The Frazier Family in Old Stuart

so one day I said to myself Flora you know before you get too old and uh forgetful you better sit down and write a book about how things used to be so I did oh it's not in your library so don't run out to look for it and it's not for sale in fact there's only one copy and this is it but I'd sure like to read it to you I'd like to introduce you to some of the hearty Souls that settled around here share a funny story or two and um I'll just give you a little history lesson about how this place used to be and how the place is that all of us

call home The Story begins like this Once Upon a Time because all good stories just begin that way my name was Flora Frazier and I was nine years old I lived with my mother and my father my sister Mita Bell and my younger brother Frank in North Florida now my father had come down here first he liked what he saw and he paced out his Homestead a 160 Acres right along the shores of the beautiful St Lucie River then he came back home to tell my mother what he had done and to ask her if she might want to go back with him she just smiled and she said Russell wherever you go I will

go well he said we better ask the children if they'd like to go and they did and we said mama papa wherever you go we will go and so the Frasier family embarked on an adventure that would would last the rest of their lives my father hired a sailing barge the biggest flattest boat I'd ever seen well it had to be it carried all of our belongings our household goods all the lumba from our old torn down ice house which would later be used to build a shelter for us well that is until our new house was built there was also a horse and a wagon aboard a dog and a cat 40 chickens and

three beehives the first beehives ever to float down the Indian River well after it was all loaded our family of five came aboard now the ship ran pretty well after a big rainstorm but if the water was low it had all it could do to get down the Indian River it was a ground most of the time on the sand bars and the oyster Bays it took us eight days to go from Titusville and eight long nights there weren't a great deal of mosquitoes however the first time and the last time we ever thought about it I mean they they just went around we spent most of the nights as I said a ground then

in the morning we had to pry lift push and pray and in true Florida fashion wait for the tide to rise before we could go on we arrived on the St Lucie River on August 12 1887 right at the mouth of a creek that was later to be called Frasier Creek my father was right oh that River was the most beautiful sight we had ever seen we were all so excited well that is until oppositions were put out on the creek Bank leaving us high and dry by the boat sailed away then Mr Willis Bessie came along he had seen the boat arrive and wanted to welcome us and offer his help which was greatly

appreciated but it wasn't too long before we began to meet our other neighbors mosquitoes the size of horse flies and snakes and assorted Critters hiding in the underbrush and the rivers and the Creeks were filled with alligators I can remember waking up in the morning and hearing their Roar then other alligators would begin to answer them and what would it like to scared us half to death but in spite of the Gators and in spite of the bugs and the mosquitoes and everything else the creeks and the rivers were absolutely beautiful Frasier Creek was full of of yellow water lilies the skies would would darken with the Ducks who came by the thousands to feed

on the seeds of those lilies and poppleton Creek well it was filled with white lilies and Bessie Creek with yellow Lotus the rivers were were so clean you could see right down to the bottom and the fish so plantable that if you were quick enough you could grab one with your hands sea trout and Pompano and Snook and snapper and there were tasty oysters and all the big fat mullets you wanted you could catch with a cast net or a spear oh I recall once that my young son Harry called a flounder with an old umbrella it only had its ribs and if he wanted to and you were lazy enough you could leave a

lantern burning in a tethered row boat overnight and half dozen mullets will jump in ready to be picked up off the boat bottom the next morning we had plenty of meat to eat we had venison and rabbit and squirrels and manatees oh I tell you every time I visit with folks here on my porch they always say what does Manatee taste like well I'm going to tell you some people say it's rather salty it never bothered me much I to me it it tasted more like roast pork it was very tasty in fact when we later on had beef we were just as content to have the manatee it was just as good now if

we needed other supplies my father would say left to can town they changed the name to Fort Pierce a long time ago but it was called can town because that's where everyone took their pineapples to to be canned and what have you well they changed the name as I said a long time ago but it was still a three-day trip up there no matter what it was called that's if the winds were Fair so if it wasn't necessary that we go why we would just wait for Captain wall to kitchen and his trade boat to come along he called his boat the merchant and you knew he was coming when you'd hear him blow his

cock horn he'd come around oh about once a month floating his General Store up and down the rivers carrying everything from food and clothing to medicine and building supplies in those days in order to get anywhere or do anything like you know visit a neighbor or maybe uh ship your pineapples or buy your supplies it had to be done by boat that was the only Transportation at one time there was a church boat and there was a dental boat and if you were sick and we're having a baby you'd have to have someone cross the St Lucie kick up Dr Haney on the north side of the North Shore roll him back across and hope

and pray that the baby would wait to be born or the patient didn't die even the ride to the Grave was my boat Fern Hill Cemetery was located just where it is now right next to poppleton Creek in order to cross the river to get to school you had to take a school boat not a school bus of course that was after our one room's Schoolhouse was built in 1889. before that we didn't even go to school but our mom and papa insisted that even if we didn't go we had to do our lessons and then we had to do our chores and then we have had to help our father at our Pinery you

see the soil down here was just perfect for raising pineapples and my papa and most of the other settlers for that matter had come here for that exact purpose to raise pineapples our 160 acre Homestead was located in um what is now a very large portion of central Stewart my father cleared 160 Acres with his own hands and then he set out to raise pineapples you know every time I am on Colorado Avenue I have to smile and it's a big smile because you see that was the very path that ran smack dab right through our pineapple fields and the path my father named belflora Avenue it was named after my sister meet about and

me belflora was also the name of our primary and when my father gave the land for the first school to be built here in Stuart not the little one-room schoolhouse it had to be bigger because by that time there were at least oh 30 40 children it was with the stipulation that it had to be called Bel Flores School now the original Bellflower school was a wooden building and it was torn down many years ago but it was replaced with a concrete School and in those days they made concrete blocks my brother Frank actually manufactured them but they could only make two at a time so it took a little while to build the building

now if you're interested in seeing those bricks you can go into the small well oh I forgot to tell you later on after the school we outgrew the school and had to be a bigger one even than that they put an addition on to it and it became the Martin County Courthouse but as far as the bell floor as well they're all gone now but the bricks still remain in the men's restroom of the in the small courthouse so if you're interested in seeing those bricks I'd suggest you go into the men's Court into the men's restroom or send your husbands well they're all gone now as I said the Bell Florida so many things

have changed down here well I remember when we arrived there wasn't even a Martin County in fact Dade and Brevard were the only two counties on Florida's entire East Coast and where was the county line I bet you don't know it was Rock smack dab at the St Lucie River so we were far away from everything we were the stepchildren of course this was all before the railroad came down once it did things really began to change now the railroad had built a station on the north side of the river you know the little town of goslingville which meant goose little Goose or Wawa is the Seminoles used to call it and they called the

Flagstop of the of the station Stuart our little settlement lying on the south side was a flag stop known as Potsdam now there's a story that's been going around for years about the name of Potsdam some folks say it's true others say it's not I'll just let you decide for yourselves as time went on more and more people began to hear about this wonderful place called Potsdam I had wonderful fishing and beautiful weather so they decided that they would come down by train to see for themselves well the train conductors thought the name of Potsdam was a joke so when they pull into the station they'd call out Potsdam pod stand pot stand pot stand

by well until it came out damn pots damn pots damn pods well it confused the passengers and offended many a lady traveler I'll have you know in 1895 the railroad authorities moved the Stewart Depot to the south side of the river and with it came the name Stewart we didn't want to be called Gosling bill you know little Goose but we didn't incorporate until 1914 by that time the young town of Stuart was no longer in Dade County it was now in the newly formed County of Palm Beach I had five children all five of them I mean they were all born in three different uh counties and they never left homes Stuart was named

by the way after a very likable young man named Homer Hines Stewart who homesteaded on the North Shore of the river Homer was quite friendly with all of the settlers and everyone liked him both on the North and South Shores of the river you could usually see a sailboat or a rowboat heading over to the house because whenever the settlers wanted to relax and enjoy themselves and maybe have a glass of Sarsaparilla or something of that order one of them would say well let's go see Stuart but it still wouldn't stay long here not around here very long his wife to me didn't like snakes or bugs or alligators so he went back home but

he left us a wonderful Legacy let's do it now Martin County was named in 1924 after Governor John W Martin who said in his campaign speech I remember my friends and I never forget my enemies which by the way was the a very good thing for us because as Governor he helped pave the way for our new County which he knew was going to be named in his honor I remember oh I remember it like it was yesterday when we celebrated the County's first birthday oh what a celebration that was there was a grand parade of floats and marching bands and over 700 decorated automobiles and the town was decked out in red and white

and blue bunting and the flags were flying everywhere and everyone was there everybody friends and family and oh you know that was such a kinship in our community in those days and every once in a while you find it again today but it was everywhere then everywhere of course A lot of it was married you know into other families so we were really Keen kin in more ways than one uh we were just one big happy family we'd have all-day picnics at the seashore word would spread quickly when a picnic was planned and everybody would bring their own food and then we'd sail to the ocean and if we wanted to dance on the sand

there was always someone in the crowd who played a fiddle why we even held dances in pineapple sheds there was always something going on at church of course everybody went to church on Sunday and then afterwards we'd you know visiting each other's homes and once a year everybody went to the Palm Beach County Fair most of us went by boat because there was only a Rock Road between Stewart and West Palm Beach at that time it was a long trip oh my was it long but it was worth it oh with every moment and some of us like music so much that we organized the Mozart musical Club I had taken piano lessons when I

was young and occasionally we'd gather around our piano in our house and I'd played a few songs that I knew my children said that if I played grandfather clock one more time they tie my hands together because I didn't know too many Tunes and if there was a silent moving picture down at the lyric you can vet you see our whole family there my little daughter my youngest daughter Virginia learned to read at The Lyric Theater watching those those words go by that's how she did and my secret desire was someday to accompany those pictures on the piano but that was Mrs Hancock's job they owned the lyrics so I guess my desire will never

come to fruition as long as she's around Oh and before I forget I do want to tell you about another exciting time and and it was well it was the biggest thing that ever happened around here it was the great big fire in Downtown Stuart now it was on New Year's Day in 1916. the drugstore some houses and a church all burned down on the very same day yeah I can see that so what expression on your faces well let me tell you maybe it wasn't Chicago or maybe it wasn't a San Francisco Fire but let me tell you it was a catastrophe now it was on the day of the annual big Palm City

which at that time of year at that time was the social event of the year half the people from Stuart had already gone over on the ferry you knew there was a ferry that went back and forth twice a day some came in their own boats but everybody came to eat and to visit and to have a good time when somebody started yelling and I don't remember who Stewart is burning down Stewart is burning down well everybody started running around like chickens with their heads cut off we knew that if we could see that smoke billowing all the way over to Palm city that it had to be a pretty big fire where all the

able-bodied men and a few kids piled into their boats and onto the ferry and they rushed down the Rhythm well there were a handful of Brave women and children who had been battling the fire for over an hour now if it hadn't been for them the whole town would have burned down and we wouldn't be sitting here tonight they managed to save some houses but they couldn't save the Methodist Church you know that's like saying Rome was saved but the Vatican burned down it started in Geiger's drugstore the place was full of chemicals anyway and they kept exploding uh it looked like fireworks red green blue like the Fourth of July on New Year's Day

somebody started yelling go get the hand pump well the hand pumper was the only fire engine that Stewart had in those days and then they were hollering for the fire chiefs they couldn't find him and screaming for the volunteer firemen and most of them were still over in Palm City having a good time at the picnic well would you believe this they discovered that the pumper was locked in a shed and nobody knew where the fire chief was well they let her later found him he had been drinking a little heavily and was seeping out his or you know his whatever well he had the key to the padlock so they got an ax and

they broke down the door well the pumper was nothing more than a big barrel full of water with a pump on the top and so they started pumping away squirting water through the windows of the drugstore and then all of a sudden the pumper ran dry so then folks we're saying to get every bucket they can find and they organized a Bucket Brigade mostly women and children began passing the buckets from hand to hand well they finally put the fire out but not before it caused a great deal of damage as well as a great deal of excitement especially for the young people always because the boys around town all the young children all of

them but mostly the boys young early Lions any of you remember young early Lions you should know him it was a very bright 10 year old in those days he came back to the picnic full of spit and vinegar telling everybody who listened how he'd saved 22 chickens and when he threw open the you know how he did it he threw open the door and JB McDonald's chicken yard and saw where his flock was threatened with being roasted prematurely so he freed that was chickens well in those days chickens were very important everyone had chickens you couldn't go to the store and and buy eggs or chickens all de-feathered and dissected and ready for the

pan you had to get your own chickens from under the hens men house and you had to ring the next of the young friars and watch the Headless wonders Jump Around the backyard before you scalded them and plucked their feathers and took out their innards I always save the hearts and gizzards and livers for giblets I don't know what other people did anyway I was really proud of Oni for saving the birds but they did add to the confusion of the Bucket Brigade running around squawking and getting in everyone's way you know chickens aren't very smart they're so dumb they run in front of automobiles but few automobiles we had in let's do it in

those days we only had two in Stuart actually and one day they ran into each other head on I don't know total both of them but thank goodness no one was hurt and then there weren't any more cars in Stuart for a while and sometimes I wish that it was still the same way but we did have trains I used to love to go down to the train station it was one of the best places town to visit and socialize and it provided a great deal of entertainment I mean just watching people jumping up and down with using their Skeeter switches doing a Saint Vitus dance anything to keep those pesky's mosquitoes providing oh and

if the train happened to arrive well that just added to the excitement oh and speaking of excitement I was there the day Morris John's monkey choco got fresh with Mrs C S B Haney now Cynthia haynie was a very prim and proper lady and Jocko well well you know he often got loose but he usually didn't cause too much trouble until one fine floor today when he did first he scared a young boy and caused him to fall off his bicycle I was standing right across the street I saw though exactly what happened well as that boy picked himself up I happened to look over and notice the choco was eyeing Mrs Haney who was

standing on the corner talking loudly to an elderly gentleman Mrs Haney was hard of hearing you know well Jocko got so excited that he ran into a lady carrying a load of wash on top of a head and that caused even more excitement well through this whole episode Mrs Haney hadn't even noticed choco well let me tell you choco was not the type to be ignored so he decided to let Mrs Haney know he was there and he just snuck up behind her and pinched her in a very inappropriate spot she let out a scream like like to scan his soul to death especially Jocko he jumped up on top of a roof and it

took the volunteer fireman nearly an hour to get him down and after all that excitement that young boy pedaled off on his bicycle to see what the rest of Stewart was doing now I asked you if you knew early Lions well that boy was Ernie Lyons again he's all grown up now you know and add vinegar over the Stuart news recently hired him as a report of oh I'm sure you'll be around he'll be around for a long time seeing what the rest of Stuart is doing seeing what the rest of Martin County for that matter is doing now if you haven't been around here for a long time you probably don't know how certain

creeks and rivers and streets or whatever got their names well mostly from our early settlers Bessie Creek was named for the Bessie Brothers Mr Bessie was one of the messy Brothers was the first to come down uh Hewlett and he settled on this Banks of this the South Fork of the river Jensen Beach was named for John Jensen who came here for Denmark to Homestead and he landed on the West Shore of the Indian River built himself a town Kruger Creek was named for the Krugers bird was the sun he was the first pilot in our area he had a lot to do with the first Steward Airport George W parks well Mr Parks built

that wonderful Stewart's feed store it's still there right downtown you can go in look around I mean you can buy things in there you cannot buy anywhere else in the world and find even more things that you can look at and have a good time and dream that you might want to own somebody poppleton Creek was named for Colonel oo poppleton now he was one of the world's leading Authority on bees sewell's point was named for Henry Sewell Haney Creek Haney Creek was named for Dr Haney now Dr Horace Haney attended on medical needs when he was sober now this is a rabbit sad story I don't watch any of you to cry the doctor

had married a spinster who had recently moved to Stuart after they married her name was Mrs C S B Haney that's right the very same Mrs Haney that got pinched by Miss by Taco now Mrs Haney was a suffragist you're getting the picture she could have been Carrie a nation had she had a hatchet she was a woman who found solace and working to improve the lives of the downtrodden especially women and children she was a lecturer and organizer for the women's Christian Temperance Union and had been assigned to Florida to establish the wctu chapters throughout the state and decided to make a home here in Stuart she stood for everything the doctor made fun

of cleanliness charity Perfection love and above all she had a tremendous dislike for alcohol but you know what they say the bigger they are the harder they fall the doctor took one look at Cynthia s Burnett 57 years old my view and became twitterpated the next thing you knew they were married and then they got a divorce five years later oh it's not surprising Dr Haney had an addiction to the various substances that his wife was so against she did keep her married name we never could figure out why but she did and became a pillar of our community everybody adored her and on her 80th birthday the people of Stuart dedicated a traffic circle

right downtown Haiti Circle I bet you've been around that a time or two and later on if you come up I'll tell you another story about Haney Circle and that beautiful uh well maybe I'll tell it to you right now when you go around that Circle do you see that that beautiful statue well that statue had been cast in France many years ago and it was to be used actually at the World's Fair New York's World's Fair 1938 well something happened you know the wall and everything it ended up somewhere until the Women's Club right here in Stuart found out about it and thought they would buy it and they did for two thousand dollars

now they put it behind you all know what it looks like I don't want to explain it but they wouldn't they put it behind the courthouse which was at that time right behind the the jail which allowed the prisoners to look upon this woman this past magnificent past statue but the sad thing about it on top of all that they decided they couldn't keep it there because they were making terrible remarks about it and talking Elf so they picked it up and they put it right in the middle of Haney Circle now if you look at Haney's Circle and you see that statue you'll see that she is holding in her hand a cast of

wine with grapes I would imagine that Cynthia s b Haney must be really twisting around in her grave if she knew that was there anyway I've got to tell you one more story on her 88th birthday Bert Krueger took her up in his Airship and she loved it so much she said she's going up again when she turns 90. another settler who came was a man by the name of Benjamin Mulford now he originally bought the land that the uh that a railroad Flagstaff Flagstaff was on it was called Alicia the Flagstop it was named in honor of Henry flagler's second wife Alice while Mulford turned around and named the town after himself and the

railroad stopped but there was a woman passenger once that was let off the train in Mulford instead of fulford which was near Fort Lauderdale and getting off the train in the middle of the night she was attacked by giant mosquitoes and sand flies so she sued the railroad now the railroad authorities told Mr Mulford he better change the name of the town or they would discontinue train service so according to Legend it was changed to Salerno after some Italian Sailors on leave said it reminded them of Salerno Italy however there's another story that says that Mr Mulford had dreamed of making that area the Solano of of America now hope sound right where we are

today was not named after any settler but it did have a very interesting beginning it was originally part of what I call a complex I don't know what you would call it it was built south of Stuart it included a little town called Gomez and picture City and Olympia and Jose now picture City was going to be the whole it was going to be the Hollywood California Florida I mean all the movie stars were going to come down I I Mr Selznick I believe came down originally to see it to map it out and uh it was to be you know just the most wonderful thing in the world we would have all been movie

stars and Gomez was to be the place where all these stars were going to live as well as a Olympia actually this the center of Olympia was right well the the Hobe Sound baseball field is so if you want to go by there you can look and see where Gomez was well the plans were very good but the timing was bad and all that remains of Gomez and picture City are some old sidewalks here and some early Street lamps and all the names eventually became synonymous and now Hope Sound stands alone gallantly reminding us of what might have been also when I think of Hope Sound I remind me of the infamous Ashley gang because

that's where they headboarded now John Ashley was the ring leader and he 1915 he and his gang attempted a train robbery now the Stuart times carried a headline a dairy a story of a daring Train Robbery John Ashley and his gang made the front page of their Hometown newspaper but they were not very successful as Train Robbers while they were trying to rob a lady she escaped and ran screaming through the train well a quick thinking part and locked the doors to the next cause so the robbers couldn't get in and couldn't get out so they left as they could they broke out they were able to break out and a week later the local

paper had another headline it said a very bold robbery now the Ashley gang who had failed as Train Robbers decided it would be easy to get some money by robbing their Hometown Bank so they took the Stewart Bank from four thousand five hundred dollars now that was a lot of money in those days and then they escaped firing the pistols at anyone who happened to be in their way they were uh I mean we were famous this little Community was famous for being the headquarters of the Ashley gang but you see the gas were going they were the topic of every conversation in those days it didn't make any difference whether he lived in Stuart

or Palm City or wherever the businessmen and the bankers were afraid that they might be the target for the next robbery and the people who knew the Ashley gang well they found them friendly and hospitable especially to anyone who was in trouble John they said was a was real good hearted a regular Robin Hood why he'd give you the shirt off his back if you needed it and their children all nine of them along with their grandchildren were just as courteous as they could be now that's what they said I didn't know them personally so you can't prove it by me but for some people who didn't know them it was hard to understand how

the Ashley's on one's hand could be just as good as they could be and on the other hand so evil now anytime John was in jail one of the other gang members would serve as its leader so it never stopped I mean you know we they were always on our minds even if he wasn't around during one of those times Hanford Moberly who was John's 18 year old nephew oh let me stop for a moment tell you about Hanford I always thought his participation in the robberies could be blamed on his uncle John he was very influenced by his uncle John and he adored him Hanford went to high school right here in Martin County

he was very well liked by his classmates and his teachers he often drove the family's Model T to school and the highlight of the school day was to be asked to be one of the ten or so who could pile into the car on the lunch hour and cruise down the main street of Stuart so it just didn't make sense that he along with two other members of the gang would Rob the Stuart Bank a second time Hanford Mobley dressed himself up as a woman he walked into the bank wearing a black skirt a white shirt waist and a large black hat with a veil which he draped partly over his face of course everyone

knew who he was he even wore ladies shoes and stockings and carried a handbag well they went in and they opened the cash drawers and they took out all the money and they ran out the door jumped on the running boards of their car and drove off now through the years the gang committed more and more and more murders and more and more robberies But as time went on many of the Ashley's died either in shootouts or they some of them were lost in sea until finally John Ashley and his gang met the end of their crime trail up at the Sebastian Bridge if that happened because his gun Maul his girlfriend by the name

of Laura uptegrat well you know what they say about about a woman scorned now she she ratted on him as the saying goes well ever since then things have been for the most part quiet and peaceful well I tell you I always like to save the best for last and that's what I've done and the best in my mind was and always will be a very wonderful young man by the name of Harry Armstrong Dyer Harry was 18 years old when he came to Stuart to help raise pineapples on his brother Will's Homestead now when Harry reached his legal age of 21 he paced off the land that he wanted for his Homestead over on

the North Shore of the river around Palm City 152 Acres it's actually on the West Shore of the Northwest Shore now he took those 152 acres and he set out his pineapples and then he bought some more land on the East Shore and set out even more pineapple fields right next to the Fraser Homestead I fell in love with Harry Armstrong Dyer the moment I met him I guess you could say we both became twitterpated we were married on June 24 1897. and two years later we had our first daughter Florence two years passed and Myrtle was born and a third daughter Hazel arrived three years after Myrtle at the time we were living in

a very small house in Stuart but with three daughters we needed Morris rooms so we bought a 10 acre track from Mr human fancy and we built this beautiful house overlooking the South Fork of the St Lucie River it was built to my specifications then we had two more children a son Harry F Dyer who by the way is in law school and will be graduating very soon he's a very smart boy I I I'm not bragging but I think he'll go far who knows maybe someday he'll become judge right here and last but certainly not least our beautiful baby daughter Virginia now around the turn of the century the pineapple crops began to ease

off so Harry joined the staff of armor fertilizer company as sales manager that was just right off the river as well my husband could charm the Box off a tree so he didn't have any troubles Charming the roughest Buy on his sales route from Monday to Friday he traveled around on the back of a horse by the name of Dick now Dick had a mind of his own if the pair was destined for Miami and Dick decided not to go he'd roll over Ryder saddle and haul and wouldn't move now if he wanted to explore the Miami River and all the coaching Terry could do wouldn't convince dick to come back home if the children

were on him riding along he was very gentle with the children but if he was tired he wanted to eat he would go right in the barn door and just bend down so the children just slid right off his back he was a genius of a horse but only a man with Harry's sense of human personality could endure the shenanigans of that silly horse so after Alma replaced dick with a ball thing as a motorcycle we bought the old horse and he became part of the family in fact my husband approaches to find Buggy so dick could provide transportation for the whole family making it easier for us to get around although I have to

say the dye is never had a problem getting around in fact we've always been very active we've always tried to give back as much as we could to this community that we love so much Airy was Stewart's third mayor served on the Town Council before that my children have been active as have I but Harry was the one and he was always looking for you know forward to something new and an adventurous to do I suppose that's why I wasn't surprised one day in 1914 he said to me you know Flora I have an idea I think I'll open a business in Downtown Stuart well that idea became Dia's dry good store it's still there

signs still there you can see it it's right on the corner of Val Florida and Avenue and fourth there have been some changes though I tell you you see Harry was not a well man throughout his life he battled tuberculosis and in his later years he's had to spend a great deal of time many months at a time at insanitariums out in New Mexico now when he was unable to mime the store my our daughter Myrtle who decided after she graduated that she didn't want to be a chiropractor after all became the store manager and then Florence who'd marry who had been married to Earl Riku would come in to help when she could and

we hired Mr Allen to help out which he did when he wasn't singing in his barbershop quartet he had a beautiful voice we'd love to have him in the store and then I would come in of an evening and I always brought Virginia with me because she loved sleeping under the counters and then finally when she could Myrtle bought the store and it was hers now throughout the years my husband's illnesses and frequent absences have left the responsibility of a home and my and our children and many times the store in my hands so I learned early that I had better become self-sufficient perhaps more self-sufficient than I normally would have been or thought I

could ever be uh after Harry went to work for the armor fertilizer company I handled what was left of the pineapple growing operation I would travel by horseback regularly checking on our pineapples now I have never been in a horse in my life right that and during the summer Harvest I would work in the packing houses and later when we began to use motor launches instead of sailboats I had to learn not only to operate the launches but also how to make the adjustments and repairs that were needed just to keep them running there isn't a moda that I can't fix now I don't want you to think for one minute that Harry didn't do

his share he did more than his share every single weekend when he was able to and was working and every time he could you know sometimes I find it difficult to talk about myself I suppose it's because I I remember my mother always saying never blow your own horn in other words don't stop bragging about yourself but I am simply telling you a story and that story includes my life and I'm proud of everything that I have been able to accomplish so um that said I will continue on with my story I never had a formal education not in the true sense of the word but I do have a god-given natural talent for many

things as I told you I had few piano lessons when I was young but I ended up teaching myself how to play and I played many more than a few songs now when you love the sound of a violin playing you want to learn how to play those notes yourself so I bought a violin and I taught myself how to play I am an accomplished violinist it's not an instrument that is easy to man's Master but I have done just that I am an artist the walls of my home are filled with oil paintings the sun over the St Lucie River the brilliant flowers around my home and the portraits of my children I am

so blessed to be able to express myself to Bear My Soul through my work just think how much more I could have accomplished had I had the training huh I commit I can crochet I am an expert seamstress I've made all our clothing for a long time but you know what I was always fascinated with after my first three children were born especially before actually and that was photography I decided after my first three children were born that I would become a photographer first of all it was just too far to go up to Titusville just to have their pictures taken so I taught myself how to do it and then I would take photographs

of my children all through their childhoods I turned one of my closets into a dark room and I would develop my own film in there and then one of my friends said to me Flora we could sure use a good photographer right here in Stuart so I became a commercial photographer I opened a studio over the store and I see a lady back there shaking that knob in her head so I'm sure that I'm a you must have been one of the two-thirds of the people here in Stuart that I took a picture of I bet it's true or you have one in your home well after that I began to grow roses it was

my last and I think my best business venture I called it Virginia Gardens after my youngest child and the Roses I grew were not your everyday backyard roses not at all no Surrey I grew the most magnificent roses you've ever sought to begin with I sent away to Texas for some cuttings and from then on I was able to grow my own then twice twice a week I would pick them pack them up and take them down to the train station and send them off to Palm Beach in Miami and then they would end up in somebody's bouquet some lovely ladies bouquet or corsage and after that I retired and you know what I do

now just sit here on my porch and I rock and I listened to all the sounds of the birds and the river and the wind Whispering through the trees and my grandchildren's laughter and I smiled I'm very content I have led a very interesting a very productive life here on the beautiful South Fork of the St Lucie River I've done my job now it's up to you you're the future of Martin County be sure you take good care of it