Category: Miami Stories

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.

Seventeen. That is when I graduated from high school. I had many choices of where I wanted to go to school, but the university I dreamed of going to rejected me. I ended up choosing a school I had never visited and taking a blind leap.

A couple of weeks after I turned 18, I moved down to Miami to attend college. I never had been to Miami before and I was honestly scared to attend the only university I did not tour on my application list. I have family in the area and I knew that even though my immediate family was just four hours away I could take a 20-minute drive to see my cousins.

I remember the day before I was going to move into my dorm, I stayed up all night in my cousins’ house watching TV and honestly scared out of my mind. I tried to play off the fact that I was scared to move to a place I had never been before and afraid I would not like the university I chose to attend. I wanted my father to see my strength in leaving instead of my fear that first year here.

Now, I’m about to graduate and time never seemed to have passed so fast. My challenges now seem like moments I cherish and take with me as a lesson learned. I do not know what scares me more about finally graduating: the memory of the two beloved men in my life or me actually moving on to accomplish my life goals.

I started my freshman year with my whole family moving me into a dorm with my best friend from high school, and then my father went clubbing with his cousins. I honestly thought my father enjoyed coming to visit so he could party, and he always enjoyed dragging one of my sisters along for the drive. He occasionally came down with my middle sister, but as time went by we visited each other less often. The reason for the broken connection was my boyfriend at the time; he was very close to my father and tended to not like my ways.

My first semester was a success, and I came home for winter break to my loving family and boyfriend with A’s and B’s. Time seemed like it did not change in four months, and each moment I spent at home reminded me why I love my family and why I also went to college four hours away.

The start of my second semester seemed as easy as the first one; I figured college wasn’t so bad. Mid-semester I got eight calls from my boyfriend who eventually reached me to tell me my father had died from a blood clot. At first I thought it was a bad joke. No, it was a harsh reality that I was not ready to face.
I went home that week to find out my father had put me as head of household. I was 18 with responsibilities I thought I would not have to deal with until I was in my twenties. I had to take care of my mother, who was blind, and figure out how to put two sisters through college, along with myself. My family lost our houseman that year as well, and I tried my best, with the help of my mother’s best friend, to manage the family.

Even though everyone tells me I did a great job, I felt I did not do the best I could have because I stayed in college instead of moving closer to my mother. My mother’s best friend did everything possible to make sure her needs were met. I called my mother every night for a year and half to read her stories. She did not remember the four months after my father died.

My sisters spent most of the college fund and ended up doing their own things. My older brother tried to help my youngest sister but she became trouble to him. After two years of being in charge and feeling drained by my family, I gave the guardianship to my middle sister. I wanted to forgive my family for the hurt, and even today I have a hard time with it.

I am now 21 and lost my mother’s best friend three years to the day after I lost my father. He had been a father figure to me and I felt devastated to lose him. He was the man who watched over me after my father passed and made sure I was always okay.

Now, I am getting ready to graduate and all I see is their memory as I am about to walk across that stage, wishing they were here to watch that moment. I cannot help but think Miami will always be a part of me, just like all the great people in my life.

The U.S. Coast Guard does more than search for rafts, drugs, and errant boaters in this area. “Coasties” saved 70 merchant mariners during a blizzard off Massachusetts in 1952. It was called the “two-tanker disaster,” and this Miamian was aboard one of the Coast Guard vessels involved in the rescue of two storm-savaged ships.

I grew up on Miami Beach, and always admired those sleek Coast Guard cutters that were moored off Biscayne Bay’s islands. Who would have dreamed that some day I would be a seaman aboard a cutter involved in the T2 tanker rescue? It is still listed as one of the Coast Guard’s 10 most significant rescues.

During my summer vacations from the University of Florida, I bell-hopped at the Sands, Royal Palm, and White House hotels. My favorite bartender worked at the White House — my dad, Philip Morris. The oceanfront lounge had the greatest view of any beach hospitality venue.

Who would have known that I would meet my future wife in the nearby Club Deuce? Diane drove down from Detroit to get away from another cold, slushy Michigan spring. Two gal friends introduced her to the Deuce, now the oldest bar in Miami.

A fairly new CG cutter is moored at Port Miami. This 154-foot fast-response cutter is named the Bernard C. Webber, after a true American hero. Bernie rescued 32 stricken mariners from the tanker which had cracked in half from the fury of this unnamed storm a few miles east of Chatham, Massachusetts.

Bernie was the coxswain (skipper) of a motor lifeboat, out of Chatham
Light Station. It was 36 feet long, and had a capacity of 12 people, including a crew of three.

During the blizzard, and despite 50-foot waves, Bernie managed to cram 32 merchant seamen into his windshield-smashed boat. A 350 lb. sailor didn’t make it as he leaped from the S.S. Pendleton stern.

Cutters are named after enlisted heroes. Bernie denied that he was a hero all his life. He refused the CG gold lifesaving medal, unless his crew of three received gold also, instead of silver.

A sister ship, S.S. Fort Mercer also cracked in half, just forty miles away from the S.S. Pendleton. I was a deck-hand aboard the CGC Acushnet, which rescued 17 sailors off the foundering Mercer stern.

After a night of plowing through 60-foot seas, the CGC Acushnet arrived at the S.S. Fort Mercer’s stern section, just south of Nantucket Island. The icebreaker Eastwind was attempting to rescue three panicked sailors by pulling them over to safety in rubber rafts. One survivor had nearly drowned in the process.

Finally, our captain, John M. Joseph, had seen enough. He got permission to drift alongside the stern and convince the survivors to leap to our fantail. Capt. Joseph maneuvered the Acushnet parallel to the stern, and when we were close enough, three feet, seven distressed sailors leaped to our waiting arms. Then, rogue swells suddenly
swept us together and the vessels collided at taffrail height. CLUNK, KNEEL, HUG THE DECK!

We made a full circle and returned to rescue 11 more mariners from the tottering hulk. One hefty mariner slipped on our railing, but was snatched from the freezing water by our two bosun mates. [The word is boatswain, but the common term uses the pronunciation and spelling “bosun,” so I’ll let the Herald folks make that determination.] He explained that he wore his new shoes to make the leap. Another mariner landed on our fantail wearing two suits and two overcoats. In the chaos, he had neglected to grab a shirt.

I was third in the catch-and-hold rescue line, and was escorting a successful jumper to the pharmacist mate’s cubbyhole for his shot of brandy. “Hey, Doc!” I yelled. “How about me? I’m just as wet and cold as he is.” Doc replied, “Get this guy a shirt, and we’ll think about it.” He didn’t and neither did I, with my innards doing flip-flops.

Another merchant seaman told me, “That was the greatest demonstration of seamanship I have ever seen. It was also the worst storm I have been through in 20 years at sea.” Dented, but not beaten, or cracked, the “Mighty A” then headed northwest to drop the survivors at the Boston base.

Tally of the tragedy: 14 lost at sea, 57 rescued from foundering vessels.

To me, it was the most harrowing and exciting three days of my life.

Decades later, the CGC Acushnet was stationed in Miami. She was one of 24 cutters which helped ferry 125,000 downtrodden refugees from Cuba to Florida in the Mariel Boat Lift. In case you forgot, that historical event occurred from April to October of 1980. In three years, I got to see a panorama of America: Portland, Maine; Boston; Baltimore; San Juan; Guantanamo; and finally, the 180-foot buoy-tender CGC Bramble, in Miami Beach. This was before the Coast Guard base was built on Watson Island, so we were moored alongside Alton Road, just south of Fifth Street.

Glad to be back in Miami, but it took me months before I would go fishing with friends in their tiny 24-foot skiff.

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky in January 1944, what you would call a war baby.

My mother and father were both born in Louisville and attended school in Louisville. They met at the old Anchorage High School and were married in 1941.

My father became a pilot in the Army Air Force in late 1942 and was serving in England late 1943 and early 1944. His plane was shot down over Germany on April 1, 1944 and none of the crew made it through the crash and burn.

My mother bought a car and a trailer from my grandfather, a Chevrolet dealer, and then headed south. Mother, my grandmother, and I made it to Tampa, Florida, after driving through Alabama in the dead of winter.

She was told one of the best parks was on the east coast at Briny Breezes, and after checking out the park, she decided to take us and the trailer there. Just outside of the park was the Jungle Inn Bar, a favorite hangout for singles in those days. My stepfather, his brother, and uncle were working on construction of new homes in the Boynton-Delray Beach area. My mother, a lonely war widow, and my stepfather, lonely war vet, met each other at the Jungle Inn and six weeks later wedding bells were ringing at the Lutheran Church in Delray.

They lived in the park for about six months after this and ended up renting a home in downtown Boynton Beach. Within a year, they purchased a home in Delray Beach and moved just before the 1947 hurricane. They constructed a small, two-bedroom cottage on the rear of this property and would rent out the house to winter visitors and live in the cottage.

My stepfather remained in the construction business until 1957 when he suffered several strokes on Easter Sunday, ending his home construction business. At one point, he worked with an investor, constructing several homes in Boynton Beach. My father had to make many trips to Miami to see the investor while the development of this street was taking place.

Over the years, we made many trips to Miami to attend some of the attractions such as the zoo and the Jungle Gardens. After my father’s strokes, he went to work for a company in Boca Raton that did business all over the United States.

They would have an annual picnic at Crandon Park in Miami. Several times when my parents had to fly out of town for a special vacation, they would leave from the old Miami International Airport.

I attended school at Delray Lutheran Elementary School, then, I was part of the first sixth grade class at Plumrose Elementary School in Delray, Boynton Beach Junior High, Seacrest High School, and, I finished high school at Kentucky Military Institute in Lyndon, Kentucky, which had winter headquarters in Venice, Florida. I finished school at Palm Beach Junior College in Lake Worth.

My wife and I met at the First Baptist Church in Delray Beach Florida, and in 1965 were married at First Baptist. We left Boynton in September, 1965, and moved to Louisville unfortunately, our moving van did not make it that far.

Somehow it went off a mountain in Tennessee and that was the last we saw of most of our possessions and wedding gifts. We had moved to Louisville, because I was going to work for my father’s family business. The Eline Realty Company has been in business, either selling homes, building homes, or selling Chevrolets, since 1913.

I will always have a fondness in my heart for South Florida and the twenty years I spent growing up there. My wife and I still enjoy coming to the Panhandle every spring for rest and relaxation. The place we go to has only one fast-food restaurant in the whole county.

The east coast has gotten somewhat overcrowded with people, roads, and buildings the last 30 years, but that is progress.

Little did we know when Ben and I got married in Havana in 1958 and came to Miami for our honeymoon that this city would be our home for the rest of our lives.

We spent two wonderful weeks in Miami Beach in a hotel named “Sands,” and visited all the tourist attractions, such as Vizcaya, the Seaquarium, Coral Castle, the Boom Boom Room at the Fontainebleau Hotel, Eden Roc, Castaways and so on. Miami was a sleepy town where all restaurants closed before 10 o’clock. However, there was night life on Miami Beach.

We came back to our peaceful lives in Cuba, but on December 31, 1958, the communist government took over.

Every day we were waiting for something to happen that would end that horrible nightmare. We could not comprehend how the American government would allow a communist regime with Russian missiles, 90 miles away.

In 1963, the American Red Cross put together a fleet of several cargo ships to transport the Bay of Pigs prisoners and their families to the United States. At this point, we decided to leave our country. We had to abandon all possessions and leave everything behind. It was heartbreaking. We came in the berths of a ship named American Surveyor, and because we both were fluent in English, we were selected to be the ship’s translators.

We were given one cot for every two people, but I was bringing a 9-month-old baby girl to her parents in Miami, so she got our cot. My parents, Mariano Cordova and Dulce Maria Tascon, and my brother-in-law, Daniel, also came with us in this ship. We brought our dog, Canela, as well. We encountered extremely rough weather and as a result, the trip, which normally would have taken 12 hours, lasted 20. Parents with babies were bringing them in shoe boxes (for lack of cribs). It was really horrific.

We finally arrived at Port Everglades on April 29, 1963, all disheveled and dirty from the ship furnaces. We were transported on buses to the old Opa-locka airport where our relatives and friends were waiting for us. I gave the baby to her parents and never heard from them again. She must be 51 years old by now. I have always wondered what became of her — did she marry, and does she have any children? Has she ever been told how she came from Cuba and who brought her?

Because Ben’s relatives were living in Miami Beach, we started our life there and rented a one-bedroom apartment on Ocean Drive in the “Ocean Front Apartments.” It belonged to two older brothers and a sister who were marvelous with us refugees. They learned to speak Spanish and played dominoes with us. It was like a big family.

I remember the two movie theaters, the Cameo and the Cinema, which showed movies for 25 cents before 6 o’clock, and after that it would go up to 50 cents. We ran like crazy to get to the movies before 6 p.m. We were so far behind in the movie business that any film was brand new to us.

I landed a secretarial job at the Mercantile National Bank at 420 Lincoln Road. My husband was offered a position as a teacher’s aide at Southside Elementary in downtown Miami, where all of the newly arrived Cuban children were studying. He served as an interpreter, teacher’s aide, worked at the school office, and did whatever the principal would ask him to do, such as bringing her coffee and doughnuts from the Royal Castle nearby. This school has been designated a historical landmark in downtown Miami.

We were able then to rent a two-bedroom apartment on Euclid Avenue. My brother-in-law slept on the couch and got a job at a Hialeah factory making plastic hangers. He did not own a car and had to take two buses from Miami Beach to Hialeah to get to his job on time. Later on, he bought himself a 1952 Chevrolet for $250. It felt like a Rolls Royce to him.

Our family outings were to Crandon Park for picnics or to Rickenbacker Causeway to fish. They were simple times, but very happy. We remember the small zoo at Crandon Park with lots of parrots and an old lion.

We became proud American citizens on July 4, 1970 in a swearing ceremony held at the Dade County Auditorium.

One Mother’s Day we all went to Shorty’s in Kendall to celebrate, but my mother fell ill and we took her to Mercy Hospital, where she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She passed away two weeks later at the ripe age of 54.

We decided to leave Miami Beach and were able to buy our first home in the Coral Gate neighborhood in 1966, where a two-bedroom, one-bath would go for $15,000, with $450 down and $110 per month.

I remember that Ben only had a $10 bill in his pocket and that was what the realtor, Fred G. Smith, accepted as our initial down payment. That night, he came to our home, we gave him a check for the full down payment, signed the contract and he returned the $10 to us. I understand this area was developed in the 1950s for World War II veterans under the G.I.Bill.

My father was living with us, and he shared a bedroom with our son, George. We lived one block off Miracle Mile and our outings were confined to McCrory’s and F.W. Woolworth, and Sundays to the ponies and Burger King. I remember the park on Northwest 22nd Avenue, which belonged to the Police Benevolent Association, where all the neighborhood children went and had a fantastic time. We used to pick green peppers, tomatoes and strawberries at 117th Avenue, where Kendall is now a bustling neighborhood, and brought home bags full of freshly picked vegetables and fruits.

We decided to move to a younger neighborhood full of children and excellent nearby schools, Coral Park Estates, where we have lived for the last 40 years. George attended Coral Park Elementary, then Rockway Middle School, Miami Coral Senior High, Miami-Dade Community College and finally, FIU.

When he married Janet, they decided to buy a home in the same neighborhood so that their children would attend these schools. My granddaughter, Gia, attends Coral Park Elementary and is now in fifth grade. The cycle repeats itself!

My husband passed away three years ago and I still live in the same neighborhood. I have been in Miami for 50 years already, longer than in my own country, and have always considered this our only homeland. Over the years, we have witnessed the transformation from a sleepy town to a beautiful and vibrant city — an experience that I wouldn’t change for all the money in the world.

Being raised in St. Louis, Miami was always that exotic place I read about. I never really thought I’d be living here.

On a trip back from Central America in 1975, my partner Jim Hewitt and I landed in Miami in February. We didn’t want to face winter up north, so we found a cheap apartment on Miami Avenue and 20th Street. A noisy place that is still there, it is wedged between a busy street, a jet flight-path and a railroad track.

In 1978 Jim and I parted in New Orleans, and by 1980 I met Brenda Williams. We fell in love and were soon living together. In 1982, we moved to Miami Beach, living at the Chesterfield Hotel on South Beach.

At that time the city still required Civilian Registration cards to work on Miami Beach, a leftover from the 1930s for monitoring seasonal workers that the State Legislature overturned in 1986. So, we got ours but never had to use them. Within a month we had moved across the bay to Miami, living in the Edgewater neighborhood off Biscayne Blvd. at 23rd Street. It was an old neighborhood with a few new multi-storied apartment buildings, but mostly old residences subdivided into apartments like the one in which we lived.

Brenda’s 15-year-old daughter Rosalyn moved down here with us and went one year to Robert E. Lee Jr. High School at 3100 NW 5th Avenue. We then enrolled Rosalyn in Miami Beach High. Normally, from where we lived she would have gone to Jackson High School on 36th Street in Allapattah, but we were leery of an inner city school in that neighborhood, so because of desegregation policy and her being black, we were able to enroll her in Beach High.

Beach High is where she met a local boy, Keith Lankford, whom she eventually married and with whom she had our two grandsons, Keith Jr. and Kevin.

Our neighborhood in those days was a pleasant place to live. One of our family traditions was to walk down the Boulevard to the Omni Mall. At the time, it was a thriving mall with Burdines and Penney’s anchors and full of eating and shopping places and even a movie theater. Our Friday destination was for pizza at Cozzoli’s, then just hang out walking the mall or take in a movie.

In 1983, Brenda and I got married at Unity on The Bay in Miami, a couple blocks from our home. Having lived together for three years it was a small wedding celebrating our life together with just the Church Notary officiating, Rosalyn and two friends as witnesses.

Brenda and I were living on Miami Beach in 1996 when we got divorced. It was amicable and we remained friends. Brenda later became ill and was diagnosed with ALS. She stayed with Rosalyn’s family in West Park until she died in August 2000 and where I visited her often. I am still a part of Rosalyn’s family and did extensive travels with my youngest grandson Kevin when he was a teenager.

I am still here, living on Miami Beach and working for the past decade at MACtown a residential facility for developmentally disabled adults in Little Haiti (Little River) Miami.

Robert Conner died on March 3, 2012 before he was able to finish compiling his Miami Story. His wife Linda Conner submitted the article for publication on the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death:

I was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital, but my life really began when I was fortunate enough to be adopted by Wilton and Enid Conner.

Dad, “WW” as he was known, grew up in Washington, D.C. Mom is from Marietta, Ohio, and grew up on a farm. Dad was transferred to Miami by the U.S. Quarantine Service in 1943.

They first lived on Biscayne Boulevard, and then, in 1946, bought a home in Hialeah. The house was quite small, especially by today’s standards, at about 700 square feet and it cost less than $6,000. In those days, there was a cow pasture across the street and Hialeah was a very small town. Henry Milander was the mayor – often referred to as “King Henry” – and he got me my first job, with the trash department.

Most of my friends went to Hialeah High School, but I ended up at Miami Springs High the first year it opened. During high school, I joined the civil air patrol just so I could go flying in airplanes. We spent the most time in C119 Boxcars, flying out of Opa-Locka airport, and had bivouacs in various places, including Greynolds Park.

I looked forward to the special occasions when we ate out at Pickle Herring Charlie’s or went for ice cream at Jahn’s on Miracle Mile. We went to the Essex theater on Hialeah Drive, the Olympia Theater downtown and the Drive-in on LeJeune. On the way to the drive-in or to Jahn’s, you might get stopped by an airplane on LeJeune Road, because the hangars were on the east side of the street and they would taxi across to the runways on the west side.

The family attended the Presbyterian church and mom sang in the choir. After high school, I was going to go to Central America to work with a missionary group from the church, but plans changed and my girlfriend, Pat Walters, and I got married. We found a garage apartment in Biscayne Park and I went to work for Winn-Dixie, and a little while later we welcomed our daughter, Tamara. As too often happens when couples marry young, Pat and I parted ways and Tami now lives in Alabama with her husband, Charles Anderson, an Iraq war veteran.

I stayed on in South Florida and went to work for flood control, part of the water management agency. My route took me all over the county and out into the Everglades. Later, I became a manager at Arby’s on Coral Way, and started the most interesting part of my life.

It was the early 1970s when I became a volunteer at Switchboard of Miami, often referred to as the “hippie hotline.” The cast of characters volunteering at Switchboard was an interesting one – Vietnam vets, commune members, bored-but-committed rich kids, high school and college students looking to find their way.

Volunteers were given basic first-aid training and on-the-job training for answering the phones. Phone calls also ran the gamut from callers just looking for someone to talk with and listen to their problems, to partiers looking to identify the drug they were about to ingest, to the more serious calls from people contemplating suicide and those who had taken too much of a drug and were afraid to go the hospital.

We also directed people to various agencies for everything from food stamps, to housing, to spousal or child abuse. We ran first-aid rooms or tents at all the concerts, which was a particularly popular job with volunteers as it got us into all the concerts free.

In the summer of ’72 we had a call that there was a riot on Miami Beach and all hands were needed to go to Flamingo Park to render first aid and help with the situation. It was the Republican National Convention and many were braced for trouble.

Miami Beach was blessed to have at that time an amazing police chief in Rocky Pomerance. Chief Pomerance was smart and calm, and he created a “no bust zone” in Flamingo Park . So rather than a riot, we arrived to find “Beat Poet” Alan Ginsburg sitting in a large circle reading his poetry and smoking – and he was completely nude. It was quite a sight.

I would say that it was a wasted trip but something happened that would change my life forever. I grabbed a ride home from someone with a car and, when I got in, I met Linda Schimmel, my future wife. We got married in 1975 at the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables. Linda always says it was a much larger wedding than originally planned, as every time I ran into old friends I would invite them. It was an interesting guest list and the best party I ever went to!

At the time, I was working as a bridge tender running the Brickell Avenue Bridge, and then I transferred into bridge maintenance. Eventually, I left work with the state to pursue my talent, which was working with plants. I went to work as grounds foreman at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, and then in plant cultivation and production, and finally to work for myself doing landscaping and lawn maintenance.

Linda and I loved to eat out, but many of our favorite places no longer exist. Later in life, we were not much into concerts anymore, but were big Marlins fans and really looked forward to the new ballpark.

From Linda Conner:
Bob was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 and suffered many challenges. Back when “Miami Stories” started appearing, we began working on our own stories and, as Bob’s health declined, it fell by the wayside. He passed away March 3, 2012, never having quite finished, and never getting to sit in Marlins Park. As his wife, I have gone back and done a little “polishing” of Bob’s Miami Story, but it is a fond remembrance of his life in South Florida.

During the early 1940s, my dad was making uniforms for the Armed Forces, but by 1944 it was time to move on.

Dad had experience working in his father’s hotel in Hartford (The Hotel Bond) and his brother already owned a hotel in South Beach. When they learned The Betsy Hotel was available, Dad (Abe Libman) leased it with his brother (Lou Libman), and that began our life in Miami Beach.

The hotel was a great pride and joy. I handled the beach chairs and towels for our guests and made great tips. I knew Rocky Pomerance then, when he was just a rookie on the police force. He was on a six-month trial period, but Rocky was bright. He wore an arm band that read in Spanish that he could speak Spanish, but he couldn’t speak a word.

We leased the downstairs of the lobby of The Betsy to S & G (a gambling syndicate) and that’s where I would go and have my lunch with my brother. They would be on the phones, and we would have cold cuts – corned beef, salami, and every other kind of cold cuts you could think of, plus cold drinks and coffee, and they would help me with math homework.

When my dad entered into an agreement with the National Baptist Convention, The Betsy became one of the first hotels to allow a black convention to be held in Miami Beach. Our friends at the Henrosa Hotel around the corner promised us that nothing would go wrong, and they sat in the lobby keeping watch. It was a great convention.

When my friend Irwin Meltzer and I were teenagers, we thought a night club for teenagers would be great idea. We made a deal with the owner of the Wofford Hotel, next to the Roney Plaza, and we started the Rhythm Club, with ice cream, soft drinks, and jazz from Liberty City. It was a blast.

South Beach was a kid’s playground, but the graveyard for old people. At The Betsy, we had Mrs. Tisch, Larry and Bobby’s mother. Larry (Laurence Tisch) told me he was going to build a high-rise hotel in Bal Harbour, and call it the Americana. I told him he was nuts, too far from the beach. Was I wrong!

My brother and I went to different schools. I went to the Lear School, on West Avenue, and my brother, Larry (the smart one), went to Beach High. My brother went off to the University of Florida and I went to the Air Force.

I was stationed in San Francisco and took advantage of being in the Air Force by going to the University of California, taking night courses. I also taught judo and life-saving training. I moved up to sergeant very quickly and was discharged 3 1/2 years later.

When I returned, I got a job at the Robert Richter hotel as an assistant manager. Later, I went to the Versailles, and then I became the assistant manager at the Floridian. I ran the card games for Mike Wassell, Meyer Lansky and others, and supplied the food and was allowed to cut the pot. Later, I became the manager of the Floridian, and then the manager of the Fleetwood, next to the Floridian.

I was introduced by mail to Bleema, a very beautiful girl in Montreal, and after three years of writing, but not seeing her or calling her, I went to the Cornell School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, N.Y. My father said I was so close to Montreal, I had to meet her.

Three dates and now 58 years later, we are still married, with four children and seven grandchildren. What a lucky break. You should always listen to your parents. We came back to Miami Beach, and I took over the Bal Harbour Hotel as manager.

Those years were exciting. When a friend of mine, Irwin Gars, got out of law school, we started to develop commercial real estate in New England, but remained living in Miami Beach.

Much has happened in Miami Beach, and it’s still the greatest place to live. The future of Miami Beach is in the leadership it will have, and I think the new convention center will make a big difference. Miami Beach will be here for the next generation. Enjoy it – it’s one of a kind.