Category: Miami Stories

I am the youngest of the Wood brothers — Hayes, David, Hugh “Hooty” and Tom — all born between 1926 and 1931. We were very close and shared many things together in Old Miami. We all were born at Victoria Hospital on Northwest 10th Avenue, which still exists as a nursing and rehab center.

We were raised on a truck farm on Southwest 19th Street, about five acres that is now part of Shenandoah Park and middle school. We were always playing ball in the park. The park had many famous supervisors who went on to play pro ball, including Al Rosen with the Cleveland Indians and Lefty Schemer with the New York Giants. My only buddies still around are Lester Johnson, Fred Kirkland and Ed Woitke.

We attended and were baptized at the Riverside Baptist Church on Southwest Ninth Avenue and First Street (the congregation moved to Kendall in the 1970s and the church sanctuary now houses the Manuel Artime Theater).

As kids, we worked with the farm’s chickens and vegetables and created Wood Brothers Poultry and Produce Co. We sold the products to Wrights Market on Southwest Eighth Street and 22nd Avenue. My brothers and I all attended Shenandoah Elementary and Junior High schools. I also went to Coral Way Elementary when it opened in 1937 on Southwest 19th Street and 13th Avenue. We all went to Ponce de Leon Senior High School on U.S. 1 in Coral Gables. My brothers Hayes and Hugh and I were president of the student council. I met my beautiful wife, Virginia, in high school in 1949 and in June we will have been married 60 years. Ponce is now a middle school and the high school is now Coral Gables Senior High on Bird Road.

My brothers and I founded a band and played at high school dances, New Year’s Eve parties and other events. Hayes played saxophone; David and I, trumpet; and Hugh was on the trombone.

Someone gave my brother Hooty an Indian Pinto horse. He would hop on bareback and pull me up behind him and we would ride all the way down 22nd Avenue to the bay, where we would swim in cold, ice-blue water so clear we could see the bottom and the fish clearly.

We watched the roller derby at the Coliseum on Douglas Road. It is now a Publix and eight-story condominium. John Rosasco was the star of the team. He later ran Venetian Pool in Coral Gables, where everyone loved to hide in the caves. Fader’s Drug Store on 22nd Avenue and Coral Way was a popular spot for milkshakes and root beer floats. I remember watching Pan Am Clippers on the bay in the Grove on the site of what is now Miami City Hall.

It was only a bike ride to the Tower Theater on the Trail and for nine cents I could see two double features, a cartoon and a live amateur show. We could hop the Dunn bus at the corner and go downtown to various theaters — the Rex, Town or Paramount — and have a grilled-cheese sandwich at the counter of the Red Cross Drug Store, or a hotdog at Woolworth’s for a dime.

There were many favorite eating spots: Rosedale Delicatessen, owned by the Pont brothers (I would have corned beef on rye with a slice of onion and mustard, a big kosher dill and some potato salad); Kitty and Jean’s on the Trail; hotdogs at the Pig Trail Inn on Miami Beach. Who remembers the Mayflower Doughnut Shop on Biscayne Boulevard sporting a sign that read, “As you wander through life in search of your goal, keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole.”

Sometimes all four of us would take a long bike ride to the deserted University of Miami skeleton campus, where we would swim in the lagoon. Today, UM is one of the finest private universities in the country. I am honored to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees. All four of us worked our way through UM. Three of us graduated with juris doctor degrees and one with a master of engineering.

All of us served in the armed forces: three Naval officers and one Army Air Corps technician.

One of my favorite memories was riding on the handlebars of my oldest brother’s bicycle on a Saturday morning as we and my other brothers went to the Ringling Brothers Circus in the vacant lot on the northeast corner of Coral Way and Douglas Road. There, we watered the elephants until the matinee started. We got free admission plus money we spent on hotdogs.

My brothers always looked out for me and I will never forget them as I am blessed to still live in Miami, the Magic City.

It was late 1959 when my parents decided to follow my mother’s sister and her husband down to South Florida from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where I was born a year earlier.

We settled in North Miami on 200th Street. My older sister, Susie, and I attended the Little Red School House on 183rd Street and later Norland Elementary School. My parents divorced and soon thereafter we moved to Miami Shores where I attended second grade at Miami Shores Elementary. In 1966, we moved again to Coral Gables and lived in the 1300 block of Obispo Avenue for the next 14 years.

It was while attending the third-grade class at Coral Gables Elementary that I became involved with Cub Scouts. First with a friend’s parents who were our pack leaders, and later at a home near the Coral Gables Youth Center. Most of the kids I knew grew up at the Youth Center played Civitan baseball, football or soccer.

When the time came to cross over to Boy Scouts in 1970, I joined Troop 229 at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church across the street from Coral Gables High School. Scouting opened up a world of learning for all of us. We participated in numerous service-type events in South Florida, such as carrying the banners in the Orange Bowl parade, beach clean-ups and participating in the Scouting Shows and Camporees in places like Tahiti Beach off Old Cutler Road, and the old blimp base by the zoo.

We would camp out at Fish Eating Creek, Camp Seminole, the Everglades and attend the Seminole Indian Tribe’s “Wild Hog Barbeque” weekend where we participated in the greased pole climb and took free swamp buggy and air boat rides through the Everglades. I remember sitting in front of my tent at Camp Sawyer in the Keys on a dark starlit night with flashlight in hand memorizing my Torah portion for my upcoming bar mitzvah at Temple Judea. We traveled to Sebring to attend summer camp and when it closed in 1971, we moved to Inverness, to the new McGregor Smith Scout Reservation where I was also a counselor and taught handicrafts.

In the early ’70s, my mother had an office in the corner building of Main and McFarlane Road in Coconut Grove where she was quite active in the business community. Through her affiliations, I met numerous artists who had homes and studios in the Grove. After school, I would visit the studio of a wood sculptor who helped me earn my wood-carving merit badge. As a teenager, I would attend art openings in the lobby of the Bacardi Building and other galleries around Miami.

While attending Gables High, I participated in metal shop class where I learned the art of welding, copper and metal work and eventually produced numerous award-winning entries for the Dade County Youth Fair art competitions. All these skills and experiences eventually led me to my success and career as an architect.

In 1970, the school board enacted “integration” and for seventh grade we were bused from Coral Gables to attend George Washington Carver Middle School in the Grove. The first few months were a struggle for everyone, but we all settled down and the transition to Ponce de Leon Junior High the following year was uneventful. At Carver, I befriended a black student. We became good friends and we taught each other about our respective cultures.

I presented the idea to my new friend to join our Boy Scout Troop that year and that opened up the door of racism, which I experienced for the first time. I stood by my friend and made sure he shared the same experiences that I did in Scouting. For his first camp out, we shared a tent and I taught him outdoor skills that were taught to me.

In my early college years (1977), I would venture down to Key Largo to stay at my aunt and uncle’s weekend house. One evening I was on the 18-mile stretch and came upon debris all over the road. After I stopped, I noticed the lights from a partially submerged pickup truck in the adjacent waterway and found two individuals slumped in the front seat with water up to their chests. The first aid skills I learned in Scouting kicked in and I acted quickly and carefully to remove the injured driver and passenger. I was later told by the truck’s owner that the passenger would have died if first aid had not been administered.

My wife and I have been blessed with two wonderful children who were born and raised here in South Florida. Over the many years, we have all grown to appreciate all that this area has to offer. My sister (a nurse practitioner in the Broward hospital system) and her husband have two boys who are both Eagle Scouts and a daughter who has always been active in the Scouting community. Whenever I see Scouts in the community, I express that it is important to make sure they put the effort in to pursue the rank of Eagle. Only 2 percent of all Scouts make the rank of Eagle and I am grateful that I earned mine.

Let’s set the scene: It’s early 2004, and my mother is taking my younger sister and me to go watch Cats: The Musical at what was then known as Jackie Gleason Theater on Miami Beach.

At 12, the only prior experience I ever had with anything related to theater was multiple viewings of The Nutcracker ballet and, to be honest, after the third time, the excitement dwindles. But this time felt so different, even before the show had begun; the whole atmosphere was more inviting, not as repressed as the behavior expected at a ballet.

I sat excitedly as the curtains rose to reveal a wonderful set, and by the first chorus of the prologue, I was hooked.

I watched in awe as these characters danced and sang before me, keeping my interest the entire time. Not once did I tire of any aspect; it was love at first sight. I was so enamored with the show that once it was over, I promptly begged my mother to buy the DVD of a special Broadway recording of the show. My sister enjoyed the performance as much as I did, and we reveled in watching the DVD over and over again.

After a couple of weeks, we knew each character’s name, the lyrics of each of their individual songs, and even learned the choreography to most of the pieces. We would shamelessly put on shows for our parents, grandparents and little brother and ensure that the world knew of the greatness that was CATS. I am not ashamed of the affection I had and continue to have for this musical. It was that one performance at age 12 that ignited in my heart a love for theater I didn’t know I possessed.

I had taken dance class starting at age 6, and as much as I enjoyed being with my friends and going to class, I knew deep down that I wasn’t very good. I tried my hardest but at best, I was second-line material. But nevertheless, I danced my little heart out for years to come, seeing my sister grow into a beautiful dancer and leave me in the dust. My sister was born to be a dancer; her natural ability is undeniable. A part of me wished I hadn’t made the silly decision of stopping my jazz/ballet training to take one year of hip hop, and I did find my niche in tap dance, but as comfortable as I felt doing that, I longed for more. I continued to dance tap well into my teen years, and even started volunteering in the summers at the studio where I took class, The Roxy Theatre Group.

Year after year, I worked with the youngest group of children and would accompany them to their dance, singing and acting classes, even participating in the activities so as to encourage all of them to do the same. It was all good until one day, during the summer before, I turned 17. I opened my mouth in singing class and someone actually noticed.

The voice teacher asked me to speak with her after my group’s session ended. “Have you ever taken lessons before?” she asked, to which I shook my head silently. “Well you can sing!” I was overcome with emotion.

I had sung in my room or in the shower and always assumed that I sounded nice, but never to a person who could actually tell me so. She asked me to perform in the end-of-summer show with my group, as Fraulein Maria from The Sound of Music in “Do-Re-Mi.” The day of the show, my nerves were at their peak; I had danced in front of an audience countless times, why would this be any different? I sang with my beloved group and surprised not just my family and peers, but myself as well.

I couldn’t pursue my love for theater while in high school because I was heavily devoted to my academics. However, upon entering college and having a little more wiggle room to do what I pleased, I was able to venture out and audition for shows. It wasn’t until I was 19 that I got my first role in a show: Gloria Thorpe in The Roxy Theatre Group’s production of Damn Yankees. Sure, I wasn’t the only one playing the part (the role was shared between another young lady and myself), but it was the principle of it. I was doing what I secretly loved, and that was just the beginning.

I never expected to get caught up in the Miami theater community. To be honest, I wasn’t aware of how prominent the arts even were in Miami. But I’ve seen how much it’s grown since I was a child watching my first musical: from community productions at The Roxy Theatre Group, Actors’ Playhouse on Miracle Mile, Area Stage in Coral Gables, to new and innovative plays at New Theatre in Cutler Bay, and even to professional touring shows at The Adrienne Arsht Center in downtown Miami, there are so many outlets where one could be exposed to quality theater in Miami.

I don’t, however, want to limit Miami’s art prowess to just theater. The dance community here is a fierce one, with so many studios vying for talent. The visual art field in Miami is also a force to be reckoned with, not only in traditional museums, but with areas like Wynwood, a culturally diverse area of artistic freedom with beautiful art, both modern and classic, and excellent food.

I love not only supporting the arts here, but being a part of the arts and growing with that community. This city is bursting with talent, and yet so many people are unaware.

Of course, people automatically connect the performing arts with New York City or Los Angeles. But so many great artists originate from right here at home. Miami is a place that thrives on creativity. I’m proud of the place that it’s become and am very excited to see where it will go from here.

My father was a traveling salesman for my grandfather’s haberdashery business, Dixie Company, which manufactured white suits for the poor to buy on layaway in the rural areas of the deep South. He would be more centrally located out of a base in Florida, so my parents, baby sister and I moved to Miami Beach from New York City when I was 6 years old.

We first rented an apartment on Pine Tree Drive near 41st Street. There were hotels on nearby Collins Avenue, but no apartments at that time. That area of Pine Tree was all apartments, not single family homes as it is now. Indian Creek Canal was a lazy waterway with sight-seeing boats docked a little to the south of 41st Street.

The first thing I remember was going over the MacArthur Causeway and seeing the old Flamingo Hotel. The roof would light up at night and it was spectacular. After the hotel went out of business, a group of us kids would bicycle over there to look at the pool. It was a salt-water pool and full of fish, though the hotel was uninhabited.

The MacArthur Causeway was an old drawbridge made out of wood. That, and 79th Street Causeway, were the only ways to access Miami Beach. My grandfather’s brother would take me fishing off that old wooden bridge.

When I was in second grade, we rented a house on Nautilus Court, just off Alton Road. I had a friend whose father was a doctor and he lived behind Mount Sinai Hospital on an island with homes for people who worked in the hospital. It was connected to the hospital by a pedestrian bridge. Mount Sinai’s location originally housed a hotel called The Nautilus.

I went to Nautilus Elementary and in the sixth grade I attended North Beach Elementary on 41st Street, where it still stands and functions today for my friends’ grandchildren. There was a vacant lot on Nautilus Court where soldiers had been bivouacked during World War II.

My father saw the opportunities in Florida development and real estate and began building in North Miami Beach. He built custom homes in a section named Skylake, and then went on to build in an area quite remote, called Kendall.

I started building there years later where Brown’s Airport had been, on Southwest 104th Street and 77th Avenue.

My parents bought a lot at 5004 North Bay Rd. and we built our house in 1950. There was no air conditioning at that time; our house had a hurricane fan to cool it. Jalousie windows and vented wood slats in the interior spaces allowed the air to move freely within the residence.

Carl Fisher’s mansion was a few lots down and we bought the land from his estate. He reportedly had gone bankrupt at some point and in order to save on taxes, he filled his land in. To our chagrin, when we put the pilings in to build the home, we hit his magnificent pool made of thousands of pieces of mosaic tiles.

The house was on Biscayne Bay and as a teenager I would ski in front of the tourist boats that would come to show off Millionaire’s Row.

Some of the families made their parties and celebrations very ostentatious. One of my friends had Tony Bennett as the entertainment at his Bar Mitzvah. They could not stop outdoing one another. Eddie Fisher sang on another’s yacht.

I would take my boat to what is now Fisher Island. On the south side of the island, we would all go fishing. Nothing was there but an abandoned Vanderbilt mansion and rows of large gas tanks kept for storage. There was a road around the island, but it was uninhabited except for an occasional vagrant.

Also, at that time, Lincoln Road was a two-lane street for car traffic. One could park one’s car and do high-end shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue or The Dinghy. The street boasted three theatres — the Carib, the Beach and the Cameo.

In ninth grade I was sent to a boarding school in St. Petersburg called Admiral Farragut Academy. In 10th grade, I entered Miami Beach Senior High School. The old Beach High was on Pennsylvania Avenue and Española Way. It was not air-conditioned and most of the students were Jewish.

I have kept in touch with my friends all these years and have watched Miami Beach and South Dade grow beyond my wildest expectations.

In 1925, my parents and I disembarked in Miami after a three-day train trip from Chicago, and went to stay at a cottage surrounded by a grapefruit grove that belonged to my mother’s aunt. I was three years old, and it marked the beginning of my nearly nine-decade-long adventure in South Florida.

That first evening I responded to a noise at the back door, and found what appeared to be a large kitten, but turned out to be a Florida bobcat. We lived on that farm, now part of the University of Miami campus, for three months before the electric grid reached us.

After the 1926 hurricane, which we rode out in the old McAllister Hotel, we relocated to Fort Lauderdale where my dad operated the city’s only shoe store.

One local character was a Seminole named “Shirttail Charley,” who wandered the unpaved streets cadging nickels and dimes for beer. One day he produced a 50-cent piece as a deposit on “paleface shoes.” Dad gave him a pair, which Charley carried under his arm, donning them only when entering a bar or store.

My life in journalism and public relations began when I was 15, and my football coach asked me to make notes on practice sessions for the Fort Lauderdale Daily News sports editor. After two weeks the editor persuaded me to file complete stories, eventually with a byline. After three months he said, “You’re doing a great job, kid, and I’m going to pay you, too!” He did — one dollar for football season and a second dollar for covering baseball season.

Early on I became fascinated with flying. One day, my best friend Leonard and I scraped together two dollars for a 30-minute sightseeing flight in a World War I “Jenny.” My parents were furious. The pilot was fond of bourbon, and we were henceforth grounded.

Saturday morning movies cost a dime in those days, and after seeing “The Last of the Mohicans,” my pal and I got mohawk haircuts a full 75 years before they became trendy. We were forced to wear caps to hide our “ avant garde” style for months.

After almost four years at the University of Florida and summers spent as a full-time Daily News reporter, I was summoned by the Army Air Corps and eventually flew 35 combat missions as a navigator on a Flying Fortress bomber in the European front.

On a January 1945 bombing mission two of our engines were shot out, forcing us to crash land at a Belgian farm. Both German and Allied forces were in the vicinity. Fortunately, the British got to us first.

In June 1945, I began the final six months of military duty as a public relations officer at Coral Gables’ Biltmore Hotel, at that time a rehabilitation hospital. Those were heady days, with 315 nurses to date, two swimming pools and a golf course.

Among the staff were special services officer Ben Hogan, whose assignment was golfing with visiting generals, and future Dade County Mayor Steve Clark, the payroll sergeant.

In January 1946, capitalizing on my Biltmore PR contacts, a University of Florida fraternity brother and I opened a public relations agency on Lincoln Road. We specialized in nightclubs, restaurants and hotels, including the new oceanfront Sherry Frontenac.

Through the years I have represented such interesting clients as evangelist Oral Rogers, the Fontainebleau resort and Rosie the dancing bear. After arranging an “interview” for Rosie and her trainer at the Miami Herald, the trainer bowed out, leaving the bear and me to fulfill the assignment. When we arrived at the old Herald building on Miami Avenue, pandemonium broke out. A photographer positioned Rosie at a typewriter and the clamor drew Publisher John Knight from his office.

Glaring at me, Knight asked, “What’s going on, Stuart? I thought you only represented hotels!”

“Mr. Knight,” I quickly replied, “this bear just bought a Miami Beach hotel.” The publisher led the laughter.

My public relations career, mostly representing leisure-travel clients, has provided me extraordinary globetrotting opportunities. Though I have visited countless cities in more than 80 countries and every continent except Antarctica, none has replaced Miami.

I’ve led a charmed life in South Florida. In 1948, I married Edith Koenig, a registered nurse, newly arrived from New Jersey. In 1950, I received the first GI housing loan on Miami Beach, which allowed us to build a three-bedroom home on Biscayne Bay for less than $17,000.

Our daughter, Cathy, now a veteran editor and author for National Geographic, and son, Andy, who has taken our PR agency to new heights, have given me three equally successful grandsons.

Following my first wife’s passing after 44 years of marriage, I married another nurse, Sandy Sharpe. We summer in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, where my claim to fame is as the region’s reigning barbecue ribs champion.

Because Miami has been good to me, I strive to give back to the community. We support the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of Florida, where my son, daughter-in-law Maria and grandsons Alan and Michael are alumni, too. We also support Camillus House.

I’ll celebrate my 92nd birthday this month and still manage to wrestle Gulf Stream game fish as well as play the same bad golf I’ve played for 65 years.

My mother lived until she was 101. That’s my goal now. But even if I don’t make it, Miami has provided a more than rewarding life for me and my family.

Like every other night, I sit by my window to finish my homework, but tonight the light of the full moon distracted me. It was a beautiful night, but I could only see the full white moon, not the stars. Then I started to remember a time during my childhood when watching the stars was possible every single night.

I also remembered this girl catching cocuyos (fireflies), playing hide and seek with her cousins and friends from the barrio (neighborhood). It was me as a child, with the people I love and whom today I miss the most. Since watching the sky brought me some good memories, I decided to look at albums of photos and videos I had from when I lived in Cuba.

Going through the pictures, I could smell the soft aroma of the jasmine flowers, feel the breeze from the open field, and the sound of the small waterfall near my home. I could hear the woodpecker doing his work on the tall palm tree, the tractor in the far distance plowing the land to plant the sugar cane later in the year, and see the cows passing by the house, which provided me with the milk I drank for 16 years.

I grew up in the countryside of Cuba, in Villa Clara, in Viana, a very small town, and when I say small I mean it. We were roughly 1,000 people. There was only one main road with a broken surface, and the other roads were covered with an orangy dust and when it rained you’d better wear rain boots or you could lose the only pair of shoes you owned.

There was also only one school from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade, and when you got to middle or high school you had to travel to another town. We had one library, where new books came once a year, and the dust and humidity of the place damaged them. There was one clinic, one pharmacy, one food store, three or four clothing stores, and restaurants were 20 kilometers away from where we lived so we had to travel there. And when I say travel I don’t mean go in your car. Cars were a luxury for only a few, so we had to go on buses when they came. It wasn’t easy but somehow we survived. I love the place where I grew up, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in this world.

As I viewed the pictures, one caught my attention because it brought one of the best memories I have with my uncle, grandfather, and dad. In the picture, we are seated in the green chairs around our dinner table in our old house, watching our Samsung TV of the year 2000. That was our first color TV and we took care of it as if it were gold. We wore orange shirts and we were watching a baseball game. And you’ll have to ask, why is that picture so special? Anyone can have a picture like that one. But since I was little I developed a passion for every televised sport because I saw my dad, uncle, and grandpa watching them; that’s how my passion was born.

My favorite sport of all time was baseball. Every time the season started, my uncle, my grandpa, my dad, and I stayed up until 1 or 2 a.m. watching the games. Obviously I was an Orange fan, that was my Villa Clara team, and we always supported them. The rush of adrenaline, our hearts pumping out of our chests, our sweaty hands, but above all, that moment we all shared together as a family. Now it’s so different; we are 90 miles apart from each other, and every time the season starts my grandpa and my uncle tell me, “¿Vivi, cuando vamos a ver el juego juntos?” (Vivi, when are we going to watch the game together?).

Now, my heart drops because we are close, yet so far apart and I can’t see them as much as I want to. That moment is now in our memory.

I continued looking through the albums, keeping in mind the magical power of pictures. I found more from Christmas. Christmas in Cuba is very different from those here. There are not many decorations in houses or parks. You’ll see a small Christmas tree in most houses with the manger scene, and that’s about it. We celebrate Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) on December 24 and New Year’s Eve on December 31. All the family comes together — Mami, Papi, brothers, sisters, grandpa, grandma, cousins, uncles, aunts, and close friends that are like family. We celebrate with lots of food, rice and beans, and the best puerco asado ever, salads (tomato, cucumber, lettuce, cabbage, and avocado) with lime and a little bit of oil on top and salt, and sweet and salty fried tamale. Yum!

There is nothing better than that, and the dessert time: flan, pudding, grapefruit (and if you eat it with cheese it would be a hundred times better), peanut brittle, fritters with a sweet salsa, and the list keeps on growing as people come. All of the desserts and food are homemade, which make them so much better. While the food is being cooked most of the men in the family start playing dominos, a tradition in our family. Every time we celebrate something, the domino table is around. After everything is cooked we set the table and we eat. The Cuban coffee comes right after.

Then the real party starts. We put on the music and dance from salsa to reggaeton and every genre in between. Everyone has a good time.

Children don’t get to open presents on the night of the 24th because we celebrate “El Día de los Reyes Magos” on January 6. On that day, children open their presents. December 31 is the day that we celebrate the end of a year, and we kind of do the same as on December 24 with lots of foods, sweets, and drinks. We burn the old year by making a scarecrow that symbolizes the old year, and exactly at midnight, we burn it so the New Year can come with prosperity, health, and happiness. We kiss and hug every family member and wish for a better year, and for all the dreams to come true.

One picture was hiding beneath the blanket, the last picture we took before coming to the United States. Suddenly, my heart felt as if it had been ripped out of my chest. It has been four long years since I’ve seen the people in this picture, since I’ve hugged them. The picture was taken at the airport in front of the automatic doors, where once we went in we couldn’t come back. There we were: my mom with her twin brother, Tio Luis, my dad, my brother, and my cousin Yuni, who was like a sister to me. My mom, dad, brother and I were the only ones leaving. The time to say goodbye was the hardest one, but that is another story.

I was raised in the Christian Science faith and went to church from the time I was 4 years old in 1939, but I always considered myself culturally Jewish. I had to go to school during the Jewish holidays as a kid in Brooklyn, and when classmates and teachers expressed surprise that I was at school, I responded: “I am a Christian Scientist of Jewish extraction.”

My parents, Paula and Louis Gelman, never denied their Jewish heritage to anyone, and many of my Christian Science friends in New York were also Jewish. I loved visiting my grandmother in Palm Beach as a child when my parents took me on vacation. Sadie Louber, my grandmother, owned a kosher hotel called the Louber Villa, at 231 Sunset Ave., a block and a half from the ocean.

Grandma Louber was a strong, loving influence in all our lives. My brother, Larry Gelman, says that Grandma took him to black churches in West Palm Beach because she loved gospel music, and Larry credits Grandma with his love of music to this day.

There were always interesting guests staying at the hotel. Grandma served kosher meals. My mother and her sisters were always very close, and it was fun getting together in Palm Beach with my cousins and their parents. There was never any discussion in my presence as a child or an adult about being Jews in a predominantly Gentile area, nor did I realize that it was highly unlikely that a Jewish hotel could have been owned by Jews in Palm Beach.

I moved to Miami as an adult in 1958. It was my first introduction to Miami Beach and its Jewish population and culture. During the early 1960s, we would visit Grandma at her hotel. We always got a kick out of the fact that the Kennedys had an estate in Palm Beach not far from where our family hotel was. To the best of my knowledge, we were still the only Jewish family owning property at that time in Palm Beach.

I decided to investigate how my family came to own this property. I asked a friend, real-estate attorney Daniel Doscher, to look into it, and he did the legal research on the property. He discovered that my father, who was an attorney in New York City, somehow managed to buy it in the late 1930s. He gave the title ownership to Paula Gelman, my mother, and her sister, Ruth Louber.

In 1945, the Louber Villa was transferred to Sadie Louber, my mother’s mother, and Grandma Louber took over the hotel. My grandparents had owned a hotel in Saratoga called the New Windsor Hotel, which they lost in the Great Depression of the 1930s. (I have no memory of Louis Louber, my grandfather, since he passed away when I was very young.)

A few years ago, I visited the Jewish Museum of Florida in Miami Beach and was shocked to see a sign in the museum collection that read: “Always a view, never a Jew.” I thought that the museum might be very interested in the story of the Louber Villa, a hotel that was Jewish-owned and that welcomed Jews in Palm Beach during those years. Today, the picture of the Louber Villa is now in the permanent collection of the Jewish Museum.

Even after the hotel was sold and torn down some years ago, we visited the empty lot annually and walked around the area for sentimental reasons. Recently, my cousin and her husband were in Palm Beach, and we got together there once again!

There is now a large, modern accounting firm on Grandma’s property. We walked to the corner of Sunset Avenue and County Road on our way to the beach, a block and a half away. Almost as a commentary on the inexorable passage of time, there is a beautiful Orthodox Jewish temple on the corner, barely two doors down from where our hotel had been.

Palm Beach has a special sentimental meaning for me, but my permanent home is now in Miami. The changes in the culture and population in South Florida over the many years I have lived here make me proud to live in Miami. It is an exciting place to call home.

My grandfather, George W. Smith, and my grandmother, Ellen Cook Smith, came to Homestead in 1925 at the height of the boom.

My grandmother’s brother, “Uncle Bob” Cook, had urged them to come south. He later served as a Dade County commissioner. My mother Evelyn Smith was 10 years old. She had two brothers (Lester and Wade), and one on the way when they drove their Model T Ford down the two dirt ruts in a road called “Dixie Highway.”

My grandfather had converted the Model T into a sort of camper with a kerosene burner so that Grandmother could cook and they could all sleep inside. There were no road signs, no rest stops (except in the woods), and only painted markers on trees to show the way. According to my mother, the east coast highway was marked with red birds painted on pine trees and the road from Georgia to Florida’s west coast was painted with white stripes on the trees.

During a particularly bad rainstorm, the road became so muddy that they could not travel. They decided to stop and stay at a turpentine camp for several days where they lived on stale doughnuts.

My mother told her favorite story of finding a bracelet in the bushes on one of their “rest stops.” She gave it to her dad who took it into Miami when they arrived. A jeweler gave him $75 for it and he bought his first piece of property in Lemon City with the proceeds.

They finally settled in Homestead and endured the terrible hurricanes of 1926, 1928 and 1935, all the while farming (tomatoes and potatoes), first in the Redlands and then in the East Glades. Granddaddy told of the massive clouds of mosquitoes in the ’glades that required him to wrap his arms and legs in newspaper under his clothes and to put burlap bags over the muzzle of the mule to keep it from suffocating from inhaling the bugs.

He said that he always carried a shotgun under one arm to shoot rattlesnakes “just in case.” He didn’t want to lose his plowing mule. Eventually, the old mule became too old to work and died, whereupon Granddaddy gathered his sons around him and announced that they “might not have a crop this year” because he was going to buy a tractor and didn’t know how it would perform. But, he was never one to shy away from technology and later bought a new car every two or three years. Apparently, the tractor performed very well.

My mother and uncles attended Homestead schools and graduated from Homestead High School (later, Homestead Junior High). The uncles all served their country during the war. Hubert, the youngest, and Wade were in the Navy, while Lester (the oldest) went into the U.S. Army. After the war, they all came home to farm with their dad.

My mother met my dad in North Carolina when she was a teacher in his hometown, Rural Hall, near Winston Salem. My dad, George W. Ledford, drove for Greyhound bus lines during the war, taking Marine recruits to boot camp at Parris Island, SC.

After World War II, they moved to Homestead to farm with my grandfather. They farmed with him and Mother’s brothers, Wade and Lester, for 50 years. The youngest, Hubert Smith, went to school to become a chiropractor and he moved his family to Gulfport, MS in the mid-1960s.

As my brother, Larry Ledford, and I grew up, we experienced the growth of Homestead with the establishment of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) base. Many of my friends at South Dade High School were from Air Force families with the rest of us “farmers’ kids” coming from older families who had been in the area for a while.

I was there during the Cuban Missile Crisis and sat on my parents’ front porch watching the endless convoys coming down Krome Avenue. We could hear the B-52 bombers revving their engines at all hours, on alert should their service be needed. I also felt our house tremble when an underground missile was test fired in the Everglades, west of town. I was 15 years old and home alone at the time, certain that we were all going to die and that I’d never see my family again.

I was a senior at South Dade High School when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for my riders to meet me after school when one of them raced out to the car crying that “the President’s been shot!” All these years later, I still recall that moment very clearly. That singular event changed us and it changed our country.

Many of my classmates went off to Vietnam; others of us went to college. For security and solidarity, seven of us girls from the class of 1964 went to the new University of South Florida, which was then a sand dune with several buildings. There was one little pizza place and a Holiday Inn nearby, as well as a Schlitz brewery.

Freshmen were not allowed to have cars so we were pretty much stuck on campus. There was no football, basketball or other intercollegiate sports, so some of my friends bolted for the high life at the University of Florida. Gainesville certainly had more to offer, but my wise parents knew I would HAVE to study at U.S.F. and so I stayed.

I never returned to live in Homestead but visited many times during my adult life and came back to help clean up after Hurricane Andrew, another event that changed our lives forever.

My grandparents’ story is not unique among the pioneers, but I often wonder if any of us today would have the fortitude to stick it out in South Florida if conditions were the same today. With the end of the war and the advent of air-conditioning, my grandparents saw South Florida go from a booming agricultural area to a huge city.

They survived many hurricanes, and yet they stayed, farmed the ‘glades and raised their family. They saw interstate highways being built and they saw men walk on the moon. (My grandmother never quite believed that.) To paraphrase Shakespeare: “What a piece of work!”

In November 1967, after my girlfriend and I became registered nurses, we moved from Wisconsin to Miami Beach. This was a goal we had dreamed of since high school.

We lived at the Castaways Motel in Sunny Isles Beach until we secured our first jobs at Miami Beach’s Mt. Sinai Hospital. After saving our money for several months, we moved to Miami Springs. It was a party, day and night, with all the flight attendants and pilots staying there. Our favorite club was 6 West. It was our hangout to dance and have a good time. We could be found listening to the talented Rhodes Brothers there every Sunday afternoon.

I left Mt. Sinai in 1969 and did private duty nursing that summer. I was dating an executive with A&M; Records. He invited me to a concert in Woodstock, N.Y. but I was unable to go because I was about to start my new job the following Monday in the Emergency Department at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Woodstock, who knew?

While working in the E.D., I was privileged to meet and work with Dr. James Jude. Dr. Jude was a thoracic surgeon who helped develop the use of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) lifesaving technique. Working with Dr. Jude, I taught CPR classes to my co-workers as well as the Miami-Dade and City of Miami paramedics. I also set up the first “crash cart” in the E.D., which we used for patients in cardiac arrest.

There were times we literally had to jump up on the stretchers to perform CPR and other procedures. A friend of mine and I decided it was not appropriate to wear uniform dresses in situations like those so we decided to wear white uniform pants and pastel uniform tops to work.

We were the first at Jackson to do so. We had nurses coming from every department to see us. The word had spread quickly that dresses were out and pants were in. The majority of nurses now wear uniform pants.

Part of the E.D. consisted of Ward D, or Detention Ward. Essentially, it was the prison ward of the hospital. Anyone who was sick or injured and under arrest was sent to Ward D. We treated murderers, rapists, and even lawyers or doctors on occasion. We were also responsible for treating “Drug Mules,” those who swallowed or inserted packets of heroin or cocaine to avoid arrest.

Sadly, we witnessed several of them die due to the drug packets breaking open in their abdomens. I worked primarily in Ward D from 1972 until I retired in 2000. Jackson Memorial Hospital was a wonderful place to work. I learned so much and had an incredible career as a registered nurse.

Coconut Grove was a haven for artists, musicians, and the “flower child” generation. I moved there in 1969, finding a cadre of friends who would come together in Peacock Park to play our guitars and make delicious vegetarian meals for everyone. The tallest buildings in the Grove at that time were the Coconut Grove Bank and the Mutiny on Sailboat Bay.

It was such a quiet and peaceful time in the Grove. We had plenty of places to congregate. Dick’s Old Grove Pub was one of those places. They had the best cheeseburgers in the greater Miami area. One Sunday, the Jefferson Airplane rock group came in and played all afternoon. We would catch breakfast at the Florida Pharmacy, lunches and dinners at the Feed Bag, the Village Inn, The Taurus, 27 Birds, Lum’s and many more.

On any given day, one could see great musicians walking or biking through the Grove: Vince Martin, Bobby Ingram, John Sebastian, Neil Young, David Crosby, Jimmy Buffet and so many others.

We didn’t restrict ourselves to eating and playing in the Grove, though. Some terrific restaurants in Coral Gables and South Miami included Fox’s Sherron Inn, Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor, the Sweden House, Sambo’s, the Glorified Delicatessen, Uncle Tom’s BBQ, Food Among the Flowers, The Monk’s Inn and Vinton’s.

Riding my bicycle through Coconut Grove one day, I met my future husband Bruce Liptak. He and a friend had just opened Om Jewelry and Leather. We married in 1972 but Bruce passed away seven years later at the age of 36 from a cerebral aneurysm.

Friends and family were very instrumental in helping me through that horrific time. In 1982, I had a dinner party and some friends brought over John Blocker. We married in 1995. He has a daughter, Vergene, who was 4 years old when I met John. I helped raise her and consider her my very own daughter. She is now 38 years old.

After retiring from JMH in 2000, we moved from Coconut Grove to Sunny Isles Beach. I wanted to remain active in my profession so I returned to Jackson and worked part-time for another six years. My husband, a cardiopulmonary technologist, still works at Jackson.

I no longer work but I am a tireless volunteer. I take classes and am on the board of our condo association. In a fitting tribute, the building in which we live in stands where the Castaways once stood. It’s a lovely reminder that I’ve come full circle in this city.

I left Mt. Sinai in 1969 and did private duty nursing that summer. I was dating an executive with A&M; Records; he invited me to a concert in Woodstock, N.Y. but because I was about to start my new job the following Monday in the Emergency Department at Jackson Memorial Hospital, I was unable to go. Woodstock; who knew.

While working in the E.D. I was privileged to meet and work with Dr. James Jude. Dr. Jude was a thoracic surgeon who helped develop CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). Working with Dr. Jude, I taught CPR classes to my co-workers as well as the Miami-Dade and city of Miami paramedics. I also set up the first ” crash cart “in the E.D. which we used for patients in cardiac arrest.

There were times we literally had to jump up on the stretchers to perform CPR and other procedures. A friend of mine and I decided it was not appropriate to wear uniform dresses in situations like those so we decided to wear white uniform pants and pastel uniform tops to work. We were the first at Jackson to do so and had nurses coming from every department to see us. The word had spread quickly that dresses were out and pants were in. Since that day the majority of nurses wear uniform pants.

Part of the E.D. consisted of Ward D, or Detention Ward. Essentially, it was the prison ward of the hospital; anyone who was sick or injured and under arrest was sent to Ward D. We treated murderers, rapists,, even lawyers and doctors on occasion. We were also responsible for treating ” Drug Mules,” those who swallowed or inserted packets of heroin or cocaine to avoid arrest. Sadly, we witnessed several of them die due to the drug packets breaking open in their abdomens. I worked primarily in Ward D from 1972 until I retired in 2000. Jackson Memorial Hospital was a wonderful place to work. I learned so much and had an incredible career as a registered nurse.

Coconut Grove was a haven for artists, musicians, and the “flower child” generation. I moved there in 1969, finding a cadre of friends who would come together in Peacock Park to play our guitars and make delicious vegetarian meals for everyone.

The tallest buildings in the Grove at that time were the Coconut Grove Bank and the Mutiny on Sailboat Bay. It was such a quiet and peaceful time in the Grove. We had plenty of places to congregate. Dick’s Old Grove Pub was one of those places, having the best cheeseburgers in the greater Miami area. One Sunday afternoon, the Jefferson Airplane rock group came in and played all afternoon.

We would catch breakfast at the Florida Pharmacy, lunches and dinners at the Feed Bag, the Village Inn, The Taurus, 27 Birds, Lum’s and many more. On any given day one could see great musicians walking or biking through the Grove: Vince Martin, Bobby Ingram, John Sebastian, Neil Young, David Crosby, Jimmy Buffet, and so many others.
We didn’t restrict ourselves to eating and playing in the Grove, though. Some terrific restaurants in Coral Gables and South Miami included Foxx’s Sherron Inn, Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor, the Sweden House, Sambo’s, the Glorified Delicatessen, Uncle Tom’s BBQ, Food Among the Flowers, the Monk’s Inn, and Vinton’s.

Riding my bicycle through Coconut Grove one day, I met my future husband Bruce Liptak. He and a friend had just opened Om Jewelry and Leather. We married in 1972 but Bruce passed away seven years later at a the age of 36 from a cerebral aneurysm. Friends and family were very instrumental in helping me through that horrific time. In 1982, I had a dinner party; friends brought over John Blocker. We married in 1995. He has a daughter, Vergene, who was four years old when I met John. I helped raise her and consider her my very own daughter. She is now 38 years old.

After retiring from JMH in 2000, we moved from Coconut Grove to Sunny Isles Beach.I wanted to remain active in my profession so I returned to Jackson and worked part-time for another six years. My husband, a cardiopulmonary technologist, still works at Jackson.

I no longer work but I am a tireless volunteer; I take classes and I’m on the board of our condo association. In a fitting tribute, the building in which we live in stands where the Castaways once stood, a lovely reminder that I’ve come full circle in this city.