Vero Beach was a relatively quiet little town back in the 1960s, with friendly neighborhoods and unpaved roads, fragrant aromas from citrus groves permeating the air and cattle ranches outnumbering gated communities. Roughly 50 indomitable senior and junior matriarchs of the era gathered recently at the Ocean Grill for a Vero Beach Matriarchs Reunion Luncheon to reminisce and share memories.
“I put this together because my mother-in-law Gloria Gibbons said, ‘I rarely see this person or that person.’ I just wish my mom was here because she too was a Vero Beach matriarch,” explained Patti Gibbons, whose mother, Marilyn “Ollie” Willmot, taught for more than 35 years at St. Helen’s Catholic School.
“This luncheon is a tribute to these women and it’s a reunion for them,” said Gibbons. “Back in the ’60s, Vero Beach had three grade schools, one high school, one theater, one drive-in theater, family-owned businesses and eateries. These women car-pooled together, belonged to garden clubs, ran the school’s PTAs, volunteered for the ambulance squad, etc. They had much in common back then, but time and family changes separated them over the years.”
The Ocean Grill – for generations THE place to go for special occasions – was an obvious choice and the group met in the large room known by locals as the “bucket.”
“The rumor is that in the mornings, when they weren’t really open, Waldo [Sexton] would hold court. They called it the ‘bucket of blood’ because they would all drink bloody Mary’s,” explained Mary Ellen Replogle, whose family has managed the restaurant since 1965.
A favorite but frightening memory of hers involved the 1949 birth of her first child, Anne, at the old Vero Beach Airport Naval Hospital. Just a day after delivery, the nurse said there was going to be a bad storm and that they could take and protect the baby, but she had to take ‘shelter’ under the bed. “It was a real bad one,” said Replogle of the hurricane. “The whole building was swaying.”
Colleen Beatty began visiting in 1946 when her in-laws bought a house in McAnsh Park and moved here in 1958. After raising a family she attended nursing school with her daughter, Donna Beatty Williams. The two graduated together in 1972 and became registered nurses.
Williams recalled having dinner at Ocean Grill the night of her first prom. “I ordered lobster and when it came I didn’t know what to do with it!” laughed Williams. “I was almost in tears. It was an up-north lobster with these big claws; not what we get down here. And there I was, probably 16 or 17, sitting there with a big old orange thing on my plate, trying to eat it in a prom dress.”
Mary Etters Schlitt was born in Wabasso and graduated from Vero Beach High School in 1948, where she has especially fond memories as the head majorette. “My husband [Frank] saw me on the field and he said, ‘I want to meet that drum majorette.’ We married a year later and had nine children; seven still live in Vero,” said Schlitt, who also has 42 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Patsy Helseth was a war bride who met husband Phillip Helseth when he was stationed overseas. She moved here from war-torn England in 1946, carrying a return ticket she happily did not have to use, and married into the Norwegian pioneering family that settled here around 1894.
Daughter Susan Helseth Roberson, who remembers sneaking into the old drive-in by hiding in the trunk of the car, later taught school for 32 years, 26 at Rosewood Magnet.
“The wonderful thing is I know my generation and the generation I taught,” said Ouida Wyatt, who taught here for 26 years.
Pat DuBose was born in Sebastian in 1927 into a family that moved here in 1908 and has fond memories of life on the lagoon – swimming, fishing and boating, all the while swatting mosquitoes and sandflies.
“That was before air conditioning. We didn’t even have streetlights in Sebastian,” said Du Bose. “We would walk along with a flashlight and a mosquito switch made out of palmetto palms.”
Everyone remembered shopping at Alma Lee’s Children’s Shop, but one thing puzzled them.
“There was a distinct aroma of everything you bought at Alma Lee’s Children’s Shop; it was like a brand,” said Patti Gibbons with a laugh. “We all knew when we got a present, as soon as you opened the box, that it was something from Alma Lee’s. Everybody wanted to have something from Alma Lee’s.”
Asked about it, Alma Lee Loy smiled and explained, “There was a notorious aroma; it got to be a trademark. It turns out that it was a combination of formaldehyde – all the clothes came with it – and must from the old building. I finally got a chemist from the Vero Beach High School. He came in and he hadn’t been in there five minutes before saying it was formaldehyde.”
Hariot Greene had a dance studio on the second floor of the old administration building at the airport and remembers looking out the window between classes to watch the Dodgers practice. “Mary Jane Stewart’s father was an attorney for the city and arranged for me to have a room upstairs; Mary Jane was just a 5-year-old,” said Greene.
Wanda Simmons Knight, born here in 1933, learned at age 7 how to drive her father’s pickup truck. “When I turned 16 I went to get my driver’s license and there were two highway patrolmen – their nicknames were Red Rider and Little Beaver. And they said, ‘All you have to do is take the written test. We’ve seen you driving all your life!’”
“This is the best luncheon I have ever been to,” said Ann Howard, who, as a 13-year old, hated Vero Beach when her father moved the family here in 1939. “Now I love it. Vero Beach is one of the most beautiful towns in the whole state of Florida.”
Organizers plan to host another reunion in the fall. Anyone interested should contact Sue Wodtke Smith.
