Month: May 2016

A separate Island, Stock Island, just east of Key West, has always been for me one small bridge away up Route 1, the Overseas Highway to Miami. Picture:  (State Archives of Florida/ McDonald).  Back in the nineteenth century, it was a remote place. Some think it got it’s name because cows and horses were kept there, but the island was named in the 1850’s and there is a photo of cows there but not until the early twentieth century, so it’s not really known where the name came from. Could be a man named Mr. Stock lived out there. Reaching back into my younger years in the 50’s and 60’s, there are several venues and places that I remember.  Photo:  (State Archives of Florida/McDonald).

My Family would go to the “Islander” drive-in theater built in 1953. At the time it had the largest screen in the state with room for 600 cars. During intermission, we would go to the concession stand for popcorn and/or go ride the live horses in a ring in the far corner of the theater. I don’t remember ever watching the movie and usually fell asleep after intermission, but it was good family entertainment at the time.  Photo:  (State Archives of Florida/McDonald).

A Dog Racing track opened in 1953. I went several times when I was a young adult before I married. We would double date and each put in a dollar a race and take turns picking the greyhound dog. We won a little and, didn’t know what we were doing, didn’t care, had fun; and it was a pretty cheap date. There was also an Auto Race track out there, mainly revved up jalopies racing, stock cars I guess.

Monroe General Hospital opened in 1944 on Stock Island. Next to it was the Old Folks Home where my father would take me on Saturdays to visit my Uncle Seely. I only realize now how much he enjoyed the hugs and the visit. Children are so oblivious. Further on down the road was the Animal Shelter. And even further was the garbage dump. Today it is not used, is mounded over with dirt and grass and called Mount Trashmore. Most times there are carrion birds circling it. I guess they still know. Nearby are luxury town homes with very large boat slips in front of each one.

Further down was a golf course. It was there in the fifties. I know because when I was young, my uncle played there frequently and would talk about it. More recently, it was made over into a Rees Jones course, which I hear is pretty challenging to play especially with all the fauna, mainly vegetarian Iguanas and many strange looking birds of a feather.  Photo:  (State Archives of Florida).

Lower Keys Medical Center is further down the road and across the street from the hospital is Florida Keys Community College, which has The Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center.  Photo:  (State Archives of Florida/McDonald).  Williams spent a lot of time in Key West in the 70’s and 80’ and had a small house there.   My brother said he used to deliver mail to him. Also there is a regular size outdoor heated pool at the college. It is used for lane swimming, water safety classes for children, the High School swim team, and the Navy uses it for underwater diver training. And one time when we were there the students in the Sea Perch program, about 25 of them, were testing their robotic gizmos in the pool. We enjoyed watching them. Go to www.seaperch.org to see what it’s all about.

In the early fifties there was a car ferry that left from Stock Island each weekend for gambling in Batista’s Cuba. Cuba is again open to ships coming from the United States, but no gambling in Castro’s Cuba. Reports are that the amenities are not great. Cuba is pretty much stuck in the fifties.

My father who worked on the P&O shipping freighters that went from Cuba to Key West and then Tampa in the 20’s told me that it is a beautiful country. Cruise ships are now going to several ports with passengers taking day trips on shore.

Stock Island seems to be coming into it’s own these days. The Key West Yacht Club is out there, as are several other nice restaurants. There are plans to make a seaport walk along the waterfront where the few remaining working shrimp boats are docked that are the ones that get the large pink shrimp for which Key West is known. Stock Island is maybe becoming the funky little place Key West used to be.  Photo:  (State Archives of Florida/McDonald).

Waldine Ellen was my mother’s name, although her friends at the middle school lunchroom where she was the cook called her Wally. This was in Key West in the 60’s and 70’s. Years later after she had passed, I found her birth certificate. On it her name was Ellen Waldine born in Key West in 1921. So what happened to Ellen? So where did Waldine come from? I have no idea.

At my mother’s funeral, a lady who I did not know came to me and said she was a childhood friend of my mother. She told me that my grandfather who was a fisherman would have friends and family to a fish stew lunch every Saturday and she used to attend against her grandmother’s expressed admonitions.

My mother told me that when she was a child and playing she fell down and dislocated her arm and was crying and a neighbor man called her over and popped the arm back into place; no hospital, no doctor’s fees. Also she told me that when she was a child they had an outhouse. I told her that that must have been awful. She said it wasn’t so bad, because you never had to clean the bathroom and someone else came around and mucked it out every once in a while. My mother, always the optimist and never a complainer.

My mother barely finished 7th grade. Her mother had died young leaving my mother, the oldest, with two younger sisters and a brother, the youngest. I don’t know how my mother managed to care for everyone, but she did and never talked to me much about it.

She met my father and married him in 1941. He was 17 years her senior and shortly afterward was drafted into the army at age 36. He spent the next three years in Africa and Italy in the Engineering Corps. While he was gone, my mother made pretty good money working at the Navy Yard but spent most of it on her younger siblings. My father on the other hand gambled a lot and had amassed a nice little nest egg. He was not happy with my mother.

My Aunt Nellie lived with us and my mother took care of her until she died in the early fifties. It was then that my mother went to work in the middle school lunchroom, which was directly across from our house. It was hard work for my mother, but she enjoyed the camaraderie, as she was by nature pretty much a loner and did not make friends easily. She worked there for many years.

In spite of my mother barely finishing 7^th grade she was an avid reader, reading almost anything she could get her hands on. So she had a pretty good vocabulary, but didn’t know how to properly pronounce the words even though she used them appropriately. It was a great source of amusement for us, and she never minded us correcting her.

My mother was kind and smart, and though not well educated, she was wise. If someone she knew came to our door, she would invite them in and offer refreshment, even if only a cold drink of water, a container of which was always in the icebox, which is what we called the refrigerator back then. My mother was also a very prideful person. At her funeral, her brother told me that it was her only fault. I had never thought of it as a fault. She once told me that she would rather starve to death than use food stamps, so maybe it could be.

My mother and father had a large age difference and came from two different worlds, but as with most of our parents, they did what they had to do. My parents celebrated their Fiftieth anniversary in 1991. Even though he was much older than my mother, he outlived her by five years; and in the forgetfulness of his last years he always asked for her. She was his center.