In Old Punta Gorda
by Angie Larkin
April, 2005

Editor's Note: In Old Punta Gorda is reprinted here with the approval of the copyright holder, The Punta Gorda Historical Society. Copies of the book may be purchased at the Train Depot in Punta Gorda. In this edition we have included chapters 16 and 17. Return each month as the book continues..... (If you missed the first chapters you may find them here... 1-5 , 6-9 , 10-11, 12-13, 14-15, 16-17 )
 

Chapter Eighteen

Shortly after Col. John C. Pepper moved his family here in 1896, his daughter, Norma, opened a private school in a one-room house near Herald

In Old
Punta Gorda

  Feature Story:
 

With the Taylor Street School finally completed, Miss Norma Pepper became both a first-grade teacher and a legend.  Leo Wotitzky, one of our town’s leading attorneys and one of her pupils, notes that “She taught just about everybody who grew up in Punta Gorda.”

Nathaniel, “Doc” McQueen, son of one of the first doctors in town, had a fond and vivid memory of  Miss Pepper and the town.  “In my early childhood there were no paved streets and only one sidewalk on part of Marion Avenue.  The first asphalt paved roads were on Marion Avenue from where the hospital is now, through downtown and out to Berry Street.  Taylor was paved only as far as the schoolhouse.

“When I went to school”, Doc recalled, “Miss Norma Pepper was my first teacher.  She was a little gray-haired lady, tiny and sort of stooped and she carried a big palmetto switch.  She’d hit that blackboard a real whack to get your attention.”  When asked if the switch was ever used for discipline, Doc replied, “No, she didn’t have to!  She was a forceful lady and she could stare a hole in you.”

Doc can recall some of those early lessons by heart.  “When you go to the circus,” Miss Pepper would say, “The little children sit in the front row and back of them are the big folks, the capital letters.  Little children--ABCs, BIG FOLKS--ABCD.  After 70 years, I’ve never forgotten that; it’s what made Miss Norma Pepper the fine teacher that she was.”

Another one of Miss Norma Pepper’s pupils was Minta Harper Hopper Harder.  Calvin Monroe Hopper brought his family here from Breckenridge, Texas, in 1913; Minta was nine years old, her younger sister, Ethel, six.  All the family chattel, including furniture, two teams of mules, chickens and the hired hand came by boxcar; the Hoppers came by passenger train.

After a short stay in Punta Gorda, Calvin bought a 160-acre homestead in neighboring Cleveland and moved his family there.  To supplement his income from the ranch, he used his mule teams to haul oranges from the various groves to the boxcars.  Minta’s mother, Rose, contributed to the family income by teaching in Cleveland, Charlotte Harbor, Punta Gorda and Acline.  When teaching in Charlotte Harbor, Rose had to leave home before dawn; Calvin would drive her by mule team to meet the early mail boat.  In the late afternoon, husband, mules and children would await her return.  It took a plucky woman to teach under these conditions and raise a family besides.

When Minta graduated from Charlotte High School out of a class of eight, she was the first girl to receive a state scholarship for teaching.  After graduating from Florida State College for Women (Florida State University now) she taught one year at Lake Butler and then returned home.  Mathematics was her “strong point”; she taught plane geometry, math, algebra 1 and 2.  “and any other teaching they needed someone to do”.

It was the beginning of the Great Depression and times were very hard.  Minta remembers that the teachers received a portion of their salary in script, which they traded with merchants for food and other essentials.

While she was teaching at Charlotte High, Minta met a young barber, Willie Harper, who had just opened his own shop in town; shaves were ten cents, haircuts, a quarter!  Love blossomed.  Minta and Willie were married and Minta lost her job.  During these difficult times in Punta Gorda, a married woman wasn’t allowed to teach if her husband was employed; that’s how bad things were.  “It was a terrible time; my husband wasn’t making any money.”  By now, the Harpers had become a family with the birth of a daughter and there were three mouths to feed.  Minta learned of a position in Crawfordville teaching French.  Taking the couple’s year-old daughter with her, Minta taught there for two years.  “I had only two years of French and it was a struggle to keep ahead of the class!”  She also taught history and math.

The young mother and wife returned to Punta Gorda when married women were permitted to teach again and remained a teacher here for 38 years, retiring in 1968.

Another teacher during those lean years was Leo Wotitzky, now a well-known attorney in town.  His family, originally from New York, had arrived in Punta Gorda in the late 1800s.  They came, with all their family belongings, in a railroad boxcar and got off at Punta Gorda simply because it was the end of the line.

Jacob Wotitzky started a general merchandise store on Marion Avenue west of Sullivan Street.  By general merchandise, says Leo, “They sold a little bit of everything.”  Jacob was one of the first merchants in town and did a brisk business.  Later on his son, Ed, (the father of Frank and Leo) took over the business, extending it to many of the islands surrounding the area, even as far south as Miami.  He sold his wares by sailing to the isolated settlers.

At about the same time a Mr. Hart owned a large store on Retta Esplanade and his business flourished until a devastating fire razed the building, which was not insured.  Unnerved by this disaster, the Hart family returned to their native Philadelphia and their former life there.  Their daughter, Celia, later returned to Punta Gorda as a young lady, met and married Edward Wotitzky.  This was Frank and Leo’s mother.

From the first grade, where Leo was taught by the legendary Miss Norma Pepper, all the way through school, he was a hard-working student.  After graduating from Charlotte High School, the young man entered the University of Florida.

He had dreams of becoming a lawyer but, with insufficient funds for law school, he turned to another field, education.  His first teaching job was in Crescent City where he earned the magnificent sum of $85 a month.  “There were two months when they couldn’t pay me and the only thing that kept me from starving to death was the kind lady who ran the boarding house where I stayed.  She took pity on me and saw that I was fed until I got some back pay!”

Leo returned home to Punta Gorda and taught math and science in the high school.  To augment his meager teaching salary, he went to work for the Punta Gorda Herald as a printer’s devil and eventually worked up to editor.

The early 30’s saw Leo in Baltimore in a civil service position helping to set up the social security system.  Later on, even before finally earning his law degree, he served as a member of the Florida Legislature from Charlotte County for 12 years.  Leo helped revolutionize public education through a more thorough teacher training program and an increase in teachers’ salaries, a need he had experienced personally.  By 1940 he had returned to teaching and for many years served as a legislator, editor of the paper and teacher all at the same time.  “I had to do a lot of different jobs to make a living.”

While working on the Punta Gorda Herald, Leo, trying to lure qualified teachers here, had compiled an elaborate brochure depicting the advantages of teaching in our fair city.  There were pictures of the old hotel, views of the harbor and a scenario that described Punta Gorda as a tropical paradise.

Among the many applicants intrigued by this brochure was a pretty young teacher who sent in her application accompanied by a photograph.  Leo often dropped by the school superintendent’s office to check the response to his pamphlet.  Upon seeing this young lady’s picture, Leo remarked to the superintendent, “You ought to hire this one!”  Yes, you’ve guessed it.  The young lady was hired to teach Home Economics at Charlotte High School and later became Leo’s wife, Zena.

In 1950 Leo realized his dream and entered the University of Florida Law School and in 1953 another dream was realized when he and Zena were married.  The happy couple settled in Punta Gorda where Leo joined his brother Frank’s law office.  For 32 years the law firm has grown, expanded and prospered.  Who says brothers can’t get along!

Charles Jones, Marshal of Bartow, Florida, was only 38 years old when he died of malaria, leaving a young widow and four children.  Mrs. Jones’ brother, W. Luther Koon (cattleman and rancher) lived in Punta Gorda and she moved her family there to be near him.  To help make ends meet, the young mother sewed for the townsfolk and worked as a practical nurse for Dr. McQueen’s patients.  Her brother, of course, aided the little family financially too.

Sallie, the only girl, was barely five years old when the family arrived but already held her own with her three brothers, Charlie, Ferg and Neal (later to become owners of the Jones Brothers Meat Market).  Sallie was a happy, outgoing child with a great zest for life and learning.  In those days Punta Gorda was still a very small town with fishing and cattle the main industries and the streets were paved with oyster shells from the bay.  Picturesque as it was, between the cattle, fish and strewn oyster shells, there were always swarms of flies in town.  This was probably one of the reasons for the typhoid epidemic that hit the town while Sallie was growing up.  The young girl was fortunate enough to be among those who escaped the dreaded disease.

Sallie started school on Goldstein Street in a building that has since been converted to apartments and finished high school at the Taylor Street School.  Interested in teaching, she took the state teachers’ exam and received a certificate.  She taught first in Chokoloskee and then Pine Island before coming home to Punta Gorda.  She taught the lower grades here and then transferred to teaching high school history in 1929.

Always in the back of “Miss Sallie’s” mind was a determination to get a college degree.  She accomplished this by attending Florida Southern College during the summer months when she wasn’t teaching.  During this period in her life, Miss Sallie fell in love with a young collegian and they became engaged.  Tragically, he was killed in an automobile accident and Miss Sallie never married.  From then on Sallie Jones devoted her life to education.

Edith Jones speaks fondly of her aunt.  “She was a bushel of fun and loved to entertain us.  She played games with us, sang to us and took us to the movies and the beach--anywhere we wanted to go.  She was dedicated to education.  Her whole life was teaching.”

In 1938 “Miss Sallie”, as she was affectionately known, was elected County Superintendent of Schools, the first woman to hold that position in the State of Florida.  She was a popular Superintendent--her office was always open to everyone.  She began the first school lunchroom program and established the policy that all teachers be qualified in their special fields.  Miss Sallie was respected by all and became a goodwill ambassador between school and community.  She retired in 1953.

Our little town was growing by leaps and bounds and a new elementary school was built in 1956.  At that time it was suggested that the school be named in honor of Miss Sallie, a beloved educator.  The school board agreed and in 1959 the building was officially dedicated, the Sallie Jones Elementary School.  Miss Sallie, now terminally ill, was unable to attend the ceremonies but was there in spirit.  She passed away the following year, leaving an indelible mark on the education system of Charlotte County.

Jesse Knight, the great grandfather of Gladys Roberts Wilt, was one of the first “big” cattlemen in the state and founded Knight’s Station east of Tampa.  Her grandfather, Shadrick “Shade” Hancock was also a cattleman who settled in the Myakka area, driving his cattle along a trail blazed by an earlier cattleman,  Ziba King, (King’s Highway) south to the Peace River.  Shade also built three churches around the Myakka area and a schoolhouse for the teachers who traveled the countryside.

One of his daughters, Mary Frances, was a woman ahead of her time.  In an era when most young girls stayed home until they married, Mary Francis taught school.  Through her father’s encouragement to learn, she was able to get a teaching certificate.  She taught in Bee Ridge, probably named because anything over 3 feet high in Florida is called a ridge and there were beehives there.

In 1898 Mary Francis married Mitchell Roberts whose family had left Georgia during the great Depression of 1892 and settled in Bradentown, as it was called then.  The newlyweds stayed in the area for a while, started a family and eventually migrated to Punta Gorda where their last two children were born.  When Mitchell learned that the railroad was planning to open up the region (later to become Murdock) to facilitate the shipping of phosphate to Boca Grande, he decided to move his family there.  He reasoned that he could raise produce there and the location would be ideal for shipping it to the northern markets.

There was one drawback to this move; there was no school near Murdock.  The three youngest weren’t affected by this for a while.  Gladys, the next to youngest, was only two and a half years old at the time.  However, Mary Francis, attacked this newest problem with her usual fervor.  She tutored all of them with an unflagging enthusiasm and  dedication with the result that, when a school was finally opened, Gladys, then eight, entered the second grade.

This first school was held in a room of Mr. Murdock’s hotel and had one teacher for all grades.  The little girl walked “through fields of blue violets and wild iris” to school.  It was a happy time for the youngster.  Although Mitchell Roberts did fairly well with his produce business, “there was not much cash money but I never felt underprivileged”.

When Gladys was ready to enter the 7th grade, the family moved back to Punta Gorda amid many sad tears on Gladys’ part.

She had loved living in Murdock.  She attended the Taylor Street School and was a member of the first graduating class of Punta Gorda High School in 1927.  Graduation exercises were held in the new building later to be called Charlotte Senior High School.  Gladys was editor of the school’s first annual, “The Silver King”.

Her mother’s love of teaching inspired Gladys to major in education; later she taught for three years in Nokomis and Boca Grande.  An urge to see something of the outside world led her to visit a sister in New York City for a year.  Her teaching certificate was not valid in New York, but she was lucky to find employment at various jobs.  “The Depression was rampant, businessmen were selling apples on the street corners and there were soup lines in Times Square.”

Arriving back home after a year in the big city, Gladys taught 4th grade in Punta Gorda and remembers that one of her pupils was Tosie Quednau (Hindman).  It turned out to be an eventful year; after the initial six months, the school superintendent called a special meeting of all teachers.  He announced to his stunned audience that neither the County nor the State had enough money to finish out the school year!  There was nothing to do but close the school.  Gladys, (shades of her mother’s ingenuity) had an idea.  She suggested that the faculty continue to teach for one more month without pay.  The program would be accelerated to prepare the children for their next grade.  All the teachers agreed to this plan and the youngsters finished their classes at a stepped-up pace.  The following year the necessary funds became available and school open on schedule.

“Doc McQueen’s responsible for my coming to Punta Gorda.”  That was Bernice Blacklock Rountree’s answer to my question of why she came here in 1937.  Bernice’s father, Raymond Blacklock, was connected with the University of Florida and Doc, as Charlotte County Agricultural Agent, had met him and become a friend of the family.  Bernice, who taught school in Perry, was home on a visit when Doc dropped in for dinner.  In the course of the evening Doc mentioned there was an opening for a Home Economics teacher in Punta Gorda, if Bernice was interested.  Later, an interview was set up in Bradenton with Miss Sallie Jones and Bernice was hired to teach at Charlotte High School.

The McQueen family owned an apartment house on Olympia Street and Bernice stayed there.  She remembers Miss Hattie Huested, City Clerk, managed the place which was filled with teachers except for one couple, the Hyatts, and Miss Hattie.  Bernice taught 7th grade Science, 9th grade English, all Home Economic classes and ran the school lunchroom.  “I used my advanced Home Economics students to prepare and serve the food; they received extra credits for this.  The menu was simple:  hamburgers, hot dogs and cold drinks”  Among the cold drinks served was Coca Cola and the truck delivering it to the lunchroom was driven by Ebby Rountree.  Ebby and his brother, Erwin, had the local franchise.  Soon Bernice and Ebby were “an item”.

“There was a great girls’ basketball team in school at that time and I had to ride the bus with them when they traveled out of town; I also took tickets at the football games--a teacher was jack-of-all-trades in those days for $126 a month!”

The town was still small enough so that the teachers all knew each other and were friends.  Many of them, like Bernice, dated local boys.  Lucille McQueen introduced her brother, Doc, to a fellow teacher, Margaret Brabson.  There were dates at Desguin’s Movie Theater, dinner parties, trips to Chadwick’s Beach (Englewood) where there was a pavilion for dancing.  Bernice Blacklock and Ebby Rountree were eventually married as were Doc McQueen and Margaret Brabson.

Bernice stopped working after her marriage except for occasional substitute teaching.  Even that came to an end with the birth of a daughter, Adelia, in 1941.  In 1947 Bernice returned to full-time teaching and remained a teacher until her retirement in June of 1974.  Ebby retired in 1971 and they continued to live in Punta Gorda.

Violet Harner is not a native Punta Gordan, but she and her husband looked upon the little town as their second home, spending the winters here from the 1920s on.

They grew to love the “little fishing village” and every winter they drove their house trailer into a rented spot in the municipal trailer park, now Laishley Park.  Even in 1946 Punta Gorda was still small.  The Post Office was still in the arcade and the Seminole Pharmacy still did a thriving business.  That particular drugstore stands out in Mrs. Harner’s mind because of the excellent ice cream and because the Mobley brothers always wore black hats and white shirts!

In 1946 the Harners spent the entire school year here because Violet had accepted a position teaching the fourth grade, which was then located in the Charlotte High School.  By an unusual happenstance the Harners’ only son, Lloyd, attended the same school as a high school freshman.  Miss Sallie Jones was county superintendent of schools at that time and had made several improvements in the school system.  She was instrumental in bringing about a closer relationship between school and community.

It was under this system that Violet Harner taught her first year in Punta Gorda.  She recalls that, if a child was absent for more than a few days, the teacher was required to visit the home and find out what the problem was.  Mrs. Harner also recalls that the students no only received a good broad education, but ate bountiful lunches as well.

“The cafeteria workers and some volunteer mothers canned all the fresh fruits and vegetables for the daily meal.  There was no such thing as free meals then, but they didn’t cost much and they were good, homemade ones.”  She also remembers, in particular, a weekly treat of blackberry cobbler!

The Harners moved here permanently in 1958, building a home in Port Charlotte off Conway Boulevard.  Mrs. Harner taught at the Sallie Jones school in Punta Gorda for the next fifteen years.  There were no longer ladies canning in the kitchen, federal aid had entered the picture; there were free lunches amid a fast-food atmosphere.

In her last three years of teaching, Mrs. Harner devoted many hours to a reading lab for exceptional children.  After retiring, she made her home in bustling Port Charlotte with her memories of quieter days amid the smell of chalk mixed with the delightful aroma of homemade blackberry cobbler.

What could be more fitting than a teacher living in a converted school house.  Lonnie Friday Person’s lovely home on Virginia Avenue in Punta Gorda was once a school house in Bermont and, to add to the coincidence, she attended that school as a little girl living in Rouxville, now known as Babcock Ranch!  Her father, Otto Friday, was bookkeeper and manager of the ranch and the family lived 25 miles from town out in the woods.  By the time Lonnie was in the 9th grade, the family moved to Punta Gorda and the young girl attended Charlotte High.

During World War II, Lonnie attended Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee (now Florida State) and remembers that her parents couldn’t drive her home on vacations because of gas rationing.  When she went home on visits, she took a bus always crowded with servicemen.  She recalls one trip back to school when she had to stand all the way to Tampa.  Her college roommate was Betty Jo Guthrie, who became her sister-in-law, when she married Lonnie’s brother, Judge Elmer Friday.

Her first teaching job was in Frostproof, Florida.  She taught third grade there and lived in a special boarding house for teachers.  After a year, she was back home in Punta Gorda where she began dating Jimmy Persons and in 1948 they were married.

After time out for motherhood, Lonnie taught first at the Taylor Street School and then at Sallie Jones.  One of her early pupils was Terry Knecht Dozier, 1985 National Teacher of the Year.  Lonnie remembered Terry as a bright and inquisitive child, always on the go.  Lonnie, retired from teaching in 1985 to enjoy the leisure life in her own schoolhouse.

Many of Punta Gorda’s “old families” have produced teachers.  One of them is Mary Agnes Crosland Fambrough, the granddaughter of William Monson Whitten, the pineapple pioneer, and daughter of T.C. Crosland, owner of the West Coast Fish Company.  Mary Agnes later married Charles Fambrough whose family came here from Bartow.  Another old family teacher is Marijo Kennedy Brown, the daughter of Lula Frizell Kennedy and Tilly Kennedy.  She is the niece of A.C. Frizell, the land and cattle baron.  Marijo married James Brown, who at one time was the owner of the Brown Machine Company of Punta Gorda.

Still another teacher is Ethel Hopper Berhardt, the daughter of Calvin Hopper and Rose Hopper.  Rose was one of the early teachers in this area and Ethel’s sister is Minta Hopper Harper who was also a teacher.  The family began their contribututions to the education of the young of Charlotte County since 1913.

The year 1873 brought the ‘firsts’ to the portion of Manatee County later to become Charlotte County--the first church and the first public school.  The Trinity Methodist Church in Charlotte Harbor housed the school and, although crude at best with a thatched roof, it served its students well.

In Trabue the first public school was also part church, part school; a small wooden building where the First Methodist Church now stands.  The turn of the century saw Miss Norma Pepper opening her own private school in Punta Gorda and a bit later, Mrs. Honeywell opened a Seventh Day Adventist school located on Cross Street.

The first complete high school in Punta Gorda, with all 12 grades, was on Goldstein Street.  U.S. Whiteaker (U.S. Cleveland’s grandfather) was assistant principal and little Belle McBean (Quednau) lived right next door.  The old building is still there, renovated into an apartment house.  The widowed Bell Quednau made her home across the street!

Later on, Professor Whiteaker drew up plans for what was to become the Taylor Street School; that building was finished around 1909.  It was a block structure and housed all 12 grades.  At its inception the school was heated by a pot-bellied stove, kindling wood stacked nearby.  The schoolyard was divided into two sections, one for the boys and the other for the girls.  In the beginning there were privies in the yard, later on wooden buildings were added and inside toilets.  This school served the community for fifty or more years until it was destroyed by fire.

The last high school graduation from the Taylor Street school was in 1926.  After that year the primary and intermediate grades remained there but the junior and senior high school classes moved to the new three-story brick building on cooper Street, the Charlotte Senior High School.

Later, other schools were built:  Sallie Jones Elementary School, East Elementary School and the Punta Gorda Junior High School added to the town’s educational facilities.

In the very beginning of our town, the black community sadly lacked any educational facilities, but help was on the way!  Benjamin Joshua Baker, born in 1872 in Suwannee County, was one of the first blacks to take the required teaching examination in Lake City.  At age 19, he passed the test with flying colors and proceeded to teach for the next eleven years.

In 1902 he arrived in Punta Gorda and started a school at the intersection of Mary Street and Cooper.  He called it the Baker Academy and educated two generations of children in the two-room frame building where the Cooper Street Recreational Center now stands.  Later the school was moved to Charlotte Avenue, and four classrooms, restrooms, a cafeteria and an administration office were added.  After graduating from Baker Academy, high school students were bussed to a black high school in Fort Myers. 

When Benjamin J. Baker retired, he became the first black teacher to receive the benefits of the teacher’s retirement bill.  This dedicated man died in 1942 before integration and its subsequent changes.  He was a dedicated man and contributed a great deal to the betterment of the black community in our town.

Now, I did promise that this book would not be a historical tome, so let’s introduce a little levity here with comments from some of the town’s outstanding citizens.

Mention of the Charlotte Harbor School (now Schoolhouse Square) evokes these memories from Christine “Pat” Durrance Donald whose grandfather, Francis Durrance was the first Methodist minister in Punta Gorda.  (Durrance Street is named in his honor.)  Pat’s family home became a restaurant (located approximately one block east of Highway 41 on Melburne Street), but when it was still home to little Pat, she walked through the fields to school carrying her lunch bucket.  The school principal was Mr. Stroud and the teachers were all women.

There were four grades in one room and the three Rs were emphatically stressed.  “We had old-fashioned teachers who believed children should learn those basic things thoroughly.  If the whole room went twenty days without an absence, we were given a day off to play in the woods where Port Charlotte is now, swing on the grape vines and have a picnic.  If anyone missed a day, the rest of us wanted to kill him!”

The children used to eat their lunches under the shade trees in the schoolyard.  “The janitor was a lady, Mrs. Barrett, who lived across the street.  I would often go over and have my lunch with her--we were good friends.  She had a gadget for making quilts; she would pull it down from the parlor ceiling.  I used to munch my lunch and watch her with fascination as she worked away at all those beautiful handmade quilts.”  After eating, the youngsters would play softball and volleyball until time to go back and tackle the three Rs again.

Rupert Carpenter Guthrie, whose uncle Will was one of the founders of the Punta Gorda Fish Company even remembers the names of his teachers at Charlotte Harbor:  Mr. Stroud, principal, Mrs. Knight and Mrs. O’Haver, teachers.  “I walked to school; we children had our own paths which wound through the woods.  At recess we played games like ‘Come Through’ in which everyone locked hands and you ran at them, trying to break through!”  They played baseball and there were seesaws and swings in the schoolyard.

Bertha Mae Williams Powell was born in 1907 near Lake Butler on the “upper edge” of Florida, but her sharecropper father soon moved the family to Wauchula where she spent her early childhood.  Later the Williams moved again--to Punta Gorda, settling “way out in the country near where the Aqui Esta shopping mall is today.”

Carrying her lunch in a basket, Bertha Mae walked along the railroad tracks to the Taylor Street School (in 1920 there was no Tamiami Trail).  High school classes were held upstairs and the grammar school was on the lower floor.  The heating system was a wood stove and the schoolyard was divided down the middle by a board fence; girls played on one side, the boys on the other.  In this segregated fashion they played games like London Bridge, merry-go-round and stick frog (mumlety-peg).

There were privies in the back of the schoolyard and Bertha Mae remembers with a chuckle the perils of using them.  A Mr. Lancaster cleaned them regularly with lime, but he had no set schedule and there was no telling when he would come by in his wagon to unload the lime.  It was best not to be caught unawares!  The school day was long, from 8 to 3 with a recess for lunch from a pail or basket; then the long trudge home along the tracks.

Sidney Parker, a well-known own contractor here in town, was born on a farm his parents owned near the Charlotte High School.  He remembers when alligators went to school in Punta Gorda.  Sydney, Ted Alexander (Buddy’s older brother) and other friends used to bring their pet ‘gators to school on a leash and stash them in the overflow troughs of the old drinking fountain.

With enough water to be comfortable, the baby swamp denizens lazed away the school day while their owners toiled at their books.  To Sidney’s knowledge, none of these unscholarly creatures ever got loose or caused panic in the classroom.

The children of Mack and Mary Maxwell (Maxwell’s Drug Store) attended the local schools, Taylor Street and then Charlotte High.  Mary made a visit one day to the old block building where her son, Richard was a student.  She climbed the wooden stairway to his classroom and was horrified to see that the pot-bellied stove heating the room was red hot way up to the chimney.  She recognized a potential fire hazard and was even more appalled to see stacks of kindling wood stored underneath the wooden stairs.  The stove had to remain for heat, but Mary saw to it that the kindling was stored outside in the future.

Eventually the Taylor Street School did burn to the ground.  The fire occurred on a school day but, fortunately, there was a small touring circus in town that day and the children had been allowed to attend it.  Otherwise the youngsters would have been in school and there might have been a terrible tragedy.

Thomas “Buster” Crosland, grandson of the pineapple pioneer, William Monson Whitten, and son of T.C. Crosland, owner of the West Coast Fish Company, attended Charlotte High School when it was “brand new”.  His was the class of 1932 and there were an even dozen students:  nine girls and three boys.  The girls enjoyed having the boys in class and elected them to the three top offices.  Buster was president, Bill Roberts, vice-president and Custer Rowland was secretary-treasurer.  They were the first graduating class to have caps and gowns.

The Charlotte High School is still on Cooper Street, but attendance has, of course, changed in the years since Buster graduated.  With the building of  Lemon Bay and Port Charlotte High Schools, attendance dropped and then began rising again as new families came and population in the area increased.