Category: Miami Stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was born in 1939 in Winston-Salem, N.C. I’m the last of eight children. I was born to John Fair and Mary Lou Fair.

People ask me about the name “Talmadge,” which is an unusual name for me to have. The day I was born, I came home and the insurance broker came by and inquired as to whether or not my mother had named me. She said no. He said, “Why don’t you name him Talmadge?’’

The irony is that Herman Eugene Talmadge, Sr., was a segregationist. [Talmadge, a U.S. senator from Georgia from 1957 to 1981, was one of several Southern senators who boycotted the Democratic National Convention of 1964 after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.]

I finished high school in 1957. I went off to Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C. The most exciting part about being there was this was when the Civil Rights revolution was beginning. I couldn’t wait to get out of class to go downtown Charlotte and protest.

I went to graduate school in Atlanta. Atlanta was the bedrock of black intellectual society. With all those colleges and students there, we demonstrated every day. When I finished graduate school, I had a master’s degree in social work.

I was 24. My notion was that I would volunteer for the Army, but they wouldn’t take me because of an injury. So now it’s 1963, I’m home and have no job. I went up to the Winston-Salem Urban League and told them I was looking for a job.

The head of the Winston-Salem League asked me to work for the Urban League, which was founded in 1910 to improve the lives of black Americans. He found an opening in Miami. Around August 1963, I took my first plane ride to Miami for an interview.

I don’t know whether or not they intended to hire me, but I intended to be hired. I convinced them that I was like Jesus, that I could walk on water. Even though I had no experience, I had commitment and dedication. Long story short, I got the job.

The director of the Urban Renewal Program was looking for a deputy director, and they wanted the deputy director to be a person of color because the greatest impact of the Urban Renewal Program and I-95 would be on black people who lived in Overtown.

James Whitehead, then CEO of the Miami Urban League, got the job and left. They were getting ready to start a search for a new CEO when the board heard that Whitney Young Jr., the executive director of the National Urban League, was planning on filling the vacancy in Miami with one of his friends.

As a result, the board became upset. Before they let someone else pick the new CEO, they were willing to give it to a young, inexperienced man.

They said, “You want this job?’’ I said, “If you all want me to have it, I’ll take it.’’

I became the youngest president and CEO in the history of the Urban League movement at age 24. I didn’t know anything about running anything. I knew everything about being aggressive about the things that I believed in.

Our role was to begin to do the things to make life better for black people in spite of the circumstances. In 1963, we started with a staff of three people. In less than a decade, we became the largest Urban League affiliate in the history of the movement in terms of employees. We had 476 full-time employees, plus 25 part-timers and four consultants.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had a formula. In whatever city he’d visit, he’d identify the top black lawyer, the top black preacher and the top black activist in that city. When he came to have his first meeting in Miami at Mount Sinai Baptist Church, I was chosen as the activist. I got a chance to meet Martin and I’ll never forget it.

I was the Muhammad Ali of black Dade County and I was talking the talk. I was talking back to white folk, sassing white folk. I couldn’t wait to get to the conference in Louisville, Ky., just step out and say, “Yeah, I’m here! Ol’ bad T. Willard.’’

While I was writing my decade of progress report, it said the Urban League of Greater Miami was doing great but its constituency was not. I realized then that we’re not here to do great for ourselves. We’re here for the people who we’re supposed to serve.

We came up with a leadership Miami component. We began to look at identifying persons to place them on boards. We identified more than 400 young black people. They came through our leadership training classes and we placed them throughout this community. We integrated every workforce in Dade County.

If you were black, you could not work east of Biscayne Boulevard. That was the unwritten code. We changed that. We ran the open occupancy law. We drafted that law and got it passed.

The next step was clearly a step that my parents understood, education. I know today that the only thing that is broken in my community is the will to achieve.

We decided to make the league self-sufficient. Now we can say what we want to say, do what we want do, be who we want to be without the support of other folks. We’re the largest developer of housing in Liberty City, second only to the city of Miami.

We have the freedom to be as aggressive as we want to be in helping change the system. Martin said, ‘Free at last, free at last.’

Well, we’re free, we’re free.

This story was compiled by Museum of Miami intern Lisann Ramos, as recounted by T. Willard Fair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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