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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida.
St. Lucie Tape #4
Charles W. Sample
July 16, 1968
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...and I have known my friend over here on my left, I won't say how long
'cause I'd have to start you guessing when he was born. But I'm not going
to embarrass him like you do me. I know that if I had an opportunity to
write out my pattern of what I wanted to be in my life, they didn't do that
back in the old days when I was coming along, but I would have made a
pattern for my life, I think, just along the lines of
speaking for the night. He was educated, born down there on second street,
I'm not going to tell you where, but he was born there. I know his mother and
father, I think, if I remember right, from the beginning of time, and
his sister and his brothers. And when he, as I see his pattern of life,
he went to school here, graduated my high school, last I remember him
was when he was playing during the war. He was playing baseball out there
with them, you know. But he went to college and graduated from Davidson
College. He served seven years abroad in the army. He married a lovely
girl in the meantime and raised two lovely daughters and he has dedicated
his life to education and what he does in education is to give the young
boys and girls that are coming along a chance to as guides as to what
they're going to do from then on. And I don't know how in the world
anyone could'pick a better pattern for their life. If I've left out
anything, I will get it after a while. But it is a great pleasure that
I give to you Lieutenant Colonel Charles W. Sample.
S: Thank you very much, gw _d ood evening ladies and
gentlemen. Danny asked that I tell you just a little bit about what I
did after college. I've been in student personel services, which means
that I have the responsibility of students everywhere in the college,
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except the formal classroom experience. It's my job and the people that
I work with to see that these students get enrolled, get in the right
classes, and we hope make the right progress and finish their education
on time and help them get on into a four year college or university.
It's been a very rewarding experience and one that I have enjoyed very
much. Back to our topic for tonight, I'd just like tc sk a question here
so I know on what kind of ground I'm standing. How many here have lived
in this area for more than fifty years? Let me see your hands. Alright,
thankyou. Let me ask another one. How many have lived here for more
than thirty five years? Oh, thank you, so the rest of you are comparatively
new comers. But we'll still call you crackers if you've lived here
twenty five years or more. Well, Danny asked me to speak tonight to
you about the Sample family. It occurred to me that this would be placed
on tape and that in later years, some twenty five or fifety years from now
t hat some of the Samples and some of our grandchildren could possibly go
down to the courthouse, or wherever we have them stored, at the museum,
and pick this tape up and hear the story of, I've told it of my family
coming to Florida. My family originally came from North Carolina, both
my mother and father, and both their mothers and fathers came from North
Carolina by way of Pennsylvania shortly after the Revolutionary War
and settled in Mecklenburg County where Charlotte, North Carolina is located.
My grandfather Moore, who some of you may remember, I'm sure Mr.
down there can remember and also Danny, here, was quite a character.
Grandpaw as we always called him, was a Civil War veteran, fought with Jeb
Stuart through the entire war and bought back home his old faithful horse
that he took into the army and from the record thatwe have and the family
history indicated that horse lived for more than thirty years later, but
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he was retired from active duty the day the war ended and put out to
pasture and the only thing that I remember hearing about was that my
mother and some of the children used to ride him to school and that
was his job. My grandmother was Margaret Giwon and I'd like to read
to you a copybof a letter that we have. My sister, has it.
Still preserved, a letter written to her father in 1865:
Y had your room well cleaned yesterday and it looks very nice
and clean. John and Lisa (who I assume were former slaves) do their work
well and cheerfully. He is a little slow abut willing and cheerfuland
has no friendship for the Yankee. (You can take that last statement
any way you like;. Now this was my grandmother, and she continues on)
"John Moore is here this week',' (who is my grandfather)" and requested me
to ask you if you-we%egeti-n-g married before you came home. He's a
little impatient to have it over with. Though we would both prefer having
you present. I could wait until fall if you desire, though I think it is
useless to put it off. If you have no objections to its being over
before you come, please write and tell me, if you are willing'.' 'And I
understand that he did come back for the wedding. I have another quotation
for you that was written some twenty one years later in memorial to my
grandmother after her death. !'n 1871 she was received by certificate
into Hopewell Presbyterian Church in which church she died and whose
graveyard contains her precious dust. The character of her life we epitomized
as beautiful. Yeah, as beautiful as the rose, as pure as the lily, as modest
as a violet, as innocent as the lamb, as positive as the needle, as refined
as the morning rays, and as gentle as the zephyr. As the dew drops reflect
beauty in every direction, so does the beauty of her life was brilliantly
reflectedV Now the reason I read that to you is not to brag about what
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people thought of my grandmother. But to show you how people expressed themselves
in that day and time. And these were lay people in the church, fairly well
educated people. But people really knew how to write and and how to express
themselves back then, I think, much better than we do today. Now to get
on with the --------- side of the family, the -gram family moved from
Pennsylvania to Charlotte, North Carolina to establish United States
before the Civil War. It was quite unusual in that their moving to South at
that time that their oldest son was a West Point graduate, an officer in the
United States Army, before they moved to the South. After the war started
the two youngest sons in the family enlisted in the Confederate Army.
The oldest son being in the Union Army rose to the rank of Maj. Gen.
The two youngest sons, one rose to the rank of Colonel, the other to Captain,
and the tragic thing of it was that they met on the battlefield at Fredricksburg.
However they never did see each other but all three of them came through the
war in fairly good shape. And I Understand that it took several years before
they got back on speaking terms, but at least they died happy knowing that
they had forgiven each other. My great uncle who was a Maj. Gen. in the
Union Army was later reduced to the rank of Colonel, not for anything he did
bad but because after a war like that, when they reduce the services they do
come down in rank. He was with Custer, during Custer's last stand in the west.
He commanded a regiment-:about four miles from Custer, did not know that the
massacre was going on at that time and Custer was killed. The union of my
grandmother and grandfather, they had eight children. This was back before
the turn of the century and I think oine of the most unusual thing about it
is that time, and me being in education and being a strong believer in
education, was the fact that all eight of those children before the turn of
the century went to college. And I understand all but one graduated. The
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four boys went to Davidson and all four of them continued on into professional
training; two of them becoming doctors, M.D.s and the other two became
ministers. And then one of the doctors went back and got his ministers
degree, so he had two advanced degrees. The girls went to Davidson
to Salem College, three of them graduating fyom there. So much for the
Moore side of the family. The Sample family, again the grandfather was a
Civil War Veteran who fought with Gen. Longstreet in the North Carolina
Brigade during the entire war. My grandmother came from the family.
From that union we had five sons, six sons, one to die early in his life.
The five sons named Adrien, Neal, Harry, Jack, and Frank. Of these five
four of them came to Florida. As a matter of fact all five of them came
to Florida but one returned to North Carolina a few years later. My father
was Adrien Sample. My mother, Annie Moore. My father attended Davidson
College, but when the price of cotton got down to-three cents a pound, I
don;t know what cotton sells for now, but that was a good reason for him
to have to drop out of school whcih he did, because of lack of finances.
I was going to tell a story here but I think my daughter Julie is the
youngest one here, but whether she will appreciate it. The rest of you
will know what I'm talking about. My father only lived twelve to
fourteen miles from the college. The nly time he ever went home during
the year was at Christmas, So we see the youngsters coming home from
Gainesville on the weekend; now, Dad said it was impossible for him to go those
twelve miles or fourrteen miles except at Christmastime. In 1893 my father
quit Davidson and went to Atlanta for a short time, and I understand, taught
school there for approximately a year, then found his way on down to Oak Hill.
He wanted to come to Flortida to find out what future there was down in this
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great state. He got him a job in Oak Hill about 1894, clerking in a store.
Moved on down to Eau Gallie. There he established and started a wholesale
fish business and moved on to Fort Pierce in 1896. Danny, I guess you were
around here, anyway. Although my mother and father knew each other quite
well in North Carolina, after he became, came to Florida, he made numerous
trips back to North Carolina and proposal was made for marriage. And my
father wrote my grandfather Moore a letter, asking for his daughter's
hand in marriageand about a month later he received a letter back from
Grandpaw. He started off the letter, I will not read any part of it but
the past part, telling how the farms were doing, what the neighbors were doing,
how the weather was for the corn crop, chickens weren't laying too well, and
signed it, "Very truly yours, Old John Moore." And down at the bottom he
had a P.S. And I'll read it verbatim. "I omitted to say what I:was, that I
received your letter several aCays ago, end in answer will say that I have always
permitted my sons to select their own wives. And I expect to permit my daughters
to select their own husbands, as I never intend to support any of them after
they marry." And he went to to say,"So if you and Annie have concluded to
marry I will not -regfuse my consent, but it will be root, hold, or die."
As I say, Grandpaw Moore was quite a character. I only knew him for a
couple of years. He died when I was very young. Just last year in the
News Tribune was an article fifty years ago. "Advance news of the approaching
visit for the winner of Col. John W. Moore." Now where he got this title of
Colonel, I don't know.Because I understand he never rose above the rank of
Corporal. Jeb Stuart, but the paper had it Col. Johi W. Moore,
Charlotte, North Carolina. Came yesterday in the shape of a case of Indian
growed tobacco which he always sends ahead of him. Mr. Moore will spend the
winAter visiting his daughters, Mrs. Sam Sample and Mrs. V.P. McCarty. And
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I told my brother, Wallace, whom many of you know the story, and he said,
"I can vouch for that Indian tobacco. And you tell them that
it tasted like, well I won't repeat what he said. But Wallace said
after Grandpaw finished smoking this tobacco that he gave this sack
about this big, to his children and they would stuff it full of sand
or full of straw and use it for the baseball sacks. But he indicated a
little later on, he says I know how bad it tasted because of a story
he related to me which might be of humor to you, was the fact that Mr.
Wilson Godfrey, who lived right behind us right at Citrus Avenue at the
overhead and I neglected to tell you where our home place was, right
at the bottom of the overpass where darlie Stone and Erickson have
their insurance agency. That was our old home place. Mr. Godfrey lived
right behind us and a little to the south. And he had a barn and he
kept mules and horses and cows and things like that in it. And two
young boys were over there playing with matches, about six or seven
years old, and they were lighting the straw and watching it puff up
and burn and all of a sudden it got out of hand and started the barn to
burning, the hay to burning, and they didn't know what to do, so
they ran down the street, north, past our home place, and the first person
they saw was Mr. Fats Taylor. Fats, then, was in the Ford Agency just
across the street from the ___ Hotel used to be. They told
him that somebody had set Mr. Wilson Godfrey's house on fire, barn on fire,
and please do something. Now I got this story also from Fats Taylor Sunday.
He said that's right. He said I grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran down
there and put it out. And says, you know to this date, when I see Wallace
in court and as long as I knew Dan before his death, he said I always have
a little smile on my face and they knew what I was talking about. Wallace
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says he allow that, he thinks that, ah, Fats Taylor told my father about
the fire. I have a comment here on my mother's comments on the letter
written early in 1900, about a month after she was married to her sister
who was then in Japan. We still have this letter. "Florida is
fine for the winter but I don't know how it will be in the summer. Fort
Pierce is a new town, just built in the last six years. Our home is on
the edge of town. Now this is one block south of the Courthouse. Like
living in town and country, too. We're situated just on the bank of
the Indian River. Our home is built on the ridge and the river's about
a hundred yards in front." I hope I won't offend anybody with this next
statement. "The great misfortune here is the people have no religion."
Coming from a family that had three ministers in it, why, she made that
statement. She says, "You can't tell Sunday from any other day. The
church officers hunt and fish all day some Sundays. people
have a little religion. And the gossipers.and irregular people are the
only objections that I've ever found in this place so far." I thought
that would be a humorous thing to read to you. Our family consisted of
Adrian, who most of you know, our sister Margaret who is here
with us tonight, our brother Dick, who is in St, Petersburg in the real
estate, insurance, and appraising business, and my brother Wallace, who most
of you know and myself, four boys, one girl. I have a note down here and
if Wallze was here I wouldn't tell it but since he is not here I will tell
it. Since he and I were the two youngest in the family, he being my elder
for some five years. Back during World War II I was a major in the army at
that time. Wallace was drafted about the last six months of the war and
we had an encounter to see him out at his basic training at Fort Robinson,
Arkansas. I wrote Wallace and told him what time I would be there. Now keep
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in mind he's five years my senior. Judy and I pulled up to the Hotel
there. Wallace was waiting in his Private's uniform and he said I've
already made reservations inside for you to spend the night. He says you
go on in and chick in and I'll stay with Judy. So I went in and approached
the desk and asked the clerk, I said, "Do you have a reservation for Maj.
Sample and Mrs. Sample?" He said, "Yes, your son was in here just a few
minutes ago checking on it." Don't you tell Wallace I told you that.
With my family coming to Florida, mother and father, many of our relatives
migrated this way, also. A year or so after my father and mother were
down here, her sister came down and found and met and married Mr. Dan
McCartey, the mother and father of John and Brian McCartey. Uncle Harry
and Uncle Jack, Mr. D.H. Sample and Sample both came down. Settled
in Eau Gallie and then Deerfield and Pompano and later about the last
twenty, twenty five yearrof their life lived here in Fort Pierce. The
family was quite active in the church, the Eastern Star, the Masons. Dad
served over twenty years on the school board for a shortvas school super-
intendent. Some of the stories that happened back prior to 1920 are the
ones that I cannot remember but+hey have been told me. You can probably
figure from that how old I am, Danny. T haven't figure out how old you
are yet, but maybe they can when I date this 1920. I remembered several
things after 1920. The S mple boys at that time used to go back to
North Carolina to visit their uncle, who was the last living uncle that
they had. The old gent lived to be 96 years old. Traveling along the old
A1A, or what is US 1, and they got above Titus ville and they went across
the railroad about daylight or a little later, and when they crossed
the railroad one of them turned to the other and said, "I wonder when
the Florida east coast is going to double track this track at Titus ille
or just at that crossing. Another one says they did it five years ago.
*0d
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And he said, "No they didn't." So that commenced an argument. The argument
lasted all the way to North Carolina and all the way back to Titusville
at which time they crossed the track, got dut at night to inspect it to
make sure it was single or double track. To this date I don't know which it
was but that argument lasted for several days. Another story that you
who remember my Uncle Harry being quite a joker, jokester, might have
remembered that he had aice house at Eau Gallie and many people on the
railroad were his close friends and they used to bring fruit by for him
to chill. Back then it wasn't, they didn't have ice on the trains or if
they had it it wasn't acceptable or accessible to them so many times
they'd bring watermelons to Uncle Harry to chill down for them. So
one day he decided he'd play a trick on them. He took a nice, great
big watermelon and placedit down in the solution whcih
was used to freeze the ice. And he froze that watermelon just as hard
as a rock. And gave it to these railroad hands, who were friends of his,
and they wen y and took it on down the way and stopped to eat it. Well
the next day, as the story goes they came back and siad, "Mr. Sample, what
in the world did you do to that watermelon?" He played very coy and said,
"Why?" They said, "Well, there was something wrong with it. We couldn't
cut it with a knife, we stuck it with an icer'pick, couldn't get it open,
so we decide to take an axe and we hit it with an ax and it shattered into
a thousand pieces." After that Uncle Harry told them what he had done.
Another gent who refers to my father as the first person he mean Fort
Pierce, Mr. Lee Coats, he arrived in Fort Pierce from Titusville, and docked
his boat at my fathers fish dock and he threw the line over and the first
person he met was my father who was walking in the Fort Pierce and I under-
stand Mr. Coats is the, defended by-the Carleton family for several months
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and by him working down here and knowing about this area how good it was for
citrus, took that information all the way back to Titusville and found
his description of this area is how Mr. Sid Williams and Mr. Mosers, who
many of you know came to Fort Pierce. Another humorous story that my
brother, Adiran, likes to tell was back when he was young, Mr. Charlie
Edwards lived about three doors down from us on Drive. He
always had a bunch of hunting dogs v e was a great one to hunt. Some
prisoners s caped from the jail the old jail which was in the vicinity
where the new jail is'or you new comers in Fort Pierce, and right after
them the sheriff, well the deputies got after them and chased them right
down the front of our house, right on down through Mr. Edwards yard
yelling and maybe shooting a gun in the air, I don't know, anyway it
aroused the Edward's dogs who immediately the prisoners
on top of his garage. So the sheriff came along and just like
a bunch of coons took the prisoners baak to jail. So much for the -..
old times. Now a few of the recollec+cons that I have. My first recollection
in Fort Pierce is very tragic one, as it was my mother's death in 1941.
My first experience in school, Danny, I don't know if you ha< a haircut
like I did when you went school, they'd have probably run you home, like they
almost did to me. I had a Buster Brown haircut and it was as long as my
daughter's hair there, down like this around in back.
I wore it to school for the first day and was kidded and because myself
and two or three others had haircuts like that, and I was determined never
to go back to school again with hair looking like that. So I got home
and I could find nobody at home in my family to talk to so my cousin
John McCartey lived next door so I told him so I told John my problem.
Well John and I went to the barber shop and I told the Barber I wanted my
hair cut just like John's, whcih he did, which made me very happy. There
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were some remarks made in my family after that which I'll not repeat.
Another recollection, are the ice trucks that were pulled, drawn by the
horses, the kids gathering around them, especially on a hot summer day
and getting the chipped ice that is ten pounds or twenty five pounds was
chipped off. The shavinghwere dropped there and the kids were all
gather around just like they do around an ice crean wagon today. The old
fire whistle was in the power plant and any time we had a fire in Fort
Pierce the white would blow and all of the kids in the neighborhood would
*4h
immediately and run up to the top of the window of- took out
in Fort Pierce to see where the fire was, because you could actually tell
in most cases where it was. Then we would yell to the people down below
where the fire was and in what direction and probably tell you who's
house it was, and we would go over and enjoy the fire. My first recollection
of swimming in the ocean, they didn't have a bridge, they had what was
known as a surf side which was about a mile south of the present jetties
in the vicinity of the park. And the only way you could get there was by
boat and we went by boat, my father's boat, Mr. P.B. 's or
anybody that happened to have a boat, sailboat, motor boat, row boat.
And you rode across the river, 1 anded on a dock right amo ng the mangroves
and you had your mosquito switch with you, because in the summertimes they
weren't there by the hundreds. They were there by the billions. And as
soon as you hit the dock, you started just slapping the mosquitoes and keeping
them off of you. Ran up to a little tiny, narrow gauge railroad track, as
best I remember, pitch a picnic basket on that, and the small children got
on that and the men pushed that throughJwhat was really thenjjungle and the
ladies walked behind. And I remember when I got a little too old to get one
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"of these free rides I had to walk and the sand spurs were fierce and the
mosquitoes just about chewed you up. Also, alone shortly after this time
when swimming the English channel became a fad, we had a river swim by
Dan McCartey and Raymond _. I was one of the ones that helped
pull the oars and helped feed them a little chocolate and some soup and
water on the way. Anyway, that made the headlines about as big as
Gertrude who swam the English Channel a few years before.
We're talking about putting a new bridge over to the island. I'd like to
read to you a letter that was written to a friend of mine, by somebody who
observed the parade and the actions back in 1925 when the first bridge
was opened'across the -Causeway. "The Causeway has been officially opened
in one of the most brilliant demonstrations that little ol' Fort Pierce
has ever experienced. Truly it was an epic moving event in our towns
history. I'll send you a paper as soon as it is out. Everything closed
at noon yesterday. Not one business house in town did business after
twelve" Think we could get them all closed in this day and time for
a celebration? "We have decorated two cars for the parade the night
before, besides killing a five foot alligator in our ditch. So you know
our time was real occupied. Such magnificent floats, such patriotism
and such civic pride I never thought possible. The parade formed at the
Hotel the Fort Pierce Hotel I say it started at
the hotel but the tail end of it was a couple miles down the river front.
When the first float stopped on the drawbridge, for little Sue McMillian
to break the champagne bottle in the proper christening of the bridge, the
two tails of the parade extended north almost to Taylor's Creek, at the
golf course. There was a golf course up there at that time. And the south,
I guess, almost a couple yards home. We;re about in the middle of the
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procession and as we went over the drawbridge, the man who was counting
the cars called out our number in the parade. One thousand and eight.
Think of it. I have not heard how many cars were there but Mrs. McMillian
estimates around four thousand.' Now this is in 1925, folks, when there weren't
too many cars in this part of the country. "There was a fifty piece band
from Lake Worth, together with cars and cars of people from Lake Worth,
Fort Lauderdale, fifty from Vero, about thirty from Stuart and Judson.
Well you just never saw anything in your life like it in Fort Pierce.
At the beach there were parachutes dropped from .airplanes, daylight fireworks,
acrobatic troops, horse races, autaraces, foouraces, swimming races, and
black and white races." I don't know what the black and white races were,
but you can judge for yourself. "Band concerts, eats, eats,eats, people
everywhere, people. A most exciting and appreciative mob." That was a
letter written in 1925. Ianny was asking me tonight if I remembered the
Crystal theater and I said no but I remember the theatre.very
well, and how we used to go there especially on Saturday afternoons. My
Aunt McCartey would pick up the kids in the neighborhood, go down
to the theatre on Second Street. Of course all of the movies then
were silent, had captions to be read, and we would sit on back of the benches,
hard benches, I mean they were hard, and Aunt would read the captions
to all the kids in the neighborhood in the back. I'm sure we disturbed
half the movie, but that was part of the fun in going. (Pardon me).
I remember working downtown around 1925, or 26. Now if I miss-this date
folks, one or two years, please forgive me. You might have remembered
that your eldest or your youngest born on that date,and I was wrong, so
please forgive me if I miss it a year or two. Along about 1925, 26, I was
walking down by Mr. Funeral Home and Sheriff Merritt, who was our
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sheriff back then said," 'V That's my father. "Come here.
I've got something to show you." And I toddled in with him, or walked in
with him, not toddled. I was seven years old then. I walked in with him
and my eyes opened when I saw what lr. P.__ ,had. He had the Ashly gang,
nortorious, murderous gang in this part of the country. The worst we've
ever seen. There they were stretched out on Mr. P 's Funeral Home.
Something that I always remember as a young boy. Another thing I remember,
as I say we were kin to the McCartey's, We lived in and out of their
house and vice versa, living almost next to each other on the river. -ARr&
And most of you, I'm sure remember Dana McCartey, Grandmother McCartey,
John's grandmother, Brian's grandmother, Dan's grandmother. Dana was
quite a character. She believed in annual physical for kids. I don't
know if you'd call them physical or not, but it seemed that every spring,
during a certain time of the year, and she would always wait until she
could trap the neighborhood kids, and we all took the biggest dose of
Caster oil you ever saw. Whether we were sick or not, if we were there
we took it. And I'm sure that that went on for years. I remember hearing
about it and seeing some of the first football games that Fort Pierce
had, including members of the boys, Dick Sample,
Bill Tylander and several of the others. Maybe there's some here tonight.
But they had no football uniforms. Played in sneakers. Had no helmets.
Some of them may of had a shoulder pad or two and overalls. And the
first game that they played was against Fort Lauderdale and it ened up
about the half time with a fight, so they called it off for the rest bf
the day. Along about that same time I was spending the night of the
fourth of July at the McCartey's. I believe I'm right on this date; either
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Fourth of July or Armistice Day And about three o'clock in the
morning a terrific explosion took place. I remember Uncle Dan, I believe
he was living then, went down to see what it was and came back. He said
somebody had set off some dynamite on the sea wall. It turned out to be
at least a case or two of dynamite on the the sea wall, and, to celebrate,
and it knocked out windows in the McCartey house, the old Jones house, which
is still standing down there, and in the courthouse, in the Episcopal
church and many other homes around there. Now, Danny, I don't know who
did this, but they say that there's some young bucks back then having a
good time. How about it?
?: No comment.
S: Another story that I remember my brother Dick telling was as a doctor
he and several of his friends, I won't mention the family, but many of
you heere may recognize it when I relate the incident. To get a little
extra spending money these friend of Dick's would go down to roller some
groceries and buy eggs. Well, let's see. I don't know what they would
cost, eight to twenty five cents a dozen. That-w,6r-be high for them.
But instead of bu#ythem they would charge them to their father and run
around the Restaurant and see them for fifteen cents. So this
family, the father of the family got a little apprehensive and kind of
worried and asked his wife one time, "How in the world can we eat forty
dollars worth of eggs in one month?" That enddd that sort of incident.
You all remember back then the Sunday Blue Laws I'm sure, and one of our
old timers here was in court not too long ago. And I was asking Wallace
about it. He said that in the process of selecting jurors they ask every
body if you've ever been convicted of a crime or been in jail.. I've never
been on a jury. I don't know But anyway, this particular person said,
St. Lucie Tape #4
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Page 17
"Well, Judge, yes." He said, "Well, what was the offense?" He said,
"Well, I don't know if you could exactly call it an offense. In 1918
I was put in jail for playing baseball on Sunday." So you can see the
difference on how things go in thsbday and time. My recreation back
then when I was a young boy, living on the river consisted mainly of
playing on the river. Every morning as soon as breakfast was over,
down to the river we would go. Tylander, McCartey, everybody living in
that neighborhood. Rowing on boat, building rafts, fishing, sailing.
We had plenty to do. We had built in entertainment. We didn't have
any trouble finding .entertainment. -En-the Summertime I remember down
here in frori\f Dorothy Vernon's restaurant which is now
we sold pineapples from the McCartey pineapple patch to gin a little
extra spending money on Coca Colas. And I remember at that time on the
highway, and if you can picture this up where R & H borders and Donthy
Vernon's are right now, that we couLId stand out in the middle of the
highway and not see Fort.Pierce. You just couldn't see anything up
that way. A lot of water has gone over the bridge.
"he Samples came, settled, had their families, educated their
children, opened businesses, established professions, and I hope they're
looked upon as some of the-pioneers who opened this part of Florida.
We are now many. I count two brothers, one sister, one wife, two
daughters, six 4irst cousins, four neices and nephews, thirty two sons
and daughters of cousins, and one grand-nephew living in Fort Pierce.
A~ Cov'c OA"'<.1
As I look back over the people t-at-are-here I see many, many who heled
develop it and many who rose to higher positions in our state and nation.
I named some of them specifically. You may remember them. Major General
Vern Mudge who live in' Gen. Mudge commanded the first
St. Lucie Tape #4
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Page 18
Calvary Division of World War II. Our own fond memories of our own
Dan McCartey, late Governor of the State, of Alan Thomas, thirty years
as the Justice on the Florida Supreme Court, soon to retire, of Gen.
Leonard Chapman, who many of you probably don't know. If you think back
a few years ago, there was a Methodist here, by the name of Chapman. I
say a few years ago, over thirty years ago. His son is now Commandant for
the Marine Corp, a four star general, Leonard Chapman.
Harrison, who recently lost his mother in Fort Pierce, president of
the Pensacola Junior College, and now on his way to Texas to head a
college in that area. And Gray, who I grew up with, who gave
his life for his country and his God, as prisoner, even though he was a
minister in the Japanese camp, even though he was not in the military
service. And I look back with fond memories to the greatness of
Dan McCartey, to the devotion of his patience of Adrian Sample, to the love
of this area of and Saunders, to the concern of fifty
years of __ or her students, to the warmness and fond
memories we have of Mr. to the good times of our schools,
and our churches, and to the fact that I have been able to play a small part
in the development of and area. Thank you.
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