 2016. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange/os-apopka-farmworker-geraldean-matthew-20161006-story.html. Transcript <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>This is Jared Muha. I’m here on October 30^th[, 2014] with Geraldean Matthew. Um, Geraldean, to start off, can I ask you just to tell you—tell—tell me a little bit about yourself, um, and who you are?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, I’m Geraldean Matthew. I was Geraldean Shannon before I got married and became—became the—Matthew. Um, I come from Palm Beach County, a little place in the—on the, um, eastern shores of Palm—of Palm Beach. Um, I was a migrant farmworker. I’m the third generations[sic] of farmworkers—uh, of migrant workers in my family, and, um, we continued—I continued to do farm work until, um, 1972.</p> <p>Um, I can remember as far as[sic] back when I was three years old, traveling to see them with my mom on what you call a “traffic truck”—a “tramp truck,” and it’s[sic] taken us from Belle Glade, Florida, to the New York states[sic] to pick apples and beans—whatever state we were in, whatever the vegetable was, and, um, in traveling back, we stopped in a little town called Mount Dora, and from Mount Dora to Apopka, and that’s when we decided to stay here to work in the oranges, which was our first time ever picking oranges, and from there we ended up staying here in Apopka, and, um, I left home at the age of 13 and went out on my own and been out on my own ever since, and from there, I got married and I end[sic] up with six babies, uh—12 years of marriage, and then I divorce[sic] and from there, I had to take care of my kids and raise my kids alone, and I continued to travel, and in 1972, that’s when I gave it up. I didn’t want to put my children through what I had went[sic] through—changing schools every two or three months because you’ve got to move to the next state to work.</p> <p>So, um, we remaineded[sic] here in—in—in Apopka, Florida, and from that, I continued to work in the fields, um, cutting and jiving[?], packing corn, and picking string beans, and, uh, whatever else they had for us to do—working in the carrots, and, um, from there, I just got tired of the—the—the farm work…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And I went into doing the foliage work, uh—potting flowers, and that—I liked it pretty good, and I stayed there for a number of years, and then from there, I volunteered to work with the Farmworker Association[ of Florida] and I landed a job with the association, and I worked there doing different types of jobs in the organization, and, um, I started advocating for poor people[sic] rights in Tallahassee, and that was one of the most awesome jobs I had ever had in my life. Just having a—just a 10^th grade education, it was really awesome, because I never thought in life that I would land such a good job, and from there, I started working, uh—after they laid me off ‘cause lack of, uh, grants, I start[sic] working with Orange County Health Department and then, uh, Env—En—Environmental Protection [Agency], and, uh, I worked there with David Overfield for a few months, and then I got sick with my kidney. Worked from December until April, and the kidney broke down and I had to stop working with them.</p> <p>I, uh, left them in June, and from there I got sicker and sicker, and I ended up on kidney dialysis. So right now, that’s where I basically is[sic]. I’m on kidney dialysis three days a week. Um, I just was told a month ago that my liver is gone. My heart—there’s nothing they can do. So right now, I have my good days, I have my bad days, and I just, you know, I have to accept what life throws at me and depend on the grace of the Good Lord. So right now that’s where I am.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Um, there’s a lot of times, if I’m able to go to the grocery stores, um, I always tell people, “My job is not finished,” because I stand in the grocery stores and I talk with peoples[sic] about the use of pesticide in the field. Those that are still out there working.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>I’ve talked with them.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And, um, let them know that it’s not finished, you know? You’re still being sprayed with the pesticide if you’re still in the fields.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Well, thank you for telling me all that.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So you mentioned a few things that I wanna ask about.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Some now and some later. The first thing—um, you said you were 13 years old when you went on your own?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So can you tell me like how that happened and—and what—what that was like being 13 and on your own?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, the reason I left home when I was 13—because of a step-father, and, um, he didn’t treat my mom right, and I had a sister and a brother, at that time, and he didn’t treat them right. He were[sic] more like afraid of me, ‘cause I used to threaten him all the time about if he would hit me, what I would do to him. So I didn’t have to worry about getting licks from him, but he would beat my sister and beat my brother so bad[sic], and my mom, she didn’t—she wasn’t a violent person and I just couldn’t—I couldn’t take it—seeing her not saying nothing at the way he was treating the family.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So one day I just packed and I left, and, um, I was, you know—I was tall. I was always a tall girl. So I could pass off for 17 years old, 18 years old—and that’s what I did.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And, um, I got a man—uh, a man and his wife to say they was[sic] my mom and, um, take me to the courthouse, and I got married.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And when I got married, then I was, you know—it was better for me to be married. That way I could—continue to help my mom.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And I didn’t move from around my mom until after about four years and—I was married and I moved to another town.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>But I would come see her every Saturday.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm, but you continued working at the fields?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm, I continued to work in the fields.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm, you just did it on your own then?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yep, mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It was—it was like—it was hard, but, you know, having somebody to help you, it wasn’t so difficult, because my thing was I always wanted to give my mom—I always wanted to make sure that my mom had—and I was able to help my mom.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So after the marriage was over with of 12 years, then I continued to work, but I was always able to go by my mom[sic] house and give my mom money to help her.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Because my mom was a young lady when she got—she took sick. She was 36…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>When she took sick.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So yeah, I wanted to ask about your parents too. I mean, um, so—so your parents were farmworkers, as well?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yes, my mom and my father were farmworkers when they met. My mom was 13 years old and my daddy was 15 years old.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And, um, when my mom got pregnant with me at the age of 13 years old, my father got—was afraid, and my father, he was big for—big, big, big boy…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And he ran off and lied and went into the military. So he was in the Air Force all his life.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>He made a career out of it, and in, um—in 1960, he come[sic] home and everybody was saying that I was his baby, and he took a look at me and said, “Oh, yeah, that is my baby.”</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And they said then he wanted to be a part of my life, but he went back into the Air Force, and then, when he come[sic] back home, that[sic] when he begin[sic] to fight my mom for, uh, a part of my life. So they took it to court and the court give[sic] him, um—I stayed six months with my mom in Belle Glade, and I stayed six months with my father in Miami, and my father was called by mistake to go back into the military, and that’s when his mama and his wife decided to send me home…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>To my mom.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And I never communicated with him again. When I seen[sic] my father again, it was 1972.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>He came here and visit[sic] me, and I haven’t seen him again since.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>‘Cause he, um—he went fishing in Miami and he never was found again.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm, okay. Do you remember any stories that your mother or father had told you about their days working on the farms?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yeah, my mom used to, um, tell us about when they was[sic] children and the sh—her mom and her father was[sic] together, how they would go to work. Uh, they was[sic]—they was[sic], um, picking cotton, and how they would go to work and work days and—I mean hours and hours in the cotton fields.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Um, she mostly talked about my grandmother, but—because my grandmother was a slave…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And she talked about—we talked about a lot of slavery in that—in our house…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Because of my grandmother being a slave.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Um, sh—I mean, it wasn’t no[sic] [inaudible] generation. Slavery was right at our backdoor.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And, um, that’s mostly what she’d talk about. She never really just do a lot of talk[sic] about herself as a little girl, you know? Sometimes she would tell us stories about how the crew leaders would try to do little nasty things and stunts and things they would pull, you know—and how my grandmother would defend them and stuff.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yeah, and mostly talks about my grandmother and mostly talks about her father and mostly her grandfather. Her grandfather was—uh, mostly talk of the family was her [<em>laughs</em>] grandfather. They used to tell us stories about how funny he was and how, you know, he—he—after coming off the slave camps, he’d never taken crap off of anybody again and how mean he was, and mostly what they talk about—even ‘til today, they talk about my great-granddaddy—how, you know—how raw[?] he got and, you know, just didn’t want nothing[sic] wrong to go—nothing in the family to go wrong.</p> <p><strong>Muha              </strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>All the way up until he passed away, but my family, they’re originally from Georgia—Fort Valley [State University], Georgia, and I used to have to go there after—if my mama didn’t feel like taking us up on[sic] to see her, she would take us to Georgia and leave me with my grandmother.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So I would stay, uh, the month of June, July, August, and come back when school start[sic] in September.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>We would go back to Belle Glade.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>But if we was[sic] traveling, we would go to school wherever we was[sic].</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So, um, you mentioned that, uh, you would travel, you know, during cer— certain seasons to—to pick in other states.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Um, I’m wondering if you could tell me a little bit about that. How did—how did what you experienced in other states differ from Apopka?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It was much different from my home in Belle Glade.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It was much…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>In Belle Glade? Right[?].</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Different from Belle Glade, because Belle Glade was a very, very violent town. Very vi—violent, and those states was[sic] more calmer[sic]. You saw more respect. In Belle Glade, there was no respect at all.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.<strong>        </strong></p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Because Belle Glade was build[sic] up on people of all nationalities. It wasn’t just the people from Belle Glade. It was the people from all over the Caribbean Islands, and there was no respect. If you was[sic] a child in Belle Glade, you knew everything that an adult knew when you was[sic] six or seven years old.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And it wasn’t nice. It wasn’t nice at all. So when we’d travel to the other states, we see the childrens[sic] more respectable[sic], it make[sic] you feel a difference. You be[sic] like, <em>Wow, why I can’t be like that child?</em> You know, and the schools was[sic] different, because Belle Glade schools, they wasn’t[sic] segregated, and those schools up North, they were segregated. So you got a chance to go to school—go—go to a—a school—a minority[?] school, and it was a big difference. It was like—the first time you went, it was scary, scary, scary, and as you continue to go, then the children begin to talk with you and you begin to meet friends, but when you first go—first start, you are told, “Oh, you can’t play with them little white children.” You know, because that was the way the South was out here.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>We could not—we didn’t play with the childrens[sic] across the track, you know? We stayed on our side of the track and the whites stayed on their side of the track. So we didn’t know the feeling of being with, uh, the white childrens[sic]. We didn’t know that feeling.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So when I went up to travel up North, then we connected with that. That was—to us it was weird, you know, but then, as we traveled to a—we might be in say, New Jersey—the childrens[sic] are one way in New Jersey, and when we get up to maybe New York, the children are different wherever they are—different style[?]. We had—we had to adapt to that, but as we continued down through the years, then it became like nothing to us, you know?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It was, you know—we expecting[sic] it.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And it was all good, but I can remember the bad times when we travel[sic] and we was[sic] told that—we would stop and we would buy gas, and then if you needed—if one of the children needed to use the restroom, we was[sic] told that we couldn’t use the restroom, and by me coming from the Deep South down here—coming up here, we’d have thought it was better, but it was worse in North Carolina.</p> <p><strong>Muha <br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>You want to use the bathroom after you done purchased gas, they tell you to go out there in the cornfield.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And that wasn’t—that wasn’t right with us, you know?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That wasn’t right.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And it—it finally growed[sic] on us, you know? It finally growed[sic] on us, but we, as childrens[sic]—being a migrant worker, you really enjoyed, because you’ll come in—you’ll see things that you probably wouldn’t have never[sic] seen if you wasn’t[sic] a migrant worker.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yeah, because—like right now, you travel from Florida to Georgia, you don’t see any mountains, and back in our days, there were mountains. By the time you get to Savannah, Georgia, you got mountains. North Carolina on up, but now, you don’t see that like you did—did when I was a child.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And, um, childrens[sic]—childrens[sic] nowadays will never get the opportunity that we had and that make[sic] me appreciate my life ,because I got a chance to do something that children nowadays would never do. I got a chance to travel on the back of a truck full[?] the women and childrens[sic] going up north. That was awesome. I got a chance to stop - when they stopped the truck, we would stop in the mountains and we would go up in the mountains and we would cook our food, and water would be coming down the mountain and we would take baths in the water. Children would never see that now, but, you know, it made us feel good. It made us feel good, ‘cause the adult[sic] used to get mad. We out there, the water running down the mountain streams…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And we were washing our skin and they were arguing, because we were so happy, you know?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>We cooking our food and stuff and we so happy, and they would argue, because life was really hard for the adults that had childrens[sic].</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>To be on the back of a tru—of a—a truck—they called them “tramp trucks,” ‘cause that’s what they called us—tramps. We was[sic] either tramps or we was[sic] either maggot workers. We wasn’t[sic] called “migrants.” We was called “maggot worker.” “There go[sic] those maggot workers.”</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>By who[sic]?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Hm?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Who would—who would call you that?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>The peoples[sic] in the town where we was[sic] going, and then we would live on labor camps. Some of them would have bathrooms and some of them wouldn’t, and we would have to go down to the river to drink—get our—get our drinking water. So find the river—once we locate the river, we come back—the children would locate the river. We’d come back and tell the adults that we located a river, and the adults would go down and would start getting water from the river. Bring them back to the camp in buckets, and when the city people learned that peoples[sic] the, uh—the, um—the migrant workers from Florida are here. Once the word get[sic] out, then there were some people from the city—like there was a company in Maryland, Merita Bread—they would bring us bread on the camps, and, um, there was another company that made coats—they would bring us winter coats on the camp.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>They made sure that we had socks on—some of the camps. Some of the states we went in, they wouldn’t give you nothing[sic], but, um…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>And the crew leaders would provide these?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>No? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>These was[sic] peoples[sic] that hear that migrant workers was[sic] here working.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And they would do that in hopes of[sic]—when we would start working, we would come and spend our money to your…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Store or whatever.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah, I see.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So I wanted to—to ask about the labor camps, uh—the quarters. Um, so yeah, I mean, what were the quarters like? Could you speak to what the quarters were like here in Florida that you observed?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, a quar—the places here in Florida was[sic] much better than the places—much better than some of the places traveling up north, because here, in Florida, you had the Florida Farmworkers Bureau here and they was[sic] on top of a lot of faulty living, but up north, they didn’t worry about you. They would—they would take you in the woods. They mostly built their camps in the wood[sic], but here, in Florida, there were eyes on you, you know? So you can’t get away with a lot of stuff that you can get away[sic] up north, ‘cause I can recall, in 1970, traveling to Michigan to pick cherries and apples. I can recall, when we got there, we saying[sic], “We[sic] going to the camp.” There was no camp. The guy had chicken coops—what you put the chickens in.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And they was[sic] taking chickens out, and I say[sic], “What are they going to do with them? Why are they taking the chickens out?” And somebody whispered to me and say[sic], “That’s where you guys gonna sleep.” So they brought a carriage. they put all the chicken coops in a line side by side in a circle-like and they brought a carriage—they put a carriage on top, and you’re—from here up is inside the coop and your feet hanging[sic] out, and that’s where we slept.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And, um, finally, somebody came down and talked to the—talked to the owner of the property, and that’s when he began to build, um, a shed—a thing—a little building where we could go inside. So we had to go inside, but everybody was in one—one thing, and you had to put a—just a little sheet between you and the next family.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yep.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And that’s the way we slept that season.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>In—in—in—in Michigan. I can recall, in Maryland, the crew leader had a horse stable, and, uh, it was a huge horse stable. I never seen[sic] one that big, and he parted off into rooms, and each family had their room, and that’s where we slept, but the male child could not sleep with—in—with the females. It—like my brother.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>My brother had to go up in the loft.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And, uh, where they have all the hay at, and the mens[sic] had to sleep up in the loft, and the women slept in the barn—what we called a barn.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>You know, it was a lot of [<em>laughs</em>]—a lot of crazy ways we had to sleep. I mean, it was miserable.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Miserable.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah, but you stayed in quarters in Florida, as well, did—did—right? Or no?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>No…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Only—only when you traveled?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>I never stayed—let me see. I never—I stayed in a quarter when I come[sic] to Apopka. They called it “the Graveyard Quarters.”</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And it housed migrant workers, but most of the people was[sic]—was like—had come here as a migrant worker and never left.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yeah, they come here as a migrant worker and they lived in “the Graveyard Quarters,” but they never left.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>They be—they just continued to stay there until they tore it down.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay, and—and who were they? Were they generally black Americans living there?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Black Americans.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm. At that time, there wasn’t[sic] no[sic] Hispanic farmworkers here. When I come[sic] to Apopka, it[sic] wasn’t[sic] any Hispanic farmworkers here. It was all African Americans, and, um, when it got really throwed[?] was in 1990-something that they faded out African Americans. They got rid of them. Um, I’m trying to think, and when they—well, before they closed the farmland down, they give[sic] us all our papers and told us that they would not need us anymore, but those that want to come out there and help clean up can come clean up. They, um—all of the black crew leaders—they laid them off, and they hired a Hispanic man from Pahokee, and he brought some peoples[sic] up here and he re—they replaced us. We demonstrated and demonstrated about it, but nothing never[sic] happened.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>When we would go out there and try to get work, they wouldn’t give us no[sic] work.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And it’s still like that today. Once they replace[sic] us with Mexican workers, the Mexicans would not hire us. The crew leaders would not hire us, but we get a job, we’ll hire them, but they will not hire us. It’s still that way today.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Great, so yeah—so, if I understand, uh, correctly, you said at some point in the 1990s, they fired most all the black…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>They got rid of all the black…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>And that’s up in Apopka?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>In Apopka.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>And they replaced them with mainly…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Hispanics.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mexican or Hispanic crew leaders.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm, right.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>And those crew leaders hired…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Hired…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Predominantly…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Nothing but Mexicans.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Really? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yep, we got involved—the organization got involved. We went out there. We marched out there with Hispanic people. Hispanic people—there was[sic] Hispanic people that didn’t like the idea and they’d march along beside us, you know, but they never hired us back, and right now, I don’t know—have[sic] Jeannie [Economos] taken you out to—to—to—to the—where they[sic] corn is? Where they[sic] working in the corn.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, right now out there was all African Americans doing all that work out there, but now it’s nothing but Hispanic people.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>They…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Just plum out replaced us.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>And—and do you know why they did that?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, my—my—my thing is this—and I tell peoples[sic] this all the time, and I used to say this before they replaced us—that one day, we won’t have a job, and people used to look at me crazy and they say[sic], “What you talking about?” I say[sic], “One day, you will not be able to come out here on them muck[?] and work here.” I say[sic], “It’ll be all Hispanic peoples out here working.” That was about probably five years before they replaced us. We hadn’t heard nobody[sic] talking about replacing us.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>But I felt that way because, when the Hispanic people come around, the crew leaders would—the—the—the crew leaders that owe—owned a pro—piece of the job would always have a big conversation with them, and, uh, African Americans I truly believe was[sic] replaced because you start—when they start working us, they started working us and giving us our money every day. When we’d leave the job in the afternoon, we were paid off, and if you pay me off and I drink,  I’ma[sic] come home and  I’ma[sic] drink up my money, and tomorrow  I’m gon’[sic] be sick and I’m not able to come to work. So your job is still going on, but I’m so sick ‘cause I done[sic] got my money overnight and I’m drunk. I can’t come to work. That kind of stuff was going on, and there were many years you could see, at the ending of the season—every season have[sic] an ending. There was[sic] a lot of crops to be throwed[sic] away,</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>’Cause the manpower wasn’t there to work it, because you pay me every night, I feel like, <em>I—no,</em> <em>I ain’t goin’ to work tomorrow. I got me some money in my pocket.</em></p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That’s the way I feel about it. I don’t know how anybody else feel[sic], but I feel that African Americans begin to lag on the job. You give them all that power and now you want to snatch it down from them. So the best way to snatch it away from them is to replace them, and that’s what they did. It was—it was sad. The year they replaced them, it was sad, ‘cause I was out there. I was, uh, working.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And it was really sad. We didn’t have no[sic] job, and if you was a person worked[sic] seven days a week out there, and they replace you and you ain’t[sic] got nothing coming in—boy, it’s—it’s hard.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It is hard.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm. So, um—so this was—just for the recording—in 1996, uh, through 1998?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It was in the ‘90s.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>What was in the [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>I think it was in the earlier ‘90s.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>But in 1996 to 1998…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>A lot of the farms around Lake Apopka were shut down.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Um, but this was before that, you’re saying, when—when the black farmworkers were replaced?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Replaced, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Replaced, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm, I think it was about ’92-‘90—’91-’92—’92/’93.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>When African Americans was[sic] replaced.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And then right after that the farmworkers—the farm was shut down.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>And do you remember…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Only one farm was left open. That’s what they called the Sang[?] Farms.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Uh huh, and do you remember, uh—so before that—before—while—while you were still working, what were—what were relations like between black farmworkers and Mexican farmworkers, Or Hispanic or Caribbean farmworkers?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>There wasn’t any relationship because when they—when they—when they—if you go to work, and a Spanish person is in what we call “the stall,” in one of the positions on the machine or whatever, he don’t say nothing[sic] to you, you don’t say nothing[sic] to him.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>I mean, you work. If he say[sic] something to you, then you, you know—we try to—most American—most—most African-American people probably my age and down took Spanish in school.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So we try to, you know, [<em>laughs</em>] comprehend the little Spanish that we…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Took in school. “Good morning.” “How you doing?” “My name is this,” and…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So on.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Eh, but if they don’t say anything to us, we work all day and don’t say anything to them.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And then there was a Mexican guy come[sic] around named Mexican Pete. He start[sic] getting—organizing farmworkers and then he got a crew—he the only Mexican that had a crew, but he went to school and he learned English really good[sic], so all Afri—all African Americans likeded[sic] him.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm, when did you start noticing, uh, Hispanic farmworker—like a presence of Hispanic farmworkers on—on farms in Apopka and in Florida?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yeah, well, on farms in Apopka, I started noticing them—a large percentage of ‘em in 1989.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So that’s when a lot had come or a lot had—you had noticed a lot of them, that had already been there…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mm…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>But now made up a large segment or…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>They was[sic] coming.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>They were coming? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay, and, um—and yeah, so I mean, how did that—did that change the workplace at all before a lot of the black farmworkers were fired, as you say?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Did it change?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah, I mean, was—was there something different about, um, the workplace or the way the crew leaders treated you or anything like that?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>No, it wasn’t—they—hm, they just come[sic] to us and just told us what it was going be, and the crew leaders told the crew leaders, so the crew leaders probably held it under they[sic] belt a week—didn’t want to tell us, and then finally, it got out.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And then, when it got out, a lot of people didn’t want to believe it, you know? Well, those like me that were smart and—and knew it was going to happen, felt like it was going to happen, went on and looked for a job.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>You know?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Most of it—most of the farmworkers, they, um, had programs trying to get them to go to school, but a lot of farmworkers could not go to school. They[sic] hands all cramped all up like that with arthritis, and they[sic] feets[sic] and stuff all messed up from all the, uh, sores and stuff working on the farm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And they—they just—they just could not—could not, um, take—they was[sic] offering us typing classes and computer classes and—wasn’t none[sic] of us computer literate at all, so…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It just was a mess.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So I—I landed a job taking people to school every morning.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>You know, picking them up in the evening for the trainings, but they knew that—the state knew that eventually they was gonna be that—deal with that. So the program close[sic] down and left the people shut out again. So you kept promising us—they kept promising us and promising us and trying to open up doors, and the doors that they were opening up, like the computer classes, they didn’t last long. The truck-driving classes did—I can’t tell you not[sic] a one man that got a job with the truck driving school.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It just—every—there wasn’t nothing[sic] falling through. So right now, those of us that worked in the fields—all the promises that you made to us, right now, we don’t believe nothing[sic] you got to say. Don’t come telling me nothing[sic] about, “Well, they gonna open up a program, and this program going to help farmworkers do this,” ‘cause I’m not going to believe it because I’ve been deceived so many times. So that’s where we are now. So most of the farmworkers that work now, they’ll sit. They can’t do nothing[sic]. They’re on disability [insurance]. Our young farmworkers, you know—you done sprayed us with your chemicals all your life—all our life, because most children start working in the fields back in them[sic] days when you was[sic] six years old, you know? You take your children to work with you, but then, when it got in the—in the ‘9—‘80s, they: “Oh, you can’t bring your children in the field no more.” The damage is done. I had a daughter—three—had a stroke at three years old.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Because she was in the field with me every day.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>You know? The damage is done. You done took ‘em out there for a few years, and then in the ‘80s, they decided that they wouldn’t let you—you bring your children in the field no[sic] more.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm, alright. So—so you said after—after a lot of the black farmworkers were fired, most of them went to school on some program?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>[inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Numerous skills. Do you know what happened—So after they went to school, did they—did some of them find jobs in oth—other industries or…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>The only…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Do you know what happen to [inaudible]?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, the only ones found[sic] jobs—the only African-Americans[sic] women…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That found jobs was because of me, because there wasn’t a list of who were[sic] hiring you. There was a list of—for[sic] you could go and go to school to be retrained.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That’s what they claimed. They was[sic] retraining us into other job fields, but what I did is[sic] I called different agencies that knew where women can get medical training, and a lot of women went to the medical training and they got jobs in nursing homes. They become what they call a “tech[nician].” They got jobs in nursing homes, they got jobs in shelters for boys and shelters for the handicapped, and the men—the men—they were hard—they were hard for the men. We got mens[sic] and—and—work up until [inaudible], and then they started dying. We lost a lot of farmworkers. Uh, at points you go to a funeral every weekend.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Somebody you worked beside have[sic] died.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, it was hard for a man to get a job. So the—the women became head of the house, and that’s when they lost their hand with the childrens[sic]. No respect in the house, because the man wasn’t there to put—to say nothing, ‘cause you’re not putting nothing in here, so the child[sic] looking at—you’re not putting nothing in here, so you don’t have no say here. So the—the bigger boys—they bullied their mama and all of that. So right now there’s a lot of crisis in people[sic] home, because the father was put out of work due to the closing of Lake Apopka.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>They want to make Orange County this big metropolitan area. They swiped up all the orange trees. You can’t go pick oranges, but when you were—when you—when all of this stuff exists, you could take your childrens[sic] to the grove and make ‘em work. You—I could take you on a street here in Apopka, right now, with about 60 or 70 young men just standing on the corner, but they graduated from high school.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>But they still live home with their mama. They don’t think they[sic] got[sic] to go to work. The runs—they rule they[sic] mama[sic] house, but with me, it was a different story, because your butt was gonna go to work. You wasn’t[sic] gon’[sic] live in here and don’t[sic] work, you know, but a lot of parents scared[sic] of their children. They was[sic] afraid. They [inaudible] this day.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>The—the young boys run they[sic] mama’s house.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It’s—it—it—it hurt us. It hurt us and I don’t think—I don’t think that our leaders of our country understand that. I don’t think they understand that—you got—and it’s so easy. It’s so easy to understand. You[sic] got to realize we come from slavery. We were poor. We were ran[sic] down all our lives. Now, you want us not to apply? The same thing you did to me not to apply it to my child? So my child disrespect[sic] me, because my child can say, “I’ll call the police on you.” Police come on out, what they gon’ do? Handcuff me and take me to jail, because I whipped his butt, ‘cause he stayed out all night long. That’s the way things are now.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And it really hurt the parent. It hurt—killing the parent. You can’t be a parent in your own house. Mm-mm. I got a 22-year-old grandson here with me. He just come[sic] back here. Last Saturday morning, I woke up, he laying[sic] in my bedroom with a girl. I said, “What is this?” I called him out and talked with him. This is no respect. All my life I respect[sic] my children. Now, this is no respect.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Jm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So I give[sic] him time[sic] period to get out of here. I’m not going—I don’t have to tolerate with that. I don’t have to tolerate with[sic] that, but you don’t want to go look for a job. He do[sic] not go look for a job. Daily, he laying[sic] up in here. You can’t—you—I mean, lack of work causing[sic] a lot of problems in your home, and there’s no work here for a young man.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>There’s no work.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Well, thank you for telling me all[sic] that.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Um, so, I wanted to ask about ray[?]—okay, so I wanted to ask about—we were talking about, you know, what a lot of farmworkers did after they were either fired or after the shutdown of Lake Apopka farms. Um, for you—I—I know that you got involved in a lot of environmental justice work.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>And I—I was wondering if you could tell me about that.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, I was, um, like I said, advocating for poor people[sic] rights for a long time. Very young kid wi—with the organization, and, um, when I start[sic] with—working with the environment people in Orange County, it was like a different ballgame. I organized and organized and organized peoples[sic] to come to m—meetings, where we could talk about the rights of farmworkers,  of laws that needed to be put in for farmworkers. Um, the first law I worked with was asking—giving farmworkers the right to know what type of pesticide was being used in the work area.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That was the first law that we fought for. Finally, years of fighting in Tallahassee, years of walking the floors, I, um—they passed the law.<a title="">[1]</a> They finally passed the law.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>What?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Finally, they passed the law, giving us the right to know what type of farm work we were—what type of pesticide we were working in, after about 20 percent of African Americans in Apopka had passed away.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And, um, we continue to fight for other improvements, like drinking clean drinking water in the fields.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>When I was there, there wasn’t clean drinking water. We finally got that deal passed, um, where we could have clean drinking water in the fields. Um, better working equipment for farmworkers, like rubber gloves, rubber boots, rain coats.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And stuff like that. Some of the companies got away with it, but some of the companies went on and bowed down and gave us the equipment we—the proper equipment we needed to work in. Um, as far as going to the doctor, like accidents happen bad[sic] in the fields, and, um, we would go to the company doctor. Finally, we managed to get around that and, um, get a good—good—better medic[sic] care—medical care.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yep.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>When we’d get cut sometimes, you know, we work with knives…</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And—and sometimes we get cut. Like you[sic] working here and somebody working there, they got[sic] their knives set up and you[sic] doing this here all day and your arm—elbow hit the knife and bust[sic] it all open. You got[sic] to go to the hospital, and they don’t take you to the hospital. They take you to a regular doctor, and he patch[sic] you up and send[sic] you home.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>We finally got, you know, help with that, but a lot of changes. We see a lot of changes, but it’s[sic] still a long way to go.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Still a long way to go because they’re still using pesticide. They’re still making pesticide. They’re still using pesticide. Our babies are still being born deformed, so we have a long way to go.</p> <p><strong>Muha <br /></strong>Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, and, you know, you mentioned your—your kids and your grandkids…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>A few times throughout this. I—I’m wondering how they perceived farm labor. Did any of them have interest in doing that, or…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, my kids worked the fields.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>All six of my kids worked the fields. My grandkids never worked the fields, because when they came along, I was stone against them going in the fields. Um, they came along at the ending of the term, where[sic] children were no longer to go out there anyway. So they didn’t get a chance to work the fields, but, um, all of my kids did.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Okay, and, um, lastly from you, I think, I wanted to ask about the book, <em>Fed Up</em>[<em>: the High Costs of Cheap Food</em>], um, by Dale Finley Slongwhite. Um, could you tell me a little bit about that and your part in that?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong><em>Fed Up</em> is a book that I’m proud of and I’m not proud of. The reason I say “I’m proud of,” because[sic] it was the first book that I ever had been involved in, and “I’m not proud of” is because I think that I left a lot out the book, and, um, I wanted to do three versions of the book. So I had[sic] talked with, um, what’s her name?</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Do a second version and a third version, but if I can do the second version, maybe I could capture a lot of stuff I left out.</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>It’s like I was saying, um, there’s a lot I want to add to <em>Fed Up</em>. Um, and I would like more pictures in the book, because, um, peoples[sic] really need to actually see what our peoples[sic] are going through—um, the lesions on the s—the legs, the feet, the amputations of the toes, the amputation of the feet, legs—because of all of the pesticide where it had deteriorated the skin, and, um, I’d like to get more[sic] deeper into the labor camps. It’s[sic] a lot that I left out, because I wasn’t thinking. I’m thinking that, uh, when the book was gonna be wrote[sic], it gonna be like a mini-book [<em>laughs</em>]. I didn’t realize it was gonna be a story—um, a nice book. I’m just looking at it like it’s gonna be a—be a little, short mini-book, and, um, I imagine everybody that played a part in the book—about eight of us— I would imagine if—if everybody can really redo their story, it’ll be more awesome than what it is.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Because a lot of people left out stuff that should’ve been told, you know? There was a—um, a lot of death in our family, due to, um, the DDT<a title="">[2]</a> that they used. People lost their family, and they didn’t talk about that in the book. Um, how we come from work and we[sic] riding on the bus, and when we get home, we think the other person sitting over on the bus sleeping[sic]. The person dead[sic], because of the chemicals that we worked in all day long.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>We didn’t talk about that in the book, and I would like to, you know, let people know these things actually happen. You[sic] going home from work and when you get there you[sic] hollering, “Mr. Clyde! Mr. Clyde!” And you—“Mr. Clyde!” You think he[sic] sleep. He[sic] dead, you know?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Those things happen, and we didn’t talk about none of that in the book. We didn’t know how much room or space or whatever we had in the book.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>So I asked her about second and third version, and we didn’t—a lot of stuff—when I read the book, on my—my part of the book, I—I wasn’t pleased. I wasn’t happy with—with—with the part that I wrote—that she wrote for me, and then I read the other people[sic] part, and I know their history, and same thing with them. You know, they don’t talk about it, ‘cause[sic] when you say, uh, “We gon’[sic] write a book.” You know, you—you never wrote a book before, so you[sic] not—you[sic] not thinking good, you know?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yep, right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>But if we can—another book could re—be redid[sic] [<em>laughs</em>], it’d be awesome.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yep.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>We left a lot out.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Well, is there anything—you said you—there are things you wanted—wish you could’ve included. Is there anything that you haven’t told me thus far that you want to include in this interview? Uh…</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Well, in—in—in the book? I talked a little about the treatment of the African-American women and the crew leaders. Not the growers, the crew leaders. I talked just a little bit about that. That should’ve been brought wide open. Should’ve been blowed[sic] up, because a lot of young girls have babies—they’ll never know who the father[sic], because the crew leaders and his[sic] what we call “henchmens”[sic] would come in and have sex with those girls like they was—they wanna, you know?</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>And we didn’t express too much of that in the book.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>You know? If you had a father that drank, a mother that drank—oh, God. You didn’t have nobody[sic] in your corner. The crew leaders do whatever they want to do. Mmhmm, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>As I can recall, one time I was going—my mom had got[sic] me up early. Uh, our day begin[sic] by five o’clock, and she sent me to the store to get a loaf of bread and there was a man waiting in the dark on me when I got to get the bread, and he jumped right at me and grabbed me, but I was so fast I snatched the loaf from him and I ran home and I told my mom, and my mom went over there and my mom jumped on the man and told him don’t try anything like that on none[sic] of her childrens[sic] again in life. She would kill him, and I—we never had problems with him again, but just imagine if I had a mama that didn’t do that. Every time he saw me, he would’ve give[sic] me a problem.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Yep.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>But my mama let him know that, you know, she was not taking no crap like that.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>But then a lot of the girls, their mama never say[sic] one word, and it went over and over and over again.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Thank you for telling me that.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Is there anything else you want to tell me before we conclude the interview?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That’s it.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>That’s it.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That’s about it.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay. Well, thank you so much, Geraldean.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Again, this was Jared Muha and Geraldean Matthew on October 30^th, 2014. Okay, this is Jared Muha with Geraldean Matthew on October 30^th again, uh, for a second session interview. Um, Geraldean, I wanted to ask, uh, what is your impression of, uh, farms today in Florida and, you know, treatment of Latino workers, uh, who are on the farms?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>You know, the farms today have changed very much because now most farmworkers, uh, get their own place to stay, but, as for the Latino workers—women—the ones that are still housed in labor camps, they are treated really bad[sic] by the crew leaders. If they are undocumented and have daughters, the crew leaders think that the daughter should be their woman or their wife or their girlfriend, and they mistreat the women very bad[sic].  Um, what brought that to my attention was, uh, when I was doing HIV<a title="">[3]</a> prevention, went into the homes talking and, um, passing out, uh, HIV materials on the camps, uh—how the men would treat the women when they tried to get protection. They didn’t want the women to get condoms for—from us or female condoms from us or whatever. So it’s a problem to me, because it seems like nobody[sic] really paying that Latino group attention, just like they didn’t pay the African-American group attention back in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. So, um, it kind of bothers me a lot, you know, seeing that happening, and, um, seeing how the women have to take up their young children—their young daughters and run at night and try to find another place when the crew leaders come, um, pounding on their doors and demanding that they open the doors and demanding for[sic] sex. I don’t think that should be like that, and yes, it does disturb me.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Well, thank you for telling me that. Uh, is there anything else you wanted to include?</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That’s it.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Matthew<br /></strong>That’s all.</p> <p><strong>Muha<br /></strong>So this is Jared Muha and Geraldean Matthew on October 30^th, 2014.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Alfredo Bahena Act.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a pesticide banned in 1972.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Human immunodeficiency virus.</p> </div> </div> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/aaf3e9e626e5f3a4b798bb5dfd7ca844.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of Geraldean Matthew</a> agricultural labor agriculture Alfredo Bahena Act Apopka apples arthritis beans Belle Glade carrots cherries cherry citrus civil rights clean drinking water contraception corn corporal punishment crew leaders Dale Finley Slongwhite David Overfield DDT dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane discrimination domestic violence educational programs environmental advocacy environmental justice environmental law environmentalism FAF Farm Workers Association Farmworker Association of Florida farmworkers farmworkers' rights FDOH Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food FFB Florida Department of Health Florida Department of Health in Orange County Florida Farmworkers Bureau foliage FWA Geraldean Matthew Geraldean Shannon Graveyard Quarters Hispanic Americans Hispanics HIV human immunodeficiency virus Jared Muha Jeannie Economos kidney dialysis kidney disease labor labor camps labor rights laborers Lake Apopka maggot workers Merita Bread Mexican Americans Mexican Pete Mexicans Miami Michigan migrant farms migrant farmworkers migrant labor migrant laborers migrant workers Mount Dora National Farm Workers Association NFWA nursing home technicians Orange County Health Department oranges Palm Beach pesticides protected sex retraining right to know safe sex segregation sexual abuse slavery slaves string beans Tallahassee traffic trucks tramp trucks tramps underemployment undocumented workers unemployment vegetables workplace injuries https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/017149c91b62c7a4b14385f0171aea84.pdf 5e0b59b50bd857278237fec9d293f9c4 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 Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection Alternative Title Lone Sailor Collection Subject Veterans--Florida Orlando (Fla.) United States. Navy Navy Sailors--United States Description Collection of digital images and oral histories related to the former Recruit Training Center Orlando (RTC Orlando) for the United States Navy. The training center transformed raw recruits into highly effective sailors. This process took place over an intensive eight-week training period, commonly referred to as "boot camp." RTC Orlando occupied roughly one half of the former Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando), which was located at present day Baldwin Park, Orlando, Florida. Between 1968 and 1994, over 650,000 men and women graduated from RTC Orlando. Contributor <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/ "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Gordon Pierce and Trina Cothrin Alternative Title Oral History, Pierce and Cothrin Subject Veterans--Florida Navy Orlando (Fla.) Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Afghan War, 2001- Global War on Terror, 2001-2009 Description An oral history interview of Gordon Pierce (b. 1930) and Trina Cothrin, who both served in the U.S. Navy. Pierce was born in Buffalo, New York, on September 16, 1930. He enlisted in the Navy in 1948 and served until September of 1977, during the Cold War era and the Vietnam War. During his service, Pierce was station on the USS <em>Wasp</em>, the USS <em>Coral Sea</em>, the USS <em>Franklin D. Roosevelt</em>, and the USS <em>John F. Kennedy</em>. He achieved the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer and earned a Navy Commendation Medal and a Navy Achievement Medal.<br /><br />Pierce's daughter, Trina Cothrin (b. 1958), was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on October 13, 1958. Cothrin enlisted in the Navy in October of 1979 and served until October of 1982, when her son was born. She was then in the U.S. Naval Reserve until 1993, when she joined the U.S. Army. She left the military in 2009, after serving in Operation Enduring Freedom during the War in Afghanistan. Throughout her service, Cothrin was stationed at Naval Air Station Miramar (NAS Miramar) in California, Naval Air Station Jacksonville (NAS Jacksonville), U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) in Qatar, and MacDill Air Force Base (MacDill AFB) in Tampa. She ultimately achieved the rank of Chief Yeoman.<br /><br />This oral history interview was conducted by Roger Jordan Sims on March 12, 2014. Interview topics include enlistment, boot camp, Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando), the Vietnam War, Operation Enduring Freedom and the War in Afghanistan, life after leaving the Navy, how Central Florida has changed over time, the legacy of NTC Orlando, and the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:48 Background<br />0:02:23 Enlistment and boot camp<br />0:03:57 Naval Training Center Orlando<br />0:07:45 Social life and relationships on base<br />0:12:47 Hardest part of NTC Orlando, proudest moment, and unforgettable memories<br />0:15:16 USS <em>Blue Jacket</em> and the Grinder<br />0:20:46 Vietnam War and the War in Afghanistan<br />0:23:10 Leaving the Navy and post-naval life<br />0:27:23 How Central Florida has changed over time<br />0:29:36 Legacy of NTC Orlando and the Lone Sailor Memorial Project<br />0:32:44 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Gordon Pierce and Trina Pierce Cothrin Interview conducted by Roger Jordan Sims at Central Florida Research Park in Orlando, Florida, on March 12, 2014. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/292/rec/1" target="_blank">Pierce, Gordon</a>. Interviewed by Roger Jordan Sims, March 12, 2014. UCF Community Veterans History Project, DP0014915. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/291/rec/2" target="_blank">Cothrin, Trina</a>. Interviewed by Roger Jordan Sims. UCF Community Veterans History Project, DP0014914. March 12, 2014. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a>. <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 35-minute and 10-second oral history: <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/292/rec/1" target="_blank">Pierce, Gordon</a>. Interviewed by Roger Jordan Sims, March 12, 2014. UCF Community Veterans History Project, DP0014915. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Digital transcript of original 35-minute and 10-second oral history: <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/291/rec/2" target="_blank">Cothrin, Trina</a>. Interviewed by Roger Jordan Sims. UCF Community Veterans History Project, DP0014914. March 12, 2014. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Naval Station Great Lakes, Great Lakes, Illinois Jacksonville, Florida Vietnam Naval Air Station Sanford, Sanford, Florida Naval Air Station Key West, Key West, Florida Naval Training Center Orlando, Orlando, Florida Naval Air Station Miramar, Miramar, San Diego, California Pensacola, Florida Afghanistan Qatar Creator Pierce, Gordon Cothrin, Trina Sims, Roger Jordan Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-03-12 Date Issued 2014-09 Date Copyrighted 2014-03-12 Format application/website application/pdf Extent 301 MB 195 KB Medium 35-minute and 10-second Digital (DAT) DVD audio/video recording 21-page digital transcript 199 KB Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Roger Jordan Sims, Gordon Pierce, and Trina Cothrin. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/ "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/292/rec/1" target="_blank">Pierce, Gordon</a> <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/291/rec/2" target="_blank">Cothrin, Trina</a> Transcript <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Okay. Today is March 12^th, 2014. I am interviewing Gordon Pierce and Ms. Trina [Pierce] Cothrin, uh, who served in the United States Navy. Uh, Mr. Pierce was an aviation metalsmith. Uh, Ms. Cothrin was an aviation maintenance administrator and yeoman. My name is [Roger] Jordan Sims. We are interviewing Mr., and, uh—Mr. Pierce and Ms. Cothrin as part of the UCF [University of Central Florida] Community Veterans History Project and as research for the creation of the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. We are recording this interview at the [Central Florida] Research Parkway in Orlando, Florida. Uh, Mr. Pierce, Ms. Cothrin, will you please start by telling us when and where you were born?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1930.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And I was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1958.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>What did your parents do for a living?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>My parents worked for the State of New York. My father was, uh, in charge of the warehouse for all the supplies for a mental hospital, and my mother was a nurse.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And my father was, uh, a Master Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy—Navy, and my mother was a full-time, uh, mom.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, do you have any brothers and sisters?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I do. I have, uh, three brothers and one sister. Uh, my oldest brother, uh, Tommy Foreman—he was actually stationed at, uh, McCoy Air Force Base, Uh, when it was an Air Force base, and then, uh, my younger brother Bruce [Pierce] joined the Navy. He and I joined the Navy together on the same day. Uh, He was in boot camp before I did, but we, uh—our paths crossed while we were in boot—boot camp together, and then later, Uh, when I was stationed in San Diego[, California], he came to San Diego for school. Uh, and then, Uh, when my husband and I were stationed in Pensacola, he also was subsequently stationed in Pensa—Pensacola. Then I have a sister named Tina [Pierce] and a younger brother, James [Pierce]. I don’t think I said my brother’s name, who enlisted with me, and that’s Bruce.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Okay. Um, when did you both decide to join the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>My brother and I?</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Both you…</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>And Mr. Pierce</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I joined the Navy in 1948, after I graduated from high school.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And, uh, my brother and I, uh, decided to join the Navy in October of 1979. Uh, uh, you know, he, uh—he had just finished high school, uh, the previous summer, and, uh, we both just decided to do it together. Um, I mean, I—I dunno what—is that enough?</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay. Good [<em>laughs</em>]. I don’t know how in depth you want me to go.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>No, I just…</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong> Okay.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Whatever—Whatever you’d like to tell us.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Um, where did you both attend boot camp?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I attended boot camp in [Naval Station] Great Lakes, Illinois.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And I—here in Orlando, Florida.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>What were you trained for, uh—for your career in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I was trained as an aviation metalsmith in Memphis, Tennessee, and I spent, uh, um, about three or four months there, waiting to go to school. then I went to nine weeks of school to be an aviation structural mechanic or aviation metalsmith.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And I, uh, was an aviation maintenance administrator. I went to school in, uh, Meridian, Mississippi,<a title="">[1]</a> uh, and that was a six-week self-paced course that I finished in a month.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, when did you both begin your time at the Naval Training Center Orlando and how did that come about?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I can’t remember.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay. I’ll talk to mine</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And then I’ll help him with his. Uh, I went—started boot camp in December of 1979 and I finished up in, I believe, it was March—February-March timeframe—of 1980, and subsequently went to San Diego, California, for a month, and then, uh, went to Meridian, Mississippi, and back to San Diego.</p> <p>My father, uh, was stationed in, uh, NAS [Naval Air Station] Key West, and in 1970—’74, we—we moved to the Orlando area for a twilight tour. My fa—grandfather had passed away and, uh, we moved up here to, you know, be with my grandmother, right?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Pretty much.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what did you know about the region, uh, militarily or otherwise, before coming to Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>We learned quite a bit about it, because I had been stationed in Sanford, at the, uh, Naval Air Station [Sanford] there, for a number of years, and then I went down to Key West for shore duty, from that sea duty drill, and we came back up here, because we liked Central Florida.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I—yeah, I lived here. So [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I knew the area.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Um, how long did you both spend at the Naval Training Center?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I only did the, uh—spent the time there during boot camp, and my father was there for—from ’70…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>[19]75 to ‘77.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Was it ’75? or ‘74?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I think it was ‘75.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, when you first arrived, what were your first impressions of the area?</p> <p><strong>Pierce <br /></strong>Same old place [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] I was in high school, uh, so—I mean, it was okay [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>What were your first days at the Naval Training Center like?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>They were spent primarily training out to become a Company Commander at the Recruit Training Center [Orlando], and, uh, we went to school I think for six weeks, and we learned how to give lectures, and how to march sailors around, and so on and so forth.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Well, for me, it was, you know [<em>laughs</em>]—that first day, you know, you’re getting all your gear and, uh, you’re learning how to be a sailor, and, uh—so it was interesting [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what were your primary responsibilities while at the Naval Training Center?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I was the Correctional and Instructional Standards Division Officer, and we were, more or less, like a quality control unit. We would visit the various classrooms, and make sure the instructor was following the lesson plan, and completing all the things he had to do to get the point of the lesson across to the students.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And, for me, I was a recruit. I was there to learn.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Um, what was your overall impressions of the recruits and their training during your time at the base?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I was impressed with the quality of all the young men and women that were brought into the Navy, and I thought the recruiters were doing a heck of a good job. There were very few people that[sic], uh, fell out, during my time as a Company Commander, and, uh, it was a great experience. I really enjoyed it.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Um, I, uh—you know, once you get past that first initial shock, you know, and you—you get into your training group, I think everything went well. I, you know—I, uh, ultimately enjoyed the time I spent there. Um…</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>What kind of social life existed among the recruits? How often were you allowed to go off base, and what places did you visit locally?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Uh, I don’t think we were allowed to go off base until our training was completed. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Well, in the middle, wasn’t there a two-day weekend?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Uh, no, I think the only thing we got to do was go to the visitors’ center and y’all were allowed to come visit us. That’s where the parents and families come—came, at the time that I was there. I do believe.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Okay, yeah. I remember that.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay, and, uh…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>That was about right.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Right, because we were—Bruce—Bruce went into basic training in November, and then I went in in December. So over the Thanksgiving holiday, he was there, and then, over the Christmas holidays, we were both there, and that’s where that one picture came from, where we’re all four there on those picnic—at those picnic benches.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>How did your training experiences shape your relationships with the other recruits in your class?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>It was a team-building experience. It—it, you know—it drew you together. Um, you know, taught you how to work together, uh, to accomplish goals.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>The—the whole criteria for the Recruit Training Com—Command, As far as recruits and Company Commanders were concern—concerned, was to build them into a team, and it was 180 people on a team.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>It was a lot.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Something like that, and, uh, that was the—the goal was drill into them that they had to work as a team. They would clean the barracks, they would march, and they would do all things together, you know, as a team, and it—it was a rewarding experience to see them develop.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Who did you both interact with on a daily basis?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Uh, there were people who were, um—hey would come around and they would take the—the recruit Company Commander would take the recruits out on the Grinder, and he—there were observers, and they would mark them—see how the training was going, as far as marching and things like that were concerned, and they would come back and open ranks, and do an inspection, and—and it was all very, very formal and, uh—what else do you want?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay. So, uh, my daily interaction was, uh, with our, uh—our, uh—what do you call them? Our, uh…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Company Commander.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Our Company Commanders, and our, you know—our CPO [Chief Petty Officer] and then our—of course, our, uh,—the other recruits, and then you also interacted with, uh, other instructors, depending on where you were at. Whether you were in weapons training, or some other safety training, or—but for the most part you were with your Company Commanders, you were learning how to fold your clothes, put away your clothes, um, and…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Make your rack.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Make your bed a certain way. Uh, you were always having inspections. Uh, you know, how to wear your uniform, uh—let’s see. We went through firefighter training, and, you know, gas mask training—those kinds of things. They put you through your paces. You had your swim test, you know, uh, [inaudible], you had to float in the water for five minutes, uh, you know, you had to be able to, uh, swim from one end of the pool and back, you know? But, uh—so I don’t—I honestly don’t remember everything that we do. I do—I do remember the weapons training, the swim test, the marching, the folding of the clothes, the, you know—the bed inspections. You know, you’re getting up every day at 5 o’clock in the morning. Uh, you know, going to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You march there, you march back. You know, they always had somebody up there, you know, letting you know the instructions. You had 20 minutes and 20 minutes only to, you know, get through the line, and eat your meal, and back to wherever it was we met to, you know, march back to wherever we were going next.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what do you remember about the instructors at the base? And what were your impressions of them?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I remember them all as being very professional, and they were t—their goal was to set an example for the recruits, [inaudible] in dress and...</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Mannerisms.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Mannerisms, and conformity to the rules and regulations. Look sharp, you know? Haircuts, and so on and so forth.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I would agree with him. Uh, the two, uh, Company Commanders that I had were, you know—they were there to set the example, as well as enforce the rules, and, you know, guide us—guide us through the process, and, you know, test us more, test us less, you know, push us harder where we needed to be pushed.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>And answer all the questions [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yes [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>What was the hardest thing you remember doing at the Naval Training Center?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Um…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>For me, it was learning how to stand in front of a class of 180 people and teach them how to do something, you know? And, uh, I wasn’t really a formal instructor. I was a hands-on aircraft mechanic, you know, and I was taken from that environment and put in front of all these people, and, uh, it was a very different environment for me, so it was kind of a struggle at the beginning, but I worked my way into it, and I ended up liking it very much.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I would say for me, uh—not necessarily the hardest thing, but, you know—you get there and you don’t know what to expect, and so then it’s learning to, uh, achieve the things you need to achieve in the time you have to do it, and So, you’re learning at a very rapid pace, uh, and, you know, uh—eh, so as—I don’t remember anything being [<em>sighs</em>] so terribly difficult. it was just a matter of learning it.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what was the moment you felt most proud at the Naval Training Center?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Graduation.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I would agree.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>When your company pass and review, in front of the reviewing officers and the assembled guests and so on and so forth, it was kind of a proud moment.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>It marked the end of the training cycle also [<em>laughs</em>]. You were done [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Can you tell me a story of a time at the Naval Training Center that you will never forget?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Not really [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Not really [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Well, I remember the swim test part. Just floating there, and the sky’s blue, and you’re watching airplanes, and they, uh—and their, uh—whatever you call the smoke thing that goes by, and, you know, that’s what I was doing. Sitting there, you know—floating there, thinking about—I was like, <em>Okay</em>, as they ticked off the minutes, you know, to complete the test, but, uh—I mean, other than that, um, uh, I, you know—the comradery that, you know—that you had. I mean, once we graduated, we all dispersed, you know, a hundred different ways. Um, I think only one person that I went through boot camp with, uh, went to San Diego—I mean, he went to [Naval Air Station] North Island. So, um…</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>How would you describe to USS <em>Blue Jacket</em>, and what was its function?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>It was used to familiarize the, uh, recruits with, uh, how confined the living spaces were aboard ship and various aspects of shipboard living, and, uh, it was very helpful. It was a—it was a very, very, very large training aid that was very useful in getting your point across.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin <br /></strong>Didn’t we do battle station drills and those kinds of things on it, as well? I…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I didn’t.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I, uh—yeah. I, you know—I don’t—don’t really remember. I—I think we did some sort of drills on the ship. Uh, It wasn’t, eh—it was more than just familiarization with a ship. They took us on board. We did things on it. I just don’t remember what.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what was the official purpose of the Grinder and what was its significance to you and the recruits?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>The Grinder was a very large piece of ground, where as many as nine different companies could get out there and march around, and not—not get involved with one another, if the Company Commander was paying attention [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>But it was a big area, and, uh, it was very hot in the summertime and kind of cool in the winter time, but, um, it worked very well.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Cold and wet. I—I mean, because we were out their marching in the cold and it was raining usually, but, uh, it was—it was all about marching out there. I think we did PT [physical training] out there.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>It was also used as a—if somebody was goofing off within the company, you’d tell them to run around the—the Grinder a couple of times as a—it worked off their exuberance, you know?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /> </strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what other types of training went on at the base?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>The—the [Naval] Nuclear Power Training Command was there. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>You mean other facilities? Or other things that we taught?</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Well, you have the basic boot camp recruit training.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>And then what other types of training would also go on, like the Nuclear [Power] School?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Like the NTC part of it? Do you remember what else was out there, other than nuclear training?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I don’t know. It wasn’t…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>But there was instructor training…</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yeah[?].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>And peripheral things like that, to where—to support the Recruit Training Command.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what were other areas on the base that were of particular importance to you or the recruits, and why were these places important?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Well, there was the Firefighting School, which was very important, because, uh, firefighting aboard ship is a[sic] immediate thing that has to be done and done well, and quickly, and thoroughly. I—I was always impressed with that, and there was the gunnery range.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>[inaudible]. We went somewhere.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>They had a…</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>As I remember here, it was indoors, but in Great Lakes, where I went through boot camp, it was outside.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I believe it was indoors. I agree with you there.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yeah, I mean, I agree with him. The firefighting, you know—you go through the firefighting, uh, class, and one of the films they, of course, show you is the fire on the [USS] <em>Forrestal</em>, and that’s something that I think is, you know—they carry though. They still—I think they probably still use that as a training aid today. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Probably.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yeah, I remember the—what’s the oxygen—the liquid oxygen. I remember, Uh—I mean, that was pretty gross, and they showed you a film, uh, with regards to liquid oxygen and what can happen to you if, you know…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>If it spills on you.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>It will freeze you.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Very cold.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>So, uh—okay [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what was graduation like?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Um, for me, it was, you know, uh, the marching, and the passing in review, and you know, the, uh—the end of boot camp, and then the beginning of the next, uh, stage of my career in the Navy. Uh, so it, you know—it was being excited and being sad that you’re leaving, you know, the people that you got to know, and then excited to move on to the next thing, and Pride, you know, that you passed. That you got through it.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>For me, it was saying “Hello” to a lot of different people, where every recruit wanted to introduce you to their parents, to their loved ones, or whatever, and it was, uh, an emotional day.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what did you do for the Navy upon leaving Naval Training Center Orlando? Did you receive specialized training after your time at Naval Training Center Orlando? And if so, where did that take place?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Um, I did not go to A School upon graduation of boot camp. I went directly to a squadron. I went to VC-7 [<em>Tallyhoers</em>] at, uh, NAS Miramar[, San Diego], California. It was an [Douglas] A-4 [Skyhawk] training squadron. Uh, and when that squadron decommissioned, I think the, uh—not even—less than a year—maybe ten months later, I then went to A School in Meridian, Mississippi, and then, uh, went back to, uh, VF-124 [Fighter Squadron 124] an [Grumman] F-14 [Tomcat] squadron at, uh, NAS Miramar, and...</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Were either of you ever in active warzone?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>What?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>An active warzone. Have you ever been in an active warzone?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I was over in Vietnam on the line for about three years.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Um, can you tell me about arriving in the warzone, and what impact that experience had on you?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Well, you work 12 hours on duty and 12 hours off duty, and that just went on continuously. There were no weekends. There were nothing—you spent 30 days on the line, and then you’d go for a week in Olongapo[, Zambales] in the Philippines for liberty, and, um, it was pretty arduous and, uh emotional at times, because you’d lose airplanes and so on and so forth.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, did you receive any medals or citations during that time?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I received, um—what’s the orange and green one?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>It’s a Navy Commendation Medal.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Yeah, and now, the green and white one is…</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Navy Achievement.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Navy Achievement Medal.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Yeah, I received both of those and a whole bunch of service awards from various places of—of the world: Korea, Vietnam, Mediterranean Occupation Medal.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>North Atlantic? [inaudible]. Not—I don’t know if it was North Atlantic, but you were up there too.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>And I crossed the Arctic Circle a number of times, but I didn’t—they didn’t give a ribbon for that. Crossed the Equator two or three times—maybe four, to get back [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>For me, I was mobilized, uh, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Uh, spent two years at CENTCOM [United States Central Command]. Um, after that, eight months, uh, I spent in Qatar. Uh, it was a, uh, very interesting and rewarding experience, the two years that I spent, uh, mobilized. Uh, it was interesting to go to Qatar. Uh, I—that’s the second country I had ever been to, outside the United States. The first was Mexico [<em>laughs</em>]—Tijuana[, Baja California, Mexico]. So, uh, it—it was interesting seeing the culture, uh, seeing the area, and then, uh, you know, like my dad said, it was, uh, generally a 15-16-hour workday, but, uh, it was a good experience.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /> </strong>Uh, do you both recall the day your service ended? and what was that like?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Uh, I —yes. So I got out of the Navy, uh, October 1, 1982—‘82 or ’81 [<em>laughs</em>]. Okay. ’82, because my son was born in November of ‘82. So, uh, it was a sad experience for me. I wasn’t ready to get out of the Navy. So, uh, once my husband and I transferred to Pensacola, it took six months, and then I found a billet in a [U.S. Naval] Reserve unit, and then I spent the rest of my career, uh, in Reserve units. Starting out in aviation units, and into intel[ligence] units. Um, you know, and through the course of my, uh, 29 years in the—in the Reserve, you know—active and Reserve program, uh, you know, did my two years mobilization at CENTCOM, and I, uh, had worked at, uh, Joint Task Force Forge[?] [inaudible]. I did [inaudible], uh—active duty down there with them, when we were stationed down there. So, I mean, I had a very full and interesting career. So, for you, Dad, you retired in, uh, 1977.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Right. I think it was September 1^st, and, uh—just another day, to me. No ceremony. I didn’t have a ceremony or anything like that.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Uh, what did you do after you left the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I got a job in, uh, Sanford with a machine shop company, and they made, Uh, what’s called a “fax machine” now, but this was the very beginning, and it was a thing that went around in circles, and it printed letters, and so on and so forth. There was no vocal, but it was all—you could transmit a—a letter on this circular thing, and it went through the air somehow, and got there and…</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Was that QWIP [Technologies]?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Yeah, QWIP.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>QWIP, and it was a company that…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Went through the telephone. You had to call up, get ahold of the machine, and then you put the thing in there, and then you turn the machine on, and it would transmit the piece of paper. Very archaic, really.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Compared to today.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And, for me, um, I worked two jobs. So I had my Reserve career and then I had—I worked for the Army since 1993. Uh, and that’s when I started working full-time again.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Have either of you kept in touch with anyone from the Naval Training Center?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I haven’t.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>No, I—me neither. No.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>What values or characteristics of the Navy do you believe made an impression on your life?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>The discipline, the organization, and the orientation of doing your—having to plan out everything and having to work your way through it. It was an organizational—a very strict class in organizational responsibilities, and —get ‘er done.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Right. Uh, you know, I would have to say—I would have to go to, you know, uh, something similar. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>And say, I mean, the caliber of people that were there that you worked with, uh, the things that you did. Uh, I mean, it was just a—it was a great experience. Um, I mean, I, you know, would recommend it to other people. to young folks that—if they don’t really, you know, have it figured out—what it is that they want to do, uh—spend four years in the Navy and—or any service—and, uh, see the world a little bit, and, uh, meet people from all walks of life. It’s a big melting pot. You learn a lot.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>You grow up in a hurry.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>How has, uh, Central Florida changed since the time you spent here?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>A lot [<em>laughs</em>]. A lot.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /> </strong>Probably expanded three- or four-fold, population-wise. We—we retired in ‘77.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>You retired in ‘77. Yes.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>So we were transferred here in ’75, I think, from Key West, Florida, and, uh, from the day I retired ‘til today, the place has—has really grown, and the population has…</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Probably [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Doubled—tripled, probably</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Quadrupled, probably.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>I think they can remember when, you know—I can remember my mom and dad talking about when [Florida State Road] 436 was a dirt road.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Okay[?].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>It only went part way down to the airport and then it was a dirt road.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>My grandparents—I don’t know when my grandparents moved here. Was it in the ‘50s or the ‘60s that they retired down here?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I think in the late ‘50s.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>The late 50s. They came down, um, from New York. So as kids, you know, we were coming—wherever we lived—because I grew up here in Florida, Uh, there was only one period of time when he was stationed outside of Florida, from the time I was born. So we’ve lived—I was born in Jacksonville. We’ve lived in Pensacola, Key West, and Central Florida. So we’ve done the gambit. So Florida—I’m a Floridian [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>The squadron I was in was stationed in Sanford, but it deployed on a carrier that was home-ported in San Diego. So it would take three days to airlift the squadron out, and then three days to bring us back. When you got home finally, it was—it was, uh—I can’t think of the word I want to say. You had to move a lot of gear around to get your job done when, uh—when you were aboard ship.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>It was a logistics, uh, exercise.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>What do you think is the lasting legacy of the Naval Training Center and the Navy in general in the Central Florida region?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I really don’t know. I’m sure it has a[sic] historical impact, but other than that, I really don’t know.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>As far as today, the impact of the base, because it—it closed in the ‘80s? ‘90s? I don’t remember when it closed. Uh, But I mean—I think it had, uh, an impact while it was here. Uh, and it—and it had an impact for some time after it closed. Um, certainly, you know, you go there and look at Baldwin Park, you know, there’s no real sign that the Naval Training Center or Recruit Training Command, uh, ever existed. I mean, there’s little, little things, and I think that’s the purpose of the whole, uh, Lone Sailor, uh, Memorial [Project]—is—is to try to bring back something here in the Orlando area to remind folks that, hey, at one point in time, there was this, uh, Naval Training Center here and Recruit Training Command, and bring back some of that heritage.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>One of the things that I remember is: on Friday, up over the weekends, maybe half a dozen companies would get liberty and the seet[sic]—and the streets were just lined with sailors, and it would—it was just amazing, and then all of a sudden, they were gone, you know? And that—that was a visual impact I’m sure for a lot of these civilians around here.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>What do you think former naval personnel would like to see or be reminded of when they visit the site of the base and the Lone Sailor Memorial?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>They would probably like to take their parents or guests around and point out various things that were helpful in their training, and, uh, show the Grinder and so on and so forth, where we marched, and the various [inaudible] buildings where they went to school.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Well[?], they’re not there anymore though [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Well, that’s true.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yeah, I mean, I guess part of the Grinder is still there. They use it as a—there—there’s[sic], uh, park-like areas in part of it. , uh, I mean, the <em>Blue Jacket</em> is gone. It would have been nice if something like that had stayed, but it didn’t. Uh, and it—and I’m sure it had to do with upkeep, as well. Um, you know…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>The <em>Blue Jacket</em> was a model ship, right?</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Okay. It was just—it wasn’t very big. It was about half as big as a destroyer, maybe a little bit smaller, but it, uh—it served as a good training aid. It was a good visual thing for the recruits to see their first ship or something like that [<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Is there anything you would like to share about your naval experience?</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>I would recommend it for everybody. It was a wonderful experience, as far as I’m concerned. You can’t imagine how precise everything is—the way they start flying in the morning and end up in the evening, after dark generally. Sometimes they flying around the clock, but an aircraft carrier is one of the busiest places in the world, but every hour—hour and a half—you’re launching or recovering airplanes. That goes on all day long. Sometimes 24 hours a day, depending on what kind of a mission or training exercise you’re in. There’s always—around the carrier, there’s usually a cruiser and at least [<em>coughs</em>] five or six destroyers, and the destroyers act as plane guards, in case one of the planes goes into the water. They rescue the pilot, if they get there before the helicopter and so on and so forth, but, uh, before the helicopter, they were primarily the—the guy that pulled the man out of the water that was in there, but, uh, I wouldn’t trade it.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>What was the question again? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims <br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>[<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>If there was just anything else you’d like to share about your experience in the Navy.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>[<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Again, like my father said, I would recommend it. Uh, certainly for, you know—it’s just a broadening experience for anybody. Uh, and there’s no better way to have a job, travel, and kind of—you’re taken care of. Uh, So I had an incredible career for, uh, nearly 30 years. I retired in, uh, 2009. I went into the Navy in 1979. So, um, I loved it, um, like[?] my dad.</p> <p><strong>Sims<br /></strong>Well, thank you for talking with me today and for sharing, uh, your experiences with me.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Cothrin<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Pierce<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Naval Air Station Meridian.</p> </div> </div> A School A-4 Afghanistan aircraft carriers airplanes Arctic Ocean aviation maintenance administrators aviation metalsmiths aviation structural mechanics Baldwin Park basic training boot camps Bruce Pierce Buffalo, New York CENTCOM Chief Yeoman cold war Community Veterans History Project Company Commander Correctional and Instructional Standards Division Officer CVHP Douglas A-4 Skyhawk education Enduring Freedom enlistment F-14 facsimile fax Fighter Squadron 124 firefighting Firefighting School fires Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 58 Florida State Road 436 Global War on Terror Gordon Pierce graduations Great Lakes, Illinois Grinder Grumman F-14 Tomcat GWOT instructors Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Jacksonville James Pierce Key West liquid oxygen Lone Sailor Memorial Project LSMP MacDill AFB MacDill Air Force Base Master Chief Petty Officer memorials Memphis, Tennessee Meridian, Mississippi military education military training Miramar, San Diego, California NAS Jacksonville NAS Key West NAS Meridian NAS Miramar NAS Sanford Naval Air Station Jacksonville Naval Air Station Key West Naval Air Station Meridian Naval Air Station Miramar Naval Air Station Sanford Naval Nuclear Power Training Command Naval Station Great Lakes Naval Training Center Orlando NAVSTA Great Lakes Navy Achievement Medal Navy Commendation Medal NS Great Lakes NTC Orlando Nuclear Power School OEF Olongapo, Philippines Operation Enduring Freedom orlando Pensacola Philippines planes Qatar QWIP Technologies recruit training Recruit Training Center Orlando Recruit Training Command recruits Republic of the Philippines Roger Jordan Sims RTC Orlando sailors Sanford Sims, Roger Jordan Skyhawk SR-436 State of Qatar swimming Tampa terrorism terrorists Tomcat Tommy Foreman Trina Cothrin Trina Pierce U.S. Army U.S. Naval Reserve U.S. Navy United States Central Command USCENTCOM USS Blue Jacket USS Coral Sea USS Forrestal USS Franklin D. Roosevelt USS John F. Kennedy USS Wasp VA-72 VC-7 Tallyhoers veterans VF-11 Thunderbolt VF-124 VF-171 Vietnam War VR-58 War in Afghanistan War on Terror https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/2c9347518117b73f1030eccdd6890a07.pdf cc5c38d36f8978c3c3bdcad7b29a94bd 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 Sanford Collection Description The present-day Sanford area was originally inhabited by the Mayaca/Joroco natives by the time Europeans arrived. The tribe was decimated by war and disease by 1760 and was replaced by the Seminole Indians. In 1821, the United States acquired Florida from Spain and Americans began to settled in the state. Camp Monroe was established in the mid-1830s to defend the area against Seminoles during the Seminole Wars. In 1836, the United States Army built a road (present-day Mellonville Avenue) to a location called "Camp Monroe," during the Second Seminole War. Following an attack on February 8, 1837, the camp was renamed "Fort Mellon," in honor of the battle's only American casualty, Captain Charles Mellon. The town of Mellonville was founded nearby in 1842 by Daniel Stewart. When Florida became a state three years later, Mellonville became the county seat for Orange County, which was originally a portion of Mosquito County. Citrus was the first cash crop in the area and the first fruit packing plant was constructed in 1869. In 1870, a lawyer from Connecticut by the name of Henry Shelton Sanford (1832-1891) purchased 12,548 acres of open land west of Mellonville. His vision was to make this new land a major port city, both railway and by water. Sitting on Lake Monroe, and the head of the St. Johns River, the City of Sanford earned the nickname of “The Gate City of South Florida.” Sanford became not only a transportation hub, but a leading citrus industry in Florida, and eventually globally. The Great Fire of 1887 devastated the city, which also suffered from a statewide epidemic of yellow fever the following year. The citrus industry flourished until the Great Freezes of 1894 and 1895, causing planters to begin growing celery in 1896 as an alternative. Celery replaced citrus as the city's cash crop and Sanford was nicknamed "Celery City." In 1913, Sanford became the county seat of Seminole County, once part of Orange County. Agriculture dominated the region until Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971, effectively shifting the Central Florida economy towards tourism and residential development. Alternative Title Sanford Collection Subject Sanford (Fla.) 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> <a href="https://www.thehistorycenter.org/" target="_blank">Orange County Regional History Center</a> <a href="http://sanfordhistory.tripod.com/" target="_blank">Sanford Historical Society, Inc.</a> <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=108" target="_blank">Sanford Museum</a> Is Part Of <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 Sanford, Florida Curator Marra, Katherine Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. <span>Mills, Jerry W., and F. Blair Reeves. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11338196" target="_blank"><em>A Chronology of the Development of the City of Sanford, Florida: With Major Emphasis on Early Growth</em></a></span><span>, 1975.</span> Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/82" target="_blank"><em>Celery Soup: Florida’s Folk Life Play</em> Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/65" target="_blank">Churches of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/131" target="_blank">Creative Sanford, Inc. Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/41" target="_blank">Georgetown Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/78" target="_blank">Marie J. Francis Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/101" target="_blank">Sanford Avenue Collection</a>, Georgetown Collection, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/79" target="_blank">Goldsboro Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/116" target="_blank">Henry L. DeForest Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/12" target="_blank">Hotel Forrest Lake Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/14" target="_blank">Ice Houses of Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/42" target="_blank">Milane Theatre Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/13" target="_blank">Naval Air Station Sanford Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/15" target="_blank">Sanford Baseball Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/61" target="_blank">Sanford Cigar Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/10" target="_blank">Sanford Riverfront Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/11" target="_blank">Sanford State Farmers' Market Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Dombrowski, Diana Interviewee Stinecipher, Grace Marie Location <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 Original Format 1 audio recording Duration 53 minuts and 7 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 1411kbps 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/. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/CRd0e77hW00" target="_blank">Oral History of Grace Marie Stinecipher</a> Title Oral History of Grace Marie Stinecipher Alternative Title Oral History, Stinecipher Subject Sanford (Fla.) Churches--Florida Teachers--Florida Education--Florida Winter Park (Fla.) Orlando (Fla.) Baptist Church--Florida Journalism--Florida New Smyrna Beach (Fla.) Beaches--Florida Description An oral history of Grace Marie Stinecipher (b. 1936), conducted by Diana Dombrowski on July 13, 2010. Stinecipher was born in Sanford, Florida on September 19, 1936. In this interview, she discusses her family history, growing up in Sanford, her career in education, living in Orlando and Winter Park, school integration, the effects of the Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford and Walt Disney World Resort on Sanford, the First Baptist Church of Sanford, her role as a church historian, organizing new churches and missions, her career in journalism, and her childhood experiences at New Smyrna Beach. Abstract Oral history interview of Grace Marie Stinecipher. Interview conducted by Diana Dombrowski 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>, Sanford, Florida. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:21 Family history<br />0:04:28 Growing up in Sanford<br />0:07:15 Girl Scouts and college education<br />0:09:11 Career in education and life in the Orlando-Winter Park area<br />0:12:50 School integration<br />0:16:22 Naval Air Station (NAS) Sanford and Walt Disney World Resort<br />0:19:05 First Baptist Church of Sanford<br />0:26:46 Role as church historian<br />0:31:45 Organizing new churches and missions<br />0:35:31 Important figures in the church<br />0:38:21 Career in journalism<br />0:42:02 Polly Pigtails club<br />0:46:12 New Smyrna Beach<br />0:50:23 Parents<br />0:52:59 Closing remarks Creator Stinecipher, Grace Marie Dombrowski, Diana Source Stinecipher, Grace Marie. Interviewed by Diana Dombrowski. July 13, 2010. <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. Date Created 2010-07-13 Date Copyrighted 2010-07-13 Date Modified 2014-10-08 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/43" target="_blank"><br /></a> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/43" target="_blank">Sanford Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a><a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank"><br /></a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 536 MB 178 KB Medium 53-minute and 7-second audio recording 19-page typed transcript Language eng Type Sound Coverage First Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida Chance Education Building, Sanford, Florida; Orlando, Florida Winter Park, Florida Seminole High School, Sanford, Florida Naval Air Station Sanford, Sanford, Florida Central Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida Pinecrest Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida Westview Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida New Smyrna Beach, Florida Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia Accrual Method Donation Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Grace Marie Stinecipher and Diana Dombrowski. 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. Contributing Project <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20090302051954/http://www.thehistorycenter.org/visit/?art=history" target="_blank">Historical Society of Central Florida</a> 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 Stinecipher, Grace Marie. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10878290" target="_blank"><em>A History of the First Baptist Church, Sanford, Florida, 1884-1984</em></a>. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1984. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Transcript <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>This is an interview with Gracie Marie Stinecipher, the historian of the First Baptist Church in Sanford. And, uh, this interview is being conducted on July 13^th, 2010 at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Diana Dombrowski, representing the museum for the Historical Society of Central Florida. I’d just like to start with a couple basic questions, like, where and when were you born?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I was born in Sanford—Fernald-Laughton Memorial Hospital.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Cool. When were you born, if you don’t mind?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>September 19^th, 1936.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. So you grew up in Sanford?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Where in Sanford did you live? Could you describe it?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I lived at 2404 Park Avenue. And at the time, that was, Park Avenue was [U.S. Route] 17-92. It was the highway.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Did you live close to the railroad station or anything?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I’m sorry. My last interviewer[sic] —she lived off of Park Avenue, as well. And she mentioned her family arriving on the train. So I wasn’t sure how close it was. I’m sorry.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>No. That’s way downtown.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. ’m sorry. Um, how—when did your family come to Florida?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>My mother came here in 1913—I believe, as an eight-year-old—with her family. And my dad came in 1926.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>What did their families do here?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>My mother’s father was a butcher. He had a store down on First Street. Grocery store, butcher shop, whatever. My dad’s family—his dad was a farmer in Tennessee. He was born in Spring City, Tennessee. My mother was born in Butte, Montana.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow. That’s a-ways.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, yes. There’s a story there.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>What brought them to Florida?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I really don’t know. My mother—my grandmother and grandfather—my grandfather was from England. He came over, to the Gold Rush in Canada, Alaska. What was the word? Anyway, and they met in Montana. I have no idea why my grandmother was there. And they married in Montana. My mother was born there. My aunt, Gladys [Stemper], was born in Phoenix, Arizona. My uncle, Jack [Stemper], was born in Homeland, Georgia, and my uncle, Bill [Stemper], was born in Sanford.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski <br /></strong>Wow. That’s a lot of traveling.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Did you grow up around all these relatives?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Not those, no. My grandfather Stemper—my grandmother was Marie Stemper—left the family. I think about 1925. And they didn’t find him until 1960—I believe it was—in Baton Rouge[, Louisiana]. Yeah. That was quite a thing.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Growing up in Sanford, were you always a member of the [First] Baptist Church [of Sanford]?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I was always attending. I joined the church in 1947.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Alright. What did your parents do? You know, was your mother a homemaker?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>My mother was a schoolteacher.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Where did she teach?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>She taught at Sanford Grammar [School], Sanford Junior High [School], and Seminole High School.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Where did you go to school? Did you go to those as well?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. Also, Southside Primary [School].</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I’d like to find out a little more about what it was like to grow up in Sanford. How was it different from then? What changes did you see and witness growing up? Do you have any favorite memories growing up in the town?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>It was a fairly small town back then. About 10-12-15,000. It was a fairly close-knit community. You knew almost everybody. Everybody you went to school with. Or at least, knew of them.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>It was a time when most people attended church. I think it could be, because there wasn’t much else to do. But I think, I mean—you know, the downtown churches were very, very active. The youth groups were really overflowing. And it was really a great time to grow up. So, that—we—some of the memories I think some of us have are somebody always mentions the drugstores, you know. Preston’s Drugstore, where we congregated downtown. And Robert Anderson. And McColonel’s Drugstore was at Twenty-Fifth [Street] and Sanford Avenue, and he had curb service, delicious milkshakes. And a lot of the fellas worked at some of these drugstores. And there was the Pig ‘n Whistle. It had a big drive-in space there. It was at Twenty-Fifth and Park [Avenue]. And then Angel’s Eat Shack was a restaurant. It’s still there—the building—on 25—something—Sanford Avenue. I mean, the people of that era when I grew—there wasn’t much else. But we had a lot of good memories at all those places. And the zoo.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. The zoo downtown. Yeah. I was part of the Girl Scouts. We met down at the old depot. Down where—what’s the bank? SunTrust Bank is—right down in there. Every Friday afternoon, from the time I was 10 years old ‘til I graduated from high school. It was really, really good. We had a lot of good memories there.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>What did you do in the Girl Scouts?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Well, of course, we went through the Girl Scout handbook, learning all the things for the badges and things. And we’d have slumber parties down there. And Miss Henton, who was our leader—I can remember her sitting up in the middle of the depot. This big depot, you know, keeping an eye on us throughout the night. We went camping. I still don’t know where it was that we camped. It was somewhere west of town by the lake, and it was just sort of—the kitchen was very primitive. And the long table, you know, where we ate, and the outhouse—we called “the Commishy.” Because some commissioner had had it built. That was the story. But that was fun. We pitched tents. We only were only there about three nights or something like that. Got to know a lot of the older girls, because they were our leaders, and then we became leaders.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Were you a leader in the troupe?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Well, we all were when we got into, you know—later on in high school. We led the little ones, the younger ones.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski </strong>That’s nice. Did you go to college?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. I went to Maryville College in Tennessee for two years, and then I transferred to Stetson [University], and I graduated in 1958.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Did you graduate with plans to become a teacher?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. I majored in elementary education.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Did you get married?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Where did you begin teaching?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I began teaching at Lake Silver Elementary in Orlando. And I had an apartment over there in Winter Park for three years.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Winter Park is nice. What do you remember from living there?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>From living in Orlando? In Winter Park? Well, it was a much smaller place then. I was able to drive around, you know, and not get lost, or too much lost. I became a member of North Park Baptist Church and thoroughly enjoyed it. Made a lot of good friends, some that I’m still in contact with. Dr. Edgar Cooper was my pastor, and he later became editor of <em>The Florida Baptist Witness</em>, which is the state newspaper. I taught fifth grade.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>What was the education system like? What was it like to teach then as it is maybe compared to teaching later?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>The kids were much more well-behaved.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Really?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher <br /></strong>Yes. There was more parent participation. Yes. I only taught over there three years. And then I could not afford to continue. I was making $360 a month and not being paid in the summer. So I’d come home and borrow money from my dad to get through the summer, and then I’d get him paid back by Christmas. So, I figured that couldn’t last too long. So I moved back home to Sanford in ’61.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I could not find a teaching job in elementary schools in the upper grades in Sanford, so I went down to the personnel director, Stuart Gadshaw, see if he could help me. And he had taught me math in high school. He said, “You’d make a good math teacher!” And he sent me up to Mr. [Andrew Joseph] Bracken, principal of Seminole High, and he hired me. So I had to go back to school and get certified in math.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Did they pay your way through school?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, heavens no.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. How long—when did you begin teaching there?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>The fall of ’61.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>How long did you teach there?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I officially retired in ’92. But I had been on medical leave for a few years before that.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow. So, all that time at Seminole High School. You must have seen a lot of things. High school—wow. I’ve heard that’s a really hard time to teach.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I think junior high’s the worst.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Really?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yeah. I remember even when I was in junior high. No—I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially the first, the ‘60s were really good.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. I had really, really good students then, and I still keep in contact with a lot of them. Go to the reunions, and so on.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>That’s nice.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>You’ve probably heard the story about, you know, when integration came.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I was going to ask. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yeah. First, I think it was about 1967 or 1968, they had something called “Freedom of Choice.” I think that was what it was called. And the black students could attend the white schools. I think they had to apply or something. So we did have a few black students there in the late ‘60s. Then in 1970, they closed Crooms [High School]. And the Crooms students came over to Seminole High School. Seminole High did not want them. Crooms did not want to be there.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. That sounds tense.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>That year, 1970-71, was terrible. We were on double sessions. I was on the teaching in the afternoon session, and in the mornings they would have had fights and all kind of problems, and I’d get to school around 10 or 10:30, and they’d already had to close school several times. So that was a bad year. And the early ‘70s was still pretty hard.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>How were the students who elected to go to school received?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>You mean in the late ‘60s? They were received very well. They were the good students. In fact, one of the boys served as president of his senior class.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow. That’s amazing. How long did it take for, uh, black students to be more accepted in the high school? Do you think they are now? Did they end up building another high school that served that neighborhood?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, no. No, no. They’re all at Seminole still. It’s the only high school in Sanford.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Well, they’ve done something to Crooms [Academy of Institute Technology]—I haven’t kept up. But it’s a school of technology or something like that. Yeah. But that’s just been in recent years. And then they later made the school into a ninth grade center. I guess, right after we merged. Somewhere in there. So the ninth graders went there until—a few years later, all the ninth graders came back to Seminole High. I can’t remember the years.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>How were the rest of the ‘70s like, in terms of tension at the school? Did it end up getting resolved somehow?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Gradually. Gradually. It was hard. It really was. And then there was still one thing that always irked me was, the first couple years was okay. In the homecoming. They’d have a black queen and a white queen.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher    </strong>And that just kept on for years. And I thought, can’t we get together?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow. That’s like two separate worlds in one school.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I know. I know. It was bad. And, well, I think there’s always going to be a little tension. But, uh, it gradually got better.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. How did things like Cape Canaveral affect—you know, the opening of the [John F. Kennedy] Space Center affect—did you see any effects from that in Sanford? Like people coming here for the space industry? Or did you teach anyone related to that?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>No. No. The Navy base was here. So I taught a lot of Navy students in the ‘60s. Of course, the Navy moved from here in ’68. But, yes. A lot of Navy kids. And the school, Seminole High, was right in the pattern of the jets. Because when they’d have their touch-and-go, you know, to practice landing on the carriers, it would come right over Seminole High. They would come, and then there’d be a lull, and you know, just keep on coming. And you’d just have to learn to teach in between the comings and goings.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>How did the town change after the base left, do you think? Did the population drop very dramatically?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, I can’t go in—probably a little bit. Something like that always affects things, but something else always comes along. But Sanford was a very good Navy town. The personnel always seemed to think Sanford was a good place to be and a lot of Navy people retired here.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>I have a couple more questions about general events like that, like the opening of [Walt] Disney [World Resort]? What do you remember from when Disney opened down here?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Was it very significant at all?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Well, I guess it was. It was exciting to go down there the first time or two. But, as you realize, gradually the impact has come up to Sanford, because of the growth. That’s what really brought the growth to Seminole County.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah. What do you think about that? Do you think that’s a positive thing?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, in some ways. But I’d rather it go back to, you know, the old days with the smaller population.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>But you can’t go back.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Through this time, you know, that you were a member of the [First] Baptist Church [of Sanford], was the church very involved in community activities? Did they have local events, or did they throw parties in the town or something? How were they involved in the community?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>How were they involved in the community?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Well, uh, you know, did they take measures to feed or serve the homeless or anything?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>We do now. We do now. Yes. We have a program on Sundays. I think about 1:30, they feed the homeless. I think about 40 or 50 that come. And they have a devotional and so on. I don’t know exactly what the program is, but yes.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Uh, how has the church during your time as a member? Or as a historian? Has it changed at all?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. It’s changed. It used to be a very large church with a lot of young people. When I was growing up we had—probably my high school class—we had about half the class at First Baptist.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Of course, we were just a little over a hundred in the class, but—maybe not quite that many. And the other churches too—they were very active and large Sunday schools had their training unions and MYAF and whatever. Most people went to church back then. Now—and then of course, we had the downtown churches. There were a few scattered out, but mainly the First Baptist, First Methodist [Church of Sanford], First Presbyterian [Church of Sanford], and the Catholics<a title="">[1]</a> were all right downtown and very, very active, all of them. Back up to the ‘60s or early ‘70s.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>But the downtown churches are all losing members. Of course, there are other churches too. But still, it’s sad. It really is.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Why do you think that is?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I don’t know. People seem to have more to do. And, I just—I don’t know. Not interested in church anymore.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Where was the original church—the Baptist church?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>The original church is the same church—the same property. It was a wooden church. Are you familiar with the First Baptist Church downtown?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>No. Okay. It’s on—well our address is 519 Park, but the original church was a small wooden building. The church was organized in 1884, and the wooden building was finished, I think, by the end of that year. It was on the corner of Sixth [Street] and Park. And that’s where our brick church was built later. That wooden church was moved and the brick church was built there—built in two parts. The first section, which included a Sunday school, the front part, was built in 1914. And the second part, the auditorium part, was built in 1920. Then, in 1949-50, the education building next door was built. Let’s see. The new—well, the next educational building, which is now the Chance Education Building, which was named for our former pastor who died while he was a pastor in ’71. It was built in ’66. That’s on the corner of Fifth [Street] and Magnolia [Avenue]. And in all that process, we bought all that property on that block. House by house. And they all had to be moved to build that education building or demolish. Some were moved, some were demolished. And finally, in 1994, we broke ground during our 110^th anniversary—broke ground for our new sanctuary, which we entered in August of 1995. We finally got it paid for a couple of years ago.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>The education building sounds enormous. Taking over the whole…</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Well, not the whole property. But we’ve got four buildings there on the block. And we also have a youth building, which is across the street on Magnolia.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. You talked about how active the church community was. Was the church community—yes? How was it active? What kind of events or activities did the church hold? You know, what was Sunday service like? I don’t know much about it. I don’t know much about the First Baptist Church.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, we had Sunday school. We still do, and worship service on Sunday mornings, and then at night had Baptist Training Union, BTU—Training Union, whatever—for the entire church, you know. We had different unions—learning. In Sunday school, you learn more from the Bible, you know, like that, but in Training Union it was more about other—I remember once, we had to learn about other different religions. We learned Baptist beliefs. Things like that. And the members took part were—were assigned parts. That was a good learning experience for people, especially young people, you know, getting up in front of people and doing. That was good. There was also a lot of socials. I remember having hayrides and things like that. Parties and stuff. You know, it was a good youth group. And the older people had their own things. Somewhere along the line, Training Union went out the window. I don’t understand. Things change.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>But we still have Sunday night church.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>And, uh, other things, you know.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. What is your role as church historian like? What do you do for the church?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Well, in the 100^th anniversary in 1984, we had a big celebration. I was not chairman of the committee. I was on it, but I volunteered to write a history of the church. We had this little bitty book. I said, “We have to get a little better than that.” I wasn’t expecting to do too much. Got in there and found all the records, ending up writing a book. I think about 270 pages.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>It was a wonderful experience, because we have a lot of documents, and minutes, and things of all church business meetings, and oh, just a slew of stuff. And church bulletins, you know, have information in them. So it was really interesting experience. Also, none of the memorabilia of the church had ever been collected. It was scattered all over the church and some people knew where things were, so I went scouring around trying to find all that, and I got all that collected, got a crew together to work on, to organizing it, and we had a huge display of all our memorabilia. I mean, there was a bunch of stuff, all in the fellowship hall for the 100^th anniversary. And then I had the book published, you know.</p> <p>Since then, I’ve continued to collect things from different people. It’s amazing what things pop up still about the history. Collecting it—and have a special room in the memorial education building. That’s the first one that’s on Park Avenue, to collect all that stuff. Then when we built the new building in ’95. They put a special heritage room in there. It was supposed to be larger than what it is, but when the costs came in for building the church, things got squeezed. And that did too. But I have a room there, and cases around the room, which were given to us by one of the local jewelry stores who[sic] was moving or going out of business or something. So I’ve got that. So people can go in there and see the displays. It gets changed occasionally. And I have an excellent storage room. It didn’t get squeezed! It’s still there, so I’ve got a good storage room for all kind of stuff in there. So I continue to collect things, and I’ve chaired the anniversary committees every year since. Now, we had 125^th [anniversary] a year ago, in February. I told them then, that was my last one. I’ll be almost 80 years old. I think it’s time for somebody else. But it’s been fun, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>What kinds of memorabilia?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, goodness. One thing we have—the old pulpit—the original pulpits from the first church, and a couple of chairs. They’ve gotten moved into my heritage storeroom there. But it’s okay, they’ll get room for them. We bring them out. Oh, all kind of paper things. And lots of and lots of pictures. I still take pictures of important events. And, oh, I can’t think of what all there is. We’ve got a lot of important documents, the incorporation papers. Goodness, I’m trying to think of what we do have. Just a lot of interesting things. We’re always finding new things. It’s good.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>It sounds like the Baptist church was the big church force in the community.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>It was the largest, yes. It was.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Okay.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>But as I said, all the downtown churches were very active, just not as large. But there—oh, we sponsored five missions which are now churches.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. Central Baptist [Church], Pinecrest Baptist [Church], Westview [Baptist Church]—it’s changed its name two or three times. Lake Mary—it’s something else now. I don’t think it’s even a Baptist church. Well, that’s another story. Oh, and Victory Baptist [Church]. We formed it as Elder Springs Baptist [Church], but it later withdrew from the Southern Baptists and became independent. But we did organize it. There are three that are still Southern Baptist.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>How did you organize the missions and get these churches started?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>We’d have a commissions committee go into the neighborhoods and start Sunday schools and, you know—at night. I wasn’t, you know, involved in any of it. Gradually, as attendance grew, they’d want to become a church, and so we’d organize it. It took several years. Pinecrest didn’t take very long, because a whole Sunday school class of ours went out there and started it—a men’s class. So that didn’t take very long, just a few months. Bu the others, some of them took several years.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Is there a story behind the Lake Mary? That sounded a little complicated.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Well, we took them back as a mission. They had been a church and they wanted to go back into mission status. We had not started them originally, but they wanted to come back in mission status and asked us to be their sponsor. So several of our members went out there and helped them for several years, and then they became a church. I knew it was in ’83, because that was the last thing I put in my history book. They became a church. Elder Springs and Pinecrest were both organized in ’57. And Central Baptist, which was originally Southside Baptist [Church], was organized in 1938. And Westview [Baptist Church], I think, was somewhere about the early ‘60s. It was originally Oak Lawn [Baptist Church], because it started—I think the first meetings they had was in the funeral home out there, you know the one out there by Rinehart [Road]?</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Mmmhm. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yeah. Because one of our church members was—that was his funeral home.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Uh, it sounds from your book like you exhaustively researched everything.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. People keep asking, “Are you going to add to the book?” “No way.” It’s a lot of work.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Yeah, I bet. Um, did you, uh, let’s see. Were there any big personalities in the church? Or people that you wrote about in your book? Stories that you could tell me about people or families in the church?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>We had a pastor there, Dr. Debbie[?] P. Brooks, who was there for 33 years. He was very influential. Wonderful person. He came, I think, in ’29 and retired in ’62. The—oh, Reverend [George] Hyman, of course. That was way before my time, but he’s the one that was pastor when they built the brick church. And from what I heard, he had a vision as to how it should be built. And the first—the front part was to be the Sunday school, and that was to be to educate the people, and so forth, and bring them close to God. Then that would lead them into the sanctuary, which was the second part. Something like that. And it was built. He was there for the first part, and then he had to go off to war—World War I—as a chaplain. He came back and they built the second part. And then he thought that the church would be more in the community with programs and so on for the community, and he called it the “Baptist Temple.” They didn’t ever change the name. Incorporation papers for the First Baptist Church, on the front of the church it says, ‘Old Baptist Temple,’ and some of our pictures have that on there. And he was having various speakers and things come in, in addition to the regular church. Soon as they left, they had a meeting, and everything came down. There was more to it than that, you can see it in the book, because it was mainly his deal.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Yeah. Those were about all the general questions that I have. Is there anything that you’d like to talk about that we haven’t yet? Any, you know, special memories that you have that you’d like to share or keep in audio?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I could tell you about a club we had.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Cool.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>You know, I wrote for <em>The Sanford Herald</em>.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski </strong>Oh, I didn’t know that.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Yes. Well, in high school I wrote The Celery Crate. That was our youth group, the teen group. We met second floor of old City Hall. We had pool tables, ping pong, all kind of board games, and card games, and things like that. The space had originally been an auditorium, so there was a stage up there. Occasionally, we’d have various programs. The Celery Crate committee would plan the parties. We’d have about three or four parties a year—square dances and things like that—but we were open every Saturday night during school, just to go up and have fun. The PTA [Parent-Teacher Association] sponsored it. My mother was one of the sponsors. My mother and dad were always chaperones. So that was a lot of fun. But then I wrote that column. That was a freebie. Then there was <em>The Herald</em> also had a Seminole High column. A student would write that. And so I said, “Well, since I’m writing this…” I applied for that, and did that for my senior year. Got paid ten cents an inch.</p> <p>When I was in college, for one year, I wrote—what was it called? Oh goodness, can’t believe what it was called right now. But anyway, I wrote it one year at Stetson about Seminole High students off at college. I talked to a lot of parents, because I came home quite a bit. In 1994, I started writing “The Way We Were” column. I wrote that until July of [20]07, when the owner of the paper fired me—fired my column. And also, he also took away the Sanford column—you know, social news. And then when we got the new publisher, and I was writing extra things, like the class reunions, high school class reunions, Historical Society [of Central Florida] news, anniversaries. I wrote a couple of weddings. But the new publisher said he’s not printing any of that and he didn’t need me anymore. And that was just about a year and a half ago.</p> <p>Let’s go back to the club.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher <br /></strong>We were in fifth grade. And this girl, Joanie Saunders—moved here from I think Bradenton—and was in Miss McNab’s room where us girls were who had grown up in Sanford. There was a magazine at the time, called <em>Polly Pigtails</em>, and they encouraged people to form Polly Pigtail clubs. So Joanie came in, and I guess probably because she was new, and wanted new friends—I don’t know—she got us together and we formed a Polly Pigtail club. All the girls that were in there were in Ms. McNab’s room. All of us. Several of us had grown up together and been good friends. Then, through the years—sixth grade we added some people, went to junior high, we added some more, some people dropped out for various reasons, and we’d add some more. And we’d meet every other Tuesday afternoons at member’s homes. We had parties. We had dues of ten cents a week. We made candy sales. We’d make about eight or ten dollars at a time.</p> <p>When we got in the eighth grade, we decided we wanted to go to the beach for a week. So we had to have more candy sales! And we did. We started—we rented this house over in New Smyrna [Beach], Sandy Shack, and went over for a week in August. Our parents were chaperones. We went to the beach every summer for a week through our senior year.</p> <p>Our senior year, after we graduated, we went to Daytona [Beach] and had this house right smack dab on the beach. It had been a restaurant, and it had three bathrooms, which was great, because the other one only had one. And we’d had this all the way through school, ‘til we graduated high school. So we were all very close. We started out with friends that were friends anyway, and we added some of the others. Two of the girls got married, and of course, we couldn’t let them—our mothers wouldn’t let them stay in the club. So it was a lot of really, really, really good. A lot of us still keep in contact. We’ve lost a couple to deaths and most of us are still around. Still good friends.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>That’s wonderful.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>It really was.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>It sounds like the community was really close.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I just wrote it again, or re-wrote it, for the Seminole High magazine that comes out every year. Well, they were having some articles in there about the beach, because New Smyrna—we always went to New Smyrna all the time, stayed over there on weekends and daytrips. A lot of people were writing memories about New Smyrna, about the beach, so I asked if I could write about our beach parties over there, so I did. Because we had some experiences. It was fun.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Do you want to tell us what kind of experiences happened over there? What did you guys do? You went to the beach? Was there much around New Smyrna to go and do too?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /> </strong>No. Just the beach. Well, the Sandy Shack was—oh, right in the—it was in the zone where the lifeguards weren’t. But our chaperones would make us go up further on the beach where we could go. Well, of course, we’d go camp right by the lifeguard tower. Think we were hot stuff. The first year we were there, we were just out of the eighth grade, we went to the lifeguard dance. Thirteen-fourteen-year-old girls sat over in a corner. And of course, the lifeguards were much older than we were. They were high school and college kids, mostly college, I think. And I remember sitting there—canasta was a big deal back then. I remember Tricia saying, “We should have brought our canasta cards.” Because everyone’s out there dancing, and here we were. Then the head of the lifeguards, Joe Canard, came up and asked Jeanette to dance. She didn’t know how to dance! She was out there doing the best she could, so she was our heroine of the night.</p> <p>We did have a couple of Sanford boys that were there that came and rescued us, and once we had, a couple years later we met some of the New Smyrna boys. They were more our age. And we had a bonfire on the beach with hotdogs—I guess, I don’t remember—and invited the boys that we knew. And some of the fellows that usually stayed at the beach with their families. They were over there. We asked them to come. There are all these people showed up at our bonfire. All these cars, all these people. Our chaperones got kind of upset. Finally, after a while, they came and shooed the others away, because we got a little scared too.</p> <p>Yeah. We met the local fellas from over there, and we dated some of them. When there were football games, or any kind of sport, we always played New Smyrna and whatever. So we’d always go to the games, and they’d come over, and we’d see the New Smyrna boys. That was a big deal. And so forth. That was fun. One time, a couple boys from Sanford came over, and said, “Let’s go to the drugstore.” And so the whole bunch of us—I think there were six or eight of us—the whole bunch of us jumped in the backseat and went down to the drugstore. And after that, one of the fellas said, “Where do you want to go?” “Let’s go to Daytona.” We took off to Daytona and went to the boardwalk. Of course, didn’t tell our chaperones, we just went. Didn’t get home until, oh, late. So they were furious. We had to wash the dishes, I think, for the rest of the week or something like that.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>But it was worth it?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. It was fun. We had fun.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Well, those are all of my questions. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>You, Sanford history, teaching? Anything.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>I don’t know, but we could talk about my parents.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Okay. Okay.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>They met at Piedmont College, in [Demorest,] Georgia. My mother went up—she was a Congregationalist, and that was a Congregational school. And my dad was from Tennessee and his sisters—one of his sisters was teaching there. He was the youngest—next-to-youngest—of a family of ten. So he and his brother decided to go down to Piedmont College. And they met there. And Mother just stayed for two years. You could teach after two years then.</p> <p>Then Dad graduated in [19]25. He sang in a quartet—a male quartet—that traveled with, uh, advertising the college all up into the eastern states. That was something for him—all of them—especially for my dad and his brother, because they had never been anywhere. I’ve got his diaries at home telling about their experiences, staying at home, staying in hotels, and YMCAs [Young Men’s Christian Association], and all this. And singing, mostly in churches. And all like that. And they traveled for one year after he graduated. He graduated ’25. They traveled for one year. And they had been traveling in the summers or before that. And so, in the fall of ’26, he came to Sanford and got a job at Chase &amp; Company. Stayed there for 40 years, became head of the Building Material Department. And he and Mother got married on July 6, 1927.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Did you have any brothers and sisters?</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>No. I was an only child. They waited nine years before I was born.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Oh, wow. Okay. Those are my questions. Thank you!</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Dombrowski<br /></strong>Thank you for your time.</p> <p><strong>Stinecipher<br /></strong>Oh, you’re welcome.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> All Souls Catholic Church.</p> </div> </div> Andrew Joseph Bracken Angels' Eat Shack Baptist Church Baptist Training Union Baptists beach beaches Bill Stemper BTU Central Baptist Church Chance Chance Education Building church churches Crooms Academy of Information Technology Crooms High School Debbie P. Brooks Demorest, Georgia desegregation Diana Dombrowski Downton Sanford Edgar Cooper education educators Elder Springs Baptist Church Fernald-Laughton Memorial Hospital First Baptist Church of Sanford Freedom of Choice George Hyman Girl Scouts Gladys Stemper Grace Marie Stinecipher Henton historians Historical Society of Central Florida integration Jack Stemper Joe Canard journalists Lake Silver Elementary School Marie Stemper McColonel's Drugstore missions Museum of Seminole County History NAS Sanford Naval Air Station Sanford New Smyrna Beach North Park Baptist Church Oak Lawn Baptist Church Old Baptist Temple orlando Piedmont College Pig 'n Whistle Pinecrest Baptist Church Polly Pigtails Preston's Drugstore Robert Anderson Sandy Shack Sanford Seminole High School Southern Baptists Southside Baptist Church Stuart Gadshaw Sunday schools teachers The Celery Crate The Florida Baptist Witness The Sanford Herald The Way We Were U.S. Navy Victory Baptist Church Walt Disney World Resort Westview Baptist Church Winter Park https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/52d3998bba052192bd63287609940896.mp3 db107669f5a4d3be43a6ea2bf3a6718a 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 Gwendalyn Greene Alternative Title Oral History, Greene https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/fac38774dbfc97499b915c3517fa38c1.pdf 21b102ec50535c8d68155feeb2422bb8 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 Geneva Collection Subject Museums--Florida Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of Geneva, Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. Geneva is a community in Seminole County. The area was originally inhabited by the Timucuan tribe as early as 2000 B.C.E. Between 1765 and 1766, John and William Bartram explored the St. John's River including the area that would become Geneva, which was inhabited at the time by the Seminole tribe formed in the 1760s. New settlers arrived and settled in Harney Cove during the 1843-1845 period. Harney Cove was renamed Geneva in 1880. Contributor <a href="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/fl/county/seminole/Geneva/" target="_blank">Geneva Historical &amp; Genealogical Society</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Geneva, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/fl/county/seminole/Geneva/" target="_blank">Geneva Historical &amp; Genealogical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/fl/county/seminole/Geneva/" target="_blank">Geneva Historical &amp; Genealogical Society</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.usgennet.org/usa/fl/county/seminole/Geneva/geneva_history.htm" target="_blank">Geneva History</a>." Geneva Historical &amp; Genealogical Society, Inc. http://www.usgennet.org/usa/fl/county/seminole/Geneva/geneva_history.htm. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/52" target="_blank">Apopka Historical Society and Museum of the Apopkans Collection</a>, Apopka Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/46" target="_blank">Orange County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Motta, Daniel Interviewee Haldeman, Harold Location <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><span>, Sanford, Florida</span> 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 Harold Haldeman Alternative Title Oral History, Haldeman Subject Sawmills--United States Maitland (Fla.) Lumber industry Cypress Great Depression, 1929-1939 Description An oral history of Harold Haldeman, conducted by Daniel Motta on July 11, 2012. Haldeman was born on November 12, 1924, in Tampa, Florida, but spent much of his life in Osceola. In the interview, Haldeman discusses his childhood, migration to Osceola, the differences between Maitland and Osceola, the sawmill in Osceola, the lumber industry, race relations in Central Florida, the effect of the Great Depression and World War II on industry, the Geneva airfield, and education in Geneva during the Depression. Abstract Oral history interview of Harold Haldeman. Interview conducted by Daniel Motta 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>, Sanford, Florida. Type Text Source Original oral history: Haldeman, Harold. Interviewed by Daniel Motta. July 11, 2012. <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 <a href="http://www.adobe.com/reader.html" 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/54" target="_blank">Geneva Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage Tampa, Florida Maitland, Florida Osceola, Florida University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida Seminole County Landfill, Geneva, Florida Creator Motta, Daniel Haldeman, Harold Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2012-07-11 Date Copyrighted 2012-07-11 Format application/pdf Extent 168 KB Medium 21-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Daniel Motta and Harold Haldeman and transcribed by Savannah Vickers. 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://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Transcript <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>This is Daniel Motta. I’m here at the Museum of Seminole County History. It is July 11^th, 2012. I’m talking with Mr. [Harold] Haldeman. Mr. Haldeman, if you could peek in—could you just tell me where and when you were born?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>I was born in Tampa, Florida, November 12, 1924.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>All right. And what brought you to Central Florida?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, we initially, when I was about six months old, we moved to Maitland, Florida, where I was baptized in the First Presbyterian Church of Maitland. And we were there until 1928, when my father got a job at the Osceola Cypress Company, which was in Osceola, Florida—not to be confused with Osceola County, you know, where Kissimmee is. Okay?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>So we switched to Seminole County.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So you were brought to Osceola because of your father, you said?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>That’s right. And I was about four years old at the time.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So some of your earlier memories were from the sawmill? </span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Yes. In other words, generally speaking, you start remembering things when you’re three and a half or four years old, so I have very good memories of, you know, of the actual move. You know, the physical move, and a little bit about some of the people at the time. But most of it would come, like with most people, five or six years old on up.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Okay.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>I wasn’t, naturally, [<em>laughs</em>] I wasn’t out running around much when I was four years old, naturally.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah. Well, could you describe a little bit about when you actually arrived in Osceola—the memories as being a child? Could you describe just, like, the day-to-day life of the town?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, of course. I think the first impression was it was different than Maitland, ‘cause in the case of Maitland, even though the house was literally right on [U.S. Route] 17-92—you know, going through the area—there were just houses around without any other infrastructure. Whereas in this case, as you came into town, you’d see some houses on the left-hand side, and the school, and then the boarding house and the post office. And then on the right-hand side, there might be a train of logs there, you know, fifteen cars long, you know, with a train engine, and then in the distance, a sawmill literally at the end of the street. So the infrastructure was naturally quite different than what I was used to.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So Osceola actually seemed like more of a bustling town than Maitland, at the time?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Yes, mainly because you were seeing the whole town kind of at one swoop.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah, kind of condensed.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Whereas the case in Maitland, they had to either go into Winter Park, or inside[?] Maitland itself—as you probably know today [<em>laughs</em>] —still doesn’t have much in the way of business. It’s mostly Winter Park and Orlando.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Could you describe the house you moved into, and like the street and neighborhood, a little?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, the first five houses as you came in, on the left-hand side—and you always could remember that you were into the little town, because there was a cattle guard, because the area was fenced off. So from an early age, I remember going across the cattle guard, ‘cause if you were asleep, as a little kid, you’d wake up going over the cattle guard, and you knew you were home. So the first five houses on the left-hand side, which kind of called it executive[?] row. That might be a misterm today. But the first house had the bookkeeper. The second house the general superintendent. The third house the person in charge of the mill—not the president, but the operational manager. And my father was the sales manager. He was the fourth house. The company doctor was in the fifth house. So the house itself was—for a company house—was a pretty nice, you know, relatively, to speak of, of course today, a pretty nice house. And of course they [inaudible] electricity during the [Great] Depression. They didn’t—but, so the facilities were pretty good. The water, of course, the water was free, but it came strictly out of the St. Johns River, so [<em>laughs</em>], you naturally didn’t drink it, but it was okay to take a bath in. So those were the things that I probably would have noticed that—because in Maitland, you know, you have the normal city water and all that sort of thing. But so the house was larger than the one in Maitland, so that was probably noticeable, you know, from a kid’s standpoint. </span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So where did the water that you drank and cooked with—where did that come from?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>The water we drank—that was—unfortunately for the area, if you put down a well, you got quite a bit of salt in the waters. So, had they known—had the company known they were gonna be there that long—they would have even gone deeper to get water, or they would have piped it from Geneva, which was five miles away, but they had good water there. So we used bottled water in some cases. We also supplemented it every time we went into Sanford. We’d always have a couple of five-gallon jugs. In those days, the space between the back seat and the front seat was big enough for five-gallon jugs. And we’d fill it in a filling station, so that was part of it. Now, some of the people, particularly coming from the black quarters, would walk down to the depot on [inaudible] railroad, and there was a pump down there—that the water was drinkable. It had a little strange taste. I mean, it wasn’t, you know, natural spring water, but it was suitable, you know, for that type of thing. But you just had to get used to the taste of it.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Well, you mentioned these utilities there. How self-sufficient, like in itself, was Osceola? Did you have to take frequent trips to Orlando or Sanford or anywhere else, to get things?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, the company, they had a company town and they had their company store, which I worked in at a later date, which we’ll cover later. But it was 18 miles into Sanford on the nine-foot road. And so, we generally went into Sanford on Saturdays. That was kind of the custom in those days, particularly people from out of town. And then we got relatively few items from the company store, because [inaudible] was small and didn’t have a lot of buying power. Even though they were pretty honest, the prices were higher there than they would have been at a bigger store in Sanford. And, now, when you get into special holidays or Christmas, we were more apt to go to Orlando, where there was more retail establishments, [inaudible] otherwise. But that was generally the way we got things. Of course, [inaudible], with a catalog, that’s where almost everybody that lived in the countryside got their clothes and a lot of things, ‘cause that was generally cheaper than buying it in most any town.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>You mentioned that your father was the sales manager. What were his duties? Like how were they different from the other managers’?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, he was sales manager, but he also handled all the administrative things. Like he was in charge of buying the insurance and making sure they had insurance coverage. He bought all the supplies for the mill, and things of that nature that you might call operational manager duties, from that standpoint, because there was relatively few key people, as you can see, you know, from the houses that I mentioned, ‘cause the rest of them were either in the supervisory level or below that.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Did…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Actually, in the sales manager part, he didn’t necessarily handle the salespeople in sales. It would be more like a marketing manager, because they sold through their own representative in Florida to the retail lumber industry, and they sold through wholesale lumber companies in the Midwest and the Northeast. And of course, there wasn’t any reason to go over towards Louisiana or other places in the South, because they already had cypress mills, you know, closer to them. So it was kind of a duke’s mixture of a lot of duties, really.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta <br /></span></strong><span>Okay. And there were two higher level managers, your father and the other. What did you say…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Only one, actually, above him, what would be the president of the company. So you had a very, you know, limited chain of command.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So the foreman was just—he had…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>The foreman would actually be under either the sawmill foreman or the planing mill foreman, or something of that nature. And they generally were lumber inspectors or someone that handled the crew. Or, in the case of the sawmill or the planing mill, you had an engineer around the steam engines, where you used the power plant and that sort of thing.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Were there any—as you were a child, when you had first got there, do you remember any of the children having any roles in the sawmill business itself, like in any just odd jobs they would do here and there, or like chores they were expected to do by their parents? Was there anything…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>You mean for the mill itself, or for outside of the mill?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Really anything, but were they involved in—really anything.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>No, but really not, because there weren’t that many opportunities. There was—it’s not like, you know, going down and working for McDonald’s or something. They would have—including myself—would have loved to have had some opportunities, but there wasn’t even a paper route, you know, to have. So that was very limited, so they generally did things for their folks and, you know, mowed the lawn and all that sort of thing. And in some cases, like in our yard—the yards were fairly large. The yard was a hundred by three hundred, which would be the size of a football field. So you had a lot of grass to cut, and then in the back part you had chickens and a little garden and so forth. So kids in general, like in the country or particularly farm area, have got plenty to do without working at McDonald’s, if you know what I mean.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>You just mentioned chickens. Was there much livestock there, that the families took care of, or was it a…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, it depends. It depends on the family. The general superintendent at the time, particularly prior to—well, most of the time—he had a cow, you know, that produced milk for the family. And I don’t remember a garden in this case, but we had a garden in the back. It grew, you know, naturally not all of our needs, but certainly it, you know, helped. And that type of thing. And [inaudible] chickens—I raised chickens not only for the family, but I sold them to the workers and so forth around the mill. I generally had about 75 hens, you know, for laying eggs, and then I had about 300 fryers. Fryers, rather than [inaudible] beyond that. In other words, fryer is good to sell when they’re about six to eight weeks old. And you get about 25 cents a pound live weight. Remarkably, eggs and chickens were—adjusted for the dollar—were a lot more expensive back then than they are today.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So you were doing this business with your chickens when you were still a child?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah. Yeah, from the time I was about ten years old ‘til about 15 years old. </span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Okay.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>So, really, ‘til the time we moved away.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Did you also say that you had a job in the store—the company store—eventually?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah, when I got out of high school—Seminole High School—in 1941. I was barely 16 when I got out of high school. So, I didn’t have money to go to college, so I worked in the company store from, you know, May or early June of ’41 until September of ’42, when I went to the University of Florida one year before I went into the Navy. So that would have been 15 months, and I saved enough money to go to Florida. ‘Cause my year at Florida—at University of Florida—in ’42, ’43, my total expenses, including bus fare to Gainesville, was $490. So it was much cheaper to go [<em>laughs</em>] to college back then, because the tuition—if you want to call it tuition—they were on a semester system at the time. So the two semesters, and each one was $64 a semester, which would be $128 for the whole year, and that included your yearbook, your football tickets, and concerts, and, you know, soup to nuts. So, I wouldn’t exactly call that tuition [<em>laughs</em>]. So the cost, most of the cost of going to school was room and board.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Compared to today, it’s quite a contrast.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah. Yes. So you said you went to college in 1942 and ’43?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah. I went ’42 to ’43. Just the one year. And I was supposed to be called to go into the service. I had signed up for a certain thing, but you had to wait ‘til you were called, but for some reason each county is a little different. You could be in one county and be called much earlier than other counties, or much later than other counties, see. And Seminole County just happened to be one that seemed to have not a surplus, but an adequate number. So you might not be called for a while. So actually, when I got out of college that year, I worked at—I went back to work for the company. I worked in the office in the afternoon, and then I ran the light plant. They had their own light plant, and I ran the light plant at night, ‘til 11 o’clock. We didn’t have lights after 11 o’clock. So then I went in the Navy, about the same time that my folks moved down to Port Everglades, or Fort Lauderdale. </span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta <br /></span></strong><span>And that was about—that was the time they moved down there because of the sawmill operation closedown?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Oh, yeah. It was the closing down thing. My father was there the longest of anybody, because they liquidated the [inaudible] of the company. Actually, the company that continued was a different ownership, but some of the same people. Not all the same people, but some of them. And it became a wholesale lumber distribution of the West Coast lumber, rather than cypress. And, so, they took over the liquidation of the town, which most of it—where they just didn’t—where it’s nothing, you know. A steel rail that would have been junk, you know, scratch steel and so forth. But as the war progressed—World War II—those items that were junk. They started having value. So that was one thing that got them shortage. So my father was in charge of getting rid of the things. So the houses that normally would have just kind of deteriorated were actually moved to Sanford and other places, as full houses. And the things were too big, people would come out and tear them down piece by piece, take them back to other places in Seminole County and build another house, ‘cause you couldn’t get lumber any other way, because the government took all the production, you know, that was available. So you had to use something that was already there in order to build anything. And so some of the trains were—they generally were sold for scrap, but the steel rail was suitable to use in the mines and other places, either in the U.S. or South America. So they brought a lot more money than they would have as scrap—scrap metal. The rails—they were used in the logging woods, and so they were quite a few miles of rail, and they just had it stacked up, you know, ready to be sold as scrap or something. But most of that was sold as rail. Now, it’s what you call “light rail.” You couldn’t use it on the main railroad. So there might be—a regular railroad has at least 100- to 150-pound rail, which is three feet is 150 pounds, where this might be a 60-pound rail or something like that. So it was limited use, but still had a lot of value, when you couldn’t use it any other way.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So, why exactly did the sawmill operation move to South Florida?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, the mill didn’t move. They just formed a different type of company. In other words, they no longer sold out of Florida, because they wouldn’t have had enough market, because there’s other people doing the same thing, [inaudible]. In other words, cypress was replaced with lumber from Oregon and Washington and British Columbia and places like that. And what you were shooting for wasn’t [inaudible] in the East very much, because they didn’t—perhaps in the Northwest—not the Northwest—but the Midwest, might have used some. But generally the freight part was too great to compete with things in the Eastern part of the U.S. So the complexion changed considerably, from manufacturing completely to wholesale distribution. In other words, buying lumber on the West Coast of the country. And it either came by ship or by rail over to the Southeast, and then it was distributed all over Florida by truck. So you can see it’s a different type.</span></p> <p class="Body"><span>See, the timber ran out. The last timber they had—well, the first timber when we moved in there—it came from an area between Osteen and New Smyrna, a little town called Maytown, which I guess is still there. And Maytown was kind of a distribution point on the [inaudible] Railroad that went down to Okeechobee. And now—prior to that, it came from the section from Holopaw down to Okeechobee, in the Kissimmee Valley and places like that. But then the latter part of the time, they logged back of Holly Hill and Ormond Beach and that area, which is Tomoka River section and so forth. But that ran out in 1938, so the sawmill shut down for good in ’38, but they still ran the planing mill, and they brought in lumber from the [inaudible] mill. They had a little mill up in Otter Creek, which is west of Gainesville. And then they had their own little [inaudible] mill near Kissimmee. Actually, I guess it would be where [Walt] Disney [World] is now. There used to be some cypress in that area. And, so, but that was a limited amount, and they did that up until about 1943. And then they closed down the planing mill and everything by that time. So, ‘cause even after 1938, they had 25 million [inaudible] of cypress. It was on the drying yard, ‘cause cypress has to be air-dried, compared to chill-dried. So it takes a long time. It takes a year to the inch. If you got a one-inch board, then technically[?] it takes a year to dry it. If it’s two inches, it takes two years. So if you get into bigger stuff, like a tank, it’s four inches, so it can take four years, you know, to dry it. So you got a lot of stock there that takes a number of years to heat it up. In fact, the only thing that speeded it up was—in World War II—was to get into blossom, and the defense part started picking up after 1940. So, that had an effect to pick up the business, and they were able to move it out at a faster rate. That’s the reason that otherwise it might have—the planing mill—might have run for another couple years, had it not been for World War II.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Now, I know the company was called the Osceola Cypress Company, but did you deal with any other kinds of woods, or was it just cypress exclusively? Or did you…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>It was just cypress, cypress exclusively, ‘cause it’s pretty hard, in the first place, with yellow pine, which is all over the state, particularly the northern part of the state, at the time, it can be a fairly large mill, or it can be a small mill. And actually, today, a pine mill, you’ve seen the trucks running around with the logs on them. They look like telephone poles, you know, whereas cypress was a much bigger log. It took them a much bigger mill, much like California redwood requires.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, so in cypress—the difference is you cut for quality, not for quantity. Now, most mills cut for quantity, and not for quality, because the logger doesn’t want a sawyer looking at it ten different times and treating it all kinds of ways to get it the best cut. They just shoot it through and it’s done with a computer. They do it in such a manner, they get the most [inaudible] rather than the most quality, because the quality’s gonna be pretty general anyhow, pretty much on the low end of the spectrum. </span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So did most sawmills in the Florida area—did they deal with cypress, or was it like a mixed bag?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>No, no, most of them were yellow pine, but the reason there weren’t many cypress was because firstly, there wasn’t that much cypress, but also, you had to have a big mill. Everything about it is big. Then the logging part is very expensive, ‘cause you’re going down in swamps. You build a railroad every mile, and then you have big skinners pulling the log as much as a half-mile in each direction. So that takes a lot of equipment. But on the other hand, the lumber that comes out of it brings a much bigger price. Otherwise, you couldn’t afford anything, ‘cause cypress is not a commercial tree. You can grow a good—pretty good—yellow pine for lumber in 30 years, particularly in Mississippi, where they get a lot of rain. Whereas I don’t think you can even classify cypress, ‘cause usually most of those logs were six or eight hundred years old. Most, to begin with. So 60 years—you get a fencepost, you know. Also, cypress—when you look at cypress around Florida, most of that is what they call “pond cypress,” and it never gets very big. It’s really used for a fencepost and that sort of thing. And for log cabins or something. And it has a lot of sap in it. It has very little heart, so it’ll rot away pretty fast, whereas the bigger logs were heavier heart. Only the last outer inch was sap. So, there’s a big, big difference between the two. Cypress in general was the epitome of the finest in what you call softwoods. Now, and there weren’t too many hardwoods to cut in Florida. They might cut some. I’m sure they would cut some gum and a few things like that, but they did it mainly for their own use, for doing trams[?] going out through the drying yards and that sort of thing. They never did sell it or anything. So 99 percent of the cut was cypress.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>In the pictures you sent us, I noticed that most everything in the town is made out of wood. Was the building material cypress for the homes, or was that…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah. Yeah. And the original mill—I’m not sure what the tree was, but the first mill burned down at some point, and evidently the ownership—the deal was different or more money was poured in—I’m not sure what—but the things that were built after about 1921 seemed to be built much better than the ones prior to that time. And you can tell this by—if you look at the one—the company store, that was a sufficient building, but it was a fairly crude building. And some of the early houses weren’t that great. But then, after that, they were built in a much better way. For example, the boarding house, which was the only two-story building you’ll see in the pictures there, the vertical beams on that—when they tore it down, nobody could believe that they were so far apart [<em>laughs</em>]. In other words, that in fact—the guys that tore it down—they finally had to push it over, ‘cause they were scared to go up on top and take the roofing off, because it’s amazing it stays under that long.</span></p> <p class="Body"><span>But of course, when you build something for a temporary basis, you never expect it could be there that long. In fact, one interesting thing between the white people that came out and tore things down—and that had to be white people in this case—they didn’t do nearly as good as the blacks did. The blacks would come out with 15 or 20 of their cousins, you know, and they would do it piece by piece, and they could retrieve much more of the house than the white people that did it, because they weren’t quite in as much a rush, and they had the personnel to be more meticulous on tearing it down. And of course, two stories, in all fairness, was a little different ‘cause of the mere fact it was two stories. And the white group that did that did a very stupid thing. They took all the siding off the bottom before they started taking the roof off. Well, once you take the siding off, you’ve lost all the strength of the building. Then nobody would go up on the top to take the roofing part off. And by “roofing,” I don’t mean the shingles. I’m talking about the boards, ‘cause the roof is—what you put over the roof—the roof is the boards themselves. But at any rate, that’s kind of an interesting sidelight of the differences in the people, you know.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>I read that many of the workers at the sawmill were black. Was Osceola pretty much as segregated as any other town in the South at that time, or…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Oh, yeah. The only thing that was probably more democratic, we had two or three black people. In fact, one that—he was kind of a mentor to me, ‘cause I was kind of a little kid following him around. And he—I was always amazed at what he could do with his education and so forth. I will always wonder where he got it from, you know. His wife was a midwife across the river from Sanford, in Enterprise, and she used to bring him out every Monday morning and then pick him up Friday night. And, but he kept up the electrical system, which was the city lights, a 2500-volt system—[inaudible] lighting system—and the light—the engine itself and the generator was in the sawmill and earlier in the planing mill. And they would run only at certain times, because there was no need to run them 24 hours a day.</span></p> <p class="Body"><span>And then there was another black fellow, I think they worked down in the shop, because they built the lumber cars. They kept up the steam engines and all that sort of thing. It was all in-house help. And so, there really—religion or race didn’t seem to have too much to do with it. But now, by nature of the beast, some of the blacks didn’t have opportunity at an earlier age, and that’s understandable. But they had several that had fairly good jobs.</span></p> <p class="Body"><span>And, as far as religion—you didn’t know who was Jewish and who wasn’t Jewish, you know. Not many paid much attention. So that was pretty much, you know—I’d say a full democratic system, except for the housing. Housing was separate, and that was the one part that probably could have been better, but of course, the turnover was a little greater than in the [inaudible]. But most of the blacks were in there, if they were fairly long-term, they would tend to fix things up, and of course the company would furnish lumber for them and so forth. And so a lot of things were done in that way, even in the case of my folks’ house. My father did a lot to it to improve it, and of course the company furnished the lumber part, so there wasn’t a great expense to, you know, to make improvements. Like I built all the chicken houses and all that sort of thing, and there was no shortage of lumber, particularly in the depths of the Depression [<em>laughs</em>].</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Since you mentioned the Depression, was there any kind of significant impact on the town at the time? Like in the ‘30s?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Oh, yeah, because the sawmill—the sawmill shut down in 1932 and didn’t start back up until 1936. 1936 was the first start to pull out of the Depression. Unfortunately, by 1937, it was kind of [<em>laughs</em>], like some of our [inaudible] right now, things kind of went backwards for a while in ’37. So it wasn’t until ’39 or ’40 that it started picking back up again. So, but they managed to get through 1937 okay, because some parts of the country were still doing all right. But Florida—Florida really didn’t pick up until, well, really the first part of World War II. The first preparations were done early starting in 1940, but particularly in ’41, when [Franklin D.] Roosevelt figured we were gonna see this thing, you know, whether we like it or not. So, whereas some parts of the country held up better— ‘cause, as I said, they sold through the wholesalers in the Northeast and the Midwest. But it was affected ‘cause naturally all the sawmill workers, I don’t know where they went [?]. Of course, some of them were from Georgia. They went back to their folks’ farm or whatever, you know. Fortunately, in the Depression, so many people went back to the farms, where their parents were or relatives were, and today we don’t have those farms to go back to. It was a little different. But, and then of course, the logging camp naturally shut down, because there was nobody to, you know, get the logs. So there was[sic] four years—and that was probably the worst—also the worst part of Seminole County or anywhere near there, as far as the Depression was concerned, because the banks closed. The [inaudible] Bank closed there for a while, and not too many banks survived it—the Depression— ‘cause you didn’t have the FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] guarantee any deposits or anything. So, so that was a rough period. So I’m sure Sanford, you know, was affected by it just as much as any other part. I think the only—I must say that Orlando, and perhaps Lakeland, and Miami Beach, probably did the best during the Depression. Orlando seemed to go along. They weren’t booming, but they kept building a few houses during the Depression.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>When people started leaving the town, to your knowledge—do you know if anybody stayed or stuck around, or didn’t pretty much…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, some of the blacks stayed in Sanford. I know the black that kept the boiler room going, and that was probably one of the more important jobs, ‘cause he was the night boiler man, and so they had to keep it up, keep the steam up—you had to keep the steam up not only to be ready the next day, but also in case of fire. You had to have steam for the steam pumps, for water and so forth. And so you kept it up just enough to keep steam, but not enough, you know, to waste the fuel with excess steam that would blow off if it got to be more than needed. Now, he had quite a family, and a lot of those were either from Sanford or from the back end of Sanford. And as you probably well know, the Sanford[?] district was out east in Sanford, on either Celery Avenue, particularly Geneva Avenue. And then of course the black shopping district was on Sanford Avenue, which was where Gatlin Grocery Store was. In fact, I have an ad in that, 1940 ad of one of their sales in their weekly newspaper thing, kind of interesting to see the price of different things [<em>laughs</em>].</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah, I’d imagine.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>So, at any rate, the economic growth—I would suspect that Seminole County was hurt a lot more than Orange County—but maybe not as much as some of the counties in the northern part of Florida. But Jacksonville probably did a little better than some of the others, because that was quite a distribution point for a lot of things, like more so, at that time, relatively speaking, than it is today.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>So you don’t know of anybody that actually stayed around in Osceola after everybody left?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>No, there wasn’t any place to stay, really, ‘cause the company owned all the houses and they sold them all. But…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>And they owned the land as well?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>And they owned the land. And in fact, we had to, the land stayed with the [inaudible] company at Port Everglades until 1982. And it was leased out for years to Cameron[?] for cattle. In fact, they had their own cattle for a while, which was never very profitable. Then they sold it to—no, beg your pardon—they leased it to Cameron, which was a cattleman there. In fact, I think there’s a Cameron Boulevard off of around State Route 436, somewhere along in there. But anyway, that’s the Cameron family. And the thousand acres, about 400 of that was prairie off of Lake Harney, so that used to flood every year, almost every year. In recent years, I don’t think it has. But [inaudible], ‘cause when the water went down, of course you had tremendous grazing[?] for cows[?]. The rest of it was kind of a scrub pine area. Ironically, there were no cypress trees in the Oviedo area. They were all pine trees, but none of any size, ‘cause a lot of the land had been cleared for the lumber piles around, and so forth. And the only people that lived beyond that, if you go west, then you get to the end of paved road, there’s a dirt road that goes west and then it trails north. And about five miles north of the St. Johns, there was a place called Days[?]Camp, and that was a man and a woman that lived there—gosh, I don’t know how long they’d been there. But they were there even before the mill came there, and then he died and she married the caretaker. They must have been there—well, they were there through, you know, ’44, ’45. I don’t know what ever happened to them. And then later on, a Southern belle out of Orlando had a little camp on the St. Johns, just beyond where the sawmill was.</span></p> <p class="Body"><span>But for the most part, that area, north until you get to Lemon Bluff, which was near a road going from Orlando—Celery Avenue—and going to Osteen, that part of the river literally was never, never developed, partly because it was low. As you probably know, very little of the St. Johns, from—well, from Palatka to anywhere—almost all of it was low land. Even Sanford would flood when Osceola wouldn’t. They built a sawmill there ‘cause it was one of the few places where they had fairly high land. </span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>I understand in the area where the current Seminole County landfill is, there was an airfield around World War II?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>That’s right, ‘cause that was actually some of the company’s property. It really was more than a thousand acres, maybe 1,200 acres. And that was a satellite deal to the naval air station in Jacksonville, because—I mean, in Sanford. See, every field that had a naval setup, those planes were almost all carrier-type planes, you know, for landing in an aircraft carrier. So it took a lot of trading[?] of land[?] and taking off on short distance. They’d mark off the field as if it were an aircraft carrier. And so, so you had, there was one satellite field over at New Smyrna, which was part of the one at Daytona. So almost every one had at least one satellite field. And, in fact, the one in Fort Lauderdale—the big airport we have here was a naval air station, and it had three satellite fields, and they had the bomber planes that were on the aircraft carriers which trained in this area and up there. So, at any rate, that sat there for years, and people would fly in, and they finally had to put sand dunes on it because the drug people were flying in, ‘cause, you know, you could cut in discreetly, come in there without anybody knowing.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Now, we had some real trouble with Seminole County, and they were gonna put a full, just plain old dump out there. And I guess they thought we wouldn’t know anything about it. And I was involved with that, because by that time I was the manager. And so we had to, our lawyer had to fight with City Hall—not City Hall—but their County Hall. And at any rate, we won out on it, so they put a full-fledged, you know, bona fide dump that has all the environmental stuff and so forth. We keep [inaudible] on it because then—in order to take the garbage trucks out there—because that’s where most of the garbage for Sanford goes. They redid the road to a 16-foot road, so we [inaudible] the road.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>And when was that?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>That would have been about 1970.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Okay.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>And, ‘cause, by that time, the company down here had been sold to a division of [inaudible] Corporation, and they didn’t want the non-operational assets, and so the land up there was something they had no desire to own. So that was spun off as a separate thing, and for years it was on the market. But 18 miles east of Sanford was no-man’s land, you know, at the time. Nobody in particular wanted it. The only value in it was the part that was high land on the St. Johns. And so anyway, at any rate, we finally sold it in 1982, and they broke it up into five-acre plots. The reason for that is to make a lot no smaller than five acres, you can put a septic tank on it. Otherwise, you gotta build a plant. So at any rate, they sold several of the lots right on the St. Johns, and there’s a couple houses down there now—two or three. You can’t see them now, because the trees have grown up so much. And then, I thought they would build some of the land where the lumber even sat, ‘cause that was all cleared and drained pretty well, but they never did, to my knowledge. But they built some right along the, it’d be just east of the [inaudible] right-of-way, ‘cause the railroad’s not there, but the right-of-way’s there. And you can see some along in there, ‘cause the trees have grown up and you can’t[?] see it. But I guess they built them there, because if you look east, and look over 400 acres of prairie toward Lake Harney, and if you went very far east you’d be down in lower land, and I don’t think they would have let you build there because it’s subject to flooding.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta <br /></span></strong><span>The flood plain.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>So it never was developed as much as I think they thought, but I think the guy that bought it did okay, because he got a pretty good price for the stuff on the water and probably got most of his money back on that, and then hoped that the rest would sell at some point. But since that time, there’s been some houses and things between Osceola and Geneva that you can see along the highway there.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>I meant to ask you about Geneva, actually. You said at that time Osceola was about five miles away from the central part of Geneva?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, in fact, I think it almost connected five miles to what they call [inaudible] corner. It used to be—and then you’d turn south to go to the end of—until you went about a mile and a half. But those were all Chase &amp; Company orange groves around that whole corner. Later on they built a shortcut that went straight from the Geneva Bridge straight into Geneva. In fact, actually south of Geneva, which is now [State Road] 46. Before 46 used to come toward Osceola and then turn south to get into Geneva. So it was actually about seven and a half miles into where the school was in Geneva. Geneva never was very large. It was strictly a citrus county. It had a lot of orange groves, and they had one packinghouse, and they had, at one time, a little mill to make the orange crates. Almost every packinghouse had some kind of a mill to make the orange crates, ‘cause the orange crates were all wood at that time, but the ones used in the—to bring in the fruit, and also the ones for shipping. And of course, the orange crates used for bringing in fruit were more permanent, and naturally the others were strictly temporary. But it was, as you may well know, even today it’s a very scattered area.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yes.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>But if you drive through, you’ll think there’s 50 people living there. But if you go back off the road, there’s quite a bit of houses, you know, here and there. But it never has grown like they—I would have thought it would have grown a lot more, because it has, you know, quite a bit going. It’s good high ground. It’s 75 feet higher than Osceola was. And it’s nice. That’s the reason the orange trees were there, ‘cause it was nice sandy soil, whereas Osceola was more of a wet soil.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>You mentioned earlier that between 1932 and ’36, the production at the sawmill stopped?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah, it was shut down completely. Yeah. </span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>What happened to the residents? Did they, did people move away?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, and some probably went back to Georgia. The population there was at least 80 percent black, and so some went to Sanford now[?]. They were beginning to—the celery industry was [inaudible] to get them to move down to Okeechobee, so maybe some of them went down there. You know, it’s amazing, they never really seemed to survive. They just survived very well.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>But there were, you know, we didn’t have Social Security. We didn’t have this, that, and the other then, but people seemed to make out one way or the other. A lot of them went back to their folks or their relatives and so forth. You know, you had a lot more people doing things for each other than you would have today. If we had the same kind of depression that we had in the ‘30s, [<em>laughs</em>] I’m not sure that the country would hold together. Probably blow up ‘cause people just aren’t used to taking care of themselves one way or the other. I don’t mean it’s quite that bad, but you know what I mean.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah. It would be interesting to see.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Although it’s interesting what people will do if push comes to shove.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah. I’d like to switch to a little more personal topic, if I could. Do you have a, like a favorite memory that you can share with us, of the town or your time there? Something that most people that didn’t live in the town wouldn’t know of, or…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, I think the informality of it. I guess the fact the first four years of school, it was only half a block to the school, so [<em>laughs</em>] you didn’t have very far to walk, you know, to go to school. And then the teacher, you know—as I mentioned one time, I think—when I talked to you, from 1930 to ’32, it was a four—no, I guess it was not until ’34—at any rate, it was a two-room school with two teachers and four grades. And then, as the Depression set in, the school board cut it back to one room, but six grades instead of four. So one teacher taught six grades. So that was an interesting period because you were going to school—I guess people would think that’s a real handicap today, but in the first place, you had top-flight teachers in those days. I mean, you know, really dedicated teachers. Secondly, with only thirteen students, and then they kind of taught each other the [inaudible]. So it’s amazing the education was that good, considering. And then of course the discipline was tight, so I guess what I’m trying to say is—even with that kind of limitation, the education was probably better than it is today, because now, not only is the school class so big, in general the teachers aren’t quite as competent. At least, a lot of people claim they’re not. I don’t mean there’s not hundreds of exceptions. And then they had discipline in those days that they don’t have today.</span></p> <p class="Body"><span>So [<em>laughs</em>], a little off-story on this thing, when I was on a cruise recently on the Columbia River. There was a couple from Georgia. He’d been a schoolteacher and a principal and later in school administration, and then in his later years, he worked for the prison department. And the first day he was shown around the prison, the warden said to him, “Don’t you feel a little uneasy here, in this prison?” He said, “Oh, no. This is a lot better than being in a high school with a change[?] of classes[?].” [<em>laughs</em>]</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>[<em>laughs</em>] Uh-oh.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah, so it kind of reminded me of the differences in the time, you know.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>But anyway, I think of the school system, and then of course, education in Geneva. That was a three-room school, so I went there for the seventh and eighth grade. And actually Geneva was much worse off in the Depression than Osceola, at least those of us that were still in Osceola, and by the time I went there, the sawmill had cranked back up. But Geneva was pretty well-hit right on through. And to make matters worse, of course, as you know, later on, you didn’t need a packinghouse every ten miles away. They consolidated that as trucks came in and so forth, so Geneva was hit quite hard during that period, ‘cause I can remember that not too many kids had shoes, you know.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Oh yeah?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>I’ve got a picture of the school there, and I was just looking at it the other day. I was amazed how many ones there were barefoot, you know.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>So, whereas at least, in Osceola, they had some kind of income. Also, they stopped collecting rent. Of course, electricity, water was free, so even though the salaries and so forth were cut, you didn’t have a lot of extra other expenses that you might have had somewhere else.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Did you enjoy growing up in that area? Like the geography of the area, more than the town itself, I mean? Like, do you have any memories of going down to the river or Lake Harney?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Oh, yeah, because, and not only, you know, having my own chickens and own things of that nature, because I made little money. I never, you know, got rich on the thing, because—even though I didn’t have too much overhead. And, but I—I built a small boat first, then got one larger. The black person that I mentioned that was kind of a mentor to me, he and I built a really nice boat, and I had a big Johnson motor on it and so forth. I tell you we built it. He was 99 percent and I was one percent, and one of the houses was [inaudible], and we worked at night. He kind of took me as a son, so to speak, because he didn’t have any children, and I mentioned his wife went back to Enterprise during the week, so he didn’t have anything to do at night. So, but I used to follow him around, and I learned a lot from him, not only practical things, but plain old wisdom type of things. But then, later on, you know, I’d think nothing of going down there, getting in the boat, going up to Lemon Bluff or wherever—even Geneva Bridge—without thinking anything about it. If I’d ever broken down, I’d probably still be there, you know, ‘cause [<em>laughs</em>] there were no phones, there were no CB [citizens band] radios, there was no sheriff patrol, you know. There was nothing, you know. In fact, most of the time, nobody even knew I left, you know. They wouldn’t even know where I was. So…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>That sounds a lot different from today.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>That’s right. That’s right. Far different, yeah.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah. Well, we…</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Growing up in any country area has a lot of advantages, and a lot of disadvantages, but a lot of advantages.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>We have a little bit of time left. Do you have anything you could share that you think I missed that you think is interesting?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Well, I may have mentioned this either to you or Kim [Nelson], but the, some of the economics is interesting. The houses were—I guess you’d call it executive[?] row—a little unfair to use that term, but that’s about what it amounted to—were $23 a month, and then if you went down to where then you had the schoolhouse and the post office. The post office had the doctor’s office and a little library—at the post office. And that postmistress, of course—that was—I don’t think it was a contract job. I don’t know how it was in those days, but she sold candy and newspapers and other things, because there was only, at the most, 200 people in the town, and half of those didn’t get any mail, so you can see [<em>laughs</em>] it wasn’t that big a post office.</span></p> <p class="Body"><span>Then you had the boardinghouse and then the company store, and then the office, or between the boardinghouse and the company store, one of the pictures I showed you there, it’s called Pine Street. And that was an extension of the white quarters, and on the left side the houses rented for $15 a month. On the right side they were a little smaller and they were $10 dollars a month. And then the ones down at the end crosswise were $6 dollars a month. Now, even those were—had a little two-bedroom houses. I mean, I don’t know, but maybe eight hundred, nine hundred feet, so they weren’t baby. And then the black quarters was west of that, and they varied all over the place, and usually they could be—they weren’t, you know, anything to write home about, but I can say a lot of times people added onto it or fixed it up or this, that, and the other with it. So I was never down there too much. I could go down there as a kid. In fact, that was the only place you could get a Coca-Cola at night—was to go down there, ‘cause they had their own little juke joint down there, you know. And there’s no place wilder than a black section on Saturday night [<em>laughs</em>].</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Did you play a lot with the black children? Was that—did you guys mingle?</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>No, no. That was—I guess it was strictly because of the location. I don’t think it had too much to do with race. Young kids, no matter how far back you go, never pay much attention to race. Only older people pay attention to race.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Yeah.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman <br /></span></strong><span>But I think this had to do with location. But as far as the workers, you know—in fact, the company had some kind of agreement with the sheriff’s department, because they didn’t have any kind of police force at all, but I guess they did have something [inaudible] whatever kind of sheriff department he had. I’m sure it wasn’t that big a deal in Seminole County back then. But they had some kind of agreement with the sheriff at the jail in Sanford. They always kept on the payroll about two people that were on probation and everything had been in jail or whatever. And I remember one that used to—when I didn’t mow the yard—he sometimes would help mowing the yard. And he killed his wife or something or other. They were all, you know, most of the black things[?] in those days had to do with domestic squabbles or something, you know. You know, [<em>laughs</em>] I didn’t think about the fact that he murdered somebody. In those days, you just didn’t give it a second thought.</span></p> <p class="Body"><span>So those were some of the differences. So there was a little more camaraderie among the adult part than there was the kids’ part. Personally, you know, you rarely saw the kids, to be honest with you, because they pretty well did their own thing. They had their own school. The only thing they didn’t have is a high school, but of course, not every white person went to high school in those days either, for that matter. So. They had the opportunity. I think they—if they went to high school, they stayed with somebody in Sanford or something. I don’t remember. And I really don’t remember that we had hardly any people of that age that I can remember. They were always younger than that. I don’t know what happened to them when they grew up. They probably went to work somewhere else, I guess.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Motta<br /></span></strong><span>Well, Mr. Haldeman. Thank you very much for talking with me today.</span></p> <p class="Body"><strong><span>Haldeman<br /></span></strong><span>Okay, and if there’s anything that we missed or there’s, you know, something to expand on or some other part of an outline that got missed, you know, call me anytime. Now, if I don’t answer when you call from the museum, it shows up here as unavailable. Sometimes we don’t catch that right off. If we ever answered unavailable, call…</span></p> African Americans Cameron Cameron Boulevard Celery Avenue chickens cypress cypresses First Presbyterian Church of Maitland Gainesville Gatlin Grocery Store Geneva Geneva Avenue Geneva Bridge Great Depression Haldeman, Harold hardwood hens Lake Harney Lemon Bluff logging lumber lumber industry Maitland Maytown Motta, Daniel Osceola pine mill Pine Street planing mill pond cypress Port Everglades Sanford Sanford Avenue sawmill segregation Seminole County softwood SR 436 St. Johns River timber U.S. 17-92 UF University of Florida World War II WWII yellow pine https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/874b525f5ae8dd9a254d791ebd51e153.pdf 43350c88e67fa6cd7d91553b015fdf21 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection Subject Museums--Florida Schools Elementary schools Grammar schools Sanford (Fla.) Description The Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection encompasses a broad range of materials and items ranging from the late 19th Century into the present. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, documents, videocassettes, and other historical records pertaining to the history of the Sanford Grammar School, the Sanford community through the years, and the history of teaching and learning within the United States from the 19th century to the 2010s. The Student Museum has collaborated with the University of Central Florida and established the UCF Public History Center (PHC). All of the Student Museum's collections are presently housed at the PHC. The goal of the PHC is to promote access to history through ground-breaking research connecting local to global, provide cutting-edge hands-on educational programs for students and visitors, and to engage the community in contributing to and learning from history. Contributor Student Museum UCF Public History Center Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum, Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project Student Museum UCF Public History Center Curator Marra, Katie Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Alternative Title Student Museum and PHC Collection Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Rotton, Patrick Interviewee Michels, Helen Location UCF Public History Center, in Sanford, Florida Original Format 1 CD/DVD Duration 42 minutes and 51 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 126kbps 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 Helen Michels Alternative Title Oral History, Michels Subject Oral history--United States Sanford (Fla.) Elementary schools Grammar schools Schools Students--Florida Palm Bay (Fla.) Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Tutors and tutoring--United States Halfway houses May Day (Labor holiday)--United States Social justice--Florida Segregation--Florida World War II San Juan (P.R.) Description Oral history interview of Helen Michels, who was born in Palm Bay, Florida, on May 4, 1936. Michels, her parents, and her thirteen siblings migrated to Sanford in 1942. She attended Sanford Grammar School, located at 301 West Seventh Street, and Seminole High School, at 1700 French Avenue. When Michels entered college, she originally began as a lab technician, but changed her major to education. Following college, she taught as a schoolteacher in Hollywood, Melbourne, and Puerto Rico. After witnessing social justice issues while teaching in Puerto Rico, Michels decided to enter into drug therapy work for about 10 years. She then became the director of a halfway house for federal prisons. Upon retirement, she moved back to Sanford. This interview was conducted by Patrick Rotton at the UCF Public History Center in Sanford, Florida, on October 23, 2012. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:27 Sanford Grammar School<br />0:05:17 Teachers and school activities<br />0:11:28 Layout of the school<br />0:12:54 School clubs, sports, and extracurricular activities<br />0:15:02 Memories with siblings and classmates<br />0:18:15 Career<br />0:21:38 May Day<br />0:22:50 High school and physical education<br />0:27:54 Pig'n'Whistle<br />0:30:3 Keeping in touch with classmates<br />0:32:47 School memories<br />0:37:01 World War II<br />0:39:50 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Helen Michels. Interview conducted by Patrick Rotton at the UCF Public History Center, in Sanford, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Michels, Helen. Interviewed by Patrick Rotton. UCF Public History Center. October 23, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a>. <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/31" target="_blank">Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 42-minute and 51-second oral history: Michels, Helen. Interviewed by Patrick Rotton. UCF Public History Center. October 23, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Coverage Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Seminole High School, Sanford, Florida Federal Halfway House, San Juan, Puerto Rico Creator Rotton, Patrick Michels, Helen Date Created 2012-10-23 Date Modified 2012-10-25 2012-11-18 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 117 MB 51.5 KB Medium 42-minute and 51-second CD/DVD 18-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Patrick Rotton and Helen Michels. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the UCF Public History Center and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project UCF Public History Center Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository UCF Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Exhibits." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. "<a href="http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/" target="_blank">Seminole High School</a>." Seminole High School, Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.seminolehs.scps.k12.fl.us/. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/mq0CDArmXOI" target="_blank">Oral History of Helen Michels</a> 1st Street 25th Street 7th Street arithmetic education art education Bible Book of Psalms cafeteria can drives CB celery Celery Crate celery field Celeryfeds chemistry chemistry set Christmas citizenship citizenship education City of Sanford class historian class reunions communion current events Davis, Lavinia R. Dewey Decimal System Downtown Sanford drug therapy drug treatment drug treatment company Easter Easter Seals educator elementary school federal prisoners First Street French Avenue Girl Scouts of the United States of America grammar school gym education gym teacher halfway house Halloween high school history education horse intramural sports junior high justice movement lab technician library marionette May Day maypole Michels, Helen music education oral history P.E. Page Palm Bay Park Avenue Parks, David patriotism pep club PHC physical education Pig 'n Whistle playtime Pledge of Allegiance public library rationing reading education recess Ritz Theatre Rotton, Patrick Ruth, Babe Ruth, George "Babe" Herman, Jr. San Juan, Puerto Rico Sanford Sanford Grammar School savings bond school schoolteacher science education science teacher Seabee segregation Seminole High School Seventh Street social justice softball softball team Southside Elementary School spelling education sports program Star Spangled Banner Stinecipher, Grace Marie student Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies study hall teacher The Plow Penny Mystery tutor Twenty-Fifth Street U.S. Navy UCF UCF College of Graduate Studies UCF Department of History UCF Public History Center United States Naval Mobile Construction Battalio victory garden war bond war effort Welch World War II WWII 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 Vietnam War Collection Alternative Title Vietnam Collection Subject Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans--Florida Description The Vietnam War was a Cold War Era "military conflict." The war was originally waged between Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. The United States became involved as a preventive measure to combat communism. The date of the war has been disputed, but a study in 1998 by the Department of Defense definitively put the start of the Vietnam War as November 1, 1955. The first combat military troops 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade didn't arrive until 1965. With the arrival of the combat troops came the first traditional battles of combat fighting in the war. During the Vietnam War, not only did American military go into battle with and for South Vietnam, the military also trained members of South Vietnam to fight alongside during the war. Peace talks were attempted, with France moderating, beginning on May 10, 1968. These talks were unsuccessful and lasted over three years. The longest battle of the Vietnam War began on January 21, 1968 and didn't end until the U.S. reclaimed Route 9 on April 8, 1968, 77 days later. While the military conflict ended in April of 1975, it was a long process towards reunification and redevelopment as a country. The conflict left Vietnam in both political and economical ruins. Contributor <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Vietnam Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a><span>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/.</span> Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. "<a title="American Experience" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html" target="_blank">American Experience</a>." Public Broadcasting Company. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Carroquino, Carmen Interviewee Martin, Henry A. Location Veterans of Foreign Affair in Winter Springs, Florida Original Format 1 audio DVD recording Duration 40 minutes and 59 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 1437kbps 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 Henry A. Martin Alternative Title Oral History, Martin Subject Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans--Florida Description Oral history of Henry A. Martin's military service during the Vietnam War (1961-1975). Martin was born on July 8, 1941 in Sayre, Pennsylvania. In 1960, he enlisted in the United States Army and served as an Ordinary Engineer. Throughout his military career, Martin served in Italy, Germany, Vietnam, and Korea and achieved the rank of Sergeant First Class. He received the Good Conduct Medal and the Instructor of the Month award. Martin completed his service on July 1, 1981. This oral history interview was conducted by Carmen Carroquino on November 18, 2010 The Vietnam War was a Cold War Era "military conflict". The war was originally waged between Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. The United States became involved as a preventive measure to combat communism. The official date of the military conflict is November 1, 1955 and ending in April 1975. The date of the war has been disputed, but a study in 1998 by the Department of Defense definitively put the start of the Vietnam War as November 1, 1955. The first combat military troops 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade didn't arrive until 1965. With the arrival of the combat troops came the first traditional battles of combat fighting in the war. During the Vietnam War, not only did American military go into battle with and for South Vietnam, the military also trained members of South Vietnam to fight alongside during the war. Peace talks were attempted, with France moderating, beginning on May 10, 1968. These talks were unsuccessful and lasted over three years. The longest battle of the Vietnam War began on January 21, 1968 and didn't end until the U.S. reclaimed Route 9 on April 8, 1968, seventy-seven days later. While the military conflict ended in 1975, it was a long process towards reunification and redevelopment as a country. The conflict left Vietnam in both political and economical ruins. While the U.S. military was fighting overseas, Many American citizens protested the war at home. Demonstrations took place across the country with the most famous one being at Kent State University in Ohio. While this is the most well known demonstration it was not the first. Americans questioned the U.S. involvement in the war throughout. Abstract Oral history interview of Henry A. Martin. Interview conducted by Carmen Carroquino at Veterans of Foreign Wars in Winter Springs, Florida. Table Of Contents 00:00 Beginning Enlist questions/basic training (boot camp) 11:09 Vietnam experience/duties/home for (RR) rest 20:00 Family, life in the military, travel, culture 33:20 Left the military-life after 39:30 Afterthoughts on military career and how he feels about young veterans Creator Carroquino, Carmen Source <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/VET/id/10" target="_blank">Martin, Henry A.</a>. Interviewed by Carmen Carroquino. UCF Community Veterans History Project, DP0010472 November 18, 2010. Audio record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Publisher <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries Date Created 2010-11-18 Contributor <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Conforms To Standards established by the Veterans History Projects, Library of Congress, <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/">http://www.loc.gov/vets/</a>. Format audio/mp4 Extent 423 MB Medium 40-minute and 59-second audio DVD recording Language eng Type Moving Image Spatial Coverage 41.979337, -76.514812 44.449468, 11.334228 50.861444, 10.235595 13.645987, 108.343505 36.615528, 128.087768 28.70513, -81.307455 Temporal Coverage 1941-07-08/2010-11-18 Accrual Method Deposit Rights Holder All rights are held by the respective holding institution. This material is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. For permission to reproduce and or for copyright information contact Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, (407) 823-2576. <a href="http://library.ucf.edu.specialcollections/">http://library.ucf.edu.specialcollections/</a>. Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Morris, Alisha Digital Collection <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalCollections/" target="_blank">UCF Digital Collections</a> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">University of Central Florida, Special Collections and University Archives</a> External Reference "<a title="American Experience" href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html" target="_blank">American Experience</a>." Public Broadcasting Company. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/tl3.html. Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. Rottman, Gordon L., and Duncan Anderson. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/190967872" target="_blank"><em>The US Army in the Vietnam War 1965-73</em></a>. Oxford: Osprey, 2008. <span>Rosenau, William. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50851067" target="_blank"><em>Special Operations Forces and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets Lessons from Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War</em></a></span><span>. Santa Monica, CA: Project Air Force/Rand, 2001.</span> External Reference Title <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/190967872" target="_blank"><em>The US Army in the Vietnam War 1965-73</em></a> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/VET/id/10" target="_blank">Martin, Henry A.</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/92" target="_blank">Vietnam War Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank">QuickTime</a>. Coverage Sayre, Pennsylvania Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy Rohrgraben, Moorgrund, Germany Gia Lai, Vietnam Mungyeong, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea Winter Springs, Florida Audience Education Level SS.K.A.1.2; SS.K.A.2.4; SS.K.C.2.1; SS.1.A.1.1; SS.1.A.2.1; SS.1.A.2.2; SS.1.A.2.4; SS.1.C.3.2; SS.1.C.2.1; SS.1.C.2.2; SS.1.C.2.3; SS.1.C.2.4; SS.2.A.1.1; SS.2.C.2.2; SS.2.C.2.4; SS.2.C.2.5; SS.2.C.3.2; SS.3.A.1.1; SS.3.C.2.1; SS.4.A.1.1; SS.4.C.2.2; SS.4.C.2.3; SS.5.A.1.1; SS.5.C.2.5; SS.6.W.1.3; SS.7.C.2.2; SS.7.C.2.3; SS.7.C.4.1; SS.7.C.4.2; SS.8.A.1.1; SS.8.A.1.5; SS.8.A.1.7; SS.912.A.1.1; SS.912.A.1.6; SS.912.A.6.10; SS.912.A.6.13; SS.912.A.6.14; SSS.912.A.6.15; SS.912.A.7.10; SS.912.A.7.11; SS.912.A.7.17; SS.912.C.2.3; SS.912.C.4.2; SS.912.W.1.3; SS.912.W.1.6; SS.912.W.8.1; SS.912.W.8.4; SS.912.W.9.4 Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Provenance Originally created by Carmen Carroquino and owned by <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries. Date Copyrighted 2010-11-18 Date Issued 2011-05 basic training Bologna boot camp Carroquino Emilia-Romagna Germany Gia Lai Good Conduct Medal Gyeongsangbuk-do Instructor of the Month Italy Martin, Henry A. Moorgrund Mungyeong ORD. ENG. Ordinary Engineer Pennsylvania Rhgraben Sayre Sergeant 1st Class Sergeant First Class Sgt. 1st Class Sgt. First Class South Korea U.S. Army Veterans of Foreign Wars VFW Vietnam https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/99eff77796a2f91e66da0285df0093db.pdf 0385c0863af79dd1bad2c827d1d62e16 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 Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection Alternative Title Lone Sailor Collection Subject Veterans--Florida Orlando (Fla.) United States. Navy Navy Sailors--United States Description Collection of digital images and oral histories related to the former Recruit Training Center Orlando (RTC Orlando) for the United States Navy. The training center transformed raw recruits into highly effective sailors. This process took place over an intensive eight-week training period, commonly referred to as "boot camp." RTC Orlando occupied roughly one half of the former Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando), which was located at present day Baldwin Park, Orlando, Florida. Between 1968 and 1994, over 650,000 men and women graduated from RTC Orlando. Contributor <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/ "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Hazen, Kendra Interviewee Clark, Jeffrey Edward Location Central Florida Research Par, Orlando, Florida Original Format 1 digital audio/video recording Duration 50 minutes and 25 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 4661kbps 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 Henry Carl Okraski Alternative Title Oral History, Okraski Subject Orlando (Fla.) Link Aviation Devices, Inc. Simulation Description An oral history of Henry Carl Okraski, former Deputy Director of the Naval Air Warfare Training Systems (NAWCTSD) in Orlando, Florida. The interview was conducted by Kendra Hazen at Research Park in Orlando, Florida. This oral history was produced as part of the Community Veterans History Project (CVHP) and the Lone Sailor Memorial Committee for the purpose conducting background research for a memorial honoring the former Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando).<br /><br />Okraski was involved with the defense simulation industry from 1962 to 1994, which included stints as the director of Research and Engineering and the Deputy Technical Director for NAWCTSD. He obtained a Master's Degree in Engineering from the University of Florida. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:13 Biographical information<br />0:04:13 LINK Aviation<br />0:08:55 Naval Training Device Center in Long Island, New York<br />0:12:15 Migrating to Central Florida<br />0:13:35 How Naval Training Device Center came to Orlando<br />0:16:06 Admiral Luiz De Florez<br />0:17:50 Maintenance Engineering Division<br />0:27:45 Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD)<br />0:29:14 Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement Systems (MILES) project<br />0:30:32 Various simulation projects conducted by NAWCTSD<br />0:35:59 Teaching deaf and hearing-impaired children<br />0:39:27 Challenges faced by simulation projects<br />0:42:47 Future of the simulation industry in Central Florida<br />0:46:25 How NAWCTSD has changed Orlando<br />0:49:09 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Henry Carl Okraski. Interview conducted by Kendra Hazen at Research Park in Orlando, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Okraski, Henry "Hank" Carl. Interviewed by Kendra Hazen. UCF Community Veterans History Project. March 7, 2014. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Community Veterans History Project (CVHP),</a> Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/vets/. Coverage Utica Free Academy, Utica, New York Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York Thule Air Base, Qaasuitsup, Greenland Port Washington, Long Island, New York Naval Training Center Orlando, Orlando, Florida Maitland, Florida Lake Nona Medical City, Lake Nona, Orlando, Florida Creator Hazen, Kendra Okraski, Henry "Hank" Carl Publisher <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries Contributor Hill, Amanda <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-03-07 Date Copyrighted 2014-03-07 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 1.68 GB 203 KB Medium 50-minute and 25-second digital audio/video recording 21-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Kendra Hazen and Henry "Hank" Carl Okraski, and published by the University of Central Florida Libraries <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>. Rights Holder All rights are held by the respective holding institution. This material is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. For permission to reproduce and/or for copyright information contact <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries, (407) 823-2576. http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Barnes, Mark Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalCollections/" target="_blank">UCF Digital Collections</a> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">University of Central Florida, Special Collections and University Archives</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.navair.navy.mil/nawctsd/AboutUs/MissionHistoryFuture.cfm" target="_blank">History</a>." Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Division.. http://www.navair.navy.mil/nawctsd/AboutUs/MissionHistoryFuture.cfm. "<a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Navy Memorial of Central Florida. http://www.lonesailorfl.com/. "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. Okraski, Henry Carl, and William F. Parrish. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2386511" target="_blank"><em>Acquisition Cost Estimating Using Simulation</em></a>. Orlando, Fla: Naval Training Equipment Center, Training Analysis and Evaluation Group, 1975. Okraski, Henry Carl, and William F. Parrish. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2386511" target="_blank"><em>Acquisition Cost Estimating Using Simulation</em></a>. Orlando, Fla: Naval Training Equipment Center, Training Analysis and Evaluation Group, 1975. Okraski, Henry Carl. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13983261" target="_blank">Economic Analysis of Training Media</a>. Thesis (M. Eng.)--University of Florida, 1972. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/UieZoSoHiCE" target="_blank">Oral History of Henry Carl Okraski</a> Transcript <p><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Today is March 7^th, 2014. I am interviewing Mr. Henry "”Hank” [Carl] Okraski, who spent 32 years in government service, 10 of which were working in the Senior Executive Service. He was the Director of Research and Engineering and the Deputy Technical Director for Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Division, or NAWCTSD.</p> <p>My name is Kendra Hazen and with me is Amanda Hill. We are interviewing Mr. Okraski as a part of the [UCF Community] Veterans History Project, and as research for the Lone Sailor Memorial Project. We are recording the interview at the National Center for Simulation Offices, located in the Partnership III building, um, in UCF’s [University of Central Florida] Research Parkway in Orlando, Florida.</p> <p><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Mr. Okraski, will you start us off by telling us when and where you were born?</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yes. First off, Kendra, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today. You’re really representing a worthwhile cause, and I appreciate the opportunity. I was born in Utica, New York, in 1936—January 22^nd, actually.</p> <p><strong>Hazen</strong>Thank you. Can you tell us a little bit about what your parents did while you were growing up?</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yes. Uh, they both worked actually. I was a latchkey child. I think one of the first. And they worked in a florist—a wholesale florist enterprise. My mother cut flowers. My father hauled coal and, uh, manure and all sorts of things like that to keep the, uh, flowers growing.</p> <p>So I was pretty much on my own. I had, um, the run of the neighborhood, if you will. Actually, I wasn’t born on the “other” side of the tracks. I was born on the tracks, because the railroad cars went right down the street where I lived, right next to my bedroom.</p> <p><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>I’ll bet that was a little loud.</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>It was. At like two in the morning, they would be bumping the cars back and forth and, uh—and it was, uh—I got used to it after a while.</p> <p><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Did you grow up with brothers and sisters?</p> <p><strong>Okraski <br /></strong>No. I was the only child.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Can you tell us a little about your early education?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yes. I was, uh, trained by nuns. I attended the St. Patrick’s Grammar School for eight years, um, where I learned the value of discipline and, uh, how to pay attention in class. And I really experienced the nuns, um, caring for us. They wanted us to get ahead. I was really appreciative for that. So I went to St. Patrick’s School for eight years, and then I went to Utica Free Academy, which is the local high school in Utica, for four years. Graduated from there in 1953. I worked a year thereafter and then when on to Clarkson University which is in Upstate New York—in Potsdam, New York.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Um, and during that time, did you have any members of your family who were in any of the [U.S.] Armed Services?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>I had uncles. Several of my uncles were in, uh, in the service. Um, one of my uncles, uh, John—he was at Guadalcanal[, Solomon Islands]. He was in the 1^st Marine Corps Division. earned three Purple Hearts while he was there. He’s still alive. I communicate with him just about every week.</p> <p class="Default">And I had other uncles that were there in the South Pacific and in Europe. Um, some—one was in Normandy[, France]—[the] Normandy invasion. So yes. I’ve come from a family—now, my father was not in the Armed Services. He was working on a farm under the agriculture deferment in those days.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Um, what branches were they in? or were they all in the same branch?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>No. I had one in the [U.S.] Army, one in the [U.S.] Navy and one in the [U.S.] Marine Corps. And I also had another one in the Navy too, who was a deep sea diver. Yeah. with the original bubble heads where they wore the large thing. And, uh, he would repair ships, uh, in Newfoundland[, Canada]. Rather cold, you might say.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Um, whatever you were going through Clarkson University, what was your specialty? What was your area of specialty?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>I majored in Electrical Engineering and I graduated with a Bachelor’s [Degree] in Electrical Engineering.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>And then from there, what was your first professional experience?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski <br /></strong>Yes. Uh, I was recruited from college to LINK Aviation [Devices, Inc.]. LINK Aviation was located in Binghamton, New York, and they were manufacturers of simulators—primarily flight simulators, at the time. and I always had somewhat of an interest in flight simulators. I might relate to you the first simulator that I ever had?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Okay. Um, I was 11 years old and I would spend summers on a farm. and all we had was radio for entertainment. There was no television, or we didn’t have any movies or anything close by. So radio was the big thing. Every day, I would listen to <em>Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy</em>. And they had one offering there that if you send, uh—I think it was 15 cents and a box top from Wheaties—they would send you a simulator. So I got the money. I got the Wheaties and I put it together and send it off. And I waited and waited. Every time the rural post delivery man would come by he’d say, “No, sonny. not today.” And nuts. I’d go back. Every day I’d wait for him. Finally, it came and I opened it up and it was a cardboard instrument panel that replicated an aircraft cockpit. It had a control stick. It had a throttle and it had two rudder pedals simulating the aircraft.</p> <p class="Default">So what we did—all of us youngsters, you know, part of the, uh, Jack Armstrong squadron—we would sit on our chairs and set up our cockpits and then listen to the radio. And he would say, “Today we’re going to be flying over the jungles of South America. Look down. You can see the river.” I would look down and I could see that river. You know, because in those days, we said radio was the theatre of the mind. And it really was. We used our imaginations and we could visualize things that weren’t even there. So that was my first simulator. That wetted my appetite. So, then when LINK Aviation recruited me, I was very happy, because I would be working with simulators again.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>What exactly were your responsibilities when you were at LINK Aviator?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yes. Uh, with LINK, they started us out in, uh, Field Service Organization. So I attended a short course learning how to maintain and operate one of their flight simulators. They called it a “C11” or “Device 2F-2”3 in those days. And it was a basic one seater flight instrument trainer that was used in primary, uh, flight training for the Air Force in my case. And where pilots would learn how to fly instruments. how to do instrument landing. Uh, also how to react to various failures that might occur in the aircraft. So I would help the pilots learn how to go through emergency procedures to save themselves and to save the aircraft. So that was my first job. It entailed traveling throughout the, uh, Southwest, and that was in Oklahoma and Texas—uh, in that area where there are several Air Force bases. And I had an opportunity to visit and work with the various pilots or wannabe pilots in those days. So, that was my first job, Kendra.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>How long were you there? How long were you with LINK Aviation?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Well, I was with LINK Aviation for about four and a half years. Um, what happened was I did a short stint in the Army. I had to go through basic training, um, but I essentially went back to the inactive reserves.<a title="">[1]</a></p> <p class="Default">And then LINK transferred me to a number of places, but the most memorable one, I guess, was to Thule [Air Base], Greenland where I spent six months one night. It was dark for the entire period and I was working then on the F-102 aircraft simulator. And so I would help train a pilot, set up all the simulations and train the pilots, um, to do air to air combat maneuvering and air to air intercepts. And it was very, very important, because it was co-located with the ballistic missile early warning site located there at Thule, Greenland, whose antenna was essentially affixed at the Soviet Union at that time, ‘cause we were under, you know, Cold War conditions. So having our pilots trained was very important in the event that anything should happen and they had to scramble. They were in a position to, uh, perform as they were trained.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Do you remember what year that was, when you..?</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Around 1960.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Um, and then after your four and a half years with LINK, where did you go next?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yeah. I—I traveled a little bit more with LINK, and I took a job with the Naval Training Device Center, which was located in Port Washington, Long Island[, New York]. And that’s where I took a position as, um, a GS-11 electrical engineer working in the field support of Naval Aviation simulators. It was in a facility that was called a [Gould-]Guggenheim Estate at one time. It was a castle. Actually, it was a castle that was created that was by the Guggenheims and the Gould family years before. So it was quite a thrill to come to work and go into the castle. And, um, it was on an estate that overlooked Long Island Sound and several, several acres. It was beautiful. And our next door neighbor, who—Kendra, you may not recall—was somebody called Perry Como, the singer. So he lived next door—very casual individual and, uh, we would wave as we went on to work in our castle.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>A castle. Um, what kinds of things were the projects that were being worked on? In addition to what you did, what are some of the different projects that were being worked on there?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>It was an interesting time, because originally the Naval Training Device Center, which began as the Special Devices Task by Admiral [Luiz] de Florez in 1941, um, expanded its mission to include more than just aviation training. In the beginning, he focused on flight simulators—in the LINK trainer actually grew out of some of the initiatives that were going on there and, uh, Luiz de Florez took the LINK trainer and, uh, modified it for gunnery training. Uh, and other applications that went beyond aviation. They began to get into surface Navy, land warfare, undersea warfare, simulators for all those kinds of things. But the primary thrust was in aviation. So aircrafts such as the P2V [Physical-to Virtual] —oh gosh—the F-3, the A-7, the A-3 intruder. Um, all those aircraft had simulators that were built and being delivered and used by the pilots’ aircrew, uh, to train out in the field.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>How long were you there in Long Island with them?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yeah. I was there until 1965. 1965. Well, let me back up about six months from there. Earlier, I had bought a house. My wife and I had bought a house out in North Port[, New York], and it was a really, really nice house. It was about all we could afford too. But it was near the water. It was a beautiful place.</p> <p class="Default">Six months later the commanding officer gets on the loud speaker and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you’re next home will be in Orlando, Florida.” I said, “What? Next home? I already have a home.” But nevertheless, uh, we did move to Orlando, Florida. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to us at the time. We were—it was the beginning of a tremendous growth of simulation and a wonderful career opportunity for me and my friends and co-workers that moved here. And also a wonderful environment for my family to live and grow.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen <br /></strong>Did you know anything about the area before you got down here?</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>No, but they allowed us two visits and at that time in 1965. In 1965, uh, Orlando was a sleepy little town in the orange groves. Uh, we had Gatorland, I think, and, uh, Cypress Gardens.</p> <p class="Default">There was no [Walt] Disney [World]. There was no SeaWorld, Universal [Orlando Resort], etc., etc. It was a sleepy little town. And it was very enjoyable to go out on Sundays and look at homes for sale and, um, take in some of the natural beauties. Some of the—like the Wekiva Springs, uh, which was—was open—open to the public. And there were other springs. Silver Springs [State Park], etc., etc. And the beaches were so close, so it was very, very nice. Very, uh, unspoiled you might say.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>And when you moved down, um, was it called? It was called the National Center for Simulation yet?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>No. That’s a whole other outgrowth. Yeah. The Naval Training Device Center changed its name about two or three times.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>To where it is today—Naval Air Warfare System—Naval Air Warfare Systems Training System Division. Uh, so we went through an evolution.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>So when you moved down, what was it?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski <br /></strong>It was still the Naval Training Device Center.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski <br /></strong>At that time.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>And what resources was here for them?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Nothing.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Nothing?</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Well, the only thing that was here—and this is kind of amusing. You wonder how these things happen. These relocations cause we’re always faced with things like BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] and justifying movements and what have you. But the truth to be known, a lot of these decisions are totally politically based and what happened was an Air Force activity moved out of the Air Force base here in Orlando. Not McCoy [Air Force Base], but where Baldwin Park is today. Okay. there was an Air Force Reconnaissance Squadron located there. They were relocated and I think part of it was even disestablished. So there was a need to fill the vacuum.</p> <p>Well, the powers to be—the political powers to be—got together and decided that this little activity up in Port Washington, Long Island, would feel much better if they were located in Florida. So they moved us to Orlando beginning in, uh, 1965. The, uh—many of the buildings were old barracks. Um, they were not air-conditioned. Um, we lived in that kind of a situation where—this was before computers, where you did your own memos and that. So we would draft memos in pen and ink and your sweat would drip on the paper and run as you’re trying to write the memos to, ah, your—your—for business purposes. So it was rather a primitive existence. Although once the Navy got there, they began to refurbish the buildings and we got air conditioning, which worked most of the time. So that made us a lot more comfortable.</p> <p>But an interesting thing about Orlando too, uh, from a historical stand point, um, when the, um, Normandy invasion was being planned, General [Dwight D.] Eisenhower came to Orlando and actually mocked up the Normandy Beach in one of the orange groves. In other words, he created an—an, uh—an emulation, if you will, of the Normandy Beach head, and he would position ships and whatever on this false floor that essentially was cement looking like the Normandy Beach head. and he would, with his generals, plan their attack moving objects around and developing strategies that they would follow. So that was in Orlando long before the Navy or anybody else got down here to talk about simulation. Can I give you one more historical event?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Certainly, yeah.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>I think it was—the year was 1935 or so. I’d have to verify that, but Luiz De Florez, for whom the building is named out here—the Navy building is the De Florez complex—the Luiz De Florez building. Okay. And as I mentioned earlier, he got simulation off the ground particularly for the Navy beginning in Washington, D.C., but before that, uh, he was involved in the in oil—in oil production. the crack and process and all that. Well, he was honored for his accomplishments—he was a civilian though at that time—uh, by a number of people. one of which was Rollins College here in Winter Park. So he was given an honorary Doctorate degree from Rollins College the same year that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who as you well know, is the author of <em>The Yearling</em>, and <em>Cross Creek</em>, and a few other wonderful novels. So that brought simulation down here again back in the [19]30s. If you believe in pre-destiny or something, you begin to wonder if there isn’t some connection. So, those are a couple other historical points relating to the Orlando area having to do with simulation.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>And kind of the birth of the idea of it being here.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yes. Yeah.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Um, you talked a little bit about what was here when you got here, and the buildings. Can you tell us a little bit about those early days? What were kind of your primary responsibilities when you first got down here? What were some of the main projects that were being worked on?</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Sure. Um, I, uh—when I came down, I was assigned to the Maintenance Engineering Division. It doesn’t have to do with changing light bulbs or anything like that. What we actually had to do was plan for the logistic support of the simulators, because it was very critical to keep the simulators operating when they’re being used by our pilots, aircrew, and other ships crew, etc. So we had to make sure that they were reliable, maintainable, and we provided an adequate logistic support package to go with each and every simulator that went out the door. And our industry was pretty much, uh, on board when they came to designing in reliability, maintainability, and providing a good logistic support package.</p> <p>So one of my jobs was to develop the criteria for logistic support and I wrote a document called “Bulletin 40-1,” which identified all the logistic support requirements for simulators that stayed in use for probably 20 years or so that people may even use parts of it today. It was important to do that.</p> <p>Now, in the process of moving down here, a number of people didn’t want to leave Long Island. They were particularly—they were really happy just to stay there. And I, in turn—I was offered a job at the Space program at the time too. But I elected to come to Florida and stay with our parent organization anyway. So when a number of people didn’t come, it left some room at the top. So that gave me some nice promotion opportunities that I took advantage of and so going, you know, then from a division head to a department head to associate director, etc. I think the move down here kind of enabled that progression quite nicely.</p> <p>So what I did is—I had a division and we worked very closely with the engineers in designing our systems such that they were maintainable and supportable. And we—the program began to grow quite a bit. Word got around that, “Hey, this simulation stuff must be pretty good. It must be saving a lot of lives and it’s not costing as much as putting airplanes in the air or ships at sea or submarines under the sea.” So the Army—well, they had joined us earlier with what was called the “Army Participation Group,” and, uh, the simulation caught on with them and they began to grow very large. Then the Marine Corps—they came on board. Then the Air Force came on board. So what was just a single entity down here in the Navy became pretty much a joint operation. Joint with a small “j” not a large “J,” ‘cause we’re not really a “joint” organization. We’re, uh—we operate jointly though. And it was amazing of the synergy that was achieved by working together. You know, an engineer working on a tank simulator working alongside an engineer working on an air craft simulator could share technology and experiences and know-how, such that the customers were getting more for their money essentially than if an individual service were doing a procurement of a simulator. And that continues today. Maybe even more so today, because of the large number, the large acquisition program we have here, um, at the, uh, what we call now “Team Orlando.”</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>After it was called the Naval Training Device Center here? What was then the next step?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Well, it was renamed Naval Training Systems Center, Naval Training Materials Center, uh, and Naval Training Systems Center, and then it went to, um, Naval Air Warfare Center. The reason for that is that, uh, we changed responsibilities on—we changed, uh, the organization that we reported to over the years. In the beginning, you know, it was like the Bureau of Aeronautics, and then it was Chief [of] Naval Research, and then it went to Chief [of] Naval Materials ,and then to the Naval Air Systems Command—so away and back again. So every time it moved, people felt, “Well, we gotta change the name of that.” So that happened, you know, over several years. so the stationary was taking a hitting. You know, in changing our names and who we reported to over the years, but it appears now that we have a very stable organization under the Naval Air Systems Command and our organization continues to grow down here and they’re doing wonderful things. Saving time, lives, and money every day. See, that’s the beauty of really working with an organization like this, because when you go home at night you realize that you touched the lives of every solider, sailor, Marine, and Coast Guard. You know, and through the efforts of what you’re doing here. You can’t beat that for job satisfaction.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Can you give us some specific examples of simulations that happen? Like what does it look like? How does that work? What kinds of things do you have to do on the front end to make it possible?</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Uh, yes. Um, you know [<em>laughs</em>], I’m not gonna do this. You know, it’s all in here. That was commercial.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>No. I actually—kidding aside—it all begins with the requirements. It all begins with the requirements from the, um, the parent system. Like if it’s an aircraft that you want to build a simulator for, uh, you examine the aircraft. you examine the tasks that have to be conducted by the air crew. And given those tasks, then you can select the media—what media is best to teach. Train those particular tasks. There are some that deal with, like, decision making. Others are procedural and each and every media kinda has their own strength, you know, with which each of the tasks that have been identified.</p> <p>So normally it goes through some form of task analysis of the operational system and then from there you come up with the media. Uh, you identify the behavioral objectives, come up with the media, and then go about writing the specifications and statements of work for the training system that you intend to have procured or built. So our engineers spend a lot of time writing specification statements of work delineating exactly what the simulator has to look like.</p> <p>Let’s take for example: what would a flight simulator consist of? Okay. First of all, you’ve got the—the enclosure where the pilot would sit. So you’ve got to make sure all the instruments—all the nobs, and controls, whatever—operate just like the real airplane. So you have to make some decisions how you gonna design that and becomes a systems engineering process to do that. So you design that enclosure with the proper configurations. Then you decide, <em>Well, am I gonna have a visual display?</em> So that the pilot can look out the windscreen and see the real world. If so, there are several choices you have as to what kind of visual system you would put on this. So let’s say you narrow it down to the visual system—maybe it’s a widescreen. The pilot looks out, can look 180 degrees perhaps, and see even through the periphery what’s happening in the real world. And this—the intent is to have it move and behave just like it would if you were flying the aircraft.</p> <p>Okay. what else do we need? Well, we need some computers to make this thing work. So you get a computing system. You go through that whole exercise again. What’s the proper size, speed, etc. for the computer? Then you say, “Well, should we have motion or not? Should we tilt and move this pilot?” We go through that same process to come up with the motion system. Then you have things we call like “control loading,” and then like when the pilot moves the control stick. Does it feel right? Does it feel like the airplane? Is it, uh, hydraulic, or is it force-fed or whatever—make these kinds of decisions depending on what your requirements are.</p> <p>So what you do is you take all these components and you integrate them together and you come up with a training system that replicates the function, um—the functions and usually the configuration of the system that you’re trying to simulate. I mean, a true testimony to how well we’ve done our job is when a pilot comes out of a simulator and he or she is draped with sweat and they say, “That was god-awful.” And then you know you’ve achieved some realness, because what we’re looking for here. And, uh, I think the amusement people say it very nicely—is we’re suspending disbelief for a little while. Because you know you’re in a simulator, but if you get all engrossed in the task at hand. You can forget that it’s a simulator—you begin to think that it’s real. And that’s what we want, because then you can train people effectively. You can make decisions under stress even though you’ve created the stress artificially. So that’s kinda how you put it—that’s what a flight simulator would look like. Then you have all sorts of other simulators, uh, besides just aviation, submarines, you might want to teach people how to control a submarine. You know, the driving aspects of it or the weapons system piece, fire control, etc., all those have to be integrated into the overall system. There are full-up systems, there are part-task trainers, entire families of training devices. I’m giving you a crash course here in a very short period of time.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>That’s perfect.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Um, I think you touched a little bit on this next question just through some of those examples that you said but what is the mission—the mission statement of NAWCTSD?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Well, see, I’ve been out of there now for a while, because I retired in 1994. Um, but the mission is—and I can just sort of paraphrase—I believe it is to be the principle agent for the acquisition research and logistic support of—of training simulators for the, uh—the Navy and the other services as a side. Something to that effect. But it is—they are the principle activity within the Navy for procuring simulators.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>And, um, can you tell me a little bit about your time at NAWCTSD? What were some of, uh, your major projects?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Sure.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>And what happened on your watch when you were here?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yeah., I’d love to, ‘cause we, uh, you know—we have a road of accomplishment, I think, over those years while I was here that I’m quite proud of the people that were able to make some real breakthroughs in technology and satisfy the war fighter and the warrior in a way, in a manner, that hadn’t been done before.</p> <p class="Default">I’ll give ya one example: Um, the MILES system, which is the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System, was essentially developed in our laboratory at NAWCTSD by a team. The team was headed by a gentleman by the name of Al Marshall. Al Marshall had a better idea on how to teach weapon—team—weapons team engagement and that was the use of lasers. Um, eye safe and totally safe lasers, as opposed to using live ammunition out in the field. So he came up with the whole concept of outfitting soldiers with the laser detectors and this was really the first laser tag, if you will, but it was for the military. He was a Navy engineer doing some work for the Army and the Marine Corps went and bought the MILES system also. So it was a tri-service initiative kicked off by one little team, if you will, working in the, uh, in our laboratory under the Office of Naval Research, uh, task.</p> <p class="Default">Some other things that we did, uh, other than the just the technology growth and the improvement in the fidelity of simulation. You know, visual systems have gotten to be really, really good when it comes to realism, uh, as is motion for that matter. Now, while I was there too, we toyed with the idea of developing deployable trainers. You know, we felt, “Gee, why do we always have to bring people into the school house, put them in a simulator, and then they get deployed out to sea?” And by the time they come back, some of the skills have already perished. I mean, they’re perishable skills to some degree. Why not put the trainers out there where they are?</p> <p class="Default">So along came the whole idea of deployable simulators and mission rehearsal simulators that could be deployed, put on board aircraft carriers and other installations that are closer to the squadrons and the people that actually use them. So, uh, the deployable simulators, I thought, was a really neat technology that was like the next—next energy level above what we had been doing in the past. And—and the same is true in so many other areas too, where a level of realism has increased, uh, tremendously too.</p> <p class="Default">For example—his happened after my watch—so the, um, battle stations 21—the simulator up at Great Lakes where they brought together the entertainment world along with the simulation—military simulation world—and they built a training device for recruits—Navy recruits— that essentially forms the part of their graduation. Their last day. It’s sort of like a hell week, but only compressed into one day, where they’re able to simulate fires on board ship, casualties, injured people, leaks in the bulkhead—all simulated—but like with real water and what looks to be like flames. Again, borrowing on the Disney magic and any other theme parks that are here. And it became so—it’s so realistic, in fact, that it’s hard to replicate what they’ve done up there.</p> <p class="Default">Another, uh, thing that we did, way back when—or “back in the day,” as they say today—was pier-side training along the same notion of, you know, why bring people in to a classroom, or why go to sea and train all the time, uh, because that that can be expensive. We came up with the pier-side trainers which essentially are, um—well, they’re trailer-based simulations. More like stimulators than simulators. But anyway, we take these trailers, and we plug them into a ship that’s tied up pier-side, and through cables and running alongside and into the ship. we’re able to generate signals, put them into the ship, so that the people that are at their operating stations see everything as though they’re out at sea. We can create targets in that trailer. You know, create targets and threats and then the people in their battle station. or in their normal working stations, they can look at their radars, their sonars, their fire control, and they see targets like they’re at sea and they give commands and they run through the exercise as though they are out at sea. So that was a family of pier-side trainers that started to be quite successful.</p> <p class="Default">And then the next step was imbedded training where we were able to imbed some training features into the actual parent system, whether it be an aircraft or a ship. I know one particular radar, for example, that when they go out at sea they can generate targets and practice radar movements simulating those targets that are out there. There are no targets in the water, but they—the ship’s crew—think that there is, because we can generate those and they look at their scopes, the water, and they see actual targets that aren’t real. So, you know, tech, and…</p> <p class="Default">This this happened outside of my experience at NAWCTSD, but it began at NAWCTSD, and that’s the whole notion of using virtual reality for training. Um, one of the things that Dr. Hayes—Dr. Bob Hayes—had a project with his team called “V Sub,” to where they simulated the gentlemen in the submarine at the conning tower that was steering a submarine through a canal or channel, say. And they did that through virtual reality. They would put the head-mounted display on the individual and that individual would see the banks of the canal, would see other ships, beacons, markers. and then through a headset communicate with what would’ve been the people steering the submarine when in actuality it was a voice recognition system that was taking action based on the commands being given by the individual. So—and that was a very, very neat, neat program.</p> <p class="Default">And later on, after I retired and I—I worked, uh, with a company General Dynamics—actually Veridian, at the time. Um, I was like a support contractor to them—came up with this notion of maybe we can do something for deaf and hearing-impaired kids using that same technology. At that time Congressman [Ira William “Bill”] McCollum[, Jr.] was very active and interested in what we’re doing, and he was able to get some support money for us to build a virtual reality system for Lake Sybelia Elementary School up in Maitland. There they have a high percentage of deaf and hearing-impaired children, and what initiated this was the principal coming to one of our NCS [National Center for Simulation] meetings.</p> <p class="Default">At the time, I believe I was chairman of the board at NCS and we got all through with our meeting and it was an open meeting. He said, “Yes, sir. I’m, um, a principal of Lake Sybelia Elementary School. What can you do to help us?” “What’s your problem, sir?” He says, “Here’s my problem. We have a large group of deaf and hearing-impaired kids and our teachers spend most of their time with living skills—teaching them how to do very simple things. They don’t have time to get into reading and arithmetic and things they’re supposed to be learning. What can you do to help us?”</p> <p class="Default">So we moved out and we got all the support we could. We put together a team. We got some money and we did build a virtual reality system. and the kids loved it, because they would get immersed in the system. And we simulated, for example, the question of how to cross the street safely. So we would simulate trucks going by, so they could see them and we even had the odor of diesel so they knew it was a truck and a little bit of rumble, because we fixed the seat so it would vibrate. And, uh, so they learned to go to the cross-walk and go through the green light and whatever. We had stranger danger, danger stranger with an intruder coming in the classroom—in the classroom—on the school grounds. and, uh, we taught them what to do if they saw a stranger that didn’t look good. We taught them how to, uh, go to and order in a fast food restaurant.</p> <p class="Default">Many times these kids—they’re not looking for recognition. They’re not looking for attention. so if they order the wrong thing usually they’ll just take it and eat it—whatever it is—or if they get the wrong change back, they’re not gonna make a thing out of it. They just by and large don’t want to be recognized like that. So we taught them how to go to a fast food restaurant and order. We gave them the menu. We told them how to order. They made change and we gave it back to them and whatever. We did that. We did fire in the home. How to get out of the building if it’s on fire, etc. So we taught them all those things using that technology of virtual reality and, to me, that one probably one of the most rewarding projects that I ever got involved with.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>That’s really cool.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yeah. Yeah. Fun too. Like I tell people, I never worked a day in my life. And that’s true. if you enjoy what you’re doing, you never will work a day in your life.</p> <p><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>One of my questions is about challenges. In creating the different simulations for—I guess it’s kind of a broad question—what are some kind of reoccurring challenges that you come into when you go to put together one of these simulations?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Well, of course, it’s—we always think in terms of cost and schedule and performance, and cost is always an issue. Particularly, if you’re dealing in an area where you cannot define precisely, exactly what you want, and so there’s opportunities there for some, some, uh, you know, movement within that—you know, feasible window of opportunity. So many times cost-growth is an issue—trying to keep the cost within the budget.</p> <p class="Default">And the same is true with time. Technology changes so rapidly, and usually you want the most current technology in your system. So there might be some delays attributed to that and then when you get to new technology, then there’s a learning curve or whatever. So time can be a problem.</p> <p class="Default">And performance, uh, can be an issue too, because you really have to understand what the user wants. And it can be sometimes vaguely stated and our engineers and others—our education specialists and psychologists—will write a specification and it may not be exactly what the, uh, expectations of the eventual user. And then you have turn over personnel. you know, the user has different people coming on board, because of rotation. The new person might say, “That’s nice, but here’s what I really want.” So that can drive cost and schedule a little wacko too.</p> <p class="Default">So those are some challenges and, and the technology itself. You do want to have everything that’s as current as can be, because you’ve got that whole issue of user acceptance to deal with.</p> <p class="Default">Kids today have the latest bells and whistles, and it’s true in the service too. I mean, all the younger people coming in the service usually are familiar with and have used the latest technology. So, if you come along and give them something that’s lesser than that, they’re not going to be happy and chances are they may not even use it. So you’ve got to be very accommodating to the, uh, you know—the generations as they’re coming along to what you deliver.</p> <p class="Default">Um, I can give you a good example of that. Today, gaming—you know, we’re using gaming technology in some of the simulator developments, like in decision making and some of those, uh, training devices. They’re actually using off-the-shelf games, um, or it can be just the gaming engines that are being used in the simulations. S, we have a whole new generation now that are familiar with gaming, but we have others that are not familiar with gaming. So we’ve got to bring the new people in as quickly as we can to make sure that we’re satisfying the generational needs of our—our service people. So keeping up with the technology and incorporating that in our latest devices is going to be a challenge. So, um, there are a few challenges. There are other challenges—I’m sure—but, uh, those are a few.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Thank you. Um, and even in that you talked a little bit about this next question—can you tell me about what you think the future looks like for simulation? Specifically here at NAWCTSD. what’s the future look like with what kinds of things they might get into? [00:42:47.25]</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yeah. these are exciting times, because every time I think that we’re here now—it just goes off onto another curve. I—I liken this to, um, a growth curves that I—I—I’ve been developed for other things, like tennis rackets. Tennis rackets, you know, started out as wood rackets, and then they went to aluminum rackets. Then they went to composite rackets. And every time they go from one technology to another, you get off a growth curve that looks like it’s saturated onto a new growth curve that begins to get saturated and you continue to do that. And that’s where we are right now in simulation and training.</p> <p class="Default">With—as I mentioned, gaming, for example—it’s opening up a whole new area for us to investigate. An area too that I think is gonna get some attention and that is the fidelity of simulation is determined by brain activity. To be able to measure brain activity in an individual while varying fidelity might give us some indication as to how well we are conveying information to the trainee based on their mental arousal or other, uh, symptoms that would be evident through brain wave measurement. For example, we might take a look at a low fidelity simulator—as opposed to a high fidelity simulator, as opposed to an aircraft and do the same measurement on individuals—and just take a look at what kind of distraction or what kind of concentration takes place in each of those situations.</p> <p class="Default">So I think there’s, you’re gonna see more activity in the brain—brain measurement area. I’m not up to the point yet where they’re gonna put probes into the head and with one throw of the switch you’ve got it. That—that’s maybe for my son or somebody else to pick up on that, but, um, yeah. I think that’s a very, very good area to and people are doing that now to some degree. Not full-scale yet, but they are looking at it.</p> <p class="Default">Um, other areas—I mentioned gaming. Again, I think being able to tell a story better. Being able to tell a story of how a simulator is included in the overall scenario or experience that you’re trying to create. The attractions do that really well. They prepare you for it, you know, on The [Twilight Zone] Tower of Terror. you’re terrorized before anything happens for that matter. Or if you go to the Cape [Canaveral], over here where they have the new [NASA Space Shuttle] Atlantis [Exhibit] and you go through the space mission. they get you all prepped for the mission that you’re going to be involved with. They know how to tell a story, and I think we need to do that too with our training for our military personnel. To be able to integrate what we’re doing more into the overall scenario that we’re trying to establish. Yeah.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>And one of my last questions is about the changes that have happened in Orlando because of NAWCTSD’s presence. You kind of described for us what it was a little bit like when simulation kind of got started here. Can you tell us a little bit about how it’s changed? How Orlando has changed because of NAWCTSD’s presence here?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Yeah. I—I think we need to look at it from a little larger picture first. And that is, when we first came down here, there were no companies that—except for Lockheed Martin—that had anything to do with simulation. But then, as simulation began to grow, all these other companies began to come down and wanted to be close to the acquisition agencies—the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, to some degree too. They want to be close to it, so they begin to orbit essentially the Team Orlando organization that we’ve been talking about to where Team Orlando now accounts for billions of dollars of acquisition of simulators and this accounts for some 27,000 direct employees working with the [U.S.] Defense Department in modeling and simulation.</p> <p class="Default">Now it’s spread. We’re no longer just defense. We’re into entertainment, homeland security, transportation, medical—all using simulation. And we don’t know how large that piece is, but if the other piece is 27,000, it’s equal to or greater than probably. So what went from a handful of people moving down here in 1965—yeah. We might have 50,000 people now involved in simulation, one way or another.</p> <p class="Default">Tremendous impact on the tax base in Central Florida., the average salary is about 70,000 dollars a year. people working in the simulation industry and the educational system has been totally responsive. The University of Central Florida, what were our community colleges now are four year colleges that have been set up. We can get a Master’s or Doctorate degree in simulation through UCF. Our high schools now—we have a curriculum in modeling and simulation that NCS put together. It’s on our website. It just seems to be no end to this and that’s good. You know where the long pole in the tent is to all this? Teachers. We don’t have teachers than can teach at the K[indergarten] through 12 level modeling and simulation and let the kids know about the careers that are available and why they need to study STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics]. you know, cause that’s the basis for our business in modeling and simulation is STEM. But it has—it has grown almost exponentially, and I expect it to continue to grow too. In spite of cut backs or other barriers we might see, we’re in a growth, uh—we’re in a growth community right now.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Thank you. Um, do you have any other thoughts? Kind of wrapping up our interview. Any final thoughts about simulation and, um, its benefits? How it benefits us?</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>Well, we know about the military. We also know that it’s being infused now into the medical world. Our Lake Nona [Medical City] complex down here—Medical City—has a number of simulations for like endoscopic, other forms of surgery, the Da Vinci simulations, and all. Um, the VA hospital. They all have some form of simulation. so, um, the spectrum has opened up as to the application of simulations. It provides for a wonderful career for individuals that want to get in to a well-paying, yet very, very satisfying career. and we need to really get that information out—get that out to the youngsters so they do they do begin to think of it as a viable career and they can stay in Florida and enjoy what we have here in doing so.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <p class="Default"><strong>Okraski<br /></strong>My pleasure, Kendra. Thank you for taking the time.</p> <p><strong>Hazen<br /></strong>Thanks.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Individual Ready Reserve (IRR).</p> </div> </div> 1st Marine Corps Division 2F-23 A-3 intruders A-7 Air Force Reconnaissance Squadron aircraft simulators Armstrong, Jack Army Participation Group Baldwin Park ballistic missile early warning sites Base Realignment and Closure Battle of Guadalcanal Bauer Bill McCollum BRAC Bulletin 40-1 Bureau of Aeronautics C11 Cape Canaveral Chief of Naval Materials Chief of Naval Research Clarkson University CNR cold war Community Veterans History Project Como, Perry Cross Creek CVHP De Florez, Luis deaf deep sea divers defense industry defense simulation defense simulation industry Deputy Technical Director Eisenhower, Dwight D. electrical engineering electrical engineers F-102 F-3 Field Service Organization flight simulation General Dynamics Gould-Guggenhiem Estate Greenland GS-11 Guadalcanal Guadalcanal Campaign Guggenheim Hayes, Bob Hazen, Kendra hearing impaired Hill, Amanda Invasion of Normandy Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy Lake Nona Medical City Lake Sybelia Elementary School Link Aviation Devices, Inc. Lockheed Martin Lone Sailor Memorial Committee Lone Sailor Memorial Project Long Island Long Island, New York Luis De Florez Building Maintenance Engineering Division Maitland Marshall, Al McCollum, Ira William, Jr. McCoy AFB McCoy Air Force Base MILES Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit National Center for Simulation Offices Naval Air Systems Command Naval Air Warfare Center Naval Air Warfare System Naval Air Warfare Systems Training System Division Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Naval Training Center Orlando Naval Training Device Center Naval Training Materials Center Naval Training Systems Center Navy Memorial of Central Florida NAWCTSD NCS Newfoundland, Canada Normandy, France Northport NTC Orlando Office of Naval Materials Office of Naval Research Okraski, Henry Carl P2V Partnership III Building Physical to Virtual Port Washington Potsdam, Germany radio programs Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan Research and Engineering Research Parkway Rollins College Senior Executive Service simulation Special Devices Task St. Patrick's Grammar School STEM stranger danger tank simulators Team Orlando The Wonderful World of Simulation a Brief History of Modeling and Simulation and Its Impact on Our Lives The Yearling Thule Air Base Twilight Zone Tower of Terror U. S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Coast Guard U.S. Department of Defense U.S. Marine Corps U.S. Navy UC UCF UF University of Central Florida University of Florida USS Shenandoah Utica Free Academy Utica, New York V Sub Veridian virtual reality Wheaties https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/db4f6a929f30cfad8278db2ca869bd87.pdf 8cb2851f140442d3b56d8ea9188f22b4 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 Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra Collection Alternative Title Orlando Philharmonic Collection Subject Philharmonic orchestra series Orchestras Music--Florida Musicians--United States Orlando (Fla.) Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around. The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, located at 812 East Rollins Street Suite 300 in Orlando, was inspired by the closing of the Florida Symphony in 1993. The orchestra performs in more than 125 concerts each season. In June of 2013, the Philharmonic made plans to purchase the Plaza Live, located at 425 North Bumby Avenue in downtown Orlando, for office space, a rehearsal hall, a music library, and a music hall. Contributor <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Language eng Type Collection Coverage Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span>." Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. http://orlandophil.org/.</span> <span>"</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span>." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil.</span> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/140" target="_blank">Central Florida Music History Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/145" target="_blank">Classical Collection</a>, Central Florida Music History Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Rights Holder <span>Copyright to this resource is held by the </span><a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a><span> and is provided here by </span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a><span> for educational purposes only.</span> Curator Cepero, Laura Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee James, Caroline James, Hugh Duration 1 minute and 51 seconds 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 Hugh and Caroline James Alternative Title Oral History, James Subject Orlando (Fla.) Philharmonic orchestra series Orchestras Music--Florida Anniversaries Patrons, Music Description Episode in the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra's 20th Anniversary video series, chronicling the orchestra's history in Central Florida. This episode features an interview with Hugh James and Caroline James, patrons of the orchestra. Topics in the video include how the James got involved with the orchestra, working with the people and musicians of the OPO, the Philharmonic's relationship with patrons, the orchestra's role in the community, and ticket sales and subscribers. <br /><br />Hugh and Caroline are members of the Friends of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, an organization dedicated to supporting the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. The Orlando Philharmonic Guild first met in February of 1996 and changed its name to the Friends of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in July of that same year. They held their first invitational fundraiser, "The Holiday Pops Dinner Gala," at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in December of 1996. The Friends celebrated its 15th anniversary in October of 2011, and continues to host fundraising events focused on garnering financial and community support of the OPO. <br /><br />The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, located at 812 East Rollins Street Suite 300 in Orlando, was inspired by the closing of the Florida Symphony in 1993. The orchestra performs in more than 125 concerts each season. In June of 2013, the Philharmonic made plans to purchase the Plaza Live, located at 425 North Bumby Avenue in downtown Orlando, for office space, a rehearsal hall, a music library, and a music hall. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:13 How the James got involved with the orchestra 0:00:21 Working with the people and musicians of the OPO 0:00:44 The Philharmonic's relationship with patrons 0:01:06 The orchestra's role in the community 0:01:45 Closing credits Abstract In celebration of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra's 20th Anniversary season, this video series chronicles the orchestra's two decades of history in Central Florida. In this episode, Caroline and Hugh James talk about why they are Friends of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. This video was produced by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown and Lisa Mills with the guidance of Stella Sung and Emily Lindahl. Type Moving Image Source Original 1-minute and 51-second video by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills: "<a href="http://youtu.be/L1JWf8Cnnuk" target="_blank">The Orlando Phil's 20th Anniversary | Hugh &amp; Caroline James</a>." <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, October 24, 2012: Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a>. Application software, such as <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a>. Coverage Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando, Florida Creator Gennaro, Joe Brown, Timothy G. Mills, Lisa Publisher <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Contributor James, Caroline James, Hugh Sung, Stella Lindahl, Emily Date Created 2012 Date Copyrighted 2012-10-24 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Medium 1-minute and 51-second video Language eng Mediator History Teacher Humanities Teacher Music Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills and published by the <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</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 Loan Contributing Project <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a> External Reference "<a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>." Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. http://orlandophil.org/. "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrlandoPhil. "<a href="http://www.friendsorlandophil.org/about.htm" target="_blank">About the Friends</a>." Friends of the Orlando Philharmonic. http://www.friendsorlandophil.org/about.htm. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/L1JWf8Cnnuk" target="_blank">Oral History of Hugh and Caroline James </a> Transcript <p><strong>Caroline<br /></strong>I was retired. He was still working. Uh, so I dragged him in slowly but surely it's well.</p> <p><strong>Hugh<br /></strong>If you sort of had to ask, “What is the nicest thing about working with the OPO[ Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra]?” It's the people. it's the people. Um, especially, in some ways, the musicians. They’re not people in fancy suits across there on the stage. They’re regular folks and they are just nice people. They’re all such nice people.</p> <p><strong>Caroline<br /></strong>The Philharmonic really reaches out to its patrons and wants every patron to know they are the most important person in that auditorium. And we, um—we have post-concert receptions, where you get to meet the musicians, the staff, guest artists, fellow patrons. And there’s a real mixing and mingling and you feel like you're part of a big family.</p> <p><strong>Hugh<br /></strong>The Philharmonic has become an integral part of the community. Um, both with its concerts, with its presentations, with its opera, and with all the things that it's doing for young people. So, um, I think the recognition in the community is far, far higher than it was 10 years ago. With each concert, we have less general seating tickets to sell. That’s the bad news [<em>laughs</em>]. The good news is that’s because they are full of subscribers. </p> Date Issued 2012-10-24 Has Format Original 1-minute and 51-second video by Joe Gennaro, Timothy G. Brown, and Lisa Mills: "<a href="http://youtu.be/L1JWf8Cnnuk" target="_blank">The Orlando Phil's 20th Anniversary | Hugh &amp; Caroline James</a>." <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>. http://youtu.be/L1JWf8Cnnuk. Is Part Of <a href="http://orlandophil.org/" target="_blank">Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/140" target="_blank">Central Florida Music History Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. 20th Anniversary Friends of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra James, Caroline James, Hugh music OPO orchestra orlando Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra patron philharmonic orchestra Rollins Street subscribers Twentieth Anniversary https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/1b0ca7b267bd0da0c01d9e5851bf9f56.pdf 657461cfd74c12dc2ae5114fd8e4527d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Dossie, Porsh Interviewee Boston, Ida Location Oviedo, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video recording Duration 15 minutes and 38 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 127kbps 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 Ida Boston Alternative Title Oral History, Boston Subject Oral history--United States Oviedo (Fla.) Education--Florida Schools Churches--Florida Baptists--Florida Segregation--Florida Cemeteries--Florida Graveyards Civil rights--Florida Description An oral history of Ida Boston, conducted by Porsha Dossie on April 18, 2015. Boston is a resident of Oviedo, Florida, and a retired school bus driver for the Seminole County Public Schools. In 1956, she married her husband, Russell Boston, who is the grandson of Prince Butler Boston, a leading figure in Oviedo's black community. In this oral history, Boston discusses the legacy of Prince Butler Boston, establishing a colored cemetery, funding colored schools in the Oviedo area, and the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. Boston also discusses black life in Oviedo, including membership in the Oviedo Citizens in Action Committee (OCIAC), which desegregated public places in Oviedo and fought for integration of Oviedo's schools. Table Of Contents <br />0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:08 Prince Butler Boston and the Boston Family<br />0:04:17 Married life<br />0:05:46 History Harvest<br />0:07:51 Oviedo Citizens in Action Committee<br />0:10:47 Black life in Seminole County<br />0:13:24 Boston Hill Cemetery and Antioch Missionary Baptist Church<br />0:15:20 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Ida Boston. Interview conducted by Porsha Dossie at the <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> in Oviedo, Florida, on April 18, 2015. Type Moving Image Source Boston, Ida. Interviewed by Porsha Dossie, April 18, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 10-page digital transcript of original 15-minute and 38-second oral history: Boston, Ida. Interviewed by Porsha Dossie, April 18, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Oviedo Colored School, Oviedo, Florida Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, Oviedo, Florida Home of the Boston Family, Oviedo, Florida Home of Prince Butler Boston, Oviedo, Florida Boston Hill Cemetery, Oviedo, Florida Creator Boston, Ida Dossie, Porsha Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2015-04-18 Date Copyrighted 2015-04-18 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 462 MB 141 KB Medium 15-minute and 38-second audio/video recording 10-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Ida Boston and Porsha Dossie and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Dossie, Porsha Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference Robinson, Jim. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1989-02-02/news/8902030156_1_oviedo-grove-boston" target="_blank">Boston's dedication bears fruit in community, citrus industry</a>." <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, February 2, 1989. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1989-02-02/news/8902030156_1_oviedo-grove-boston. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/iUjvhmIEORY" target="_blank">Oral History of Ida Boston</a> Academy Place African American agriculture Alexander Atkinson Antioch Missionary Baptist Church Baptist barber barbershop Boston Alley Boston Hill Cemetery Boston Street bus bus driver Butler Boston Project Canterbury Retreat carpenter cemetery church citrus City of Oviedo civil rights Civil Rights Movement desegregation Division Street doctor drugstore education equal rights farmer farming First United Methodist Church of Oviedo graveyard grower Henry Jackson Ida Boston integration Jackson Heights Elementary School Jackson Heights Middle School James Bordy Joseph Boston Julia Boston Lake Gem Lindsay Lane Little Red School House nonviolent resistance OCIAC OHS oral history orange Oviedo Oviedo Citizens in Action Oviedo Colored School Oviedo High School physician plantation Porsha Dossie Prince Butler Atkinson Prince Butler Boston protest race relations racism Russell W. Boston Sanford school SCPS segregation Seminole County Seminole County Public Schools sit-down sit-in https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/86033523f981064a0922ad0e246b8783.mp3 26845587f8da7187a0919d6c05f52dd6 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/039b8944840a95bb0f9dc82e9b951544.pdf ed15271af023f637e575c4d90777c13a 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 Yarborough, Ima Jean Bostick Location <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><span>, Sanford, Florida.</span> 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 Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough Alternative Title Oral History, Yarborough Subject Ocala (Fla.) Silver Springs (Fla.) Cattle--Florida Horses--Florida Agriculture--Florida Description An oral history interview of Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough, conducted by Joseph Morris on November 10, 2011. Yarborough was born on August 2, 1935 in Ocala, Florida, but spent much of her adult life working in the cattle industry in Geneva. In the interview, she discusses her childhood in Ocala, how Ocala has changed over time, living in Oxford, the cattle industry, life in Geneva, the 4-H program, and her husband's military service. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br /> 0:00:26 Growing up in Ocala<br /> 0:03:34 How Ocala has changed over time<br /> 0:06:09 Living in Oxford<br /> 0:06:29 RECORDING CUTS OFF<br /> 0:06:30 Living in Oxford<br /> 0:08:24 Family and occupational history<br /> 0:11:34 Meeting her husband, Edward, and moving to Geneva<br /> 0:14:10 Husband, children, and grandchildren<br /> 0:20:44 4-H<br /> 0:22:49 Cattle industry<br /> 0:36:58 Markets and butcher houses<br /> 0:40:31 Relationship between ranches<br /> 0:41:53 Improvements in the cattle industry<br /> 0:42:29 Tracking cattle<br /> 0:42:29 Family involvement in the cattle industry<br /> 0:48:49 Husband’s service in the military<br /> 0:50:15 Female figures in Yarborough’s childhood<br /> 0:54:29 Declaration of World War II<br /> 0:59:45 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough. 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 Original 1-hour and 56-second oral history: Yarborough, Ima Jean Bostick. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. November 10, 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="http://www.adobe.com/reader.html" 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. Creator Morris, Joseph Yarborough, Ima Jean Bostick Date Created 2010-06-30 2010-07-06 Date Copyrighted 2010-06-30 2010-07-06 Format video/wav application/pdf Extent 649 MB 168 KB Medium 1-hour and 56-second audio recording 24-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Economics Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough and transcribed by Savannah Vickers. 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 Cochran, Oladel, Letha Fowler, and Arolyn True. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/15199699" target="_blank"><em>A Bicentennial History of Geneva, Florida, 1976</em></a>. Geneva, Fl: Bicentennial Committee, 1976. "<a href="http://www.lakemaryhistory.org/History.htm" target="_blank">Geneva's History</a>." Geneva Museum, Geneva Historical Society. http://www.lakemaryhistory.org/History.htm. Transcript <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>This is an interview with Ima Jean [Bostick] Yarborough, and this interview is being conducted on November 10, 2011, at the Museum of Seminole County History. The interviewer is Joseph Morris, representing the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida. Ma’am, could you tell us about where you were born, and when?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>I was born in Ocala, Florida, on Sanchez Street, August the 2^nd, 1935.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. And could you tell us a little bit more about where, what kind of environment you grew up in, house, and...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes, this is a two-story home that my mother was living in at the time with her in-laws, and we went back later and purchased the home, but I was around ten years old at that time. So she lived there for about a year and a half with me. This home is still standing. When I go to Ocala on business or pleasure, I go by and look at it, and have wonderful memories there, because it was across the street from a city park called Tuscawilla Park. That was very close to a logging company that was in Ocala at that time, and they used the ponds to float the logs in. So it was a wonderful place for a child to grow up and play. We could fish the pond. We could wade the pond. And there was tennis courts all around that one particular pond, so we just had a wonderful playground right there as we were growing up. That was way before television, and not many radios.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am. The community—was it a very sparse community, or very condensed?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>It’s a large, it was a large community, because that’s very close to Silver Springs, which is a beautiful, a natural spring, and the Seminole Indians were there for quite a while. And there was a big reptile collection [Ross Allen’s Reptile Institute] out there that people could pay to go and visit. That was originally started by a gentleman by the name of Ross Allen, and he played with alligators and milked rattlesnakes for the venom, for medical purposes. So people could go out there and pay to watch all that. It was an entertainment place. But as children we, the city took a bus out each year during the summer, each day, and you could have swimming classes out there. So we were very fortunate to learn to swim early, and enjoyed that particular area. Now it has grown into a home place for horses, especially racehorses and quarter horses.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>At Silver Springs, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No, Ocala.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t switch right. But Ocala has continually grown out, and it’s quite a large city.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Can you tell me more changes that might have occurred from when you were growing up in Ocala and now how it is today? Like what kind—when you go there, what differences stand out to you the most, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>More people, [<em>laughs</em>] more people. Of course, everything was centrally located uptown at that time. There was a town square in the center of town, which is still there with a bandshell. At that time, it had a bandshell on it, and a bandshell is used to—for a band to play music while people sit around and enjoy it, like a park atmosphere. There’s a lot of shopping centers, of course. Most towns have those now. But everything was built around that square, and just evolved out from it like a star.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>There’s a lot of horse enthusiasts, and horse breeders and racers up in that country, as I said earlier, now. So they have large statues of horses all around the square at this point.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>So it’s grown, typically, like every other city in the state of Florida.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris</strong>Any particular reason the horse training took off in Ocala?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>They’ve got a lot of lime rock up in that area, and that helps to grow very strong grass, and you need good grass for cows and horses. And it was—some people were already growing horses in the area, and they had a race horse that had won one of the very important races, that was raised from that area. So it just, after he won the race, they just started coming to that area to raise their animals and winter their animals.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, better climate?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Better climate.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, ma’am. How do you feel about the changes that have occurred from when you were growing up to now? Do you—positive, negative changes, anything? How do you feel?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Oh, I guess most of it’s positive. I want to feel that way. I try to find something positive in everything I encounter. Sometimes it’s harder than others.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And any examples of that, ma’am? You knew I was gonna ask.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Oh, goodness. I’ll think on that one and come back. Okay, Joseph?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>We’ll put that at the end. Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And so, after that, where have you lived? Have you always lived in Ocala, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>My mother went to work, and I lived with my grandmother in Oxford.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, we’re back, and we were discussing where you’ve lived over the years, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes, Oxford is a little town in Sumter County on the west side of the state, south of Ocala, and that’s where my mother was raised. And I lived the first year before school and the first grade. I lived with my grandmother. And I had a sister, Nadine, who was about three years younger than myself. And back then, we carried our lunch to school in little brown bags or maybe like a little syrup can, whichever you had. But our grandmother always made sure that I had an apple in my lunch every day, and there wasn’t always an apple left for my sister, Nadine, to have when she wanted it, under those particular circumstances. So one morning, Grandmother—we called her Granny, Granny Olberry—was packing my lunch, and my sister, Nadine, asked for an apple, and Granny said, “Nadine, you know that Ima Jean’s got to take that apple for recess.” And Nadine got very disturbed and started crying, and she says, “When I get big and go to school, I’m going to slap recess’s face for taking Ima Jean’s apple.” So that has always been a laugh, a laughing situation in our family. Recess, of course, was time out in school to play outside. Not every kid even knows what recess is, ‘cause now it’s usually called break or gym…</p> <p class="Body"><strong> Morris<br /></strong>P.E.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Something of that nature.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right, ma’am. What kind of jobs did your family have, and that you had, also, ‘cause I’m...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Okay, my mother’s people were in the cow business. Her brothers and her dad were. And my mother’s mother passed away at her birth, so she was adopted by the Olberry family and moved to Oxford. And the couple that adopted her were just good old salt-of-the-earth people. Granddaddy was a[sic] what we would call jack-of-all-trades. He was a repairman. He repaired people’s cars. He repaired their equipment that broke down. He repaired their shoes. He just was a good fixer-upper. And of course, Granny stayed at home and canned, and took care of the garden and the family.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And what about your...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>My mother worked as—she was in charge of the waiters and waitresses at a big hotel in Ocala. That was her night job. Her day job was cashier for a Piggly Wiggly, which was a strand of grocery stores at that time, that later became Winn Dixie, that we know today. She worked Winn-Dixie for 20-something years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am, and how come—your grandparents, you said, worked in cattle?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>But your mother did not?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did she not have an interest, ma’am, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No, by being adopted out, she wasn’t where the cattle were, so she went straight from school to getting married, and then working at Winn-Dixie and the hotel.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, and when did you start working, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>I started working as a freshman in high school, and I worked for the Winn-Dixie meat—in the meat department—making hamburger, cutting up chickens, weighing out the meat and wrapping it to go into the case to be sold. And I would work on weekends and at holidays.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And how long did you have that job for, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Four years of high school, and about a year afterwards.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, and what did you do after high school, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>My husband and I got married.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>And he went into the service, and I went back and worked at Winn-Dixie for a while, ‘til I could go to Oklahoma whenever he was transferred to Oklahoma after basic training.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>But let me go back into when I, how I met Edward [Yarborough].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>In October—in fact, October the 26th, 1949, my mother moved to Geneva. She had remarried, and my stepfather was coming down to help his brother work his orange grove and cattle over in the Chuluota area. So we moved to Geneva, because there was a good school there. And Mother went to work at the Piggly Wiggly, which is now the Goodwill store here in Sanford on Palmetto [Avenue]. And at that time we moved into a lovely home, and that afternoon, we had some heavy furniture to be moved. And Miss Pearl Yarborough was the lady who owned the home, and she said that when her son came in, he would help move the furniture for us that afternoon, along with my stepdad. So later on we heard him—what we know now was a cow whip—making a noise coming up the road, and it was my—it was Edward and his uncle coming in from work. And their habit was to crack the cow whip all the way up the lane, and that was just to give them practice, as well as let them—Mr. [W. G.] Kilby’s wife and Edward’s mother know to put dinner on the table. “We’re coming home.” So anyway, that’s how I met Edward. And he had graduated from high school in June of that year, and we were moving in October. So we didn’t begin dating, because I wasn’t old enough to date for another year, year and a half.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How old were you at this time, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>I was 13.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>So, he had to wait on me to grow up. [<em>laughs</em>] That’s what he had to do. And he did. But that’s the way I met him.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am. Can you tell us a little more about him, and then the rest of your family?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Mmmhm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Because I know you mentioned that he was in the service, and that’s why you moved to Oklahoma for a while, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Right, the draft was still very active in 1954.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>That’s whenever a young man turned 21, he could be drafted into the service for two years. So we had been dating probably three years by that time, and we knew that Edward was going to be drafted in January or February. He wanted to get married so that I could go with him after basic training to wherever he went. So that’s what we did. We got married December the 26th, 1954, and he went to the service in February. And after he had boot training, he was transferred to Little Rock, Arkansas, where I joined him for a couple of weeks, and then we moved everything out to Oklahoma. And we finished his two years out in Lawton, Oklahoma, at Fort Sill, and then came home, and he went back to work for his uncle, W. G. Kilby, on the cattle farm, cattle ranch. And we’ve been there ever since.</p> <p class="Body">We raised four children, two girls and two boys, and the two boys have stayed on the ranch. They’ve got side jobs. Bo—or W. E. [Yarborough]—is the oldest boy, and he has a trucking business where he hauls cattle from one market to another out in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Florida base. He doesn’t do that all year. There’s just certain times of the year that that goes on. Otherwise, he works on the ranch, and he’s got a little place in Alabama, a ranch up there. So he’s back and forth.</p> <p class="Body">J. W. [Yarborough]’s stayed here and stayed on the farm all the time, and he’s got a fertilizer business where he puts fertilizer out on large areas, large pastures and groves. So that’s his side job. Otherwise, he’s on the ranch at all times and manages it.</p> <p class="Body">Our oldest was Lynn [Yarborough]. She became a learning disability teacher, and has worked in—we’ve had the pleasure of starting three different private schools for learning disability children, through our years. J. W. had quite a learning disability problem whenever he was first started school, and there was none in Seminole County to take care of those problems, so we finally found a wonderful teacher, Mary Dunn, who helped us start PACE School. And the problem J. W. had was seeing upside-down and backwards, and glasses could not help that. You just had to retrain the mind, somehow or another, and it takes a lot of training to get that done. So in the process, as I said earlier, we had started three schools, and we got three wonderful schools. And Lynn has been a teacher. In fact, she retired this past summer. She’s taught 33 years in learning disability.</p> <p class="Body">Our youngest daughter, Reba [Yarborough], lives in Sumter County, and her family has cattle over there. So, in Lynn’s retirement, she’s helping the boys on the ranch now. She works with them whenever we mark and brand. And both of the boys’ wives help give shots and some of them, and they ride a little bit too.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>And I’ve got three grandsons: Robert [Yarborough], J. K. [James Kilby Yarborough], and C. W. Yarborough.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Are they all from the, have the same parents, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Which grandkids go with which kids?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Okay, Bo has a son named Robert.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>He’s probably 26 now, and he works for the forestry service on Snow Hill Road, and he has a little girl, six years old, Gracie [Yarborough]. And they’re expecting a second child around December the 21^st. It’ll be a little boy.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, do they have a name picked out already, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>They do, but I can’t tell you right now. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Anyway, they have, then J. W. has two sons, James Kilby, which, who we call J. K. And right now he’s doing his junior year at Gainesville, in college, and a double-A student all the way across, I’m proud to say. Then C. W., who was born with a slight problem similar to his dad’s, and he’s in Bridges Academy now. That’s one of the schools that we started and is doing real well. He’s 15 years old and about 6’2”. He’s a big fellow.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Playing football?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>He’s not playing football right now, but he does ranch rodeos.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yeah, he has played football, but prefers the rodeos.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I gotcha.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>They’re all interested in 4-H. J. W.’s wife is Francis Yarborough, and she is a teacher, and she is our 4-H leader, also. So we’ve got a wonderful 4-H group out our way, about 43 kids in the group. They show animals at Central Florida Fair every year.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And what does the 4-H stand for, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>4-H is to teach the children about agricultural. Head, heart, health, and hands is[sic] the 4 H’s.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Ah.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>And they raise steers, pigs, chickens, rabbits, sheep, goats. They also plant gardens. You can do just about anything that you’re interested in through the 4-H program.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And how long has the program? Is it like a summer program they do for a certain amount of time?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No, it’s round-year, year-round.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Well, if you’re doing an animal, you don’t have to feed that animal all year, but you do about six months—six to eight months of it—of feeding the animal. Then it goes to the fair, and it’s shown and auctioned off to the highest bidder. And they buy the animals. Some people butcher the animal and eat—has it for food. Some people give it to, like the Methodist Children’s Home, for them to eat, or to the Russell House. We’ve got quite a bit of food like that donated down through the years.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Then they get money back to pay for the feed that they put in the animal.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And—oh, by the way, thank you very much for the—I got everybody in your family here written down. But the, um—you worked in the cattle industry, correct, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>I’m sorry?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>You worked with the cattle as well, right? Did you start working when you came back from Oklahoma with your husband?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Oh, yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did you go back to Piggly Wiggly for any amount of time, or did you go straight into the cattle industry, and have you stayed there the entire time?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No, no. I stayed home at that time, because there was[sic] quite a few older people in Ed’s family that needed to be looked after, and the only place to buy groceries back then was Sanford, which was twelve miles from Geneva, so I did the little chauffeuring back and forth of about five different older people in his family, and just helped—helped where I was needed. If we had a garden planted, I always picked the vegetables—helped pick the vegetables and can them. Back then we didn’t have too much running water, so Mondays were wash day. I’d fix a fire under the big old wash pot and heat the water, put it in the washing machine for Edward’s mother to wash clothes. Tuesdays was days to iron. You used your wash water to mop the floors with, being as conservative as we could be with the water. And Wednesdays we did other things around the house, but Mondays was always wash days, and Tuesdays was always iron day.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Did you not have indoor plumbing in your house at that time, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>We had both. Both.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>The outdoor was there because that’s what had been there to begin with, but they had put indoor plumbing at Edward’s home about five years before.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Before we got married.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>And when did you get involved with the cattle industry, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>With the cattle?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>That was started in our area and in Ed’s family by his grandfather, E. H. Kilby, who came here from Pensacola as a young man, way back in the late 1800s. He stayed with a man by the name of C. S. Lee from Oviedo, lived in his barn and worked orange groves ‘til he got enough money to buy a little piece of land. And then after he got married and had a family of his own, the boys grew up and W. G. [Kilby], his second child, stayed with him, and they hunted hogs, wild hogs, on the St. John’s River area, and would butcher—would feed them out, and butcher them, and take them to the Piggly Wiggly and sell them. And they accumulated enough money to buy some land and buy some cows, by hunting the wild hogs. Then in 1949, Florida passed a law that all the animals had to be fenced in. So up until then, they roamed free, anywhere on the land that was in the area, and of course you wanted to keep them close to the river, because that was where they could get their water, and good grass too. So Mr. Kilby focused on purchasing land adjacent to the St. John’s River, where—so he could have water, as well as grass. And that’s what they did. They had land in Volusia County, and then he came over and bought some from Mr. C. S. Lee, along highway [Florida State Road] 46 and the St. John’s River, bordered by Snow Hill on the west side. And altogether, at one point, we had about 12,000 acres that was under fence. So, a lot of fences to keep up, ‘cause you did them different pastures for the cows to live in, and you’d circulate your cows. You don’t leave them on the same pasture all the time.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>So that’s just part of the, part of the way you work cattle.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And why would you rotate the cattle to different fenced areas, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Well, they eat the grass down, and you have to give it time to grow back. And you leave them on that same place too long, they just pull it up by the roots, and then you don’t have any grass at all.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>So you rotate them about every 28 days.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, that frequently?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Mmhmm. You can leave them a little longer, but just really depends on the weather. [<em>laughs</em>] Everything with farming and ranching depends on the weather.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>So if it was rainier weather you’d keep them there longer, and drier weather you’d have to move them faster, because the grass wouldn’t grow as much, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>That would be safe to say, pretty well. Yeah. But warm nights is really when grass grows. That’s why grass grows so good down here in Florida. But the dirt—the sand is very porous, so you have to really fertilize it, and back then, they didn’t fertilize much. They didn’t know that back then. It was always native grass, but now we’ve got what’s called “improved grass.” So you fertilize the improved grass. The native grass, like on the river, grows on its own, because the river and the high water fertilizes the native grass.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And what is improved grass?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Argentina[sic] Bahia is one, and there’s a Pensacola Bahia, and that’s the two grasses that we use the most in our cattle ranch.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>There’s a lot of different grasses, though, Joe.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Right, I just didn’t know if there was native grass in other areas…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes, there is.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Or if they had been, like, tinkered with.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No, we’ve cleaned—down through the years, we’ve cleaned up a lot of land, and made what’s referred to as “improved pastures.” That’s on the higher land. And so, you fertilize these places. We’ve made them into hayfields. Some of them are hayfields, and some of them are just regular pastures. But you always have to fertilize the improved pasture.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. Could you tell me a little more about cattle raising, as is?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>All right. We have what’s referred to as cow-calf operation.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>That means you raise the calf to about between six- and eight-hundred pounds, and then take it to market. Several years ago, we had cattle markets in Ocala, Webster, Kissimmee, Lakeland, and Okeechobee. We also had butcher houses at different parts of the state, but we no longer have but one butcher house, and that’s Center Hill over in Sumter County, close to Bushnell. The Ocala market is still open, and Webster is still open, and Lakeland and Okeechobee are still open. But the market that we would go to every week with our cattle was Kissimmee. That was the closest one to us. That closed about 20 years ago, now. So now we use mostly Lakeland, but we also—let me back up just a little bit. We lost Edward in the year 2000.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>And there was a little bit of changing in the way that we do our cattle. As I said earlier, W. E. has two trucks that he hauls cattle out west with, so we would take our calves in his semi[-truck]s to markets out in Texas and sell them. And we continue to do that today. We had done that a little bit before Edward passed away, but not on the big scale, like the boys have changed the operation a little bit. But the cow-calf operation means that you raise a calf and sell it, and breed the cow back. So you buy registered bulls, and put them—and we have a mixed herd. Our main stock are the Brahmas[sic], because they get along so well here in Florida. They’re very tolerable of the mosquitoes and the hot weather and the rain, and such. But we have brought the English breeds in through the years, the Black Angus, and the White-Faced Hereford, and the Charolais, which is a cream-colored cow. And you cross that with the Brahmas[sic], and that makes for a good, good mama cow.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>So a good breeding cow is pretty good to raise calf for about 12 to 13 years, with good grass and good feed. A bull is probably good for maybe three to—they start breeding at three years, and they’re good for three to five years, so you have to keep bringing in new bulls. Each year, you bring in a certain amount of bulls. One bull can service about 35 cows, so you have to go according to your largest herds, to see how many, to see how large your herd is, to see how many bulls you need. A good bull would cost you between two- and three-thousand dollars. If you buy a bred heifer, which is a young cow, that will cost you between five- and seven-hundred dollars. But, if she has a calf in the next six months or so, then it’ll take six months to get that calf up to—which will put you into a year—that calf will bring back what that mother cost. Meanwhile she’s gotten bred again. Ready to have another calf. And that’s the cycle that you work through.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am. And what would be the size of your herd? You said there’s one bull for every 35 cows, correct?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yeah, you want it something pretty close to that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>We’ve got about 1,000 head.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am. Are you still using—do you still have the 12,000 acres?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Down through the years, for inheritance tax purposes, we’ve had to sell land. We sold everything that we had in Volusia County. And we’ve sold—we sold 9,000 acres to the State of Florida, which has been turned into a game refuge and parks. It’s overflow land that’s not really a buildable property for homes. It’s real low. But an old cow can get along real well on it, so we’ve got 1,400 acres left in the family now.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>We have leased the 9,000 acres back from the state to use for the cows. We have to pay for that lease, so much an acre, and also keep up the fences and keep up the roads, and there’s a lot of responsibility there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay, ma’am. I noticed you mentioned, before that, at one point in time you had this many markets and this many butcher houses. How come that number has decreased over time? Were they personally yours, or were they...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No. No, no, no. They were, those were the ones that we could take our animals to. They were not ours personally. Kissimmee closed because of the management, and so many people started moving into the area around Kissimmee, and Orlando, and up our way, and the cattle, the little cattle ranches, were just not existent anymore. They were building homes. We could, a farmer could make more—and a rancher could make more selling his land than he could make with the cows on the land. Does that make sense to you, Jeffrey[sic]?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>It does, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>All right. He could sell his land, and at that time put it at interest, which was 12 percent, 8 and 12 percent interest for a number of years, years ago, and could live—could live on that, and not have to work as hard. And the real estate was paying five and six and a whole lot more for land, an acre, see. So they could have that a lot easier. So, numbers were down. Numbers were down, and that’s why markets have to close. Same with the butcher houses. Same, same thing.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am. That makes perfect sense to me, sounds like supply and demand. People kind of got squeezed out with the increase in population.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>That’s right. That’s right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Now, going back into the ‘50s here in Seminole County, there was about six families that made their living on cattle, all around in Seminole County. Right now—and for the last ten years—there’s three families that make, that make their living on cows. There’s a lot of people that’s got 20 head, or 10 or 20 or 40 or 60, or 150 head of cows, but they do something on the side to make a living. They work in a grocery store, or they’re a mechanic, or something else to help them make a living. But there’s only three families that’s just made their living on the ranch, and that’s the Robert Lee family of Oviedo, Betty [Yarborough] Schlusemeyer, who is Edward’s sister in Geneva, and our ranch, Ed Yarborough Ranches, in Geneva. But they all kind of congregate around the St. John’s River. Remember I said we needed the water?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, ma’am, I do.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>So the land adjacent and joins the Econ[fina] Creek and the St. John’s River. All of these three ranches go around into that area.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And do the ranches ever, do you communicate with the other ranches often?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Oh, yes, definitely.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>In what ways, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Right now, by phone [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, I asked for that. I should have known that was coming, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>That’s okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I meant in what capacity? Is it like a very positive relationship? Do you help each other?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes, yes, definitely. If one group might be marking and branding, and need a little help, or they might be cutting hay, and their tractor’s breaking down, they come over and get our tractor. Or one of our boys will take the tractor and go over and bale for them. And they do the same for us.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, so...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yeah, it’s a very congenial atmosphere. We have a very active cattlemen’s association [Seminole County Cattlemen’s Association] in the county, and you don’t have to be a cattleman to join it, because everybody wants to—every young boy wants to be a cowboy. [<em>laughs</em>] But nevertheless, this is a group that is also a state group, and we get information from the University of Florida about feed, fertilizer, medicines, and all, that help us raise the cattle to the better level that it is today.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>So the business has improved over time?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Very much. Very much. Yes. See, the cows were brought here back in the 1500s by the Spanish people.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Mmmhm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>And they were what we refer to now as “scrub cattle,” because they lived in the scrubs, the woods, and they were all horns and bones. They weren’t very fat. But now we have to put meat on their bones, so the steaks will turn out good. So the taste is there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, ma’am, and I do love a good steak. Do you know where your cattle end up eventually? Do you know if it’s sold in Florida, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>We do have that possibility of tracing every cow where it goes to, now. That is fairly new in our particular business world, I’d say five years or so back that all of this started. That is a health precaution, because if you have some tainted meat for some reason or another, it could go back to the owners, to find out if the meat was tainted at the ground level, so to speak, before it was butchered, or at the butcher house, or in transit to the grocery store.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Right. You gotta find it.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>So you got to find that, that situation, and so we do have that facility to do now.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Do you keep track of where your cattle go?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Do you know, do they usually end up—because I know you said they transfer a lot to Texas. Do...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>They do, and they feed them out, out there. Then they get sold again to stores and such.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Do they end up all over the place, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>All over. All over.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay. I didn’t know if there was a concentration. Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough    </strong>No.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>The Yarborough more cows tend to be in Massachusetts, where they end up in.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yep.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>But we do have buyers. They buy ours sight unseen, because they know from experience that we use the good bulls, and we use the right feed and medicines and everything to keep them well. So they, they even, there’s a group that bids on ours, sight unseen.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /> </strong>Is that a good feeling, ma’am?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>That’s a very comfortable feeling.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And how long has the family been in this business? How far back does that go?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Okay. My children—Ed’s and my children—are one, two, three, are fourth, fifth generation.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Fifth generation. And the grandchildren, C. W., J. K., and Robert, are next generation. And Gracie and her little brother will be the sixth generation. So, that’s the way it goes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>So you’re covered for now?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Right now.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>It’s like a baseball team, almost, but you got to have help. [<em>laughs</em>] That’s one of the things that I take great pride in, is Edward coming through and working the kids, and working the ranch with the children, and one other man, all the years that they were growing up and all. They had to work hard, and they still do. It’s not an easy life.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>It doesn’t sound easy, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>You don’t get just—close the gate and go on vacation. You have to, you have to stay close by.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>There’s work involved?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>There’s a lot of work involved. Have you ever dug a fence hole?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Fence post hole?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>You ever strung barbwire?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Barbwire? Yes, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>You know what barbwire is?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I’m in the military. We have our fair share of sharp pieces of metal that we set up.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Okay. Well, see, we have to grow our grass for the cows to eat. You got to provide them with water. You got to keep an eye on them, because they get sick just like we do.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yes, okay. So it’s a very family-oriented business.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Very.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Not a lot of outside help, a lot of...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No, but we got people that we know, that if we need help, we can usually call on them. We have one hired man that works five days a week, so.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Of course our boys, C. W.—no, J. W., and Bo—ride through all the time. They’re out there, pretty much.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Yeah, it definitely sounds like it can be a tough job.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>It is, but it’s an interesting job. It’s rewarding. It’s rewarding in many ways, Jeff[sic]. You see that when there where the grass starts greening up after you’ve had a hard winter, and the frost has killed it and everything’s brown, and you’re feeding hay every day, and you’re feeding corn, and the ingredients that it takes to make the different types of feed we use, by the bagfuls, and spring starts coming, and the grass starts turning greener. The rains start to come. And you can smile again. But you always know it’s God’s country to begin with. You’re just the caregiver. That’s the attitude that I’ve tried to teach, and firmly believe in.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>It sounds like it’s done a great job.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>We’ve done well. We’ve been blessed.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And, I know you said one of your grandkids is 26, I think—one of the older ones?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Will he be working in the cattle industry as well?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Oh, he helps. Yes. On his days off, it’s, and fortunately, his office is right across the street from our largest set of cow pens where we go in, off of Snow Hill Road. So, he can come over every now and then, and check on things. But on his days off, he can help us.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>I thought he was a student at...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No, that’s the second, second one. This is the oldest one.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Gotcha. Oh okay, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>This is Robert, the oldest one, that works for the forestry unit.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>And usually Mondays are his days off, because he’ll work weekends. And so, we plan to do a lot of pen work or have him riding on Mondays, when we got Robert a lot of times, ‘cause he’s a, he’s a good, big, strapping boy.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I have a question from a while ago. I just didn’t want to interrupt at the time. It was a—actually it goes even farther back, way back quite a ways, actually. You said earlier on that your husband had drafted into the service, correct?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Correct.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>And this is in the early ‘50s—1954, I believe.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes, actually, it was ’55.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, ’55, okay. Is that, was that a common occurrence at that time?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>It was. Yes, you had the general, the boys, when they turned 21, they had to register. Or might have to register at 18, but they had to go about 21.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Definitely you get your draft card at 18, ma’am. That has not changed.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Oh, it hasn’t? Okay [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>No, I have my draft card.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Okay, hut he—he had to go.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay. So most, almost all males at that time...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Back then, yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, okay. I didn’t realize that that was still occurring after the end of World War II.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, I just wanted to make that clear. I didn’t know if there was an exception for him, if it was a...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>No, no. In fact, they did make exceptions. It’s called hardship [exemption]. If a family did not, did—a lot of agriculture families did get excused, because they needed the boys on the farms.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Couldn’t afford it. Oh, okay, ma’am. But that family could, or he chose to do it regardless of...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Well, no, he, they didn’t give him a choice. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Oh. Oh, the military. Okay, ma’am. I’d like to do some more general questions about your life.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>lease.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Do you have any, any stories or childhood memories that come to mind, that you’d like to share—have recorded, ma’am? Anything that you find hilarious, or that was really important during your life as you were growing up, or even past that?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>I was very—I have always felt I was very blessed having people in my life that would take the patience to teach me many of the things they had learned in life—older people. And my mother working, as I said earlier, I stayed with my grandmother in Oxford. I also had the opportunity to stay with a great-aunt on my mother’s side, Grace Bevel, in Bushnell. She never had children, but she accepted me as hers, and Mother let me stay with her quite a bit in my younger years. And she was a very—she was a learned person, and most willing to teach me how to crochet, how to cook, how to be good to others, and a lot of Bible verses, and rhymes. Because in her day, a lot of the teaching was done by voice, from one to the other, and singing it or either telling the stories is where doing it like the history and such. But she taught by repeating rhymes and songs and things. And states and capitals, multiplication tables. There was a railroad track right next to her house, and we had to—for me to get to play on the railroad track, between trains, I had to learn to spell certain words, big hard words, and then I could go over and walk the railroad tracks.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>And that was—like I said, we didn’t have TVs or radios, back then. We invented our own playtime and playthings. But I had Aunt Grace, and I had Granny Olberry, and my mom. Those were the close ladies in my life until we moved to Geneva, and then Edward had an aunt, Catherine Kilby, who was his Uncle W. G.’s wife. They had no children, neither. But she took a liking to me, and was just like a mother in teaching me, because she too was a schoolteacher. And then Edward’s mother, Pearl Yarborough, was like a mother to me. We called her Mama Pearl, especially whenever the children started coming. Ed and I were married four years before we had any children, because we didn’t want to live in the house with his folks and raise children. So we waited ‘til we accumulated enough money to build a house, and we were given the piece of property by Mr. Kilby to build right there between his mother and him. They put the young couple there to help the older people, is what I was told. [<em>laughs</em>] And we did. We worked together beautifully as a family. But go ahead.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, I was going to say, are there any historical events, even international or domestic?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>I remember the day that that Second World War was declared. I had broken my arm. I was in the third grade, doing something very foolish—the seesaws. The seesaws at school were built up about three feet high, and the boards were about twelve foot long. And I was acting like Tarzan. I was standing up on one end, and there was five girls on the other, and they would bounce me up. They would hit the ground hard with their end, bounce me up, and I’d come down, and supposed to hit the board. And I was pretty good at it, ‘til I fell one morning and broke my arm, my shoulder, right in the shoulder. And the doctors wanted to remove my arm because gangrene set in. They could not set it. At that time, Second World War was going on.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough <br /></strong>And all the good doctors had been taken to war, so it was just a group of older doctors in Ocala. No surgeons, and my mother was pregnant with my third sister. And she just begged the doctor not to, not to take my arm off. Girls couldn’t get along without an arm. And this is—this will show you how God works. God sent up a surgeon home to Ocala, Dr. Davis, and he was home for two weeks, because they were going to ship him overseas. And Mother’s Dr. Ferguson heard that he was home, and he called him up and told him about my arm, and he said that, told him that we’re going to have to cut it off, unless he thought he could do something. He said that he didn’t have any idea what to do, but he would try. So they fashioned some type of plate to fit around the bone, because it was broken in the joint, so to speak, where the arm joints the shoulder. And it had four screws in this plate, and the operation took six hours. And that was a long operation, back then, especially. And they said I could use that plate for about a year, but then they’d have to go in there and take it out, because my bone would still be growing, and they, it wouldn’t stay properly. But it would probably never be a working arm. But, during all of this, Mother had had the baby, and she stayed home with me, and they didn’t have physical therapy that much back then, but Mother would rub this arm and exercise it, and I wasn’t let ride a bicycle, or skate, and I was a very active sports person. But today I have use of my arm.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /><br /></strong>That’s fantastic, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Because of the doctors. And they did the surgery the next year, took the plate out, and I’ve got about a 14 inch scar on the arm that doesn’t bother me a bit to show. I’m proud to have the arm. But that’s, two of them—oh, and to getting back. I’m regressing. During this time, I said I remember the day that they...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>World War II.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>World War [II] was declared. I remember reading in the Bible, as a youngster, that God said He would destroy the earth the next time by fire. The first time He destroyed the earth by water.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /> </strong>Yes, ma’am.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>And they talked about the atomic bomb. Maybe it wasn’t war declared. It was when they did the, dropped the atomic bomb.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>At the end of the war.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes, whenever they did that, I said, “Well, that’s what’s going to have a part in God’s next coming, is the atomic bomb.” That was just my mental perception.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>That stuck out to you?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Yes, yes.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>But that could have changed my whole life, too. I could have lost my arm on that deal, had Dr. Davis not come home.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>That’s definitely a memory that would have stuck with me too, ma’am. Do you—we’re about to wrap up. Do you have anything you’d like to share before we go, ma’am? Anything that you feel that we overlooked or bypassed?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>I think you’ve done a marvelous job, Jeff[sic]. I just feel it a great privilege to have had the opportunity to grow up in the little community of Geneva. Geneva is made up of a lot of older people that have retired from businesses, but they are willing to work with youngsters down through the years, through the school systems and the different community groups that we have out there, through the homemakers and the 4-H, and through the [Rural] Heritage Center and churches. I just feel very fortunate to have been put there for a reason, and I’ve tried to repay it in every way that I could by working with the youth as much as I can, all through the years. So I feel very blessed to have been there.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Thank you very much, ma’am, for coming in today.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Yarborough<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> Coverage Geneva, Florida Oxford, Florida Silver Springs, Florida Tuscawilla Park, Ocala, Florida Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/show/3671" target="_blank">Oral History of Ima Jean Bostick Yarborough</a> 4-H agriculture Argentine Bahia atomic bombs Betty Schlusemeyer Betty Yarborough Bevel, Grace Black Angus Bo Yarborough Brahman Bridges Academy bulls Bushnell butcher house butcher houses C. S. Lee C. W. Yarborough Catherine Kilby cattle cattle breeding cattle ranch cattle ranches Center Hill Central Florida Fair Charles Simeon Lee Charolais Chuluota conscription cow-calf operations cows Davis E. H. Kilby Econfina Creek Edward Yarborough Ferguson fertilizers Florida State Road 46 Fort Sill Francis Yarborough Geneva Goodwill Grace Bevel Grace Yarborough Gracie Yarborough Historical Society of Central Florida horses Ima Jean Bostick Ima Jean Yarborough improved grass improved grasses improved pastures J. K. Kilby J. W. Yarborough James Kilby Joe Morris Joseph Morris Kissimmee learning disabilities learning disability Lee, Robert Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Little Rock, Arkansas Lynn Yarborough Mary Dunn Methodist's Children's Home military drafts Morris, Joseph Museum of Seminole County History native grass native grasses Ocala Oklahoma Lawton Olberry Oviedo Oxford PACE School Palmetto Avenue pastures Pearl Yarborough Pensacola Pensacola Bahia Piggly Wiggly Reba Yarborough Robert Lee Robert Yarborough Ross Allen Ross Allen's Reptile Institute Rural Heritage Center Russell House Sanchez Avenue Sanchez Street Sanford Seminole County Seminole County Cattlemen's Association Silver Springs Snow Hill snow Hill Road special education SR 46 St. Johns River Sumter County Tuscawilla Park University of Florida Vickers, Savannah Volusia County W. E. Yarborough W. G. Kilby White-Faced Heifer Winn-Dixie World War II WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/794765897861d1b3802ad64011808c0c.pdf d6ccc4a44765444225fa268154233e38 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Montgomery, Erin Interviewee Bryant, Ingrid Location Oviedo, Florida Original Format 28-minute and 34-second audio/video recording; 15-page digital transcript Duration 28 minutes and 34 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 501kbps 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 Ingrid Bryant Alternative Title Oral History, Bryant Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Education--Florida Churches--Florida Catholic Church--Florida University of Central Florida Description In this interview, Ingrid Bryant, a long-time resident of Oviedo, Florida, recalls her experiences growing up and living in this community. Bryant discusses her birth in Munich, Germany, in 1944, during the height of World War II, and her subsequent immigration to the United States. Bryant reminisces about the difficulties that faced her in Orlando, specifically her language barrier. She then goes on to talk about her success at Oviedo High School, her eventual mastery of English, and her decision to become an American citizen. Bryant talks at length about her family and her love for Oviedo. She also highlights her efforts to obtain a Catholic Church for the Oviedo area and her membership in the Oviedo Historical Society (OHS). She also voices her strong feelings about the new plan for Oviedo’s downtown and her desire for the creation of a museum to showcase Oviedo’s rich history. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:00:41 Birth and immigration <br />0:04:04 Oviedo High School <br />0:05:22 Citizenship <br />0:07:55 Graduation, marriage, and career <br />0:10:41 Efforts to get a Catholic church in Oviedo <br />0:14:59 Oviedo Historical Society the New Downtown Oviedo <br />0:17:26 New Downtown Oviedo <br />0:19:34 University of Central Florida and teen club<br />0:22:21 How Oviedo has changed over time <br />0:27:20 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Ingrid Bryant. Interview conducted by Erin Montgomery at the <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> in Oviedo, Florida, on March 21, 2015. Type Moving Image Source Bryant, Ingrid. Interviewed by Erin Montgomery, March 21, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, History Harvest Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 14-page digital transcript of original 28-minute and 34-second oral history: Bryant, Ingrid. Interviewed by Erin Montgomery, March 21, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Munich, Germany Orlando, Florida Chuluota, Florida Oviedo, Florida Most Precious Blood Catholic Church, Oviedo, Florida Creator Bryant, Ingrid. Montgomery, Erin Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2015-03-21 Date Modified 2015-12-23 Date Copyrighted 2015-03-21 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 178 MB Medium 28-minute and 34-second audio/video recording 14-page digital transcript Language eng ger Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Ingrid Bryant and Erin Montgomery, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/dXFxB7eV8RE" target="_blank">Oral History of Ingrid Bryant</a> Transcript <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>This is the oral history interview of Ingrid Bryant, and the interview is being conducted on March 21^st, 2015, by Erin Montgomery at the interviewee’s home in Oviedo, Florida, and The topics of this interview will include Oviedo history and, uh, Central Florida history. I also I just want to let you know that I’m gonna to be, um, as quiet as I can, um, not to be rude, or not to risk[?]—like…</p> <p><strong>Bryant</strong> <br />I know.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Uh, but to just, uh, keep the audio, um, clear—I guess is the—the idea, um—and less noisy. So do you have any questions before I start asking you questions?</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Not really.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Okay, alright. So, um, where were you born?</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>I was born in Munich, Germany, on February 21^st, 1944, in the height of the Second World War. My mother married an American soldier in 1955, who brought my brother and I—my brother Norbert and myself and my mom to America. They—he was with the [U.S.] Air Force. he was stationed at Pinecastle Air Force Base,<a title="">[1]</a> which is now the jetport that we have for—that was the Air Force Base, and, uh, we went to school in Orlando—Cherokee Junior High School—my brother and I.</p> <p>I, unfortunately, never applied myself to learn English. It—it wasn’t really offered in Germany in those days yet, and so I came here not speaking English. My grandmother told me that if I didn’t like America, that I have to give it a year, but she’ll send me a plane ticket—no, not a plane ticket. She hated planes. A—a boat ticket to come back to Germany. Well, I arrived in America, stepped on American soil on January 3, 1958. So I said<em>, Well, you know, grandma’s gonna get me back home, so I don’t really need to stay here</em>, because the children can be quite—not so understanding about anything that’s different than what they’re used to. So I was being made fun of ver—uh, very badly and it hurt my feelings, ‘cause I was[sic] always wanted—wanted to fit in. That didn’t happen in Orlando, and they—they really didn’t know what to do with me, ‘cause there were no ESOL [English as a Second Language] lessons. So here’s my year: uh, we get a, uh, telegram December 15^th that my grandmother had passed. so there went my chance at ever getting back to Germany. So I said, <em>Well, Ingrid, got to make the best of a bad situation</em>, and my mom, in the meantime, knowing my difficulties, she found this place called Oviedo.</p> <p>Now, my gen—and she was told they had a good school there. Mind you: I come from Munich, Germany, which at that point, in 1958, had a population of one million people. So it was already culture shock coming to Orlando, ‘cause it was quite small and, of course, no circus, no opera, no nothing[sic] like that, but we already had that, because the American Marshall Plan,<a title="">[2]</a> that was in place after the war, had helped rebuild Germany, and I am eternally grateful to not only to my American soldiers, but to the American people that[sic] sent care packages over there, and get—I had clothes, and the American soldiers—they shared their food with us—their rations—and I had my first Juicy Fruit gum and so forth, when I was a little girl, but—o we come to Chuluota, which at that time, was a development that—that just had started up it and was low-income housing, more or less, but it was, you know—there were nice houses, and my mom found one that she said, “Well, we’ll move here, then you can go to school in Oviedo.”</p> <p>I went to Oviedo High School, and, uh, it was completely like night and day. They accepted me, and my English teacher—she told me, “When you graduate from Oviedo High School, you will be speaking English.” I said, <em>Yeah, right</em>, and, uh,my math teacher let me do my math wor—you know, the way I worked my problems the way I was taught in Germany. She said as long as I worked the problem—Ms. Deshaso[sp]—then—and I have the right answer, then she would accept that, so that worked. My history teacher—God bless him. He was also the coach of Oviedo High School, and he—He was the most patriotic man you would ever wanna meet, and he instilled the love of America to me. I already knew America was special, however, the way he taught history—and in 1960— was the first year that we had Americanism vs. communism. They brought in an ol’ TV, like we used to have—black and white—and we had an hour of that a week, and I said, <em>Oh, my goodness</em>, you know, with this—and then Sputnik and all of that happened right about that time.</p> <p>I managed to get a command of the English language, and yes, I graduated from Oviedo High Schools[sic], and I learned English, and then, I wanted to become an American citizen. So I went to Coach [Paul] Mikler—they named the—the baseball field after him in Oviedo. I went to him and I said “Coach, I want to become a citizen. What do I do?” He said, “Just do it.”</p> <p>So in 1967, I became an American citizen. I was given a booklet to read, that I read from cover to cover, memorized whatever I could, and when I got there to the George C., um, Young [Federal], uh, Courthouse, which is now the Diocese of Orlando in Orlando. They bought that building. I went there and I thought, <em>Oh, boy. I am good to go</em>, and I get to the examiner and she asks me three questions: Who is the first president? Who is the president now? And what are the first two—Ten Amendments to the [U.S.] Constitution? And I said, “Now what?” She says, “That’s good.” she says, “good.” I[sic] says, “I know you can write English.” I say “Yeah, but is that all your asking me when I memorized that whole book?” She says “That’s all I need you to do. You know what you’re doing,” and so I became an American citizen in September, and then I—I had gotten—no let me backtrack.</p> <p>My brother, Norbert, that came to—from Germany with me—he was a year younger than me. that’s him up there, and, uh, He, uh—he, uh, kind of excelled, because he went to the accelerated schools in Germany that we start—we’re at fourth grade, and they test us, and then we are separated to go to über die Realschule, which he did, but, of course, his silly sister that was older than him didn’t measure up. So he—he did not have the difficulty learning English like I did. He had one of those photographic minds. He could just—but when I came to Oviedo, there was one—another culture shock waiting for me. I had to repeat the ninth grade, which put me in the same grade as my brother, which at the time was a big help to me, but was also not what I wanted.</p> <p>1963, I graduated with my brother on June 10^th. July—I mean June 23^rd, I married an Oviedo boy. July 16^th, my brother Norbert was killed in a car accident. it was an accident. So he’s buried at the Oviedo Cemetery. So that was very difficult, very difficult, ‘til this day, I miss my brother, but from the marriage I had from my first husband, I have three children: Christopher, Patricia, and Tina—Christina. I had to name her after her brother, because he wanted a brother and she had turned out to be a sister. so he got a sister named after him. Then I—I had a little difficulty with my first husband when I wanted to name our first child, which was Christopher, after my brother, Norbert. He wouldn’t—he didn’t want me to do that. So I didn’t.</p> <p>Then, I married my second husband, after that marriage didn’t make it, and his name was Norbert. He was German like me. I said “God, you have a sense of humor, don’t you?” I was 35 years old. I end up pregnant, and I have my little Norbert. He’s now 35 years old. So that worked out to my favor too. From my four children, I now have nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, which I’m a very blessed lady.</p> <p>My other thing that—Oviedo has been holy ground to me. They’ve been good to me. When I wanted a job, they had an, uh—they needed a customer service rep]resentative for the City of Oviedo. This was in 1986. At that time, they hired me for the water department to collect the monies and do—be accounts receivable, so to speak. I was good at math, and, uh—so I went to work and my boss interviewed me—A. M. Jones. They named the water plant after him, and he says, “Mrs. Ingrid, why would you wanna work in Oviedo? You’re never going to make any money here.” I said, “Because I want to give back.” I said, “You’re going to pay me a living.” I said, “I want to give back. You—Oviedo taught me English. Oviedo took me in, and made me feel very special.” So he hired me and I retired there in 2004.</p> <p>At that point, all along, when we came from Germany, there was never a Catholic church in Oviedo, and my mom—he wrote the Vatican in the early [19]60s, and they gave us a priest to come out and say Mass in Chuluota at the [Chuluota] Sportsman Club—it was called—which is now the Girl Scout [Citrus] Camp in Chuluota. So she managed to do that. When they decide—and the developer of Chuluota gave us seven acres so we could build a church and a school, and that was back in the early ‘60s. So the Diocese of St. Augustine, which was—we were under, at that point. the Orlando Diocese wasn’t established ‘til 1968. Bishop Joseph Patrick Hurley decided to build St. Joseph’s [Catholic Church] in Union Park first, and he said we would be next. Well, that didn’t happen.</p> <p>So I kept—when we came to Diocese of Orlando, I decided to go on a writing campaign. I like to write letters, and, uh, I would ask the bishops, you know, “Can we have a Catholic church in Oviedo?” And I’d get letters back saying—they couldn’t say we didn’t have any property, because we did—Chuluota-Oviedo. To me, it’s about the same, and so they told me, “We have no priest.” so—okay. I bought off on that. So 1996 comes along, and my mom passes away, and on her—she’s 71, and on her deathbed, she said to me, “Ingrid, you still don’t have that Catholic church.” I said “Mom, I been trying.” She said, “Try harder.” About the same time, this doctor comes into my office, who moved into Oviedo. No, actually, he came earlier. Let me back track. He came in earlier, and I noticed his name was Carlos Velez-Munich. I said, <em>Munich? Dear Lord. Is this another sign? Just like my little Norbert that I managed to come—that came—that I wanted.</em></p> <p>So 1996, I had this lady, Anna Marcantoni[sp]—she used to help me file at the city, because I was busy collecting money, making sure the right accounts were hit in the—in the systems and so forth and so on, and so she would come in and she’d file my applications for me, and she says, Ingrid, “Spanish community wants a Catholic church in Oviedo too.” I said, “They do?” She says, “Yeah, we have formed a—a group called Grupo Shalom.” I said, “well, get me in touch with whoever is in charge of that.” I said, “I need to talk to them. I said, “I’ve been trying forever to get this church and my mom said I’d better work harder.”</p> <p>So I got to meet Dr. Velez, and they had a meeting, and he got us an appointment with the—with, uh, Father [Richard] Walsh, in St. Margaret Mary [Catholic Church] in Winter Park. He got us a—an appointment with—you’re not going to believe what bishop that was—Bishop Norbert [Mary Leonard James] Dorsey. So that is what started the—getting Most Precious Blood Catholic Church. So there was a standing joke in the [Oviedo] City Hall that if Ingrid ever gets her church, she can address the property. So I just came back from Barbados with my aunt, and, uh, my friend called me and she said, “Ingrid, you have to”—Laura Feldman, and she’s Jewish, mind ya. I’m Catholic. She says, “Ingrid, you have to come down here. Diocese wants an address for this property, and I can’t move until you come and do it.” So I addressed the property: 113 Lockwood Boulevard, and so then we had our first Mass on the 24^th of April, 2005, which we’re now having our anniversary—for 10 year anniversary. Unbelievable. Un—incredible what this town has meant to me, along with everything goes along with it. So I consider myself blessed. Now, my passion was getting the church, which I succeeded.</p> <p>My other passion is getting a museum in Oviedo. We had—I—I love the [Oviedo] Historical Society, and I’ve always been involved in history,’ cause in Germany, history has always been right to the forefront. I mean—we try not to let history repeat itself over there, but it did with two world wars, but again—so I’ve been on a kind of a mission—sort of wanting this museum, and when Mrs. Clara [Lee Wheeler] Evans made a bequest of an acre property on Oviedo Street for the historical society to have—because I felt we were the little red-headed stepchild.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Child—children, because we never had a place to meet. So we would go from this church to that church, to here, there and yonder, you know, and so she made that bequest. Well, unfortunately that was—she passed away, and that was kind of passed over by the City, buying the old [Geneva] Post Office building that’s on Geneva Drive to make a senior center. So I was just a little bit taken aback by that, because when I questioned her one time, I said, “Well, you know we do need someplace,” and she says, “Are you doubting my word? I told you we’d get an acre of property,” but that didn’t come to fruition evidently, because the—it’s an off-trade now for the post office, which, uh, her family sold to the city for $400,000. I was upset with that, because I’ve been here forever, I knew how—when it was built, and I just—I—I’m just, you know, I don’t understand this at all, but evidently the City and the powers that be in the historical society decided to make that happen.</p> <p>Now, it hasn’t evolved to what it’s supposed to be, because I do believe they have now put the new downtown of Oviedo—south of Oviedo—on the forefront, which I personally have to agree to disagree with the [Oviedo City] Council and with the Mayor [of Oviedo]<a title="">[3]</a> for doing that. Reason being: there was[sic] only two defined downtowns in Seminole County. One is Sanford. One was Oviedo. So I know the road is going to be cut through, but I thought maybe they would do what Sanford did and embellish what they had and work with that, rather than spend all this money with a new downtown that I, uh—I’m—I don’t understand. Let’s put it that way. I do not understand the logic behind this.</p> <p>I do know that we put down waterlines in 1968. I do know the infrastructure of Oviedo, to me, is of the utmost importance, and I’m—I’m worried about things maybe I shouldn’t be, uh, but I worked for the city and I love this city with my whole heart. Always have, always will. These are two issues that I’m not comfortable with. I love the people, and when I was a customer service representative and Oviedo had this explosion of growth, I always told my cli—my people that came in and signed up for water, “I need you to do me one favor, and that is to blend in. Oviedo is a wonderful place, you don’t try to change Oviedo. Oviedo is fine,” and I tell them, “Don’t let the overalls fool you in Oviedo either.” That is a standing joke I’ve had forever, but again, all in all, big picture—as I try to look at in my whole life is the big picture—it’s a great place for families, it’s a great place for everybody. it was a great place and still is for me. I’ve al—I—I’m totally in love with Oviedo, and I want everybody to love it as I do and do what’s best for everything, but, mm [<em>sighs</em>] I guess when UCF came in…</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>I was there. I was there. I lived south of Oviedo, and the Attamoochee[sp] site was the site they built the university on—had three buildings. It was—it was something to behold, and that was in 196—they didn’t build it in 1963, but they made it happen in 1963, the year I graduated. So I have a daughter that graduated from UCF [University of Central Florida], I have a son in-law that graduated from UCF, I have a daughter in-law that graduated from UCF.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>And it goes on and on and on, and I am one happy girl, and the school has made me so proud, because you—I mean it was FTU—Florida Technical University,<a title="">[4]</a> and now, as it’s almost—I do believe the second—third—second most populated school in U—United States. So that’s something to be proud of—for them being, uh, right there by Oviedo. Oviedo is special, and hopefully and prayerfully, after my life is done it’ll continue to go on, and please remember always: blend into Oviedo. Don’t try to change it please.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Uh, what was your favorite part about growing up here in Oviedo? Did you have a favorite to go when you were in high school, or…</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Oh, we had a teen club.</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>We had a teen club in Oviedo. [inaudible]. Just…</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Pick up the thing and turn it…</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Just…</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Just the…</p> <p>[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>There—there you go. Okay. Sor—sorry about that.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Don’t worry about that [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>What was my favorite place in Oviedo?<br />[<em>phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Was the teen club we created out in Chuluota, and I, as a non-citizen, became president of that [inaudible] [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Of that teen club. We had dances on Saturday nights, and as far as—Oviedo had one thing that I can call to mind, at that time. You have to understand we were very small, and we had a swimming pool, and every Tuesday, we would go down on Magnolia Avenue in Oviedo, and Tuesday night, we would have a teen night there, and we would dance and swim and do whatever kids do. Yes, that was it, and, uh, they did, however, close that swimming pool down, so it’s not there anymore. I think it’s a tennis court now, and, uh, we had one grocery store, the Country Quick.</p> <p>The one thing I would like for Oviedo to get again that I know us old people would probably need, because you guys are so techy with your Facebook and all…</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>And Miss Ingrid don’t do Facebook, because I’m from Germany, and I think to myself, <em>My God, this is a double-edged sword</em>. It’s too much information, and it can be used very badly. So the one thing that I would like to have Oviedo have again is a newspaper. Our newspapers are all gone, so it’s hard and difficult for the older people to find out what’s going on, just like last weekend, the Taste of Oviedo. I mean—it was well represented, however, not advertised in the paper. I get <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, but we get bits and pieces, but I love <em>The Seminole Chronicle</em>. That gave information that was pertinent to our area, what we had going on here, and I feel with 35,000-plus people, please, somebody do us another newspaper. Larry Neely had his newspaper back in the ‘60s, and it was called <em>The Outlook</em>,and then it became <em>The Oviedo Voice</em>, and I think <em>The Oviedo Voice</em> is—is in existence, but from what I understand, when taking to the Mayor, they’re all struggling right now, even <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>. So—and I’ve read that forever, but that’s the one thing I would like them to have.</p> <p>We’re getting the hospital, which is a good thing. I am so happy. I—I’ve prayed about that, and things are evolving, and maybe the new downtown is thought by somebody, you know, that might know better than I do, but I just thought that the old was quaint and was what Oviedo was. More so than the apartment buildings that I see going up. I question that. Why—and the Albertsons across the street—but I don’t want to complain. It will all work itself out, Hopefully—prayerfully.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>So—but the museum—I still want a museum. I do, and maybe—hey, I got a Catholic church after 40 years of praying [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>It might happen.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>It just might happen. Maybe not in my lifetime, but other people’s. Are there any other question that you have?</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Um, is there anything else that you miss about Oviedo from your youth?</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>From my youth?</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Yes, anything [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Knowing everybody in town.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Knowing every car that went by my house, knowing that if my—if it rained outside and the laundry was on my clothesline, somebody’d come in and put it in my house. We didn’t have locked doors. We had so much going. everybody—it was just a different life that, right now, it—that’s passing, but the only thing I would get mad at back then—when somebody would take my laundry back in from outside because it rained—my neighbor mostly—is that she didn’t fold it [<em>laughs</em>]. That—yeah, I miss the—I miss the closeness of the people, you know, anymore. it’s—I still have lots of friends here, because I had a position in the City where people knew me, and so I—I—I treasure my customers.</p> <p>I do, and I—if it—if I woulda worked longer—but I was getting con—conflicts with trying to this Catholic church—mixing church and state. That just didn’t go over so well. Especially, when I’d ask people when they came to Oviedo, I said “What church do you go to?” And say “Well, we go to Catholic church,” and I would tell them—I said, “Well, we don’t have one yet, but if you help me pray, we’re gonna get one soon,” and [<em>laughs</em>] I don’t think that’s something you should do. So I guess I’m not the politically correct person…</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>You want as a customer service person anymore, but these are things that, you know—yeah, but I love Oviedo. In spite of everything, I love Oviedo, and love my police chief<a title="">[5]</a> too, because he helped me catch a criminal that burglarized this house, and, uh, we caught her. I—like I said, I love Oviedo—period—and I want what’s best for Oviedo, and I want it to go on and on and on and be the success that it is, and who knows? Someday, it will be as big as Munich.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>One million population, which will make me happy [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Maybe not anybody else, but me, ‘cause[?] I’ve always been a city girl.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>So why did you choose to stay in Oviedo your whole life?</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Why did I choose?</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Why would I not?</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>I go to Germany pretty much every year to see my relatives over there that I have, and—but Oviedo’s my home, and I have, eh—everything that I have built up is Oviedo. So, yeah, I’ve stayed.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Is there anything else you want to say or talk about before we end?</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>I just keep my Oviedo as special as it—as it’s always been, and maybe, if there’s—if by some chance, we could get a museum [<em>laughs</em>] to where people in the future know that we were the celery capital of the world, and all the people, the backbone of the community that has already passed on, the people that I miss dearly, especially Clara Evans, uh—yeah, keep it going and—and build a museum, and life would be good.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>All right, the—those were all the questions that I had for you. So…</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>Thank you, dear. [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>Yeah, thank you so much.</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>You’re welcome.</p> <p><strong>Montgomery<br /></strong>I really, really do appreciate you doing this. So thank you.</p> <p><strong>Bryant<br /></strong>I appreciate doing this with you and thank you for come—for coming again.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Previously known as Orlando Army Air Field #2 and Pinecastle Army Airfield, and later known as McCoy Air Force Base.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Formerly called the European Recovery Program (ERP).</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Dominic Persampiere.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Correction: Florida Technological University.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Jeffrey A. Chudnow.</p> </div> </div> A. M. Jones Anna Marcantoni bishops Carlos Velez-Munich Catholicism Catholics Cherokee Junior High School Chuluota church churches citizenship City of Oviedo Clara Lee Wheeler Evans clergy cold war colleges communism Country Quick customer service representatives Deshaso Dominic Persampiere Downtown Oviedo education educators ERP European Recovery Program Florida Technological University FTU Geneva Drive George C. Young Federal Courthouse Grupo Shalom high schools immigrants immigration Ingrid Bryant Jeffrey A. Chudnow Joseph Patrick Hurley Larry Neely Laura Feldman Lockwood Boulevard Magnolia Avenue Marshall Plan McCoy Air Force Base Most Precious Blood Catholic Church Munich, Germany museums newspapers Norbert Dorsey Norbert Mary Leonard James Dorsey OHS orlando Orlando Army Air Field #2 Oviedo Oviedo High School Oviedo Historical Society Oviedo Street Paul Mikler Pinecastle AFB Pinecastle Air Force Base Pinecastle Army Airfield priests renovations Richard Walsh schools students swimming pools Taste of Oviedo teachers teen clubs teen nights The Outlook The Oviedo Voice The Seminole Chronicle UCF universities university University of Central Florida water department World War II WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/04d83ac62271044ec1fce5f45cfe1f90.pdf 87bca60c29340d57cb26a85733bea164 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection Subject Museums--Florida Schools Elementary schools Grammar schools Sanford (Fla.) Description The Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection encompasses a broad range of materials and items ranging from the late 19th Century into the present. The collection includes artifacts, photographs, documents, videocassettes, and other historical records pertaining to the history of the Sanford Grammar School, the Sanford community through the years, and the history of teaching and learning within the United States from the 19th century to the 2010s. The Student Museum has collaborated with the University of Central Florida and established the UCF Public History Center (PHC). All of the Student Museum's collections are presently housed at the PHC. The goal of the PHC is to promote access to history through ground-breaking research connecting local to global, provide cutting-edge hands-on educational programs for students and visitors, and to engage the community in contributing to and learning from history. Contributor Student Museum UCF Public History Center Language eng Type Collection Coverage Sanford High School, Sanford, Florida Westside Grammar Elementary School, Sanford, Florida Sanford Grammar School, Sanford, Florida Student Museum, Sanford, Florida UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida Contributing Project Student Museum UCF Public History Center Curator Marra, Katie Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference "Public History Center." Public History Center, University of Central Florida. "Student Museum." Seminole County Public Schools. http://www.scps.k12.fl.us/studentmuseum/Home.aspx. Alternative Title Student Museum and PHC Collection Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/32" target="_blank">General Photographic Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/73" target="_blank">Seminole County Public Schools Collection</a>, <span>Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection, </span>Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Ford, Frank "Chip" Interviewee Caolo, Jackie Location Groveland, Florida Original Format 1 CD/DVD Duration 31 minutes and 54 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 127kbps 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 Jackie Caolo Alternative Title Oral History, Caolo Subject Oral history--United States Sanford (Fla.) Education--Florida Swimming--Florida Swimmers--United States United States. Navy Teachers--Florida Educators--Florida Water safety Students--Florida Poems Swimming pools--Florida Head Start Program (U.S.) American Red Cross Description Oral history of Jackie Caolo, a resident of Groveland, Florida. Caolo was born in Texas but raised in Florida. As an adult, she traveled with her husband for 20 years while he was in the United States Navy. In 1956, the Caolo's husband was transferred to the Naval Technical Training Command in Sanford. The Caolos stayed in Sanford for a year and then were transferred to Texas. After Caolo's husband retired, the couple settled back in Sanford. Caolo spent much of her time working as a swim instructor. This interview was conducted by Frank "Chip" Ford at Caolo's home on October 20, 2012. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:35 Migrating to Sanford<br />0:01:32 Swimming lessons<br />0:04:25 Students<br />0:08:28 Swimming poem<br />0:09:40 Teaching locations<br />0:12:10 Teaching methods<br />0:17:00 Water safety<br />0:23:00 Staying in touch with students<br />0:24:38 Memories and accomplishments<br />0:29:39 Breaking the color barrier Abstract Oral history interview of Jackie Caolo. Interview conducted by Frank "Chip" Ford at Jackie Caolo's home in Groveland, Florida. Type Moving Image Source Caolo, Jackie. Interviewed by Frank "Chip" Ford. UCF Public History Center, TOSH0002. October 20, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a>. <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/31" target="_blank">Student Museum and UCF Public History Center Collection</a>, Sanford Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 31-minute and 54-second oral history: Caolo, Jackie. Interviewed by Frank "Chip" Ford. UCF Public History Center, TOSH0002. October 20, 2012. Audio/video record available. UCF Public History Center, Sanford, Florida. Coverage Sanford, Florida Crystal Lake, Lakeland, Florida Wekiva Springs, Florida Creator Ford, Frank "Chip" Caolo, Jackie Date Created 2012-10-20 Date Modified 2012-10-21 2012-10-24 2014-11-26 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 2.78 GB 146 KB Medium 31-minute and 54-second CD/DVD 14-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Frank "Chip" Ford and Jackie Caolo. Rights Holder Copyright to this resource is held by the UCF Public History Center and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a> for educational purposes only. Accrual Method Donation Contributing Project UCF Public History Center Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository UCF Public History Center/Student Museum External Reference <em>The Seminole Herald</em>. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52633016" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Our First 125 Years</em></a>. [Sanford, FL]: The Herald, 2002. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. "<a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48" target="_blank">Sanford: A Brief History</a>." City of Sanford. http://www.sanfordfl.gov/index.aspx?page=48. Brochure, <a href="http://www.sanfordfl.gov/media/pdf/leisure_services/20110407_historic_brochure.pdf" target="_blank"><em>Sanford: Central Florida's Waterfront Gateway</em>. Sanford, Florida: City of Sanford, 2005.</a> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/1FVTAggOkLk" target="_blank">Oral History of Jackie Caolo</a> Transcript <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Hi. My name is [Frank] “Chip” Ford. I’m with Jackie Caolo. It is October 20^th, 2012, and we are at Jackie Caolo’s home. Jackie, um, where are you from originally?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Actually, born in Texas, raised in Florida, then travelled for 20 years with the Navy with my husband.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>And—well, when did you move to Sanford[, Florida]?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Actually, 1956.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>My husband was transferred here with the—the Naval Technical Training Command.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>And what was Sanford like back then when you moved here in 1956?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Wonderful. It was just wonderful. It was really a Navy town, and most everybody here was—that you talked to—was from the Navy, and, uh, a nice place to raise children. Wonderful teachers in the schools. We just always—we picked Sanford. Uh, my husband was able to pick his own, uh, place of deployment. So we were here for a year, and then we had to go to Texas for a year for, uh—and then he retired there, and then we settled down, came back to Sanford, and stayed here the rest of the time.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>So, uh, what were some of the factors that got you into teaching people how to swim?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, I had always been a swimmer when I was a young girl, and one of my friends won the swimming and diving championship in Berlin[, Germany]—Catherine Rawls[sp]—and I was always so proud of her and I always wanted to kinda be like her, but, uh—also, I thought everyone knew how to swim and when I found out they didn’t know how to swim, I thought, <em>Well, it’s</em>—uh, I went out to the Navy base actually to get my children started in advanced swimming, and the teacher there needed assistance, because her husband was, um, in a squadron in, uh, Vietnam. So I offered to help her and that’s how I really started teaching—assisting her in 1956 and ‘57. So…</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>And what were some of your experiences with those early lessons? Do you remember, like, how they were set up or…</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, you—you mean the, uh—my classes?</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, I always felt it was important to teach water safety, because if you teach them how to swim, but don’t teach them the water safety—so that was always emphasized—was water safety, how to behave in and around the water, and, uh, just as long—and I felt just as long as they were happy doing that, that they would learn faster, which they did, and…</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Were you nervous at first?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>No, not really. I always just had—I knew that I could reach anybody at any, uh—because I knew I was young and agile, and I could get from one end of that pool to the other in nothin’ flat. Uh, so I had classes on the hour, every hour, from eight in the morning to nine o’clock—10 o’clock—and hopefully just 10 to a class, but quite often people would say, “Well, we brought our neighbor over. Is that all right if they swim?” And I couldn’t help but say, “Okay, go ahead,” and, uh, I just kept right on with the classes, until, uh, adults came at night, of course, at eight o’clock and nine o’clock, and it was a hard time getting them out of the pool. They had such a good time they never wanted to leave too, so we just had a good time.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>And you mentioned adults. Uh, who—who were some of the people you, uh—you were teaching to swim back then? Did you teach all ages—adults, kids?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Oh, all ages, yes. The older children, of course, came earlier. Uh, I’d say the adults I taught actually—Emory Blake brought his children—Jeff Blake and his sisters and brother—and, um, also I taught, um, a little girl named Dana Morosini. In fact, her father’s letter is in my folder, but Dana had her swimming lessons here, and I didn’t realize that later she had married Christopher Reeves[sic], and, uh, I saw ‘em on television, so I called her mother in New York and I said, “Is that my little Dana?” And she said, “Absolutely, sure is. So be sure an’ watch it this weekend. They’re gonna have a big program about it.” So I saw her on television. Then unfortunately, Chris died. Then her mother, Helen [Morosini], who was my good friend. She died from elective surgery, uh, and then later on, Dana also did, but she was one of my students here that—a lot of people’ve[sic] grown up to be pretty famous. They weren’t famous when I knew ‘em, but they got famous when I got through [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Ah, so—and, uh—so what were your experiences like teaching African- American children how to swim back in the 1950s?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, uh, they were just so anxious, because they never had the opportunity to go swimming, and they didn’t know that the water was wet, and they didn’t know that if you jump in, you were gonna go to the bottom, but it was fun teaching them to learn to understand the water and to learn how to enjoy it, and I learned that they—the black children—learned just as fast if not faster, because of their—they’re so anxious, and, uh, I thoroughly enjoyed it and got to know a lot of people, and a lady they used to call Mother Wilson—everybody in Sanford knew her, because she used to take care of, uh, people out in a nursing home. So she came to watch on a patio one day, and I was real pleased. She came to the edge of the pool and she put her finger up. She said, “I see that they learn more than just to swim when they come here,” and I was very flattered with that. She was right. The children learned early that I said what I meant and meant what I said, and they listened to me and I listened to them. So we got along just fine.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Did you have any negative experiences?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, yeah. The—not really. One little girl came, and she told me—she says, “You’ve got a yucky pool. Yucky, yucky, yucky.” She didn’t want to swim. [<em>laughs</em>], but she did—but that was her—I couldn’t help but laugh at her, but, uh, I think that there might have been some people that felt at first that the children were—they didn’t think they could understand in mind. Well, children understand in mind very well, if you say what you mean and mean what you say. Yep.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>I told you about the poem that I wrote. So they all learned how to say that poem first and then we’d go on the swimming sidewalk. You don’t go near the swimming sidewalk when you have your clothes on. You wait until you—until you’re in your bathing suit.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>You want to say that poem for us?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Oh, sure. I’d love to. I’d say:</p> <p>Sit down first and look around,</p> <p>‘Cause we’re the smartest kids in town.</p> <p>Never, never swim alone,</p> <p>Practice 9-1-1 on the phone.</p> <p>Big black clouds will spoil your fun,</p> <p>And pretty soon here comes the sun.</p> <p>Lots of <em>laughs</em> help learning too,</p> <p>Underwater, I see you.</p> <p>Underwater hear me sing,</p> <p>Swim and turn and do your thing.</p> <p>Safety first and safety last,</p> <p>Say the whistle, get out fast.</p> <p>Attention friends,</p> <p>Now have some fun.</p> <p>I love you,</p> <p>You’re number one.</p> <p>Yay!</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong> Also there are mirrors underwater. That’s—when they’re underwater, “I see you”—that’s when they’d go underwater and look at themselves in the swimming, uh, mirror.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] So did you teach at one location or did you go all over Sanford and Seminole County to teach people how to swim?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>At first, I went all over, until we built the pool here, and, uh—and I went wherever they, uh, went—downtown at the downtown pool, but that does remind me, the downtown pool was, uh, like a two-story pool, and they asked me if I would teach down there. They gave me nine mornings to teach in the swimming—and I said, “Well, I’m so free. I would…” “Well that’s all the time we can give you.” So the children would come and there were just dozens of them in the class, and they would go upstairs, but the parents were made to stay downstairs—but upstairs, I had to ask—I went to Seminole High School and asked volunteers to help me, because the children couldn’t touch bottom there. So it was difficult teaching ‘em swimmin’ when your feet won’t go down. So I had a group—in fact, one of the mothers that helped me way back then is still—she went in to teach swimming herself, and she’s still teaching, uh, but one day, after the swimming classes, they all left and there was a whole group of children, and later on that day, the mothers—two of the mothers took five of the children out to Crystal Lake in Lake Mary, and they sat on the—way up on the side of the hill, and they let the children go in the—in the pool, not realizing the children would swim, then they’d would stand up and take a breath. They could not pass—they hadn’t done enough to pass their test, and one little boy would swim and then he’d stand up. Then he’d swim and stand up, and swim and stand up, and then disappeared, and the parents did not have enough time to go out in the water and get him and he drowned. I was—that was so that many years ago. I was so upset when I heard about that, and that’s when I decided that the parents needed to learn as much as the children. So the parents were always allowed to pay attention in, but that was—that was a terrible thing.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Um, so what were some of the methods that you used to teach children? Did you, like, get them all in the pool and then you jumped in there with them? Or…</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>No, uh, the children—when they would do their safety walk around the pool—and the reason you do that—when you have a pool, there could be a snake in the water, and you could get in trouble. One time there was a opossum that had fallen through the screen, and it was hangin’ on underneath a chair. So you did your safety walk first, and then you listened to directions. Swim up, swim back. Swimmers up, swimmers back, and they learned that you just don’t go out and just jump in, and then, um, they would sit down and they’d do their kicking on the side of the pool, and then they would learn to turn over on their stomach and slip in the pool and monkey around to the step. Monkey around—you let your hands take you around the pool, and I had my pool built so that a young child—there’s a little ledge on the bottom where their feet could touch. When they feel like they could touch, they’ll feel more secure. So they would walk around and let their feet touch and they would swim over to the side of the pool, and then one at a time, they would jump out to me, and when they would jump out, gradually they’d let ‘em get a little wetter and a little wetter, and then turn around and swim back to the step. That was their first—“to jump out pick a bale of cotton. Jump out turn around pick a bale of hay. Jump out pick a bale of cotton.” That’s the way the children learned—sing their little song happily and do their swimmin’.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>So you mentioned that the pool was here at the house and you gave lessons here. What’d the neighbors think?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, at first, they didn’t mind so much [<em>laughs</em>], but when it got so there were dozens of cars—but they never really complained. I felt that my neighbors were very, very tolerant, and they realized what I was doing was to benefit everyone in town, and so nobody ever stopped me or ever complained, uh, except when I brought in the Head Start [Program] children in. At first the chief of police at that time, didn’t think I should do it, but he was a good friend. He never stopped me. I continued teaching and—right up until I actually saw him years—years later, and, uh, when he saw me, I was at a private party, and, uh, when he saw me and gave me a big hug and thanked me for all the work. So he wasn’t against it. He just wasn’t used to it, you know, and one young black man told me—he said that the first day when they let him sit at the edge of the pool downtown and stick his water[sic] in that wonderful cool water, he said it just felt like something he had never ever experienced before, but they knocked down the pool and that was the end of that and the only place you could take swimming, uh—and teach the black children was to come here. They knew that then and they know it now. We’d go out there today if we could [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Now—so you’ve been involved in teaching swimming now for basically 40 years?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>50 years.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>50 years?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>50 years with the American Red Cross Water Safety. The entire 50 years from start to finish.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>So how—how did your curriculum or style of teaching change over the years from the—from beginning to when you retired?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Actually, I would say it’s never changed. There’s[sic] some techniques that I’m not very fond of that I hear that other—they fall in the pool. They’re supposed to roll over onto their back. Well, I had people bring their children here who had been through that technique, and they roll on their back and their face is gettin’ all wet. They’re gurgling and sputtering and cryin’, and I like to teach my children, if they fall in, you turn around and go back to the wall. I don’t want you to turn over on your back and stay out in the middle of the pool. Somebody’s gotta go get ya. So I—my technique really never changed much.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>So what were some of the factors that made you concentrate on water safety as the focus of swimming instruction?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, you know, the—you know, the, um, American Pediatric Association would say that you should never teach your children how to swim before five years old, but what they really, um, should say and do say now is, uh, you should start teaching your children water safety from the time they’re babies. You start in the bathtub and let them learn that the water is wet, and how to splash their little hands, and, um—the point I was gonna make was, uh, their safe—their water safety, as opposed to—yeah. You teach water safety, and teach them how to love the water and understand the water from the time they’re—well, actually six months is—is a good time to start. You can start earlier in the bathtub, then you play around ‘til they’re six months old, and then you can start lettin’ ‘em fall off the sides and into the water.</p> <p>My grandson—at four months old, he was able to fall off the step and turn around by himself and get to the step at four months old, but he just—I’ve been teaching him since—well, the doctor says he can get wet at three days old. So into the pool—into the bathtub actually, not the pool—into the bathtub, and you want to learn that water is wet. So many people, uh, prevent them, and you start teaching the actual swimming strokes and swimming lessons possibly at four to five years old, and that’s when swimming lessons—such as the overarm crawl, American crawl, breaststroke, backstroke—when they’re five, but you certainly start teaching water safety long before then.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>So when did, uh—when did you start teaching children five and under how to swim? What made you decide that that’s where you wanted to focus as well?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, actually, uh, whenever anybody ever brought a baby here, I’d say, “Well, let me—let me get ‘em used to the…” I guess, show them how to let them go into the bathtub and get started, and then when they were old enough, to bring ‘em here. Age never made much difference to me. The only thing I did was teach the older children, you know, at eight in the morning, before they went to school perhaps, and, uh, I took the babies as soon as they were born.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>How many babies do you estimate that you taught how to swim?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Thousands, thousands. I, uh—it’s almost unbelievable to, uh—when I say “thousands,” I mean thousands, but sometimes I’d have a hundred children a day here for all summer long, and, um…        </p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>So what were some of the factors that made you decide to do the <em>Miss Jackie and Sally Seal Water Safety Video</em>?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Oh, actually that was kind of accidental. On my birthday, they were gonna have a surprise birthday party for me at the [Sanford] Civic Center, and they’d made arrangements with the school of dance and arts to bring their dancers, and the singers to bring their singers. So they—my son sent over a photographer—an underwater photographer—and a young lady that did the typing. So they made the tribute, which is at the back of the, uh, video, but that was the first thing we did, and, um, with the leftover film from that, my son took it to a photograph—uh, producer—in Dallas[, Texas], and said, “What do you think we could do with this?” And he said “Well, I think you got somethin’ there.”</p> <p>So I put together the video, and that video later—uh, it’s been used all over Miami, uh, Sanford, even in Holland. Um, when I was over there travelling with my daughter, um—but, um, the video was submitted, without my knowledge actually, to, um—um, to a safety-for-children program. It took first place and I got a wonderful, uh—it’s equivalent to an Oscar.<a title="">[1]</a> Uh, it’s called a Telly, I think, and I’ve got it here somewhere. It’s a beautiful bronze statuette that we took first place for safety on the video for children’s safety. Not necessarily water safety, but all safety for children. I was proud of that.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Do you feel like you’ve—you’ve kind of expanded your teaching methods through the use of the video out to more and more kids?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Absolutely, yes. We—my son founded a children’s water safety organization, and whenever he has the opportunity—need be[sic]—he sends the video to help when there’s been a problem somewhere in, uh, another state. He sends a letter and the video to have them, uh, help with that. Yes, I think it’s expanded a lot.<strong>s</strong>      </p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>So out of those thousands of children that you taught, do you stay in regular contact with a lot of them?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Absolutely, yes.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Like who?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Like who?</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, one little boy—the—Brady Sapp. He was one year old when his mother brought him, and he swam the length of the pool before he was two years old and the pool’s the—the long pool. Well, Brady, he will—every year, I have a joint birthday party and have a lot of my friends, and Brady will be there. He’s now over 30 years old—maybe 35, and he will be at the party with his children and grandchildren, and, uh, his mother brought him every year, until he was five years old, when they started going to kindergarten. They would come here until five and then they’d go off to kindergarten, and by then, they were such good swimmers, they’d either need to go to competition or just more swimming, and, um—but Brady will be here and his own children will be there too. Their mother is very good at teaching, ‘cause she spent so much time here watching and helping me with the books. I never charged anything. Only enough to pay for the electric bill and the chlorine expenses. I didn’t even like charging even then, but you have to charge to continue what you’re doin’.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Hm, so, if you could tell me only one time in your experience as a swimming instructor, what would be that story?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Oh, my. Well, I’m afraid I…</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>How about any several stories? Anything that like—that really stick out in your mind that you really want to convey?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Hm, well, lemme see. When it comes to the—the children, I guess the things that stick out in my mind is Brady, for one. To know that it’s possible to swim that well—which is a 38- foot pool—uh, at two years old—before he was two, and then later on, before he was three years old, he swam underwater the length of the pool. He’s just one little child that I remember, and I also told you about the little girl who came that was terrified to get her eyes wet, and she came, after listening to—watching the video for two weeks. Her parents and grandparents brought her, and before her hour was up, she had—this three year old—had swum the entire length of the pool just exactly like she learned on Miss Jackie’s video.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Well, Miss Jackie, is there anything else you’d like to add to our interview, before we wrap things up?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, anytime you can use the video to help other people, um, it would just be—would make me feel real good, and, um, I would do it all over again. I have a little bit of sun damage, but other than that, [<em>laughs</em>] it’s, uh, been very exciting.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Do you—I know you’re very proud of your accomplishments and—and such around the area. Um, are you proud of the children that you got to teach, both African-American and white?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Absolutely, absolutely. I learned to understand people a little better than I did before, and I always admired the people that went out of their way to put all kids and their neighbors in the car and bring ‘em over here. I gave ‘em credit for wanting their children to learn to swim, and I think I told you—Jeff Blake, who came as a two year old—when he grew up, he went to meetings with me to build a new swimming pool, and, uh, that’s—the result of that was that well’re[sic] building that wonderful pool, which is being used constantly at Seminole High School for the young people. Of course, I think that all the children should know how to swim before they graduate high school, and in some states, that’s the case, but not in Florida, but, uh, they do their best to teach as many as they possibly can, and now Jeff’s son—he’s now retired as a football player and his son is one of the big players today. So…</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Um [<em>clears throat</em>], you were telling me a story about Jeff Blake’s family earlier that was really, really interesting. Would you like saying that—would you like telling that story again?</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, yes. Um, when Jeff Blake was a baby, his family would take him out to Wekiva Springs for some—there’s a little place where you can stand in the sand and you can play, but his aunt stepped off the ledge, and was in the process of drowning, when her sister, who was Jeff Blake’s mother, jumped out there to save her and threw her back to safety, and everybody was so happy to see her and so intent on watching her, they failed to look around and realize that Jeff’s mother was in trouble, and she did drown that day at Wekiva Springs, which was a terrible, sad day, and then, um—so the father brought Jeff as a baby for swimming and we’ve been friends ever since.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Uh, one final question and then we’ll—we’ll go ahead and stop the interview, but what were some of the factors that made you decide that you were going to go ahead and teach African-American children how to swim? Like because—what were some of the…</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>Well, there was never any decision to be made about it, but being Navy, of course, I was accustomed to swimming. Uh—they were always permitted in the Navy base pools, but, um, I realized they didn’t have the opportunity. That’s the reason they couldn’t swim. Their grand—their mothers would tell them, “Don’t you dare go near that water. I’ll spank you good.” So they were always, uh, told to be frightened of the water. So when they came and found out how much fun it was and how fast they—and they—they can learn absolutely, one child against the other.</p> <p>In the video, you’ll see. There’s, um, some black children in the video that dived off the diving board, but what’s so amusing to me about that is those two were older children. They had never dived off the diving board, because they were gonna be on film. They wanted to get up there to [<em>laughs</em>]—and they just got on the end of that diving board and stuck their heads down and fell into the water [<em>laughs</em>]. It didn’t bother ‘em, because they knew they were gonna be saved. I have the reaching pole, which is—every swimming pool should have a reaching pole that you can reach out and pull them in and teach them how to do that. So I have to laugh every time I see that video and see those children. I’ve forgotten their names, but I knew them well at the time. ‘Course, they’re all grown up now.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>All right. Well, Miss Jackie, I’d like to thank you for myself and on behalf of the Public History Center for granting us this interview. Thank you so much for your time.</p> <p><strong>Caolo<br /></strong>You’re so welcome. Thank you so much.</p> <p><strong>Ford<br /></strong>Thank you, ma’am.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Academy Award.</p> </div> </div> American crawl American Pediatric Association American Red Cross American Red Cross Water Safety APA backstroke Blake, Emory Blake, Jeff breaststroke Caolo, Jackie Crystal Lake Downtown Sanford education Ford, Frank "Chip" Head Star Program Lake Mary Lakeland Miss Jackie and Sally Seal Safety Video Morosini, Dana Morosini, Helen Mother Wilson Navy opossums oral history overarm crawl PHC Public History Center Rawls, Catherine Reeve, Christopher Sanford Sanford Civic Center Sanford Grammar School Sapp, Brady Seminole High School swimmer swimming swimming lessons swimming pool teacher Telly UCF Public History Center water safety Wekiva Springs Wilson https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/77a206815c98b044db74537aea94ec5f.mp3 19e9e957a64d4a63ecf646393bb1deae https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/94a3a8051032f1c90e5399fe8d0ce935.pdf 4aaf1dc6277067bf5a968b5b856d16d1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Tammaro, Elizabeth Interviewee Jones, James Marion Location <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida Original Format 1 audio recording Duration 28 minutes and 49 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 128kbps 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 James Marion Jones Alternative Title Oral History, Jones Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Education--Florida Airplanes--United States Description An oral history of James Marion Jones, conducted by Elizabeth Tammaro on March 19, 2015. Jones, who was born June 19, 1945, grew up in Oviedo, Florida, and had a long career as teacher and assistant principal in Seminole County Public Schools (SCPS). This oral history interview conducted by Elizabeth Tammaro at the Lawton House on March 19, 2015. Interview topics include family history, such as his great-great grandfather's service in the American Civil War under A. P. Hill, an historic dental kit of one of his ancestors, and his parents, who worked at the post office, with his father being the postmaster general for many years. Other topics include his brother, vacations and summer activities, college at the University of Florida (UF), the Oviedo School plane crash , life in the Navy, his career in education, how Oviedo has changed over time, hobbies, marriage and children, and influence of past teachers. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:28 Ancestry<br />0:05:24 Parents and siblings<br />0:10:00 Growing up in Oviedo<br />0:15:38 Plane crash near the Oviedo School<br />0:20:17 Career in the Navy and in education<br />0:23:24 How Oviedo has changed over time<br />0:25:27 Hobbies and marriage Abstract Oral history interview of James Marion Jones. Interview conducted by Elizabeth Tammaro at the <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> in Oviedo, Florida, on March 19, 2015. Type Sound Source Jones, James Marion. Interviewed by Elizabeth Tammaro, March 19, 2015. Audio record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, History Harvest Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 18-page digital transcript of original 28-minute and 49-second oral history: Jones, James Marion. Interviewed by Elizabeth Tammaro, March 19, 2015. Audio record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Mitchell Hammock, Oviedo, Florida Oviedo High School, Oviedo, Florida Sweetwater Park, Oviedo, Florida Creator Jones, James Marion Tammaro, Elizabeth Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2015-03-19 Date Modified 2015-12-08 Date Copyrighted 2015-03-19 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 26.3 MB 185 KB Medium 28-minute and 49-second audio recording 18-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by James Marion Jones and Elizabeth Tammaro and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. Transcript <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Okay. Today, it is March 19^th, 2015. I am interviewing James [Marion] Jones as part of the UCF [University of Central Florida] Oviedo History Harvest, and we are recording this interview at the Oviedo Historical Society located at the Lawton House in Oviedo, Florida. So my first question is: what is your full name?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>My full name is James Marion Jones. That’s Marion—M-A-R-I-O-N. I was born June the 19^th, 1945.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Um, and when did your family come to Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>My—on my paternal side, my, uh, great-great grandfather was…</p> <p>[<em>cell phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Was Batts Nusum Mitchell. He was the first one to move here in about 1870. He was, uh, a dentist, and he also farmed in the area now known as Mitchell Hammock, and—off Mitchell Hammock Road, which that’s named for him. Uh, in fact, he’s buried out in the Drawdy[-Rouse] Cemetery. You know where that is? Rouse-Drawdy[sic] Cemetery on Rouse Road, by UCF.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh huh, he’s buried out there. He was the first one of our family to move from[sic] Oviedo—to Oviedo from Georgia, uh, again around 1870.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Okay, um, did you—your maternal family—did they live here? Or is that…</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Excuse me?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Different? Your maternal family?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh, my maternal family. My maternal family—my, um, mother’s—my, uh, mother’s family was from Macon, Georgia.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And as far as I know, back there, on their side, my great-great grandfather fought in the [American] Civil War. His name was C. A. Dewberry. Uh, he fought in A. P. Hill’s division of the Army of Northern Virginia, under—under [Robert E.] Lee. He was, uh, injured in the Battle of Vicksburg<a title="">[1]</a>, was captured at [the Siege of] Petersburg,<a title="">[2]</a> held as a POW [prisoner of war] in Virginia until the end of the war, and, uh, the[?]—he lived until 1922—I believe that it was—then[?] died in Macon, Georgia, and then my—I don’t know how my mother and father met in Macon, but they did, married in Macon, and then he brought her back to Oviedo where the rest of my paternal side was—was living at the time, and, um, my, uh—again, it was my—I keep getting all the greats confused [<em>laughs</em>] —Great-great-great-grandfather was Batts Mitchell. He has a daughter…</p> <p>[<em>cell phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Named Emma Jean Mitchell, who married the first Jones, uh, and her name was, uh, Emma Jean Mitchell Jones. They’re buried right here in the Oviedo Cemetery</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And—and again, he practiced farming out in what’s now known as the Mitchell Hammock area, and he, uh, practiced dentistry too, and, uh, when he, uh—when he died, we gave his dental kit, which is a rather elaborate dental kit, to the University of Florida and the Florida State Museum</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, wow.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>In Tallahassee. That’s a picture of his dental kit. They’re all pearl—pearl-handled, uh, instruments, uh, even still had some of the chemicals and that—that he—they used then in 1870s, including arsenic—believe it or not [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And stuff like—you can have that, if you’d like.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, thank you.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And I still have the original picture of it too, if you ever wanted a better copy, but, um, uh, it—it—yeah, they moved here. He traced it—we traced it—we can trace his lineage—Mitchell’s—back to 18—to 1700s, and they moved here from Ireland and Scotland. Uh, in fact, I don’t know if you’d be interested in any of this or not. I just ran, uh, this, uh, thing. I didn’t do all this work. Somebody else did…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>This work, but that was the, um—the lineage there.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, wow.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Of, um, where we came from. I’m somewhere around generation six or seven, I believe. Uh, it goes back to—it goes back to the old country anyway, beginning like when the first Mitchells moved here from Ireland and Scotland. One of ‘em served in the [American] Revolutionary War, and then his son served in the War of 1812, and then we had some that fought in the, uh, Civil War, for the South<a title="">[3]</a> of course [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>The— I [inaudible]—the War—War of Northern Aggression, it was known as in the South, you know?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And, uh, just—just for you—your case, that’s the, uh, maternal side where I came from,</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /> </strong>Mmhmm[?].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And, um, the first one of that, [inaudible] I can’t trace her back as far as the old country. I never had really tried though, but that’s where they came—they all came from Macon, and thank God they left Macon too. You ever been to Macon, Georgia?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>I have not.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh, don’t ever go.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>No?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>It is hot, dirty, smelly—oh, it’s a terrible place [<em>laughs</em>]. Great place to be from [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>But, um, anyway…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Okay[?], um, so, what did your parents do?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>My, uh, oh, okay, uh, like I say, uh, Dr. Mitchell—he had a, um—his daughter Emma Jean married the first Jones. He had a general store in Oviedo. He—he would’ve been my great grandfather, and then my grandfather, uh, continued that on, and he had a general store. He also worked for the railroad, and he was postmaster of Oviedo for about 15 years, and then his son—my father—John Batts Jones, Jr., uh, was postmaster of Oviedo post office for 25 years until his death in [19]63.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Okay[?]. Um, uh, what would you say your father was like—like his personality?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh, he was very businesslike. Uh, they worked hard back then. Uh, I know that, back then—actually when he was a postmaster—back then, in those days, the post office was open six days a week, including Saturdays, and of course, they had to be there in advance to open up, they had to be there afterwards to shut down, so I’ll bet you he worked a 70-hour week, and my mother was a clerk at the post office as well, and, uh—so they worked long, hard hours. It was—it was—back then in those days, it was—it was a hard life. It was a lot—lot of hours of work. [Inaudible], you know, we don’t appreciate it, uh, now, I don’t think, uh, but they did. They worked very hard. He’s very businesslike, but, uh, they were good.</p> <p>They had, uh, two children: my brother<a title="">[4]</a> and myself. Uh, both of us went to Oviedo High School. I think there were 12 in my brother’s graduating class of Oviedo High School in 1955. There were 30 in my graduating class in 1963, and there were half—there were about five of us, I think, that started in the first grade together and went all the way through—graduated together.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>What did your brother do—go on to do?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>My brother, uh—you see, the basketball picture up? He was a, uh, superstar in basketball. In fact, he set records at Oviedo High School that are[?]—still exist. He’s in the hall of fame up there, and he got a full basketball scholarship to the University of Florida, uh, and he played up there his freshman year. He was red-shirted his sophomore year, and then in the summer of his sophomore year, he was working for the Alachua County, just to make some spending money, and he—and, uh, he was, uh, working with the road department, and he was sawing a limb off a tree and he had a terrible accident, fell, and nearly died, and—and he—and he was left with a severe handicap after that, which he had to cope with for the rest of his life.</p> <p>So that ended his—any potential sports career that he might have had, because he was—he was excellent in basketball particularly, but[?] he was also a good baseball player. Oviedo didn’t have football back then. We didn’t have enough people in the school to have a football team [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh, oh, where was I? Then, of course, uh—then I grew up in his shadow. He was eight and half years older than me. I certainly grew up in his shadow. Oviedo was a little town back then, and everything circulated around the church and the school.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And, of course, everybody in town knew everybody, whether you went to the gas station to get gas for your car, or whether you went to the barbershop to get a haircut. It was really—you’ve seen the movie. Do you remember—you remember <em>Mayberry R.F.D.</em>—that TV series?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, I don’t know.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Sorry.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>You’re too young. Okay, it was just a little one stoplight town, and I grew up in his shadow. “Are you going to be as good as your brother? You gonna be…” Well, Johnny was 6’3”, 185 pounds in high school. I was 5’8, 140 pounds [<em>laughs</em>]. There wasn’t any way I was going to be another Johnny Jones in sports, but he was my hero, nevertheless. I loved him to death, and—and, uh, we had a good, warm, uh, relationship growing up until he, uh—until his injury [inaudible] almost took his life.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Mmhmm[?].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Buddied around with him. You wouldn’t know we were eight years difference, ‘cause he always took me along with him everywhere—just about everywhere he went.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Um, okay, so did you have any favorite family stories that you wanted to tell?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Or any traditions?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Gosh, well, our, uh—like I said, work was always a big part of, uh, my mother and dad’s life, and when it came to, uh, vacation time, we did one of two things: we either went to the mountains in North Carolina or we went to Daytona Beach and spent a week or two—or a week or two up in the mountains. That was—that was their life. That’s what they loved to do. They loved to go to the mountains and they loved to go to the beach. So we would do that. Of course, I was like an only child, uh, because my brother being so much older. So when we would go on these vacations, I was like an only child, by myself. Wasn’t anybody to play with, but I had to make up my own, uh, time. Uh, in the summer, uh—again, all the life in Oviedo, in that time, circulated around either the church or the school during the regular year. When I say “regular year,” I mean like the school year from September to June.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh, uh, and then in the summers, the only thing there was to do in the summers was to go to the Oviedo swimming pool. Are you familiar with the Oviedo swimming pool…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Down in Sweetwater Park?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Jones <br /></strong>It was built on WPA.<a title="">[5]</a></p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh huh, uh, back in the ‘30s, and it really was a nice pool. It was one of the nicest pools in the area. In fact, people came from as far away as Titusville and others—and other cities to use the Oviedo pool, because it was—it was—it really was a nice pool, uh, for its time. Of course, they ended up closing it in, mm, late ‘60s, because there’s no way—it didn’t meet any mind of health standards. It didn’t have a filtration system. It didn’t have a chlorination system.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Wow [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Jone<br /></strong>What they would do is, every three or four days, they would empty all the water out of the pool and fill it up with fresh water.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>So the day after they filled it up with fresh water, it was cold [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>I bet.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And then, by the fourth day, it was really nice and warm [<em>laughs</em>], but, uh—so that was all there really was to do much in, uh—in Oviedo back in—in, uh, the summertime was the pool, and as it[?] got a little bit older, uh, there were some summer baseball leagues for, uh—for little kids. They called them Babe Ruth Leagues, Where you just, uh—just got together and played, uh, Sanford schools or Longwood or something, uh, and then like I say, during the school year, everything circulated around the church and the school. The “school” primarily meaning basketball games, and, uh, the baseball games, of course, were played, uh, during the day, and so that wasn’t as big a community event, because people were working. They didn’t have lights back then. Um, so, eh, the, uh, basketball games were the main thing—that and—and church. Um, Oviedo was quiet. It was, of course—I started—I was born, again, in 1945, right at the end of the war. It was a quiet little town, safe. Nobody locked anything. I don’t know that we even owned any keys to the house. Um, nobody ever stole anything, or anything like that.</p> <p>One kind of funny story, along that line, my mother and my brother had been to church one Sunday night. They came home and she went in. I stayed home with my dad, and she woke my dad up, and she called him J. B. that was his nickname, J.B. “J.B., who’s asleep on the couch?” And he, uh—and—and, we had a couch, [inaudible] “Nobody. It’s just Jimmy and I here.” She says “Somebody’s asleep out there on the couch.” So I went out there and sure enough, some drunk had wondered in off the street, laid down on the couch, and gone to sleep [<em>laughs</em>]. So I guess they just woke him up and send him on his way. I would have been just a real little fella at this time, but I remember that was just hilarious, because nobody locked anything. I don’t know if we owned any keys to the house.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And everybody else was the same way too.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, um, what church did your family go to?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>The Oviedo Baptist Church.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[inaudible]?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Right across the street there. Uh huh, my—in fact, my, um—my great grandfather, J. M. Jones, was the clerk of the, uh, church for many years. I don’t know how many. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Okay, um, did you go on to go to college as well?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Yeah, I went—after I graduated from high school in ’63, they had a junior college in Orlando called Orlando Junior College at the time. It was a private junior college. I went there for one year, and then I transferred to the University of Florida in Gainesville. It was before UCF.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>There were no other—yeah, all the other colleges in the area were a few private schools—private colleges, like Rollins [College], Stetson [College], Florida Southern [College]. So I went to Gainesville, and also I always wanted to go to Gainesville, because that’s where my brother Johnny went too.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Did you enjoy it?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh, yes. Best[?]—look—look back at it now, some of the best years of my life. Of course, like every other kid, at the time, you know, “We gotta hurry up and get outta here and get on with life and blah, blah, blah,” and when you get older, you look back and those are some good years, and—wish I took more time to smell the flowers [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Um, so I understand you went to Oviedo [School] when the plane crashed?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh huh. Sure, did, and, uh, I wrote up a little thing that I sent to— I don’t know if you got this or if I sent it to—Desta’s<a title="">[6]</a> her name?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, yeah, I think she told me about it.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh, yeah, I’m, um, you know—do you where the old school was? You seen pictures of the old school up there?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yeah, yeah.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>It was a typical old two-story, brick schoolhouse.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And I happened to be on the first floor, on the west side, in my English class. The teacher was Jack Caliber[sp], and I was sitting there and staring out the window, as I often did [<em>laughs</em>] in school—class, and I saw, uh, these planes coming barely above treetop level. There were three of them at first. There were, uh, two what they call [North American A-5] Vigilantes. They were all photo reconnaissance planes out of NAS<a title="">[7]</a> Sanford at the time, and just as they came over treetop, they obviously realized that there was a school dead ahead, and a two-story school, and they were not going to clear it. The playground, which is right across the back of the property here, was full of elementary—the elementary kids were at recess, at that time. Uh, the—the high school kids, like myself—we were all in the big building. Anyway, as soon as they realized that the two Vigilantes just <em>phew</em>, peeled off like that, and that, uh, A3J [Vigilante]—the one you see the picture of there.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>That—that’s not the plane. That is just, uh, one of the type planes.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh, as soon as he saw it, he did—what you’re used to seeing planes horizontal. I mean, I served on an aircraft carrier in the Navy, and [<em>laughs</em>] so I’ve seen lots of planes, and you’re used to seeing them, but as soon as he saw the school, he did this, and went completely vertical, and it is still etched in my mind. You—you don’t see planes in that vertical position, and he did that, and then, <em>shoo</em>—<em>bam</em>, and he landed about, oh, probably no more than a couple hundred feet from the school property, but [inaudible] in the orange grove that was owned by the Ward family at the time, and of course, pandemonium was breaking out at the school, even though we—there weren’t many of us. There was only like—oh, like 300 of us in the whole school at the time. That’s grades one through 12, and, um, my business teacher, right across the hallway—Novella [Driggers] Aulin was her name. She said, “Jimmy, Jimmy, won’t you—I need you to go check on Burt [Ward] and Bill Ward. See if they’re okay,” because they—they were some friends of hers that had a mobile home right over there in that area. She said “Here, take my car.” She gave me the keys to her car. Now, I was a junior in high school [<em>laughs</em>].  They’d hang you for this kind of stuff today [<em>laughs</em>]. She handed me the keys to her car, an old Mercury. I remember I had a hell of a time driving it, ‘cause it had some kind of weird transmission.</p> <p>So I go out there and I jump in, and I was the only one that left the school grounds, and I drove around to the site, and by the time I got over there, the Navy had already posted a sentry, but that—but there—I was from here to the door to the crash, but I think—there was nothing—it was nothing much left. When a plane crashes and burns, I mean, it just—it just burns up. There’s a big ball of, uh, fire from the, uh, jet fuel, but that just goes up—<em>whish</em>, and that’s it. The rest of it then is just smoldering, and I didn’t put this in the write-up, ‘cause it was kind of, um, gross, or macabre, but you get the bodies of the three dead were on top of the ground still strapped into their, uh, seats. Uh, so then I went back to the school and I told—told Novella that Burt and Bill’s house was okay. That is didn’t hit ‘em. Of course, one of the other teachers was mad as hell at me for leaving the school grounds [<em>laughs</em>], but that was okay. he couldn’t do anything, because the other teacher not only gave me permission, told me to go, gave me the keys to her car, and, um, I was—I was on the student council at the time, so, uh, a delegation of us went over to Sanford to the memorial service for the three that died, but they definitely—they gave their lives to avoid hitting that school. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it, because they—they would have hit—there’s no doubt they would have hit it.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Alright, um, so, uh, you were in the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Yeah, I was—I was—like I say, I went over to Florida, and I graduated from Florida—the University of Florida—in ’67. This was right in the middle of the Vietnam War.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Ah.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And, uh, so I had to choose, uh, what I was going to do, so rather than being drafted and going into the Army, I, uh, signed up and I went to, uh, went to the Naval Officer Candidate School in New Port, Rhode Island, where I got commissioned as [inaudible] in 1967. Ending up staying and getting out in ’69, at the end of the war, and I stayed in the Navy Reserves[sic] for 20—a total of 25 years, and retired in 1991 as a captain.</p> <p>[<em>cell phone rings</em>]</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Yeah, I graduated—I retired in ’91. Um, when I got off active duty in 1969, I wanted to teach, so I went to work for Seminole County [Public] School system. I taught two years at—well, it was, at that time, South Seminole Junior High School. Then it became, the next year, South Seminole Middle School. Then I transferred to Oviedo Junior-Senior High School, where I taught for one year, then they moved the middle school to Jackson Heights [Middle School]. Uh, it had been a sixth grade center and they added the seventh grade out there. So I went out there, and I became the assistant principle at Jackson Heights, and I was there for 21 years, I believe, or—21 or 22 years at Jackson Heights, and then I transferred to Tuskawilla Middle School. I was their assistant principle for nine years, and then I transferred my last two or three years to Lawton Chiles Middle School, where I retired in—I think it was 2003.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>What did you teach?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>I taught math.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Did you enjoy that[?]?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. I’ve always been math—math buff. My, uh, high school math teacher’s probably shaking his head, but, uh—but I did. I would say one thing you might find that was interesting: I remember when I—when I was at, uh, Oviedo Elementary School, you know, the—the price of one of those half pints of milk were three cents, at that time [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>I think a full lunch—and it was a full lunch back then—it wasn’t the kind of lunches they have now—like, it was 30 cents, but the milk was three cents. So it’s a different time, and, uh, so then after, uh—after I, uh, retired, then I—I, uh, always liked the, uh, east coast, and Oviedo was getting so big. This area was getting so big then that I decided to move over the Melbourne. That’s where I’ve been ever since.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yeah.<strong> </strong>So how do you feel about all the changes in Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh, I tell you. It’s, uh—it’s progress, I guess, but there’s sometimes [<em>laughs</em>] I wish they’d just put it back the way it was, but, you know, you can’t go back again. That’s just—it’s gonna get—it’s—in the next 20 years, it’s gonna be even bigger. No doubt about it. It’s—it’s—it is something. It’s something. I remember when I was in high school, where—where UCF is out there, that property was for sale, and it had a plywood si—signs up there with, uh, Carrigan and Boland Realty. All that property was for sale for 300 dollars an acre.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>And the—and the sign stayed there ‘til it rotted down. That’s just how [<em>laughs</em>]—it wasn’t—you can imagine now what it’s worth [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>That’s crazy. Did you hear they’re tear—they’re gonna make this road<a title="">[8]</a> bigger?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Yes, they did. I have, um—my cousin, um, Mary Jones, um, owns one of the buildings in the old…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, really?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Down—Mary Jones Bird owns one of the buildings, and, uh, in fact, she was here visiting last week, and she told me she had just closed with the State of the Florida. Are they going to take this house down over here—you know, my old house?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Um, I don’t think so, I think it’s everything before the Baptist church. Like Townhouse [Restaurant]…</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>All that way?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Down that way.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Um…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro</strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Uh huh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>So I don’t think so.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>I just wondered if they were going to take it down. I—I guess it’s open to some—some sort of office buildings…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Or something in there now. Many years ago, I was here for one of their<a title="">[9]</a> Great Day in the Countries, and I, uh, just went over there and walked through, just kind of looked around for old time’s sake, because as a little kid, I remember I thought it was huge, and then I went in and looked and I said, <em>Man, this is little.</em></p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] But, uh, okay. I was wondering about that.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yeah, I think that staying. Um, okay, so do you have any interests or hobbies?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Yeah, boating, sailing…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Boating?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Fishing, outdoor activities like that.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>I, uh, right now, in my retired years, I spend three—three months a year, I spend over in the Bahamas, and then we come back during the—when hurricane season starts, we start getting ready to go back the next year, and we have a lot of family that comes over with us every year, ‘cause they all love it, and stay with us for a week or two, and friends, so that’s what—that’s what I’m—that’s what my life’s doing right now.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Do you have family that’s still here in Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Yes, uh, my daughter Dawn [Raquel Jones] Jensen is very active in the [Oviedo] Historical Society.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>You know her?</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Yes, I think I met her.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Yeah, that’s my daughter. Uh, my, um—my other daughter, Kathy [Jones], lives in Miami Beach. I have a daughter, Pam [Jones], that lives over in, uh, East Orlando, and then just two years ago, I—we lost a son, uh, uh, Jimmy. I[?]—he passed away and, uh, lost him, and that’s—that’s the family, and my cousin, Mary—she, uh—she was down—she lives in Asheville, North Carolina now. She was a longtime Oviedo resident too, but I guess that Dawn actually is really the only one who’s still living in the Oviedo area—in Oviedo, as per se.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Right. Alrighty, um, so were you remarried—your wife?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Yeah, uh, I got married, um, out of, uh, college. Had the two children, Pam and Jimmy, and then that marriage didn’t survive. Remarried in 1995, uh, a girl from Goldenrod. We had two children Dawn and Kathy, and that’s it.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>Oh, okay. Um, so is there anything that you want to tell me that I haven’t asked you about?</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh, gosh, I’m trying to think…</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh, hi. I’m Jim.</p> <p><strong>Tammaro<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Horner<br /></strong>Desta [Horner].</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>Oh, you’re Desta. Okay, great. Yeah, uh, we’ve been having a very interesting conversation. I [inaudible]. Let me look here real quick. Dawn, uh, sent me some things, said you might want to mention this, that, or the other. Let me see what it was that, uh, she said to talk about. Uh, uh, um, uh, well, we had, uh—the Oviedo School was really great. We had some really wonderful teachers…</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Jones<br /></strong>There, and I really do credit the success that I have had in life with the great teachers that, uh—that we had. I know Mrs. Palmer—Betty Palmer Sprat. She’s a member of your historical society. She was my science teacher in high school—wonderful lady, uh, and there were several others like her that, uh, didn’t take any gruff from us, and believe me, we were capable of hand—handing it out [<em>laughs</em>], but they were always a step ahead of us [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Commonly known as the Siege of Vicksburg.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Officially known as the Richmond–Petersburg Campaign.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly known as the Confederacy.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> John “Johnny” Jones.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Originally called the Works Progress Administration and renamed the Work Projects Administration.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Desta Horner, the President of the Oviedo Historical Society.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> Naval Air Station.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> Broadway Street.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[9]</a> Oviedo Woman’s Club (OWC).</p> </div> </div> A. P. Hill A3J Vigilante airplane crashes airplanes Ambrose Powell Hill, Jr. American Civil War Army of Northern Virginia assistant principals athletes Babe Ruth Leagues Baptists baseball baseball leagues basketball basketball players Batts Mitchell Batts Nusum Mitchell Betty Palmer Sprat Bill Ward Broadway Street Burt Ward C. A. Dewberry Carrigan and Boland Realty churches Confederacy Confederate States of America Confederates CSA Dawn Raquel Jones Jensen dental kits dentists Desta Horner Drawdy-Rouse Cemetery education educators elementary schools Elizabeth Tammaro Emma Jean Mitchell Jones farmers general stores Great Day in the Country high schools J. B. Jones J. M. Jones Jack Caliber Jackson Heights Jackson Heights Middle School James Marion Jones JHMS Jimmy Jones John Batts Jones, Jr. John Jones Johnny Jones junior high schools Kathy Jones Lawton Chiles Middle School Lawton House LCMS Macon, Georgia Mary Jones Bird Mayberry R.F.D. middle schools Mitchell Hammock Mitchell Hammock Road Navy Reserve North American A-5 Vigilante Novella Driggers Aulin OES Officer Candidate School OHS OJC OJSHS Orlando Junior College Oviedo Oviedo Baptist Church Oviedo Cemetery Oviedo Elementary School Oviedo High School Oviedo Historical Society Oviedo History Harvest Oviedo Junior-Senior High School Oviedo School Pam Jones plane crashes planes post offices postal service postmasters Richmond–Petersburg Campaign Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee Rouse Road schools SCPS Seminole County Public Schools Siege of Petersburg Siege of Vicksburg South Seminole Junior High School South Seminole Middle School sports SSJHS SSMS students Sweetwater Park swimming pools teachers TMS Tuskawilla Middle School UCF UF University of Central Florida University of Florida vacations Vietnam War War of Northern Aggression Work Projects Administration Works Progress Administration WPA https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/c741bc5f6c2648318f23aacaa85f207c.mp3 7c1f1cdaf7ec8709fa5c61cbb7dfa653 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/3d3ed1ec1df0d1ca45f92097b1a27947.pdf a22798835294f07a40c62f3cf5b20abd 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 Wilt, Ashley Interviewee Singleton, James 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 James Singleton Alternative Title Oral History, Singleton Subject Altamonte Springs (Fla.) Libraries--Florida Wastewater Description An oral history of James Singleton, conducted by Ashley Wilt on July 21, 2010. Singleton has served as the Deputy Director of Facilities Fleet and Urban Maintenance for the City of Altamonte Springs, Florida, since January 1976. In this oral history interview, he discusses the history of the Altamonte Springs City Library, the establishment of an Information System (IS) for the city, the library's Mobile Information Center (MIC), the youth area for the library, library patrons, his career with the City of Altamonte Springs, and Project APRICOT (A Prototype Realistic. Innovative Community of Today). Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:46 History of the Altamonte Springs City Library 0:06:37 Establishment of an Information System (IS) 0:09:43 Public computers at the library 0:12:04 Mobile Information Center (MIC) 0:15:48 Youth Library Area 0:20:43 Library patrons 0:24:12 Altamonte Springs Civic Club 0:27:15 Retirement 0:28:12 Appreciation for the library 0:35:25 Project APRICOT (A Prototype Realistic. Innovative Community of Today) 0:38:37 Managing Fleet Facilities and Urban Beautification Abstract Oral history interview of James Singleton Interview conducted by Ashley Wilt at the <a href="http://altamonte.mysurpass.net/" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs City Library</a> in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Type Sound Source Singleton, James. Interviewed by Ashley Wilt. July 21, 2010. 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>, Altamonte Springs, 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 Altamonte Springs City Library, Altamonte Springs, Florida Altamonte Springs City Hall, Altamonte Springs, Florida Creator Singleton, James Wilt, Ashley Contributor Dombrowski, Diana Date Created 2010-07-21 Date Modified 2014-10-10 Date Copyrighted 2010-07-21 Format audio/mp3 application/pdf Extent 435 MB 167 KB Medium 43-minute and 6-second audio recording 14-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Provenance Originally created by Ashley Wilt and James Singleton. 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://altamonte.mysurpass.net/" target="_blank">Welcome to Altamonte Springs City Library</a>." Altamonte Springs City Library. http://altamonte.mysurpass.net/. "<a href="http://www.altamonte.org/" target="_blank">Altamonte Springs, Florida</a>." Altamonte Springs, Florida. http://www.altamonte.org/. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/49963391" target="_blank"><em>Altamonte Springs</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 1999 Transcript <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>This is an interview with Mr. James Singleton at the Altamonte Springs [City] Library. This interview is being conducted on July 21, 2010. The interviewer’s name is Ashley Wilt and I’m representing the Museum of Seminole County History and the Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project for the Historical Society of Central Florida.</p> <p>Mr. Singleton, you are Deputy Director of Facilities Fleet and Urban Maintenance for Altamonte Springs. That’s a very responsible position, which shows you have achieved quite a bit in your years with the City of Altamonte Springs. We thought you might be able to tell us some interesting things about the city’s library, its growth and development, and about some of the interesting people who have been involved over the years. You probably have some very interesting stories that you can relate.</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Yes, I do have some interesting stories. When I first came to work here in Altamonte—1976 of January—the library was run by the Altamonte Springs Civic Club. And Miss Anne Van Allen Klein was the one that donated the first books to this library, and in doing so, it started. We have to reflect back even beyond that. It started in a small house that they had, and they had the books there. Out of that house, they sold newspapers and other goods to earn money to pay the light bill and take care of all the other bills. Well, city employees at that time would help them, because they would carry the newspapers to sell, and then would bring the money back to them. Well, as time progressed, like in the [19]60s—early ‘60s—then they really picked up what they were doing, and they built the building here. The north end of this building was the part that they built. It was an almost 3,000-square foot building. Well, out of that building, they started to grow and develop a bigger collection. So about ’76, when I came, they were still selling newspapers and they had a little gift shop of things that they would sell so they could pay the bills and keep the library going. So it was a very interesting time.</p> <p>And along with Miss Klein, we have a lady named Sidell Pate, and over time, I came to know Miss Pate very well. As a matter of fact, she would call myself and Bill James her sons, because we looked out for her so very much over the time. Well, as she grew older, we didn’t like for her to drive across [Florida State Road] 436. So we had her, she would go to the post office. So we bought a mailbox and put it in her yard so that she wouldn’t have to go, for her own safety. Well, she lived near here, just about a block away, so we felt good for her to drive from home to here, because she didn’t have to cross any major streets. She was a very delightful person. We loved her very much. So when she passed, she left an endowment to the library for books and so forth, so that we could carry on the traditions here.</p> <p>But along with that, over the years, the library in 1985—October of 1985—was when the library came under my supervision. At that point in time, we had—the library director was Karen Potter. So Karen worked here with me for a number of years, and then she had an opportunity to go to the Maitland [Public] Library, and she became the library director there. But during that period of time, we started to do some things. We wanted to have a network here. So we did.</p> <p>So the only other place in the city that have a network was up in [Department of] Public Works, and Building and Light Safety. Well, [Division of] Building and Light Safety had a more extensive network than Public Works, because we had a gentleman here by the name of Phil McMann, who was very computer literate at that time. So we—and when I say we—the next library director that came in was Richard Miller. We wanted a network here. So we got with Phil McMann, and laid out what we wanted to do, and the City allowed us to purchase the equipment, and we started a network here. Which allowed us to do, at that time, so automation, because, you have to realize, programming, at that point in time, was not where it is now. So we started out with a network, and we put our collection on, and then we had some things we could do. We could track patrons, and different things like that. So it was a wonderful. It was wonderful time. It was an exciting time, because we were growing.</p> <p>Along with that, the [Altamonte Area] Chamber of Commerce was here. They built the south end of this building. And they were here for a number of years. And they outgrew the space, so they went to another location in Seminole County for they could operate and have the space that they needed. At that time, the City of Altamonte Springs purchased that end of the building, and just incorporated the whole library together, which gave us all the space we have now. So then we had the opportunity to move and expand, and we continued to build our network, and the programming that we have, which just made things so much easier at that point in time.</p> <p>So as we grew, the needs of the city changed. So they started IS [Information System]. And Steve Long was the gentleman that first headed up the IS department. So at that point in time—when I say “the city”—[Altamonte Springs] City Hall—they started IS and they started a network system. Well, everything like at Keller Road, which is where our main treatment plant is, all the information came from there to the library and then it was phoned to the system at City Hall. The other part, the west side of town, came through my network that was in my office, because I controlled all the west side of town at that point in time.</p> <p>So then, as they grew, they developed the dome, which houses all the computer equipment here. You know, the mainframes and so forth. And slowly, we moved all the individual network servers and everything was packed into there. So, extensive cabling had to be done, and then as time went on, they started putting in fiber optics. It was so funny, the first fiber optics we had was at City Hall. Between City Hall and the [City] Annex. And we knew how much information it could carry, so Phil McMann and myself—we spent a couple days gathering enough material that we could send, because it would just be a blip, and we wanted to see that blip. And it was new to us too. And we got to see that blip, and it was just wonderful, you know. It was just so exciting for us to see those things. So out of that, IS has grown. It manages the whole city, and a lot of things you don’t see. It’s like they have a mirror of the dome at West Altamonte for the IS system[sic], so if this system went down, it would be like a blip on your screen, because the one at West Altamonte would pick up and continue. They have redundancy, like where the main cable comes in, they have another area where the main cable comes in. So if the backup were to cut one cable, the system would never go down, and they have the redundancy all over the city for that. So it’s set up very nicely so that we would never be at a loss for moving our data throughout the city, back and forth.</p> <p>We’ll go back to the library. In 1985, you know, it was like a fledgling still, and then with Karen leaving, and Richard coming in, Richard brought—Richard Miller—brought fresh, new ideas and things he wanted to do. Richard, being very computer-literate, was an asset too. So a lot of things we could do, and get things going. So in the beginning, all we had was a few computers for the people that worked here—for staff to use. We had no computers for public use at that time. So we got in touch with Bill [&amp; Melinda] Gates Foundation, and Bill Gates Foundation donated six computers to this library back in the late ‘80s, around late ’88-early ’89. And then we were able to set up this kiosk that you see out there, where it had six computers that were donated to us. We got those up and going, and then that was the beginning of having public access to computers, so people could do what they needed to do. So that was—that was very exciting for us here at the library.</p> <p>So since then, you can see, we’ve grown. We have about 16-18 out there that we use, and they stay busy. Over time, it got so busy. In the last two or three years, we had to put time limits on them. So, you know, because people would come in and want to stay all day, but in order to try and meet the needs of our customers, we put time limits. So once you start your session, it comes up in the screen, it starts a little clock, it lets you know how much time you’ve used, how much you have left, so when that time is up, then you leave, and it makes way for someone else to come in. And so they did use a computer. So all those things have been very exciting.</p> <p>Let’s go back in time again. We started a Mobile Information Center, which was a bus, and we named that bus “MIC”—M-I-C. And it had a computer with legs on it. It was running. MIC was an acronym for Mobile Information Center. And we set it up, because the library’s here on the east side of town, and then the thinking of the city fathers—city managers and so forth—was how could we help our citizens—the older population—so they didn’t have to travel so far to come here and get books. So we created that program. And now, you talk about funny. When we—we brought MIC out, we had a little grand opening, and we had Mayor Dudley Bates here, and so we were going to christen it. We had this bottle of champagne. So when it was time to christen it, Mayor Bates swung the bottle of champagne, and it bounced back. So he did it again, and it bounced back. So he really had to lay into it. Finally the bottle broke, and MIC was christened, and ready to go on the road.</p> <p>And so that was a very delightful program they had, because we were not just the west side of town, but the east side too, and it had handicapped access, so we could bring a handicap person on. They could get in. The bus was designed for that reason, so we could service our patrons. We went to the nursing care facilities, and people would come on. They could check out books. They could actually come on and pick out their own books, check them out. And then we would go back, and they could come back on the bus again, and return their books, and get other books to read. So this was a very successful program. Same thing was done on the east side of town. They have nursing facilities over there—west side—and nursing facilities over there, and we accommodated those people over there also.</p> <p>Well, as time went on—you know, the recession that we’re in—the amount of money—operating funds for everybody—changed. So, we did away with MIC—the bus—because it cost money to operate it, but we didn’t do away with the program. We still deliver books to people that are incapacitated throughout the city. So that they can have the books they need to read. So that’s one of the things that I really enjoy about working for the city. You see the slogan on the paper—they use pencils that say, “We are people that care about people.” And you can really see it. They did away with the bus, but not with the program. So people get what they need to read, we get back and pick the books up, and carry them different books, and it’s just a wonderful arrangement, especially for people that are limited in their means of having transportation to go back and forth.</p> <p>Another thing here, where we’re sitting here today, is the Youth Library Area. At one time, we did not have this. You know, we had youth books, but not a designated area for these ones to come sit, and do things, and have the books that they really liked to read, and enough of them. So this was one thing that we created. It took a number of years to do so, but slowly and surely we did, and this area is used by young adults. And it’s summertime now, so it kind of slows off, but when school starts, they come, they do their homework projects here, they have the ability to do research, and so that worked out real well. I guess the thing that I was most pleased with: when the Chamber of Commerce moved, they gave us the area for the children’s library. They gave us an opportunity to develop that area. And having a few kids myself, I really appreciate the area.</p> <p>I have eight kids, and so as we develop that area—when we finish, you may take a look. It’s designed just for kids. The rugs, all them things in there, the decoration is for kids, and make them feel at home. And they don’t have to hear anybody say, “Shh!” They can be a kid, enjoy the library, and so that was just a wonderful addition. And I think that area, for checking out books and so forth, it accounts for 40 percent of the books that are checked out of the library. So we have a deep interest in kids.</p> <p>And in the summertime, we have kid’s programs. They do things like—we bring in from the Sanford zoo,<a title="">[1]</a> they’ll bring animals in, and they’ll have programs for the kids, maybe the parents, some of the things, and then they have the kids. I’ve seen 60-70 kids in that area for that program. We’ve done other programs in—like we bring beekeepers in to help them understand about bees, the things that they do.</p> <p>And then when school’s going on, we bring tutors in to help these young ones with their lessons and so forth, if they have a problem in math. And so some of the schools work with us in that regard. And some of the teachers will come, and volunteer their time, so we can help these kids. Some of those kids have really improved, and I don’t know if I should say this or not, but the Chinese restaurant on the corner—China First, I believe it is—their kids that needed help reading. It was a result of the program that we have here that the kids greatly improved in reading.</p> <p>So one thing leads to another. They have a writing contest here every year for eighth graders. So we give prizes and we also publish the book of all the writings of everyone that entered something in. And so winners—first, second, third—will go to their school, will present their school with a copy of the book, and also, the student that wrote the winning entry will get a copy of the book. Well, they’ve been very generous at the China First, of helping the library with the prizes and things that they give away. Because that’s how they show their appreciation for how much they helped their kids. So it’s a lot of good stories that I know about, and probably some that I don’t, because even when I’m not here, they continue to do good things like that.</p> <p>So it’s so many good things that come out of this library that even Seminole County has come over and observed our programs—Seminole County Library System<a title="">[2]</a>—So I’m very proud of it, and if I had to do it all over again, I would gladly do that.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>That’s amazing. Those are great stories. Have you ever experienced any interesting or colorful patrons?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Yes. We had a gentleman that used to come over from St. Cloud, and always wanted to watch pornography, he always wanted to pull up pornographic pictures, so one day I told him, I said, “You cannot do that here.” And he said, “Well, I have freedom of speech.” And I said, “Well, I have these young kids here, and I have all these ladies work here. I will not allow it.” He said, “Well, I’ll sue you.” So I said, “You do that.” I said, “The lawyer’s at City Hall. I don’t handle lawsuits. I maintain this library.” So he said, “I’m going to watch what I want.” So I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. First of all, I’ll open the door with your head, and then I’ll skin your nose on the asphalt as I throw you out. You will not observe this in here while these kids are here.” He said, “I’ll see you in court.” I said, “I’ll be there.” And I told him—I said, “Well, if this is what you like, buy your computer, set it up at home, and you can watch it yourself. Won’t bother anyone.” But, you know, most—all ladies work here, except one person. So you just couldn’t have that. And the kids come and out. I’d always be in the area in which, you know, that’s really designated for them, they come with their parents and things like that. So you have to look out for things like that, and I probably was just a little bit off the right path, but that’s how I felt about it. But he never came back. And he never sued. So it worked out just fine.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>Have you, over time, seen patrons that came back and enjoyed the child’s room, and now they’re bring their children? Or they’re migrating into the Young Adult room?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Yes. There are people that come here and bring their kids that were patrons here prior to that. And they’ve—they watched the progression of growth in the library, so now they come in. And see, what’s interesting about us being small, it’s more personal when you come here. And sometimes if you come down in the kids’ room, they know these kids by name basically, their parents, and so forth. So it does a couple of things. It makes the people feel very welcome here, and it’s a warm atmosphere, but also, it creates a very good atmosphere of safety, because, like, if you came in, and you know they don’t belong with this kid, because they know basically who the people that come here. And then some of our senior patrons, they come here for the same reason. And I think that that’s been the focus of this library, almost from the beginning, our senior patrons, although we cater to all groups of people. It’s just really a marvelous arrangement that we have here.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>That is great. Now, you were telling me how the library was first established, or first run, by the Civic Club. Do you know if the Civic Club just joined together, and bought the house, and wanted to have this library—have a library? Do you know how this began?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>The house really originally was a gift, and so they started working out of that. And like I said, Miss Klein—she donated her collection, and that actually started the library over 50 years ago. And then that was the beginning of the library. As I said earlier, they would sell newspapers, and they ran a thrift shop, so that they could pay their bills and so forth at that time.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>That’s great. When you first came—you said you came in 1976—did you come to works specifically with the library? To work with the city? How did you get involved personally?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Well, when I first came to work here, I was in charge of all the heavy equipment and everything that went underground. I worked heavily with the Water Department, and the Wastewater Divisions.<a title="">[3]</a> I worked there from ’76 until October ’85. They had a—they started a program in Wastewater for reclaimed water. And so it was such a big focus on that that—that Fleet Facilities and Urban Beautification, which was at that time buildings and grounds—there was like—they needed to move those and they started another division. So at that time, I applied for the job of the division manager of those divisions. So they moved that out of Public Works. Those sections were in Public Works, they moved them to Leisure Services. So that they could focus on developing the regional reclaimed water system that we have here. So, when that happened, well, the library was in [Altamonte Springs] Leisure Services. And so that became one of the things that I was assigned to oversee. And that’s when Karen Potter and myself[sic] came together, and then we started working together, taking over some of the other things mentioned previously.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>Wow. That’s really neat. Do you think after your retirement you’ll still stay involved with the library?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>More on a patron-base?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>No. when I retire, I’d like to come back, volunteer, and I would like to work in the children’s room, as I have for many, many times. I sit in on many of the programs, the readings, and so forth. I’m going to continue to enjoy that. It’s been very therapeutic to me. So I will continue to do that. I will also continue to work with the disabled population that Vinnie Coon oversees. I’d like to come in when they have their functions and cook. Help to cook, prepare the meals. My son comes with me. That’s something we like to do.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>Are there any stories that you can tell us specifically about the library and yourself that—how the library has helped you? Like you said, the children’s room is therapeutic to you.</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Yeah. Well, the library itself—I mean, I like to read too. But it’s helped me to understand the workings, and when I went to school, when you went in the library, everything was tight-lipped, you know. But just to see now—I mean, you don’t come in dancing and singing, but you can talk. And they see everything loosen up some. But the thing I’ve enjoyed, as Mr. [John] Batman was telling you about, the little history room, some of the buildings. Well, the [Altamonte Springs City] Commission has supported some of the things we have here, like the domes that protect the little buildings. In times past, they have authorized money to the Historical Society [of Central Florida] so they can buy the domes that protect the buildings and things like that.</p> <p>I’ve had such great support and the things that we’ve done here in the library, from the city fathers, because they recognize the need for the arts and the cultural things that are here at this location. And so this has been very rewarding to me. And so I can go in and say, “Well, I need a new set of reference books.” And they could very well say, “Well, what’s wrong with the old ones?” But they don’t say that. They see the need and they help keep up. They’ve helped us keep pace with what’s going on in technology and so forth. So those are some of the things that overwhelm you sometimes.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>Are there any stories that you would like to convey to the people of the library? Maybe about its building, or maybe the contents in the library? Even the city itself?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Yeah. I would just like to say that people should really appreciate this library. For several reasons. It’s local. And it has easy access. And I know they have a—right up the street, they have a [Seminole] County [Public] Library branch,<a title="">[4]</a> just on the other side of [U.S. Route] 17-92. But the city still maintains this library, because it benefits the local residents. And when you see—if you could just go out sometime, which I have done many times, to these individuals and they get the books, because they like to read, and they get the books, and you know, it’s not a lot of hassle for them. You come back and pick them up and carry new books. They really appreciate that. It just gives you a warm feeling all inside.</p> <p>And so I’ve been working here, I’m in my 35^th year. And the city has always been so progressive. I appreciate that as much as anything—how they are progressive, and that they also would give you empowerment to do things. I mean, within reason. And so we can make changes, like to change the layout of the library so we have a better traffic flow, and things like that. We didn’t have to get a congressional approval of that. Those are things that we can do. Like painting, and so forth. We can change the color schemes, because, you know, they need to be changed. And they’ve always allowed those things.</p> <p>And I would imagine, as time goes on, they will still do that, because I think this is the most progressive city in all of Seminole County. As a matter of fact, I know it is. I’ve been very proud to work here. I’m pretty sure when I leave, I’ll probably get up one morning and come to work before I realize I’m not coming to work. But I appreciate those things. And then, they just work with us, hand-in-hand. He called over here one day, and asked about some information that he wanted. Well, when he got over here, they had it all laid out for him. So they’re good at things like that, and so that’s what they do. They disseminate information, and if you need something, they will get it for you. Myself and Bill James—we’re working with the Winwood Group, which is the neighbors next door here. They were working with the school over there, [Seminole-]Rosenwald [School]. You familiar with Rosenwald schools?</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Well, they wanted some space in there, because they’re closing the school down at the end of this year. And they’re moving all those students to another location. So there’s a need over there for some of the things, for seniors, and other youth programming things like that. So we help them in that regard, and we also help them appreciate that the kids and adults in that area are coming to the library.</p> <p>And if you notice when you first came in, the computer section was full. Well, that was a computer class that they teach before the library actually opens to the public. So we made that available, most specifically, to the seniors, because there’s so many things they could do at home on their computer rather than trying to get a ride to Social Security [Administration Office] or wherever they need to go. They could do it at home on a computer.</p> <p>And we also made arrangements with some of the people in the neighborhood that were computer-literate—had computers. They’ll work with those individuals so they can come to their home, do their paperwork and stuff right there, without having to secure a ride to go to Sanford and things like that. So the library, you know—we reach out. Not just to the city proper, but we’ll help our neighbors too, also. So those are just some of the things that the city does and allow us to do, because they are futuristic in their thinking.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>Wow. That is just great. Now, you were talking about the admiration you have for the city and its progression, and the way it adapts to progress. Have you seen any city changes that—like you were just explaining? But progress that you haven’t seen in other cities or in other areas of Central Florida?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Yes. I have. We were talking about the reclaimed water system. It’s called Project APRICOT [A Prototype Realistic. Innovative Community of Today]. That’s the name of it. It started off Project APRICOT, and so, at the time, when the city started Project APRICOT, Don Newnan was here. He was the project works director. The only other place in Central Florida area was St. Petersburg. They were doing on a limited basis, recapturing some of the water that was coming out of the septic tank systems and processing it and so forth. But this was the first city to do a complete system city-wide of reclaimed water in the state of Florida.</p> <p>And so, when it first started, you know, they hired a young lady named Allison Marcue, and she had the job of selling wastewater, so to speak. But it’s not really wastewater when it’s all cleaned up. You know, there’s some affluent, and it’s all cleaned up. And I’ve seen—if you go out to the plant where water comes out, they have this pool. And the bottom of it, it has this apricot logo. And you look down in, it’s clear. It’s just as clear as glass. And I’ve seen, people can actually drink the water. I mean, it’s that clean when it goes out. And I remember DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] fined us one time, because the water we were putting in the river, was cleaner that the water in the river. I never really understood that, but they fought it, and they wouldn’t rescind the fine, but they did reduce it. So you would think, we’re putting a better quality of water in, then they were taking out, everything was there. So as a result of that, you know, we have—our system is contained now. We don’t really pump any in. We use it for our citizens to get them a way to water, and maintain their plants and yards, and it costs less. So we don’t put anything into the streams in that regard. So it’s just a lot of innovation. A lot of innovative things the city has done.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>Wow. That is just amazing. Well, I would like to know if there’s anything that you would like to discuss or touch on that we haven’t—that I haven’t asked you—that we haven’t gone over. Is there anything special to you that you’d like to convey?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>Yes. I would. Like I said, I’ve managed Fleet Facilities and Urban Beautification. And you drive down through our city, and you know, in the medians, you see beautiful plants and everything. It’s sad to say, we have people that come through here that don’t live here, and although we trash the main areas daily, because we want everything to look all nice. And even when we have holidays, like September 6^th will be Labor Day—it’s a long weekend. Well, somewhere during between that Friday and that Monday, we’ll come down 436, the main areas, and we will trash. We’ll pick up all the trash, so the place will look good, just as though we were working here. So I appreciate things like that.</p> <p>And even, we had a hard winter. And things froze like you wouldn’t believe. And people would actually call City Hall and told Mr. Pendleton how good things look. And we would laugh, because they didn’t look that good to us. When I say us—Urban. It just looked better, in our opinion. But if you looked around, everything here looked better than everything around us.</p> <p>But we were still working, because we wanted—we have a set level, a standard that we like—that we were trying to achieve. And I think we’re about there now, but we continue to work. And we’re allowed to do that. And I appreciate that. If you would look at Fleet Maintenance, you look at our vehicles, we have one of the cleanest fleets that’s here. And sometimes, if you have a moment, if you could come out to Fleet Maintenance, I’d just like to you to look at the facility. You don’t see a dirty place. You don’t see junk or anything like that. The building is always clean. Every day, it’s cleaned before they go home. So a lot of times people will come and say, “Do you actually work here?” Well, just because you work on a car or a truck, it doesn’t have to be a filthy, greasy place.</p> <p>And so we try to maintain that so if, like if any other commissioners like Mr. [Jon] Batman or anyone came out, they’re not worried about getting their clothes dirty or anything, because the shop’s not dirty. That’s a mainstay for us. But if you look at the vehicles going up and down the road, they’re nice and clean, they’re all well-maintained, and so forth. We sent our vehicles to the auction. If you ever have a chance to go, our vehicles sell for a higher price than any other government or municipality around here. Because they’re clean, everything works when they go over there, and they always run. So that’s how we’re able to recoup monies to go back into the general fund, and so we take a great pride in that. And then the facilities, well, you can just tell here. Even in the children’s room, you might think—well, you should see fingerprints on the wall and things like that. We don’t see that, because we maintain the facilities in a way that we will always want it to reflect the highest quality in the City of Altamonte Springs.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>That is amazing. And I thank you so much for your time. I greatly appreciate everything we talked about. Would you like to give me and Mr. Batman a tour of your museum, of the hall of history, or the children’s room?</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>I’d be delighted to do so.</p> <p><strong>Wilt<br /></strong>That’d be wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. I greatly appreciate it.</p> <p><strong>Singleton<br /></strong>You’re welcome.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: Seminole County Public Library (SCPL).</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Division of Water, Wastewater, and Reuse.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Jean Rhein Central Branch.</p> </div> </div> Has Part Original 14-page digital transcript by Diana Dombrowski: Singleton, James. Interviewed by Ashley Wilt. July 21, 2010. 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. A Prototype Realistic. Innovative Community of Today Allison Marcue Altamonte Area Chamber of Commerce Altamonte Springs Altamonte Springs City Hall Altamonte Springs City Library Altamonte Springs Civic Club Altamonte Springs Department of Public Works Altamonte Springs Division of Water, Wastewater, and Reuse Altamonte Springs Leisure Services Anne Van Allen Klein Ashley Wilt Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill James China First City of Altamonte Springs computers Don Newman Dudley Bates Facilities Fleet and Urban Maintenance Florida State Road 436 Information Systems IS James Singleton Jon Batman Karen Potter libraries library Linda McKnight Batman MIS Mobile Information Center Museum of Seminole County History Pendelton Phil McMann Project APRICOT reclaimed water Richard Miller Seminole-Rosenwald School Sidell Pate SR 436 Steven Long Vinnie Coon wastewater West Altamonte Wilt, Ashley Youth Library Area https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/f46cf5a2404c7eb68d0b59a14abed0b5.pdf 9eb48241393ef6f196ce80e01028d51d 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 Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection Alternative Title Lone Sailor Collection Subject Veterans--Florida Orlando (Fla.) United States. Navy Navy Sailors--United States Description Collection of digital images and oral histories related to the former Recruit Training Center Orlando (RTC Orlando) for the United States Navy. The training center transformed raw recruits into highly effective sailors. This process took place over an intensive eight-week training period, commonly referred to as "boot camp." RTC Orlando occupied roughly one half of the former Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando), which was located at present day Baldwin Park, Orlando, Florida. Between 1968 and 1994, over 650,000 men and women graduated from RTC Orlando. Contributor <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project</a> <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. "<a href="http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project. http://cfnavyleague.org/lone-sailor/ "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. <a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Barnes, Mark Interviewee Clark, Jeffrey Edward Location Shriners Temple, Maitland, Florida Original Format 1 Hi-8 Digital (DAT) audio/video recording Duration 33 minutes and 16 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 9980kbps 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 Jeffrey Edward Clark Alternative Title Oral History, Clark Subject Orlando (Fla.) Navy Sailors--United States Veterans--Florida Description An oral history of Jeffrey Edward Clark, former member of the U.S. Navy. This interview was conducted by Mark Barnes at the Shriners Temple in Maitland, Florida, on May 6, 2014. The interview was conducted as part of the UCF Community Veteran's History Project (CVHP) and background research for a memorial honoring the former Naval Training Center Orlando (NTC Orlando).<br /><br />Clark served in the Navy from 1985 until 1989. He attended recruit training in Orlando and also went to apprenticeship school at the base. He was a Signalman Petty Officer Third Class, Enlisted Rank 4, aboard the USS<em> Richard E. Byrd DDG-23</em>, which operated in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea. Upon leaving the Navy, Clark returned to Orlando and attended the University of Central Florida. Table Of Contents 0:00:30 Biographical background<br />0:02:53 Decision to join the U.S. Navy<br />0:04:03 Attending boot camp at NTC Orlando<br />0:10:35 Naval training and assignments following boot camp<br />0:13:50 Apprenticeship school versus boot camp<br />0:17:25 Types of additional training offered at NTC Orlando<br />0:21:15 Shipboard Experiences<br />0:23:25 Life after the Navy<br />0:26:15 Lasting memories of naval experience<br />0:31:05 Legacy of NTC Orlando Abstract Oral history interview of Jeffrey Edward Clark. Interview conducted by Mark Barnes at Shriners Temple in Maitland, Florida. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/270/rec/1" target="_blank">Clark, Jeffrey Edward</a>. Interviewed by Mark Barnes. UCF Community Veterans History Project. May 6, 2014. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Community Veterans History Project (CVHP)</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Flagler Palm Coast High School, Palm Coast, Florida Military Entrance Processing Center, Jacksonville, Florida Naval Training Center Orlando, Orlando, Florida South Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando, Florida Ponta Delgada, Azores Islands, Portugal Daytona Beach Community College, Daytona Beach, Florida University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Atlanta, Georgia Creator Barnes, Mark Clark, Jeffrey Edward Publisher <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries Contributor Hazen, Kendra <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Wiggins, Leanne Orleman, Andrew Date Created 2014-05-06 Date Copyrighted 2014-05-06 Format video/mov application/pdf Extent 2.38 GB 189 KB Medium 33-minute and 16-second Hi-8 Digital (DAT) audio/video recording 18-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Mark Barnes and Jeffrey Edward Clark, and published by the University of Central Florida Libraries <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>. Rights Holder All rights are held by the respective holding institution. This material is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. For permission to reproduce and/or for copyright information contact <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/UniversityArchives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries, (407) 823-2576. http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/. Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Barnes, Mark Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalCollections/" target="_blank">UCF Digital Collections</a> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">University of Central Florida, Special Collections and University Archives</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.lonesailorfl.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." Navy Memorial of Central Florida. http://www.lonesailorfl.com/. Rajtar, Steve. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70911136" target="_blank"><em>A Guide to Historic Orlando</em></a>. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2006. "<a href="http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/" target="_blank">The History</a>." RTC Orlando. http://rtcorlando.homestead.com/. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/270/rec/1" target="_blank">Oral History of Jeffrey Edward Clark</a> Has Format Digital transcript of original 33-minute and 16-second oral history: <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/270/rec/1" target="_blank">Clark, Jeffrey Edward</a>. Interviewed by Mark Barnes. UCF Community Veterans History Project. May 6, 2014. Audio/video record available. UCF Community Veterans History Project, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida. Transcript <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Today is Tuesday, May 6^th, 2014. I'm interviewing Jeff[rey Edward] Clark, who served in the United States Navy. My name is Mark Barnes, and with me working the camera is Kendra Hazen. We're interviewing Mr. Clark as part of the UCF [University of Central Florida] Community Veterans History Project, and as research for the creation of the educational wall for the Lone Sailor Memorial [Project]. We are conducting this interview in Maitland, Florida.</p> <p>Mr. Clark, will you please just begin by telling us your name, where you were born—where and when you were born?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Sure. my name is Jeffrey Clark, and I am originally from East Hartford, Connecticut. I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on January 31^st, 1968. And in 1983, my family moved to Florida—to Flagler County in Palm Coast, where I attended Flagler Palm Coast High School.</p> <p>And then I did drop out of high school at the age of 17, and joined the Navy shortly after my 17^th birthday, where I went through the Orlando Naval Training Center here.<a title="">[1]</a> Upon completion of my active duty, I returned to—I did obtain my GED (General Educational Development) while I was in the Navy. And then upon completion of my active duty, I did graduate from DBCC—Daytona Beach Community College—and then transferred and graduated at UCF. Major in economics and a minor in political science.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Do you have any brother or sisters or parents you want to tell us about?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Sure. I have two sisters and both of them still reside here in Flagler County in Florida. And then my parents are still alive and live in Flagler County as well. My father—I come from a military family. sort of on the—<em>Forrest Gump</em> movie, I believe, where Lieutenant Dan has an ancestor that had fought in every major American war back to the colonial period. And I have that same line or lineage as well. Goes back to the <em>Mayflower</em> on my father's side.</p> <p>My father served in the Navy and went through Bainbridge, Maryland, for his boot camp, and then was aboard an aircraft carrier—the USS <em>Chiwawa</em> CV40. And my grandfather—his father—served in World War II. Uh, he was in the Army and was stationed in the Philippines.</p> <p>And then on my mother's side—my mother is also from—both my father and my mother are from Connecticut, as well. And my mother's side of the family—they were Italian immigrants. my grandfather immigrated in the 19—well, both my grandparents immigrated from Italy to the U.S. in the 1920s. And then when they were younger, obviously—and my mother was born in 1945 and my father was born in 1939.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>And did you join the Navy for any particular reason?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Actually, that was a bit of an interesting story. Now, one time, when I was around eight or nine years old, I filled out this application to inquire about the Navy out of a magazine or something like that. And, obviously, you could tell that a child wrote it. Well my father took it as a joke and mailed it in, and I always wanted to join the Navy for—I don't know, because I enjoyed history and my father was in the Navy. So my father mailed this application form in to send information about joining the Navy, and I received this letter from a captain in the Navy that said, you know, “Sorry,” you know, “but you're too young.” And he gave me a couple posters and some other items to say, “Here's some stuff to help you keep thinking Navy, and when you're old enough,” you know, “please come back." Well, pretty much came back at the minimum age possible, and I always wanted to join the Navy when I was a child. I think it was that TV commercial—“It's not just a job. it's an adventure.”</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>So was the Navy a must for you?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Pretty much. yeah. <em>[air conditioning unit comes on]</em></p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>So you said you attended boot camp in Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>In Orlando, at the Naval Training Center.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>And was that by choice, or did they just tell you where to go?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Um, I would like to think it was by choice, because when I joined in this February—and having lived in Florida and being accustomed to the warm weather—I told the recruiter that I would go into the Navy now, if I could go to Orlando or San Diego, and not Great Lakes. Because there were three facilities for boot camp in the Navy—Great Lakes, San Diego, and Orlando, at that time. And I remember my father was very anxious. He said, “Well, you're going to go in now,” you know, “take him.” But somehow—luck, I would presume—I went through Orlando.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>We'll come back to this, but what were you trained to do for the Navy? What was your job? Or your jobs?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Initially, when I went in, I was a basic seaman recruit to do basic shipboard tasks, such as, you know, chipping paint and painting. and in the boats and bay field, sort of basic deck board duties. However, during the course of the time, I did become a signalman, which was communications and navigation, primarily with Morse code, with flashing lights—semaphore, as well.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Semaphore?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>In the flags. And that “A” school by the way. If I had entered the Navy as a signalman instead of a basic seaman recruit, the training for the Signalman School was here in Orlando, as well, at the Naval Training Center.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>We're going to circle back through your life as a recruit, and then we'll circle back through your life as a sailor. So when you first got to—your first day off the bus, so to speak, you know, what were some of the biggest adjustments you had to make going through?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Alright. I'm going to take a step back from the bus over to the Orlando Naval Training Center, since we're in the state of Florida. I'll keep us in the state of Florida. So, when you enter the military, you go to your recruiting office and you complete all that, and they, I presume, do the background checks—similar—probably similar to any new employment process, if you're hiring somebody.</p> <p>So one of the key things after you go through that, you have to go through what they call the “MEPs center”—Military Entrance Processing facility—and that was in Jacksonville. And up there you get an initial physical, and they determine if you're—kind of the final step—if you're worthy enough to go on active duty. So I went through that in Jacksonville, and I remember going through there and, for some reason, I had thought that I was not going to enter the Navy until the summertime. And this one naval chief overheard me say that, and he said, “What did you say?” And I said, “I’m not going on active duty until the summer.” I say, “I get to go home, you know, after I go through the MEPS process today.” and he said, “Oh, no you’re not. You’re going in tomorrow morning, and I’m going to personally see to it.” I guess I was talking out of line.</p> <p>So anyways[sic], we rode a bus from Jacksonville—and I remember I had to call my parents and say, “I’m not coming home.” [<em>laughs</em>] It was kind of sudden and quick. So we rode a bus from Jacksonville. and of course, we didn’t even take [Interstate] 95 and [Interstate] 4. It was like going on a Greyhound. I think it took about five hours to get there, because, you know, we went down, you know, [U.S. Route] 17, and then through Palatka, and all the back roads through there to get to Orlando. So we made it there, and they drop us off at the bus—at the bus area.</p> <p>And then you kind of get indoctrinated where you come in and you start to, initially—so the initial shock was like, “Wow. this is for real.” But you still had your civilian clothes and you still had your hair. And so—and then that way you—you got your assignment, you know, where your—what your company you're going to be, what building at the Orlando Naval Training Center would be your home for the course of boot camp. And then the next day was kind of, you know—the first couple days were kind of intrigue, you know—kind of getting indoctrinated. And you go through a health screen, you go through and get your hair cut, and your clothes and all that assigned, then you begin your boot camp.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Do you have anything that stands out from your time?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong> Oh yes. Yeah. definitely. So, for example—and at this time I obviously had more hair than I do now—but I was very proud of my hair. You know, “pretty boys,” as they would say in the Navy. and when I got my head shaved, I didn't look at myself in a mirror for about five or six weeks. I remember I would feel it and be like, <em>Oh</em>. And luckily they didn't have mirrors or anything in the boot camp berthing area—you know, the living area. So I made a purpose not to look at myself. That was the biggest, biggest shock.</p> <p>The other shock that I had was I was going to have to learn how to fold clothes, because—kind of like out of a movie, where, you know, my mommy is able to wash, fold, and put my clothes away for me. But that changed, and I had to learn how to fold clothes.</p> <p>But I was a baseball player in high school and very physically active, so the physical nature of boot camp that everybody thinks about—the physical activity was really not an issue for me. I was already in pretty good shape from playing baseball and other physical activities.</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Do you have any memories from when you graduated? Did your folks come down?</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Yes. As part of the process, there was a graduation ceremony. And, like, my family, including my father's parents—my grandparents—came down and they went to the graduation ceremony, and they were able to get a tour of the facility. And it’s like a parade ground, and they set up these bench area bleachers. and the families were able to watch us do our Pass and Review and hear the speeches from the—from Captain Nice, who was the Recruit Training Center commanding officer and NCS (National Call to Service) conductor of ceremony. Then afterwards, everybody went home.</p> <p>But, you know, we were able to meet up and, you know, it was good for my family to be there to see that. And that was, you know, an equivalent of like a high school graduation. I would say very similar, but you know dressed in military and military ceremony.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>When you graduated from boot camp, what was your next assignment?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Sure. upon graduating boot camp—boot camp lasted about eight and a half weeks. I actually entered active duty on February 26^th, 1985, and then boot camp officially started March 1^st. And, as I mentioned, those first couple of days were, you know, getting your hair cut, and getting your clothes, and getting indoctrinated.</p> <p>And then when I graduated, I started—I continued at the Orlando Naval Training Center. They did have additional training schools there. The one I went to is—when I entered the Navy, I entered the Apprenticeship Training Program. and that was open to individuals who wanted to focus on more of a general—kind of like a liberal arts, if you want to call it that—to compare it to college. So there was a Seaman Apprenticeship, a Firemen Apprenticeship, and an Air Apprenticeship.</p> <p>And then once you completed that training, then you would get assigned to a permanent duty station. So seamen went in to, you know—were eligible and did a cross-range of duties, such as, in the boatmen mate field, which is the deck duty. And then airmen, you know, went and supported, you know, aircraft either on carriers or as part of a detachment. And firemen kind of could go on ships, because they were the ones who worked down in what we called “the pit”—the boiler room and the engine rooms where the boiler technician rates and the machinist mates ran that. So I went through the Seaman Apprenticeship Training program.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Were there certain classes you had to take, or do you know about the classes from the various—from the three places you just—the three schools you just described?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Yes. So basically how the Orlando Naval Training Center was set up is you kind of had—there were—if I remember—I think there were 10 buildings—10 or 12 buildings. And it was set up very, you know, military-style. On one end, you had sort of—and they were called—I forget what they were called. But there's like Building One, Building Two, etc. So on each end was kind of like the administrative offices, and then in between and in sequential order on each side, I think there was[sic] 12. There was[sic] 2 on the end, and five this way and five that way. And then on one side—and, in the middle, there was a divider, like a road that went through the middle. And on one side was strictly where boot camp was conducted. and on the other side is where the schools were conducted. They were the living quarters basically, or “berthing areas,” as they’re called in the Navy.</p> <p>And so I went through the Seaman Apprenticeship Training. It was a series of classroom training and on-the-job training. They did the USS <em>Blue Jacket</em>, which was there—which was a training, you know—simulation of a ship and so we would go perform for seamen apprenticeship training. You know, how to tie knots, how to tie up the ship, how to raise flags, and other things associated with the Seamen Apprenticeship. And then the fireman did similar things, where, you know, they went in and simulated what jobs they would do once they went to the fleet. And that apprenticeship training was approximately four weeks for that.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>How would you describe the relationship between your instructors on that side versus your instructors on...</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Sure.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>The recruit side?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>On the recruit side, the boot camp, you know, was very strict. Very boot camp. very structured. You know, very military. You know, “controlling” is—I guess, would be a way to describe it. You know, your day was fully planned. You, you know—we woke up at four_A.M. We went, you know—we did some initial drills and then we have our set breakfast time. You know, Company 101’s breakfast was from say 5:00 to 5:30.</p> <p>You came back, you washed up, you know, brushed your teeth—whatever. Then you had set criteria of everyday what you would do. And most of it was practicing marching for your graduation ceremony, as well as other, you know, stuff that was boot camp related. You know, physical activity, swimming, firefighting drills that everybody needs to know for the military, and other basic stuff.</p> <p>Now this was a little bit more specialized, and it was, like I said, classroom and on-the-job training. I would say that there was a bit more freedom. It was like a 9-to-5 job. You know, you woke up, you started class at eight o'clock, you had lunch from 12 to 1, and you were free to go do what you want.</p> <p>In addition, I guess the big thing was—you were free on the weekends to go do whatever you wanted. Whereas in boot camp, you know, you were in boot camp and you were not allowed to leave. The only time that we left boot camp was after six weeks, we were granted what they called a “restricted liberty,” where it was kind of like an elementary school field trip. You know, like SeaWorld or [Walt] Disney [World], or somewhere like that. And it was very restricted. And, you know, it was covered.</p> <p>And then you had an unrestricted liberty, like the week before you graduated, and that’s where you could stay within the city of Orlando, and kind of go anywhere you want and you had to be back at a certain time. And I guess a story for this would be—everybody—all the instructors and the officers—would say South OBT [Orange Blossom Trail] is off limits, because it’s kind of a dodgy area. But of course, where does everybody go? South OBT.<a title="">[2]</a> So that’s pretty much where unrestricted liberty went.</p> <p>And then, like I said, during the apprenticeship training you were free to do[sic] on the weekend. and then I used to go home, you know. My mother would come pick me up or my father would come pick me up, and I’d visit my friends on the weekend, and then I had to be back Monday morning by eight o’clock to go to class. So it didn’t really matter, but I’d usually come back Sunday night, because we were still living in our living quarters. I guess the way I’d compare, you know, is boot camp was kind of like, you know, elementary school and high school. Very structured, very strict, limited. And apprenticeship training was more like college, where, “Hey, this is what you got to do,” you know, “Here's your times. the rest of that’s up to you.”</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Now you had—when you said you were living there, did you guys have apartments almost when you were an apprentice?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>No. It was very—it was the same as what we had in boot camp. You know, the same structure. So basically it was an open area, like a barracks, and it was for enlisted. Now, officers tended to have the equivalent of more like the hotel or a small apartment, and they would usually share that with one other officer, depending on their rank. But general enlisted—and this even continued into the Navy with various living quarters on ships—whether you were enlisted or if you were chief, which was a senior enlisted person—kind of like middle management. Where if you were an officer, different living quarters. So it was an open area, and it had bunk beds and lockers for you to store your stuff. It was the same as in boot camp.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Now, outside of the schools—the training schools—the command schools that you went to—do you have any recollection of the other schools that maybe were offered at the base?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Um, yes. from what I recall, because, as I went—during my time in the Navy, I went on, and—they call it “striking out”—I don't know why they call it that, because it’s actually a win ,you know—but basically, you get to move on from sort of a general, seaman apprenticeship-type role to a more specialized one. And I became a signalman, which was the shipboard flags communications and navigation, as well as communications with flashing lights via Morse code and semaphore. And the Signalman School was here in Orlando.</p> <p>And also—and then—so basically the school structure was as follows. You had the generalists, the Apprenticeship Training Program that I talked about that I went through. Then you had “A” schools, which was[sic] schools that were for a specific job in the Navy, whether you were a storekeeper, a signalman, or, you know, something like that. Then there were also “C” schools, and “C” schools were for very specialized skills which normally required and extended enlistment period, such as six years active duty.</p> <p>And so, during that time, people were kind of classified based on what their enlistment was that they signed up for. There were the 3-by-6s, which meant you were three years active and then six years of inactive reserves. Or IRR, right—“Inactive Readiness Reserves” I believe is the military term. There were 4-by-4s—and I was a 4-by-4—which meant four years active, four years inactive. And then there were the 6-by-2s, which were the specialty folks who went to extended training. They were six years active and then two years inactive reserves. Unless, of course, if they re-enlisted on active duty, then they would continue.</p> <p>And the key thing about “C” school was that, once you completed about a two-year classroom/on-the-job training program, you automatically became an E[nlisted Rank] 4—a petty officer third-class. We used to call those people “boot camp thirds.” Because, like, as you go through, you know, you'll be an E-1, E-2, E-3, and then E-4. whereas these guys automatically got credits, basically like college, you know—you got some free credits. So there were some “C” schools here, including the Nuclear Program was here, and the Signalman School was here, and I think—no. The Storekeeper School was in Mississippi. that wasn’t here. But from what I remember, Apprenticeship Training, Signalman, and there was, like, Fire Control Technicians, Radar Schools.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Any other—anything else you think about—life off of base, special to base?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>I guess just kind of life on the base. There was Navy Exchange, so if you were a retired naval person—and Florida accumulated a lot of, you know, a lot of retirees and a lot of military retirees, because of the history with Sanford and Orlando—so the Navy Exchange store was there. So if you were active duty or if you were retired military, you could do your shopping. In certain cases, get things a lot cheaper than out in the regular market.</p> <p>Other than that, it was pretty much, from what I remember, just a training facility. I remember there was a high school on—right on the outside of the base. Seemed like—sometimes we would joke like we were kind of in prison, you know, and you could see the freedom on the other side. I remember, you know, like we would be marching on the grinder and doing all these drills, and you'd look over and see these high school kids running track and field, or, you know, something like that at the high school, and you're thinking we're in prison, but…</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>When you left Orlando, you boarded a ship?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Yes. Upon completion of my apprenticeship training course—a little bit more of the story here is I had a chief petty officer. I forget his name, but you received your orders where you went to go, and I was always kind of joking around a little bit with the chief. And sure enough, where I get stationed, but the same ship he had come from to the Orlando Naval Training Center. so I remember he told me it was going to be tough, and that he was gonna—he arranged to have me go to the USS <em>Richard E. Bird</em> TDG-23—guided missile destroyer—ported out of Norfolk, Virginia. And that's where I went. And, interesting enough, this chief I then met years later when I was attending UCF and I was working at NationsBank—now Bank of America. He was a customer in there, and I remember him when he came in. we chatted and caught up, and he was living out by UCF at the time, and he was a customer at the bank.</p> <p>But I caught my ship and I remember it was in the middle of deployment, towards the tail end of the North Atlantic—NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] cruise. And I remember I had received my orders and I had to go there, and I had all my airplane tickets. They arranged and all that. And I looked on there and I'm like, <em>Where is this place called Ponta Delgada? </em>And there was no Internet in 1985, so I had to go look in the encyclopedia, and it was in the Azores Islands—Portuguese islands in the Atlantic Ocean. I remember I flew from Orlando to New York, and then caught airport to Lisbon[, Portugal], and had a couple night’s stay in Lisbon overnight, and then caught the flight to Ponta Delgada, where I caught my ship. And I still remember the first people I met, who I'm still in contact with today, on board my ship. Gary Hayne[sp], Kurt Kiesden[sp], and Alan Welch[sp] in particular, because I was assigned to deck division, and I was assigned to them.<a title="">[3]</a> And then from there, you know, I was assigned to the ship and that became my permanent duty station that I stayed at for the remainder of my term—three years and eight months.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>So you left the Navy when?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>In February ’89. Four years active duty, and then served in the inactive reserves, which just meant if there's a call up, then you were subject.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>What did you end up doing when you left the Navy?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Okay. When I left the Navy, I started attended Daytona Beach Community College, which I think is now Daytona State College or something. and so I stayed in Flagler County and just did kind of odd jobs. I worked in a warehouse, primarily while I went to DBCC. And then I started working in the bank as a bank teller and then a sales and service rep[resentative].</p> <p>And that actually worked out well, because, at the time, with the state, you could complete your first two years at a community college, then automatically transfer into any of the Florida state university system campuses. So I transferred to Orlando, because I worked at the bank it was quite an easy transfer to move over. So I started UCF in the Fall of ’93, after graduating from DBCC in the Spring of ’93. And then I graduated in Spring of ‘95 from UCF.</p> <p>And also, I guess, during the—some other good things—when I became a basic seaman apprenticeship and I was assigned to the deck division on board, besides just chipping paint and doing all the deck stuff, the favorite thing—and I still remember it today, and it was one of my favorite things—you know, I barely had my driver's license—but at age 17, I qualified as a helmsman, and I drove the ship. I was at the wheel, and I qualified to run the ship's engines—the lee helm. and I used to stay on lookout watch. So here I was at 17 years old—and I actually saw a video on YouTube, like a Navy video, and it shows, like, the 22-year-old guy says, “Yeah. this is my job.” He says the same thing.</p> <p>And I still remember to this day how to take the helm. You would go up—if you were to take the helm—let’s just say you’re at the wheel now—now I would walk up to the—well, I would first come to you and say, “Hey, what’s[sic] the coordinates? Where do you steer and where do you check in?”And that’s sort of the numbers from the compass of where—what direction you were going. I’d collect that, I’d go check what the speed was in knots, and then I would go up to the Officers’ Deck and salute, and he would say, “Officer of the deck, request permission to take the helm, steering course 225, checking 222 starboard unit, starboard cable, all engines ahead standard, 17 knot.” And the officer on deck would reply back and say, “Relieve the helm.” Then he would go over and then I would—I would take over. Yeah. it’s cool.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Well I was getting ready to ask you, what were some of your favorite memories of the...</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Oh, okay. alright. That’s a great one.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Do you have another one there that...</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Oh. Yeah. There’s[sic] plenty of them—and then really anything you tend to do, you know, in your life, it’s really about the people. And, you know, made some great friends. Still in contact with a lot them today. And lessons learned, you know, as a young kid—17 to 21, while I was in the Navy. And there’s a lot of memories, you know, of growing up doing stuff.</p> <p>And I guess another thing is—I was always kind of a prankster a little bit, and I used to come home on leave for spring break, so I could be with all my friends. And we'd go to Daytona [Beach] and all that. One time I went off-base and I got—the senior chief, Senior Chief Moses, who was in charge of deck division, who I worked for—his plan was, you know, you had to look like a sailor. He was very strict with inspections. Well, one time I was trying to sneak and I went off-base and I got what he would call a “pretty-boy haircut.” So I came back and sure enough someone told on me and he personally walked me down to the ship’s barber and butchered me or whatever.</p> <p>And so, as a retaliatory, I decided next day, <em>I’m going to go put some red mousse in my hair and go stand inspection in front of him.</em> Big mistake [<em>laughs</em>]. I remember he walked up to me, put his face in my face, and he goes, “Take your hat off, punk.” And he was this Texas—Texan guy. Big Texan guy. I took it off and I was smiling, and I wasn’t smiling much after that. He told me I had exactly two seconds to wash that “expletive” out of my hair or he was going to personally shave my head. [<em>laughs</em>] Let’s just say I jumped down the forward hatch and had the stuff out pretty quickly. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>This kind of ties into this whole project that we’re doing and you mentioned it, but you made a lot of personal friends. You’re still in contact with them?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Yep. Yeah. Out on Facebook. They're all in on Facebook. We have our ships—we have a page of our ships, and so a lot of us connected through there, but even before that there was like a newsletter and some reunions that go. Because I was on an older ship that was commissioned in the early 60s and then decommissioned shortly after I left in 1990. So, you know, there’s[sic] 30 years of history pretty much with my ship that I was on. So the reunions—you have 30 years of people who served on board. So it’s quite large and extensive.</p> <p>And then I always try to make the effort to visit some of the folks. I travel extensively for my current job, and if I go to a city where one of those guys are, you know, we always try to meet up. And a lot of them are kind of joking when, you know, I first got connected with them, say on Facebook, and they say, “I can’t believe you’re this corporate guy in a suit. You’re the last guy we would have thought as a corporate guy in a suit.”</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Is this your first trip—you've been back to Orlando since?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. And actually, I guess after I finished the Navy, I graduated from UCF, and then worked locally in Altamonte [Springs] at the Kirchman Corporation, which was a banking software company. And then I worked for Pro Systems in Maitland. and then I went to—on an assignment to Luxemburg in Europe. I was there for a couple years. and then I came back and I was on a project in San Francisco[, California]. And then—then this was 2001.</p> <p>So basically the time scale goes from exited active duty in ‘89, college until ‘95, Kirchman Corporation and Pro ‘96-‘97, Luxemburg from ‘98 to 2001, and then San Francisco for about a half a year. And then I came back to Maitland, and was working in Maitland and lived in Apopka from 2001 ‘till 2005, when I moved to Atlanta[, Georgia], and I've been in Atlanta since 2005.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>What do you think about all of the changes of the area that used to be the base?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>You know, it’s kind of somewhat sad. There’s really nothing left there. Karla Novak was a personal friend of mine from when—from UCF days—gave me a tour around the Lone Sailor Foundation and the plans for that. And she showed me where the statue is going to be, you know, we’re kind of—both her and I went through there.  So we were thinking this is—and she says, “Well, this is the old grinder.” and she was saying, “Remember we’d go over here and have to do these drills?”</p> <p>Well, now it’s this open grass area. or over there is the housing where our berthing area—but now Baldwin Park is there. So it’s somewhat sad to think that—and I'm kind of one that—I like to preserve history. I wouldn’t want to say you have to preserve the base as-is, but you know, I think how important and how many lives, you know, were shaped, such as mine, going through boot camp. You know, going from being a kid to being an adult basically. you know, that there’s really not much left there.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Well, what do you think the legacy of the base is?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>I would say the legacy of the base is going to be, you know, the individual experiences of the people that really went through there. I mean, there’s not much left to see of, you know—what was left there, what was done. It was, you know, a training facility, classroom, and on-the-job training basically. You know, so there’s not much left as far as what you think of the Navy. You know, ships or aircraft or weapons or anything like that. I really think it’s about personal experience. And everybody had a different experience. You know, what they went through there.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>As a returning sailor, what would want to see if you returned back to the area to see the memorial? I mean, what would resonate with you?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>I think some pictures, you know, of the facility itself, you know. Kind of like, if you went into a museum, you like to see this was Orlando Naval Training Center was here from 1968 ‘till 1992, or something like that. Here’s the pictures and, you know, kind of what, you know—like for my boot camp book—went there, you know. There’s[sic] pictures in there that show the activities and kind of what went on there, and everything’s changed from, you know—boot camp is probably similar, but there’s a lot of changes, you know.</p> <p>And I think preserving the history and at least showing that, while we can—would be, you know, a good thing. You know, to show there with the Lone Sailor—the Lone Sailor is a great thing to—to reflect their—well, I think any memorabilia or, you know, pictures that show at one point in time this is what was here and quantify it. You know, x-number of people went through during this time who were the commanding officers, you know, kind of like any similar memorials or stuff like that.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>That’s about all I have. Is there anything that we missed that you’d like to add or a story you'd like to share?</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>I think I pretty much covered everything. You know, that was my time here in Orlando at the Naval Training Center for boot camp and then kind of post activities. So I think we've pretty much covered the full spectrum of your questions there, so.</p> <p><strong>Barnes<br /></strong>Okay. Well, thank you very much.</p> <p><strong>Clark<br /></strong>Thank you. I'm glad to help.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> The Orlando Naval Training Center will occasionally be referred to throughout the interview as “NTC Orlando.”</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> South OBT refers to a portion of U.S. 441, known as Orange Blossom Trail in parts of Orlando, Florida.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Note that names are spelt as they sound and may not be accurate.</p> </div> </div> active duty Air Apprenticeship Training airman airmen Apopka apprentices apprenticeship schools Apprenticeship Training Program Atlanta, Georgia Atlantic Ocean Azores Islands Bainbridge Baldwin Park Bank of America bank tellers Barnes, Mark basic seaman recruits berthing areas boot camp boot camps chief petty officer chief petty officers Clark, Jeffrey Edward Community Veterans History Project Company 101 CVHP Dan Taylor Daytona Beach Community College DBCC deck divisions deployment E-1 E-2 E-3 E-4 East Hartford, Connecticut Enlisted Rank 1 Enlisted Rank 2 Enlisted Rank 3 Enlisted Rank 4 Facebook Fire Control Technicians firefighters fireman firemen Firemen Apprenticeship Training Flagler County Flagler Palm Coast High School Forrest Gump Greyhound guided missile destroyers Hayne, Gary Hazen, Kendra helmsman helmsmen I-4 I-94 immigrants Inactive Readiness Reserves inactive reserves Interstate 4 Interstate 95 IRR Italian immigrants Italians Kiesden, Kurt Kirchman Corporation lee helms Lieutenant Dan Lone Sailor Foundation Lone Sailor Memorial Committee Lone Sailor Memorial Project Luxemburg Maitland Mayflower Mediterranean Sea Mediterranean Squadron MEP Military Entrance Processing Morse code Moses NationsBank NATO Naval Training Center Orlando Navy Exchange Navy Memorial of Central Florida Nice, France Norfolk, Virginia North Atlantic North Atlantic Squadron North Atlantic Treaty Organization Novak, Karla NTC Orlando Nuclear Program OBT officers Orange Blossom Trail Orleman, Andrew Palm Coast Petty Officer Petty Officers Philippines Ponta Delgada, Portugal Pro Systems Radar School recruit training recruits sailors sales representatives San Francisco, California Seaman Apprenticeship Training seamen semaphore service representatives Shriners Temple signalman Signalman School signalmen Storekeeper School U.S. Army U.S. Navy U.S. Route 17 U.S. Route 441 U.S.S Richard E. Byrd DDG-23 UCF University of Central Florida US-17 US-441 USS Bluejacket USS Chiwawa CV40 USS Richard E. Bird TDG-23 veterans Welch, Alan Wiggins, Leanne World War II WWII YouTube https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/719d2f1c6a214cfdef26f5845341b10f.pdf 2ed74c217e2ef65413dff53aac55a256 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 Orlando Gay Chorus Collection Alternative Title Gay Chorus Collection Is Part Of Orlando Gay Chorus Collection, RICHES Program Type Collection Digital Collection <div class="element-text"><a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/">RICHES MI</a></div> <div class="element-text"> </div> Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Dance--United States Gay culture--United States Description The Orlando Gay Chorus (OGC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and humanitarian organization, and part of the Gay and Lesbian Association (GALA) of Choruses. Founded on Valentines Day 1990, OGC is not only one of the largest mixed gay choirs in the United States at over 100 members, but they also boast four smaller ensembles that perform annual concerts, cabarets, and a host of community events, such as Come Out With Pride, Orlando Museum of Art’s Festival of Trees, and World AIDS Day memorial services. In 2017, the group performed at over 105 events, including 15 performances for the first anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub tragedy. Members come from all walks of life and all sexual and gender orientations, including straight allies. OGC lives by the motto “Singing the World to a Better Place” and strives to use music to change attitudes and build a stronger community. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Campbell, Tyler Interviewee Strack, Joel Bit Rate/Frequency 128kbps 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 Joel Strack Alternative Title Oral History, Strack Subject Orlando (Fla.) Music--Florida Mass shootings Memorials--Florida Gay culture--United States Description An oral history interview of Joel Strack, one of the founding members of the Orlando Gay Chorus. The interview was conducted by Tyler Campbell in the conference room at the Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR) at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, Florida, on September 26th, 2016. Some of the topics covered include founding the Orlando Gay Chorus, naming the chorus, the initial community reaction, women in the chorus, the evolving relationship with the community, becoming a mixed vocal group, hearing about the shooting at Pulse nightclub, vigils, outreach events and fundraisers, coping and seeking counseling, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA) Festival, the Orlando community’s response to the Pulse tragedy, the long-term impact on the Gay Chorus and the Orlando community, and an increase in membership. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Founding the Orlando Gay Chorus<br />0:05:27 Directors and accompanists<br />0:08:17 Initial community reaction<br />0:11:16 Women in the chorus<br />0:12:23 Evolving relationship with the community<br />0:14:11 Becoming a mixed vocal group<br />0:16:16 Mass shooting at Pulse nightclub and its aftermath<br />0:24:12 Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses Festival<br />0:27:20 Community response to Pulse tragedy<br />0:30:12 Long-term impact on the Gay Chorus and the Orlando community<br />0:33:50 Final remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Joel Strack. Interview conducted by Tyler Campbell in Orlando, Florida, on September 26, 2016. Type Moving Image Source Strack, Joel. Interviewed by Tyler Campbell, September 26, 2016. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/206" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus Collection</a>, LGBTQ+ Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 36-minute, and 26-second oral history: Strack, Joel. Interviewed by Tyler Campbell. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida. Coverage GALA Choruses Festival, Denver Performing Arts Center, Denver, Colorado GLBT Community Center of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Joy Metropolitan Community Church, Orlando, Florida Orlando, Florida Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, Florida Pulse, Orlando, Florida Valencia College, Orlando, Florida Creator Strack, Joel Campbell, Tyler Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Contributor Campana, Kayla Cravero, Geoffrey Date Created 2016-09-26 Date Copyrighted 2016-09-26 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 234 MB 188 KB Medium 36-minute and 26-second audio recording 13-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Humanities Teacher Music Teacher` Provenance Originally created by Joel Strack and Tyler Campbell, published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, and transcribed by Geoffrey Cravero. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Ahlquist, Karen. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62281651" target="_blank"><em>Chorus and Community</em></a>. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Page, Robert, Louise Greenberg, and Fred Leise. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/43552259" target="_blank"><em>The Chorus Handbook: Chorus 101 : the How-to Book for Organizing and Operating a Professional or Volunteer Choral Ensemble</em></a>. Washington, D.C.: Chorus America, 1999. Boedeker, Hal. "<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html" target="_blank">Orlando Gay Chorus marks 25 years</a>." <em>Orlando Sentinel</em>, October 18, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2016. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-orlando-gay-chorus-25-years-20150611-story.html. Ogles, Jacob. "<a href="http://www.advocate.com/pride/2016/10/06/pride-orlando-will-take-new-meaning" target="_blank">Pride in Orlando Will Take on New Meaning</a>." <em>The Advocate</em>, October 6, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2016. http://www.advocate.com/pride/2016/10/06/pride-orlando-will-take-new-meaning. Hyman, Jamie. "<a href="http://www.watermarkonline.com/2016/06/16/community-rises-mass-shooting-orlando-gay-nightclub-kills-49/" target="_blank">Community rises up after mass shooting at Orlando gay nightclub kills 49</a>." <em>Watermark</em>, June 16, 2016. Accessed October 18, 2016. http://www.watermarkonline.com/2016/06/16/community-rises-mass-shooting-orlando-gay-nightclub-kills-49/. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/VuV-MWPkf0A" target="_blank">Oral History of Joel Strack</a> Transcript <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>It’s September 26^th, 2016. My name is Tyler Campbell and I am conducting an oral history with Joel Strack of the Orlando Gay Chorus. The interview’s being conducted in the conference room at the Center for Humanities and Digital Research at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. Um, can you start by, uh, telling us your name and how you came to be associated with the Orlando Gay Chorus?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Yeah, my name is Joel Strack, and, um, I actually have the distinct position of being one of the founding members of the [Orlando] Gay Chorus, and even sort of, um, uh, before the Gay Chorus, when it was still in its, uh, idea state, I had a—I had a gay cousin—still have a gay cousin, Nardy, and Nardy sang with the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, and the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus was going to a GALA Festival. GALA is the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses, and they do a—they did at that point a festival about every three years, and so they were doing their GALA Festival in Seattle, and Nardy asked if I wanted to join him so he had somebody to hang out with while they were in Seattle, and I said, “Sure,” um, got set up, um, with tickets and everything, and as I sat there watching these choruses from throughout the U.S. perform, I said, “We’ve got to have this in Orlando. This would be something”—and I started saying that out loud to people, you know? “O—Orlando’s gotta have something like this,” and, um, along the way, someone said, “Oh, you need to talk to David Schuler. David Schuler sings with the River City Gay Chorus—or Mixed Chorus—and, um, he’s moving to Orlando, and he wants, you know—it’s one of his dreams, because he was an executive with the River City Chorus—to be, um—to have a chorus here in Orlando.” So David and I met on the steps outside of one of the concert halls. I remember standing there in my overalls, ‘cause that was fashionable of—at the time, and, um, chatting with David about, you know, how this might work out.</p> <p>I was sitting on the Board of Directors here in town for what was then, uh, GCS—the Gay Community Services. Now it’s The Center,<a title="">[1]</a> and so I was sitting on the board at GCS, and I went to the board, um, when I got home and said, “Wo—would the board be willing to set aside a certain amount of money as seed money for this organization—this new organization to get its legs under itself?” And the board, um, did set aside $500, which was a pretty big chunk of money back then, for the group, um—for us to be able to do a seed concert, and David sort of took over the helm, because he’d been part of the GALA choruses already, contacted the South Florida Gay Men’s Chorus and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Tampa, who came in and actually did the f—initial concert at Valencia College, and, um, so we had our—our first, uh, concert, and everybody who came was given the opportunity to sing up if they were interested in getting more information about the potential of starting a gay chorus here in Orlando. We ended up with about 65 people that signed the list. When we had our first gathering and contacted the people, about 30 people showed up, which was a pretty good ratio considering, and, um,—and that’s sort of when it started happening, um, and that’s how I became involved, um…</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>And w—what year was that?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>This would have been 1991 or ’90. ’90 would have been the seed concert and the meeting. Um, and then we actually incorporated, um, on February 14^th—on Valentine’s Day in 1991—was the incorporation of the Orlando Gay Chorus, and I remember those first meetings as we were m—moving towards incorporation, w—what’s—what’s your name gonna be? What’s our name gonna be? And we—is it gonna be “Gay” first or is it gonna be “Orlando” first? ‘Cause there was lots of, you know, “The Gay Chorus of New York” and the “Gay Chorus of Boston,” uh, and—and are we gonna use the word “Men’s” in our title or is it just gonna stand alone, “Gay?” And it got pretty, um, um, intense as people were talking about why they thought a different placement of words, what words—are we “The Gay Chorus of Central Florida?” Are we “Greater Orlando?” Are we just “Orlando?” All of those things were part of the discussion, and, um, one of the founding members was Penny [Jo] Chessmen, and so having a woman singing a tenor part with us led a number of us to say, “Well, we can’t disqualify her by choosing ‘Men’ as part of our name,” and, um—and she was pushing—or not pushing. She’s—the suggestion came up that it would be the “Gay and Lesbian Chorus of—of Orlando” or “Central Florida” or whatever. Anyway, that was—that was a—a[sic] interesting lead-in to actually becoming incorporated, and David, uh, became the first president of the chorus. Um, through a sort of a behind-the-scenes search, Charlie Callahan, who was the, um, uh, Composer-in-Residence at Rollins College, was contacted, and he became our first, uh, director, which was a coup for us.<br /><br />Um, his—he was a classic music person, uh, that was world-renowned for his organ music. He—he would go and travel through Europe playing organ concerts. Um, interestingly enough, because of that and not working with vocals so much, his style of directing [<em>laughs</em>] was a little bit different than what we currently got[sic] and what we had since then. Um, the first, uh, accompanist was Terry Thomas, and he then became our—when Charlie left, I believe he became our second, um, director, and then he also—Terry came back and became our emergency director at one point. Um, uh, one of the directors had decided, “I’m done” or they had to move or whatever reason. We were—we needed, uh, a director on the fly, and Terry came back to us and actually—and so he’s sort of our little angel savior, uh, director, and over the course we’ve probably had 9 to 12 different directors over our 27 year history. Um, a—a broad variety of individuals with m—m—many different skill sets that they brought to the table, and I think it’s one of the things that made the chorus really strong—was that this person, um, uh, Aubrey [Connelly-Candelario]—Aubrey, um, focused on production. He came from a musical theater background. So suddenly we were doing costumes and sets and—and surprise moments, and not just standing and singing. Um, Absalon, uh, Figueroa came to us, and he was an accompanist, but he was sort of a New Age-y, um, uh, guru-type guy from Canada. Uh, he was living here, um, with his—later to be his husband. Uh, they m—moved to Canada because he—his husband couldn’t stay here, or he couldn’t stay here. So they both moved to Canada. Now they live in Hawaii…</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Happily married. I love how things change in the world, um—but Absalon brought, uh, a healing, um, and a—an empowerment sort of spirit to the chorus that was needed at that time because we’d had a[sic] unfortunate experience with a director just prior to Absalon. So every—every director sort of brought in their own gift and made the chorus that much better.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Um, how was the—the chorus received in the community in the first—in that early period?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Um, initially, we were sort of, uh, th—th—the arts community didn’t want to have anything to do with us. We actually, um, uh—there was an arts magazine that was published quarterly, and we, um, contacted them to get an advertisement put in about our next—our upcoming holiday concert, and, uh, they refused it because it was too controversial. That—it wasn’t the name of the holiday concert. It was that it was a gay chorus, and they just didn’t want us—anything to do with it. Uh, Valencia College, where we did our first seed concert—we went back to them to try to rent out that same auditorium for our concerts and they refused us, because we weren’t a student organization—was their reasoning, or—or, uh, representing the students of Valencia, and so, uh, we’ve had a number of, um, eh, prickly, uh, unwelcoming experiences during those early years.</p> <p>Now, th—the—the gay community, the G—GLBT community, was, uh—we were—when we went onstage the first—for our first concert in, um, June of ’91—would have been—yeah—June of ’91, we went onto the stage at the [Orlando] Museum of Art in Orlando—Orlando Museum of Art in their theater, and all of us were like, “W—how is this gonna play in Orlando?” You know? Y—we couldn’t have been more loved. It was—it was just a really, really intense—almost like—almost like the audience had been waiting for something that was that uniquely geared to them that was public and accessible, and it was—the—the—the energy in the room w—we’re—we’re singing and the energy is flowing off the stage, and the audience is there sending it all back at us. It was just—it was really cool, and we still get a lot of that feeling today, but that first one, because we didn’t know—you know, there were people onstage that thought that, you know, somebody’s gonna, uh, do a false alarm or a bomb threat or—and, you know, that, uh—to make sure that this concert didn’t happen, and there—so there was a lot of fear, and there were individuals in the chorus that would not put their names into the program. Even though they were standing there publicly, to have it written down somewhere that somebody could pass onto a boss or onto a principal of a school, eh, or, you know—they just didn’t have their names printed or they used aliases.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>So those were the early years. Um, it was, uh—we all sang, uh, men’s voice parts even though there were always females in the chorus. From Penny on, we never did a concert without a female or several females onstage with us, but we sang, um, tenor one, tenor two, baritone and bass, and so, most of the women that joined us would sing senor one. Sometimes they’d sing it up an octave. Ironically, um, in our last concert—no, not the last one—the one before, um—one of our bass twos—the low bass parts—was a female—Linda—Linda Knutson. Yeah, I was a section leader at the time and sitting next to her during, uh, rehearsal, and, um, I—I took a bass two part because they—we were just shorthanded, and so I said—and I’m sitting next to Linda and I’m like, [<em>laughs</em>] “You hit those notes way better than I do. Have you ever considered joining the bass two section?” She’s like—she’s like, “Well—well, okay.” So she became our—our low bass—one of our low basses.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Um, how have you, uh, kind of—if you can kind of describe the—the—the change—maybe the reception of the community over the course—from when you first started to maybe this year. Um, has that relationship with the community changed and kind of in what ways?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Yeah, um, definitely changed, and part of it was that, um, as the gay and lesbian community in Orlando came out, um, the arts community started recognizing us not as a key element or a gem within, but part of a tapestry of art organizations here in Florida. Um, the audiences—interestingly enough, our audiences are—uh, when they do the demographics studies, um, our largest segment of audience members are straight women over the age of 60, and in—again, I think it’s due to the outreach and then the changing nature of how people perceive the gay and lesbian community.</p> <p>Um, we’ve gone through—depending on who the director is— we’ve gone through different phases of being a little more campy or a little more serious, um, and I—I think that that adds to the totality of what people perceive us to be, and that’s not just, you know—we—we will do the number of “Men in Tights” with—with the sugar plum fairies being the big ol’ bears coming across the stage, dancing th—in their tutus, but it’s one piece within the whole concert. So we’ll—we’ll be self-defacing and joke and be campy, but it’s not all we have to offer, and—and I think the—the community’s responded.</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Probably the biggest change we had during that time was going from being a men’s vocal, uh, group to a mixed vocal group, which we are now. It’s, um, soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and, um, because we kept promoting females joining the chorus, um, one of our presidents, Rob Noll—it became his mission to have more women in the chorus, and so he did a lot of artreach[sic]—outreach and effort to try to get more women, but at certain point[sic], I mean, how can you have women that normally sing soprano having to sing tenor? You know, it’s—it’s hard. It’s not enjoyable for them, and so, w—the—the chorus leadership after Rob, very—uh, I—I won’t say strategically, but very carefully—we started having more and more music where the women starting singing soprano and alto, and, you know, it was two pieces in this concert and there was[sic] four pieces in the next concert, and then pretty soon, it was all the pieces in the concert, and it was never like any—nobody put a stake in the ground and said, “We’re becoming an SATB chorus”—and that’s soprano, alto, tenor, bass. It just—the leadership knew that’s where they wanted to end up and they slowly brought this massive group of unique individuals into that reality, and by the time it happened, anybody[?] who[?] went, “All the music’s SATB?” You know, it’s like, “Yeah, it is.” [<em>laughs</em>] You know, it’s just—it’s sort of a matter of fact now, and p—and there were people that left. There were men that left because that went against their reason for wanting to sing, um, but few—few and far between, and it expanded the number of women that we had, so—because suddenly they were a—a—actually able to sing soprano and alto.</p> <p>Um, one of the other—eh, back to the question about the community and how the community responded, um, huge, huge, um—the Pulse massacre was probably one of the biggest, um, or—or the most impactful moments for the chorus to take its position within not just the arts community, but the whole…</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>I—I—I kind of want to get into that a little bit more. Um, just you on a personal level, um. How did you—how did you hear about the shooting happen[sic]?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Mm, um, I am retired, and so I was sleeping in on that Sunday morning, and it was probably 10:30 or so, and, um, I turned off my phone when I went to bed, because my friends have a habit of deciding to send pictures and comments at, you know, 12 at night and one in the morning, and so I had the phone off, and I turned my phone on and there was just a rolodex of—of folks that had sent text messages to me, and, you know— “Are you okay?” “Are you there?” “Is there”—and I—<em>This is really odd. Why in the world</em>—and then, as I started, um—some of ‘em started getting a little more specific. “I just wanted to check to make sure you weren’t, uh, at—at Pulse last night or, um, d—eh, that you weren’t injured.” “I just want to hear from you,” and I went, <em>What?</em> Eh—eh, and then I did, um, my Google search and went, <em>Holy mackerel</em>, and I became part of the web of—“I haven’t heard from you. Is”—my friend Rob, that[sic] I mentioned that was the president, I—I called an, uh, he—nobody answered at his house, and he’s the type of person that might go out to that, uh—Pulse on a whim. Um, me—it’s—it’s not a club I normally would go to. Um, it’s—the crowd is way younger than the people I would be hanging with, but Rob might do that just on a whim, and we couldn’t get a hold of him. He wasn’t answering his cell phone and he wasn’t answering the house phone, but I had his roommate, Sherry[sp]—so I called Sherry’s phone, and she was out walking the dog. I said, “Sherry, I just want to check to make sure Rob’s at home. Is Rob—Rob there?” She goes, “Well, yeah. He was sleeping this morning when I got up.” I’m like, “Okay, just—just wanted to check,” but that was happening everywhere, and to—to spend an hour, hour and a half, two hours checking to see if your friends are alive was really mind blowing. It was so, um—what’s the w—a word that I wanna use for it? It was, eh, eh—it was just unimaginable that—that this could be part of my world now, so—but that’s how I found out—was through people checking in to make sure I was okay, and then I’d reached out to people that might be concerned about me—my parents, family and friends outside of the Orlando area—to make sure they knew I was okay.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Hm, um, when was the first time that you got in touch with—that the chorus, uh, decided to maybe have a meeting or anything about th—the actual shooting? Did you guys get together that day, or…</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Um…</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Any time soon?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>The Sounds of Freedom Band [and Color Guard] by chance was doing their concert, um, i—in Loch Haven Park at the theater there, eh—The REP,<a title="">[2]</a> and so a number of us got together to go and be with the community, and then the next night, um, we did our first vigil, as I recall. Eh, it was at the Joy Metropolitan Community Church, and the word just spread to the chorus. It wasn’t—there was, you know—“Alright, we’re gonna meet. Here’s what we’re gonna wear,” and we’d done outreaches before, but nothing on this short of a notice. So, uh, we got together and did the—that vigil, and, uh, some of the—some of the tapes went international from that night, and then we’ve probably done an average of three to five a week ever since.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>And can you just explain a little bit, like, uh, how those experiences were and anything that sticks out to you in particular?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Um, for me personally, I think, uh, it was so, um, fulfilling and, um, comforting to have a task, so that I couldn’t go into my own head. I, you know—there was this to get done. We were gonna go perform at the, um, uh, [AIGA Orlando’s] Love by Design today. Tomorrow, we’re doing this. Um, th—there were people in the chorus that started carrying their chorus wardrobe in their cars in case an event—an outreach event or a vigil or something—a fundraiser came up during that they that they could jump into their clothes—drive straight to the event and—and have their clothes with them, um, but it—i—it was—I—I—I went through probably, um, three days of just totally numb, sort of zombielike experience. Um, anything could make me cry. I al—I wear my emotions on my sleeve anyway [<em>laughs</em>]. So this just was like, “Oh, good. I’m brushing my teeth and just sobbing,” you know, um, but, uh, those three days went by and I took advantage of The [LGBT] Center [of Central Florida]’s, um, counseling that they were offering—free counseling to people, and so I went in and talked to a—a woman for about 15 minute[sic], and I think—well, I’ll share with you what I shared with her.</p> <p>Eh, my—my big internal issue was that I’m—by nature, I’m a Pollyanna. I—I like making people happy. I like—I like keeping things i—in a positive space, and it was hard for me—whenever there was even an inkling of—like looking at the chorus and going, <em>This is gonna bring us closer together. This is gonna be such a good emotional, um, outcome for us as a—as a[sic] organization</em>, and then I’d—and then I’d go into my, <em>How can you say there’s something good that comes out of this?</em> And so that’s what I had to talk with her—with the counselor about—is I feel guilty trying to find the silver linings, and, um, she—she did a nice job, and by the time I walked out, I—my head was back on square again and I was able to move on—still numb, but much more myself again. So that was—that was pretty big. Probably, um, continued to have that, um, out-of-body sort of feeling for about three weeks, and then it—then it subsided and I started getting my legs under me, and we—we traveled to the, um—the festival in Denver in, uh, first part of July. So we went to the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses big festival, and, um, we as a chorus [<em>laughs</em>]—you know, the 6,000 people—singers—and they’d been sending us videos for the last like week and a half, three weeks.<br /><br />“W—We Stand with Orlando.” Singing songs that were significant to them, reflecting ‘em on the Pulse ex—um, tragedy, and they would s—you know, “We’re with you, Orlando,” and a lot of it, because it was chorus-to-chorus, was directed right at us—not just the community, but to our singers—and so when we got there to Denver, the outpouring of affection and, um—I made the joke. I said, “At this point we could go onstage and all of us burp in unison [<em>laughs</em>] and the crowd’s gonna go crazy,” [<em>laughs</em>] you know, ‘cause w—we just—we could do no wrong at this point, um, and that wasn’t necessary in the end, uh, but to be there was so healing to so many of us I think, ‘cause it—it was—it was such a, um, uh, clear program that had been put out for us. You know, you can ten—attend this block of s—concerts or this block, and—and this is where we’re gonna get together for this party, and—and every—you—you got to focus on that instead of on doing another vigil.</p> <p>We did get our wonderful moment onstage, and it was amazing. It was amazing, yeah—and, uh, our director, James [A.] Rode, uh, did a little speech in the mid—in—towards the end of it, um, that described sort of what our experience was as a chorus, and, uh, then wrapped it up with inviting the—the—the theaters weren’t big enough to hold everybody, so there was—you’d have concerts running simultaneously, but we had probably three thousand people in the theater we were in, and James invited ‘em to join us. Um, our final piece was, uh, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Man of La Mancha, and so, you know, three thousand other singers—and even they—some of them wrote on—on the webpage for the GALA Choruses their experience, and—and shaking and feeling weak in the knees, and, um, the emotional—that if they hadn’t been there with their brothers and sisters in song, help and hold them up, they would’ve crumbled.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Um, how do you feel that the—did you feel that the shooting has changed th—the—the group’s relation to the community in Orlando?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Tremendously, yeah, um, and I—because of our exposure, I think as any—as much as anything else—I mean, we—we went and sang at the, um, Orlando City Soccer [Club] game and the, um, organizers contacted the, uh, ticketholders and invited them—if you’re sitting in sections 17 through 29, wear green, and so we ended up with this rainbow around the stadium, um, and these are people that probably had never—many of them probably never even knew the Orlando Gay Chorus existed in Orlando, and yet, because of the tragedy, um, they—they stepped up as members of Orlando’s community, supporting, um, the gay community as well.</p> <p>Um, one of the other things I—I found really exciting during this—is I think the Latin community, um, stepped up in a way, connecting with the gay community that hadn’t been as, um, easygoing or as—as generous, and, um—and likewise. I think the gay community felt for the Latin community—not just those people that got killed, but the—the hurt and the pain wasn’t just ours, and which—to me, I think that’s what’s made—that’s the silv—that’s the big silver lining, you know, that the Orlando—the City of Orlando, um, proved itself to be a community that could face some really wicked tragedy without the response being anger or hatred, um, or scapegoating—that, uh, from the city leaders all the way down to grandma and grandpa in their house, you know, on my street that put out their “Orlando United” sign in front. It was such a wonderful thing to see that this is—this is where I live.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Um, and that kind of brings me to my next question. Where do kind of see the relationship between, uh, the Orlando Gay Chorus and the community going moving forward?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Um, we’re already seeing it, I think, to a degree. We are—we’re getting invited to be a part of events that normally, um—that wouldn’t reach out as far as the Gay Chorus. It would have been these church choirs and that high school choir and th—the community chorus of Orlando—that’d be the group they’d put together for this event, and now, we’re on that list. Now we’re a—a prominent piece of that invitation, um, to a point where I think there’s consciousness of, uh—“And we can’t leave them out,” you know? “They’re—they’re such a significant part of our community,” and because of the exposure we’ve had—excuse me—uh, the exposure we’ve had over the last few months, um, we’ve—people know that we’re pretty good, you know, [<em>laughs</em>]—that, uh, as a musical group, we’re not a flash in the pan, and you—i—if you want to give them money for your ticket, but you don’t go, “You’re not missing anything.” It’s not that way, you know, um, and like to—yesterday, which would have been the 25^th of September, we, um, worked with the Second Harvest Food Bank [of Central Florida]. They provided the food, we provided all the entertainment—atmospheric as well as a concert—at the Second Harvest Food Bank to raise funds for these two very disparate non-profit organizations, and I—that never would have happened, I don’t believe. You know, maybe—maybe I’m—maybe I just have my blinders on, but I think that that’s one of the things that, as we move forward, we’re getting those opportunities, um, and bringing our story to the, you know—the general public in a way that we never had a chance to do before.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>And, uh, what did—did your membership change any a—after you started g—getting more, um, uh—I don’t want to say screen time— but more—more visibility in the community? Did people want to communicate with you all and—and maybe join the chorus? Or have your numbers kind of stayed the same throughout?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Um, we definitely saw a bump. I know that the interest—again, it’s probably twice the number of people that actually came to audition, um, but we’re over a hundred, and we were down to about 80, um, prior to, um, the Pulse massacre, be—and partly I think it’s because people just didn’t even know we were there, and partly I think it was because, um, some people wanted to step up and say, “I—I need to be a part of this forward motion that’s happening in Orlando,” and so—yeah. It, um—the demographics are about the same as far as age and, um, sexuality. We’ve—we’ve got[sic] a lot of, uh, straight allies that are part of our—our, uh—to[?] women’s section. We got our first male straight guy that’s gonna be—hopefully, he’ll be singing with us if—he just joined the chorus, um, but the general population percentages are about the same as they were before.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Um, is there anything else, uh, about the chorus or about, um, the chorus’ response to the—to the shooting that you’d like to talk about today?</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>Hm, I think—well, this is gonna—I, uh, was at a point in my history with the chorus after having sung with them in every concert for 26 years, I was ready to quit. Um, I just—you know, I s—there were things going on that I didn’t necessarily all[sic] agree with, um, and I just had decided to myself, you know, sometimes, you just need to move on for your own—and for the organization’s, you know, benefit, but when—and th—there was another person in the chorus I know for a fact was in that same space, um, and after becoming such a valuable entity in the community as a chorus, and doing the vigils and doing the fundraisers, and, um, help—we—we started using that—the, um—“Love, Hope, and Healing”—“the Ambassadors of Love, Hope, and Healing,” and so, as that transpired and I got to watch that in re—in real time, I said, <em>Uh, maybe—maybe I need to stick around</em>, because this—this has really refocused us back to what I feel the chorus was supposed to be about, you know? It was—it’s more than just doing a concert and standing onstage. It’s—it’s building people’s pride. It’s being—yeah—more than a musical group. I was—I’ve said it’s three things. It’s music, it’s socialization, and it’s, um, political. Just the fact that we gave “gay” in the name makes us a political organization, and the socialization within the chorus members is so significant to my happiness, and then, of course, the music. You have to do—have musical excellence to be able to get an audience in the seats, um, and—and it’s really—it’s brought me back to the chorus again ever since, so another silver lining.</p> <p><strong>Campbell<br /></strong>Well, thank you so much for talking with us today and—and for participating in this program.</p> <p><strong>Strack<br /></strong>It’s my pleasure.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> GLBT Community Center of Central Florida.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Orlando Repertory Theatre.</p> </div> </div> 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting Absalon Figueroa AIGA Orlando’s Love by Design American Institute of Graphic Arts Aubrey Connelly-Candelario Boston Gay Men's Chorus Center for Humanities and Digital Research Charlie Callahan CHDR chorus choruses David Schuler fundraisers GALA Choruses Festival gay Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses Gay Community Services Gay Men’s Chorus of Tampa GCS GLBT GLBT Community Center of Central Florida gun violence hate crimes Hispanics homosexuality homosexuals James A. Rode Joel Strack Joy Metropolitan Community Church Kayla Campana Latinas Latinos LGBT LGBT Center of Central Florida LGBTIQ LGBTQ Linda Knutson Man of La Mancha mass shootings Men in Tights mixed vocal group music nightclubs orlando Orlando City SC Orlando City Soccer Orlando City Soccer Club Orlando Gay Chorus Orlando Museum of Art Orlando Repertory Theatre Orlando United outreach events Penny Jo Chessmen Pulse Pulse massacre Pulse memorial Pulse nightclub shooting rainbows River City Mixed Chorus Rob Noll Rollins College SATB chorus Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida Soprano Alto Tenor Bass chorus Sounds of Freedom Band and Color Guard South Florida Gay Men’s Chorus terrorism terrorist attacks terrorists Terry Thomas The Center The REP tributes Tyler Campbell UCF University of Central Florida Valencia College vigils You'll Never Walk Alone https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/728e65523012d71068a9e389e9b7eddf.mp3 bf9cd47354a8b83b6a6107c6d59ec522 https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/dfd1142290a11b6982aee5ee6fe60a5e.pdf d0527f01a610d68ad14544a29105a1c5 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. 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 John Louis Salsbury Alternative Title Oral History, Salsbury Subject Sanford (Fla.) Tampa (Fla.) Air Force Photography--Florida Space Shuttle Program (U.S.) Titusville (Fla.) Astronauts--United States Baseball--Florida Description An oral history of John Louis Salsbury, conducted by Joseph Morris on September 9, 2011. Salsbury was born in Tampa, Florida, but he has spent much of his life in Sanford. In the interview, Salsbury discusses his family's history, Port Tampa during the Spanish-American War, his service in the U.S. Air Force, photographing Space Shuttle launches and astronauts, how Sanford has changed over time, and the Florida Aviation Historical Society. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:21 Family history 0:01:52 Port Tampa and the Spanish-American War 0:04:15 Family history 0:08:17 Serving in the Air Force 0:11:31 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:11:32 President Richard M. Nixon 0:13:28 Moving to Sanford and photographing shuttle launches 0:17:17 Moonshiner’s shoe 0:20:22 Moving to Sanford 0:20:46 Photographing space shuttles and astronauts 0:32:49 Family history 0:45:10 How Sanford has changed over time 0:45:54 Grandparents and great-grandparents 0:58:02 Closing remarks 0:58:37 RECORDING CUTS OFF 0:58:38 Florida Aviation Historical Society Abstract Oral history interview of John Louis Salsbury Interview conducted by Joseph Morris at Salsbury' home in Florida. Type Sound/Podcast Source Original 1-hour, 4-minute, and 54-second oral history: Salsbury, John Louis. Interviewed by Joseph Morris. September 9, 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 South Park Avenue and West 9th Street, Sanford, Florida Port Tampa Dock, Port Tampa, Tampa, Florida Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, California Naval Air Station Keflavík, Keflavík, Iceland Homestead Air Reserve Base, Homestead, Florida John F. Kennedy Space Center, Titusville, Florida Disney-MGM Studios, Lake Buena Vista, Florida Creator Morris, Joseph Salsbury, John Louis Contributor Vickers, Savannah Date Created 2011-09-09 Date Modified 2014-09-10 Date Copyrighted 2011-09-09 Format audio/wav application/pdf Extent 665 MB 194 KB Medium 1-hour, 4-minute, and 54-second audio recording 19-page typed transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Joseph Morris and John Louis Salsbury, and transcribed by Savannah Vickers. 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.floridaahs.org/" target="_blank">Welcome!</a>" Florida Aviation Historical Society. http://www.floridaahs.org/. Sanford Historical Society (Fla.). <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53015288" target="_blank"><em>Sanford</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2003. Norman, Robert, and Lisa Coleman. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47770675" target="_blank"><em>Tampa</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2001. Duggins, Pat. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/122701571" target="_blank"><em>Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program</em></a>. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007. Transcript <p><strong>Morris<br /></strong>This is an interview with John [Louis] Salsbury. This interview is being conducted on the 9^th of September, 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. Mr. Salsbury, could you tell us your name?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Yes. I would like to do this as a means of preservation of my family history, and I hope I can do a good job. Anyway, I’d like to start with the year of 1893, when my great-grandparents and my grandfather moved here from Portsmouth, Ohio, by train. My great-grandfather was a master carpenter, and he lived here—the family lived here—on the corner of [West] Ninth Street and [South] Park Avenue—the southwest corner—for about two years. My grandfather [Louis Salsbury] was 19 years old, and he was employed as a railroad telegrapher at the Sanford Railroad Station on the west end of Ninth Street. In 1895, which was the year they moved away, my grandfather participated in a professional bicycle race—a 25-mile race that began in Downtown Orlando, when Orange Avenue was a dirt road, and ended there. My grandfather won the race.</p> <p class="Body">And after that they moved to Port Tampa, where my great-grandfather became a building contractor and was commissioned by Henry [B.] Plant to build a passenger terminal at the end of the railroad line there in Port Tampa, near Tampa. And steamships—the <em>Mascotte </em>and the <em>Olivette</em>—transported passengers from South America and Cuba to the United States. And they ported—they landed there at the docks. And the terminal building that my great-grandfather built was in use up until that passenger line ceased to operate, but the building remained to 1955.</p> <p class="Body">Also, just a year or two before the building was commenced, that terminal, Teddy [Theodore] Roosevelt, his Rough Riders [1^st U.S. Volunteer Calvary] and officers, were among the soldiers and troops that were encamped in the Port Tampa area en route to the Spanish-American War. Teddy Roosevelt and his officers were hosted and remained in my doctor’s—in the Salsbury family doctor’s—home, which was located about a block from my grandparents’ home, and where my great-grandfather built. My grandfather joined the Army and participated in the Spanish-American War, and following that war, my great-grandfather was commissioned to also build a very famous wooden hotel in Bartow-Clearwater area, over near Clearwater. It’s still in use. It’s the Belleview Biltmore Resort. It’s a large wooden hotel, and it’s still in use today.</p> <p class="Body">Okay, after that, my grandfather married—and he was a telegrapher—and on the west coast at Palm Harbor, Florida, near the Gulf [of Mexico], and between Clearwater and Tarpon Springs, he married Rose Tinny—Rosalind Tinny. And my father [John Wright Salsbury, Jr.] was born in Port Tampa. My great-grandfather had built three homes there, and after my father graduated from high school in the year 1926, he found this moonshiner’s shoe. It was uncovered by a fire that had burnt some palmettos. My father found that—and they determined it belonged to the moonshiner. His name was Herndon, who was killed by the troops when he tried to steal corn from the soldiers encamped there for the Spanish-American War. Well, anyway, the left shoe that I have in my possession is in the Smithsonian Institution, and this right shoe I still retain.<a title="">[1]</a></p> <p class="Body">Okay, in 1914, just before this—at the age of 12—my father and his sister, Mary, at age of five, flew on the world’s first passenger, scheduled passenger airline from St. Petersburg to Tampa. As a member of the Florida Aviation Historical Society, I’ve been through a lot of this and photographed a lot. I’m their photographer. Well, anyway, in 1914, my father and my aunt flew with Tony Janus, or the line pilot, from St. Petersburg to Tampa. This airline was in operation for three months and flew 1,205 passengers, and is actually on record as being the world’s first scheduled airline.</p> <p class="Body">My dad moved to—my dad and my mother—I was born in 1931 in Tampa, and my father and mother separated in ’41, and in 1941 we moved to Sanford and have resided in Sanford since. At least I have. My father was a railroad engineer with the Atlantic Coast Line [Railroad]. He had roomed with Cara Stenstrom, the mother of Douglas and Julian and Frank and Herb and Ruth Stenstrom—my stepbrothers and sister. Well, that year, or year around that time, the early 1940s, I recall having met Red Barber, the famous sports announcer’s father, there on the front porch. Okay, Red Barber, who actually went to school in Sanford and graduated from Sanford High School, went on to become the most famous sports announcer in baseball, football.</p> <p class="Body">All right. I went into the Air Force in 1949, upon graduating from the Seminole High School. I was a radar operator, and while in the service, I served in Alaska, Newfoundland, Iceland, and West Germany. But some of the highlights of my service, while I was—after I returned from Alaska in 1951, I was able—stationed in Norton Air Force Base in the Air Defense Control Center there. I was able to see many movie stars: Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball, Lana Turner, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Gregory Peck. I really enjoyed my time there at Norton, because I met all these people, and not only that, I made sure that I worked within the Air Control Center—gave me a ride, or I flew as the co-pilot in a twin-engine bomber trainer called a T-11. And while we were in operations, he was filing his flight plan—I was standing next to a tall gentleman at the counter, where he was filing a flight plan, and on this parachute he had draped over his shoulder was the word “Yeager. So I actually got a chance to see the famous Chuck Yeager, who broke the speed, the sound barrier. And outside was an experimental jet bomber, XB-43,—I remember they called it—and he was probably flying that at the time.</p> <p class="Body">Anyway, after we took off in this T-11, the major took control of the aircraft ‘til we went over Edward’s restricted area, or Edwards Air Force Base. And then he showed me how to use the radio compass, and I honed it in on Palmdale, where the space shuttles were built. Well, anyway, I took control, and he let me fly the T-11 up over L.A.—Los Angeles—Laguna Beach, Long Beach, all along the coast. And then, when he said we had to go back, he asked me if I thought I could find my way back, and I said, “I believe so.” So I honed in on the mountains there—San Bernardino right there at Norton—and headed back to Norton. And that was one of the most memorable flights I’ve ever taken. I really enjoyed that. All right, uh, upon—you may pause it just for a second.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Good to go, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Okie doke. Another thing I’d like to comment on about an experience I had while in the Air Force, stationed in Iceland, President [Richard M.] Nixon stopped over there on the way to Russia, in Keflavík Air Field [Naval Air Station (NAS) Keflavík] in Iceland, and being in radar, I knew about it. So I was down there with my camera—my movie camera—and was able to get some shots of Admiral [Hyman G.] Rickover as he walked out of the plane—walked by. Nixon didn’t get out of the plane, nor did his wife [Pat Nixon].</p> <p class="Body">Okay, then, when stationed—before my retirement in 1969, I was stationed at Homestead Air [Reserve] Base in South Florida, in radar again. I was electronic warfare NCOIC [Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge], and President Nixon was inaugurated and flew right into Homestead AFB [Homestead ARB] the next day, and I took my son and my daughter over to see him. Well, lo and behold, we were only, right at the front of the fence there at the tarmac there at Homestead, and the President walked directly to us and shook our hands, and it appeared on the front page of <em>The Miami Herald</em> the next morning. So I had a—we had a wonderful experience of meeting Richard Nixon and shaking hands with him. And then I retired shortly after Neil Armstrong put foot on the moon.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>And I came—we moved back to Sanford, and bought a new home here in Sanford, and I became employed as a postal clerk over in Orlando for one year in the sectional center, and then transferred to Sanford, where for 16 years I was a letter-carrier. Riding a bicycle and a jeep, carrying mail in Sanford.</p> <p class="Body">Well, while in Sanford as a letter-carrier, I had been taking pictures of the first space shuttle launch from Titusville and the ones following that, and I was taking my film to Eckerd’s drugstore to have it processed. Through a questionnaire that I filled out, the Eckerd’s marketing management and headquarters in Clearwater called me one day. They asked if I would appear in a TV—television commercial for them. And from that, I was titled “The Shuttle Photographer,” and Eckerd’s produced and ran for a year and a half a commercial introducing their one-hour photo service. That helped me, in a way, get my foot in the door as becoming a press photographer at [John F.] Kennedy Space Center, to shoot the space shuttle launches up close. So from the end of ’91, I was credited as a press photographer with <em>The Sanford Herald</em> editor sponsoring me. And throughout the shuttle program, I served as a press photographer at the Space Center, covering the 30-year shuttle program.</p> <p class="Body">Just recently, in July—in July the 21^st—the [Space] Shuttle <em>Atlantis</em> landed, and I was there on the end of the runway, and I captured the landing and the tow back of the space shuttle for the last time of <em>Atlantis</em>. <em>Atlantis</em> just happens to be a particular launch vehicle that I took in 1994, November the 3^rd, that turned out to be my most successful space shuttle photograph. It hangs in the NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] Media [Resource] Center. A 30 x 40. It hangs in the Viera VA [Veterans Affairs] Hospital entrance. It hangs in museums, and it’s been purchased by a number of people over the years. So the STS-66 launch turned out to be my most successful space shuttle picture.</p> <p class="Body">And now that the shuttle program has ended, I devote my future photography <em>Endeavor</em>s towards shooting wildlife. And here in Lake Mary—close to Sanford—I have some blinds set up, and I have wood duck nesting boxes, and I have been very successful in photographing Florida birds here, and will continue doing so. Thank you, Joe.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Salsbury. I have a few more questions if that is okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Fire away.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, Mr. Salsbury. Earlier you mentioned about the shoe that your family member had found previously?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Right. That was my father.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Could you describe that? Yes, your father, sir. Could you tell—could you describe that for us? And then tell us what purpose that shoe was being used for?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Well, sure. I’d be glad to.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Thank you, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Joe, this shoe that I’m showing you has a tin foundation, or a base, to it, and nailed to the bottom of this piece of tin are two wooden replicas of cows’ hooves, out of wood, carved by this moonshiner. And what the moonshiner would do—he—he was able to attach this to his shoes and conceal his tracks as he went to and from his still, which was located near my family home in Port Tampa, Florida, Hillsborough County. And a fire had really exposed this to my father. It was wrapped—the shoes, the pair of shoes—were wrapped up in a newspaper and was charred, but was exposed when the fire burnt these palmettos along the roadway, which is now in Trask Avenue in Tampa, Florida. T-R-A-S-K. Anyway, when my father opened the package up, here was this pair of overshoes used by moonshiner by the name of Herndon in Port Tampa, to go to and from his still. This moonshiner was later shot to death when he attempted to steal grain—sacks of grain—from the soldiers camped in the area, or en route to the Spanish-American War from Port Tampa to Cuba, where they embarked from Port Tampa. They determined—they found out they were having sacks of grain stolen from them, or missing, so they set up a trap. And actually they caught the guy, and they shot him. But apparently he wasn’t wearing these shoes, and he had these hidden just to go to and from his still. And that’s how come I ended up—the right shoe I have, and I’m showing you at this time. The left shoe, in 1926, was given to the Smithsonian Institution and appeared in <em>The St. Louis</em> [<em>Post-</em>]<em>Dispatch</em> with a picture of it telling that it’s in the museum. I have been unable to locate that copy of <em>The St. Louis Dispatch</em> that I had. I don’t know what happened to it. But anyway, I do know that one shoe was in the Smithsonian Institution.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, thank you. That’s a very interesting piece you have there, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Another question I have is—you said 1941<a title="">[2]</a> you moved to Sanford?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>1941.<a title="">[3]</a></p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Who did you move with, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>My father, my sister, Rosemary [Salsbury], and I. The three of us.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And your sister, is she currently living in Sanford, or...</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>No, she lives on the west coast, over near Tarpon Springs.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay, sir. And you said, you were describing earlier your experiences working as a press photographer for <em>The Sanford Herald</em>.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Do you have any more experiences that you’d like to share about that, any kind of experiences working at the—as opposed to just taking photographs…</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>The only experiences I have—and one is very interesting ‘cause it deals with Seminole County. As a press photographer, I was given quite a lot of extra photo possibilities. There was a launch of [Space Shuttle] <em>Endeavor</em>—and I don’t recall just what mission it was at the time—but when I boarded the bus to go with an escort to go there to photograph it with my telescope, she handed out a sheet of paper that listed the dignitaries—the important events that was gonna be there at this event site that I had wanted to shoot from. One of them was Alan Shepard, who was the first American astronaut to go into space. All right. She told—I asked her if she’d point him out to me or help me find him. I wanted to get a picture of him. She said, “I could do better than that. I could have your picture taken with him.” So she did that, and they used my camera. And I sent the photo to Houston[, Texas]—to him—and he autographed it and returned it to me, and in turn I gave—I left one with him.</p> <p class="Body">But I told him in the letter something very interesting that I found out. My classmate in 1949, Bettye Ball [Deadman] from Lake Mary, lived a short distance from Alan Shepard’s grandparents. Alan Shepard used to spend his summer vacations from Connecticut or New Hampshire in Lake Mary. He spent him out there, in his vacations, and his grandparents. One day he was missing, and they couldn’t find him. He was found on the Ball—Bettye, my classmate’s family’s—dining room table eating a banana. And so I told him about this in the letter, and he got a charge out of it.</p> <p class="Body">But anyway, my stepbrother, Doug Strenstrom—Douglas Stenstrom—is the one that told me first that Alan Shepard had a connection with Lake Mary and Seminole County. And then, when I found that out, I was talking to Bettye Ball and she told me about the banana incident. And so, it so happens that Alan Shepard enjoyed a lot of his school summers, if not most of them, right here in Lake Mary, Seminole County. So, anyway, I got a chance to meet him.</p> <p class="Body">Not only that—another thing I want to tell you, an interesting thing happened. I wasn’t a press photographer at the time but I had an eight-inch telescope, and I took this with me to shoot from Titusville the first launch of the space shuttle—STS-1 [Space Shuttle] <em>Columbia</em>. And the picture I took, turned out I shot into the sun, but I got a fairly good picture. For a color picture, it turned out black and white. But anyway, I got a good picture. Well, <em>The Orlando Sentinel </em>team saw me, and they took a picture of me with my nephew, Troy Hickson, from Lake Mary, as we were photographing with my telescope. And this was published and in <em>The Sentinel</em>.</p> <p class="Body">Well, there was a time when I wasn’t—later on, when I wasn’t a press photographer, but I was shooting from the NASA Causeway with my telescope, and the gentleman told me I needed press credentials to get up close and get better pictures. So little wheels started turning in my head as to how I could bring this about. First thing I thought about doing was calling this photographer that had photographed me at the first launch over in Titusville at <em>The Sentinel</em> in Orlando. So I called, and they couldn’t use me in Orlando on the team, but he suggested something that really did it for me. And he suggested that I get a hold of the public affairs people at NASA, at Kennedy, and request a freelance pass—a pass as a freelance photographer. Well, I did this, and that allowed me to start getting passes to put my camera up remotely. I’d put my camera out right next to the shuttle, and using another man’s trigger at first—and finally I knew how to do it and I finally bought the equipment and did it on my own. But anyway, the sound after the solid rockets are fired triggers your camera, and you’re nowhere near it. You’re sitting there anchored down, but it’s up close to it. So that’s how I got my best pictures was in that manner.</p> <p class="Body">Okay, after that first launch on the 12^th of April of 1981, there was an air show. It went to Sanford Airport. And I took my son out there, and I had my camera along to shoot the show. And a friend of mine who had a shoe store in Sanford, Donald Knight—well known in Sanford—and he was a flight instructor and a pilot, and he was at front of operations prepping a Cessna for flight. And I walked up and commenced talking to him this day. This is after the launch of the shuttle. And he said, “Do you know whose plane that is next to me?” And I said, “No.” He said, “That’s Neil Armstrong.” I waited until Neil Armstrong came out and his family came out of the operations and got in their plane, and took pictures of this, and got some good pictures of Neil Armstrong. He left there and nobody, of all these people there—the thousands of people at the air show—knew he was there, I think. He taxied out and took off before the air show. So I got pictures of Neil Armstrong.</p> <p class="Body">Another incident, having been with press credentials and having put my remote cameras out for the launch of John Glenn—STS-95—I was able to get a picture and he posed for me. And this was Buzz Aldrin, who stepped on the moon. And I also got pictures of several of the other astronauts, the one in STS-13—I mean not STS-13—the Apollo 13. And Gordon Cooper.</p> <p class="Body">Now, not only that, over the years, I was able to meet and become friends with different astronauts, but one of the highlights of my time over there too took place when I was working part-time at [Walt] Disney World, [Disney-]MGM Studios.<a title="">[4]</a> I purchased a little lapel pin of Buzz Lightyear. Well, I had a taken a nice shot of the STS-61 launch of [Space Shuttle] <em>Endeavor</em>, that Story Musgrave was mission specialist of, and did a spacewalk to repair the Hubble [Space] Telescope. Well, my pictures came out so good. I made Christmas cards out of them, put “Merry Christmas,” “Happy New Year,” and all that on them, and I sent them to each one of the crew members in Houston, so when they landed, they would get Christmas card greetings at their launch. Well, I got responses from Kathy Thornton and different ones with autographed pictures of all of them and all that.</p> <p class="Body">But six months later, I get a telephone call from Story Musgrave—Dr. Story Musgrave—who did the spacewalk repair on the Hubble telescope and was on the mission. He commented to me, he said, “That’s the best night launch picture I’ve seen. Would you make transparencies for me so I can use them in my lectures?” And he called me back later and asked me how much it was and all that. He wanted to pay for it. I didn’t want him to pay for it, but he sent me a check and paid for it. I asked him, I said, “Story, would you take a little Buzz Lightyear pin in space for me in your next mission coming up in September?” Or November. And that was STS-80. He called me back later and said, “Send it on.” He had room. He could take it. So Story Musgrave took a little Buzz Lightyear pin for me on the STS-80 mission of <em>Columbia</em> that ended up being the longest space shuttle mission flown, 17 days. When they returned, it took me two years to get it back. But I got it back, and it was still packaged and in the plastic, and it was accompanied by a certificate of authentication signed by Story Musgrave, telling that “this space,”—oh, “this lapel pin of Buzz Lightyear,”—or something to this effect—“was carried aboard <em>Columbia</em> for John Salsbury,” and so on. So I got this wonderful document to see that by.</p> <p class="Body">So that kind of sums up some of the most important things that I remember as highlights doing my space shuttle photography over 30 years. I was able to meet a lot of the good ones, and one of them was Tom Jones, and I’m still in touch with him. Most, many of these pictures I have, like the one of STS-96—it shows shooting into the rising sun and everything, Rick Husband, who was killed when the <em>Columbia</em> exploded, he was the pilot of that one. And I’ve got a beautiful picture of that, autographed by the pilot, Kent Romminger. So, a lot of my pictures, even the one with John Glenn’s launch, turned out. I sent it to him. He autographed it for me. I’ve got the picture of John Glenn going up autographed. I’ve got all these autographs on my pictures over there. And my room looks like a museum itself.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Sir, that’s impressive.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Thank you. But that’s about it, in a nutshell, I think.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Well, sir, could you tell me a little bit about your family?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Well, I think I told you, let me, my great-grandfather’s name was John Wright Salsbury I. He was married to Addie—A-D-D-I-E—Burke Salsbury, and they moved here with their son, my grandfather—later grandfather—Louis Salsbury, to Sanford in 1893, as I mentioned earlier. My dad moved up here upon my mother and father’s separation in 1941. We moved to Sanford from Port Tampa, and that’s when I joined the Stenstrom-Salsbury family, or we were joined, and of course, Douglas and Julian are well-documented in their contributions here in Seminole County. And Frank, he married Henry Took—Harry [Patricia] Took—excuse me, who was a millionaire that owned a lot of groves. And he took care of the groves, my stepbrother did, Frankie.</p> <p class="Body">And then Herb was a realtor. He was the other stepbrother, and Herb passed away a young man due to lung cancer. But he married Carolyn Patrick, and the Patricks own a packing—a fruit business of citrus and citrus-packing groves and so forth.</p> <p class="Body">And my stepsister, Ruth, she married a young man that was—became a—he was an umpire in baseball—professional games, but then later became a—they moved to Cocoa Beach and he was on the City Council and he was a postmaster over there at Cocoa Beach, about the time when the Apollo program was going on. And Ruth—no, Julian, was a sports announcer and writer for [<em>The Sanford Herald</em>], he announced for Red WTRR Sanford, a radio station, and he wrote for the columns for <em>The Sanford Herald</em>. And he wrote a lot of them about “Way Back Then”—they titled it—and I have copies of those. He had a wonderful memory and recall of sports. He mentioned—he brought a light that Buddy Lake from Lake Monroe, in Sanford—and Lake Mary, in the Sanford area—a ball player, ended up in the hall of fame from Julian’s efforts. He found out that Buddy had led hitting and pitching at one time, and this was something that hadn’t been done before. This was back when he played for Florida State League. And Julian also brought out the fact that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier here in Sanford at the Sanford ballpark when he was playing for the [Brooklyn] Dodgers.</p> <p class="Body">Julian and I—well, Julian became an official in the Southern Baptist brotherhood out in California, in Bakersfield, and I was stationed at Norton Air Force Base in the ‘50s. He and I attended a professional spring training ballgame between the Cincinnati Reds and another team I don’t recall. And Julian and I were sitting on the third base bleacher line there in the stands, and I was sitting maybe ten feet away from a gentleman with a cigar in his mouth. And Julian asked me if I knew who that was. He said, “That’s Branch Rickey.” So Branch Rickey is one of the two people that Red Barber dedicated his book, <em>Walking in the Spirit</em>, to. A great book. It’s in the museum in Sanford. It was given to Julian by Douglas. Anyway, Red Barber mentions—no, Julian wrote an article about Red Barber that I have as well too, and it was published in the Sanford paper, telling about Red Barber’s ball playing and his living here in Sanford. So, I can’t think right offhand of a lot of the highlights that Julian brought out. But anyway, they’re well-documented and covered in articles he wrote for the paper while he was there.</p> <p class="Body">Oh, another thing, myself and my younger stepbrother, Frank, and my classmates, John Keeling and Richard McNab—Keeling just passed away and he was a retired colonel in the Army. Worked in the Pentagon. And Richard McNab—retired colonel—Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, who flew B-47 reconnaissance aircraft. He’s living in Ocean Springs right now. And we all were on the American Legion baseball team in 1948. On March the 16^th of 1948, Babe Ruth came to Sanford. Julian was the announcer, the master of ceremonies. Carl Hubble was there, John Krider, and Julian, and the mayor, Mayor Williams. Julian introduce a number of the people there, but the mayor actually introduced Babe Ruth. And I was there, and my other members played on the American Legion we had at the time. Babe Ruth signed baseballs for all of us, and we were given these baseballs signed by Babe Ruth. Well, anyway, the wonderful thing happened was that Julian and all of the commentary and all the narration or the talking that was done, even Babe Ruth’s voice, was recorded on a recorder—on a platter, a record, by someone. Well, Julian, my stepbrother, ended up having a copy of that, and he found it before passing away. And we transferred that over to an audio tape, from there to a VHS tape, and now I have it on DVD. We have Babe Ruth’s actual voice, which was eight months to the day before he died, when he was here in Sanford and honored in Sanford. So that about covers everything, Joe.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>How about your immediate family?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Oh, I’m sorry. I have two children. My wife was from Lake Mary. Her name was Yvonne Eubanks, and she passed away five years ago today, on September 9, 2006, here in Sanford Hospital. She had diabetes and her kidneys gave out on her.</p> <p class="Body">We have two children. My son is a lieutenant in the fire department, Lake Mary, and my daughter has moved to Tennessee. She was married to Bill Von Herbulis and had a daughter then. And her daughter, Jessica [Frana], well, anyway, later married. But before that my daughter remarried Steve Frana. His father’s friend owned Tube Tech. It’s a stainless steel plant here in Sanford. And there’s a connection. My son-in-law, Steve, actually made all the space shuttle hinges for their payload doors right here in Sanford. So it goes back to the space program.</p> <p class="Body">But anyway, Steve’s father’s passed on now, but my daughter and Jessica—her daughter by her first husband—they all moved to Tennessee, and have a 45-acre farm up in Tennessee, real nice farm. And Steve had already had four children, two boys and two girls. So then—well, anyway, the total grandchildren I have now are nine, seven by my daughter and two by my son, and I have four great-grandchildren up in Tennessee. And, well, I’m living alone now. And in my latter years, I’m trying to get my family history together, and what we’re doing today, Joe, will help out very much.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris <br /></strong>Well, we definitely appreciate it, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury <br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Just one final question, just ‘cause we’re greedy for history.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Did I mention my daughter’s name?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Ah, just in case, repeat, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>I don’t think I did. My son’s name was Terrence Wade Salsbury. He’s the Lieutenant in the Lake Mary fire department. My daughter’s name is Gale—G-A-L-E, not G-A-I-L, but G-A-L-E—Salsbury Frana—F-R-A-N-A. And, oh, one thing I failed to mention is very important. My daughter’ s first child, Jessica, she’s graduated from Wake Forest [University] and from University of Tennessee. She married a Pete Exline, who was a captain in the U.S. Army. Pete was a graduate of [The United States Military Academy at] West Point. His home was Jacksonville. Pete was sent to Iraq for a year, and upon returning from Iraq, he was put in the university, or Georgia Tech [Georgia Institute of Technology], for nuclear physics training, schooling. And from there and today, he has already started. He is an instructor at West Point, instructing nuclear physics. So my grandson-in-law, whatever, my grandson is teaching nuclear physics at West Point right now. So now you got my end of it. [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>I do, sir. Can you describe the differences from Sanford and the local area now, than it was when you saw it in your earlier days, sir?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Well, from what I remember mostly, you couldn’t go to a restaurant or practically anywhere without running into people you knew. It was a tight area here, and we knew so many people. And I enjoyed growing up here in Sanford. Throughout my life, oh—there is something I want to mention.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>My grandmother—her great-great-grandfather—now because she married, her father was a Tinny in Clearwater, and they were very wealthy, and the family had owned most of what is Downtown Clearwater right now, at the time. Well anyway, her mother was a daughter of a Anna Frank Bellamy. Now, her grandfather was a William Bellamy, the son of Abraham Bellamy, who was one of the first legislators of the state of Florida when it became a state. He was on the committee that wrote the first Florida constitution, and is a signatory of the first Florida constitution, which was, hell. And my grandmother’s uncle, who was a Bellamy—John Bellamy—he paved a road between Tallahassee and St. Augustine, and parts of it is still there with his name on it. And one of the Bellamys also had paved the way for the first railroad line between Port St. Joe in Tallahassee before the other railroad lines in Florida. And the Bellamys owned a plantation. Plantations were among the wealthiest people in the state of Florida at the time, and Madison County, up near Tallahassee, is where they’re buried. But the Bellamys are distant ancestors of mine through my grandmother.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Wow, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>I didn’t want to miss that because I wanted to get that in there somewhere. But my grandmother’s—one of my grandmother’s sisters—well, I’ll go a little further. One of my grandmother’s sisters, she was blind in her old age, but she married a Leslie Evie. Her name was Ebie Evie, and she was a Ebie Tinny Evie. Anyway, she and her husband owned what ended up to be a sort of a hotel later, but it was a boarding house and a post office and a waiver point for ships going down the west coast of Florida. And they stopped in there for provisions and so forth—before Tampa was a Tampa, before St. Petersburg was a St. Petersburg. Back in those days, it was one of the big stops along the way. So my aunt—my great-aunt, Ebie—she even hosted a Russian hierarchy woman that was in the hierarchy of the Russian—in the Russians.</p> <p class="Body">Anyway—but when she was a little girl. They were born—my aunt, grandmother, and her sisters, my great-aunts—they were born in a log cabin at Curlew, on Curlew Creek right there next to Dunedin, between Clearwater and Tarpon Springs in a little town called Dunedin. Curlew’s where they were born in a log cabin. Well, as a young girl, my grandmother’s sister was farmed out to live with a surgeon at Fort Brook in Tampa—before there was a Tampa—the fort there. So this surgeon and his wife raised Ebie as a little girl there, before she got married, anyway, for a number of years. So Fort Brook, in now-Tampa, was involved in all this.</p> <p class="Body">And then, another sister of my grandmother’s, who was a Tinny—born over there at that log cabin, Ira Wood. Ira Wood was her name, after her married name—Ira Tinny Wood. She and Ebie are two people that are very dear to my memory, because I would spend my school years in Sanford, all my summers over there swimming and scalloping and fishing at my grandparents’ there in Ozona, where they lived. And I spent an awful lot of time at their house. My Aunt Ira, her kitchen always smelled like a bakery, or had smell of those cookies, or something baked in there. I’ll never forget it. And then Ebie, she always sat on the front porch at 1981 High Alder, right by their house, and she’d sit on the porch since she was blind. But so many people, and I’m one of them, enjoyed just sitting there talking to her on that screened porch over the years.</p> <p class="Body">And, now, Aunt Ira, who was one of the sisters I was telling you about, of my grandmother, she had a son named Duane—William Duane Wood. That was the name of her husband, but this was William Duane II, and we called him Duane. He and my father were very close, and they grew up together, and he was a naval pilot in World War II. And after he got out of the Navy, he wasn’t a fighter pilot, but he was in the Navy, and he gave me a ride in a Piper Cub he had with floats, there in Ozona. Gave me my first sea plane ride. But anyway, he was hired by the Department of Interior—United States Department of Interior—to oversee Sanibel, the island down there. He lived by the lighthouse, and they provided him an airplane and a launch, and he protected the island from the turtles that, you know, nested there, and different things. He flew up and down the coast and provided samples of water. Anyway, before he died—and I was with him when he passed away over in Tarpon Springs, with my aunt—now that was my aunt that flew in the first airline. But anyway, my uncle<a title="">[5]</a>, Duane Wood, he contributed and helped build the flying model, the Benoist model XIV, which was the air boat that Tony Janus flew in 1914.</p> <p class="Body">And then our president—remember I’m in the Florida Aviation Historical Society—and our president’s gone now, but he flew in 1984, he flew over the same route—this re-model, flying model of the original airplane that flew back in 1914. He flew it over that route, and it’s all documented. And afterwards, it ended up in a museum near Clearwater, and Russell [St.] Arnold, who was a director in the Florida Aviation Historical Society and the primary person responsible for building this flying replica, is the one that gave me my membership and introduced me. I happened to be over showing some videotapes of air shows at Daytona and around to my uncle, Duane, while he was bedridden in Tarpon Springs before he died. Russell [St.] Arnold was there, called him over, and I was able to meet him. And I found out that Duane was instrumental in helping build, or contributing money, contributing something, I don’t what he contributed to the building of this air boat.</p> <p class="Body">Now, in 1991—I think it was, ’90 or ’91—before he died, Russell [St.] Arnold invited myself and my aunt to go see this flying model in the museum. And it was sitting on the floor at the time, and Russ said, “John, get in.” I said, “I can’t do that. That’s a museum piece.” He said, “Well, it’s mine. I guess you can!” I got in there, and he took a photograph of me standing next to it with my aunt standing beside it, and I have a good picture of that. So now, today, the model—that flying model of the Benoist model XIV flying boat—hangs in the museum in St. Petersburg, at the million dollar pier right there at their historical museum, and they’ve got mannequins in the cockpit up there.</p> <p class="Body">But not long ago, a Nicole Stott, who was from Clearwater, flew on the space shuttle as a mission specialist. She carried the banner that flew on the first Benoist model XIV, or on that flight—first flight—with Tony Janus in 1914. She took that aboard the space shuttle, and it’s been returned, and now, if you looked at the airplane hanging in the museum, you’ll see that banner up there that she flew in the space shuttle. Not only that, there’s another connection if you want to hear it, about that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris            </strong>Of course, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Okay. I didn’t know it, but being a member of the Florida Aviation Historical Society, I knew Ed Hoffman[, Sr.], who was a man that started our society, and was instrumental in building this too, and all that with our president. He passed on here a while back, the day before he was supposed to be inducted into Florida Aviation’s hall of fame. And, anyway, his son, Eddie [Hoffman]—Ed was an architect in San—uh, Tarpon Springs. And he did the interior decoration for the famous—world-famous—Pappas [Riverside] Restaurant. It was over at Tarpon Springs. But anyway, his son, Eddie, is a pilot and he has his own plane, and he’s an architect, and he and I are in communication with each other. And he sent me an e-mail a while back. And it so happened that Nicole Stott and her father—or at least the family—were friends of the Hoffmans—my friends. And Nicole Stott’s father was an aerobatic pilot. He liked flying aerobatics. Well, he took up one of the Hoffman’s flying boots[?], and somehow it crashed into a seawall and he drowned sometime back. And so, uh, that was a tragic ending there. But Nicole Stott, his daughter, ended up being a, uh, shuttle mission specialist, and flying a mission—a few missions back. So I just wanted to mention that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Ah. Thank you very much, sir. Do you have anything else you’d like to discuss before we wrap things up?</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>You know, things were out of context and not chronologically spoken. But I’m glad I remembered the things that I did, and I only want to close by saying that photography has meant so much to me now, and I’m enjoying my days now using a digital Nikon camera that I use for the shuttle and getting wonderful wildlife pictures here in Seminole County.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Thank you so much for coming today, sir.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris<br /></strong>Really appreciate that.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Thank you.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Morris  <br /></strong>Okay, go ahead.</p> <p class="Body"><strong>Salsbury<br /></strong>Okay. Something I want to add. In early 1994, Florida Aviation Historical Society’s president, Ed Hoffman, Sr., asked me to get together photographs of the Cape [Canaveral] area—Kennedy, Cape Kennedy—to go in Florida Aviation History in Pictures. It’s going to be made into an exhibit for the Florida Aviation Museum [Florida Air Museum] in Lakeland. And he gave me the assignment of handling the Cape. So, I had contacted Washington[, D.C.] and Houston and obtained the transparencies I needed to have prints made.</p> <p class="Body">And I—well, later—and this was on April the 11^th of ’94—the SUN ‘n FUN air show was going on, and they closed the museum there at Lakeland [Linder Regional] Airport to have a dedication ceremony for our exhibit that the Florida Aviation Historical Society put on—Florida Aviation in Pictures. And so, I attended that, and I had my camera, and I was photographing our president, Hoffman, as he was at the podium, and the director of the SUN ‘n FUN started identifying celebrities or people in the crowd. And he mentioned Curtis Brown, and I lit up and knew immediately who it was. I turned, and I went straight, I left the podium and went straight to him, and I asked him if he would pose for me in front of the exhibit I put together on the Cape, there in the museum. And he did. He posed with me and the president in there, and I didn’t know at the time, but Curt Brown also carried aloft on his mission, STS-66, later. A few months later, he carried aloft a decal and a document from the museum, the SUN ‘n FUN museum. Now it’s the Florida Aviation Museum.</p> <p class="Body">So, as it turned out, I got a chance to meet him and talk with him, and he recalled getting a picture from me of one of the launches when he was at CAPCON, one of the controllers of a mission at Houston. Okay. I told Astronaut Brown that if I got good a picture at his launch, I would send it to him and ask him to autograph it, and so forth. As it turned out, November the 3^rd of that year, it was the best picture I’ve ever taken. And I set up two cameras, same location, just to be—to try to get a good picture, and it turned out that way. It’s done very well for me. In fact, a 30 x 40 is hanging in that Florida Aviation Museum now, in Lakeland, as well as in the Viera Hospital, Viera Hospital over here on the coast, near Kennedy. And then the Kennedy Space Center Media Center, and different places. Anyway, Curt Brown later was the commander of the mission that flew John Glenn back into space.</p> <p class="Body">And, well, I want to back up just a few days, because that dedication ceremony took place on the 11^th of April of 1984. On the 8^th of April of, just a few days earlier, STS-59 <em>Endeavor</em> was to launch on the 8^th. And I was out at the fire training tower in the boonies, which was actually about four miles from the pad where the shuttle was. I was out there getting ready to photograph the launch, and up these metal stairs came Ronald Howard, Opie [Taylor] of <em>The Andy Griffith Show, </em>and now a director, producer—anyway, a movie star. His wife and daughter, along with Tom Hanks and his wife. And NASA escorts had brought them up there right beside me, to where I was shooting from. Well, I had a very powerful pair of binoculars—ten power—and they only weighed about nine ounces—Pentax—and I decided to let them use them to look at the shuttle from where we were. And that was the 8^th of April, and that day, the shuttle was scrubbed and didn’t go up. But the next day, Tom Hanks couldn’t come with his wife. They had to go back or they couldn’t make it, but Ron Howard walked up to the stairs with his wife and daughter, came straight to me, and said, “Your binoculars are on the front page of <em>The Orlando Sentinel </em>this morning.” Here Tom Hanks is with my binoculars, looking at the shuttle.</p> <p class="Body">Well anyway, I let Ron Howard have my binoculars so they could use them to look at the launch. Well, I photographed it, and he let his daughter use them, and they stood right next to me as the shuttle actually launched on the 9^th of April. Well, I told Ron Howard—in fact, I brought the picture of him next to me, I brought that up and he autographed it right on the spot. But I told him that I knew the pilot, Curt Brown—no, Kevin Chilton, I want to back up there. The pilot then was Kevin Chilton. I knew the pilot and I would have an autographed picture sent to him for his daughter, and I did that later. I got a NASA photo, 8 x 10, and had Chilton autograph it, and I sent it to Ron Howard. But, having a chance to meet Ron Howard and Tom Hanks and everything there, for a launch, was a highlight that I don’t want to forget. You can pause if you want to.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Note: These are “over shoes.” Two wooden shaped cow hooves attached to a metal base that would appear to leave cow hoof prints.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Correction: 1942.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> [3] Correction: 1942.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Salsbury worked at Disney-MGM Studios from 1995 to 2000.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Correction: cousin.</p> </div> </div> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/files/original/728e65523012d71068a9e389e9b7eddf.mp3" target="_blank">Oral History of John Louis Salsbury</a> 1st U.S. Volunteer Calvary 9th Street Abraham Bellamy Addie Burke Addie Burke Salsbury Addie Salsbury Air Defense Control Center Al Shepard Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. Alan Shepard American Legion Anna Frank Bellamy Apollo 13 astronauts Babe Ruth Ball, Bettye baseballs Belleview Biltmore Resort Bettye Ball Bettye Ball Deadman Bettye Deadman Bill Von Herbulis Brown, Curtis Buddy Lake Burke, Addie Buzz Aldrin Buzz Lightyear Cape Canaveral Cara Stenstrom Carolyn Patrick Carolyn Patrick Stenstrom Chilton, Kevin Chuck Yeager Clearwater Curlew Curlew Creek Curtis Broke Disney-MGM Studios Donald Knight Douglas Stenstrom Dunedin Ebie Tinny Ebie Tinny Evie Eckerd Ed Hoffman, Sr. Eddie Hoffman Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr. Florida Air Museum Florida Aviation Historical Society Florida Aviation in Pictures Fort Brook Frank Stenstrom Gale Frana Gale Salsbury George Herman Ruth, Jr. Harry Took Henry B. Plant Henry Bradley Plant Herb Stenstrom Hillsborough County Homestead Homestead Air Reserve Base Homestead ARB Hubble Space Telescope Hyman G. Rickover Hyman George Rickover Ira Tinny Ira Tinny Wood Ira Wood Jessica Frana Jessica Frana Exline John Bellamy John F. Kennedy Space Center John Glenn John Herschel Glenn, Jr. John Keeling John Louis Salsbury John Wright Salsbury, Jr. John Wright Salsbury, Sr. Joseph Morris Julian Stenstrom Kathy Thornton Keflavík, Iceland Kent Rominger Kent Vernon Rominger Kevin Chilton Lake Mary Lakeland Lesie Evie Linda McKnight Batman Oral History Project Louis Salsbury Mary Salsbury Mascotte moonshiner’s shoes moonshiners Museum of Seminole County History NAS Keflavík NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration Naval Air Station Keflavík Neil Alden Armstrong Neil Armstrong Nicole Stott Ninth Street Norton AFB Norton Air Force Base Olivette Opie Taylor Ozona Palm Harbor Park Avenue Patricia Stenstrom Patricia Took Patricia Took Stenstrom Pete Exline photographers photography Port Tampa Portsmouth, Ohio press photographers Red Barber Richard McNab Richard Milhous Nixon Richard Nixon Rick Husband Ricky Branch Rommel Rominger Ron Howard Ronald William Howard Rosalind Tinny Rosalind Tinny Salsbury Rough Riders Russell St. Arnold Ruth Stenstrom San Bernardino, California Sanford Sanford Airport Sanford High School Sanford Railroad Station Seminole County Seminole High School Space Shuttle Atlantis Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle Endeavor Space Shuttle Program Spanish-American War Steve Frana Story Musgrave STS-1 STS-59 STS-61 STS-66 STS-80 STS-95 SUN 'n FUN Tarpon Springs Teddy Roosevelt telegraphers Terrence Wade Salsbury The Andy Griffith Show The Orlando Sentinel The Sanford Herald The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Theodore Roosevelt Thomas Jeffrey Hanks Titusville Tom Hanks Tom Jones Tony Janus Trask Avenue Troy Hickson U. S. Air Force Walt Disney World Walter Lanier Barber William Bellamy William Duane Wood, Jr. William Duane Wood, Sr. Wood, Ira Tinny WTRR Sanford Yvonne Eubanks Yvonne Eubanks Salsbury Yvonne Salsbury https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/80b4c2cfe328ed23a797b0b8c7d69036.pdf 78ef0ef46396b4098d30b78b2a0b8c68 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 War in Afghanistan Collection Alternative Title Afghanistan Collection Description Operation Enduring Freedom is the official name for the "military conflict" commonly known as the "War in Afghanistan," which is a group of military actions within the Global War on Terror (GWOT). The operation in Afghanistan is an ongoing conflict between Afghanistan, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) against two Islamic fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan: the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996, the same year that international terrorist and Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden immigrated to the country with the invitation of the Northern Alliance. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States presented the Taliban with a five-point ultimatum to the Taliban government, which was suspected of providing asylum to Al-Qaeda terrorists. After the Taliban rejected the ultimatum and the U.S. rejected Taliban proposals to try suspected terrorists under Islamic Shari'a law, the United States and the United Kingdom initiated military action on October 7, 2001. Although the U.S.-led coalition removed the Taliban from power initially and severely damaged Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the operation has overall had little success in defeating the Taliban insurgency. Operation Enduring Freedom has been transformed into a full war and has thus far lasted significantly longer than expected. Contributor <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/24" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Contributing Project <a href="http://digitalcollections.net.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Subject Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001- Global War on Terror, 2001-2009 Veterans--Florida Coverage Afghanistan Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a><span>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida</span> External Reference <span>"</span><a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a><span>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/.</span> Center of Military History. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/55079497" target="_blank"><em>Operation Enduring Freedom: October 2001-March 2002</em></a>. Washington, D.C.: [U.S. Army Center of Military History], 2004. Neumann, Brian F., Lisa M. Mundey, and Jon Mikolashek. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/856994805" target="_blank"><em>Operation Enduring Freedom</em></a>. 2013. Tripp, Robert S., Kristin F. Lynch, John G. Drew, and Edward Wei-Min Chan. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/427704785" target="_blank"><em>Lessons from Operation Enduring Freedom</em></a>. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2004. Wright, Donald P. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/316737060" target="_blank"><em>A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), October 2001-September 2005</em></a>. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center, 2010. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Williams, Rachel Interviewee Dull, Joshua R. Bit Rate/Frequency 64kbps 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 Joshua "Josh" R. Dull Alternative Title Oral History, Dull Subject Veterans--Florida Air Force Global War on Terror, 2001-2009 Afghan War, 2001- Post-traumatic stress disorder--United States Mental health--Florida Description An oral history of Joshua R. Dull, a Creative Writing student at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, Florida. Dull served in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) during the Global War of Terror (2001-2009) and completed his service as a Senior Airman. Dull discusses his family's military background, his experience in basic training, tech school, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, deployments in Qatar at Al Udeid Air Base and in Afghanistan, operating cryogenics, leisure time in a war zone, maintaining a romantic relationship while deployed, struggles in life after service, and working at the UCF Veterans Academic Resource Center (VARC) and helping veteran students. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction 0:00:26 Early childhood 0:03:45 Basic training 0:06:15 Tech school 0:07:09 Active duty/Davis-Monthan Air Force Base 0:07:47 First deployment - Qatar - Al Udeid Air Base 0:09:20 First impression of Qatar 0:10:07 Locals in Qatar 0:12:09 Memorable day in Qatar/leaving 0:13:45 Second deployment ─ Afghanistan 0:15:42 First impression of Afghanistan 0:17:04 Operating cryogenics elements 0:17:30 Memorable day in Afghanistan/movie night 0:19:11 9/11 in Afghanistan 0:20:52 Rocket attack response 0:22:32 Funny story – sabotaging supervisor 0:24:40 Feelings leaving Afghanistan 0:25:58 Being in relationship while in Afghanistan 0:27:49 Life after service 0:29:45 Awards/medals earned for service 0:31:18 Today's activities 0:32:11 Working at the UCF VARC and helping veteran students 0:32:42 How service has affected life Abstract Oral history of Joshua R. Dull. Interview conducted by Rachel Williams at the <a href="http://www.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">University of Central Florida</a> in Orlando, Florida. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/278/" target="_blank">Dull, Joshua R.</a> Interviewed by Rachel Williams. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, 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://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/96" target="_blank">War in Afghanistan Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 34-minute and 2-second oral history: <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/278/" target="_blank">Dull, Joshua R.</a> Interviewed by Rachel Williams. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. Coverage University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona Al Udeid Air Base, Doha, Qatar Bagram Airfield, Bagram, Parwan, Afghanistan Creator Williams, Rachel Dull, Joshua R. Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-11-13 Date Copyrighted 2014-11-13 Format video/WMA application/pdf Extent 0.98 GB 190 KB Medium 34-minute and 2-second DVD/MP4 audio/video recording 20-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Rachel Williams and Joshua Dull and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Belasco, Amy. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/73526824" target="_blank"><em>The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11</em></a>. [Washington, D.C.]: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2006. Baker, K. J. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/795120466" target="_blank"><em>War in Afghanistan A Short History of Eighty Wars and Conflicts in Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier 1839-2011</em></a>. Dural Delivery Centre NSW: Rosenberg Publishing, 2011. Collins, Joseph J. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/720899564" target="_blank"><em>Understanding War in Afghanistan</em></a>. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2011. Finley, Finley, Erin P. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/732959290" target="_blank"><em>Fields of Combat Understanding PTSD Among Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan</em></a>. Ithaca: ILR Press, 2011. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/278/" target="_blank">Dull, Joshua R.</a> Transcript <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Today is November 13^th, 2014. I am interviewing Mr. [Joshua] "Josh" [R.] Dull, who served in the United States Air Force. He served during the [Global] War on Terror and completed his service as a senior airman. My name is Rachel Williams and I am interviewing Mr. Dull as part of the UCF [University of Central Florida] Community Veterans History Project. We are recording this interview at UCF in Orlando, Florida.</p> <p>Alright. So to start, I’m just going to ask you some basic questions about your early childhood. So can you tell me where you were born?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Melbourne, Florida.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>And what was your child like—childhood like?</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Childhood?</p> <p><strong>Williams <br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>It’s a very broad question. Um, lower middle class suburban. My dad was actually in the Air Force. I was what prompted him to join the Air Force. So my earliest memories are actually in Alaska. That’s where my youngest sister was born, Heather [Dull], and—yeah. We were stationed at Elmendorf [Air Force Base], at the time. Shortly after that, we moved to Washington. We had two houses there, but we lived in the Tacoma[, Washington] area. I think that could be McChord [Field], but I could be mistaken.</p> <p>So my dad got out the Air Force and, um—that year. About 1992-’93, we moved back to Florida, so we could be around our grandparents, because our whole family is from the Brevard County area. So, um, yeah. My parents basically stayed broke trying to give us a good—at least, middle class—upbringing. We had a strong support group with our aunts, uncles, grandparents, especially—few of our cousins. So we moved from there to Wyoming when I was in eighth grade—when I was 13. So that was kind of rough, ‘cause we left that whole support group around. Love my parents and they were good people, but they’re kind of hard-lined disciplinarians and kept us pretty sheltered too. At least me anyway, ‘cause I was the oldest. So…</p> <p><strong>Williams <br /></strong>Alright. So you said your dad was in the Air Force. What did your mother do for a living?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Good question. She kind of bounced around from job to job while we were in Florida. She kind of—her and my dad met at the airport in Melbourne.<a title="">[1]</a> That’s where they—yeah. They were working there at the time and got married from there, but—I don’t know if she worked while my dad was in the Air Force. and then I just remember her having an array of jobs when I was a kid. I think the last one was a—she was a secretary at a[sic] optometrist or an optometry clinic. So she’s working now for Empower Wyoming, which helps teach women self-defense skills, and I believe she has a—yeah. she does something with substance abuse prevention in Wyoming, so yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So your dad served in the Air Force. Did any other family members serve?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>My granddad was in the Navy, on my mom’s side. He was—he served during World War II. I had a couple cousins who were—or great cousins, I guess—who were—I’m not sure—Army or Marines or whatever. They served during Vietnam [War]. Great-grandfather served in World War I. I mean, I currently have one cousin who’s in the Marines. another who’s honorably discharged from the Marines.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So how much education did you have before going into the military?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>High school and like one semester of college.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>How long were you in the service?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Five years.</p> <p><strong>Williams <br /></strong>And when did you start basic training?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>I began basic training on May 20^th of 2008.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>And what did you think of basic training?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Sucked.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Why do you say that?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, let’s see. We were herded onto a bus at about 3 in the morning, and as soon as we stepped off, people are yelling and screaming and cussing at you. Well, actually not necessarily cussing. That wasn’t allowed by this time. back in the day it was. They cuss at you in private, but whatever. But yeah.</p> <p>You know, basic training—it’s not designed to be fun. It’s not designed to be easy. Yeah. my first memories were doing my best to not get yelled at. Kind of following in the group think almost. And I remember we’re standing in our bay outside our beds and there’s this guy named Master Sargent Romero just screaming at us. And he kinda looked like Danny Trejo from <em>Once Upon a Time in Mexico</em>. Scary guy, you know? [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Alright. Describe a typical day during basic training.</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>During basic training? Well, at 4:45 in the morning, <em>Reveille</em> plays. Sleep is fleeing from your eyes as your TI [Training Instructor] and others are screaming at you. “Get up! Get up! You make me sick! Get your ass outta bed!” Whatever. You line up in the hallways and wait for the element leaders or whoever to lead us down—down to the pad, which is outside the squadrons. All the squadrons or all the flights in the squadrons had to sound off—the TIs leading them. You start the day with PT—physical training. So running, push-ups. All the while, people are yelling at you. It got better throughout the course of basic training, but at the beginning, definitely not.</p> <p>Then you had chow. That lasted about five minutes, if you were lucky. You learned to basically just put all your breakfast items between two thick pieces of French toast and that was your breakfast, ‘cause that’s the only way you could eat everything. Then you had to fall out. Then it was just a lot of marching and folding laundry and cleaning up the bay and doing military in-processing stuff. Regular appointments. And also prepping for the graduation ceremony.</p> <p>So nighttime, the TI would have a—at about 5 o’clock, TI would wind down with us. He’d tell us what went on that day, what we need to accomplish the next day. He gradually got nicer as the course of basic training went on. That was also when you got your letters and stuff, so yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Did you have any special training?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Special training? Like, uh…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Anything other than basic training to get you ready for some special…</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Yeah. Everybody goes to—in the Air Force—well, in the Army, it’s called “A-School,” but in the Air Force it’s called “Tech School.” That’s immediately following basic training. My original job was supposed to be Explosive Ordinance Disposal. So that’s what I began doing. Learning about various explosive devices, bombs, missiles, other projectiles; how to disarm them; which is mainly blow them up in place. We actually got to do that. That was pretty cool. One of the highlights of my service. But unfortunately, I didn’t make it through EOD training. Well, actually I say “fortunately” now in retrospect, but yeah.</p> <p>So after that, I went to fuels tech school in Wichita Falls, Texas. And that was completed in six weeks, and then I was ready for active duty.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So, where did you go once you were ready for active duty?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>My first and only duty station was Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>And what did you do there?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>I refueled planes and also worked with the lab out there—the fuels lab. And operated the hydro system as well.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>And how long were you there?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, that was my entire enlistment. However, I deployed out of there twice, so, give or take two deployments, five years. Well, actually, that’s a lie, ‘cause I forgot training and all that. I got there February 2009. So from February 2009 to end of May 2013.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So you said you had two deployments. Where was your first deployment to?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>To [Doha, ]Qatar. Al Udeid Air Base.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>And how long were you there?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Six months, give or take a few days.</p> <p><strong>Williams <br /></strong>And what did you do there?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>I refueled planes. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So describe a typical day when you were deployed there.</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>In Qatar?</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Qatar was an awesome deployment, in retrospect. Well, a typical day was—at least before the Iraq War ended, ‘cause I was there right when that occurred, I think. It was very busy. You’d get there at work at about—well, you rode a bus to work at about—I—6:30 in the morning. Got there at 7. you’d have a morning briefing. Then you’d just take your backpack, you’d load it up—load it up with water, Gatorade—we used these energy drinks called “Rip Its.” If you can find them over here, you, like, stock up on them, because that’s what you had when you were deployed. But yeah, we had like this big stash of just free food that had been donated throughout. You just—that was basically it. You went to truck and you saw the—the shop again for lunch and the—again, when somebody was relieving you for the next shift to come on. After the Iraq—after the actions in Iraq started winding down, though the work load started to decrease, so you actually got to hang out in the building a little more throughout the day. So that was both good and bad. Got a lot of reading done.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So what was your first impression when you got to Qatar?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Mmm. Kind of a culture shock really, ‘cause, to be honest, I had never left the country before that so. And, I guess, the reality of actually being in a deployed zone, like, never in my—at that time, I think, 22-23 years of life—did I ever actually think I would be in that place. and—I don’t know—it was kind of scary at first, ‘cause I’m removed from everything. I don’t have as much freedom, just because—it’s not a distinctly oppressive environment. it’s just long shifts and you’re away from everything. Don’t have a car. Stuff like that. And I got so used to my little world over here that—so it was a bit of an adjustment.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Did you encounter any locals there?</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>What did you think of them?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, Qatar was—that was a very awesome experience, I thought. Very—very eye-opening, in a sense, too. We were actually—because it’s a non-hostile country, we were actually allowed to occasionally go downtown with commander’s approval. I got to do that about three times. I could have done it more, but I worked night shift and that basically meant going off base—meant being awake 24 hours straight [<em>laughs</em>]. But I met, um—I didn’t meet a lot of the actual Qatari nationals, ‘cause they’re considered royalty over there. You see them, but it’s not like you actually stop and converse with them. The few I did, they were seemingly pleasant. Um, there were a lot of Sri Lankan-Nepalese people there that—they worked most the areas and, you know, shops and whatnot.</p> <p>I had my first experience with bargaining. It was an Indian man named Hakthor. I’ll never forget the guy, ‘cause I remember he’s got this jewelry shop. And I just remember I was looking for presents to send home and he tells me a price and I’m like, “No. I’m not paying that.” He’s like—so he sits here, like trying to justify. He’s like yelling, so I’m yelling back at him like, “No. No way. There’s no way I’m paying for that.” I’m finally walking out the door, I say—he’s like, “Come on. Just tell me a price.” I’m like, “Fine. I’ll give you about 400 riyal for that and that’s it. I’m leaving.” He’s like, “You know how much I sell these for? 800 riyal. I’ll do it for you, but nobody else.” So after I buy it, suddenly he’s my best friend. He’s like, “Thank you so much,” and starts giving me all this free stuff, asking me if I want tea. Pours me up some tea, asks me if I want it with milk, and we just sat there and talked. I still remember where his shop is, so if I’m ever in the souqs in Doha, Qatar, I know all I got to do is walk down this little alleyway and turn right and I can find Hakthor’s shop. So yep.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So tell me about your most memorable day there.</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>My most memorable day in Qatar?</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Leaving [<em>laughs</em>]. Um, I don’t know, ‘cause most of the days were just so similar. Even the days off—like, I had my own routine. Um—crap. Most memorable day—yeah…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Well, why don’t you tell me about leaving—that day.</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Okay. Well, it was a very elating experience, because you spent six months just daydreaming about all the stuff you were going to do once you got back. Because that’s one thing you realize once you get there, is how much of being stateside you take for granted. like being able to just drive somewhere and see people, just being able to go to your favorite sushi restaurant, or you know, just the various things you can do to unwind, like hiking out in the desert. That was something I liked to do out there.</p> <p>There was a place called Picacho Peak [State Park] between Phoenix[, Arizona] and Tucson. I’d just—randomly, I’d drive there and hike the thing and come down, but you can’t do that over there. You live in a very small compound and—similar area, so—it was—everybody actually cheered when my plane actually left the tarmac, ‘cause we were finally going home. So…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So that was your first deployment.</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Where was your second deployment?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>That was Afghanistan.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>And what was it like there?</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Not as cushy [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Williams        </strong>How so?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, because you don’t get to go off base there, ‘cause it’s actually dangerous outside. V-22 rockets and mortars are launched at you about twice a week. A little bit more during Ramadan, ‘cause I was deployed for those months. 9/11<a title="">[2]</a> was a particularly scary day. I’m sure those questions are coming up though.</p> <p>But no, there’s the big burn pits. The air was always kind of smoky. The place was kind of just like—I was in Bagram Airfield[, Bagram, Parwan, Afghanistan], and it was basically like living on a big construction site with an airport. So a lot of left over buildings from the early days of the campaign, and also from the Russian occupation.<a title="">[3]</a> Right where I was living, there was this big, old, disused—well, it’s been renovated, but it used to be the air traffic control tower when the Russians<a title="">[4]</a> owned it. So we—it was rumored to be haunted. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So how long were you in Afghanistan?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>That was six months and some change. We actually got held over for a couple weeks. We were supposed to be back around Thanksgiving. didn’t get back until December 4^th. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Why was that?</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Um, it’s tough to catch a flight out of there, to be honest. They had to constantly change the itineraries. ‘Cause every time somebody updates on social media, they see it, and then they got to change it, so someone outside isn’t watching and knowing what planes to shoot at. At least that was what I was told. I don’t know.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Makes sense.</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>What did you think of Afghanistan when you first got there?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>I was a little more prepared for it, but when I finally saw, like, the living quarters and just the base itself, I thought, <em>Man, I miss Qatar.</em> I used to complain about that place and—yeah. yeah. At least I had a swimming pool there [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So in what way was Afghanistan’s living quarters different from Qatar’s?</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Well, in Qatar—in Qatar, I lived in these things called—well, I don’t remember what the name for them was. I think it was “trailers” probably. It was two to a room—I mean, it was supposed to be four to a room, but they didn’t do that to you. They just put you in with two people. You had like a mini fridge and all that. Bathrooms were located outside though. that kind of sucked. It was basically just this long hallway with rooms off each side, and it was a single-story building. Guys and girls in both buildings—in—in the building. So you weren’t allowed to go in each other’s rooms but, you know.</p> <p>Afghanistan—there were more dorm-like buildings. They were about three or four stories. Had bathrooms located inside, so that was cool. But it was like three and four to a room and a lot smaller. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So what were your duties in Afghanistan?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Afghanistan—I ran the cryogenic element and the fuels department. So basically, my duties were to store liquid oxygen and issue it to the various agencies on base that needed it. mainly aerospace ground equipment. I was also in charge of shipping and receiving replacement cryogenic fluid from Al Udeid. So…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>And what was your most memorable day in Afghanistan?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Hmm. Once again, a lot of similar days. I’ll say one of my favorite memories from that was the first time we had a movie night, just—yeah. It’s simple, but it was fun. I mean, it was towards the end, and I guess we were kind of like finally growing closer as a unit, just the few of us that were on day shift.</p> <p>So one night, we decided to make this like, uh—it was somebody’s day off, so that’s how we do it. it was a tradition. We’d run to the chow hall and load up on like whatever free food we could get. It was all free, but, you know. Then we just rolled back to—we had this tent that was basically designated for recreation and stuff, like there was stuff to work out with. It was a big open space and you could just go in there and chill. And one of our supervisors—this guy, Sargent Little, had a projector. And so we just put a big sheet up, and just picked a movie off of somebody’s external, and just sat there and hung out. I mean, if there had been a 12-pack right there, it would have felt like home. So…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Do you remember what movie you watched?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, I remember we watched <em>Spider-Man</em> and [<em>The</em>]<em> Cabin in the Woods</em>—a couple others. So I don’t know. It was just one of those—it was where it almost felt like I was back home, so that was kind of cool.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So you said that 9/11 was particularly kind of scary. Why was that?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>That’s ‘cause rockets were falling out of the sky all night around base. Every time—and every time something explodes, like usually they landed on the opposite side of where I was—the east side of base. so you’d hear a boom somewhere. It sounded like somebody was setting a dumpster down, you know? But then, all of a sudden, you’d hear the alarms going off and “Incoming! Incoming!” if they saw it on time. If they didn’t see it, then it’s “IDF<a title="">[5]</a> impact! Take shelter! Don IBA!”<a title="">[6]</a> You hear every emergency vehicle on the base and that just kept going on all night.</p> <p>They were trying to have—they had a commemorative, like five—not 5K [kilometer]—but like “fun run” or something for, you know—to commemorate 9/11,<a title="">[7]</a> which, I think—I thought was a stupid idea, but that’s just me. Gathering a bunch of people in one spot in a war zone. Sure enough, at—this is the first time a rocket landed during the day. It’s like 8 in the morning, the sun’s up, and I just—I was in the bathroom, I heard “BOOM!” And I thought, <em>They have a signal gun or something? They never shoot at us during the day.</em> Sure enough, I hear the alarm. “IDF impact! Take shelter!” So that was when they actually started attacking us, you know, during the day, at more sporadic, less predictable times, so…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So in that event, what did you do? Like when they were attacking during the day?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, you stay in your dorm basically. You weren’t allowed to leave. If they—if you were like, you know—if you had to take shelter, there’s[sic] bunkers that you can dive into if you’re caught outside. If there’s nothing around, you’ve got to basically hit the ground, open your mouth, cover your ears.</p> <p>But that definitely wasn’t the worst one, as far as my experience though. Worst one came a couple weeks later. I was, thankfully, still in the dorms, but, the PAX [passengers] terminal right across the street got hit, and that was a loud rocking explosion. Like, it was wasn’t just the sound of, you know, a dumpster being set down. It was real. like I jumped out of my seat. I was sitting there reading, and one of my roommates was outside, and he came running upstairs white as a ghost saying, “I heard it whistle right over my head.” And suddenly you just start to hear stuff just exploding all over the base. I was actually kind of scared at that one—at that point. So we were—yeah, I think I was about an hour—two hours late to work. One of our fuel trucks got hit. One of the contractors was driving it. If he had been parked about three feet back, he’d be dead. Our expeditor pick-up actually took shrapnel too. Busted out the back windows, holes up and down sides. So that was the closest to home it came. Actually, I think I kept a piece of shrapnel. So yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams        </strong>So do you have any, like—a funny story that sticks out in your mind while being either in Qatar or in Afghanistan?</p> <p><strong>Dull                </strong>Um, yeah. Can I say it on a camera?</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Go for it.</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Okay. We had a supervisor that pissed us off. He was this guy named Sargent Myer and—just no one liked him but supervision. He threw people under the bus. He was in charge of another shop and he just dealt out these draconian punishments for rules that didn’t even exist. Like doing a walk around. Walking around your truck to inspect it after you parked it. It’s not necessary, but somebody didn’t do that, so he took away all their reading materials—whatever. This guy was a douche.</p> <p>So I found out about a site called stickerjunkie.com, where you can pay like 25 dollars for a hundred stickers. So I was bored one day sitting at my computer, and I decided to mess around with it and wrote, “Sergeant Myer licks balls and jerks off donkeys with his mouth.” [<em>laughs</em>] My supervisor read it. He’s like, “That’s hilarious. You’re not buying that, are you?” And I’m like, “We get hazardous duty pay. sure, why not?” I bought a hundred of those stickers and distributed them to everybody in the—in the flight that was in on it. And those are to this day still decorating various places in Bagram Airfield, Kyrgyzstan Air Base,<a title="">[8]</a> um, a jet engine somewhere in Al Udeid. Yeah [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>How did your supervisor feel about that? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, he didn’t find out until like the last day we left. He saw one of them sitting on the USO [United Service Organizations. So he’s like, “Oh, no.” He tried to laugh it off, you know, like, “It’s cool. I’m not mad,” but he was. He had no idea who did it to him either.</p> <p><strong>Williams <br /></strong>So did you serve anywhere else overseas other than Qatar and Afghanistan?</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>What did—or how did you feel once you were leaving Afghanistan? Describe your last day there.</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Um, a lot of kind of mixed emotions. I was definitely glad, but—I don’t know. There was just a lot—um, my plan was—well, this is what ended up happening. My deed of discharge was coming up about four months after I got back from Afghanistan. So there was a lot of that on my mind. Knowing that once I landed, I was pretty much gonna have to start getting ready to, um, basically end my entire military career and move back to Florida. Most of that was already in the works. It was just applying to UCF and getting my affairs in order, so there was a bitter sweetness.</p> <p>Plus, I was in a relationship that was kind of just on its downward spiral. Like, I’d actually—we’d actually broken up once like a week before I got back, but then got back together and—I don’t know. it was just different. I was definitely glad to be back, of course, but it wasn’t—it wasn’t the elating experience that it was leaving Qatar. I guess, just because—I don’t know. I was in a different place then. So…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So you said that you were in a relationship while you were overseas in Afghanistan?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>What was that like?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Hmm. Well, definitely strained. Part of it was—I don’t know. Um, it was cool at first, but that was because we had like just met up before I left, so we were still in that stage of the relationship. We were talking everyday, messaging each other on Facebook, talking about the future when I get back. I’d always—I’d post YouTube songs on her Facebook, you know. Cute stuff like that.</p> <p>But, after a while, it just sort of—I don’t know—tapered off. I said something insensitive at some point, I guess. I don’t know. I’d probably be—I undoubtedly became insensitive, because, after a while, the stress of the place just gets to you. Pretty soon you can’t, you know—you’re not in a good mood. When you’ve seen enough fallen warrior ceremonies—I helped out with a couple casket missions. I had to see casualties, um, you know—you see stuff like that, suddenly you don’t really want to sit here and type out, “Oh, I love you,” and “Hugs and kisses,” and “Butterflies,” and, you know. So she sees that change and can’t really appreciate it, I guess. so pretty soon, every conversation we were having was just—had this undercurrent of like—what’s the word I’m looking for—I actually wrote a non-fiction piece about it that described it perfectly, but I’ll be damned if I can think of it now. But yeah. Needless to say, there was a lot of strain on that. I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So what has life been like after leaving the service?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>It was a stressful transition for me, but part of that was ‘cause, as soon as I landed from Afghanistan, I was trying to deconstruct that life and try and start a new one so. I didn’t really have the time to come down from it, I guess. Um, yeah. I dealt with a lot of just anxiety and depression. I had some—I’d say alcohol abuse. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but it was enough to where it was causing certain people—the VA [Veterans Administration] and others concern. Yeah.</p> <p>So I don’t know, there was a long period when I first got back here where I was consistently pissed off 24/7. If I wasn’t mad, pissed off, whatever, I was depressed. Um, it sucks, but I only remember like one or two days of that first summer here being actually, you know, kind of happy and at peace. Part of that is just—school’s tough, and part of it was an end of another relationship in Arizona that was anterior to the military. But, also yeah. Just having to face that lack of structure for the first time in a while and kind of being in an alien place again. so…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So do you feel like you still kind of deal with that depression and anxiety today? Or have you kind of gotten over it a little bit?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>I’m definitely a lot better off now than I was a year ago. So it’s still there, but most of that is mostly early childhood stuff that, according to my psychotherapist, was reactivated by my experiences in the military. So, um, yeah. So still kind of a struggle, but not near as bad.</p> <p><strong>Williams <br /></strong>When was your discharge date for the military?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>19 May 2013.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>And did you earn any awards or medals for your service?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Mmhmm. There are several medals that they give you, like I have Outstanding Unit Award. That wasn’t a personal achievement. That was—I won an achievement medal for my duties in Qatar, actually. and that was probably the only one I can think of that I earned on my own personal merit. And that was just for, um—for working hard, basically being proactive. I impressed enough people and also did some volunteering there too. I took some college courses while I was over there and helped process some blood units to send to other areas of the AOR [area of responsibility]. so…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So what are you doing today?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Today? As in—this. Okay. So today I’m doing an oral history project. Then I’m—I’ve got a class—Women in Hispanic Literature. then I’m going to be conducting my own interview on my friend, Lynette, for that same class. I’m supposed to go to my anthropology lecture hall today, and then community group at my church tonight. and that’s about it. Revising a story.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So what do you do in like your everyday life now-a-days?</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Day-to-day life. I work at the VARC [Veterans Academic Resource Center] about three hours a day there. just helping out other student veterans with whatever issues they have. Our big focus this semester, besides Military Appreciation Week, was just trying to get people off the academic probation list, touching base with them, seeing what we can do to them to help them out and try to direct them to whatever resources we have available for them.</p> <p>Then I’m taking a full course load. I’m majoring in Creative Writing, so—taking Women in Hispanic Lit, ‘cause you need literature courses and diversity. Advanced Fiction Writing. I’m an intern at <em>The Florida Review</em>, as well. So I’ve been doing a lot of work with them. And then just a gen[eral]-ed[ucation] class. so…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Do you feel that working at the VARC and helping other veteran students—do you feel like that helps you as well?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>In what ways?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, it’s fulfilling to know that you can—that you’ve helped somebody out. And I also enjoy interacting with the other veterans on campus too. I’ve grown pretty close with the work study staff there, as well. Like, we all hang out together and everything. And I’ve made a lot of friends just from people coming in and out of the—out of the VARC. So…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>So how did your time in the Air Force affect your life today?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Well, mostly positive. I mean, before I was living in an apartment in Cocoa Beach with a drug dealer, and a—yeah—psychopath. and I basically had a decision to make. It was either stay in this lifestyle and struggle. I’d undoubtedly end up in jail. No future there. I was always working minimum wage jobs.</p> <p>Or I could join the military, have a shot at going to college. I’d always wanted to be an author, and I’d always wanted to go to college, but didn’t really get that opportunity coming out of high school. So the military definitely served its purpose. The GI Bill [Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944] had been excellent. I’m done with most of the requirements for my degree next semester. So, yeah. I’ve basically attained a dream. Came at a price though, but…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Is there anything else that we have not discussed that you would like to talk about?</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>Hmm. Not that I can think of.</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Alright.</p> <p><strong>Dull<br /></strong>I’m better with questions, so…</p> <p><strong>Williams<br /></strong>Alright. Well, that will conclude the interview. Thank you so much for your service and for talking with us today.</p> <p><strong>Dull <br /></strong>Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Melbourne International Airport.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> September 11^th.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Correction: Soviets.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Indirect fire.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Interceptor body armor.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> Terrorist attacks on September 11^th, 2001.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> Correction: Manas Air Base.</p> </div> </div> Date Issued 2015-01 Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. 9/11 Attacks Abu Nakhlah Airport Afghan War Afghanistan airman airmen Al Udeid AB Al Udeid Air Base alcohol abuse alcoholism Anchorage, Alaska anxiety Bagram Airfield bargaining basic training Brevard County cryogenics Danny Trejo Davis-Monthan AFB Davis-Monthan Air Force Base deployment deployments depression Doha, Qatar drug addictions Dull, Heather Dull, Josh R. Dull, Joshua "Josh" R. Elmendorf AFB Elmendorf Air Force Base Empower Wyoming EOD Explosive Ordinance Disposal fuels department fuels tech school GI Bill Global War on Terror GWOT Hakthor Heather Dull Indians Iraq War Josh Dull Joshua R. Dull liquid oxygen Little McChord Field Melbourne Melbourne International Airport mental health Middle East Middle Easterner military family military training Myer Nepalese Once Upon a Time in Mexico Outstanding Unit Award oxygen Picacho Peak State Park post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD Qatar Qataris Rachel Williams Ramadan Reveille Rip It rocket attacks Romero September 11 Attacks Servicemen's��s Readjustment Act of 1944 souq Soviet Union Soviet War in Afghanistan Spider-Man Sri Lankan substance abuse Tacoma, Washington tech school terrorism terrorists The Cabin in the Woods The Florida Review Tucson, Arizona U.S. Air Force UCF UCF VARC University of Central Florida USAF V-22 VARC veterans Veterans Academic Resource Center War in Afghanistan Wichita Falls, Texas Wyoming https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/6a82568db5bb07ee8caf1a9b812a0f4f.pdf d467a57870f16365bd090a56a642e91a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Schneider, Sarah Interviewee Aulin, Julia Nadine Davis Location <a href="http://www.ocls.info/locations/Alafaya/alafaya.asp?from=vurl_alafaya" target="_blank">Alafaya Branch Library</a> in Orlando, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video recording Duration 50 minutes and 6 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 941kbps Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Julia Nadine Davis Aulin Alternative Title Oral History, Aulin Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Description An oral history interview of Nadine Davis Aulin, conducted by Sarah Schneider at the Alafaya Branch Library of the Orange County Library System in Orlando, Florida, on March 13, 2015. Born in 1945, Aulin grew up in Orlando and migrated to Oviedo as an adult. Aulin married Andrew Aulin, the grandson of a founding member of Oviedo, the eldest Andrew Aulin, Sr. (1843-1918). Interview topics include growing up in Orlando, migrating to Oviedo, how Oviedo has changed over time, the history of the Aulin family, and the founding of Oviedo. Table Of Contents <br />0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:01:38 Oviedo in the 1960s <br />0:07:44 How Oviedo has changed over time <br />0:12:06 Mary Alice Powell Aulin <br />0:18:24 Oviedo’s Centennial <br />0:19:37 Andrew Aulin, Sr. <br />0:28:45 The Lees and the Lawtons <br />0:33:18 Alice Aulin, Andrew Aulin, Jr., and Oviedo during World War II <br />0:39:25 Colloquial expressions and historical artifacts <br />0:46:10 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Nadine Davis Aulin. Interview conducted by Sarah Schneider at the <a href="http://www.ocls.info/locations/Alafaya/alafaya.asp?from=vurl_alafaya" target="_blank">Alafaya Branch Library</a> in Orlando, Florida, on March 13, 2015. Type Moving Image Source Aulin, Julia Nadine Davis. Interviewed by Sarah Schneider, March 13, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format 30-page digital transcript of original 50-minute and 6-second oral history: Aulin, Julia Nadine Davis. Interviewed by Sarah Schneider, March 13, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Coverage Oviedo, Florida Creator Aulin, Julia Nadine Davis Schneider, Sarah Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2015-03-12 Date Modified 2016-01-14 Date Copyrighted 2015-03-12 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 232 MB Medium 50-minute and 6-second audio/video recording 30-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Julia Nadine Davis Aulin and Sarah Schneider, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;GRid=69149825" target="_blank">Andrew Aulin</a>." Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;GRid=69149825. "<a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-01-13/news/9301130107_1_oviedo-sanford-grandchildren" target="_blank">MARY ALICE AULIN, 83, Myrtle Avenue, Oviedo, died Tuesday...</a>" <em>The Orlando Sentinel</em>, January 13, 1993. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-01-13/news/9301130107_1_oviedo-sanford-grandchildren. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/jbZLM5i5vB8" target="_blank">Oral History of Julia Nadine Davis Aulin</a> Transcript <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Alright, so we’re here with, um, Ms. Nadine [Davis] Aulin, conducting an oral history interview. Um, the interview is conducted by myself, Sarah Schneider, at the Alafaya [Library] Branch of the Orange County Library System, um, in Orlando, Florida. It’s Friday, March 13^th, twe—2015, and, um, the interview will cover topics about Oviedo’s history and the Aulin family’s history, and, um, this is being done for the UCF [University of Central Florida] Public History introduction class, um, for their project on Oviedo’s history. So welcome. Thank you for talking with us today.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I’m glad to be here.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, and so could you start off just introducing yourself, um, to the camera. So tell yourself a little—tell us a little bit about yourself, um, where you grew up, and how long you’ve been in Oviedo.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Okay, I, um, was born and raised in Orlando. Um, remember Orlando from when it was, uh, 75,000 until now. uh, I married my husband<a title="">[1]</a> in 1965, and prior to that, I had been to Oviedo many times. my grandparents lived in Chuluota, uh, but I wasn’t, you know, didn’t really know people from Oviedo, but, uh, my husband, uh, went to Vietnam in 1965 through ’66, and during that time, uh, I lived with his aunt, who was, uh, Nettie [Dorcas] Jacobs Aulin. She was married to, uh, Theodore Aulin, who everybody called “The Judge,”, because he was Justice of the Peace.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Ah.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, in addition to that, my mother-in-law,<a title="">[2]</a> at that time, was living and she lived in Oviedo, and we had a close relationship.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, great, um, and so what was life like in or—in Oviedo when you moved here—in the area?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, it was sorta cool. Um, the big events happened through the [First] Methodist Church [of Oviedo] or the [First] Baptist Church [of Oviedo]. uh, anything that was going on it was either through that or the—or the [Seminole County Public] Schools. Um, people—it was a big deal to go into Orlando out to eat. You know, you didn’t just do that willy-nilly. You, eh—it was an occasion.</p> <p>Um, what I loved about that time is, uh, Oviedo had one police officer, and that was, um, George Kelsey, and his family had been here I think as long as the Aulins, uh, and he, uh, took care of the town. He, uh, would sleep, I think, in the early morning and then be around 18 hours a day doing his job, and he did it well. I don’t think we had too much crime. Uh, one of the things is, uh—Aunt Nettie—when I was living with her, we had an armadillo that bothered us, and she called Mr. Kelly[sic]—Mr. Kelsey to, uh, come get rid of that armadillo, and he says, “Well, Aunt Nettie, I’ll—I’ll be there as soon as I can. I just got in bed,” and she said, “Well, he’s out in our yard now, you need to come by now.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So he did. He came, and, uh, he says, “Okay. Well, I’m here. Where’s the armadillo?” And we—of course, the armadillo was gone by the time he got there, and she says, “Well, just hang around. you can shoot it,” and he says, “I don’t think I’m gonna be shooting armadillos, Aunt Nettie,” and—because, you know, everybody called everybody “Aunt” or “Ms.” or—you know, it wasn’t just first names, and she was, uh—one of his best friend’s son, er—her son was one of his best friends, and so, of course, he wanted to accommodate her, but he didn’t [<em>laughs</em>]—he wanted to be shooting armadillos in Downtown Oviedo. We lived right across from the Baptist church.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So that wouldn’t have gone over very well, but that’s just sorta how Oviedo was back in those days—is that everybody knew everybody, and, uh, like the mayor of the time was, uh—oh, gosh, what was his name?<a title="">[3]</a> He was so nice. Um, it’ll come to me, but anyway, he used to go to the post office every morning and bring me my mail. You know, you’re not supposed to let somebody have somebody else’s mail, but he would bring me my mail, because my husband, being in Vietnam, he would write to me every day, and so this mayor would, uh—gosh, why can’t I think of his name? Um, he would bring me my mail, and, uh, it was just sorta, you know—sorta like, uh, small town, uh, neighborly kinda things that went on, back in those days.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Great, great, and did you mention, um—what year did you come to Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I was, uh…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>I’m not…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>We got married in ‘65, and he soon left to go to Vietnam right after that. So, yeah, ’65.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And I was working at the Townhouse Restaurant, and it was like a year old</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>When I started to work there.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Wow, uh, huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And so it’s been an institution…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>For many years now.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, Um, and what kinds of people—what kinds of jobs did people have in town around that time?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, most everybody worked at either the packin’ house or in the groves, and you know, of course, there was the insurance companies, and there was real estate, uh, people back, at that time. Oviedo was beginning to build up, because the [Florida Technological] University<a title="">[4]</a> was in the works…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And people were moving out this way and buying houses, and, um—but farming and, um, the citrus was[sic] the main jobs, uh, I think, uh, at the time. At some point in time, I went to work for Citizens Bank [of Oviedo],<a title="">[5]</a> and at that time, it was like the, uh, only—the—the next largest business that wasn’t, uh, uh, the packin’ house…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>You know, and, uh, I think it was the only building, at that time, that had an elevator, and it may still be.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I don’t know. I can’t—I don’t know if there’s any buildings in the actual town that has an elevator, besides that. Maybe they do. I don’t know, but that was sort of a big deal that they had an elevator...</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>To [inaudible], uh, but yeah. There was one—I—I I’m trying to think if there was any other major jobs. Uh, there was your, uh—you know, you had school teachers and that kind of thing, but mostly it was farming.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Something to do with farming.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, and you mentioned people going to Orlando. that was a special treat. What other kinds of things did people do for fun in town?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Oh, back then they, uh—ball games. They were really into, um, the different ball games, so like baseball, football. The Oviedo, um—had just—the [Oviedo] High School had just started over, at, uh, Career Field, and, uh, they had their first football game—a team for the school’s in 1964—maybe ‘63—but it was a very good team. By 1965, they had, uh, uh—were winning a lot of games, and people really supported them, and, eh, little league and—and all that. people were really into that. I remember [<em>laughs</em>] when we came home from, uh, our honeymoon, the—after we took our luggage to his mother’s house—we went to, uh, a baseball game.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>You know, who does that?</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] But, eh, you know, it was the community thing, I think, uh, maybe because the community was so small, but people were active. If, um, you—even if you didn’t have children playin’ ball, you still wanted to go to support them and be there, and, uh, it was just, like I said, small town U.S.A.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, great. Um, and so what is Oviedo-life like today? What…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well [<em>laughs</em>]...</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I—I think that, um—I, uh, think that it’s still very neighborly, but more secular. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I think there’s, uh—you know, people who live out on this side of town sort of do their kind of thing with their kids and their schools, and on the other side of town, the same thing, you know? I think that, uh, it—I—I think Oviedo still sort of has a reputation of being friendly and has that small town atmosphere kind of thing. Um, I don’t know if you’ve looked on the website. There’s an Oviedo community web—website, and people…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Go in with their gripes and—or their happy things, or…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>You know, whatever. So it’s still, uh—technology’s sorta caught up with us, and...</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But I don’t think in a negative way. I think that’s sort of a good thing.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Great, um, and has—is there anything else that has changed in Oviedo since you’ve lived here that you—that you’ve noticed?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Oh, I’m sure they’re lots of changes that I, you know—of course, they’re building new buildings and tearing down old buildings. Um, citrus has not gained or even [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] and citrus is leaving us, and so is, uh, when—when we were first—when I first came here to Oviedo, um, out in Black Hammock, there was celery growing and cabbage and onions, and there was always something growing out there, and Now, there’s really nothing. There’s palm trees, but with the building industry not being too hot, they’re just growing and growing. They’re not being sold, uh, and I don’t even see much sod being sold. Um, uh, we, uh—all that has changed. It’s just not agriculture any more, and, uh, you know, then, uh, it’s modern times. I think people are, um, you know, since we’ve started here, there’s been integration, and so, that’s a big difference in Oviedo. um, people working together of different races and things like that, and I think it’s going pretty well.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Um, so…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay, great. Um, so do you have any other stories—memorable stories about your time living in Oviedo, um, while you’ve been living there?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>There’s been like the—I think it was, uh, one of the packing houses out on, uh, [Florida State Road] 46 caught on fire. This was in the early maybe 70s—maybe late 60s…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, that was a huge deal. I mean, everybody, uh, was going out to see that fire….</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, but, uh—and of course, there’s been, u, funny things that’s happened, and I—right now, I can’t think of any[<em>laughs</em>], but, uh—you know, personal things—but, uh, eh, Just the change and the times, and the university, like I said, started it all. Uh, people started moving out here and then, because there was now new bedroom communities. Uh, then other businesses, that catered to that, have moved out here. I mean, we’ve got so many food, you know, restaurants and places to get food, and, uh, we don’t—and, you know, we’ve got a [Oviedo] Mall. Who would’ve ever though Oviedo would have a mall, and all these different places? Uh, It’s, uh, a very—like if—if you think back—1965 and today—it’s like two different worlds…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Until you get down to the nitty gritty of it and start talking to people that actually live here. They still—still, I think, sorta have the same mindset.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I think.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh. Um, alright. So what family stories have you heard, uh, about Oviedo’s early history? So before you lived here.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, my, um, mother-in-law, who I, uh, learned so much from, she, uh, came here when she was I think 17—maybe 18 years old—from Lake Monroe, Florida, which is right outside of, uh, Sanford. Uh, she came out here because there was a lady that was running the hotel in Oviedo, that was right where the main red light is, um, in Oviedo. It was sort of east, uh, or south of that, and, uh, since then, of course, it’s burned down, and—but, uh, she came out to actually take care of the lady’s children while the lady ran the hotel. The [?] t turned into—she became like the telephone operator there, and, uh, I think she is noted as the first telephone operator in, uh, Oviedo, because, you know, that was a big deal back then too, and she, uh—that’s where she met her husband.<a title="">[6]</a> Uh, he worked across the way at the packing house with his, you know—his—the people who owned the packing house were relatives of his. Not that—I—I don’t think it was nepotism that he had a job there. It’s just there were not many other places to work, but, um, she met him there, and she learned how to pack fruit just by sittin’ around. I guess that was their courting days, you know?</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>“Here, let me show you how [<em>laughs</em>] to pack fruit.”</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But, uh—and she used to tell me, um, or she told me once that, uh, she—when they courted, uh, her husband’s, uh, cousin, would loan him his car, and it was a roadster, and I never quite got the concept of what a roadster is, but I do know that, uh, one of the cars that they rode around in had the rumble seat in the back</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Ah.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And when they would double date, she and her husband always had to be in the rumble seat, but when it was just the two of them, they would—a big date would be him taking her to Lake Monroe to visit her parents [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So—but anyway, they, uh—they—she used to tell me stories about how they dressed, and, you know, her husband, um, was sort of dashing. I think he wore this straw, Panama hat or somethin’, and, uh, she was a great seamstress, so she made all her clothes, and she was seamstress for Oviedo. She, uh, made so many wedding dresses for people, and, uh, I think she sewed for about—oh, gosh. I want to say about 40 years…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And she was really great. Uh, she would make you clothes that—as a matter of fact, there was one person in Oviedo that used to take her to, uh, Winter Park, and they would sketch out the dresses in the windows…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then she would come back and make them for this person, and, you know, for hardly any money at all, and in Winter Park, it would cost like, 20 times whatever she charged…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Because they were very nice dresses, but, uh—and she did that up until she was in her ‘60s.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, everybody loved to have her make them a dress, and she always was—loved to do it, because it was like her calling. It was her art. It was her thing, and, uh, she really enjoyed that very, very much, and, uh, of course, it was the different people that would come there. She had these, um—what do they call them? Dress models?</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, and she had one that was—one lady that was sort of heavy, and that’s what she called it—by this lady’s name, and, um, I’m not saying their names, ‘cause their families all—still are here.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then there’s another one that the lady was quite tall, and she called it that, and then finally she got this little short, fat, one and she called it Nadine [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And she used to make me my clothes, even when we were stationed in Germany or wherever. She’d send me, uh, my clothes, and they would be perfect every time. So, um, she was very, very talented at that, and I, uh, think that, uh—like I said, I think that it was her art, and she enjoyed doing it, and I think a lot of people, uh, of that era enjoyed working. I don’t think you see that so much anymore.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And I think people, uh, of my father’s age and, uh, Andy’s parents, they just sorta took their job very, very seriously, and it was their thing. It was, you know—they had pride in what they were doing. It wasn’t just—and of course, they had to earn money, and they didn’t earn that much for whatever they were doing, but still it was their—their art. It was their art.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So there’s, um—some of the funny stories would be, uh, Andy’s uncle, eh, Theodore, who they all called Fifi, um, he didn’t [<em>laughs</em>] believe in change. So like, if they put in a traffic light or a stop sign where they never had had one before, he never paid—after he got old, he never paid any attention for—to it.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, he was just—and George, the policeman, would just say, “Well, that’s Uncle Fifi. We just have to watch out for him.” [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And there was other people like that. there were what you call “characters” around the town, and—and that’s what people did—is they just sorta said, uh, “Well, that’s who they are,” and, you know, you just have to watch out for them, and I think that’s where the lovely—lovely thing about Oviedo and small towns everywhere, I’m sure.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And so, uh, don’t know what else…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, that’s great, um, and you mentioned the—being a telephone or switchboard operator. Um, so what were the name—what was her name? [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Her name was Alice.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Alice?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Mary Alice Aulin.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Um, yeah. Uh, she did that, and, uh, as a matter of fact, when they did the centennial here, I, uh—they recognized her for that, and, um, it was very nice, um, and that was a nice thing too. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you got information about that, but that centennial thing was really a nice thing that Oviedo did. Uh, brought everybody together, and then people that were new got to know more about what was going on. uh…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>There was, like, memorial celery vase.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Have you heard that or seen that? Uh…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>I haven’t seen it. no.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, uh, most of us have one that were around at that time, uh…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And that’s when, um, Mr. Neely’s book<a title="">[7]</a> came out.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, or Miss [Donna] Neely’s. I guess it was Ms. Neely’s. Uh, Dr., uh—what was his name?<a title="">[8]</a> Doesn’t matter.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That’s okay. Uh, [inaudible] another one of those things that will come to you, but, um, that all sorta gelled at the same time for the centennial, and It was a big celebration, and, um, it was very, very, very nice.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm, nice. Yeah, um, and have you heard any family stories about Andrew Aulin?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Oh, yes, he…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>That you’d like to share.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Was, uh—now, the first Andrew Aulin? You know, there’s…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>The first Andrew Aulin, and then there was my husband’s father, Andrew Aulin, and my husband, Andrew Aulin, and none of them have middle names, and, uh, [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So it’s just…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Confusing.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, but anyway, the first one, uh—it’s was my understanding that he traveled a lot before he settled down and came to Florida, but, um, one of the places that he traveled to or was in was, um, Oviedo, Spain. There was a big University [of Oviedo] there, and evidently, he was a scholar, and he had gone to, uh, [Uppsala] University in Uppsala, Sweden. he was Swedish, and, um—so when he came to Oviedo and they decided they were gonna make a town, and as a postmaster, they had him choose the name, he chose Oviedo, because this area reminded him of that town—city—I guess it was—and, uh—so therefore, he named it Oviedo, because—and—and also it had the Spanish name and Florida has a Spanish name—is a Spanish name. So he all thought it all sorta fit.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, um, it’s also my understanding—and this is sorta—I’ve heard people sorta joke about it—that he really cared more about reading and his books and doing scholarly things that, uh, he didn’t really care much about his business. He—he had a business, and I heard someone say—I think it was Mr. W. A. Ward’s father, uh, Bill Ward—said, um, that he would like—and maybe it wasn’t Mr. Ward—but anyway it doesn’t matter—it was somebody from that era—said that, uh, you would go into the mercantile store and say, you know, you wanted—I don’t know, um—seven yards of material or whatever, and he’d say, “Well, it’s back over that way,” and he’d go right back to his book [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh—so whether people paid him or not he wasn’t real [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But I’m sure they all did pay, because it was a different era, again, at that time, but, uh, they said that they[?]—they would often see him sittin’ outside his—his store—just sittin’ there reading a book…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, he—it’s also my understanding that he, uh, taught, was one of the first like little school situations here. Not that it was really a school. I don’t know about that. I just know that he taught people whatever he taught them, I don’t know if it was Greek or, uh, some, uh—something more than just grade school kind of things. I’m not sure about that. I just know that, uh—that was, uh,—has been told to me several times—was that he, um—and it may be even—there’s a letter written by, uh, Steen Nelson, uh, who…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Nelson and Company.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, in that letter, there’s a descript—description of, uh, Andrew Aulin, and, uh, I think in there, he mentions him being a scholar, and, um, his store, and naming the town, and—and those kind of things, and I have—I just thought of it. I think I have a copy of that letter that I’ll try to provide for you, if I can find it. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, that’d be great.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, then there’s[sic] other people in town that have a copy of it too, so I’m sure that we can locate it, and that’s sorta interesting too. I don’t know much about Steen Nelson, other than Nelson and Company was originally his business.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I don’t know if he became a partner with Mr. [Benjamin Franklin] Wheeler[, Sr.], or if the Wheelers just bought it out, or what.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I don’t know that, but, uh, yeah. that’s, uh, how it all started with him.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, and do, you know, anything about, um, Andrew Aulin’s role as sort of an entrepreneur or stockholder—I think was the word. That I think he was involved in some entrepreneurial ventures with those people. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about that.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, he probably was…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I mean, because he was very much involved in the very beginning of Oviedo, and if you look at the land, uh, plats from that time, his name’s everywhere.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So I, um—that part though I don’t really know, but I…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Do know that once upon a time, he owned a lot of land in Oviedo, and then I think, by the time he passed, there—he had sold it or, uh—I know that my mother-in-law used to talk about, uh, there were boom times and not-boom times, and, uh, in the boom times, everybody had money and had high hopes, and then it would all crash, and—but that’s all throughout history. You know, they…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That—early 1900s, and on, and in 1929, and then on and on, and so…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>People would have stuff and then they’d have nothing.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And—but, fortunately, back in those times, if you were a farmer, you could always grow your crop, but—as long as you didn’t have a dust bowl, like they did out West, and that kind of thing, but—yeah.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay, um, and have you heard about anything in terms of Andrew Aulin, uh, growing citrus? Have you heard any…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Stuff about that? Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>He did. He grew, um,—he had orange groves, um, and I—he had, uh, different properties around. I know that on the, uh, south side of town, uh, he had properties, and then down—what we now call Downtown Oviedo, uh—I think he had properties down there that he grew not oranges on. I think it was, um, other kinds of crops. Uh, I’m thinking strawberries and celery. I don’t think celery was the big thing particularly, at that time. I think celery came along a little later, but, uh, yeah, uh, he did, and I—I that part—I’m sorry to tell ya—I haven’t ever delved into it, but I have always liked to hear the character stories, ya know?</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, um, and have you heard anything about him as a postmaster, beyond what you were saying? Have you heard any stories about that, or…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Nothing other than him naming the town.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I don’t know how it came about that he was the first postmaster. Uh, I do know that, uh, prior to that, everybody got their mail from, um, White’s Wharf, but, uh, then I guess they decided they needed a post office in Oviedo.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, great, and, uh, you mentioned earlier, uh, the Swedish background of the family. Um, do you know anything more about that?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, no, other than they’re from a place, um—it’s a big— it’s a big town in, uh, Ov—I mean Spain, uh—Sweden. Um, it’s right on the—the ocean. I, uh, don’t[?]—I have all this stuff at my house, because, um, I have sort of like a history, but I can’t think of it now. Uh, it’s called “getting old.”</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Did you say before Uppsala? [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, Uppsala was where he went to university.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay. That was the university. [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Yes, he went to school there, and, um, I can’t think of the name of the town where he was born, but that’s as far back as, uh, we’ve been able to go in his genealogy is to that town. Um, it starts with an M. I can’t think of it, but anyway, uh, he—I think it was a relatively young age when he left Sweden. I mean, um, not as a child, but [inaudible] probably in his early, early 20s, and then he traveled, and I think he even lived for a time in, uh, Ohio, and then, um—but it wasn’t until he came to Oviedo that he met his wife,<a title="">[9]</a> who was a Lawton, and, uh, her, uh, family was one of the main fam—founding families of, uh, Oviedo.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, the Lawtons, uh, and Wheelers, and, uh, Aulins—they were sorta—and they sorta—and the Lees—the Lees also is another…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Name. Speaking of Lee, my mother-in-law, when she was a child, went with, uh, her uncle and her father on a, uh, river trip to Rockledge to get some—her uncle was the grocer. So they went on a skiff. She’s always called it that. I don’t know a skiff—from Lake Monroe to, uh, Rockledge, er, you know, by the coast, and, uh, I didn’t even know that the waterway would—would go that far, uh, on the St. Johns [River], but, um, back then, it did for sure, and she talked about how they camped on the way, and—but another person in their party was a gentleman named Thee Lee. I’m thinking his name was Theodore Lee. Uh, uh, I don’t know, but anyway, uh, we called him Thee Lee, and, um, he was a young man and he was—I guess knew her father or the uncle or somethin’. Anyway, he went on this trip with them and he would kill duck or whatever for their supper, and then she would always laugh and she says, “And then, 10 years or so later, I met him, because I was gonna marry his cousin.” So he was…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Andrew’s cousin.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, um—so I—I just thought that was so neat. She was just she had to be under 11 years old, because her father, uh, got killed on the railroad when she was, uh, 11. So she had to be pretty little kid when she went on that trip, but she remembered so much about them killing the geese and roasting them on the fire at night.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And isn’t that an adventure for an 11-year-old? I mean golly.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah, wow.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, sounds so cool [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, awesome. Yeah, and what else have you heard about the Lawtons, and, uh, Lona Lawton, and everybody?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, um, I just know that, uh, there was a Mr. Lawton, uh, here in Oviedo that, uh, when he—he found out that I was married to—and I worked in a bank—when he found out that I, uh, was married to an Aulin, uh, his wife would send me cookies every once in a while.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Aw.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And also Andy’s cousin’s wife lived there, uh—worked there, and so they were all—they were very kind to us, uh, just because of the relationship, I guess, and, um, I just thought that that was so cool that he would, uh—that she would do that, and now, I can’t remember which Lawton they were, because, uh, at that time, there was[sic] several older Lawtons living in Oviedo.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh—but that was so cool that he—that she would send us those cookies just because we were [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Aulins. It was just this family ties, I guess, but, um, the—I’m trying to think of some of the—there was, um, a lot of Lawtons. Uh, I think there was like—it was of two different mothers, but there was like a bunch of ‘em. I—I’m wantin’ to say eight, or maybe even more than eight…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Children, and, um, so they, um, settled here in Oviedo, and then, uh, I’ve since learned that there’s some Lawtons of that same group that live up in, uh, Northwest Florida.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I’ve been in contact with their, um, great-grandchildren, um, but, uh, they—they were big farmers, and, um—then also, I think they, uh, were teachers, and, uh, I know that, um, another one of my husband’s aunts was a teacher, and she, uh, married a gentleman and they lived out—and went out to live out in Texas, and that’s where the original Andrew Aulin died. He was in Texas. that’s where he’s buried—is in Texas, because he was living out there with his daughter, and, um—but yeah, they—I think they sort of have a—a legacy of teaching and farming.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm, yeah. Um, have you heard anything about, uh, Lona Lawton as—and her role as a switchboard operator after the [World] War [I]?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Lona Lawton?</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Or Alice Aulin?</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, I believe it was Lona Lawton that they mentioned in the book.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Nah, I…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Maybe.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>What war?</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Um, I said after World War—World War I?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, that would have had to have been Andy’s mother,</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Alice.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Mary Alice Aulin.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Because Lona Lawton…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Was, um, Andrew’s mother.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And she died before, um, Andy’s mother met him.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So I—she met him, um, around 1920.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Something like that.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Um, maybe twe—even ’22—something like that, ‘cause she was, uh—well, she was born in 1904, and, um, so she was only like 18 in ’22, so yeah.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So Lona had—had died…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Ah.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Before then.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, and she, uh—I think way before then. I think in the early 1900s.<a title="">[10]</a> Uh, Andy’s father was the youngest child, and he was born in like 18-something.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Like, uh, 1893, I’m thinking—somewhere in that area.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So, yeah, she had been dead a long time.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm, mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Um, so it wasn’t her. It was Andy’s mother, and I don’t remember, um, I mean it was after World War I that she, uh, did that because, uh, she was like 18 when she started.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then, at one point, uh, she got married and—but then, at a later time, they came and put the switchboard in her house.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Ah.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>They lived on Graham [Avenue].</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then she ran it from there, and then, um, another time, when she lived on Myrtle Street, they’ve[sic] moved it there, and she—but she had the—it, like, blew up in her ear, or…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I don’t know what you’d call it. Uh, it had a short somehow and it made her, uh, almost deaf in one ear from doing that, and that was—I think that was like in the ‘30s…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>When that happened.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>And have you heard anything about Andrew Aulin’s experience in World War I, uh, so [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Yes, I know that he was, um, uh—now, this is Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh, okay, sorry.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, Andy’s father—my husband’s father.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>He was, uh, in, um, France during World War I, and he was, um, gassed. He got injured, uh, or, you know, not wounded, but, uh, harmed or disabled, uh, somewhat, by having, uh, gas, because, you know, that was the war when they did the—did that. he was in the trenches, and one of the funny or odd things, I think, is, um, they don’t eat—eat potatoes very much in the Aulin family, uh, or that part of the Aulin family, because all he got to eat when he was, uh, overseas was potatoes, and he said he hoped he never saw another potato, so…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Andy’s mother cooked rice every day, and, uh, when I got married, I cooked rice every day for many, many years, and then I finally taught my husband that, you know, life will go on without rice, so [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But, uh, rice was the big thing. They ate rice instead of potatoes, and another thing, because of his, uh, eating habits, or lack of, when he was over there, uh, he wouldn’t eat gravy that was white—you know, made with milk.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Because that was just—that’s all they got over there—was white gravy. Er, he thought it had no taste. So Mrs. Aulin—even if the gravy didn’t come out dark enough, she would put like instant coffee in it or somethin’ to make it dark.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And that’s a good trick.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>It makes it taste better, if you just put a li’l coffee in it.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That’s one of the tricks I’ve learned from her, uh, but yeah. I don’t know of any, uh—I just know that he went over there, uh, and got more or less wounded, and, uh, that whole family, I think, is, uh, been in World War—his—my husband’s oldest—older brother<a title="">[11]</a> was in World War II and in the Korean War. My husband was in, uh, [the] Vietnam [War], and, um, so they’ve all, you know, served their country.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And I, uh, think that’s sorta something that most of the people in Oviedo did. I mean, there was a lot of people in Oviedo that, uh, served in World War II, and, uh, even some of the people that weren’t in the military, they served by, uh, manning the—they had a tower that they watched for…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Airplanes and what have you, like a civil defense kind of thing…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I know that Andy’s sisters did some of that and the, uh, other girls in town, uh, volunteered to do that, and there was—the tower was downtown, uh, by the red light too…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>h huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>From what I understand. I think that’s where it was. Have to ask somebody who was here then, but I think that’s where it was from the stories...</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>They tell.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm, um, and you mentioned some of the founding families of Oviedo. What—is there anything else—any other stories you know about them, or, um—besides [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I do know that, uh, it—I think this is sort of funny. Uh, When I came and I was living with Andy’s aunt and she would mention someone or I would mention someone, and she would say something like, “Oh, they’re one of the new people.”</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And I would say, “Oh, when did—when did they come to Oviedo?” And she says, “Oh, I think they came in like the 20s.”</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] And—she—her family was the Jacobs, and they—her father settled on—at—at Lake Pickett…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Way back in the 1800s. Uh, his brother settled on Lake Mills.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And then his sister was married to, uh, a Kilby, I think, and they settled in, um, Geneva on Lake Harney.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So it—out of the same family, they all settled on lakes, and then Aunt Nettie married, uh, an Aulin, and so she was like from first—a first family of two different places, and, uh, she used to say—and not only she—when I would first come to Oviedo and I’d be like at my grandmother’s, somebody would say, uh, “Oh, we’d better get back to Oviedo before the creek rises,” or if you were in Oviedo, uh, they would say, “Well, we’d better get back to Chuluota before the creek rises,” and Aunt Nettie explained to me what that was—is that once upon a time there was a—a low bridge, where the regular bridge is going from Oviedo to Chuluota, but it was a low bridge, and if the water got high, you couldn’t go across it, because you couldn’t see the bridge, and, uh, so it was true that if it was raining or something like that and the bridge got overflowed, then you were stuck. You had to…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] stay there. So that’s why they said that. They—and they still say it as far as I know, to this day, “If, you know—if the creek rises, we’d better,” just as a sort of joke or whatever, and, um, I [<em>laughs</em>] always thought that—well, I liked it when I found out what it—what it meant, and there was something else I was gonna tell you around those lines, but, um, every little town has its—its little sayings, and funny things, and, um—but I can’t think of what else I was gonna tell you. Anyway…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh [<em>laughs</em>]. So tell me about, um, you mentioned some of the artifacts that you had, um, so tell me a little bit about what those were or if you have any stories about them.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I don’t really have any artifacts. I have some copies of things that…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, have been handed to me, because of my interest in genealogy.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, I have, uh, copies of some pages out of a Lawton, uh, Bible that, uh—these people I’ve met in Northwest Florida—and it has, of course, the names of people that were here, you know, like, uh, Lona, and Narcissa [Melissa Lawton], and those, um, Lawtons, and, um, then I have, uh, different, you know, writings, and newspaper clippings, and, um, things like that. I had some, um, things that belonged to my husband’s, um, father, but I sent them to, uh—or had his grandmother send them—send them to her son—her grandson in Tennessee, because he was interested in that stuff…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And not many people, you know, really are, and so…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I thought that would be a good thing for him to have, but as far as, uh, actual hold-it-in-your-hand kind of thing, other than copies and—and writings, I don’t— I don’t really have anything.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, and what were some of the things that were sent? what were some of the, um…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, well, I’ve got, uh—we have a copy of, uh, Nar—Narcissa’s diary.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>A portion of it that she did</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>In World War…</p> <p>[<em>child cries</em>]</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I mean in the Civil War.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, and that’s very interesting.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Wow.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And I mean it really takes you back in—in time.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And there—one of the things she writes about is, uh, having to make, uh, shoes for, uh, some of the people that worked there, and she didn’t—obviously, they were slaves, but she didn’t call them that.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>It was “our people,” you know?</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And she had to make them some shoes, and, uh, she talked about the war, and, she, you know—she heard bad news that would come down from Virginia, and she was in, uh—right outside Thomasville, Georgia, is where they lived at that time.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, it’s really, really a treasure having—having that, uh, but it’s, uh, a copy of it, and it’s, uh—I don’t even know who’s got the original. Oh, I do. I[?] happen to be—the original, uh, got washed away in a flood they had out in Texas, where…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Where it was—where it was kept, uh, which is regrettable, ‘cause, I mean, now it’s gone, but fortunately, we all have—or not all of us—but a lot of us have copies of it.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Wow[?].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So that’s really, really another treasure.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, then I have these like—I think I had already told you—these copies of that—pages out of that Bible, where they note the family happenings—you know, deaths, births—that kind of thing—weddings, Um, and like—like I said, the Steen, uh, Nelson letter. I’ve got, I think, probably, uh, all the books and things that were written, and—and I have treasures from the, um, centennial, and newspaper clippings, and things like that.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Awesome, very cool. Um, so are there any other stories that you want to share about—in general, that you’ve been thinking about? Um…</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I, you know—I can sit here and tell you stories, uh, about, uh, my mother-in-law [inaudible], but I don’t know if they would have any interest to, um—I mean, it’s just—you would just be interested if you were her granddaughter or something like that, you know? It’s just sorta family things.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But, um, Aunt Nettie, uh, as I said, you know—she—her husband was the one they called “The Judge.” he was the Justice of the Peace, and, um, she, um, also had, uh—it wasn’t a boarding house, but she had extra rooms in her house, and there was a time when the railroad people were working here or whatever, uh, and, you know, Oviedo used to be really busy with all of the fruit, vegetables being shipped in and outta here—or being shipped out of here.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, um, so she would, um, let out a room to these people that work for the railroad, and, uh, she used to tell me little saying—like one of ‘em would, uh, put cheese in his coffee, and [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>I’ve never heard of that before, and then she would always say, uh—she was a swe—sweet, old lady. She was so precious, and she would say, uh, “Nadine, you want some cheese in your coffee?” I said, “No, Aunt Nettie. I don’t want any cheese in my coffee.”</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That’s what the man would say. He would say…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>“I want some cheese for her coffee.” [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Just little stories like that…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>You know, that doesn’t mean anything to anybody, but…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Just, uh, you had to know the people. You had to be there, you know, sort of thing. So…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh, great, and, um, so do you have any last words about maybe what impact that your relatives and—have had in the town in the early history or just any other thoughts about Oviedo’s history in general?</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Well, I [inaudible]—I think that Oviedo has a, uh—a good history, you know? You don’t really think of too many bad things happening in Oviedo. I don’t know—don’t know that I recall anything bad. I did[?]—I know that there’s been some, uh—there used to be a prison camp out on the way to Winter Park, on that road.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, I think there was an escape, uh—escape there, and I think, uh, that’s when Mr. John Courier[sp] got hurt. Now, this you’re gonna have to talk to other people about, because I don’t really know, but I do know that there’s been things like that that have happened…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>That are tragic.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>But, um, I—I don’t know any firsthand information about that, and—but as far as Oviedo is concerned, I think that, uh, like I said in the beginning, the—the churches is[sic] what it was all based on, and I think pretty much, it still has that, uh, heritage, that rock, that—that keeps it sorta held together, and I think all that’s important. Uh, we have a lot more churches now than just the Methodist and the Baptist.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And, uh, the, uh, church that’s, uh, mainly black people on the, uh, way out of town…</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Uh, I think that’s been there for years and years and years and years, and, uh, I noticed the other day, it’s growing like gangbusters, just like the other churches.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>And that’s really great, and that’s really a good foundation, and I think that they’ve—we’ve maintained that foundation.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>So that’s a good thing.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>Great, alright. Well, thank you so much for talking with us. this was really helpful.</p> <p><strong>Aulin<br /></strong>Oh, well, thank you. I hope that it was. I, uh, enjoyed it. Sorta nice bringing those memories back. Sorry I couldn’t remember some things.</p> <p><strong>Schneider<br /></strong>No, no. It’s—that’s great.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Andrew Aulin III.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Mary Alice Powell Aulin.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Lee Gary.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[4]</a> Now the University of Central Florida.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[5]</a> Now the Citizens Bank of Florida.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[6]</a> Andrew Aulin, Jr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[7]</a> <em>Oviedo: Biography of a Town</em>.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[8]</a> Richard R. Adicks, Jr.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[9]</a> Emma “Lona” Leonora Lawton Aulin.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[10]</a> 1904.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[11]</a> Charles Warren Aulin.</p> </div> </div> American Civil War Andrew Aulin III Andy Aulin armadillos automobiles Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, Sr. Black Hammock Career Field cars Charles Warren Aulin Chuluota church churches Citizens Bank of Florida Citizens Bank of Oviedo citrus cops Donna Neely Downtown Oviedo dressmakers dressmaking elevators Emma Leonora Lawton Aulin Fifi football teams George Kelsey immigrants immigration Jacobs John Courier Kilby law enforcement Lee Gary Mary Alice Powell Aulin motor vehicles Nadine Davis Aulin Narcissa Melissa Lawton Nelson and Company Nettie Dorcas Jacobs Aulin OHS orange groves oranges orlando Oviedo Oviedo High School Oviedo: Biography of a Town police officers post offices postmasters rice roadsters rumble seats Sarah Schneider seamstress seamstresses sewing spiders sports spyders Steen Nelson Swedes Swedish Americans switchboard operators The Judge Thee Lee Theodore Aulin Theodore Lee Thomasville, Georgia Townhouse Restaurant White's Wharf World War I World War II WWI WWII https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/f1eeee737c3efa4a3add901228d4125f.pdf 7bff07e691f9b2fadcc301bb7540cd5f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Historic Oviedo Colored Schools Museum Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla.); African Americans--Florida; Schools; Education--Florida; Segregation--Florida; Elementary schools--United States; Students--Florida Description In 2000, Gloria Godwin and Gracia Muller Miller began talking about a reunion for the Jackson Heights Elementary School, a colored school in Oviedo during segregation. Reunion Historian, Judith Smith, began to look for artifacts from that era and struggled to locate any pictures or other information. She put the word out amongst the former students, asking to borrow photographs or other materials related to the colored school. Immediately, items began to pour in, and the result was a book entitled: “A Written and Pictorial History of the Oviedo Area Colored Schools 1890-1967, Oviedo Elementary, Jackson Heights Elementary, Geneva, Wagner, Kolokee (Snowhill), Gabriella (Jamestown).” From there, the mission was born. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oral History of Kelley Muller-Smith Alternative Title Oral History, Kelley Muller-Smith Subject Oviedo (Fla.) African Americans--Florida Schools Education--Florida Segregation--Florida Elementary schools--United States Students--Florida Description An oral history interview of Kelley Muller-Smith, a Sanford native raised in Oviedo and professional singer. The interview was conducted by Dr. Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham over Zoom in Orlando, Florida, on July 28th, 2022. Some of the topics covered include Muller-Smith’s childhood and schooling in Oviedo and Jackson Heights Elementary School, now Jackson Heights Middle School, and the roles of her parents, her father, principal Stanley T. Muller, and her mother, music teacher Mae Frances Muller, in segregated Oviedo-area schools for African American students. Other topics include her memories of daily life at Jackson Heights Elementary School, the instruction of memorable teachers, the role of music in shaping Muller-Smith’s personal and professional life, her experiences traveling with different musical and performing arts groups, and her view on the importance of the future Historic Colored Schools Museum. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Early life and schooling in Oviedo <br />0:04:52 Segregation in Central Florida public schools <br />0:08:48 Role of music in personal and professional life <br />0:12:59 Dedication to Historic Colored Schools Museum <br />0:15:01 Stanley T. Muller and Mae Frances Muller’s legacy Abstract Oral history interview of Kelley Muller-Smith. Interview conducted by Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham through Zoom on July 28, 2022. Type Moving Image Source Muller-Smith, Kelley. Interviewed by Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham, July 28, 2022. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RICHES</a>, Orlando, Florida. Requires Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> QuickTime</a>. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/226" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Historic Oviedo Colored Schools Museum Collection, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES. Has Format Digital transcript of original 19-minutes, and 15-seconds oral history: Muller-Smith, Kelley. Interviewed by Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham, July 28, 2022. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RICHES</a>, Orlando, Florida. Coverage Jackson Heights Middle School, Oviedo, Florida Robert Hungerford Preparatory High School, Eatonville, Florida Creator Muller-Smith, Kelley Lester, Connie Oldham, Jessica Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RICHES</a> Date Created 2022-07-28 Date Copyrighted 2022-07-28 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 390 MB 238 KB Medium 19-minutes, and 15-seconds audio recording 11-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Kellye Muller-Smith, Connie Lester, and Jessica Oldham and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RICHES</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RICHES</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Curator Cravero, Geoffrey Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RICHES MI</a> External Reference Robison Jim. <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/796757419" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. Charleston South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. 2012. Accessed November 4, 2022. "<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/796757419" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">1878 -1913 Black Schools in Seminole County." Parks and Preservation, Seminole County Government</a>.” Accessed November 4, 2022. The World Outside Reunion. “<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/5258" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A Written and Pictorial History of the Oviedo Area Colored Schools, 1890-1967</a>.” RICHES of Central Florida accessed November 4, 2022, https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/5258. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/m0pb_Knj2hI">Oral History of Kelley Muller-Smith</a> Transcript Lester Today is July the 28 th, uh, 2022. I am Connie Lester. With me is Jessica Oldham and Kelley Muller-Smith. We are conducting this oral history via Zoom. So, Miss Muller-Smith, please state your name and tell us a little about where you're from and what life was like for you growing up. Muller-Smith Okay. My name is Kelley Muller-Smith, as you stated. I'm from Oviedo, Florida. That's my home. Reared in right there in Oviedo, born in Sanford. Um, life was absolutely great. We had a great community. We had great schools. Uh, we had great churches. Uh, it took the village to raise us and I'm so appreciative of that because it's helped to build me into the person that I am. So, life in Oviedo was absolutely the best. Did I answer you okay? Lester So, which schools did you attend in the Oviedo area, and can you talk about some of your favorite school memories? Muller-Smith Yes, I can. I only attended one school, and that was Jackson Heights Elementary, now Middle School.1 My favorite memories started in first grade. Um, my teacher had us to make aprons by hand for our finger-painting class. That was a big deal. And that also kind of launched my sewing interest which lasted throughout ha— after high school. Those were just great times. Our teachers were our parents away from home. I'll put it like that. Some of the other fond memories: uh, school lunches were always home-cooked meals and they were the best food on earth. Uh, also, playground time. I—I—I just loved it because we had all of these playground equipment toys. Merry-go-rounds, swings, see-saws. You—you just had fun, uh, for the time that we were outside. And then of course, the music classes with my mom on Fridays. Absolutely amazing. She taught us basic—uh, basic songs. A lot of patriotic songs. A lot of Christian songs. And I looked for a picture to show you of her with her elementary school course. I don't know where it is. But those were great memories. Just absolutely great. And being at the school with, uh, two of my dad's sisters, my aunts, and my dad and my mom, it was just like being at home. So again, it—it—it raised me away from the house. It—it instilled in me the values of education, of how to treat people. We—we were always taught there's a way to speak to adults. There's a way to speak to children. And when you are in the presence of adults, you address them, “yes ma'am,” “no ma'am,” “yes, sir,” “no, sir.” And I’m seventy-two and I still do that. So, those were great memories that I have not forgotten. Lester Did you have a favorite teacher and what qualities did he or she bring to the classroom? Muller-Smith Yes. My first-grade teacher and then my seventh-grade teacher, uh, Miss Houston [laughs]. She was amazing. Uh, she instilled in us the importance—you had to do all of your work in the classroom. All of your work. Uh, away from school, your homework had to be turned in. There were no excuses. Uh, and then of course, the music was first and foremost. I—I—I just love music. Um, but she would always demonstrate to us. We—we never misunderstood how she wanted the work done because she would always give a demonstration. If we were doing, uh, a history lesson, then she would say, “You have to get an encyclopedia. You have to look up the subject. You have to read it and write down the important facts.” So there were no excuses. And that kind of instruction just carried over throughout my life. If you got to do it, do it right, and do it well. Yes. Yes. Lester Central Florida schools remained segregated long after Brown v. Board decision. What was the first grade year that you attended a desegregated school and could you share some of your memories of that experience? Muller-Smith Yes. I was fortunate enough to start school at five years old. 1955. Uh, the law in Florida stated then that if you would turn six by the end of that year, then you could start school at age five, which I did. Um, I'm sorry, would you repeat your question [laughs]? Lester Sure. Um, what were—what was the first grade year that you… Muller-Smith Oh. Okay. Lester …desegregated school and could you share some of your memories? Muller-Smith Absolutely. Yes. It was first grade. Uh, 1955. I remember it well. Again, that teacher, and I can't call her name, uh, she was just so interested in all of us. She would find ways to help us better that gift that each student had, which I thought was amazing. Although the classes were not—the class was not very large, but she somehow knew us individually, not just as a student in her class. But she cared enough to find that little special something that would work for me and work for my classmates. And we just had a great time and we learned. We not only had fun, but—math was fun, which was not my favorite subject. But we—we learned the adding and subtraction and multiplication. And it was fun. She always made everything fun. But yeah, my—my first year was first grade, uh, and in 1955 there at Jackson Heights Elementary. Lester Okay. Was that an—an—an integrated school or was it… Muller-Smith No, it was not. Uh, in fact, integration did not happen until after I graduated eighth grade. The school went from first through eighth grade. Lester Mhmm. Muller-Smith And, um, it came—that—that's another story I'd like to share later. But I went from first to eighth grade in a, uh, segregated school. My dad’s school. Lester Okay. Muller-Smith Yeah. Lester Was that a difficult transition for you? Muller-Smith No, because—no, it wasn't, actually. Because when I finished eighth grade, I attended Orange County schools. I lived in Orange County during the week so that I could attend Hungerford High. And that was, uh, segregated as well. So the—the—the integration didn't come about until after I graduated in ’67. It was slowly opening in Oviedo. Um, I remember my dad had a very good relationship with, uh, Oviedo Elementary. Yes. Oviedo Elementary. I can't call his name now, but he was a man that everyone knew. And my father made it his business—being an educator, he made it his business to make sure that there was some kind of rapport. But, um, you know, it's interesting because, although I grew up in a segregated environment, when I did finish high school, there was no adjustment for me. Because I didn't—I was not taught one race was better than the other. We were all people, and we all—though we were separated, we were still God's people and He didn't make any mistakes. So you got along with whomever you were faced with. And the transition for me was easy. Yes. Lester It seems that music has played a significant role in your life. And how did Oviedo schools foster your musical talent and what other influences shaped your musical education? Muller-Smith Okay. It was my mom. I grew up in a home with music. My family, cousins, I didn't have sisters and brothers at that time. My family was all just music. Uh, we always sang around the piano. My mother played for both my dad's church and our church. She would always—uh, we had many what we call Easter Sunrise services there on one of the lakes there in Oviedo. And she was over that, for many, many years. Anything music in the community, it was Mae Frances Muller, my mother. Um, so, um, studying under her—started piano at six years old, and then in seventh grade she found a teacher for me in Orlando. So off we went every weekend to Orlando to take my piano lesson. So, it was always music. Um, it really, really made my life a lot easier because I just love it. When I finished high school, I went to Bethune-Cookman and sang in the famous Bethune-Cookman chorale at that time and then went to Peabody Conservatory of Music, where I majored as a vocal major. So—and I can't tell you how much music really, really means to me and inspires me. I've had the blessed opportunity to sing with the Memphis Symphony Chorus8 since 2004. Um, it's what I do. It's who I am [laughs]. Yes. Lester Well, can you tell us how, um—how this shaped your career opportunities and… Muller-Smith Yes. Yes, I can. When I got to Peabody that summer with my mom and her best friend, I was too late to audition for Peabody, so I stayed there and studied at the preparatory department of the conservatory and then I auditioned a year later, got accepted, studied, studied, studied, and was out for Christmas. And my choir director called me and said, “So and so was looking for a singer. He needs one mezzo-soprano and I told him about you, but you have to be in New York tomorrow.” I said, “Okay.” And I did audition and that's how my career started as a professional singer. Did that for over ten years with different companies. Um, it just—the music just shaped me and I knew that's what I wanted to do. So I studied as best I could, and it just opened up the doors for singing for me. Lester So, have you performed with, uh—with groups that, uh, people who are listening to this oral history might recognize? Muller-Smith Yes. I did a Broadway show on the road for nine months with Eartha Kitt. It was called Timbuktu!. That was amazing. I learned a lot. It was fun. It was hard work. We were on a plane on an average of every two weeks flying to the next city. So that was a great experience. There was also Disney World. I was one of the, uh, second—the second group, of Kids of the Kingdom. That's me. I don't know if you can see it, but there I am. Okay. That was three years. The Norman Luboff Choir, Robert De Cormier Singers. Uh, I did, uh, Hello Dolly! there— right there in Orlando at Once Upon a Stage Dinner Theater. That was great. Um, so it's—it’s been a journey. I'm just thankful for the opportunity that God has given me to do what I love the best. Yeah, it's been great. It's been great. Lester The oral history that you're giving us today will be archived in the Oviedo Colored Schools Museum. Muller-Smith Yes. Lester What are your hopes for that museum? Muller-Smith First of all, I want to say hats off to our President of the Board, uh, Judith Smith. She was given the vision to open this museum. And her goal, and our goal as board members, is to better educate the Oviedo and surrounding communities and, of course, anyone that would eventually visit the museum to learn the truth about the Black history of the educational system in our area. We've got a whole new group of people. They're younger and they have no idea—I've been told many times when I come home that a lot of people think Jackson Heights Elementary was always integrated. I mean Jackson Heights Middle School—that it's always been there. It's always been i—it's, uh, uh, integrated. They don't know about Oviedo Colored School and then Jackson Heights Elementary School. They have no clue. So, our goal is to better educate the community, the surrounding areas, so that they can just learn the truth. Uh, there's just so much history in that area and I'm proud to be able to say that it's my home. But there's a lot of history that has just never been known, uh, by this younger generation. And our goal is to get that information out there, so anyone that wants to can really know and learn the truth about the Black educational history of the Oviedo Colored Schools and that area. Lester Well, is there anything else you would like to add or expand on or any… Muller-Smith I would. I want to show you another picture. This is the only principal and his wife, the music teacher, of the Jackson Heights Elementary School. He was there—I don't even have the years because I was so little. But, again, I started in ’55. And shortly after I graduated, he—huh. Let me share this because I think you need to know. My dad was in a meeting in Tallahassee. Uh, a state education meeting. And he came home. His favorite thing to do was to get the paper and read the news. And in the Sanford Herald, there was an announcement that Jackson Heights Elementary School would be turned into Jackson Heights Middle School the following year. That's how he learned that he would not be the principal anymore of Jackson Heights. Isn’t that something? They gave him a position at the school board where he ended up working for a few years before he passed away. It broke—it broke his heart and broke our hearts, because I thought, “School board. You can't tell him? Write a letter? Make a phone call?” He read in the paper. I was sitting right there with him when it happened. So, I— I think those kinds of things need to be known because he was a great man. He— he believed in education of all people. He inspired a lot of young men and women. He especially believed in men being men, uh, dressing properly, taking their hats off when they're in the presence of a female or inside a building. You just don't carry yourself any kind of way. And he was able to, as I said, inspire a lot of people. I remember when Hurricane Donna came through our front yard. And he got out in that storm, went to the school, Jackson Heights, and opened it so that the people that didn't have adequate homes to live in during a storm could have somewhere to go. Because no one thought of us. But he is hardly known today. So that's something else that the museum is looking forward to try and make known. Lester Well, to make them better known, will you say your parents’ names? Muller-Smith Yes, I will. Stanley T. Muller. They called him Professor Muller. And May Francis Muller. My mother had seven schools when she started. She was called an “itinerant music teacher” in Seminole County. She had seven schools in one week. That's how she started. And she did it gladly. It's—it's—it's been a journey, but I'm thankful that—let me say this. I'm so thankful for your organization and what you all are doing to help us. This is phenomenal. And we won't stop until the dream has been completed. It’s ongoing. We want everyone to know the truth about the Oviedo Colored Schools of our area. Thank you for what you’re doing. Thank you. Lester This has been an oral history with Kelley Muller-Smith, conducted on July 28th , 2022, through Zoom, by Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham. 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 Daytona State College Collection Alternative Title DSC Collection Subject New Smyrna Beach (Fla.) Daytona State College (Fla.) Contributor <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">Daytona State College, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus, School of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences</a> Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/75" target="_blank">Volusia County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/84" target="_blank">New Smyrna Beach Collection</a>, Volusia County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Contributing Project History Skill Building Project 2013, <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">School for Behavior and Social Sciences</a>, Daytona State College Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">Daytona State College, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus, School of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences</a> External Reference "<a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/catalog/facts/history.html" target="_blank">History of Daytona State College</a>." Daytona State College. http://www.daytonastate.edu/catalog/facts/history.html. Sweett, Lawrence J. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/77551284" target="_blank"><em>New Smyrna Beach</em></a><em>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2006.</em> "<a href="http://www.cityofnsb.com/index.aspx?nid=198" target="_blank">History</a>." City of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. http://www.cityofnsb.com/index.aspx?nid=198. Cumiskey, Kate. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/491915106" target="_blank"><em>Surfing in New Smyrna Beach</em></a><em>. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010.</em> Coverage Daytona State College-New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach, Florida New Smyrna Beach, Florida Description Collection of digital images, documents, and other records contributed by the New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater campus of Daytona State College. Items in the collection focus on the history of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. In 1758, the first European settlers arrived in present-day New Smyrna Beach and Dr. Andrew Turnbull established the colony of New Smyrna. Most of the colony's settlers were from Greece, Italy, and Minorca, Spain. Turnbull planned for the town to produce hemp, sugarcane, indigo, and rum, but the colony quickly collapsed due to insect-born diseases and raids by nearby Native American tribes. Most of the survivors resettled in St. Augustine. In 1887, New Smyrna was incorporated. In 1892, Henry Morrison Flagler expanded his Florida East Coast Railway to the area, sparking growth in the city. During the Prohibition of the 1920s, New Smyrna served as a site for moonshine stills and hideouts for rum-runners. In 1947, the city was renamed New Smyrna Beach when it annexed Coronado Beach. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Pump, Irene Hemings, Lindsay Interviewee McNair, Kem Location <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/maps/southmap.html" target="_blank">Daytona State College-New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus</a>, New Smyrna Beach, Florida Duration 35 minutes and 22 seconds Original Format 1 audio/video recording Bit Rate/Frequency 194kbps 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 Kem McNair Alternative Title Oral History, McNair Subject New Smyrna Beach (Fla.) Oral history--United States Surfing--United States Surfers--United States Surfboards Description An oral history with Kem McNair, a surfer, artist, musician, photographer, and owner of McNair Computer Arts LLC in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Born on December 27, 1952, McNair moved from southern Georgia to Central Florida around 1962. He learned to surf and became a member of the Surfari Club for many years. McNair has competed in various surfing contests and has won various championships, including the Florida Surfing Championship, and was a member of the Hobie Surf Team. Other topics discussed in the oral history include memories of Central Florida, the Surfari Club, learning how to surf, how surfing has changed over time, injuries McNair suffered from surfing, and traveling to surfing competitions. Table Of Contents 00:00 Introduction 0:00:55 Central Florida memories 0:01:53 Surfari Club 0:03:10 Learning to surf 0:06:11 How surfing has changed over time 0:09:36 Injuries and memories 0:23:56 New Smyrna Beach 0:26:05 Surfing contests 0:30:51 Surfari Club parties 0:32:05 Favorite aspect of surfing Abstract Oral history interview of Kem McNair. Interview conducted by Irene Pump and Lindsay Hemings at Daytona State College, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Type Moving Image Source McNair, Kem. Interview by Irene Pump and Lindsay Hemings. Daytona State College, New Smyrna Beach-Edgewater Campus. July 18, 2013. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College</a>, New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/85" target="_blank">Daytona State College Collection</a>, Volusia County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Coverage New Smyrna Beach, Florida Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico Witch's Rock, Santa Rosa National Park, Guanacaste, Costa Rica Ollie's Point, Santa Rosa National Park, Guanacaste, Costa Rica Creator Pump, Irene Hemings, Lindsay McNair, Kem Publisher <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College </a> Contributor Gallant, Darin Knopp, Adam Long, Frankie Rood, James Testerman, Alyssa Date Created 2013-07-18 Date Modified 2014-02-11 Format video/mp4 Extent 354 MB Medium 35-minute and 22-second audio/video recording Language eng Mediator History Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Irene Pump, Lindsay Hemings, and Kem McNair, and published by the Daytona State College <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">School for Behavior and Social Sciences</a>. Rights Holder Copyright to the resource is held by <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/" target="_blank">Daytona State College</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 History Skill Building Project 2013, <a href="http://www.daytonastate.edu/CampusDirectory/DeptInfo.aspx?dept=BHS" target="_blank">School for Behavior and Social Sciences</a>, Daytona State College Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="https://www.daytonastate.edu/maps/nsbmap.html" target="_blank">Daytona State College New Smyrna-Edgewater Campus</a> External Reference Sweett, Lawrence J. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/77551284" target="_blank"><em>New Smyrna Beach</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2006. Cumiskey, Kate. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/491915106" target="_blank"><em>Surfing in New Smyrna Beach</em></a>. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010. "<a href="http://www.cityofnsb.com/198/History" target="_blank">History</a>." City of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. http://www.cityofnsb.com/198/History. "<a href="http://smyrnasurfariclub.com/" target="_blank">About the Club</a>." Smyrna Surfari Club. http://smyrnasurfariclub.com/. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://youtu.be/gn0Z2L4BQ_U" target="_blank">Oral History of Kem McNair</a> boogie board Flagler Avenue Florida Surfing Championship Gallant, Darin Grigas, Carol S. Hemings, Lindsay History Skill Building Project Hobie Surf Team Knopp, Adam Long, Frankie longboard McNair Computer Arts McNair Computer Arts LLC McNair, Kem New Smyrna Beach oral history Pump, Irene Rood, James Seahorse Inn short board Surfari Club surfboard surfer surfing Testerman, Alyssa Wright, Buddy https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/5775ae8b3f85aa4b225aeebe10f94a4a.pdf f0b09c5630ed618af8d7a552d04b8c84 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Alternative Title Oviedo Historical Society Collection Subject Oviedo (Fla). Description The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015. The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Oviedo, Florida Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> <a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015 Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/. Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979. Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012. "<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Thorncroft, Sarah Interviewee White, Lars D. Location <a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/43" target="_blank">Fire Rescue Emergency Management Department</a>, Oviedo, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video recording Duration 28 minutes and 57 seconds Bit Rate/Frequency 136kbps 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 Lars D. White Alternative Title Oral History, White Subject Oviedo (Fla.) Fire departments--United States Description An oral history of Lars D. White, conducted by Sarah Thorncroft on March 27, 2015. In the interview, White discusses the transformation of Oviedo, Florida, from small agricultural community to a suburb of the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando. He discusses attending desegregated schools, school bus rides, various school activities, and what people did for entertainment. White also talks about growing up on a horse farm and the different riding shows and competitions that he participated in. White talks about meeting his wife, her community involvement, and how their children’s upbringing was similar and different compared to theirs. He also discusses volunteering as a firefighter and then rising in the ranks to become Fire Chief and the Emergency Management Director. White recalls some memorable moments from his long career with the City of Oviedo, as well as discussing his involvement in the development of the Oviedo Veterans Memorial. White also talks about the iconic Oviedo chickens and the lesser known Oviedo peacocks. Abstract Oral history interview of Lars D. White. Interview conducted by Sarah Thorncroft at the <a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/43" target="_blank">Fire Rescue Emergency Management Department</a> in Oviedo, Florida, on March 27, 2015. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction <br />0:02:11 School desegregation and homecoming <br />0:05:23 Horse competitions and entertainment <br />0:07:08 Career in firefighting <br />0:08:42 Wife and children <br />0:10:37 History of the Oviedo Volunteer Fire Department <br />0:12:09 First call and most memorable call as a firefighter <br />0:14:40 RECORDING CUTS OFF <br />0:14:41 Becoming Fire Chief <br />0:16:40 Oviedo Veterans Memorial <br />0:19:30 Demolition of buildings in Downtown Oviedo <br />0:21:28 Oviedo chickens and peacocks <br />0:25:17 Closing remarks Creator White, Lars D. Thorncroft, Sarah Source White, Lars D. Interviewed by Sarah Thorncroft, March 27, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Date Created 2015-03-27 Date Copyrighted 2015-03-27 Date Modified 2015-12-22 Has Format 17-page digital transcript of original 15-minute and 38-second oral history: White, Lars D. Interviewed by Sarah Thorncroft, March 27, 2015. Audio/video record available. Oviedo History Harvest, <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida. Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, History Harvest Collection, RICHES of Central Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 69.1 MB 184 KB Medium 28-minute and 57-second audio/video recording 17-page digital transcript Language eng Type Moving Image Coverage Oviedo, Florida Oviedo Fire Department, Oviedo, Florida Memorial Building, Oviedo, Florida Accrual Method Donation Mediator History Teacher Provenance Originally created by Lars D. White and Sarah Thorncroft, and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Contributing Project <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> External Reference "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6346" target="_blank">City Appoints New Fire Chief, Finance Director</a>." The Oviedo Voice, Vol. XIV, No. 38, September 16, 2004. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/6346. "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3. "<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2478" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 26: The Oviedo Chickens</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2478. Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="https://youtu.be/qqEie_Fo72U" target="_blank">Oral History of Lars D. White</a> Transcript <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>This is an oral history interview of Lars [D.] White. Interview conducted by Sarah Thorncroft at the Fire Administration and Emergency Management Office at 1934 County Road 419 West in Oviedo, Florida, on March the 27^th of 2015. Our interview topics include growing up in Oviedo and the Oviedo Fire Department. Um, so will you just please state your name for me and explain where you were born and when?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Okay. Um, my name is Lars White.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Uh, I was born in Winter Park Hospital, uh, November of 1960, and, uh, you want me—elaborate?</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>When did your parents come to the area?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Okay, um, we relocated to Oviedo about 1968. It was pretty small town then. It was about 2,000 population—maybe a little less. A single traffic light, a lot of dirt roads, and Oviedo, in that era, was really known still for its agricultural beginnings and it was still a very active agricultural community, but it was on the cusp of development. A lot of that is a result of, uh, what was Florida Technological University and now the University of Central Florida, and as that campus began to grow and expand, and in its many offerings, we needed residential homes for people to, uh—to use that amenity of the collage. So that’s really what started changing Oviedo, to some degree, as well as, uh, there’s[sic] many historians that feel like the children of the original farmers recognized what a hard life farming is, and as the land became so valuable, uh, it became worthwhile to them to begin to sell the properties, and, uh, of course that turned into a lot of residential living units for our town. So that’s kinda the beginnings, I say, of Oviedo and its—its, uh, expansion to such a nice residential—or what we call it: “kids and cul-de-sacs.”</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So you were about eight years old when your family came to Oviedo. What schools did you attend when you were here?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, I had gone to, uh, St. Luke’s [Lutheran School], uh, for kindergarten, because it wasn’t offered at Lawton Elementary [School] at the time. Oviedo had just desegregated. They’d opened Oviedo High School about that timeframe. Uh, it was a very peaceful, uh, setting. There—there were not—there was no turmoil with it. Uh, it was a very smooth transition. Uh, I don’t recall any encounters or difficulties with that, and then I started, uh, first grade at Lawton Elementary—first through fifth grade—and then Jackson Heights [Middle School] sixth through eighth grade, and then Oviedo High School, of course, ninth through 12^th grade. Graduated in 1979.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>What are some, um, school memories you have, if any?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Well, [<em>coughs</em>]I do reminding[sic], uh—remind myself of riding the bus to school, and the busses of that, uh, era were a little bit different than they are today. Today, they’re, uh, air-conditioned and very comfortable [<em>laughs</em>]. I can remember very hot rides in the bus, and, uh, trying to get the windows to go down and get the best seats, but, uh, it was such a small town. You really—you knew everyone. I mean—you knew every student. You pretty much knew where everyone lived. Uh, today I don’t think that’s quite the case, ‘cause of the campuses, two high schools, two middle schools, uh, about five or six elementary schools. So, uh, there’s pretty good chance you don’t know everyone.</p> <p>Uh, so that was kinda a neat, uh, part to be from, uh, Oviedo, but the, uh—the schools were great, uh—a good education. A[?], uh—the high school years probably were my favorite. Uh, you just tend to develop more relationships in those—those timeframes, as well.  I got active in, um, a little bit of politics as sophomore class president and senior class president, and enjoyed that a lot.  Homecoming bonfires and things of that nature, a lot of fun sporting events, but, uh, it was just a nice—it was a nice time in Oviedo.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Where were those bonfires? Because they’ve stopped doing those now.</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Uh, [<em>coughs</em>] yeah, the [Seminole County Public] School[s] system decided it wasn’t necessarily the safest thing to do. Um, maybe they had a few episodes after our class graduated, but they used to be on the front football field or off to the side, and the junior-senior class would compete in competition, uh, to win the trophy, and I’m proud to say my class won the junior and senior year. There weren’t[sic] a whole lot of classes that won back to back, but certainly thereafter, they stopped the bonfires. Uh, they’ve turned it into parades and, uh, other contests and things.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So the bonfires were more like the pep rallies?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Yes, yup.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Um…</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Kind of a throwback to the traditional days. I think bonfires were probably a very common, um, almost a patriotic occurrence at the schools, you know, for the homecoming game.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>And were you involved in any other activities other than student government?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, I grew up on a horse farm, so I rode horses, uh, all the way up through my—‘bout my junior year in high school, and then I got kinda disinterested in it, but we used to ride in horse shows—hunter/jumper horse shows, and we competed in what was called the, uh, 100-mile endurance ride up in the Ocala National Forest. That was once a year, and that was fun. Had a, uh—a great time doing that. So that was kinda—my childhood years was[sic], uh, horses.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So what were some of the local hangouts and what did you guys do for fun growing up in Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>[<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Oh, gosh. There wasn’t…</p> <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>[<em>coughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>A lot in Oviedo. I mean—the school system was really your entertainment, unless you created entertainment on your own. There wasn’t[sic] any recreational or other activities in town. The city parks hadn’t really developed yet. If you were engaged in little league or sports like that, you had those venues. Uh, church was—was very instrumental in our lives, as well. Um, they had a lot of activities at—at church to—to fill our needs, as—as well. Um, I guess the high school sports—you know, attending the games and so forth—were primarily the form of entertainment, and then, uh, movies. Visiting the movie theater usually we had to go to Altamonte [Springs] to do that. We did have what was known as the Oviedo Lights. Uh, you have probably heard that story, but, um, most of us, uh, uh, visited that location from time to time to—just kind of a hangout type-thing. Never found or discovered anything, but, uh, that was kind of a—always a fun evening.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>I had no earthly idea. I didn’t. As I was going through high school, I was one that was struggling with what to do for a—a professional career. I started working my senior year at Sears, Roebuck and Company on Forsyth Road in, uh, Winter Park-Goldenrod area, and thought I would probably take a job in retail. I actually ended up working in their accounting auditing department, for some reason. Uh, they said I scored real well on the math test, which, uh, didn’t reflect my school grades all that well [<em>laughs</em>], but anyways, I did that for a year or two, and the volunteer fire chief at the time, Andy McDaniel, approached me, said, “We need a little help. We’re kinda low in our volunteer roster. Would you mind lending some time, uh, participating with us?” And I said, “Well, okay, sure. It’s my hometown. I’ll give that a try,” and I really took a love for it, and it looked like an opportunity for a career, as well. Um, I knew the town was growing, so I went and got my certified firefighting standards and state examinations certificate, and my then my Emergency Medical Technician, and soon after that, uh, a job was offered to me in 1983, and I’ve been here ever since.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>[inaudible]. Um, so have you ever lived outside of Oviedo or outside of Florida?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Nope.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Nope [<em>laughs</em>]?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Born and raised Oviedo. I’m as hometown as you can get [<em>laughs</em>], I would say. Um, even my children have grown up here, went to the same schools I did, and they’re graduates now of, uh, Lawton and Jackson Heights and Oviedo High School. Uh, my son’s a graduate of the University of Central Florida. Uh, my daughter’s got her two year degree from Seminole State College, and working on a, uh—an esthetician, and in paramedical program now for dermatology.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So how do you think their childhoods being raised in Oviedo compares to yours? Are they similar? Are they different?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah, I think there were a lot of similarities, uh, except on a larger scale. Um, my daughter participated in the Pop Warner cheerleading and did cheerleading in high school, as well. So she was well connected to the school system. My son was very active in a lot of things in the school, very, uh, school-spirited and so forth. So it was fun watching them enjoy some of the same, uh, traditions and nuances that we got to experience.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So, um, what about your wife? Is she also from Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>She is. Uh, she was from Winter Springs, but Winter Springs was designated for Oviedo schools. Uh, we knew each other in school. We didn’t date in school. It was, uh—as soon as we graduated, we started dating, but, uh, yes, we’ve known each other for a very long time [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Um, has she been involved in the community at all? Or…</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Yup, she’s retired from, uh, one of the hometown banks—Citizens Bank of Oviedo is what it was called at the time. Now, it’s Citizens Bank of Florida. Uh, she’s been very active a lot of the activities I have with the [Oviedo] Historical Society and many other venues. Uh, she works right now part-time, uh, as an office manager and taking care of a local insurance company and all their booking and accounting needs, and so forth—personnel management.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Soearlier you mentioned got involved with the [Oviedo] Fire Department at a volunteer basis. Was the fire department volunteer back in the [19]70s and ‘80s? When did it become more professionalized?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, the—the history of the Oviedo Volunteer Fire Department started about 19—uh, 60. around that time frame is when they began to organize themselves, and after a couple catastrophic fires in town, where they had to rely on resources from way out from other entities, they decided to, uh, put it—something together, and it was really a bunch of farmers that, uh, built a fire engine—you know, really a water truck, and it grew from there.</p> <p>Uh, when I joined the department, it was a little more organized than that. They issued you a pager, so you were alerted to the calls through a paging system, instead of the old siren system that used to alert the whole town, and if you could come help you ran down to the fire station, and grabbed some gear and went to the call. So it evolved from that, but it was obvious in the early 80s, as we start forming the full-time department, that it would have to move that way. The traffic, the growth—all of that was lending itself to something that volunteers just could not take care of any longer. So we kept them on board as a combination department for about 10 years. It was in the early ‘90s when the volunteer portion of the fire department dissolved itself, and we were then just a full-time fire department.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So what have been the most memorable calls you’ve had to go out on as a fire—firefighter[?]?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Okay. Well, I’ve been involved in it for 31 years full-time, and volunteered about three or four years before that. Uh, I would say my first day as a volunteer firefighter was rather exciting. Uh, I had joined on a Wednesday night. They gave me a pager, gave me some gear, and pretty much just said, “If—if the pager goes off, come down to the fire station. We’ll tell you what you need to do, and we’ll get you trained in this overtime.”</p> <p>Well, the pager went off, uh, that first Saturday, and I came down to the fire station, and, um, no one else showed up, and the pager went off again, and a police officer pulled up. He said, “Are y’all coming to the call or not?” I said, “Well, I’m by myself. I really [<em>laughs</em>] haven’t really been trained.” we both started the rescue vehicle, and he led me to the call with his police vehicle, and I went by myself [<em>laughs</em>]. It was just a very unusual occurrence. Usually, there was a senior officer that was always in town. There was a miscommunication that day, and it happened one more time that day—that afternoon. So I went to my first two emergencies by myself. One was just a Band-Aid call, uh, and I think the other was just a trip and fall or something like that. So they were both very low key incidents, but I thought <em>Well, I guess I was meant to participate. They do need some help here</em> [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p>Some of the more meaningful calls though, um, have been where I’ve been involved in, uh, assisting on traffic crashes that were, uh, very traumatic and things of that nature. I have one that really sticks in my mind with a—a young high school girl that was, uh, stuck by a car. She was walking along the side of the highway, [<em>coughs</em>] and when I got there, she was almost taking her last breaths. Um, she was so tragically injured, but everything worked the way it was supposed to. All of our training showed that night. Uh, we—we prepared her, uh—started treating her, packaged her for a[sic] emergency helicopter flight, got her to the trauma center in less than 35 minutes. She was in surgery in one hour. Uh, she had major extensive damage, but about six months later, she walked into the fire station to—to say, “Hello,” and say, “Thank you,” and that one really touched my heart, uh, you know, pretty—pretty hard. So…</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So other than the more memorable calls, what has been the most rewarding aspect of your career?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, I’ve been blessed to move up in the organization at different levels. Um, I—I don’t think it was ever my intention to become the Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director. It just kinda happened. Um, in 2004, my Fire Chief retired and the City Manager put me in as the Interim Fire Chief Emergency Management Director, and encouraged me to apply for the—the position, and they were doing a—a national search at the time. At that time, we were hit by three back-to-back hurricanes. So, uh, I had to manage those events as the Emergency Management Director, and as they referred to me at that time, they said that was really my formal interview, uh—was my performance, uh, at those three events, and that was, uh, quite a memorable experience as well. our town experiencing that. It certainly wasn’t a one man show. All the departments, and all the directors, and all the employees were instrumental in our disaster response and recovery efforts, uh, but the Emergency Management Director kinda is the conductor of the band and—and keeps everything together as you’re going through it. So, uh, We had a good plan in place and I was familiar with it, but, uh, it was kinda thrown in my lap real—real quickly, but I think that’s been good for me. I did have the advantage of fulfilling all the different positions—a Lieutenant, a Captain, uh, a Battalion Chief. I was the Division Chief of Training and Emergency Medical Services when I got promoted to Fire Chief. So I had some real good, diverse education and training that I think helped prepare me for the past 11 years as Fire Chief [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Um, so you spoke earlier before our interview about the Veterans Memorial for Oviedo. what are your main motivations for creating that?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, being involved in the historical society, I always took interest in that aspect, as well. Um, Around 2002-2003, we learned that the road widening project was, in fact, going to take place in Oviedo on, uh, [Florida] State Road 426-County Road 419, and it also was going to take land from the fire station and the Memorial Building. In fact, to the level that we have to take the buildings down, the City [of Oviedo] even looked at having the Memorial Building lifted and moved, but it just wasn’t feasible. So, uh, we learned that we were going to lose our only connection to our veterans. The Memorial Building was built in honor of, uh, four men who lost their lives in World War II, and the town built that building. Uh, used to be pictures of our military veterans depicted inside the building.</p> <p>So [Oviedo] City Council asked me, “Would you, uh, chair a committee and study building a veterans memorial in our town somewhere.” So I took on that task. I studied veterans’ memorials all across the country for about six months, and then formed the committee, and we included, uh, city staff, um, the American Legion Post [243] from Oviedo. We had a[sic] architect on board, uh, um, uh, a—another architect that was instrumental in Winter Springs [Veterans] Memorial. So we put the team together, started our planning efforts, and it went from there. Um, it’s—it’s been, uh, a good experience. We’ve been working on it for about three years. We’re going to dedicate it, uh, this, uh, May 25, uh—Memorial Day 2015.</p> <p>Uh, I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations with families and veterans, and heard some real personal stories, and I think that’s probably been the most meaningful aspect of it. I think it’s made the project more meaningful to me. I’ve also had, uh, family members that have served, uh, primarily in World War II, and learned a lot about their personal stories and things I had—I had never known before and some very heroic acts, uh—not only of them, but all those protect us every day every night. So this is going to mean a lot to me. I’m excited about it and Excited to get it done, ‘cause we’ve been working on it for such a long time.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So with the impending, you know, de—demolition of Downtown Oviedo, um, that fire house there—I heard through the grapevine—is the oldest one in Seminole County. Is that any sort of major loss to the community, you think?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, it has some sentimental value, since it was the original fire station location. Um, I think there—in the region, there were older fire stations than that, ‘cause there’s, uh—Sanford goes further back than our time frame for volunteers and full-time department. Um, it’s probably second to Sanford, in age. Um, it—yeah, it’s going to a little be hard to see it come down, um, but we’ll take some bricks off it. We’ll memorialize it. We have some wonderful pictures of it, and we’re gonna start a new legacy at the new location, but it is important to document it and capture it in our history, but we know all things change, in time.</p> <p>Uh, ironically, all those business down that corridor have been waiting for this moment. Uh, their—their properties have had limited value, and property owners knew that, and children that inherited them. So they knew when the road widening project was coming along. They hadn’t been able to sell their properties. nobody wants to buy those buildings. Um, There’s—parking has been a[sic] atrocious problem down there for those businesses—businesses to thrive. So, um, we—we’ve captured in—in records the best we can. Historical society empowered the local Oviedo Photography Club.<a title="">[1]</a> So we have some good records of it, and that’s not the original downtown. The original downtown burnt down at one time, as well. So that was kinda, uh, “version 2.0” I’ll call it. So now it’s time to launch version 3.0, you know, for Oviedo’s history.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Alright, so in a little bit of research for this interview, I saw that in 2013 you were asked to conduct an investigation in Oviedo chicken population.</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Yeah [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Uh, what was your reaction when you were asked to do that investigation?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Uh, a little embarrassing [<em>laughs</em>]. Probably asking myself, <em>Why me?</em> You know, <em>Why did I get charged with this? </em>I think having grown up here, uh, they probably said, uh, “You need to handle this,” and, uh, animal control duties fall under emergency management duties as well, but it was more to, uh, kinda appease the crowd out there. It was beginning wondering what’s going on, but the, uh—the chickens have always been a part of Oviedo’s history. I suspect they’ll survive the growth, as well. There’s still plenty of land and pockets of land and so forth for them to survive. They, uh, have lasted all these years, so I think they’ll—they’ll, uh, migrate through the next decade or longer, as well. So…</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>So you think they’ll just kinda migrate up to new Downtown Oviedo?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Uh, they kinda move on their own and—and set up a new habitat. Uh, they’re a little bit territorial. Uh, usually, if you try to relocate ‘em to a certain location, uh, they move from wherever you create a habitat. They create one on their own. So, uh, their population numbers go up and down. The research showed a little bit of, uh, just a normal cycle where some other wildlife were, uh—well, it’s just the chain of life, you know? They were getting to the chickens, eating the eggs before they would hatch, and so forth, and, uh, I think some of that has, uh, tempered down a little bit. We’re starting to see another rise in the chicken population, and we understand there’s a group out there that likes to feed ‘em and kinda maintain ‘em a little bit. So I think they’re doing well.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>What is your earliest memory of seeing an Oviedo chicken, because nobody knows…</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Exactly where they came from?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>No, there’s a hundred different stories, depending on who you ask. Uh, it was an agricultural community, so chickens were very common. Uh, they were common at residential homes, as well. People would just use ‘em for harvesting eggs. We had them on the horse farm we had, because it was known that chickens would often contract, uh, a serious disease before the horses might contract it or the cattle. So the farmers, uh, horse owners, cattle owners would, uh, use that as a gage to—to bring in the veterinarian before that could spread to the other crops and—and animals and so forth. So there was a[sic] actual purpose behind having chickens, but I think they were just part of the, uh, typical farming community.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>What about the, uh, peacocks that I typically see kinda wondering through Oviedo? Do you know anything about them?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Now, that’s probably the bigger question. Um, I don’t know where they came from. Uh, nobody really does. It’s likely someone acquired ‘em at some point in time, and became tired of ‘em, and just turned ‘em loose, but, uh, we don’t really have any historical knowledge of—of how they came about. They’re pretty to look at, but they’re pretty destructive too, and[?], uh…</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Have there…</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Scratch cars and so forth. So…</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Have there been any incidents involving them, like accidents or…</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Once in a while, we’ll get a citizen complaint, uh, that usually goes to Animal Control<a title="">[2]</a> for them or for aggressive roosters, certain times of year. Uh, they are just, uh, protective of themselves. So they’ll scratch you or peck at ya and so forth. A few complaints now and then where they damaged cars and things like that, but other than that, they’re—they’re pretty quiet.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Alright. Um, well, is there anything else you’d like to share with me today about the history of Oviedo, growing up there, or anything?</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Well, it’s been a great town. I—I think our growth has been pretty well managed. Uh, Traffic is always a problem in any town, and it’s always a catch-up type thing you’re never really completely prepared. The city doesn’t have a lot control over some of that, ‘cause they’re [Seminole] County and State [of Florida] roads and things of that nature. Uh, I’ve watched a lot of dirt roads get paved, uh, watched a lot of subdivisions come in to town, and that’s been—it’s been fun. I’m glad that people have enjoyed the hometown feel like just like I did, and that’s what you see a lot on social media and so forth—is folks really love this area.</p> <p>There’s a lot of, uh, civic organizations in here just doing some wonderful things, uh, so many groups, uh, A lot of hometown spirit, uh, A friendly rivalry between the two high schools. It’s been healthy. it hasn’t been destructive, so that’s been good. Uh, Seminole County has a top of the line school system. I think that’s attracted a lot of people to this area.  It’s still a little bit rural. We’ve got the river that runs through—the Econ[lockhatchee] River that runs through our town. People get to enjoy that and paths, and parks, and trails. Oviedo, uh, has some wonderful recreation, parks, facilities.</p> <p>And I like to pride ourselves on our [Oviedo] Police [Department] and Fire Department. Uh, the police do community patrolling where they’re well-connected with the community, and, uh, our philosophy, in our department too, is a hometown fire department, and we treat every person, every contact, as if it were a family member, and that’s our—our philosophy in our organization is serve with, uh, excellence, uh, serve with honor, serve with respect, and, uh, I think that’s a throwback to the beginning of the volunteers. They did that, as well. You just—you entered into this career, ‘cause you wanted to give back something to the community. Although we’re paid to do it, it’s, uh, more meaningful than that, and, uh, I think it’s been a—a good career for me and a great town to grow up in. So that’s what I would add to the conversation.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Alright, and I guess my last question would just be how did you get, you know, so interested in history and involved with that?</p> <p><strong>White <br /></strong>Well, knowing that the town was growing, knowing that we were going to lose the downtown area, and, uh, just being a part of Oviedo’s history. I think it’s important when folks come to town, you need to know where the community came from. Every time I hire a new employee in the fire department, they learn where this department started, that it was on the backs of a bunch of dedicated, volunteer firefighters, and, uh, it’s important they know that. So, uh, being involved in the historical society, and our Lawton House and [Oviedo] Farmers Market and things like that, I—I think it’s important we share that message. Uh, you learn from your past so you don’t make the same mistakes in the future. That’s a, uh, certainly historical, uh, uh, perspective that our, uh, elected officials and military leaders follow, and I think it serves well even for a hometown.</p> <p><strong>Thorncroft<br /></strong>Alright, well, thank you so much for your time today.</p> <p><strong>White<br /></strong>Thank you, Sarah.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Correction: Oviedo Photo Club.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Seminole County Animal Services.</p> </div> </div> 100-mile endurance rides Andy McDaniel bonfires chickens Citizens Bank of Florida Citizens Bank of Oviedo County Road 419 CR 419 demolition desegregation education Emergency Management Director Emergency Medical Technician EMT fire chiefs fire departments fire protection fire stations fireman firemen Florida State Road 426 Florida Technological University FTU homecoming horse farms horseback riding horses hunter/jumper horse shows integration Jackson Heights Middle School JHMS Lars D. White Lawton Elementary School Memorial Building memorials monuments Ocala National Forest OFD OHS Oviedo Oviedo Fire Department Oviedo High School Oviedo Historical Society Oviedo Lights Oviedo Veterans Memorial Oviedo Volunteer Fire Department peacocks peafowl school bus school buses schools Sears, Roebuck and Company segregation SR 426 St. Luke's Lutheran School UCF University of Central Florida veterans volunteer fire departments volunteer firefighters https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/9d752cd3aa575d9fec8b61845098d41a.pdf 8029e7962c673e092163f97adfd6ad89 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 UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection Description As part of RICHES of Central Florida, UCF intends to record, archive, and make accessible oral history interviews of Central Florida veterans. Diversity is a main focus for this project since there are many different subgroups under the group veterans, all with important stories. While the histories will be largely archived and made available through the UCF library, a portion will be contributed to the ongoing Veterans History Project based out of the Library of Congress. Contributor <a href="http://library.ucf.edu/about/departments/special-collections-university-archives/" target="_blank">Special Collections and University Archives</a>, University of Central Florida Libraries, University of Central Florida Alternative Title CVHP Collection Subject Veterans--Florida United States. Army Army United States. Navy Navy United States. Air Force Air Force United States. Marine Corps Marine Corps Is Part Of <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Language eng Type Collection Coverage Jacksonville, Florida Orlando, Florida Honolulu, Hawaii Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Great Lakes, Illinois Long Island, New York Newport, Rhode Island Norfolk, Virginia Germany Qaasuitsup, Greenland Keflavik, Southern Peninsula, Iceland Azores Islands, Portugal Mediterranean Sea Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida External Reference "<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">About the Project</a>." UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/. Has Part <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/109" target="_blank">Lone Sailor Navy Memorial History Project Collection</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project, RICHES of Central Florida. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer Young, Mary Hughes Interviewee Levine, Lawrence "Larry" Paul Location University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida Original Format 1 audio/video recording Duration 41 minutes and 6 seconds 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 Lawrence Paul Levine Alternative Title Oral History, Levine Subject Veterans--Florida Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Air Force Description An oral history interview of Lawrence Paul Levine (b. 1947), who enlisted in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in August of 1966, just after being drafted into the U.S. Army. Levine was born in Rochester, New York, on June 8, 1947. He served in Europe during the Vietnam War, until he was discharged on August 31, 1970. Levine received a Good Conduct Medal for his service.<br /><br />This oral history interview was conducted by Mary Hughes Young on April 1, 2014. Interview topics include Levine's background, his enlistment in the Air Force and drafting into the U.S. Army, basic and advanced training, being stations in Europe, getting married voerseas, returning to the U.S. after being discharged, and his life as a civilian afterward. Table Of Contents 0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:00:32 Background<br />0:02:38 Draft and enlistment<br />0:06:42 Basic training at Lackland Air Force Base<br />0:10:06 Sharpshooting and career assignment<br />0:13:52 Advanced training at Amarillo Air Force Base<br />0:21:16 Assignment in Europe<br />0:26:55 Relationships with other servicemen and assignments<br />0:30:15 Getting married overseas<br />0:31:09 Rank and discharge<br />0:33:30 Life after service<br />0:36:28 Treatment from civilians<br />0:37:29 How service affected civilian life<br />0:39:15 Closing remarks Abstract Oral history interview of Lawrence Paul Levine. Interview conducted by Mary Hughes Young at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. Type Moving Image Source <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/259/" target="_blank">Levine, Lawrence Paul</a>. Interviewed by Mary Hughes Young. April 1, 2014. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VET/id/277/rec/1" target="_blank">Item DP0014898</a>, UCF Community Veterans History Project, Orlando, Florida. Requires <a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank">Adobe Flash Player</a> <a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank">Java</a> <a href="https://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a> Is Part Of <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, Orlando, Florida. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/92" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida. Has Format Digital transcript of original 41-minute and 6-second oral history: <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/259/" target="_blank">Levine, Lawrence Paul</a>. Interviewed by Mary Hughes Young. April 1, 2014. Conforms To Standards established by the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/vets/" target="_blank">Veterans History Projects</a>, Library of Congress. Coverage Rochester, New York Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, Providence, Rhode Island Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas Amarillo Air Force Base, Amarillo, Texas McGuire Air Force Base, Burlington County, New Jersey Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany Shaw Air Force Base, Sumter, South Carolina Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York Creator Levine, Larry Young, Mary Hughes Publisher <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Date Created 2014-04-01 Date Copyrighted 2014-04-01 Format video/mp4 application/pdf Extent 353 MB 224 MB Medium 41-minute and 6-second audio/video recording 28-page digital transcript Language eng Mediator History Teacher Civics/Government Teacher Geography Teacher Provenance Originally created by Mary Hughes Young and Larry Levine and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>. Rights Holder <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> Accrual Method Item Creation Contributing Project <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/veterans/" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a> Curator Cepero, Laura Digital Collection <a href="http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/VET" target="_blank">UCF Community Veterans History Project</a>, UCF Digital Collections, University of Central Florida <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a> Source Repository <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> External Reference Herring, George C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5126110" target="_blank"><em>America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975</em></a>. New York: Wiley, 1979. Transcript <p><strong>Unidentified<br /></strong>Recording.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Today [<em>clears throat</em>] is April the 1^st[, 2014]. I am Mary Hughes Young, and I am interviewing Lawrence Paul Levine.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Who served in the U.S. Air Force [<em>sniffs</em>]. Um, This is part of the University of Central Floride—Florida’s Community Veterans History Project, and we’re recording this interview at University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. Okay. Larry, tell me first about when and where you were born.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I was born in Rochester, New York, in 1947.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And did you live there for all of your educational years?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, primarily, yes. Yes. I, uh, graduated college in Rochester also, after the—after my service.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Uh, do you have brothers or sisters?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. I have two brothers.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Two. So there were three of…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. There were three of us in the family.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Where were you in the birth order?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, I’m the oldest.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>The oldest? Okay. What did your parents do for a living?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, my father had a number of different jobs. Uh, He was a bread salesman for Thomas’ English Muffins for a while, and then worked for a supermarket chain as one of their managers of one of their stores. Um, my mother was pretty much of a stay-at home mom. Um, She became very si—very sick, um, at a very young age and—and passed away at a very young age also. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And how old were you when she passed away?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I was, uh, 20.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>20? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>21.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh, Were any of your family members or extended members in the military?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. My father—my father was. He was in World War II. He, uh, was an in-flight radio operator in—at that time, was the Army Air Corps, uh, which then became the Air Force. Uh, in-flight radio operator and served over in India, going back from Karachi to Calcutta, India.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Uh, tell me about your education before you went into the military.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, I, um, graduated high school in 1964. Uh, was accepted to Brown University, um, in Providence, Rhode Island. [<em>clears throat</em>] Finished one year there, and then my mother became very ill, and I had to come back home, which led me into the next phase of my life of being in the—in the military. Um, so that was prior to me going into the service.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Uh, And why did you decide to go into the military?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, uh, because I came back home and had to help the family out. Uh, during that time, it was the Vietnam War, obviously—back in the—in the [19]60s. Um, in all honestly, I was ultimately drafted.</p> <p>Now, there was a[sic] interesting—very interesting story that leads up to that. Um, When I came back home, I went to work for the U.S. Customs Service. My background is primarily: I was going to school in business and accounting, and I was fortunate enough to get a job [<em>clears throat</em>] with the U.S. Bureau of Customs [and Border Protection] in Rochester. Uh, went to work for them full-time. Did a number of j—jobs for them, primarily in the accounting area, and also, uh, did a few clearances of planes and—and ships and that system, where I need to, in that particular area. But I worked in the, um, government, uh—in the state office building—actually, it was a Federal building. It wasn’t even a state. It was a Federal building, because it was U.S. Customs.</p> <p>And, uh, the draft board was right downstairs from my offices. And I became very friendly with a number of the different people who worked in the draft board, and informed them of my situation: that, uh, I was eligible for the draft, because I wasn’t going to school full-time. I was going to school part-time. Uh, they had informed me at that particular time that, “No—no worries. No problems.” That, uh, I would be safe, because I knew everybody there. And low- and behold, before I knew it, my letter from Uncle Sam came and said I was drafted.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>So I went back to the [<em>laughs</em>]—to the, uh, draft board and said, “What happened here?” And their excuse was, “Oh, we’re sorry. It got by us,” and everything like that. So, um, in ess—in essence, I was drafted, but before I was drafted, I enlisted in the Air Force.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Um, and was this before the lottery was in effect?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No. The lottery was in effect, if I’m not mistaken. Um, the—there was a lottery, and I had a pretty, pretty low lottery number.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Meaning that I was very eligible for the draft. Uh, I wasn’t going to Canada. I wasn’t going any place, but I was informed again by the draft board that I’d be safe. And, uh, low and behold, I wasn’t.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Because of the work you were doing?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No. It’s just that—because I knew people at the draft board, who said if they saw my name come up, they would pull it [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Oh, okay. Okay. Well, how did you feel about being drafted then? Um, was it—was it…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Concerned.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>A big shock?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Concerned.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Shock. Uh, the first thing, obviously, that came to my mind, was: <em>Well, if you’re drafted, then you’re going into the Army. And if you go in the Army, you are going to carry a gun. If you carry a gun, you’re going to go to Vietnam.</em> So, uh, when that—when that happened, obviously, the family was very concerned about it. And, uh…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And so—so…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>They didn’t want me to go. So I figured it would be best if I went into the Air Force.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Right. And so you signed up for the Air Force…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Right after you were drafted?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. That’s correct.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>That’s correct.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And So your family was feeling</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Concerned about the situation too?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>They were more concerned, obviously, during that whole period of time, but not as concerned if I allowed myself to be drafted in the Army.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Into the Army. Okay. How about your, uh peers? You friends or girlfriend? How did they feel about you going into the military?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, my friends were kind of like, <em>Better you than me</em>, at that particular time. Uh, I’m sure most people realized that was not the greatest time in our history for the military. Most people were looked down on in going into the military. Uh, I had some tough experiences myself with that particular situation. Uh, my girlfriend, at the time, was pretty much—said, “If you are going into the military, then I’m not waiting around for you, so,” [<em>laughs</em>] “I’m—I’m gone.”</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>As if you had a choice, right? [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yeah. As if I had a choice. Right. Right.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Uh, well, now you’re in the Air Force.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And where did you do your basic training?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. I was there in August of 1966.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And, uh, what were your expectations of— being in the, uh—in basic training? Did you—did you have any idea of what was going—what it was going to be like?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No. I had an idea, but I didn’t—I didn’t think it would be as bad as it really was. Uh, I was in good shape at the time, okay?</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Weighed a lot less than I do now. And, um, expected it to be a little different, uh, physically and mentally. Uh, The aspects of basic training are obviously to get you in a situation to where you are able to accept orders, and you’re able to—be able to do things when they’re—when you’re told to do them. And, uh, I accepted that without any problem. It’s just—there’s a little more physical on my body than I had anticipated.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yeah. The marching…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>What was a typical day like?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>The typical day is we get up at like five in the morning—4:30-5 o’clock in the morning, and we’d have to make our bunks and get everything straightened away for the day. We go to me—the mess hall, where we had breakfast. And that was one of the things that surprised me, because we just didn’t take our time in—in being able to eat breakfast. We were given a certain amount of time to get in line, eat our breakfast, and get ready to go outside. It was a lot shorter than I had anticipated. So, uh, my eating habits had to change very quickly, because of that.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Hm.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, after that, we would do either calisthenics or marching. Um, go to the gun range, which kind of surprised me, because I didn’t think I would be shooting a gun. Uh, had qualified in the—in the gun range.</p> <p>And had different classes on just general military, um—you know, the way of life of a—of a person in the military. Uh, Things—how to handle yourself, how to be able to, uh, you know, again, take orders, and anything that had to do with the military. Military history, all of that.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And this—how long was your basic training? How many weeks?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, wow. You see, I—that—I, uh—I want to say eight weeks.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Eight weeks? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>But it might be a little bit longer than that. I mean, that’s 40—what? 40—safe[sic] —48 years ago. And [<em>laughs</em>]…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>[inaudible]. I really didn’t wanna do any…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>It’s not for everybody[?].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Research on that.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>You know there’s an end to it.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>It’s not gonna be forever.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>That’s absolutely correct.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Um, what were your instructors like?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>[<em>sniffs</em>] I thought the meanest people in the world, okay? They didn’t take any—they didn’t take anything from anybody.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Um, which is what they were supposed to do. You were supposed to be there to listen to them. Them—they were, um, NCOs [non-commissioned officers], which is, uh, the equivalents of sergeants, okay? They were not officers, although the heads—some different, um, sections were—were officers—captains and—and, uh, lieutenants and that. But, um, you know…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I realized after a while, that they were doing their job, and that if they were soft on us, and if we became—a situation, which we got involved in, we couldn’t be soft either. So the, um—they did their job, and I think they did it—looking back on it, I think they did a good job on ‘em.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Uh, let’s back up a minute.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Sure.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>You said you didn’t think you’d have to shoot a gun</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>But you did.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And I think I noticed on your paper that you were, uh, a sharpshooter.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yeah. I surprised myself, to be honest with you.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Had you ever shot a gun before?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. So…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>You adapted to that well.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I adapted to it. Yeah. Well…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Which again, kind of concerned me. In effect, if I’m a sharpshooter, they might do something with me, other than what I wanted to do [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Did you receive, uh, any advanced, specialized training?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Not at that time. No. When we, uh—Just To—to go back a little bit, uh, historically, what led up to this: when I enlisted in the—in the Air Force—and I— don’t mean to take away what you’re—you—the questions you are asking—uh, I had to take a battery of tests…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>To determine where I was best fit for the Air Force. Uh, and, at that time, I was—I—I actually scored highest in the administrative area. It was like electronics, administrative, mechanical, uh—those I think—and—and just basic—basic air. So I scored highest in administrative, which I assumed that I would, because that was pretty much my background and what I wanted to do.</p> <p>However, at the time that I went in, and—there were no openings in the administrative field. So I said, “Well, if you don’t have anything in the administrative area, send me home. I don’t—I don’t need to come then.”</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>They said, “No. that doesn’t work that way, okay? Now, you’re going to be in the electronics field.” I said, “Okay. Electronics.” “Yeah. You know, putting wires together and all this kind of stuff. Wherever you’re needed in electronics.” You know, that’s a wide area, obviously. I said, “Okay.” and they gave me another battery of tests, and one of the tests was called the Ishihara [Color] Test—and I’m not sure if you’re fa—familiar with that? That’s the one where they have the numbers that are embedded in the different colors, so that if you’re looking at it, it is to determine if you are colorblind or not.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Oh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, I really botched that up big time. I think I only got two numbers out of all of them that they showed me. I just couldn’t pick out the different numbers in the blocks of different colors. So they sat back and they said “Well, hm. If you can’t pick out the numbers, how are you going to put a red wire together with a green wire or with a blue wire, and make sure it’s running properly? So you can’t go into electronics.” So I said, “Good. Send me home.” They said, “No. it doesn’t work that way.”</p> <p>I said, “Well, how about administrative again?” “No. we still don’t have any openings.” “Okay. So now what?” “Well, we’re going to give you your choice of what you want to do, Okay? This is the career that you’re going to have in the Air Force.” One: You can become a cook, okay? Number two: you can become a parachute rigger, okay? Putting together the parachutes for the pilots and [inaudible]. Three: you can be an air policeman, because you did qualify that [inaudible]. Or four: you can be an airframe repair specialist.</p> <p>So I sat back and I thought, <em>Well, I could kill everybody with my cooking</em>, because I couldn’t cook very well, okay? <em>If I became a parachute rigger, god forbid if a parachute didn’t open when the pilot jumped out of the plane or whatever[?], I’d probably kill somebody that way. </em>Air police? I says[sic], <em>Nah. I’m not big enough to be a good air </em>policeman, you know? I could direct traffic, but that would probably be all that I could do. So that left me with airframe repair, okay? So that’s where we’re back—that’s where—that’s a little bit about the background on my next point after basic training.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. So in basic training, you get your assignments?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Exactly.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And you were assigned to be an air…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Airframe Repair.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Airframe Repair? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>That’s exactly correct.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. So that’s working on the outside of the airplane.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, It could be the inside too.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Oh, okay. Anything to do with the frame of an airplane?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay, but, um—so where were you assigned after basic training?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I was assigned after basic training to advanced training at Amarillo Air Force Base—Texas also. I really didn’t leave Texas for my basic training and my advance training. And this was strictly was airframe repair now.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay? This was how—to teach me how to be, uh, an airframe repairman.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I have two left hands, so you can imagine</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>What it was like to be in Airframe Repair School [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And—so how long where you in</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Airframe training?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Six months, actually.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Six months? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Almost six months. It was—yeah.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And What was your impression of this a—assignment?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I thought it would be just going to school, But unfortunately, it wasn’t. It was an extension of the basic training, only, to be honest with you, worse. First of all, the weather in Amarillo, Texas, was horrible. I was there during the wintertime, and it was cold and freezing, and we were doing calisthenics outside and we were running, and we were marching. And I said, <em>This isn’t supposed to be like this.</em> <em>This is like I’m supposed to learn how to work on airplanes, not</em> [<em>laughs</em>]—<em>not</em>—I said, “This was already done in basic training. Why do I—why do I gotta do that again?” “No, no, no.” And actually, they—they called them “TIs”—technical instructors—were worse in—in Airframe Repair School than they were in basic training. They were harder on us in—in, uh—in school.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>So…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>How many hours would you actually be in—in training for repairs?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>For repairs? It was about six to eight hours a day.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>So a long day?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yeah. It was just on the repair. Just on airframe repairs. That wasn’t—again, the calisthenics or the marching and everything else. So it was a full day.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And did it start early…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Like in basic training?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Not as early, but pretty close.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Pretty close? Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>What did your duties entail as an airframe worker?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, again, there’s another story that goes along with that, okay?</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Tell it.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh,Well, in—in basic airframe repair, you do anything from sheet metal work to fiber glassing to, umm anything that has to do, again, with—with the frame. Ma—uh, making sure that the—that the actual plane itself is in good shape to fly, okay? From a sheet metal standpoint, and not the electronics standpoint. Obviously, that’s in another area.</p> <p>But, uh—this—this, again, is a—is another story. I had two left hands, as—as I had mentioned. Uh, I couldn’t hit a hammer—nail with a hammer great, and they’re putting me on working on airplanes. Well, each part of the course was a different thing you did with an—with the airframe. Riveting was one area, sheet met—cutting out certain, uh, pieces on the plane was another area.</p> <p>Uh, one of the areas that they had, they called them “blocks.” each one was a separate block, and what you did was you learned as part—as in the individual blocks was, uh, fiber glassing, okay? And how to fiberglass, how to use fiberglass, and how to be able to mold it on a plane were necessary things like that. I wish you could’ve seen me doing the fiberglass work. You’d—it’d—it’s a real comedy. It was a real comedy, a real joke.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>What was the, uh, difficulty in—in doing that? I don’t—I haven’t worked with fiberglass.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, it’s just mixing—mixing the ras—the resin together…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Oh, okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>So it’s the right consistency. Being able to lay out the sheets of fiberglass on there, and smooth it over, sand it down. All of these different areas are part of the—are part of the fiberglass work, okay?</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>So that—that—that’s—that was part of it. That was one of the blocks.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Alright. And there were other things, like riveting classes?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong> How to use a rivet gun properly. Um, All different types—all different of things on—on, Again, using sheet metal, and using—and repairing aircraft.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>What did you like best about that?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Nothing [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Nothing? Okay. So you kind of felt like you were a...</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I was a…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Round peg…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>In a square hole?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Exactly.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Exactly. I was not in the proper location.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>And unfortunately, the Air Force didn’t realize at the time, okay? They put me through it.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Were your instructors, um, understanding? Or…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Patient? Or…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>They pretty—they were pretty understanding, with the exception of the one from the fiberglass area, because, uh, I ultimately did not pass the test to move on to the next phase of the Airframe Repair School. So I actually had to take a complete week all over—or, em, two weeks, I believe, or three weeks. I had to take that all over again.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>All the fiberglass work?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. The fiberglass portion. And the other ones I had passed…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>But the fiberglass portion, I had a very difficult time with, and, uh, I had to take that part of the program all over again.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And then you passed it?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. So now are you ready for the next, uh—for your next assignment?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, again, the reason—now, I was part of a group of students. My class, I think, was like 12 or 14 students in my class. Because I had failed the test, they moved on to the next phase, I had to wait until the next class came along to pick up with them, and to begin the fiberglass portion all over again.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay. Which I did. Uh, I think I had to wait a week before the next class came to the point that they were going to do the fiberglass…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Oh, okay. I see.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Block. So I waved goodbye to all of my fellow students. They had gone—they had gone on to the next phase, and started it, and started the next group. Which a second time I did pass, okay? So I finished and graduated tech school, at that point.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. So you only had to wait behind two weeks, and then do you catch up with your class again?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>No?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No. Then I’m involved with this next…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Your [inaudible]?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>New class. [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Did you go through all the training you did before?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No. No. I just picked it up from the fiberglass portion. I’m not sure if it was the third block or the second block. I really don’t remember.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>But then I just proceeded on with that class. Now, as they had finished block one and block two…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>And they went into fiber glassing. I had finished one and two, and started in with them as part of my new class, and we continued on together.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>So I had to meet all new students, and—and get involved with the new class.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Can you describe an event that wasn’t typical in this particular time of your training? You’re in the six months training now. Is there anything that happened that wasn’t typical of an everyday experience or—that you can think of?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mm. Not really. No. It was just pretty much—cou—can’t wait to get out and get an assignment type of situation. And, um, I—Like I said, I did the very best I can. I knew I had no choice, and, uh, I was able to pass and continue on. But it was pretty much the same routine. The only difference that we had was that we had, uh, leave on the weekends, and we were able to go into Amarillo, which There’s not much there. So we did have leave—we did have leave time then. It wasn’t like a seven days a week type of training.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.So not really anything memoral—memorable during this time?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Not really. No.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. So at six—when you finished that six-month training…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>What happened then?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>‘Nother interesting point. I guess—I guess I had more interesting points than I thought I did. When I, um, came out of my next—with my new class, my previous class had gone on. And of course. they graduated from the technical school before I did. They all got their orders, and the entire class got orders for Vietnam, okay? So if I was in that class, I would have ended up going to Vietnam, at the time. My situation was, when I graduated and I saw my orders posted, I got sent to Europe [<em>laughs</em>]. So…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>That’s interesting</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>It is. It was lu—very lucky. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>At that point, you weren’t too [inaudible] —too very sorry that you weren’t very adept to…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No. Not really. But of course, you know, that can change—that can change at any time also. But, uh, quite a relief on my family’s part, to say the least.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Um, It—it was—it was very, [<em>laughs</em>] very interesting time, believe me. So I was sent to Europe, uh, in what they called a “TDY outfit,” which was temporary duty assignments. Now, I was assigned to work on a [McDonnell Douglas] F-4 [Phantom II] aircraft. they called it the “phantom jet.” I worked on [McDonnell] F-101s [Voodoo], [Republic F-]105s [Thunderchief], uh, various different types of programs.</p> <p>My basic job was to work on the outboard tanks and pylons. The pylons were, uh, the apparatus that held the bomb racks on. So we were working on putting on bomb racks on the different types of aircraft, and they would then go over to Vietnam.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Now…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>So you were specialized in your duties?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. Yes. We were—we became specialized in our duties. Now, the government, at the time—again, we were set up as a temporary duty assignment. We had—had to go from base to base to work on these different aircraft. The government thought that it would be cheaper for us to travel in groups and work on these tanks and pylons, because the point of the—with these jets are: they had the jettison their outboard tanks and their pylon or bomb racks when they took off after their bombing runs. Because if they kept those on, it would add weight to the plane itself, in which case, they couldn’t get away—get away as quick, uh, without them. So they were continuously jettisoning these, and when they would come back to—to Europe, we’d have to refit them with new ones, and make—and—and get them all set up for them to go out again. Even though most of them were based right in Vietnam or Thailand and that[?], um, they still came for—for, uh, overall maintenance back to the, uh—back to Europe.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>So…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Where in Europe were you?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay. I was in, uh, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Libya, England, Spain, and my home base was in Germany, okay? That’s where we worked out of. We worked out of Rhein-Main [Air Base], Germany, in, uh, Frankfurt [am Main, Hesse, Germany], okay? So that’s where my main outfit was. It was Detachment 51.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And that’s[sic] the ones you graduated with?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>[inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Actually, some—Most of them—most of them did go on to that, but I think there were about six or seven that went to different, uh— areas, okay?</p> <p>Uh, that’s another [<em>laughs</em>]—again, that’s another interesting point. Uh, When I flew over from, uh, New Jersey—McGuire Air Force Base. I left out of McGuire Air Force Base. It’s—it’s a funny story. There were like three planes lined up taking all of us over to Europe. There were two commercial airliners, and then there was what they called a “C-141 Galaxy.” And I said, “Oh, I’m going to go over to Europe in a nice, uh, airliner,” and I ended up going over on a military aircraft, sitting in the seats on the sides [<em>laughs</em>]. So it was kind of a bumpy ride over there.</p> <p>But when I landed, my orders were to catch up with my unit in what they called—in a place called Chaumont[, Haute-Marne], France, okay? So I landed at Rhein-Main Air Force Base, Germany, caught a shuttle, uh—a military shuttle. Uh, it wasn’t a plane. It was a bus, alright? Down to Chaumont, France. Caught up with my, eh—with my group down there, okay? With my detachment down there. And I noticed as I went into—to the offices to report in, that they’re packing up everything. And I went and signed in, and I said to the desk sergeant or whatever his name was, “What—what’s going on,” okay? “I was told to report here.” They said, “Well, we’re leaving.” I said, “Why are you leaving?” Well, at that time, France was not in the best, you know, of friends with the—with the United States. And, uh, this is part of the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] Pact, and we were—we were leaving out of France. And I said, “Oh,” I said, “So we’re not going to stay in France?” “No.” “Well, where are we going?” He said, “Rhein-Main Air Force Base in Germany.” I said, “Wait a minute. I just came from there.” [<em>laughs</em>] I said, “I just took a bus and came from Rhein-Main.”</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Going to your official[?] [inaudible].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>“Why didn’t anybody tell—why didn’t anybody tell me that I was going to go back to—I would never have left I would have waited for ya there.” Well, as it turned out, we went—we went back to Rhein-Main, and, um, set up shop there, and, uh, proceeded to travel all over Europe, and—and working on these tanks and pylons and—and getting them set, so that they—we can put ‘em on the planes, and they can take off.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Did you have a schedule for where you would be and…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>How…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. We had orders every—every time. Uh…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And how did that work? Or—or did you not know ahead of time?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Um, when we finished one assignment, we’d come back for a while, and, uh, work around…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Always back to Germany?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Back to Germany. Right.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>And then get our—get our next assignment when we were told to go out…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Again.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>What was your relationship with the oth—other service personnel that you worked directly with on the pylons?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Oh, we, uh—we had a good relationship. I mean, we were a unit. We pretty much hung around together. Uh, when we had time, we played softball, uh, on—in a league on base. And again, I was a lot, a lot thinner [<em>laughs</em>] back then. And, uh, we had—we had a good time. I mean, it was pretty much a regular eight-hour day, okay? Uh, if—whether or not it was at the—at the base that we were at, or at our home base in Germany.</p> <p>There was—every once in a while, we had assignments. Outside of our unit, was the, uh, uh Boeing 707—I think it was, um, at the time. It was the General of the Air Force’s plane, uh, of Europe</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay. Uh, [inaudible]. It was the General’s plane—his personal plane—was out there. Actually, come to think of it now, it was the [Boeing] KC-135 [Stratotanker] —was—which was an inflight re-fueler, where those, you know—the planes come up to it, and they drop the boom in that. Well, this was a converted KC-135 for the General. Really nice, nice plane. And we had work on that every once in a while, changing some things, and, you know, making sure that everything was okay.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>When you were, uh, at base, or on these assignments, were you always busy? Or were there times that you didn’t—were waiting for the next assignment?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, No. We were busy most of the time. We were busy most of the time. I mean, once again, it was pretty much and eight-hour day, and when we were done, we had—we were free to do whatever we wanted. It was just, uh, like a normal job, except we worked [inaudible]…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. But there wasn’t a lot of just sit around and wait?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No, no, no, no.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. How did you stay in touch with your family and friends back home?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, at that time, I was—there—there was no such thing as Skype, or, uh, e-mail, and things like that. So it was pretty much by letter. Just by regular letter. Sna—snail mail.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Snail mail.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh, do you believe you were well-trained for your assignment?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>As best as they could, considering what they had to deal with [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh, did you always have the equipment and the supplies that you needed…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>To do your job?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. That—that we had no trouble—we had no trouble with.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And you mentioned you played softball.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>How else did you entertain yourself when you weren’t on duty?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mm. Well, I’d say drink [<em>laughs</em>]. Um, Just going to different, uh—go to the USO [United Service Organization] over there, and saw stag shows, and had one—one or two beers—four or five.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Was there a USO show that was particularly memorable?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. The Platters. The original Platters were there. And, um, I—I liked them from the beginning, and I was very fortunate to meet ‘em, and, uh, listen—they put on a great show.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.Was that in Germany? Or in one of your other assignments?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No. That was in Germany.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>It was in Germany [<em>sniffs</em>]. But When I—I was in Spain, uh, over one of the New Year’s [Eve]. I was in, uh, Madrid, Spain, and got and to see a flamenco show there. A real, real flamenco show, which was pretty good.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Did you take advantage of any, uh, sightseeing, or…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Oh, yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Or tours…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>When you were there?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. That would be entertaining [inaudible]</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Actually, um, I got married while—while I was overseas.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>And my wife was in the States. She was a—she was an American. She was German—born German, but, um, I married—I got married. And she was able to come over to Europe and get a job in Germany, while I was gone. Fortunately enough, she, um, uh spoke German. So she was able to get around the economy very nicely while I was gone, because I was gone most of the time.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>But it was nice to have her over there. And when—when I was back there, we were able to travel around.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Oh, nice.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>We were able to go to Holland,<a title="">[1]</a> and, uh, visit a lot of Germany. Go around—go around Germany.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>That’s a—that’s very, uh—very nice thing to have happened…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>While you’re</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Young, and, uh—and not a lot of money…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Right. Exactly.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>You cantravel around on…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Exactly.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh, Uncle Sam’s dime.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh, when were you—tell me about your ranking and how that—and how you…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, actually, I became a sergeant.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>You ended up a staff sergeant.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Uh, pardon me?</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>You ended up as a staff sergeant. I saw on your…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yeah. It was a…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. You start off as a—tell me how that works.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, you just go in as an airman.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay. And then, at that time, it was, um, second class, first class, and sergeant.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Actually, I think I mis—misstated. Um, I was three stripes, which was considered a sergeant at the time.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay. Four stripes is a staff sergeant, so…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I made three. If I had reenlisted, I probably would have gotten a fourth stripe.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Alright. So you ended up as a sergeant?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And, um, when were you discharged from the military?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>August of 1970. When I rotated back from the States, I, uh, was stationed in, uh, Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina, which was about 7-8 months. So I lived in South Carolina, outside of Columbia.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And how long were you there?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I think it was 7-8 months. Something like that.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Seven—okay. Um, how did you feel once you were out of the military?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Relieved. Um, Glad I did what I did. Uh, kind of—Kind of upset as to what was going on, while I was in the military, back home with the individual tour—“pacifists,” I guess you call them—or against the war in Vietnam. I mean, I was not all in favor of what was going on, but, uh, when I did come home on leave at one time, uh, it was not ver— it was not a very good situation. I mean, we were—for all intents and purposes, we were spat at, at the airports, when we walked through. Nobody said, “Thank you for your service.” And, uh, they just didn’t like it. They didn’t like anybody in the military, or anybody in uniform. So that—that kind of part was tough.</p> <p>Um, Again, I was relieved. But on the other hand, I felt that all of my friends—I was the only one of all my friends back in Rochester. I was the only one to go into the military, and felt that I was four years behind them in education and—and, um—and just getting on with my life. So, you know, it—both sides. I felt good with serving, but on the other hand, I felt that I lost some time.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Um, once you were out, what did you do?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>[<em>sniffs</em>] Another good, interesting situation. Uh, when I got out of the service, my wife became pregnant [<em>laughs</em>]. And, uh, it was probably from the week I got discharged [<em>laughs</em>]</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>She—she got pregnant. In which case, if she got pregnant while we were in the military, the government would have paid for it. If she had given birth while I was in, the military would have paid for it.</p> <p>But I, uh—when I got out of the service, my main goal was to get back to school. I wanted to get my degree in accounting and—and go on from there. But a little s—s—little turn of events when your wife becomes pregnant. Going to day school is pretty difficult. So I took a job. um, and again, I got out in August, and, uh, school was going to start in September, but I was gonna take—go to night school, okay? And—and get a job during the day. But until that time started, I went to work at McDonald’s, uh, slinging hamburgers. See, eh, eh, my memory’s coming back. I was going to go to day school.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh huh.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>So I wasn’t going to enroll until September, but I needed some—to get some income coming in, uh, for my wife and that. So I went to work at McDonald’s slinging hamburgers, which was not a great experience. Because here’s an older gentleman, who’s, uh, slinging hamburgers with a bunch of teenagers, and looking at me, thinking, <em>Boy, he must be a real loser if he’s doing this</em>, not knowing the situation. But I got the job in telling ‘em that I was going to—I wanted to go to school training to become a manager at McDonald’s. This is how I got the job. And, uh, the owner of the place said, “Okay.” He said, “But you—but in order to do that, you have to learn all the different areas of—of McDonald’s.” French fries, working on the grill, the clean-up, the whole bit. . I said, “Okay.” Well, that lasted about a week—week and a half—and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I would come home smelling terrible from all the fat that was in the French fries. So that lasted maybe a week—week and a half.</p> <p>But we managed. Um, and I did start going to school, but things got to a point where I just needed to get money. So I went—I was going back to night school. I went to night school, and got a job. Uh, at that time, [<em>sniffs</em>] I was working, I believe, at one of the local manufacturing companies in their finance department. I was working in their cost accounting department. Even though I didn’t have a degree, they—they put me on as—in a lower level type of position. But it was bringing in income, and I—I was able to go to school at night.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And where was this, Larry?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Rochester Institute of Technology.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Oh, you were back in…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yeah.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Back in New York<strong>.</strong></p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I was back in Rochester. I went back to New York.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Were you—were there any G.I.<a title="">[2]</a> benefits</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>That you were able to take advantage of?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. Absolutely. I was on the G.I. Bill.<a title="">[3]</a> Helped me pay for my schooling. Yes. Definitely.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. And so you’re working in the daytime and…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And going to school at night.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And, uh, we talked about how you were treated…</p> <p>[<em>background noise</em>]</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>When you came home, and that, um, there was, um, uh, disrespect…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Dor you as a soldier. Now…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Right.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Was that set across the board every time you came home on leave? Or, uh, did you notice that when you would go to New York? Or when you would go—when you came back to South Carolina? Was there a difference in the way the local people treated you?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Not really. No. Not that I can remember. It was just an area that they didn’t go out of their way to—to do anything. More like they were trying to ignore us, then, um—like we were the—the plague.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay. And just no—no respect. No respect for anyone. And that’s what makes me feel so good now is that you’re seeing these, uh, individuals in the military, and people are giving them respect and thanking them for their service. So that’s one of the areas where I—I felt cheated out of also—is not getting the respect and that, because it was four years of my life, and that’s a long time.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>It is a long time, especially at that age.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Right. Exactly.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Uh, did your military experience affect your civilian life in any way?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I became more appreciative of life. Um, More appreciative of the things that I—that I was able to get, uh, of—of my family at the time. Because being away from them most of the—now fortunately, like I said, my wife was able to come with—to come with me over to Europe, but, uh, I missed my brothers and my—and my father. My mother had passed away prior to that, so, uh—but, yeah. Uh, a lot of things, uh—a lot of things that I was more appreciative of, at the time.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Do you think that you were more serious in your education than you would have been as a 20…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Most definitely. Most definitely. That’s a very good point. I looked at my education totally different. Uh, more—I—I was more involved with history. Um, I—I didn’t feel at the time—you see, there was a lot—a lot difference in going to school and being, pretty much, made to go to school, or that—that was the norm. You—you went to high school. You finished high school. You went to college and then you went on from there.</p> <p>And because of the interruption, I looked at it from a different stand point that, you know, this is an opportunity. This is a great opportunity, and, uh, the government is helping me with this opportunity, through the G.I. Bill. I’m going to take full advantage of it. So I took full courses. And if anybody knows about Rochester, New York, and going to school at night in Rochester, New York, in the middle of winter is not easy. Okay. It was cold. It was freezing. It was snowing. But, uh, I had a family to support, and I wanted to be able to get my education, so Luckily, I was able to complete it.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Okay. Looking back on it all, can you describe about how you feel about your service? You said that you were glad you did it…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Mmhmm.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And anything else you want to add to that?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>No. Other—other than the fact that, um, I personally think that it makes a—a person better going into the military. And I for one, feel that it should be mandatory, because there’s a lot of kids that are going to—to education and that, because they don’t know what else to do.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And so you feel it…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Okay. And I think when they say it—when they say…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Gives them time to mature and…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I’m sorry. What’s that?</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>It gives them time to mature…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And to learn…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Absolutely.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>A little about the world and…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>And to grow up…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And to grow up.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>And to grow up…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And to learn some discipline [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Yes. That’s the other area. That’s the other area. Like I said, so many don’t know what they want to do with themselves, and they end up in the military. Although they didn’t give me the opportunity to go in the direction that I wanted to. It certainly opened up my eyes to a lot of things. And one is independence. You know, being independent, being able to do things on your own, uh, washing your own clothes, making your own bed, uh, choosing the right things to do.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Did you become more adept to working with your hands?</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>I wish I could say yes [<em>laughs</em>].</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Some things you just can’t learn.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Some things that you—you have a difficult time doing. That’s correct. Um, I think I’m a little better with a hammer and nails now than I was. I wouldn’t go as far as work with any kind of sheet metal or anything, because I’m sure I would cut my fingers up in shreds, but Yeah. I think I’m a little bit better. I can—I can…</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>Well, Larry, I thank you for your service. And I thank you for this—for you doing this…</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Well, it was a pleasure.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>With us.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Very enjoyable. Very enjoyable.</p> <p><strong>Young<br /></strong>And, uh, I enjoyed talking with you about it.</p> <p><strong>Levine<br /></strong>Mmhmm. Thank you. Thank you.</p> <div><br /><div> <p><a title="">[1]</a> Formally called The Netherlands.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[2]</a> Government Issue or General Issue.</p> </div> <div> <p><a title="">[3]</a> Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944.</p> </div> </div> Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website) <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/veteransoralhistories/259/" target="_blank">Levine, Lawrence Paul</a> accounting advanced training Airframe Repair School airframe repair specialists airframe repairman airframe repairmen airplanes Amarill, Texas Amarillo AFB Amarillo Air Force Base anti-war movement basic training Boeing 707 Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker Brown University BU Bureau of Customs and Border Protection Burlington County, New Jersey C-141 Galaxy colorblindness Community Veterans History Project conscription Custom Service CVHP Detachment 51 draft board draft lottery drafts education enlistment Europe F-101 F-105 F-4 fast food restaurants fiber glassing fiberglass firearms Frankfurt am Main, Germany G.I. 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