The History of the Stuart Heritage Museum

I want to welcome members and yes I think we have a lot of guests here tonight if you'd like to be a member betting after the table we'll give you a form to fill out and turn in and you can become a member I'm Mary Walton Jones I'm the executive director of Seward Heritage Museum and have been here for seven years and it seems like I've been here for 25. anyway I have some a few minutes with you before we turn you over to see Andy Thurlow um I want to take care of our election right now because of his election month I want to introduce you to our board and I'm just going to

ask him for a statement until they can wait because he's right here in this room our president is Tony engelbertson McCartney and our secretary our Treasurer is Lee Johnson I don't think that he is here he worked at the Museum all day Barbara Hodapp is our reporting secretary thank you Gloria favorite fight history I did it tonight uh Judy Elkin wood s this is Lord they don't just come to a meeting once a month they come and they work and they work and they work they do volunteer hours they are incredible bored so I'm going to turn this over to Tony but just tell you briefly we would like to leave the board the same

so he is in charge of getting the vote game foreign very good we appreciate everybody coming out tonight with a special program tonight and hope you all have a good time tonight let's talk to you later uh all members and favor of keeping the Lord the same as it is please raise your hands it's just wonderful to see everybody that's here tonight and I I see so many people that had a big pack impact on this dirty Heritage and the museum so I'm just so thrilled and I think it's just Divine Providence that Don Armstrong is just back in town and he was the founder if there was one founder there were several on his

core committee but for the first uh year or two his address was the address here to so that's pretty much an indication and he was president and we still use some of the wonderful uh printed material that he produced way back then almost 30 years ago it'll be 30 years next year say Don was born in Stuart Florida in 1951. and he graduated from Martin Clinic High School in 1969. he got a masters of architecture in 1985 from the University of Florida and I just want to deviate right now I think it's just so appropriate his wife who he buried in 1989 rockington Jessica Tano Armstrong will you stand up Jessica she is the one

of the writers she was working for the steward used and she came to cover a steward Heritage function we were having a home tour for an Atlantic Avenue and look what resulted and Don's Father Was An Architect before him and Jessica had him tape his and maybe don did this his his memories not long before he passed away but they transcribed them or Jessica did and so it was through Stewart Heritage I got to read this transcription and in it he said I was the second architect in in Stuart and I didn't really it didn't dawn on me until just recently that he meant Bert Keck and Burt Keck to find this building Isn't that

cool maybe he was a very early architect in town and then when Don Armstrong became an architect and he followed him and uh so now I'll go back to my introduction that's the way I found it um he practiced architecture in Stuart in the 90s and he became licensed in 1997 after he was married to death about I believe and in his practice he specialized in doing historic preservation projects which included our underwear uh Lyric Theater and he did the writing for the national register application for that in regard to teaching he's published numerous articles and academic journals on topics such as the history of Chesapeake University where he taught when he moved to Alabama

about his campus and the design studio methodology I'm sorry the he wrote two chapters in space unveiled a book on culturally responsible design and his one award and uh and was a peer reviewer for academic architectural journals and so uh he's taught and to Speedy architecture and they retired in 2016. and he moved back to Stuart two months ago to be our speaker for my program um thank you so much well good evening everyone I'm delighted to be back in particular the uh while we were we got here a little bit early and it's it's been sort of like a high school reunion time it seems like every other person I I've kind of bumped

into tonight ends up being someone an obsidian Warface it's just as I talk I remember from uh from sometimes all the way back to kindergarten so and if I haven't recognized your face yet please come up afterwards and reintroduce yourself to because I know many many folks out there probably I do do go from before I want to say it's a real privilege to be here and I feel you know humble just thinking about reflecting on all all of the work that's been done since I've left and since I stopped being as involved in Steward heritage I had to kind of support my wife and family and begin putting more time into that so it's

it's uh it's just awe-inspiring to me to see how far things have become you know since that time the um as Sandy mentioned I grew up in Stuart in the 1950s and 60s my parents came here in the 1920s in fact my mother came here in 1925 when the county was founded because she moved here with her Uncle who was the first County judge so she really had no choice but to be a Martin County girl right right from the start and so her her family was very very involved in the you know the town at that time my dad moved here about the same time around 1925 or so with his family including DaVita

Sutton Taylor I know many of you all know and who along with their daughter Amanda and her daughters and granddaughters very involved comes out a little better involved with the the um with Steward Heritage also that's been very very gratified to me to see their involvement um a few days ago Mary Jones graciously took Jessica and I on a tour of the the steward Heritage Museum and um that was just amazing to me just how how far that's come and how much the the except the collections have expanded as well as the exhibit and how much more of the buildings being used and have been used in the past the whole second floor was just

kind of a storeroom the last time I was there so it's it's uh it's amazing to me you know just how far that's come also and and just hearing stories about how things have really um uh a lot of the good work that you all have done just in the last several years and kind of going through kind of a second win so to speak with the group and kind of get into bearings again and that's that is very good to hear about also I think it's important to remember that Stuart Heritage came out of the 1980s downtown Redevelopment group and in Stuart because that really gives you some context that helps to explain a

little bit about not only where Spirit Heritage came from but some of the purposes and intentions that we were aiming for uh with Stewart heritage um I think obviously everybody was excited about the idea of you know preserving local history and having having our own town historical group but they were there are other aspects of this that went beyond that they the um right after I graduated and I came back to Stuart in the mid-1980s the city had just warned its community redevelopment agency and I know Mr Foster and mayor Foster at that time and others will remember that time and and the the uh there was just talk beginning about what to do with

Downtown Stuart those of you all who who was here in the 1970s and went to Stuart Downtown Stuart right now so most of you all remember it was just you know Dad is a cold mackerel this was there was uh nothing going on at all and the evenings and the weekends um there are a lot of vacancies the the downtown was really making a lot of people wonder about why why do we even need this old downtown anymore why do we need these old neighborhoods anymore but the community redevelopment agency came in and drew a series of steps including Stuart Main Street becoming a Main Street Town local Architects and and other designers kind of

getting together and putting together some ideas for a master plan for guidelines for the downtown there's a real momentum that bill that I think kind of shifted the thinking from well let's just bulldoze everything to let's take another look at what we have here and let's see what it might be if we could actually get owners that began getting tenants back in the buildings again the businesses that would track people into the downtown so the the final step in that really was bringing um Andres one and the renowned Master planner who designed Seaside Florida and he and his wife Elizabeth platterseiber and have been planning firm called dpz and they were brought in to produce

a master plan for Stuart and that was what really that's when things really were galvanized where everybody was kind of sort of marching in the same direction it's really pulled pulled the community together and it was a really strong way one of the the proposals in that master plan was to create a local History Museum so a town history museum for Stuart that was an idea that had been pissed before I think maybe Ernie Lyons might have been one of the first folks I know Joe Crenshaw had spoken about this and really tried to to get interest in that so there's already a little bit of kind of some Grassroots discussion to be going on

for a few years about how Stewart needed its own local History Museum so the the uh when the basket plan for Stewart was done one of the elements of that was a local History Museum the purpose of the museum was to to be for several things one would be to help reinforce the kind of sense of identity for Steward as it revised itself and to be part of the community restoring a sense of pride in the community and and the idea would be that the museum or not at that time there wasn't a museum but the the organization would be a way of doing that so building community another aspect of that would be to

that a local history organization would be a way to bring attention to the um to the historic buildings of Stuart and show the public their value so that so that folks who began preserving those buildings rather than demolishing them or remodeling them in ways where you're really losing the historic Integrity of the buildings another aspect of architecture tied in with the master plans building guidelines they're called the urban code and the architectural code of the master plan which are based were based on a pretty deep study of the traditional building types here in Stuart that were that were unique that that group of particular historic building styles wood frame vernacular the Mediterranean style buildings Bungalow

style there's this particular pattern of historic building types that was part of Stewart's identity and so part of the idea of forming a local History Museum in the organization rather was to be a place to educate the public in particular building owners who owned old buildings or were going to be building new buildings to have them appreciate that history that an architectural history with urban town planning history of this Stuart has some really amazing some of the subdivisions have some amazing aspects to them as far as town planning from that sort of 1920s era of many of these subdivisions were built but the so the idea of the local history organization would be to help

reinforce that idea that appreciation of Stewart's architectural Heritage and when did when the master plan had been completed then the the a group of us that have been involved with the master plan charette and some of these other activities leading up to it um called a meeting to see if there would be public interest to start a local History unit um uh organization so the the first meeting we had was right here in the Civic Center and I don't think it may have been in this room because was anyone here at that meeting the very first one can anyone ever called was it in here or was it one of the other meeting rooms I

think it was in a smaller room this is the only room they had maybe it was this room it probably was this one I think it goes um but that first that first meeting was where the the we really got things going and at that point we were simply those of us that were advocating for the organization were simply here to say why we thought it was a good idea try to get see if there was interest in the community and see what we could do about that where would we go from there so the the group was very enthusiastic um and you could just you could just tell as soon as we began talking

about it maybe maybe just the topic we were talking about was one that attracted the right kind of people to come but that there was a real sense of agreement in the room this was the time this had come this is an important thing to do so the following that meeting we organized and the first thing we did was we created a membership list which is probably a legal to add and we passed it around everybody signed it up signed up on it and put their name and address on it and we created a mailing list from that and began having regular meetings so really started with that first meeting and then we made sure

we got everybody's names before they before they walked out the door you want to make sure we get everybody back again so we we uh you know contacted everybody and then had a series of meetings in which we we organized as a group we formed a a set of officers and I volunteered to be the first president we had a Full Slate of officers and we began holding regular meetings The Next Step was and this was thanks to to Tom Thurlow and his firm we became a non-profit organization so Tom kindly donated the services and walked us through all the paperwork anybody who's been through he kind of incorporation whether it's non-profit or for-profit those

that are very very detailed things that you have to do to to get that status so Tom and he was confirmed very graciously took care of that for us we filed our papers and became a non-profit organization along with that what came with that then was a the board of incorporators I believe many of those then became part of our first board of directors also as I recall um So within I would say within a couple of months we were pretty organized we were we we had a pretty good core of people that were committed to the cause and we had an organization and we had officers and we incorporated and the next step then

was where to hold meetings because those were kind of ad hoc at first and pretty early on the city of Steward allowed us to use the the city commission Chambers and we began began holding our meetings there so I mean that really was feeling official by that point we had everything we needed we incorporated we had a place to meet it's a nice place and we're just meeting in each other's in living rooms and dining rooms uh man we had a actual officers and everything we needed we continue to to meet for oh I would say about the first year a year and a half or so and during that time the city purchased the

old Steward King store and had it restored by imminent architect Peter Jefferson who did a wonderful job on the building maintaining the character of it but making it bringing it up to building code and making a very you know inhabitable abusable building none of it so about that time I because I through my work with the CRA in mainstream and some of the other uh things that I've been involved with had made some some good contacts of where the city of Stuart Terry O'Neill and Craven all kinds some of y'all may remember them who worked in the planning office there and I began to have a conversation with them about with the city of Stuart

be willing to let us use the skewer Feed Store to found up a museum of local history and Stuart here and Edgewood manage building and you know we would request we request into that the city allowed us to do that and the city I think must have been thinking about also because they came back with a guess you know pretty pretty quickly and the next thing we knew we we got what we had asked for and then everybody's kind of looking at each other what do we do now we have this whole building and we're responsible and when we do next well the the members of Stuart Heritage as well as members of the community

really came through in a big way on this because as soon as the word got out that there would be a local history our first local History Museum but in the storage fee store everybody loves the steward Feed Store everyone has some memory anyone who grew up here has a memory of going to the Stuart feed store you know from seed or the baker chicks that they would sell at Easter or you know one one thing or another the Anita Park Morrison whose father built the original building is at George Parks General Store was still living around this time and she had done really part of the beginning of a steward Heritage and allowing us

to kind of get her gather her memories and go through her old photographs and things so there was a kind of a little bit of a sort of DNA there already there within the organization for the building but as soon as we get else that they would be found in the museum there we began getting these offers of just amazing things and some of the first things I recall was a a soda fountain I hear the two now so I'm not sure which one of the two but this was the soda fountain from one of the original old drugstore soda fountains in town um the Dyer family donated the beautiful glass of wooden glass cabinets

from the old Dyer dry goods and the Peter Jefferson was walking down the street one day on band Avenue where where he and Joan lived at that time and came across a dumpster with a huge mural in it uh one of the whole Homestead houses on Atlanta Avenue is being restored and as usual is what often happens just uh you know a lot of the stuff that was inside ended up going out to the the trash pile and the dumpster including this painting this mural which uh if you've been down in the basement of the building it's down there and it has many of the early subdivisions of Stuart I was painted I think in

1925 it was it was done by Bernie lyons's father I ever call his name but he was a developer at that time that had his painting created so it was sort of a promotional thing that he had done but you can imagine that would be opinion of what Stuart was like in 1925 with every street every building almost you know feel like every tree that was there is on this this document that you know we now have that shows these things um and the the um donations just kept coming down the another that I remember early on that um I was speaking with Sandy about just a few days ago the county called and said

that it was uh it had all of its old records in this Warehouse I think it was over on Old Dixie near the fairgrounds or something so they'd have been keeping all the county records and some of them I think went back to day account and today's St Lucie County I'm trying to remember the exact kind of history of where the area is today Martin County came from and went back even before Mark County was created and then then all the minutes of the Martin County Commission meetings in big bound books as well as just box after box after box after box of letters and promotional brochures and all the stuff if you're kind of

in a December an addict like I introduce love old private stuff from the 19 teens and 20s there's just like a warehouse full of it just given to us to do keep as much of it as we wanted to so we and I remember you know several weeks of a lot of us is going back and forth down there and kind of you know dusting things off and kind of wiping them down and and slapping them back to the Stuart feed store and then I don't even know what we put them I guess we just got about a quarter somewhere and started there and just got stacking stuff until we ran out of room we

we took as much as they would give us and and that pretty much was our policy if it was old and there was a real connection with Stuart with people or places or events that had to do with Steward Heritage gym and it was at least 50 years old we would we would welcome it and find a place to put it and and so the donations just kept coming the the um uh the next problem we have them these are all good problems obviously was how to you know what to do with all this stuff because we couldn't just store it you know our our mission was to display it in the museum and so

myself and some of the other members uh met with some Museum designers as well as some of the directors of local museums the Elliot Museum the Loxahatchee Historical Museum and we kind of created a nice support system of people who had been there and done that as far as the founding museums and we've had an awareness of exhibits and kind of knew what we would be facing and how to approach it so we had a lot of good input from them and kind of processed all that and and just gradually started you know putting putting together displays as best as we could kind of figure out how to do it with what we've had and

um and that was how the museum started so so if both of these things both the uh the beginnings of Steward Heritage and the beginnings of the museum we had kind of a a vision of something we wanted to do we kind of knew how we were going to go about doing it we weren't real sure right we were all a little nervous at times a little scared and private you know what are we really doing here but we just kind of kept the faith and kept going got through the rough patches and things just kept going and going and from what I'm seeing that's that's really continued for the last couple of decades it's

just it's a wonderful thing to see you know that the the things things didn't just sort of fizzle out along the way which they often do with you know organizations when they're struggling getting off but but it's very heartening to see uh just uh at what a high level you guys are doing things now and how far things are coming so thank you very much for uh listening to me tonight thank you thank you John and uh my slideshow is really kind of like an illustration of his talk and so I've never been able to talk without pictures so unless see if I just at the beginning and I I wasn't doing this point I've

never been on board I've never been an officer of Stewart Heritage I'm just a helper and uh for years I did the program study arranged for giving programs and so when Mary asked me to give a program I know how nerve-wracking it is to ask someone you could hope to depend on so that's what I'm doing tonight but I use the photographs I had at home in my collection that I do most of the things that were at the feed store but I I just borrowed a wand for I made it particularly uh so I'll tell you about that the things I just thought they're very familiar we've used them many many times but you

can just see how much it still has the character it did originally and notice it was painted white at first and then this is our logo and is Anne has gone here tonight there's Andy Mack yes so we sat at that first year in 1989. we were celebrating um the birthday of the county was it the county of Mississippi it was yeah it was the 75th birthday city the city and so um she borrowed this picture we had still have a whole supply of postcards made from it Andrea we have made beautiful ones done uh that are done in a moderate way and very clear like the photograph but Don's father designed our logo from

this and we have we still use it underneath just an ad George Fox isn't it wonderful to have a genuine artifact building for our Houston and this is the a postcard a lovely postcard and when I did Stewart on the pink Lucy for my book on Stuart I haven't been covered in mind before I ever had a page to put together for the book because I thought this was so perfect and with the George Parks store right in the center uh I happen to when I'm going through my Straight Heritage file I have these photographs and I had no idea where I thought I'm from but I thought you know you can scan things now

even though they're very terrible images they're a little bit improved when you scan them and this one just diffused me what it was written on and we said that we all went to the feed store and they wouldn't go to get some cutworm baits here Citrus Paul these were the things I could read on the window top feed and cut were obey and then it's notice it says short Feed Store what we have on the front today is Stuart pizza pie so its name has changed a bit but the phone number then was 76 and it looks like it was in the 30. this one I do know where I got this photograph from is

from Francis king um the Nancy Crawford and from the president Christopher King Nancy Roberts Amos and notice that the feed store is came to collected this time that the owners gave to me that Allison Tony when they sold it to the city they had to notice they had taken of it and they gave me the photo and it was Alice's father Mr Joseph beckage that owned the property that was sold to the city and there's our founder Joe and Frank Shaw who was one prayer and then Kathy reader and then Roy Lighthouse moved out of town or donated really and he had so much to do with historic preservation in our town and but he

lives in Utah and um I got his photograph off the internet but that's our recovery Lake on his son Todd said he's going to be coming to Florida in December it's in and here we had Joe Jefferson who is Mayors George Benson time with all that you know to talk about the perfect storm and uh and all the things with Architects and Peter had been restoring and saving buildings and boo Lowry had been moving for him moved and moving them for him and that was quite a a combination and this um these plants were in my box of Street Heritage and they were done by Peter and I their report in the feed store Museum

and I asked John about them and she said oh it's he was propagated the services to the town because he did that very often and I see Joan here I hope when we pass the mic around I hope these people will make a comment is the captain Bruce was the loveliest lady and she was so enthusiastic and she would have events of antique shows and participated in the um the home tours very early and this is Mary Angelica and she's out of town now and she's still around but Don was talking about all the work he had to do to get to uh incorporation and Tom I know told Mary had all the sales Clips

together all of this and that and I think we wore her out so much that first year but she just kind of quit honest she couldn't take it anymore but she was a valuable Chief written that later worked at the Elliott and at the Flagler and she was a librarian at the time but she was so wonderful and like she stored remember we had that vent from the courthouse she had met in her home for a while before we had a museum and this is Shirley Bland and she started out as a volunteer at the Elliott and then we came there aren't my manager and she had the system for how they did their acquisitions

and she brought that system over to Sir Heritage and you can still see the little numbering system and that's what Mary has been doing going through everything and trying to track it down and match everything up but she brought that system and the other music was very um like uh happy for Syrian Heritage just take over the local history because they wanted us to do that and this was Sterling and Catherine Catherine we were just getting ready to have his commemorative album for our anniversary and we had like only a month or two to do it and they thought we could do get some pictures together and captions and do it and we got it

together of course we went to what was then First National Bank and said would you please pay for it and they did the back of the test the nice Bank adds on it but we use this logo and time fry did the thing and so many people just fished in and gave her and we were so proud that we had that and they re-printed it several times probably still have some left and so I've covered them and look at this this is what distracted this is what distracted Don and Jessica had just a full-time story Heritage anymore and uh so by the time the museum opened he and Jessica were parents and they sent me

this picture of Trey a long time ago seven years ago but he was already you know but that was a degree though and so we've been hurting their son and I thought I'd put my son in this he was talking about how these are the cases and they were not donated to us on we uh had to buy them and at the end yes and McMillan and I had to put a retainer on it she moved on First and so we didn't have abused them and we stored them in Smithfield and they would let us put it in the empty store and then they'd rent the store and that's my son a freshman in college

and we had to carry them from one store to the other that one that we've rented it so then this is you not a place for them and half of the museum and it's going to do today um and this and first we had the Mrs Peter's smoked fish had to um well acquire a few people wanted to um share it how did you use it for um for commercial purposes gift shops and different things and um the one that got it was Mrs Peter smoked fish and a cracked whirling blue has it um had it you know but here I had his dad it was the parents it was the seniors and Robert Earley

and like they could keep the museum open because they had their store open so we didn't have it have to have the volunteer there all the time so it helped us but look how rare it is Mary can you believe that okay it's empty it wouldn't be a problem to take everything out of the museum then and that was a little a projector that the school system had and the only things were so Arctic and we had like a talking program that would go with real slides that would advance and I think they still use the text to that that I created for their doses a little bit I know that we are in that

bed and hardwood can show me dead distance and I think happy wheeler was the president when we got the museum and she saw me she had to do the negotiations and and signed the contractor gets that worked those things out um when she became president became a more attentive Advocate and husband and these are not the books the way they looked at that the dirty cluttered Barn where they took them to the dots so many to the dollar but what we did we asked this is Carolyn Zella do it's a Pomeroy you know we have tomorrow by Walmart she was a lifetime abstractor as his her daughter over there um Ellen in the second generation

but when Don and Tom and Joe were going through all that honor is that we need somebody that really knows how what we have to select and Carolyn came down there and said well get the number one record book we did not to everything they said we could have we would have any I mean it would have felt this movement was just so much cluttering we took all those record folks so we got the earliest ones because Carolyn said that's what we should do but they had been a problem all through the years and Shirley Bland again the one who uh with the art office and here we have Lori Lori is here we have

so many people here that were reported at the very beginning Laurie was our third president of the pig and then Marion uh is this still right today very good looking I I wanted to use this pretty picture that Tom took um Lucille in her Seminole Indian guard when they were celebrating uh sent over to Tia day and Fort Pierce but she was our fourth president I believe and here I saw that uh that came with him is here tonight and she was on the board at the very beginning and involved with things and she um was on the museum committee you know to get things figured out the museum and Isabella Williams is Ernie my

sister and she was very active for many years in the last years of her life she lost heritage and Robert Clinic just died this year he was a dentist and maybe it would have packed the mic around you know Lucille knows if he was very involved with the Seminole chicken exhibit too but there's this one the beginning of the training and the little town is different the West Oaks railroads and he and his cronies built this wonderful thing Aroma which we isn't it one of the most popular things that the museum and I happen to have this picture of my children to know how how generous the kids with her is and we were invited

to The Boathouse that is on their property at Bay Street Lodge and look what's eating in their kitchen just purchased in the future I think and Jerry Randolph was one of our early presidents who like you know we had some rough times done here he he was present twice really and uh his sister Gail is here she just voted her to the board and she's been a volunteer since she retired to think of it but she since 2010 she's been on the board but you'll be appalled that what our museum look like and look at these pictures I had in my collection cameras believed that it was falling down the hill so they had to

like me foundations for us and if we had any idea that we would have used it downstairs for a museum or a part of the museum we sure would have had them they get a foot higher so we wouldn't talk about yeah it wasn't it just a disaster and so uh this was the renovation and we've got this big brand from Tallahassee and uh we had an architect that wanted it to be authentic like Don would want it you know and so one thing she wanted was the court to be painted white like this is about early pictures but it certainly looked improved and in that early development pictures we had Spirit mean Street upstairs

you know the scariest moment look at that if only they left it at that high we wouldn't up our heads and then Lucille whose special interest is archeology she and the archaeological Society made sure that everything was investigated getting through to see what was there and then this was from the fever but the article was so funny people saw them painting at white and they were appalled and every that is dated economy or since top okay it's authentic to do it right but we are used to it red and everyone living is used to regret and we've got to paint a red again so it did and I just put this in because I thought

it was so Blissful of my husband Tom we still dressed as part of that same shirt and Carolyn that was when we moved in but when I was a young one Jackie who's in back when she was just a little kid you know maybe three or four he was so enthralled with Carolyn Simba's articles her columns and he was talking about her before I could even think of anything but just like getting through the day and uh so there they are all friends looking out the window maybe a train was going on and then people it wasn't fixed up inside um members came this is uh Donna this is your neighbor across the street he's

use elephant now and that's Ellen out there and I told her I had her picture in my slideshow it's family picture I had a Verso I put it there and she was painting interesting things but you know in Every Family there's somebody that will are hopeful in every climate there's somebody that'll be interested in his history and family history and so Ellen is the one in her family that has carried on and helped out with home shows and she was our editor of our newsletter for a million years and she's right here I hope when we go around you will say you're one of the stars of this live show and then I when I

had to write up about this event I uh took and I saw that Jessica referred to the same article but Mrs McCormick when she in the 70s she brought an article about the Miami-Dade Trust because they were and it said the words to Heritage back in 72 when an early Alliance wrote a call up that we need a steward Heritage and it's funny I'm how we ended up with that name when when Joe when Don and Kathy Roy Hopkins going and so we were out they had to empty everything out of the museum and for two years they were in the shopping center over there we call it Kendrick Plaza a little bit there on

Johnson Avenue in Colorado um we'll copy it will cook let us don't have space and so we've just moved in and this is our rarest Foster I put forward been there for the cop mixed up I was a decade off I think he was mayor in 2002 when we moved back and that's dear little Mrs McCormick um signing the end she was so happy that we were back in the museum and these are those darn books those books were so happy and we took them I didn't do it but they put them upstairs on the second floor and as soon as we moved in the and it just spent about 300 or 400 000 were

restoring it and the The Roots exciting and the city said you have broken the building and it's your thought you put too much heavy stuff there and Crystal Wiki was just like a bulldog but anyway and they said it wasn't our fault but we had to get those heavy books out of downstairs and then they were put downstairs and I would surely be ruined but they they stayed nice uh they got lots more bugs in her maybe but they they weren't uh completely 45 in underneath and at that time it was just a sand floor and there's Carolyn fell by and you know she did those are her books behind her and they're probably still

a few available made from her college and it was her friend Mabel with them who organized and made them into a well for helped and theirs are totally through all of the different people that were running things and a little bit of friction now and then never friction with Dolly he's just loving me and gentle and that's he swims out Glassburn who was our manager for uh for about 10 years and here's the one picture I had to get from the area that's in the frame right there by the chicken yes but it has totally and it has dumped her here who was on the board for 25 years I think and she just had

to go out of town and live where her children are because she is you know getting up to her but this is the one I wanted to have a picture of her because that's important of power and and that is to endowed to them enough that we can afford to restore it finally and it has allowed us as an endowment uh to function and be able to you know be what we are today with Mary and the board's wonderful stewardship but that's Christopher who uh kept things going for years and years and this is is Betty Hardwick I said are you sure that's your day and civil military was lovely she didn't have to move

away but she was a wonderful accent to the Lord station and here Matt McCartney and I said Kathy I don't have a picture of Mac and then this wonderful age she can just take it with your phone and send it in a fresh photograph Jacob in front of the museum with Matt right there smiling in front of the display Chef celebrating at the 25 years and he's been presidents he's been on the board for years and His Radio knowledge and speaking knowledge has really been an act and here's Chris uh she we were having a home tour when she her stomach was hurting her and she said I don't feel good and they realized she

had pancreatic cancer and she was so great for dealing with that but this is why historic Heritage Museum is so wonderful and this is this was in the paper and it's amazing with how it came out so clear let Bob green and Boris Walton and this is what it's just all about it's like the last Cracker Barrel but and they enjoyed it so much and we enjoyed them and there's Charlie he's been working he worked on he worked through Chris he he duffed out with Chris very nicely because he uh he fixed everything and uh he made do and they they very beautiful and there and there was a time when not only reacted participate

was like doing posters for moment tours and things like that and then we I started building up all these posters and he wanted to do with them so he was putting them on the ceiling I just took this picture up this this was when the pots the the Germans were here and Jackie Williams came but I thought oh I'm going to show that how I totally put three posters on the scene and then they started peeling off anyway oh it was awful lot too so now things are so much but we actually didn't remember this we are a foster how you went to Plaza Germany with Kathy and we had we made a potstamp and

actually a while call grouper wins on the board and they came from Hoskins Germany because it didn't but this is the one who really has made the difference Mary Jones has yes she is the person in her family and this this is Rose and there's never been a Lovelier person and there hasn't been ever been an older family it goes back to the road box and robot Creek and bath and her and oh it's just such an old wonderful family and then her daughter has taken on this responsibility in her organization still and her Obsession for cleanliness and her her friendships with her board and it has made all the difference in the world so

this is what I wrote John doesn't proofread for me so some forgive me again but by when Mary Jones became president Stewart Heritage in the museum were in rough shape the museum looked like a cluttered attic the building was infested with turbines and other insects I did the Navy numb there are there was a great deal of rot and the air quality was poor no one knew where things were and the relationship between steering Heritage and the City of Stuart was poor poor to stay at least okay everything was moved out of the museum can you imagine that everything moved out of that museum and so it could be restored and special forces were the

ones that got the the bid and there's been more restoration as things happen just like it's your home constant and she intends to but with Courtney and her husband's endowment and how Mary could uh handle all of this and her work with the board of directors and of course National Bank it's making the endowment uh kind of stay the same and then this is text bad boy has made a big difference too he's kind of this is John Cooper and he is along with Joe and myself and this might mean that we're all picks bad boys I don't know but we are honorary members before and um he is friends with a guy named Richard

Baker who is like goes back to the earliest Pioneer and I think Richard's in very bad shape now but he's a scientific container and uh can do you know you know spray paint like they do cars online but he did he redid all of our signs and restored the big metal round sign out front and our Museum would not look that good if those signs had not been restored and it takes a special person to be able to do that and John is from an old old family his great-grandfather was our first Marshal when we were Incorporated in 1914 but uh he is his own guy and he's a very big painter one thing I

saw him painting the red underneath the railing on the stairs I don't even see how I got in there to pick him up and this is not a real recent picture but I went in there and her little granddaughter was in her seat and she's so funny that she thinks that museum is veggies I thought that was fun and then I asked as I was figuring out how to get Betty's picture and um I inspired to her granddaughter for one and so she sent me this cute one of the other granddaughter in the same speed food and this is my slime and it is so wonderful to people she uh has had both of her

children after she became God was doing their newsletter and it's just been so wonderful to have Betty and it's like marriage it's her whole family to work we have all of Randy's Family helping with having them and we do the Elder son helps they he built the benches out front from the railings of the old Jensen Beach Bridge now is that the one said Zach was sitting on and I sounded neat okay and this woman has made all the difference her husband Greg who's very shy but together the millions of words that have written about our community have made so much more interested up about history and so much of it is searchable it is

just no other town in this world I think has that kind of coverage and we're so fortunate and we're surprised you here tonight and her book on Stuart and uh so she was responsible I think I might be misspeaking but I think she was the one that got this up in her mind and got this guy Aaron Welch to do the website and we have a surprise at the end connected Richard's website and this is Greg and on the website it has all and this is just a small portion of there have been Yachts that have been published in the uh in Syria years and it just goes on at night when you get on

the screen to scan or to capture but the words and the topics and just all the offbeat subjects that they it's just wonderful and here this is Donald's cousin Ginger ehawk I guess I said but she was her grandmother to Anne was in her 90s and she loved the feed store and Mary had his idea of having a Wednesday morning coffees and so a cock Funeral Home they used to find the donuts and coffee and this was uh ten years five years ago right married five years ago so they have been meeting every Wednesday and it just roads and grows I came last week and this is just a few and one in One Direction

that the men are in the front the women are in the back and they are just talking and having so don you really have started something you and your friends and the day I happened to come by and love serendipity there was this man and his daughter and I said well who are you he said I was born in this building we did in Lake Worth and my granddaughter was driving me around and I told her I was born in an old building open there and she said well there's no control and he sworn upstairs in the future Island came forward so we are going to get more of this story and leave and asked

him with his daughter he doesn't even worse so you never know and so when Kathy was President I think Joe had was working for the Miami Herald at that time and uh the Lion's children uh Ernie had died and they had these boxes of albums if they were going to give to Heritage and Kathy I think said or it was in Milton said I think you can do an exhibit from this so and that was 1990 so that was early on so the first exhibit in the courthouse Cultural Center was um the lines exhibit and at that time I put up photographs on the on the landing and certain Heritage paid for the printing at

that time and so I think it was 400 the whole show and so those are still on the landing at the courthouse cultural center after 27 years Tom and I haven't prayed because the folklore got so you know important part like they were considering His Feet store and then we uh had this plaque right there probably people in Stereo teach me not really saying where he does but right there for 27 years we've had a little issue it's about where people you know are having problems art shows that they've been there and here are the books the rest of the story of the books we are you know there's first downstairs and in the basement

no one could really use them because you had to have a big table to open them up and assist them so they were just being stored and uh so we have this new wonderful clerk who's the history Bob and she says over here it's starting out to be a wedding ring and this is totally and helpful I announced and here's a close-up of it go together and we have our Courthouse cultural center with the heart of Tennessee Peter Jefferson Don it's just wonderful and that we have to look in those books and always broke the top of the museum in so much trouble now I'm we haven't surprised at the end but I want to

just have a few people talk about like uh Kathy have you I promise you didn't have to so uh oh all right yeah well um I heard about Steward Heritage and my last grandmother had just died and she would have loved it she was just such a steward gal and Garden Club and the newspaper and the Woman's Club and everything so I I went and I met Dawn and Kathy and Mabel I think was there and we just started visiting and I ended up on the board I don't know four or five years I guess I was the secretary and then I somehow dog left and Kathy was president and she talked me into being

vice president and then a year or so went by and she got a real busy job and so I ended up president which I can I don't want to be friends with that I had little babies at home so um but it was such fun we made gifts and we sold stuff and we started the home tour and seeing Catherine Lewis on there just brought tears to my eyes because she was so wonderful and we just we had a blast it was just such fun so thank you for keeping it going it's thank you Sandy mentioned that she would like me to say something about the museum that Peter was involved with and unfortunately all

of his work is archived down at the University of Miami so I have no reference all I remember is during that time the city had no mind and Peter was perfectly willing to help her be put to the point where the Architects and I think Don will remember this we're really angry and he got all the free work foreign so that was kind of how I participate but since Sandy showed that he never took a picture of the Seminole Indian lady holding the leash as you can see now it looks like little piglets I cannot tell you the discussions we had are those baby bears are those big companies I don't know if y'all remember

that and we went on and on all about that but we had a lot of fun and it was just a great pleasure to be a part of it to be good thank you thank you what a privilege to be here with so many friends I just wondered if anybody else had their first hair I have a a charter member and I'm still having anything that comes in my house stays there actually they're gonna have a wonderful time thanks for being here this has been a wonderful experience when it first started the first program is was about how to friend pictures applied for the job of doing the programs and I get them after that

for 10 years and went up through this up feeding all these people with keep coming back thanks again for being here foreign but Ann and I had worked together Fort Pierce so we had a big black but when I went with him it was in City Hall I think it was where the meeting was and people were saying oh we don't have anything to put into the museum we can't take today's out we don't have anything to put in and I had to get up and say well foreign but we're gonna have to have Joe and Charlie pops I don't know why Joe doesn't like this right to your mouth virus Stewart and I don't

think Stewart would be Stewart was I at any rate he turned it over to me and I was on the city commission for 30 years I don't think there was any time I spent that I enjoyed more than serving the city of Stuart and I think during the 20 years the first 20 years from 68 Diana I think you should feel the best time the most productive time and the time that saves Stewart from the Hells of eight ten-story buildings thank you one of the great things about living in stewards is that everybody has a chance to make a contribution if they want to make it and living my life here for most of my

life has been a really great experience but it's also about the that the whole is greater than the sum of those parts in our city in our Museum in our society or what they are because of what individual people have done love for the community and without any desire I've been in particular spot in in the world and unfortunately to have people like Sandy and others who've worked very hard to get it all together I'm very proud to have been part of it this is the greatest place in the world we have as an ending and we could go around this could be several programs and I but I know that people don't will and

I took too much time and I apologize I want a joy priest to have just a minute because I urge you um and she was so good about publicizing it she's so good about that good evening I'm Julie priest I started out as a downtown Merchant in 1981 and we were in the downtown Business and Professional Association trying to revitalize the area I thank all of you the historians and the supporters because I I'm with you for the last 40 years to get to the point where we are today thank you Don it's good to see you again we look a little bit different but I did a little research for this evening at Anita

Parks husband this was I thought this was so cute actually named confusion quarter if any of you were wondering were that just got started it was Anita's husband Murph who who made that one I used to sell t-shirts in my children's store downtown with regard to confusion corner the other things that Don touched on there were a bunch of designs for the Roosevelt Bridge back in those years one was a tunnel one was an aqueduct and John will remember all of those hot discussions that we had in addition to us Andreas guani coming to town and calling our outdoor band area a urinal that was interesting uh Don you didn't tell all these secrets and

then in order to save the cultural arts center which was the courthouse the bar association passed out yellow bandanas and we wore those to the board of County Commissioners meeting if any of you remember that and that truly made an impression on the board of County because you said they knew that the large crowd there was in support of keeping the courthouse and Roy Hancock that you saw a photo of he went around downtown and other places wanting to preserve the lyric the lyric when I was in business was a church and he went around and sold seats at 500 a piece to start raising money to say the lyric and I'm I'm hoping he

will come back and we'll be able to thank him because look at the success right there so historic preservation was moving right along and of course we thank Don for taking this and shepherding and the organization that's here today the park store was built in 1901 and you have just heard all of the history we have also had another person this year the city of Stuart has adopted a comprehensive historic preservation ordinance we all thought we had one but we didn't so this year they have adopted it there is now a program in place just like Martin County has in place where you can fill out an application if you have a historic home you

can apply for consideration and they will put a plaque on your on your property uh with a designation Maple with them got one last year from The Martin County group but now the city of Stuart has a program a process that we can all participate in and I'm currently doing the research on the George W Parks Building to put it on the national register thank you so now I I saw on that Linda Gary has a 3D thing on a Fourth Street for the house of Frederick and I said Mary it's so wonderful Aunt Mary Jones and she said um we have it on our website and we do it's up and running again and

it is thanks to another old-time family Drew Pittman uh has a has that he will demonstrate and you can go visit the museum we want you to come to the real museums but isn't this amazing that Drew can uh can take us through the news now from here good evening I am Victor Stewart in 1975 when I was born from Mary now Goodman but uh this is neat for me uh my my family been to Steward 1919 a lot of you view Andy Pippen and my family and uh I'm going to tell you a quick history story that Andy my grandfather pop up didn't tell a lot of people but back in the day uh

when Fred Frazier Creek where my great grandfather had a fueling station Catherine Hepburn just come to visit right Catherine pepper dropped her sunglasses overboard in Fraser Creek my grandfather swam to the bottom back when you could probably see the body we got those glasses and he got a five dollar tip back that's a story most people don't know but um a few years ago I bought a camera to help me in my real estate business it's a 3D camera and um what it does is it takes 3D images you'll be able to my idea was I want to be I was the first in the world to photograph a jet and it was the first

in the world to do a a yacht and I believe this may be the first Museum in the world that was ever done with this technology so I was like what I'm gonna go down there and I'm going to do this and donate this it's it's been on and off the site it's back on the site I actually did The Lyric Theater a couple years ago too it's not on their site right now but um if they ever want to put it on if you have a connection there I spent eight hours doing that and it's on I have it so if you want to see the lyric well let's let's take a tour I'm

just going to put the mic down and just show you what you can do in any of your friends or family that come to the website anywhere in the world you can go on the website and log in and do the same thing I'm about to do thank you this is the floor plan View and it may have changed I am going to I've got a four and five year old boy so time is of the essence but I am going to attempt to do the um top floor and the basement as promised but I'll do a little tour here for you Judy Woods Nancy Crawford and Antonio Henry I mean they are so good

at walk through in real life and I learned when I tag along my school children and we all should come down and um all the yearbooks are there does somebody want to know something you want it here's the microphone if you want to see something you see in there that you may have done it this is interesting we've got to do this another time I guess because well I'm just gonna I'm just going to show you one thing that was super interesting to me when I was doing this I walked over because my grandfather as you know played at Stewart high school he's the quarterback played at UF I went to Florida State so I

got the Zone that's okay but I remember doing this one early morning and his picture was up there and I I can't zoom in but that football team and Freddie Ferguson all those grades were on that but you could do this anytime you all want from your own computer and walk through and this is if you scroll down here that's the floor plan View and then you can do what's called a dollhouse View and you can just jump in wherever you want and zoom right in here test quickly I don't want to thank Sandy in all of you and hope that this will get you to come out and join us and once again I

want to thank the board and the volunteers and Betty and Ruth the two employees it is a fabulous wonderful organization and we love it so come out and enjoy the war