Written as published in "Even More Tales of Sebastian" courtesy of the Sebastian Area Historical Society.
Interviewed by Phil Bova, September 19, 2010. Edited by Wilma Bertling.
SEBASTIAN GOLF COURSE AND AIRPORT
My father’s family and his family and my dad moved here near Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1914. My dad would be 2 years old at that time. With his brothers and sisters and mother they moved into an area that was near the church on Roseland Road. His father was basically a hunter, trapper, farmer sort of an individual, and he just made his living, fed his family, grew a garden, and they just lived more or less off the land in those days. There was not a lot of commerce in the area; He died when my father was still young.
Father went to school here in Sebastian, and when he got to working age he worked in the grove for the Vickers family. He was an employee, and later he worked as a commercial fisherman on a part-time basis in order to help pay the bills. He did some hunting and trapping. That would have been in the late 20s, early 30s. He commercially fished and was a farmer and still lives in the area. He’s going to be 99 years old on the twenty-first day of January.
My mother was born near Perry, FL, which is near Tallahassee. Her father and mother and family moved into Indian River County in the mid-20s. I think she was 12 years old, so that would have been 1927. She and her brothers and sisters moved out on what is now 81st Street. We didn’t have street numbers in those days.
Her father was very interesting, He was a saw miller in north Florida, and you’re going back 100 years now. As a kid I always thought north Florida was like North Carolina. I’m going to North Florida, or I’m from north Florida. It was always referred to as if it were another state. He did saw milling there. After he moved down here, he was more or less a farmer. He grew crops and fed his family off the land. He raised my father, who is one of 10 children. So is my mother. Ten children and my father is the only survivor of his sibling; my mother has two sisters left, and they’re both still alive.
There were some general stores. Yeah, you had a general store where you got your supplies, your flour, and your cornmeal and the staples. You raised your own chickens, and pigs and cows, and of course, a lot of people ate a lot of wild game.
There is more wild game now than there was 90 years ago when my dad hunted. Wild turkeys walk through my father’s yard. Even when I was a kid it was very rare to see wild animals, because the people who lived here trapped them and ate ‘em-big turkeys and rabbits. The local population fed off the wild life. Pg. 93 Tails of Sebastian
I started a couple years of school in Indiantown; my father worked on a farm project there during World War II. When they moved back to the Wabasso area. We lived at about 81st Street in Wabasso, just off of 510. I went to the Wabasso Elementary School 1st through 8th with no kindergarten.
When I came back to the area in the ‘50s there was a new roller rink in Vero Beach, so a lot of us went there. That was the big thing. You also had the Florida Theater in Vero on 14th Avenue.
We went to the beach a lot. The beach’s always there for swimming and surfing. You had the river, and you fished.
One of the things that I liked to do that’s long gone is build “dune buggies.” We would take a Model-A Ford, put big tires on it, cut the body off, and then ride up and down the beach. It was legal in those days. They were jalopies, but we were kids, and we built them specifically to run up and down in the sand. Our beach is not as hard as up around Daytona. You didn’t get out there with your car but one time!
When I graduated from Vero Beach High School in ’54 it was the segregated white high school for Indian River County. That was the only public school then. Our class was about 100.
The black students had their own school system with a high school in Gifford. Integration didn’t come until the ‘60s. I went into the military in’59; they had integrated the military in the ‘50s.
In high school you had to play football, just like now, as far as the sports were concerned. Vero was a football-oriented school, and it still is. They also had baseball, basketball and other sports. But football was a big thing! Their rival was Ft. Pierce.
My mother, my children and I have graduated Vero High. One child lives in Indian River County, the other lives in Brevard County. My five grand kids are graduating Sebastian High and Palm Bay High. I have a great-grandchild on the way. That’s almost six generations.
I spent a couple years in the Army, in what they call the “Cold War time” After service, I was employed for a short time in Ft. Pierce. Then I worked in West Palm Beach for 10 years before returning to this area in ’73; I have been back about 37 years. A lot of things have changed here radically since I was a youngster-a lot more people, a lot more development, lots of things going on. There was not much going on when I was a kid here.
Of course, we had the commercial fishing. There were names that are even familiar today. The Semblers operated a first-class operation. My father fished for them, and I did as a young man. Archie Smith and the Sims brothers were in the commercial fishing.
Commercial fishing as far as Indian River County was concerned was out of Sebastian. That’s because of the riverfront we have here and the Inlet.
Probably the largest employers at the time would have been in farming, a lot of it citrus. There was the Vickers family which was large and predominantly in Sebastian. They owned quite a few groves and farmed. Nearby were the Ryalls and Michaels. Paul Kroegel was a
boat builder and conservationist Rodney Kroegel was an electrician, and quite a bright guy. He put the electricity in the house that I was raised in. He had a movie theater in Sebastian believe it or not!
Work Cited:
Sebastian Area Historical Society. Even more Tales of Sebastian. Sebastian, Sebastian Area Historical Society, Inc, 2011.
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