Category: Miami Stories

In 1959, I was a freshman at the University of Vermont, and my dad, Arthur, was executive director of the Jewish Federation in Montreal.

My mom wanted to return to the U.S. That same position at the Jewish Federation opened up in Boston, and my dad applied for it. But the federation director in Miami got it instead. So the federation board in Miami talked him into coming here.

In January 1960, never having been south of northern Virginia, I boarded a plane in Montreal, switched to a National-leased Pan Am 707 at what was then Idlewild, and flew America’s first-ever domestic jet route to Miami.

I came down the stairway in a winter coat, much to my parents’ amusement – it was 80 degrees. My first Florida meal was at the Robin Hood Inn at 36th and Biscayne – there’s a gas station there now. We were living at the Seahorse Motel off Biscayne at 31st – it’s now a drug rehab center. During that visit, we went to see Carol Channing at the Grove Playhouse.

I was only here for a week in January and again in April, but spent that entire summer in the house my parents had bought in Bay Heights. To this day, I can count on my fingers the number of Southern accents I’ve ever heard here, yet Miami was just as rigidly segregated as any town in Alabama. I got my driver’s license in the old Florida Highway Patrol station on West Flagler. It had “white” and “colored” water fountains. The papers had separate listings for the three “negro theaters.” Royal Castle burger joints were everywhere, owned by a Cleveland businessman, but blacks could only order from outdoor windows.

The Orange Bowl was segregated, even for college games, and the end zone was a sea of dark faces.

I worked that summer at Mount Sinai Hospital; my job was sending second and third billings to ER and outpatients. Two of them were sexual-assault victims – I threw their billing files in the trash. The ER/outpatient fee was $3 – $1 if you said you were poor.

I would sometimes drive to the world’s first Burger King at 36th Street and 24th Avenue for two 39-cent Whoppers. We ate out at Pumperniks, Juniors and Wolfie’s, where pastrami sandwiches were 95 cents. I went to the Miami Beach Auditorium, as it was called then, to see and hear Eleanor Roosevelt speak. The day after New Year’s, I went to the Orange Bowl game – president-elect Kennedy was also somewhere in the stands.

Bus fares were 15 cents in Miami, but only a dime if you took a Miami Beach bus from downtown. The Julia Tuttle Causeway was new, and gratefully received – no toll and no annoying drawbridges.

The parking meters in the parking islands in downtown Biscayne had a maddening feature: shields that blocked the view of the timer, and notices simply saying, “Pay for full time you intend to park.”

On one corner of Biscayne and Flagler was a Mayflower Donut shop; across the street, a Pan Am ticket office showing, each day, how many times they had flown across each ocean and around the world.

Crime was low, so traffic cops were everywhere, hiding behind bushes on motorcycles waiting to bust you for “failing to come to a full stop” or an “improper lane change.”

Downtown was alive at night, with movie theaters and a funny little shop where they would start an auction if more than one prospective customer was inside. The first Cuban cafeterias, on Flagler Street, charged nine cents for a cafe Cubano. Christian prayers were recited in the public schools, and the downtown courthouse featured a huge lighted cross every winter.

You could take an FEC train up the coast. A prop flight to New York was $60 – $75 if you took a jet. Flying to Havana was as easy as flying to Nassau, and a big sign downtown urged people to go to Cuba, “the friendly island next door.”

South Beach was crowded with retirees, many with cars, and parking was as difficult on Ocean Drive then as it is now. Miami’s 305 area code ran from Key West to Pensacola – only the Tampa Bay area had another one.

My dad held his position through 1972, then retired. I entered UM in January 1961, the same day that its new president, Henry King Stanford, desegregated it. I left in the fall of 1963, one step ahead of a raft of improper-left-turn-type traffic tickets and an order to turn in my license. I married and came back in 1971 with my wife and two baby girls. We had another girl born at Mount Sinai, where each of my parents also passed away. We bought a 1924-built house in Miami in 1972, then went to a 1933-built home in Miami Beach in 1983. Our three kids, and their kids, are in three different states.

What hasn’t changed in those 50 years? Not much. Our house, for one, and many of those around it. The downtown courthouse looks the same; so do some large apartment buildings on Biscayne, across from Edgewater. You can still buy liquor at drugstores, something that surprised me back then.

Every road and bridge that charged a toll then is still charging one now. Lincoln Road Mall is busy again, just as it was then. Passenger trains still run to and from Miami on the old Seaboard rail route. Cafe Cubano is still sold in those little white cups, and is still cheap. Burdines is still where it was in 1914, albeit with a name change. I don’t think the nature of politics here has changed much, either, but I’ll leave that one alone.

All across the United States, the 1920s came roaring in after the first World War and people were anxious to ride the tide of progress that hung over the land. In the southernmost climes, a little city – heretofore not much more than a quiet town nestled between the glistening turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay to the east, and the hot and steamy Everglades to the west – was heralded by newspapers up and down the Eastern Seaboard as an up-and-coming “Magic City.” Henry M. Flagler’s vision to link South Florida to the rest of the country via railroad was one of the sparks that ignited the flame of frenzied growth in Miami.

I was born in Odum, Ga., in 1920 and was 2 months old when my father, Ellison Ogden, a carpenter, was captivated by the stories he heard of the opportunities to the south. An adventurous young man looking to capitalize on the boom in Miami, Ellison packed up his young wife – my mother, Gladys Robinson Ogden- and me and headed for this land of sunshine and infinite possibility, leaving behind a less than promising future in south Georgia at that time. Our little family adapted quickly to the bustling excitement of a new life, settling in to a little flat off of Miami Avenue where I slept in a dresser drawer as my father began to venture out and seek a fortune he’d heard was there for the taking.

A few years and several moves later, I was of school age. My fondest memories of Miami began at Earlington Heights Elementary off of Northwest 22nd Avenue and 54th Street. At 90 years of age, I can still remember representing the color Indigo and dancing in the school’s May Pole Dance there. Before too long, we moved to Allapattah, where housing was affordable and good things were happening in the community. Still, there were many vacant lots for us kids to explore. We helped ourselves to the guavas that grew profusely there, often eating the green ones even though our mothers had warned us of the belly aches that would result. I attended Allapattah Elementary from third through sixth grade, and in seventh grade I went next door to the newly built – and “modern” – Andrew Jackson Jr. High School. Besides the stores like Live and Let Live Drug Store and the Allapattah Five and Dime, bakeries and hardware stores sprang up. My favorite place was the Regent Theater, which faced 17th Avenue. The Regent Theater was where us kids would go on Saturday afternoons, dimes in hand, to see Tom Mix movies and enjoy the newsreels, Western serials, cartoons and popcorn, which all came with your ten-cent ticket. Sometimes I had to look around the neighborhood for empty pop bottles to cash in for my movie money. On certain Saturdays, talent shows were also held at the Regent, and it was great fun to see all the neighborhood kids on stage, carrying on in hopes of winning the prizes given, which were usually a free Coke or a $5 bill.

Long about the junior high days, my brother James Bryan (Jimmy) Ogden was born. When he was 7 years old, he began his working career, hunting bottles and selling mom’s homemade fudge door to door. When he was about 12 years old, he rode his bike across the causeway to Miami Beach and sold Liberty Magazines to the snow birds who would lounge on the porches in front of the newly built luxury hotels. When the Ringling Brothers Circus would come to town, Jimmy would gain free admission to the shows by watering the elephants. In high school, at Miami Edison, Jimmy delivered The Miami Herald on his bike in the early mornings before school.

After I finished junior high, I was bussed to Miami Senior High, and it was during that time that my parents divorced. My father had not achieved the financial success that he’d dreamed of a decade or so earlier. As a single parent now, my mother made ends meet during those difficult post-Depression years by taking in sewing for people and baking cakes.

As a proud Stingaree, I was a sergeant on the drill team and loved taking part in the half-time shows at the old Orange Bowl stadium and marching in the New Year’s Eve Orange Bowl Parade down Biscayne Boulevard. It was at Miami High that I met my husband, a handsome football player, Oscar DuBreuil. While dating, we would frequently borrow Oscar’s father’s car and stop by a barbecue stand to get sandwiches to go. We’d drive over to Coconut Grove, where the Pan American sea planes landed, to watch the “submarine races” in Biscayne Bay.

During the time after high school, when Oscar was away at the University of Florida, I worked briefly at Dade Pharmacy downtown, making milk shakes and ice cream sundaes at the soda fountain. I made extra money at Kress’ on Flagler Street at Christmas, wrapping presents, before landing a job with Western Union Telegraph Company. On weekends, I would sometimes go with my girlfriends to watch my sister-in-law, Sylvia DuBreuil Self, in jitter-bugging contests held in a large dance hall on Biscayne Boulevard, right at the mouth of the Julia Tuttle Causeway. I would sometimes go to DuBreuil’s Restaurant in Hialeah. My husband’s cousin George DuBreuil, who owned the diner, later became a Miami commissioner. Mother and Jimmy and I would always enjoy visiting the marina at Bayfront Park and watching the fishing boats come in with their catch of the day. I remember the chaos that ensued being in Bayfront Park the day someone opened fire on President-elect Roosevelt, who was there giving a speech.

In 1941, Oscar and I were married in a small ceremony at Holy Cross Episcopal church and spent our one-night honeymoon at the President Hotel in South Beach. The war was raging in western Europe at the time and we were grateful to have found jobs, Oscar working in Miami Beach at the Southern Bell Telephone Company repairing phone lines and driving Ma Bell’s little green trucks. Working for Western Union during the war was an extremely busy and interesting time for me. We would receive and deliver so many messages that we wore roller skates in the building to expedite handling the telegrams, and upstairs from my department was an area held under tight security, where military officials worked, censoring incoming and outgoing material. Ma Bell and Western Union were part of our lives for many years.

In 1955 our only child, Dodi DuBreuil (Mace), was born at Doctors Hospital, and we brought her home to our little “Mackle House” that was near Miami International Airport. We paid $6,700 for a two-bedroom, one-bath home, and I was so excited to choose whatever asphalt tile I wanted for the floors. In the mid-’60s, we moved to South Miami. Sunset and Kendall Drives were two-lane, mostly gravel roads, and the Palmetto Bypass was the new link from north Miami to Coral Gables and beyond.

In the mid-’60s, Oscar wrote a novel called The Wrong Way Out that was loosely based on a scandal that had taken place at the telephone company. Larry King had a talk show on WIOD radio, and Oscar was interviewed by Larry when his book first hit the stands. We lived in South Miami for many happy years and enjoyed life when our daughter was a member of South Miami High’s first graduating class in 1973.

Even though I moved to Atlanta with my daughter and her family over 20 years ago after my husband passed away, I still consider myself a Miamian to the core. Mother used to tell a story that when she would take me back to visit family in Georgia as a little girl, I would call it “MY ami” and get annoyed when other people would speak of Miami, reminding them that they don’t live there, so it’s not “THEIR -ami.” Ninety years later, I will always love the unique diversity and charm of the city that I call “MY ami.”

I first met my wife Elena on the beach in Havana in 1947. She was 16 and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen – she was wearing a two-piece bathing suit and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

We were engaged for four years; her father insisted that I finish school and have a good job before we were allowed to marry. We were married on July 14, 1951 in Havana and came to the United States for our honeymoon.

A cousin had told us that The Betsy Hotel on Ocean Drive was a beautiful place, and even more important to us as a young couple – very affordable. I think the deal was, you paid $18 for the week, with breakfast, and you got a free night thrown in as well. We had a room on the second floor facing the ocean and it was fantastic – in fact, we liked it so much we stayed there again the following year.

Back then we would walk to places like the Pick N’Chicken where you’d get a full meal for $2.99 and to Wolfie’s and over to Lincoln Road.

After our romantic sojourn in Miami, we returned to Havana and built our life there. Elena was a school teacher, and then went to work for Chase Manhattan in Havana while I worked as an accountant. We came back to Miami Beach the year after we were married – and stayed at The Betsy Hotel once again.

We came back once more in 1956, this time we spent a month traveling all over the United States – out west, Yosemite, up north. We saw everything. It was our last trip before our children were born. Our first son, Jose Emilio, was born in 1957 and Alex Mario joined the family two years later.

In 1961, our whole world changed and like many other Cubans, we had to leave our country very quickly. We came to Miami to start our new lives. A cousin told me to go to the Everglades Hotel on Biscayne Boulevard, and I got a job there washing dishes. I was an accountant in Cuba but here I needed to find whatever work I could to support my family. Elena looked after the boys; and within six months her mother joined us as well. Our first place was near 28th Street and 29th Avenue.

We lived there with all the doors open and never worried about anything . After a while, we moved to what’s now Carol City, but it was considered Opa Locka back then. We lived in our house for 12 years. We used to go to the Royal Castle for hamburgers, you would get 12 hamburgers for a dollar. We used to pile the kids in the car and go to the drive-in movies on Opa Locka Boulevard.

Miami was very different in those days. Miami Beach had a lot of wide open spaces – up Collins Avenue there were only a few hotels. Before long, I was lucky to get a job in the accounting department at the Doral Resort thanks to my friend, who was a manager at the hotel. When the Doral opened on Miami Beach in 1963 I spent my time going back and forth between the two properties.

I worked my way up and when I retired in 1991 after 30 years, I was the company controller. I worked closely with Herman Kaskel, who took me to the Beach with him when the Doral Beach Resort opened in 1963. It was a very fancy property – in fact we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary at the Starlight Roof – which was considered the place to have your affair back then.

The family that owned the Doral, the Kaskels, were very good to me and my family. In 1965, Elena’s sister was still in Cuba and we needed to get her and her husband to Miami. Mr. Kaskel knew about the situation. He had a 28′ sailboat, which he sold to us for $1. We sent it to Cuba with a captain to help bring them out. The plan was when they arrived, I’d sell the boat back to him for the same price.

Elena’s sister and husband, their mother and two nephews boarded the boat which, unfortunately, was sunk by the Coast Guard. They were all safe and allowed to enter this country but the boat was gone forever. Not only did he not say a word about the boat, he told me to take him to the warehouse – where all the mattresses, furniture, supplies for both hotels were kept – and told us to take whatever we needed to help them get started in Miami.

We moved from Opa Locka to Pembroke Pines once the kids grew up, and now we’re back in the Doral area. I retired with a lifetime country club membership. I’m 82 but I still go to the gym four to five times a week and play golf two to three times a week.

We’ve had the good fortune to travel the world the 60 years that we’ve been blessed to share together – Europe, India, Africa, Japan and Singapore. For our 60th wedding anniversary, though, we wanted to return to the place we first experienced marital bliss – The Betsy Hotel.

The prices have gone up but they were kind enough to charge us $18/night – not quite the $18/week we paid in 1961 but pretty close. It’s still beautiful after all these years. It’s a jewel of Miami Beach – just like my beautiful bride!

In my mother’s house, now in my house, there was a collage of pictures of when we were younger. One was a picture of our entire transplanted family picnicking at Tahiti Beach. After reading someone else’s memories, I started thinking of ours.

In the spring of 1954, I had just turned 10 and had been released from the Hospital for Joint Diseases in NYC. Mom and Dad had gotten summer jobs in the Catskills, and my brother and I needed a place to stay while they went to work. Mom had a sister-in-law living in Miami who offered to take us in for the summer. This was exciting, our first plane ride and summer in Florida!

Our Aunt Gizi and Uncle Sam were elderly, never had any children, and lived a couple of blocks off Eighth Street and 20-something Avenue. I can remember hearing lots of birds and smelling the aromas of different fruit trees. I can still recall the smells and sounds of afternoon thunderstorms. All so clean and fresh -within a couple of weeks, I put my crutches aside.

After Labor Day, our parents bought a large Buick and came down to pick us up for the drive back to New York. They were pleasantly surprised to see me get about without crutches.

But we had to go back to NYC. All of our belongings were in storage, and school was about to start. It was very tough, as Dad could not find work and the money they had earned and saved over the summer was running out.

Dad had a friend from the old country who had settled in Miami, opened a small furniture store on Eighth Street and 16th Avenue, and told him to come down and be partners.

So Mom and Dad packed us in the Buick, and we returned to Miami. The first couple of months, shall we say, were crowded, living in a motel room just off Eighth Street, near what was then Sheehan Buick.

We then moved into a two-bedroom duplex on 27th Terrace (it is still there) off of U.S. 1 (then a two-lane road), across from the roller-rink. My brother’s and my bedroom window faced the roller-rink, and we could hear the loud music every night. I still needed medical oversight, so each year Mom would take me for check-ups at Variety Children’s Hospital.

Across 27th Avenue was a Rexall drugstore with a soda fountain. We would go many a times for ice cream shakes and cherry Cokes to and from our walks to Silver Bluff Elementary. Mom had joined Dad in the furniture store, so we were left on our own in the afternoon. I remember playing soldiers with my brother’s friends.

Within the year, we bought a small house in Westchester, a couple blocks across the bridge on Coral Way in front of West Miami Jr. High. On our way home from school, we’d stop at the drugstore just before the bridge, have sodas, listen to Elvis’ Blue Suede Shoes and Tab Hunter’s Young Love.

I started junior high school in West Miami, and though I could not run or do many physical activities, I did earn my “letter” in shot-put. Right after the bridge, there was a bakery where we would stop every morning for breakfast, a bottled Coke and a doughnut!

In the middle of eighth grade, we bought a new house in an area that would become “Kendall,” 93rd Street and 81st Avenue. Everyone called it “in the country,” as we were surrounded by agricultural fields. Kendall Drive was a two-lane road leading to the fields, and Dadeland was not yet on the drawing boards.

A new high school had opened in the fall, Miami Palmetto Senior High. My Aunt Paula and Uncle Marvin had moved down from Cleveland with their two children and bought our South Waterway Drive home, thus I was able to finish the year at West Miami.

It was the beginning of the Soaring Sixties when I started at Palmetto. Summers were real fun. Before moving to Kendall, Mom and Dad would drop us off at the Shenandoah pool for the day. We learned to swim and rock ‘n’ roll to Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock. When the pool closed, we’d take the bus to Eighth Street and walk down to the “shop” on 16th Avenue. We loved going next door to the Royal Castle for the 15-cent hamburgers.

Sometimes, if Mom and Dade were working late, we’d walk the block to the Tower Theater. On Saturdays, there were the serials. The Tower was also the place where I saw my first tear-jerker, Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, with William Holden, followed by High Society.

As we got older, summers were also spent in each other’s pools, many a time not even locking doors. Just before Labor Day, Mom would take us by bus to downtown to outfit us for the coming school year. Lerner’s was my favorite spot.

Two other uncles and their young families followed their elder brothers; one moved to the Westchester area, the other near Perrine. They opened butcher shops in West Miami and Perrine.

In those early years we all worked very hard. I can remember Mom and Dad sometimes leaving the house before my brother and I left for school. They always came home late at night, leaving dinner for us to prepare and household chores for us to do on Saturdays.

Sunday was family day, and just about every other Sunday in the summer we would all gather at one of the brother’s homes. At first, we went to Crandon Park; later, it was Tahiti Beach for barbecue. We preferred Tahiti. The toll was only $1 per car, and the road was less congested than Matheson Hammock. (Little did we dream that in less than 15 years, Mom and Dad would be living across the street from the Matheson entrance).

It was a different time, a different place, and there were difficulties to overcome. The Cold War was in full swing, as were the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cuban exodus, and the Civil Rights era. Farther away was the Vietnam war.

Within 20 years, South Beach became a slum, then turned around to become the “chic” capital of the world. Our agricultural industry was giving way to developments, with little thought of infrastructure or impact on the environment. No worry, we were young and we had no doubt we would overcome any and all difficulties.

Today’s young people will, too, look back nostalgically and remember the joys of growing up in Miami-Dade as they face their own challenges in what has become a multinational, multicultural city of the 21st century.

Think Miami Beach. Think bronze-sculpted bodies, basking in the sun. Think gyms, personal trainers and plant-based diets.

It was 1935; the year Bernard McFadden signed a 33-year lease on the Oceanfront Deauville Beach Hotel at Collins Avenue and 67th Street. His Physical Culture Hotel in Dansville, N.Y. was so successful that he decided to expand, which is what brought our family to Miami Beach in 1936.

It seemed everyone in our family worked for McFadden at the Physical Culture training school in New York. Our grandfather, John Bruce Esplin, traveled from Scotland, graduated from Kent College of Law in Chicago, then became one of the managers. His wife, our grandmother Mazie McIntyre Esplin, supervised the spa, while great-grandmother Lillian McIntyre worked in the diet kitchen. Uncle Paul and Uncle Junior also worked for McFadden.

Aunt Lainey – Elaine Esplin David – talks of the early days arriving in the capital of sun and fun. She attended Ida M. Fisher Junior High, graduated from Miami Beach High, and attained a business degree at the University of Miami.

Our father, Lainey’s older brother, Bruce M. Esplin, would visit his family at the hotel, whenever possible, while attending medical school at Cornell. He fell in love with the sand, surf and climate. He worked part time for McFadden on his breaks in the health clinic, and enjoyed his days off swimming in the world’s largest saltwater pool.

Bruce served as a major in the Army, returning to New York after the war to specialize in dermatology. He dreamed of returning to set up practice one day in Florida. Miami had won his heart, as had his new bride, Beatrice Lavina Wheat Esplin, a nurse he met during his residency.

Upon moving to Miami, Daddy set up practice in downtown Miami. We had a bird’s eye view from his office windows, watching many an Orange Bowl Parade weave its way through the streets of downtown.

Daddy immersed himself into his new community. He was a founding member of the University Of Miami School of Medicine, where he later became a clinical professor of dermatology, honored for over 30 years of service.

Our first home was on Blue Road in Coral Gables. We lunched in Burdines Hibiscus Tea Room (where a beverage was 10 cents and a clown or snow princess sundae could be had for a quarter!) Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor on Miracle Mile was the place to go for the “Kitchen Sink” and Allen’s drug store for a “Cherry Smash” and a nickel candy bar. The Miracle Theater hosted the Summer Movie Club, where admission was 6 RC bottle Caps. Coral Gables Methodist was our place for worship, choir, Sunday school lessons, and later our weddings!

All four of us daughters were Girl Scouts; our mother Beatrice was the Troop Leader. Our meetings were at the Girl Scout Little House in South Miami; we swatted many a mosquito at Camp Mahatchee.

Birthdays were at Crandon Park Zoo, the Seaquarium, and Popeye Playhouse with Skipper Chuck! We were Coral G Rangers, members of the Museum of Science, took ceramic lessons at the Miami Art Museum, bowling lessons at the Bowl O Mat and riding lessons at the Coral Gable Riding Academy.

Chattering teeth at the Venetian Pool. Sailing lessons at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club. Picnics at Matheson Hammock and Cape Florida.

Shedding my ugly saddle shoes for pumps to attend Madame Butterfly at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. My sister and cousin in dresses and high heels seeing the Beatles in concert at the Jackie Gleason Theater! The Serpentarium. Tropicare and Dixie Drive-Ins.

We moved to Kendall, when Kendall Drive was a dirt road. We watched as Dadeland Mall was built. We played by the Dragon Fountain, ate French fries at Kresge’s 5 & 10, Venetian ices at Ferris Groves and smelled the expensive leather purses at Ronna’s.

I graduated from Jackson Memorial Hospital School of Nursing, became a pediatric nurse at Variety Children’s Hospital (my dream job), and married my boyfriend from Killian High, Ike Wehking.

Much of our family has moved, but we have carried on enjoying everything Miami. Our sons, Jonathan and Jason Wehking , took sailing lessons at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, went to summer camp at MetroZoo and baseball camp with Fred Burnside. They joined the Boy Scouts as cubs, and later achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, with Boy Scout Troop 457, meeting at Kendall Church in Pinecrest.

Graduating from Palmetto High, then the University of Central Florida, they continue to call Florida their homes, only now they live in Avalon Park near Orlando. Jonathan married Rebekah Cope in March, and we hope will continue our family’s tradition of a life full of family, community and enjoying the beauty that is South Florida.

My father, Dr. William T. Lanier, graduated from Georgia Medical School in 1912, when he was 22, and headed for South Florida to set up his practice.

That same year, my mother, Montine Horne, graduated from Americus High School in Georgia and, along with her mother and three sisters, also came to Miami.

My dad actually started out in Homestead and was one of the first doctors there. He and my mother somehow met as he commuted between the two towns, and he courted her on his motorcycle.

They married in 1915 and lived in Homestead until World War I.

When he went off to France as a young Army medical officer, mother moved up to Miami to be near her mother and sisters.

When he returned after the war they stayed in Miami and lived at 19 SW Seventh Ave., just off Flagler. He organized the Miami City Clinic and served for many years as the U.S. Public Health Officer.

I remember him telling my sister, Alice Gene, and me stories about having to go out and meet incoming foreign ships to check for contagious diseases and decide whether or not to quarantine them.

After the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 in the Keys killed so many civilians and World War I veterans who were living in the Civilian Conservation Corps camps while working on the Overseas Highway, my dad went down to treat the injured, and assist in the disposal of bodies.

More than 400 were killed and about 300 of them had to be cremated. Gruesome!

Another one of his duties was to check on the physical condition of the prisoners being held at the jail on the top floors of the downtown courthouse. Many times, he would take my sister and me with him and leave us in Judge Blanton’s office while he attended to the prisoners. From the judge’s office we could see forever, the courthouse at the time being the tallest building in Miami.

My dad practiced medicine here for almost 60 years, still making house calls at the age of 75. He and my mother, grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins are all buried in the old Miami City Cemetery.

When I was a year old, in 1931, we moved from Seventh Avenue to Southwest 10th Street and 18th Avenue.

Alice Gene and I both lived at that address until we were married, and thought it was probably the best neighborhood in the whole world.

We both attended Shenandoah Presbyterian Church (Rev. Dan Iverson, pastor), Shenandoah Elementary, when it was nothing but portables (Eloise Hatfield, principal), Shenandoah Jr. High School when it was brand new (Alice McVicar, principal), and then Miami High (W.R. Thomas, principal).

My sister graduated in 1946 (voted Sweetheart of Miami High), and I in 1948. I went off to the University of Georgia and she to University of Miami. At that time the U of M was better known as “Cardboard College” or “Suntan U.”

I remember going to the Tower Theater on Saturdays for a dime (and a jaw breaker for a penny), the open-air bowling alley on the Trail at about l8th Avenue, miniature golf on Biscayne Boulevard and First Street, riding our bikes to the Venetian Pool and Matheson Hammock. We went swimming at the Roney Plaza and the Deauville Hotel, and had beach parties at the Firestone Estate where the Fontainebleau Hotel now stands (the security guards finally gave up and just let us enjoy the beach).

My best friend in high school was Pat Moore whose little sister grew up to be Miami historian, Arva Moore Parks.

My sister, Alice Gene, married her high school sweetheart, Dale Anderson, and they had three great kids, Chris, Amy (Williams) and Dale Jr. (now deceased), a fine son-in law, Todd, and two darling grandchildren, George and Lanier. Dale was a very successful builder, having constructed four 12-story dorms at the University of Miami, Aventura Mall and the Turnberry Isle development.

I also married my high school sweetheart, Robert L. Parker. We were both born in Miami on the same day 80 years ago.

He was brought up in Miami Shores and went to Edison (Boooo!), so we had a small logistics problem when it came to dating, since we lived at opposite ends of town (however, gasoline was only 18 cents a gallon then, and a heck of a lot less traffic). But, our big romance survived and we married in 1952.

After graduating from Miami, Bob served as an officer in the U.S. Navy for 3½ years of active duty during the Korean War.

We also have three wonderful children; Bruce, Scott and Laura (Moylan), an outstanding son-in-law, Clint and a fabulous grandson, Carter.

My husband’s businesses have all been in the Bahamas: farming, construction and development, a lovely small beachfront hotel, petroleum distribution. Although we spend a great deal of time in the Bahamas, Miami will always be home.

Bob’s parents, William F. and Regina Parker, came to Miami in the early 1920s from South Carolina and Alabama.

His father was a prominent attorney representing some interesting clients, such as the actress Tallulah Bankhead, Sir Roland Symonette (Prime Minister of the Bahamas), Betty Carstairs (Standard Oil heiress), Neville MacArthur (MacArthur Dairies), John Jacob Astor, and, much to my embarrassment, Al Capone (in a civil matter).

He practiced law in Miami for more than 50 years.

Bob’s memories of growing up in Miami are much like mine, only he went to the Rosetta Theater and spent most of his days at the Miami Shores Community House playing basketball or baseball, or exploring Biscayne Bay in his small boat.

Those halcyon days hold such wonderful memories of much simpler times when Miami was considerably smaller, yet so much greater.

It truly was “The Magic City.”

My journey to Florida began in Homestead – where I was born, in July of 1926.

It all started (I was told by my parents) just before the big hurricane in September of that same year, which almost swept away Homestead, as well as Miami.

My first recollections were those with my life in Coconut Grove, where my parents moved in 1927. We lived on Kumquat Avenue. My dad had a job with the Coconut Grove water plant before working with Pan American Airways in about 1928.

From Coconut Grove, my family moved to Coral Gables on Mariana Avenue, where I went to kindergarten at Coral Gables Elementary.

I attended there under the strict and watchful eye of Miss Abigail Gilday. I read the account of one of your contributors who described her as being six feet tall or maybe even a little taller. I would say he underestimated her height by about a foot! I remember on several occasions having been sent to her office (for reasons I will not go into at this point) and having looked up at her as an insect might have looked up at Gulliver. She was not only gigantic and imposing in her appearance, but she had a voice to match!

I went to school with a lot of unforgettable classmates: Walter Miller, John Tatum, Dennis Kelleher, Tom Ray and others. Because people didn’t move around too much, every year we moved along through the grades with the same kids. I could probably name a lot of my teachers, as well. Mrs. Feaster taught me to read; Mrs. Holiday, the multiplication tables; and Mrs. Furlong was in charge of “show biz” (The annual Christmas play). I learned math from Miss Madry.

I got my first job when I was at Coral Gables Elementary. I started selling and delivering the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies’ Home Journal. The Post cost a nickel and the Journal a dime. I built up a pretty good route; I cleared about $.50 a week.

My next job was working at the Coral Gables Bowling Alley. I set duck pins and 10 pins. I think we used to get five cents a game. There was nothing automatic about any of it – WE were the pin-setting machines.

I went to Ponce de Leon High School in 1938. In many ways, it was like Coral Gables Elementary School in that most of the teachers had been there for years. Mr. Harry Rath had been the principal since they opened the doors. There were about 750 kids. There were only 125 in our graduating class in 1944.

Burdines was the only store in Miami that was air-conditioned. I think the Olympia Theater was, as well. The Coral Gables theater at that time had no AC.

Our family was pretty lucky during the Depression because my dad had been involved with aviation since he worked with Glenn Curtiss during World War I and then started working for Pan American Airways. He stayed with Pan Am and eventually became general foreman in charge of engine accessories for them at the old Miami International Air Depot.

I had my share of jobs during the years. I got up at 3 in the morning, folded newspapers for The Miami Herald, delivered them during the darkness of the wee hours with never a thought (on the part of me or my parents that there ever was a threat of bodily harm of any kind). I worked for the A&P grocery store, as well as Tanner’s market on the weekends. I even was employed for a time as an usher in the Coral Theater during my years in high school. I probably thought I was working too much and too hard. Today – looking back on it – I probably wasn’t doing enough of either one.

I had a loving family, I lived in a lovely city and made a lot of nice friends, many of whom I still have to this day.

We played “capture the flag” at night on the Coral Gables Golf Course after we had our meeting at Scout Troop No. 7. The troop’s log cabin was nestled among the trees on the back nine.

I learned to swim when I was 9 at the Venetian Pool under the tutelage of “Pop” Burr and never gave a thought to its beauty, uniqueness and/or availability to me as a kid growing up. It was only after I grew up, and traveled around in the world, that I realized it was a truly “unique” swimming pool.

We made forts using palmetto fronds nailed to pine saplings that we cut down on property and vacant land that had never seen a “no trespassing” sign.

We fought battles with “guns” we made ourselves from rubber bands cut from old inner tubes with our mothers’ scissors as ammunition.

I was given a BB gun when I was 10 with a strict admonition never to shoot where there might be harmful results. I have to confess that despite my promises to my mother to the contrary, I think at one time or another I shot at everything that walked or crawled or flapped its wings. I was never a very good shot so most every living thing was safe, but I shot many a bottle into shards and punched a lot of holes in tin cans.

After school at Ponce, we frequently cooled off by taking a swim in the Coral Gables Waterway.

My friends and I did a lot of camping out in the vacant woods south of South Miami. Of course, we usually did not have a tent, and when it rained – as it frequently did – we sure wished that we had one as we sat shivering, waiting for the warmth of the rising sun.

When we ran short of cash, we used to scout around for the deposit bottles that we redeemed for enough to get us into the movies. The movies cost $.10 for anyone under 12 back in 1938. On Saturday, they usually showed some kind of cowboy movie that preceded the regular feature. Every kid got a comic book and a candy bar when he walked in the door.

One of the most important holidays always was the Fourth of July. Today, there is not much in the way of fireworks, but in those days that was a big thing. And my parents knew it. It was the one event in addition to Christmas that they really went out of their way to make sure I had the right kind of a celebration. I think they allowed me five whole dollars to spend on whatever kind of fireworks I wanted.

I used to get a catalog from the Spencer Fireworks Company out of some town in Ohio in the middle of March. I spent the better part of two months poring over that catalog and deciding what my selections would be.

When the big day dawned, I started early, long before daylight, and finished late, long after dark. In those days, five dollars’ worth of fireworks was just about all that one man or an active boy could handle in one day.

Yes, those were the days. Before I went to high school, we spent the summers outside building forts, tree huts, battling with “rubber guns” and going to the movies on Saturday. In the fall, all of my male friends were involved in “sandlot” football with very little, if anything, in the way of football pads. No one seemed to be worried or concerned as we split up into teams and played football on the field at Salvador Park in Coral Gables or the Coral Gables Prado.

In those early days, girls were just not a romantic factor. If they could not climb the tallest pine tree like a monkey or run as fast as the wind like Carolyn Hunter, they gained no respect with the “fellas” and just had to be satisfied with playing hopscotch or jumping rope.

Of course, when we went to high school, things changed a little bit. I had a couple of romances with girlfriends that I thought were pretty super at the time.

As it turned out, I married one of them – Lenore Bennett. We were married in 1949 at the Plymouth Congregational Church in Coconut Grove and renewed our vows 50 years to the day at the same church, at the same time in the evening.

At the time I was growing up in Coral Gables, I never realized how fortunate I was. It was only after I went in the Navy during World War II in 1944 and got out and saw what the rest of the world really looked like that I really appreciated what my life had been like when I was a kid growing up in a town that you might call a place “next door to heaven.”

My story begins when my father decided to move with his six children to Miami from Key West in 1948. His father told him that his four boys and two girls would have more opportunities in the “big city” of Miami so my mother packed us up and we all moved from our birthplace to Miami.

Our house was built in Allapattah from beautiful Dade County pine wood. Even after my mother passed away, my father continued to live in that same house until he retired from the Florida Department of Agriculture.

I have many wonderful memories of growing up in Miami. One of my early memories was meeting Florida Native American Seminoles like Buffalo Tiger, whose son Lee served with me on the board of Friends of the Florida State Parks Association. The Seminoles would come to shop at the market where my father worked wearing their colorful clothing. On occasions our family would visit their Tropical Indian Village on Northwest 15th Street and 27th Avenue and see alligator wrestling.

On the weekends, our family would go to Crandon Park on Key Biscayne for picnics, swimming and to visit the Crandon Park Zoo. Curtis Park was around the corner from our house; my brothers and I were there almost every day after school. During the summer we would swim in the public pool. Some days we would also swim in the Miami River. We could go to the movies on Saturday to see cartoons and movies for 10 cents.

It was a treat to go to downtown Miami on the bus shopping. Shopping had to be done on Saturday because stores were closed on Sundays. On Sundays after church, my dad would take us for a drive around Miami before expressways were built and sometimes stop at Dairy Queen for ice cream or Royal Castle for a hamburger and birch beer. Some Sundays evenings we would go the drive-in movie theater.

I also remember the wonderful smell of fresh baked Holsum bread as we would drive by the bakery on U.S. 1, especially if we were on the long drive to Key West to visit family. On some Fridays my father was given tickets for a fish fry dinner, which also included a tour of Holsum Bakery.

The six of us attended Miami High and received excellent public school educations. I had a wonderful time at Miami High, attending football games at the Orange Bowl. We won national championships and we had the “Million Dollar Band.”

I am a member of the Miami High School Alumni Association and am very happy to see that the beautiful and historic building is being renovated. Like they say, there are those who attended Miami High and those who wish they had. After school I worked for Kwik-Chek (Winn Dixie) so I could buy my first car and was I proud to drive around Miami in my new 1956 Ford. I am also an alumnus of Miami Dade College.

I have served as an assistant to a state representative, a state senator, two Miami mayors, and a Miami-Dade County commissioner. I have had the opportunity to give back to Miami-Dade by joining and serving on numerous civic and community organizations. I had the great privilege to be elected to the School Board of Miami-Dade County.

I have owned a real-estate company for over 30 years and have seen Miami grow from a small village to a multicultural cosmopolitan community.

My grandfather’s advice was right because I have had wonderful opportunities and great memories in this community. Miami was and still is a great city!

Journey along the streets in the Brownsville neighborhood and you’ll see solid homes and well-kept lawns, highlighting the pride of the people who live here – past and present.

The little frame house at 2978 NW 52nd St. is one of the oldest structures in the neighborhood, having been built in 1937. But there is more to it than the age of the house and its frame structure. There is a family’s legacy of enduring pride in a community.

“We bought that house in 1949,” said Agenoria Spearman Paschal, 88, a retired teacher and administrator. Pointing to the eldest of her three children, Fletcher Alonzo Paschal III, a retired pharmacist and business owner, she said: “He was about a year old. Back then you had to take a year off from work after giving birth.”

A second child, Elvis Wardell, a retired high school band director, was born two years later to Paschal and her late husband, Fletcher Alonzo Paschal, Jr., who died in 2004.

The family was not yet complete. The couple bought a second home across the street at 2975 NW 52nd St. in 1957, where their last child, Agenoria Paschal Powell, a K-8 Center principal, was born.

That’s where a simple story of home ownership and raising a family would seem to end. But to appreciate the life and times of Fletcher Alonzo Paschal and Agenoria Spearman Paschal, you would have to take a few steps backs into their family histories and accomplishments.

The union between Fletcher Alonzo Paschal, Sr., and Lennie Rogers in 1917 produced four children – Roger William Paschal, a retired teacher at Phyllis Wheatley Elementary; Lillian Paschal Wheeler, a retired elementary school teacher in Washington, D.C., Fletcher Alonzo Paschal, Jr., a retired Miami-Dade school administrator.

A renowned jazz musician, Paschal, Jr., played with Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. He attended Florida A&M University and played in the FAMU Jazz Band and the famed Marching 100.

“He was in the band and I was a majorette. That’s how we met,” remembered Agenoria Spearman Paschal, who majored in social studies and English at FAMU. The couple wed in 1943 and their marriage would last for more than 60 years.

“He was in the ROTC and went into the Army during World War II.”

Fletcher Jr. served in the European Theatre with the 92nd Infantry Division, assigned to Genoa, Italy. Meanwhile, Spearman Paschal lived in Washington, D.C., and worked at the Pentagon. Around the time Fletcher Jr. was discharged from the U. S. Army, she was offered a job in Tallahassee.

“He came home and said we’re moving to Miami. I barely had a chance to pack and we left.”

The young couple moved in with Paschal’s family in an apartment on Northwest 18th Street near Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School.

“He was hired at Booker T. and I was hired at Phyllis Wheatley,” Agenoria Paschal remembered.

Teaching by day and working at night, Fletcher Jr., played tenor saxophone with the likes of Nat and Cannonball Adderley, Duke Ellington and others. He also played the local hot spots, including the Reno Bar, Harlem Square, the Rockland Palace and the Night Beat, all while raising a family.

Agenoria Spearman Paschal has fond memories of the couple’s first house on Northwest 52nd Street.

“We had to do everything to it, paint, add a fence, buy furniture, add a back porch. It was really a time of getting adjusted to being married because he had been away in the Army and then we lived with his parents.”

She remembers her husband was never impressed by what others had.

“He pursued his own goals for himself and his family.”

They needed a bigger place because the family was growing. Their son, Fletcher III, was an infant when the couple moved into the house, which, at one time or another, has been home to at least one member of five generations of Paschals. And each has taken the unspoken pledge of painstakingly adding features and repairs to maintain the house’s original character.

And Agenoria Spearman brought her own strong family legacy into the union.

She was the fourth of six children born to the Rev. E. W. and Tryphenia Spearman. Her father was postmaster at FAMU.Hermother was a first-grade teacher.

Spearman attended elementary, high school and college in Tallahassee.

Her siblings: Viva T. Spearman Coleman, a home economics and vocational teacher in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the first black registered dietician in Florida; Dr. Rawn W. Spearman, a Broadway star, concert artist and college professor; Olivia Chandler Spearman Parker, a retired executive assistant in the Department of Student Services in Washington, D.C. schools; Dr. Elvis O’Hara Spearman, a renowned band director, jazz musician and member of the St. Louis Symphonic Orchestra; and Leonard Hall O’Connell Spearman, president of Texas Southern University and executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, making him the first former president of a historically-black school to hold the position.

Their parents could not afford to send six children away to college, she said. They went to school in Tallahassee.

“Our parents instilled in all six of their children that you must educate yourself. You must go to college and make something of yourself. Our parents walked the talk.”

Agenoria Spearman Paschal fashioned a legacy in education highlighted by the role she played in developing an education model in Miami-Dade that ended up in the Library of Congress.

Fletcher and Agenoria Paschal’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren followed in their footsteps when it came to getting a solid education.

Now, the Brownsville community is growing and changing, but it still is the reflection of a family’s legacy of enduring pride in a community.

In 1904 my family moved to Miami in horse and buggies from Gillette on the west coast of Florida.

Gillette is my mother’s family name; her family owned citrus groves and cattle. I have a certificate from the Florida State Genealogical Society certifying that I am a Florida Pioneer Descendant of the Gillette Family, who settled in Florida before Florida became a state. The certificate is dated March 3, 1845, certificate No. 515.

My paternal grandfather, Felix Travis Janes, was known as one of the best managers of packinghouses in Florida. He managed the packinghouse located on what is now South Greenway Drive and Castile Avenue (a sign is on the corner). This packinghouse was for Merrick Farms, owned by the Rev. Solomon Merrick and his son George, the founder of Coral Gables.

During the summer my grandfather was in charge of security during the building of the Dade County Courthouse and Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.

My mother, born 1899, wrote two books about growing up during the beginning of the 20th century in Miami. On Jan. 1, 1918, she married a Marine lieutenant stationed in Miami during World War I. They had two sons, my brother who was born in 1919, and me, born in 1922.

We lived on Biscayne Boulevard and Northwest 54th Street across from the Cushman School, which my brother attended. In 1926 Miami was hit by a devastating hurricane that blew the roof from our home. The water from Biscayne Bay came up to our windows.

A huge German freighter, the Prinz Valdemar, was blown almost to Biscayne Boulevard. It could not be moved so it was converted to a huge aquarium, which I visited many times.

That hurricane in 1926 preceded the 1929 stock market crash and the country fell into the Great Depression of the 1930s. Miami suffered greatly because there were no industries, no air conditioning for hotels and office buildings.

Unemployment was at 30 percent. Foreclosures were more common than today. My mother used to say that she knew of millionaires one day who were paupers the next day.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the country began arming for an all-out World War, which put people to work in factories manufacturing airplanes and tanks for war. This helped the economy. I was discharged from the Navy in March 1946 after three years in the service.

When I returned to Miami, there was a shortage of housing and automobiles, so both of these industries did well for a few years. Many of the G.I.s who were stationed in Florida stayed after their discharge from the service.

The new Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables closed right after the hurricane and it was converted into a military hospital during World War II.

I am 89 years old and I have seen many changes. Coral Gables and Miami still attract many big investors who have confidence in future growth due to our strategic location with respect to South America and the Miami International Airport, the beaches and tourist attractions.

Editor’s note: The Coral Gables Museum has the Robert and Marian Fewell Wing named after the author.