Category: Miami Stories

My mother Myrtis Virgina Bell came to Miami in 1913, her birth year, from Polk County. Charles and Virginia Bell, my grandparents, worked in a phosphate mine there.

In Miami, they successfully built houses in the Shenandoah area. They had two more children, Jack and Donald, before they divorced, leaving the three children for Virginia to raise.

Charles retired after building projects like the Miami Shores Country Club. Virginia struggled through the roughest part of the Depression. She sold crystalized citrus peels, avocados, or anything she could think of to provide income.

Virginia never learned to drive. Charles taught my mother Myrtis to drive the family car. She would drive her father to work, and then drive her mother on her errands, and then drive back to pick up her father.

She died at 98 in 2011, having retired from the University of Miami at 65 with the last mechanical typewriter on campus.

My first memory of my baby sister, Joan, was on my third birthday. We were introduced in Victoria hospital; she was born on the same day as I.

I started school at Riverside Elementary. I loved the Norman Rockwell setting, and looked forward to school. We moved into our new house at the edge of the Everglades: Southwest 63rd Avenue and two blocks off Flagler Street. I enrolled in Kinloch Park School for the third grade. It was a complete change. Most of the boys didn’t have shoes and they all had to establish a pecking order over me.

There was one classmate who rode the same school bus and delighted in throwing me out of whichever seat I picked. I learned to escape to our small community and still look on the neighbors as extended family. Originally, it was a planned neighborhood, with cast-iron lampposts and sidewalks.

The noises at night were a lot different than city sounds. There was a winter home for the circus, a hit-and-miss motor supplied the power for pumping water to the few houses scattered in the neighborhood, and early Sunday morning, a big cast-iron bell on the top of West Flagler Baptist Church would start ringing, summoning everyone to church. The original building had a baptismal pool behind the pulpit where I was baptized. My best buddy, Bruce, married his wife there, with me as his best man.

My mother attended Shenandoah schools in town but graduated with the first class of the new Miami Senior High School. My sister and I attended Kinloch, Citrus Grove School and Miami High.

My dad James Posey Boyer with only one ear drum was 4-F (classified unfit to serve in WWII). But he went to work as a machinist, first in Trinidad and later in Cuba. He helped establish U.S. military bases there at the beginning of the war. He and my mom opened a sundry store on the ground floor of a Masonic hall on Northwest 15th Avenue and First Street.

The Orange Bowl Stadium was just down the street. As a kid, I worked there after the games, picking up empty glass Coke bottles, where I got five cents for each crate. Competing with other kids, you really had to hustle to earn two bucks.

As kids, we camped out and fished on Key Biscayne, and even built a driftwood shelter on Fair Island. We could ride the bus all the way to the jetties for 10 cents. There were hundreds of vacant places for beach parties. In the summer, some hotel rooms were a buck a night. A birch beer and hamburger at Royal Castle was only 15 cents.

My dad used to take the family to Old Cutler, break an oyster-filled branch off a mangrove bush, build a fire, and roast it until the oysters opened. He would get us up early, catch a few fish and cook them on an open fire, for breakfast on the beach. Fish was a large part of my family’s diet. I now realize it was readily available and cheap.

I had a paper route, and I used a chicken crate to carry the papers. I started at 52nd Avenue and Flagler and went north to the Tamiami canal, all the way to the Flagler Street Bridge and Milam Dairy Road with only 110 customers.

Every year we made a trip to Pompano to find a Christmas tree, imagining them standing upright, because all the short needle pines were bent over to the west from the constant wind off the beach. Several times during the war we heard about a ship being torpedoed and on fire, and we would go to the beach to watch.

I got my first bike at 9 and gave it away after high school, when I had to report for basic training. The USAF 435th was activated at the beginning of the Korean War. I dream about those times in early Miami, and for sure I lived through the greatest time in history, in the greatest town God ever created.

She died at 98 in 2011, having retired from the University of Miami, at 65 with the last mechanical typewriter on campus.

My first memory of my sister was on my third birthday, being introduced in Victoria hospital, to my baby sister, Joan born on the same day as I. I remember being taken across the street from our apartment, in 1935, to spend the night in a bigger building; because a storm was coming; and then sleeping through the whole thing.

I started school at Riverside Elementary. I loved the Norman Rockwell setting, and looked forward to school. We moved into our new house at the edge of the Everglades, Sixty-Third Avenue and two blocks off Flagler St. I enrolled in Kinloch Park School for the third grade. It was a complete change.

Most of the boys didn’t have shoes and they all had to establish a pecking order over me. A couple of the more infamous attending were the Cash brothers; and the one who made my life the most miserable was later known as Long John Fulford. He rode the same school bus and delighted in throwing me out of whichever seat I picked.

I learned to escape to our small community and to love our in their small houses, and still look on the neighbors as extended family. Originally, it was a planned neighborhood, with cast iron lampposts and sidewalks. They never paved the streets because of the crash in 1929.

The noises at night were a lot different than city sounds. There was a winter home for the circus, a hit-and-miss motor supplied the power for pumping water to the few houses scattered in the neighborhood, and early Sunday morning, a big cast iron bell on the top of West Flagler Baptist Church would start ringing, summoning everyone to church. The original building had a baptismal pool behind the pulpit where I was baptized pre-teen.

My best buddy Bruce married his wife there, with me as his best man. My mother, Myrtis Virgina Bell, attended Shenandoah School and High school in town but graduated with the first class of the new Miami Senior High School. My sister and I attended Kinloch, Citrus Grove School, and Miami High.

My dad, James Posey Boyer, (with only one ear drum), was 4-F; but he went to work as a machinist, first in Trinidad and later in Cuba. He helped establish US military bases there at the beginning of the war. He and my Mom opened a sundry store on the ground floor of a Masonic Hall on NW 15th Ave and 1st street.

The Orange Bowl Stadium was just down the street. As a kid I worked there after the games, picking up empty glass coke bottles, where I got 5 cents for each crate. Competing with other kids, you really had to hustle to earn 2 bucks.

As kids, we camped out and fished on Key Biscayne, and even built a driftwood shelter on Fair Island. We could ride the bus all the way to the Jetties for 10 cents. There were hundreds of vacant places for beach parties. In the summer some hotel rooms were a buck a night. A birch beer and hamburger, at Royal Castle, was only 15 cents.

My dad used to take the family to Old Cutler, break an oyster- filled branch off a mangrove bush, build a fire, and roast it until the oysters opened. He would get us up early, catch a few fish and cook them on an open fire, for breakfast on the beach. Fish was a large part of my family’s diet. I now realize it was readily available and cheap.

I had a paper route, and I used a chicken crate to carry the papers. I started at 52 Ave. and Flagler and went north to the Tamiami canal, all the way to the Flagler Street Bridge and Millan Dairy Road with only 110 costumers.

Every year we made a trip to Pompano to find a Christmas tree, imagining them standing upright, because all the short needle pines were bent over to the west from the constant wind off the beach. Several times during the war we heard about a ship being torpedoed and on fire, and we would go to the beach to watch.

I got my first bike at nine and gave it away after high school, when I had to report for basic training. The USAF 435th was activated at the beginning of the Korean War. I dream about those times in early Miami, and for sure I lived through the greatest time in history, in the greatest town God ever created.

The year was 1950. My parents, Bernice and Eddie Melniker, came to Miami because my dad had purchased a drive-in movie theater, the Coral Way Drive-In.

They settled in at the Brickell Point Apartments, right on the river, and I was enrolled in the Lear school, then located on West Avenue in Miami Beach. It was not long before they purchased a new home on Hibiscus Island, where they remained until 1985, when they sold it and moved to Morton Towers.

My dad had always been a member of and involved in the Variety Clubs in different communities, so it was only natural that he would look them up here in Miami. At that time, they were the sponsors of Variety Children’s Hospital, and their main goal was to raise funds to maintain the hospital. This was in the days when polio was prevalent and the hospital played a large part in the program here in our community.

Since my mom was no longer working, as she had for so many years in her parents’ business, she was looking for something to fill up her time. When she met the ladies of the auxiliary, or as they called it in those days, “The Women’s Committee,” a perfect match was found. She was a very shy, southern lady, who had never set foot in any type of organization, but magic happened.

Her life became dedicated to this cause and she went head first into the task. This was her goal and a shining star was born.

Her first effort was to start up the Candy Stripers, young teenage girls who would become volunteers at the hospital. The red and white stripes appeared all over the hospital and were soon an integral part of the hospital’s volunteer staff.

Later, while serving as president of the organization, she traveled all over the state and even became president of the State Hospital Volunteer Organization. But her heart was always here in Miami and her efforts continued. How wonderful it was when the hospital expanded and became known as “Miami Children’s Hospital,” well known all over the world.

When she and my dad traveled around the world attending Variety Club conventions, she was always called to speak regarding the volunteer process, and she was a pro at this. The ironic part is that before moving to Miami, when her brother, Harold, lived with them, he was a major part of the ham radio community, speaking to people all over the world and particularly instrumental in offering their services when there were natural disasters. He would be talking to someone in Australia, she would come into the room and he would offer her the microphone to say hello to them, but she ran from the room in extreme distress and shyness. Hard to believe, because as the years progressed and her work with the hospital increased, if there was a microphone anywhere around, she would have it in her hand. I remember that we may have put one in her casket when she died.

Her accomplishments were amazing. She planned, hosted and presented many affairs and events, but probably the best one and her favorite was the “Golden Harvest” luncheon at the Fontainebleau, which she masterminded for 37 years. I know this because I worked along with her. She created the program, wrote the plans, produced and directed this affair, and then allowed me to host the event. They were glamorous, spectacular, fashionable affairs and they brought in the most prominent socialites to attend and participate in the fashion shows. As time went by, they included an adjunct to this famous luncheon, calling it “Golden Harvest Queen of Hearts,” and each year they would honor a special lady from the community.

By now, you might be wondering where my dad was during all this. Well, he was Mr. Miami Beach. Having gone from the theater business to banking, he made his mark with just about every organization in town. Walking down Lincoln Road with him was an adventure in itself, and it seemed everyone he passed was a customer at his bank. First, there was Mercantile at 420 Lincoln Rd., then Pan American at the Roney Plaza, then SunTrust, which was the last before his retirement. But the word retirement did not fit with either of my parents. He played golf at many courses, cards at the Elks club, but never leaving his true love for the Variety Clubs and their many projects helping children. He died in January 1986, at the age of 85.

They were a gorgeous couple attending so many social events, but always wearing proudly their banner of services to Miami Children’s Hospital. These memories will linger forever with me, and if you happen to visit the gift shop at the hospital you will see my mom’s plaque on the wall just by the door. The last “Golden Harvest Queen of Hearts” was held in November 2000, and at the next monthly meeting, Dec. 20, they gave her a big cake.

While at this luncheon, she was already speaking about plans for the next event for November 2001. One week later, she passed away in her sleep, with no fanfare, just a quiet goodbye. So, the curtain went down, the lights dimmed, but her special talent and dedication to something in which she believed so magnificently will remain.

The road trip began in northeastern Pennsylvania and ended in Miami, Florida, in August of 1985.

The plan was two years of grad school at UM for my spouse and then back home.

Seemed like a doable plan. We took an apartment at Red and Bird Road. We walked to Allen’s Drugstore for breakfast. Walgreens and Piggly Wiggly were there to make life easy.

The semester began at UM. Kenton was a teaching assistant as well a doctoral candidate. He was engaged in scholarly activities. I explored.

Kenton came from a dance and musical family; his brother had moved to Miami years earlier and operated a dance studio at 114th and Bird Road.

Teaching at the dance studio provided additional income and involvement in the arts. I did a stint at their reception desk for a short time, passed out samples in a supermarket and did telemarketing at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, transitioning to special events. Great fun and interesting people.

When Thanksgiving rolled around we found ourselves having dinner outdoors in a garden. We marveled at the streets lined with palm trees. (Still do!) Shortly thereafter, wearing shorts, I sang “Here comes Santa Claus” with other parade goers on Sunset Drive in South Miami. I enthusiastically drove out-of-town visitors around — the beaches, Coconut Grove, Calle Ocho, Dadeland Mall and the Everglades.

In anticipation of the move to Miami I had subscribed to the Miami Herald, voraciously reading about this temporary home. The thing that I found to be particularly intriguing was an article about a new project which would provide studio space for artists to work. It was called the South Florida Art Center and it was located on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.

I had a degree in art education but had worked in retail management in Pennsylvania for ten years. There were no art classes in my small mining town high school. No art lessons; my first visit to an art museum was as a sophomore in college. I yearned to be an “artist.”

So off I went to find this “Lincoln Road” which surely, I thought, would be made of yellow bricks!

The street was sluggish, devoid of any references to our idea of the energy depicted in Miami Vice. Empty cavernous storefronts, small haggard businesses. Disquieting.

I remember sitting in a temporary office. Across the desk was a woman named Ellie Schneiderman, an incredible visionary willing to do the deed no matter what it took. And the deed was to give artists a place to work in commune with each other and the community. It was a dingy and dark loft space and I was scared to death. By the time the interview had ended I was officially an artist at the South Florida Art Center!

Over ten years I changed studio spaces three times. I exhibited at the Art Center and many venues in South Florida, the Northeast, as well as Costa Rica and California. The South Florida Art Center had become my art school. The other artists were integral to my growth as an artist. We shared, critiqued, tossed ideas around and socialized with like-minded new friends who offered many different perspectives and cultural histories. In those early days we literally owned “The Road.” It was magical.

I was also blessed to have several mentors during this time. One, an accomplished printmaker, taught me many techniques, offered advice and shaped my view of the importance of process in the making of art as integral to the completed piece.

Another introduced me to the tradition of hand papermaking. I had no clue that paper could be made in one’s back yard or indoors in a studio, your laundry room or your kitchen counter (on a smaller scale), using fabrics and plants to produce the pulp necessary to make sheets of paper. After learning and creating my own paper pieces I actually traveled to Costa Rica to exhibit and participate in a workshop where we made paper from local plants.

Kenton enjoyed his UM days as well as teaching and performing dance. He participated in the dance segment presented by Disney for a Super Bowl game. Definitely a fun time.

These were but a few of our wonderful experiences. It has been a glorious time for us.

Kenton did complete his studies at UM and began to teach as an adjunct at Barry University, St. Thomas University, UM, Miami-Dade and Florida International University.

After almost 30 years I guess we’re staying.

Coincidentally, this year is the 30th anniversary of the South Florida Art Center, now known as ArtCenter/South Florida.

I continue to make art in a studio in the Bird Road Art District and Kenton is a professor of philosophy at FIU.

My thanks to those who have written of their beginnings in South Florida. Their memories have kindled long dormant, almost forgotten, ones in me. And that is a good thing.

Although I was born in the 1940s at Jackson Memorial Hospital, my paternal grandmother, Clara Belle Thomas, and her husband came here from Louisville, Kentucky, in 1925. Great fear, following the destruction caused by the 1926 hurricane, caused her and my grandfather to return to Louisville that same year. But, with Miami “sand in their shoes,” they returned in 1927, this time buying three rental houses, one of which was where the Omni now stands.

Because of the stock market crash in 1929, their renters lost their jobs, couldn’t pay their rent, and the bank repossessed all three houses. While the whole nation went into depression, my grandmother fed her family Campbell’s tomato soup for quite a while.

When she could, she worked as a seamstress at the downtown Burdines and my grandfather drove a street car from Flagler Street north on Miami Avenue to NW 36 Street, which then was on the outer fringes of the city. They saved their money and, in time, bought a property on NE 52 Terrace. Their children, one of them my father, went to school at Lemon City High School, now Edison High.

I was told that in the mid-1940s, visible maybe ten miles off Miami Beach, were explosions from allied ships being sunk by German submarines (U-Boats). My father, John G. Thomas, taught law to troops training on Miami Beach and later, for several years, was an assistant city attorney for the City of Miami.

On Saturday mornings in the 1940s and 1950s, we saw cartoons and serial shorts, like Flash Gordon, Hopalong Cassidy, and The Lone Ranger in theaters. For twenty-five cents we sure got our money’s worth. My parents purchased a black-and-white TV set in the early 50s and we couldn’t wait until 9 p.m. on Monday nights to watch “I Love Lucy.” Color TV first came in the form of a multi-colored sheet of acetate which we placed over the black-and-white screen. How neat was that?

Taking a blue and silver bus from the Gables Bus Terminal, then located on the corner of Ponce de Leon Boulevard and Miracle Mile, and traveling to downtown Miami was great fun and safe as can be. I can still taste the fifteen-cent burgers at Royal Castle which were made with real meat and real chopped onions.

My school years were spent at Coral Gables Elementary, Ponce de Leon Junior High, and Coral Gables Senior High School. Cotillion, during sixth grade, was held in a room next to the Coral Gables Library, which then was on the north side of the city. It prepared youngsters in dance and etiquette and was taught by Mr. and Mrs. Rodney Novakowski.

The etiquette was really just common manners. Part of the “dress of the day” was the dreaded crinoline, a starched half-slip worn to help our skirt stand out. Marbles, anyone ever hear about playing marbles? They were the rage in the early fifties. These were simpler times.

In the early 1950s in elementary school, in addition to fire drills, we learned how to react to an air raid warning: go under our desks and place one arm behind our neck and the other across our forehead. The Korean War had made everyone more alert.

In junior and senior high school, I learned how to play a clarinet and marched in many Orange Bowl and Junior Orange Bowl parades. The community of other band members became a family away from home.

An unexpected plus came in 1959, when a rather pedestrian clarinetist – me – was given a scholarship to the University of Miami Band on the Hour, with Fred McCall directing. “Hail to the Spirit of Miami U.…”

It was then, in the band, that I met my future husband, John C. Adams, Jr. Tuition was $395 a semester. One day, between classes at the “U” in 1962, I looked south and I saw army troops and big guns in a caravan of vehicles heading south on Dixie Highway.

This was the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States, led by President John F. Kennedy, demanded that Russia remove their missiles from Cuba, only 90 miles from the US mainland. Thankfully, this face-off was successful.

In 1963, armed with a bachelor’s degree and a few Spanish phrases, I got a job with Pan American Airways, Latin American Division, based in New York, and flew to South America and the Caribbean. In the winter, leaving New York, I’d be dressed in a calf-length coat over my uniform. Three and a half hours later, when I’d deplane in Caracas, Venezuela, it was summer.

In 1965, John and I were married, and in time had two children, Nancy Adams, a speech pathologist and Andrew Adams, a civil engineer.

It is said, “adversity brings maturity.” If that is true, then South Florida came of age after Hurricane Andrew. People of all ages volunteered to help in any way they could. When I volunteered to help, I was given an orange vest and a whistle and told to report with another lady to the intersection of Miracle Mile and Douglas Road in Coral Gables. There we would direct traffic for several hours.

We were not alone, though. As people drove by they would say, “Thanks,” and hand us an ice-cold drink. The next day I was sent south on Dixie Highway to a Salvation Army make-shift tent headquarters. There we opened and distributed contents of aid boxes sent by tractor-trailers from all over the country. I opened one box from Ohio which had a hand-written note placed on the top that said, “we are praying for you.” Then I knew we were part of a bigger community than I ever imagined, the United States of America.

For the past 20 years, John and I have been private investigators, licensed by the State of Florida.

All these years have been such a hoot! When I read this it sounds like I’ve been a part of history. Ours is a “fairly young” community and before you know it, you’ll be a part of history, too. I am blessed to live in a great city and a great nation.

When I was just 6 months old my parents moved to Miami and rented a house across from a beach on Collins Avenue. They could actually open the front door of their house and see the Atlantic Ocean, but this beautiful view almost cost us our lives. Three months later a powerful Category 4 unnamed hurricane made landfall on September 17, 1947 at Port Everglades.

My parents were raised in New York City and were unwise to the dangers of tropical cyclones, so they elected to remain in the rented house; that is, until the Atlantic Ocean came “a-knocking.” My mother told me that when the ocean came through the front door my father decided it was time to leave. My parents grabbed me and my 4-year-old brother and tried to make it to the safety of the mainland in the family car.

When the sedan finally succumbed to the rising tidal surge halfway across the Venetian Causeway all they could do was huddle and hope for the best. An uncle on the mainland must have been more hurricane-smart and realized that one of his six brothers was probably in trouble, so he jumped into a 2 ½-ton truck they used for the family tile business and came looking for us. He possible saved our lives as my dad’s car was being battered by waves coming over the low bridge’s railings, according to my mother.

This experience had such a profound effect on my father that when he decided to build a house for his family a few years later, he used topographical maps and searched for a lot with a very high elevation. His final choice was near Southwest 23 Street and 14th Avenue and has an elevation of 36 feet above sea level. This ridge is part of the Miami Rock Ridge and is called Silver Bluff.

The fine house my father built rested slightly more than a half mile from Biscayne Bay and one mile from the first bridge of Rickenbacker Causeway, which were both in easy bike range for a young boy. This close proximity to Biscayne Bay would have a profound effect on me for the rest of my life.

At that time one could fish behind Mercy Hospital on the seawall for trout and jacks, or head over to the Rickenbacker bridges in winter for snook, loads of mackerel, bluefish, bonefish, tarpon, and big jacks. We even caught snook in the canals in the Grove and assorted fish on the bridge to “Fair Island,” before it was developed and renamed “Grove Isle.”

When I was just 3 years old my father died of natural causes and my mother had to struggle to survive. Before I was even 10 years old I took advantage of being a child of a single parent and became a free-ranging youth that ventured as far as his bike and legs would take him.

I took up fishing in earnest, and by the time I was 14 I fished in the summers all through the night, mostly solo since none of my friends shared this kind of freedom. (I leaned early on how to defend myself from pedophiles and bullies.) I was a late bloomer and did not learn how to swim until I was in 9th grade. One year later I bought a used Scuba outfit with my paper route money and started diving under all of the Rickenbacker bridges.

By age 15, I had complete usage of my mother’s ‘55 Chevy, and was ranging all the way down to the middle Keys to fish and dive. I lived a very adventurous life and often slept in her car next to bridges in the Keys, since my mother had a friend who drove her anywhere she wanted to go.

I lived to fish and dive and this pastime stayed with me for the rest of my life. In the 1950s, one really didn’t need a boat in South Florida to locate quality game fish. I caught tarpon, snook, trout, bonefish, snapper, bluefish and even grouper all from land or bridges. Some of these fish even earned me weight citations in the Miami Metropolitan Fishing Tournament before I graduated from high school, and still hang in my den.

Miami was truly a paradise for me over a half century ago. I now look how young kids are practically sequestered inside their houses out of parental fear. I always thank my lucky stars that I was fortunate to have those early experiences instead of being cooped up in front of a TV or computer as today’s children often are.

It was the end of the first week of June, 1963. I had just finished third grade at Shenandoah Elementary School and I was looking forward to summer vacation. Papi was a third-year resident in neurosurgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital; he was on call 36 out of every 48 hours.

Neither my mother nor my father was particularly young: Papi had been 45 when I’d been born; and Mami, almost 42. I was their only child: their hija consentida (pampered daughter).

In 1963, Mami had just turned 50. As for Papi, both his salary, at $219 per month, and his age, at 53, were “record-setting,” according to Mami. “He was the oldest resident in JMH’s history.”

My sweet natured, shy – yet gregarious – father had befriended many of the staff at the Jackson. A tall, lanky, bow-tie clad, pipe-smoking Tennessean became his special friend. He called my father, “Fred.”

Basil Yates, who figured in our lives for many years to come, came to our financial rescue. Estábamos muy apretados: we didn’t have much money. One day Yates asked his friend Fred if he had enough money to take care of his family. Papi very honestly responded, no. Yates reached into his pocket and pulled out $200.

With Yates’ generosity, we were able to move from the kindly, shabby tenement, “El Vanta Koor” (Vanta Court) to a better apartment building several blocks away. Not only were we to move, but – thanks again to Dr. Yates – we were able to spend a month on Miami Beach that July. We rented an apartment in the Amsterdam Palace Hotel.

There was no air-conditioning, but that’s the way Mami wanted it. Las brisas del mar – the ocean breezes – provided plenty of cross-ventilation. When Papi could join us, he was able to enjoy the alcove that fronted the balcony, right smack in the middle of the second floor of the Amsterdam Palace.

For my part, I played among the statues and fountains on the first floor, ceaselessly rode up and down the elevator, and spent as much time in the ocean as I could. Sometimes I went swimming twice a day. Mami liked to take me in the early mornings, when the sandbanks were built up, and we were able to walk out into the ocean as far as we dared. I became vey tanned that summer.

There’s a picture of me at a party, sitting next to Papi, where I’m muy bronceada y rosada, very bronzed and rosy, indeed. I’m wearing a white shift with big roses on it. I’m shyly looking down at my hands and Papi is glancing over at me. This is the way I remember myself from the summer of 1963.

Late summer found us in the new apartment. For three years, I had all but stumbled out of bed to get to school, as “El Vanta Koor” was located next to Shenandoah Elementary. Now I had to walk a few blocks.

As my English had improved tremendously, I fully expected to find myself in an English-only fourth grade classroom. To my horror, I found myself being directed back to my third grade bilingual classroom! It turned out a number of us Cubanitos were in the same predicament. We soon found out we were not being held back – we just needed a little extra “tweaking.” I remember not finding it so strange after a while.

In the old days, walking from Calle Ocho on Southwest Tenth Street Road, one was able to run smack into Shenandoah Elementary. All three floors of it, with its Mediterranean tiled roof and graceful arches.

Passing underneath these arches on Nov. 29, 1960, I embarked upon my first grade experience in the United States. I didn’t speak one word of English. I remember my first grade teacher, Mrs. Morvil, speaking to me in English. Looking up at her, quizzically, I responded en español. And that’s pretty much how it stayed, all year.

At the beginning, I wrote a few letters to my teacher in Cuba, asking her to send me my textbooks. And then I didn’t open my mouth, to the point that I almost failed first grade. I had learned enough to know that an F was a bad grade, and I had received six of them. Somehow, I was passed on to second grade.

The first six weeks of second grade were pretty bad. Then something happened: a small group of us were handed over to Mrs. Bustillo, a Cuban teacher who spoke enough English that she was able to teach us in both languages. I did much better with her, ending up the year with my lowest grade being a C in Physical Education. And, oh, how I hated P.E.

On the other hand, I didn’t fight learning English, any more. I did really well: I became the spelling champion in our class, and runner-up in the entire grade. I actually remember breathing out, “hand-ker-chief,” in spurts: that did the job.

Third grade was my year of glory at Shenandoah: the Spelling Bee, and the Hungarian Gypsy Dance.

Two Hungarians were the obvious choices to lead this gypsy dance out from underneath the central arch, under the lights one May evening in 1963. Nicky Perusina and I were all dolled up in our red velvet and gold-trimmed jackets. He wore black pants, and a long black bow fringed with gold tassels. I wore a white skirt with red and green stitching, a flower-trimmed headdress, and carried a little bouquet of flowers in my hands. I even got to wear makeup – I felt so grown up.

I DO remember being nervous, and trying to remember on what foot I was supposed to skip out, first. Most importantly, I remember telling myself, “Don’t trip. Don’t trip.”

Well, I didn’t trip. We all had a good time. And I became known as The Hungarian Dancer.

Although I was born in Miami, I left when I was a couple months old and did not return until I was almost seven.

My father got hired as a pilot for Pan American Airlines, but when they cancelled his training class, he took a job for Dominicana Airlines, based in Santa Domingo. When the political climate in the Dominican Republic became too dangerous, my family moved – first to Warner Robbins, Georgia, then to Wayne, Michigan, where my Dad flew cargo for Zantop Airlines.

My sister Kelley was born there, but his plan had always been to move back to Miami, where his parents lived. When he got hired with National Airlines (“Fly Me”), we moved back to Miami and my parents built a house in Gables-By-The-Sea. My sister Elise was a baby and my Mom was pregnant with my brother John, when we moved into our new house in 1967.

I celebrated my seventh birthday with my new classmates, at Parrot Jungle. I attended Silver Bluff, Sylvania Heights, and Pinecrest elementaries before landing at Epiphany School in the third grade.

Living in Gables-By-The-Sea, I grew up fishing and swimming in the canal behind my house, exploring the swamp across the street and going on outings on our family’s boat. I also organized musical extravaganzas for my father’s annual 4th of July birthday parties. I once water skied from Matheson Hammock all the way to Elliot Key. My father was so proud of this accomplishment, he bragged about it to my ballet teacher, Mr. Millenoff. My strict Russian instructor was none too thrilled, claiming it would ruin my legs for ballet.

After Epiphany, I attended Our Lady of Lourdes Academy and was a cheerleader for Christopher Columbus High School. Friday nights, after football games, we would hang out at Lums in Westchester, or Little Caesars in the Gables. During this time, my parents and sisters were very active in the Miami Ski Club, competing in water-ski competitions and even going to Nationals.

After graduating from Lourdes in 1977, I went to Florida State University in Tallahassee. After two years, undecided on a major, I came back home and got a job as a flight attendant with Air Florida. In 1980, National Airlines was purchased by Pan American Airlines, so my Dad ended up flying for Pan Am after all.

My first route when I got hired (since I was French-qualified) was Port-Au-Prince/Santo Domingo, so I ended up returning to the city where I had lived as a baby. I flew that line for almost a year. I was flying into Washington, D.C. on January 13, 1982, just as another Air Florida plane crashed into the Potomac. We aborted our landing and landed in Boston, but had to return to Washington the next morning to pick up our passengers.

I later flew with one of the flight attendants (and one of the few survivors) of that flight. It turned out her stepmother had hired me for Air Florida.

Miami in the “Miami Vice” eighties was glamorous, fast-paced, and a little scary. Still, I enjoyed going to clubs such as: Cats, Suzanne’s, The Mutiny, and Faces in the Grove. One night, while at Biscayne Babies, my sisters and I even met Senator Ted Kennedy. With Air Florida, I traveled to London, Paris, Zurich, Frankfurt, Brussels, Stockholm, and even Havana.

Air Florida went bankrupt in 1984, the same year I got married. I then worked at my family’s nursing home, The Floridean, as a secretary. I worked in the office with my grandmother Julia Rice, who was the Administrator and my sister Kelley, who was the activities director.

My family was featured in a MacArthur Milk commercial, since we had four generations (from my grandmother to her great-grandchildren) who had “grown up on MacArthur” in Miami.

I also did some extra work (“Miami Vice,” movies and commercials) to make some extra money. I finished my A.A. at Miami Dade when my daughter A.J. was a baby and got my B.A. at F.I.U. in 1994. Getting a degree with three young children (Brad, A.J. and Christopher), a husband, and a house to maintain was a considerable challenge but I made the Dean’s List and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Liberal Arts.

Like many other Miamians, we survived Hurricane Andrew. At the time it hit, we lived in Mangowood, very close to the strongest winds recorded. Our neighborhood was practically unrecognizable, without a leaf left on the trees. In the days and weeks following the hurricane, we got to know our neighbors very well, taking turns grilling food from our freezers for dinner, and helping each other out.

Our children, who attended Coral Reef Elementary, started about a month late with the National Guard escorting them to their first day of school. Although it took more than a year, we re-built our house and it was better than ever.

My husband and I moved to Tallahassee in 1996, in search of a slower pace of life. I decided to return to Miami four years later, in order to spend time with my dad – Butch Rice – who had been diagnosed with lung cancer. I moved back on July 3, 2001, just in time for his annual 4th of July Birthday Bash.

I got divorced in January of the next year, and my father passed away in October. I was very glad I had that year and a half to spend with my dad.

I continued my education and got my Master’s in screenwriting at University of Miami in 2003, so I now consider myself a “Cane.” I love attending UM football games with my husband Zeke (also a UM graduate), just as my father did (although no longer at the Orange Bowl).

I also enjoy entertaining, traveling, photography and all kinds of writing – from blogging to screenwriting. I edit and write articles for The Pulse, the Floridean newsletter, where my sister Kelley is now the executive director.

I play tennis on several teams and enjoy going for runs around my neighborhood, which is right down the street from Epiphany and Lourdes. All three of my grown children live in Miami and I am now stepmother to three daughters – Lauren, Rachel and Emma.

I love the energy of Miami – the diversity of its residents and the variety of activities it offers. Miami is always changing and offering new opportunities and I hope to embrace them all.

My father, John Mantell, was born in 1898, somewhere in Romania. At age 16, he emigrated to the United States and was employed by relatives as an apprentice in the parquet and flooring craft industries.

Industrious and of high intelligence, he quickly became skilled in this craft, learned to speak impeccable English, and adapted quickly to American culture.

Saving his earnings and seeking to capitalize on his newly acquired skills, he accumulated enough to start his own business. In a relatively few years, he developed one of the largest wood parquet flooring company in the United States.

When Dad discovered Miami Beach in 1922, he bought a bungalow with an unobstructed view of the ocean. In those days, people were hesitant to build too close to the ocean, so there were no buildings on Ocean Drive. In effect, our home on the east side of Collins Avenue and Second Street was oceanfront.

Almost all Miami Beach single-family homes at the time were built with coral rock or Dade County pine wood. Our pine home had wide, screened openings around the perimeter instead of windows, which kept out bugs. Canvas covers were rolled down on pipes when it rained.

Even though there was no air conditioning, ocean breezes kept us comfortable even during the hottest summer days.

In those times, no one had dogs or cats. The pet of the neighborhood was a Japanese chicken, which came with the purchase of our house. The chicken lived under our house, which sat on concrete blocks two feet high off the ground.

There were no airlines or interstate highways at the time, so our vacation travels alternated between two available coastal liners. One went from Miami to Savannah to Norfolk to New York, and the other from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas, to New York.

Our family was up north on vacation in September 1926, when a major hurricane hit. Upon our return we fortunately found the bungalow intact, except for some of the screening. Amazingly, the lonely Japanese chicken was still under the house.

The banks caved in that year and the stock market crashed. Dad had retired at age 32, but lost everything except the Miami Beach bungalow in the market crash. So the extended family moved in and Dad went back to work, this time as a general contractor and realtor.

Dad worked with leading architects, building Art Deco hotels, apartments and homes — Flamingo Plaza, Shorecrest and Chelsea Hotel, to name a few. At one time, he was one of the five biggest contractors in Florida. With the help of Seminole Indians and others, Dad had 20 jobs going at once. He built and managed the Mantell Plaza Hotel. Then World War II changed Miami Beach.

In 1942, the U.S. Army Air Forces took over all the hotels, including the Mantell Plaza, for housing Army Air Forces personnel. Miami was troop-training headquarters for U-boats. We would watch soldiers marching the streets, including famous actor Clark Gable. We were very patriotic and I sold war bonds at the local movie theatre. Lucky for us, the Mantell Plaza was the first hotel released by the Army and was the only operating hotel on Miami Beach for a year.

While my father was working to recoup the family fortune, our dear mother Anna was running the household and raising the three children: Murray, Sally and me. We had carefree early childhoods spent barefoot on the golden sands of Miami Beach. I have early recollections of jumping boulder to boulder on the government rock jetties, later the 14th Street beach.

I attended Miami Beach Elementary and Beach junior and senior high schools. It was a small student body; we all knew each other. We had small classes and great teachers. Many thanks to them for all they did for us. After class, there were fun-filled afternoon patio dances and championship basketball games.

In high school, eating off-campus was “strictly forbidden,” so lunches at Joe’s Broadway were dangerous, thus especially delicious. Weekends were for sunburns on the sandy 14th Street beach.

Most weekends, kids took the short jitney to Miami for the movies and big name stage shows at the Olympia Theater (now the Gusman). The favorite lunch spot was Burdines.

My sister Sally also went to Beach High and then University of Miami where she played violin and was a member of the UM symphony orchestra. She met her husband Dan Raylesberg during the war while he was stationed at the Biltmore Hotel.

To date, my brother Murray is the oldest living graduate of Beach High. He studied and got a degree in civil engineering.

During World War II, he was a naval architect, and after the war he became the founding chairman of Civil Engineering at UM, where he taught for 57 years and received numerous awards for teaching excellence.

I started college at the University of Miami in 1946. During my senior year at UM, while doing my teaching internship, the mother of one of my pupils arranged a blind date for me with Norton Pallot. We were married three months later.

Norton was associated with his father, and later his brother and brother-in-law, in the operation of Norton Tire Company, which sold to Goodyear in the 1980s.

Life in Miami has been good. The city has grown and changed beyond recognition, and we enjoy it all the more — and perhaps also because our three children and spouses, and our four grandchildren all live around us in Coral Gables.

(This story was compiled by Laurie Appignani Pallot, as recounted by her mother Gloria Mantell Pallot).

In 1949, I first came to Miami to check out the University of Miami.

I hitched a ride from New York with my Uncle Pat, who drove the boss’ shiny black Cadillac down south every fall to be the chief mutual racetrack teller through the winter season at Hialeah and Tropical racetracks. Leaving New York on a sleety day, we cruised the whole way down on U.S. 1 and arrived, almost magically it seemed to me, in warm, sunny Miami.

As everyone promised, it was heaven!

Then it was Miami again in ‘52 when my parents and I joined Pat for another southland sojourn — this time including the necessary tourist stop at Silver Springs. But I ended up at NYU part-time and was lucky to land a great job at IBM, so Miami had to wait until 1954 when my friend Barb and I split our vacation and took a week in August — first to Vacation Valley in the Poconos — and then a week in December back to my warm Miami.

I had booked a package tour with round-trip air fare, seven days at the Lombardy Hotel on 63rd Street, some meals, transfers and tours — for $99.

That summer before, back at Vacation Valley, Barb had been bitten by a black widow spider and had been pretty sick. Now in Miami, the sun activated the poison in her system, and she ended up at St. Francis Hospital on Miami Beach for the rest of our Miami week.

I ended up — by myself — at the hotel pool reading everything in sight, including the classifieds in the Miami Herald and The Miami News. Two ads intrigued me. They were looking for “Qualified Gals” to be stewardesses for Eastern Airlines and National.

I had become friends with a sweet Hawaiian who wove palm hats poolside. He encouraged me to apply — even lending me his old car that backfired all the way across 36th Street to the interviews. I was accepted by both airlines. The Lombardy’s doorman, George, another new acquaintance, said to go with Eastern, and I did.

I graduated — after six days of training — and remained at that great job for 20 years.

In 1957, I bought my first home in southeast Hialeah for $12,500. To go furniture shopping, I rented a car at $1 a day and 10 cents a mile (airline discount). In the middle of that “Other Century,” I wasn’t able to close on the house I bought because I was a single woman, so I called for “back-up” and sent for my mom to come down from New York and co-sign with me. But that wasn’t enough because she was a married woman and — at that time — needed her husband’s permission. I finally settled when Dad came down to sign for me. We’ve come a long way.

In the Miami sunshine, Mother’s arthritis almost entirely disappeared. When Dad came down on weekends and saw her improvement, he, too, became a Miamian, retiring from his job as an innovative production manager with Ever Ready Labels, which served the entire international label industry.

Within the year, they moved to Miami and, instead of living with my parents, the switch happened. They lived with me.

We bought a few more houses — from $10,000 to $17,000 — and rented them out to new stewardesses, and my folks happily became surrogate parents to the homesick girls. Mom, always a terrific seamstress, tailored their uniforms expertly and gave more than a few Italian-style cooking lessons. We became a happy extended family — my parents and all their high-flying “daughters.”

It wouldn’t be a bad idea for a thoughtfully written movie, I think, with worthy actors to play Sinatra and all the other celebrities we met and dined with back then — at Jilly’s on the 79th Street Causeway in those glamorous years.

I married a pilot in ’68, and we moved to Kendall. My husband’s hobby was rebuilding planes, so we bought an acre behind Baptist Hospital where he could have his large airplane parts spread out to work on. We remodeled a one-bedroom cottage to a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home with a separate three-car garage workshop.

My airline job had to end in ’74 so I could be available if and when construction workers decided to show up. It was a sad day when I wrote my letter of resignation. I still had my heart with E.A.L. and became a Silverliner, our national service organization of former Eastern flight attendants.

I only recently stepped down from being Miami’s Silverliners president for 13 years, but I’m still active in our club, though our national membership has dwindled to 850 members and our local chapter from 45 to 11. I also joined the Red Hat Society, which widens my circle of friendships.

Under my mango trees and palms, I count my blessings every day for the good luck and sunny path that took me and my family to Miami.