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The Lindbergh Baby Memorial

 
LindberghMemorial1The Lindbergh Baby Memorial
 
By Fall 2018 Beaches Museum intern, Alex Morales
 
During the “Saturday in the Park” event on April 28, 1984, the Beaches Area Historical Society proudly unveiled and dedicated their newest acquisition: the 1932 Lindbergh Baby Memorial. The jagged, off-white, stone carving makes it one of the more unique historical objects that the Beaches Museum possesses. Towering at 10 feet high, the stone memorial depicts a cradled child above which an eagle is poised in flight.LindberghMemorial2
 
The dedication of the memorial represented another step in growth for the Society, however; the memorial itself represented a time of mourning. The kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.–the infant son of the famous 1920s Pilot Charles Lindbergh and wife, Ann Lindbergh–sent shockwaves across the nation and even into Jacksonville Beach. Not long after the news broke of the discovery of the child’s lifeless body on May 12, 1932, Jacksonville Beach resident Mrs. Carl B. McClenny sought a means of commemorating the tragedy. Mrs. McClenny, president of the Plant-A-Rose Society (the forerunner of the Garden Club) collaborated with the president of Jacksonville Beach Chamber of Commerce, Col. J.C. Stehlin. She initially suggested that “a mound of shells be gathered by the school children as a tribute.” The commemorative statue itself was later unveiled on September 17, 1932 on the grounds of Jacksonville Beach Elementary School #50 at the corner of Second Street and Second Avenue, across from the then St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where Pablo Towers sits today. With the help of Mrs. Frank Brennan, president of the Beaches Civic League, later the Beaches Woman’s Club, and Mrs. H. E. Thurman, president of the PTA they organized a ceremonious unveiling where they allowed children of the Beaches Area to bring sea shells and other items they treasured to lay at the base of the monument.LindberghMemorial3
 
In 1971, the memorial was nearly destroyed when the school was demolished. There is still question as to where the memorial was relocated to and who possessed it before the Society acquired it in 1983. There are several stories that account for the 12 year gap in the memorial’s whereabouts. One story tells of how Mr. Charles Newberry Moore Jr. of B. B. McCormick & Sons Co. saved the memorial from a wrecking ball when they were tearing down the old Jacksonville Beach Elementary school. A second account details how the memorial sat in a small park on Penman Road where the old Women’s Club met. The third story was that the city called the Society about a“mysterious” sculpture with a 1932 plaque set to be destroyed. The final rumor specifies it sat in a city storage area called the “Graveyard.” Where ever the memorial sat in limbo, Mr. J.T. McCormick some how got word of the memorial. After acquiring it, the Society allowed it to become a Boy Scout’s restoration project and relocated it to the Pablo Historical Park in late 1983 so they could ceremoniously rededicate the memorial in 1984.
 
The statue reads: “A memorial to children-unveiled September 17, 1932. Plant-A-Rose Association, Mrs. Carr B. McClenny, Mother; P.T.A., Mrs. H.E. Thurmond, President; CivicLeague, Mrs. F. D. Brennan, President; Chamber of Commerce, Col. Joseph C. Stehlin, President.”
 
LindberghMemorial4

The St. Johns River Ferry

 

P-2775The St. Johns River Ferry

This article is an excerpt from the 2016 exhibit, Mayport Village: On the River of Change.

Locals and visitors have been crossing the St. Johns River between Fort George Island and Mayport Village for centuries. In the 1600s, Spanish missionaries relied upon those they wished to convert, the Timucua Indians, to provide transport via dugout canoe. In the post-Civil War years, residents, travelers, tradesmen and farmers often crossed the river by way of privately-owned flatboat ferries.

The post-World War II boom in automobile tourism and federally-mandated highway extensions led to a dramatic increase in traffic to Northeast Florida. State and local officials recognized that an uninterrupted coastal highway would not only bolster the economies of seaside communities from Fernandina Beach to St. Augustine but also ease traffic on inland roadways. More than seventeen miles of new highway and a formal ferry service connecting Fort George Island to Mayport Village was required to realize this goal.

On September 15, 1950, the St. Johns River Ferry Service opened to the public. The ferry slips were built 2.5 miles inland from the mouth of the St. Johns River. Inaugural ships, the Reliance and the Monadnock, carried passengers and cars along the 0.9 mile water route connecting North and South State Road A1A.

Billed as “the gateway to A1A,” this newly-created stretch of highway enabled motorists to bypass Jacksonville via the St. Johns River Ferry Service. A marketing campaign invited tourists to travel the “Buccaneer Trail” and “ride through history on Florida A1A.” Suggested stops along the Buccaneer Trail included Fort Clinch, Kingsley Plantation, and Mayport Village for its French Huguenot history and “unsurpassed” seafood supported by the local shrimping fleet.

Locals have fought the closure of the St. Johns River Ferry Service in recent years in the face of state and city budget cuts. In 2016, community advocates and officials successfully secured funding for guaranteed operations for the next two decades. The ferryboat, Jean Ribault–built in 1996–currently supports the St.Johns River Ferry Service with a carrying capacity of 40 cars and 206 passengers. Boasting membership to the East Coast Greenway, the Ferry is now a vital link in a 3,000 mile-long trail system stretching from Maine to South Florida.

P-6510Residents gather for the official opening of the St. Johns River Ferry Service. September 16, 1950.MayportTopo“Mayport Topographical Map, 1964 excerpt”–Excerpt from a 1964 topographical map of the area. The ferry path is traced out on the left.TuttlePhoto9Early Mayport Village residents, Ethel Spaulding Tuttle (left) and Beatrice Sallas Tuttle (far right), waiting for a ferry. Circa 1900.P-411Aerial view of the proposed St. Johns River Ferry Service route from July 1950.

Boardwalk Talks Available on YouTube

PetesLightened
 
The Beaches Museum invites the public to view recordings of its Boardwalk Talks on YouTube to keep everyone educated and entertained while the Museum is closed. Made possible by Fleet Landing, the Boardwalk Talks are an important part of the Museum’s annual calendar. They feature a variety of speakers and subject areas relevant to the Beaches communities.
 
Recent Talks featured Dr. Denise Bossy presenting “Indigenous Florida: Debunking Myths of Spanish Conquest in our Region” and Dr. Tru Leverette lecturing on “Zora Neale Hurston and the Pleasure of Her Company.”
 
Boardwalk Talks highlight area historical researchers and occasionally a panel of “Storytellers” remembering a specific place or time in Beaches history. Boardwalk Talks are generally held in the historic Beaches Museum Chapel but occassionally are held offsite at a historic location such as the Red Cross Life Saving Station or even Pete’s Bar in Neptune Beach.
 
Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Beaches Museum.
 
Boardwalk Talks available:

Measuring Morals?

BathingSuits
By Karen Lamoree, Archives and Collections Manager
 
One of these young ladies was a lawbreaker! Under the 1920 Pablo Beach Purity Ordinances, the young lady on the left could have been arrested for indecency. Those ordinances were hardly the first attempt, however, to regulate women’s beachside attire.
 
In 1907, the newly formed Pablo Beach town council voted to limit wearing bathing suits to the beach only and to prohibit “indecent” bathing suits.  The ban was no doubt due to the introduction in Boston that year of one piece wool suits by Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, for which she was arrested. Bathing suits were changing to swimming suits, as activities more athletic than standing and splashing in water for women were increasing in popularity. The heavy skirted suits were impractical and dangerous for actual swimming.
 
Nonetheless, beachside communities in the United States, England, and France kept trying to hold back the tide on “indecent” women’s bathing suits by enacting laws for nearly the next twenty years. Local historian Nelle Wales Pritchard would recall a 1917 effort in Pablo Beach, where local laws were passed governing “the outfits of women bathers. No bare legged women – no sir! Each MUST wear stockings, and might be rented, or purchased at the local Ten Cent Store for a dime. We could hold forth on those bathing suits for women, for pages – made mostly of bombazine…trimmed with ruffles which bore rows and rows of soutache braid on their edges. ..And yet, in spite of those old suits we fell in love and got married.”
 
Just three years later, Pritchard’s sister, Clare Wales Belt, would lead a local group of women to form a Mothers’ Club to “Improve the morals of the beach and the conduct of the visitors, who are prone to think they can do anything at the beach and get away with it. “ Their ire was directed at women’s bathing suits and scandalous Jazz Age dances, such as the Shimmy, seen at Mrs. Phinney’s Dance Pavilion. With no fuss, the Mothers’ Club convinced the town council to enact Purity Ordinances. The Shimmy and “cheek” dances were banned. Both women and men’s bathing suits were to have skirts – although the male lifeguards were exempt. Women’s skirts had to fall to within two inches of the knee.
 
How would these Purity Ordinances be enforced? Again, like many beach communities in the country, Pablo Beach would hire its first policewoman to do the measuring of skirts and morals. Local real estate agent and telephone operator Anna Hawkes was hired to police the beach with a measuring tape.
Were women cited for indecent bathing suits on the beach? Did couples stop doing the Shimmy? To learn the answers to these questions, make sure to visit our upcoming women’s history exhibit!

Flying Close Quarters Is The Mark Of The Blues

Jean H. McCormick visits with the Blue Angels pilots

Jean H. McCormick visits with the Blue Angels pilots

Johnny Woodhouse interviewed Roy Voris, the founder of the Blue Angels, prior to the 2003 Sea & Sky Spectacular at Jacksonville Beach. Voris died in 2005.

by Johnny Woodhouse

The Blue Angels, the Navy’s premier flight demonstration squadron, practiced in a cloud of secrecy prior to its first public performance at NAS Jacksonville in 1946. Shunning populated areas such as the Beaches, the unit, then made up of four planes, flew over densely wooded areas west of Jacksonville, performing their “V” and “Echelon” formations in carrier-based Hellcat fighters made famous in World War II.

“The first instruction I got when I formed the Blues was to stay out of public view,” recalled retired Navy captain Roy Voris, the unit’s founder. “It was better to stay out of sight if we had a bad accident. We were a separate unit, not yet a command.”

Voris, who shot down eight enemy planes in WWII and was awarded three Distinguished Flying Crosses, said the Blue Angels were formed primarily to renew interest in carrier aviation in post-war America. “It was done to get the Navy visible again,” he added.

“They said there was only one candidate to lead the unit, and I was it. I selected the Hellcat because it was an honest machine and very stable. My concept of the show was to get it on, get it up and get it down in 15 minutes.”

Early Blues

Voris, who died in 2005 at the age of 85, had a hand in nearly everything about the fledgling Jacksonville-based squadron, from picking the pilots and ground crew to devising the dangerous flying sequences. Tall for an aviator, Voris had flown combat missions off two different carriers during WWII, serving as flight operations officer on one of the Navy’s most decorated carrier squadrons, “The Fighting 32nd.”

“Almost everybody was an ace,” he recounted. “It was either be an ace, or be killed. We stair-stepped through the Pacific flying day fighters equipped with .50-caliber machine guns. We saw a lot of action.”

After the war, he was assigned to teach fighter tactics at NAS Daytona Beach. In early 1946, he was reassigned to NAS Jacksonville as chief flight instructor and tapped to lead the Navy’s new “flight exhibition team.” Voris choose pilots he knew and trusted, including his former squadron mate on the USS Enterprise, Lt. Maurice “Wick” Wickendoll.

In 1946, a contest was held to name the unit. Among the suggestions: “Blue Bachelors” and “Blue Lancers.” Then Wickendoll showed Voris an advertisement for a nightclub in New York called the “Blue Angel,” the pair knew they had found their handle.

Fly Navy

Voris commanded the Blue Angels from 1946 to 1947 and through their transition into the faster Grumman Bearcat. He was tapped to lead the Blues again in 1951, after the unit was disbanded for a short time during the Korean War. As officer in charge, he demanded that all his pilots be bachelors. But during his second stint with the Blues, Voris broke his own cardinal rule – he got married when he was home on leave in Santa Cruz, Calif.

After retiring from the Navy in 1963, Voris became a consultant for Grumman Corp. and later worked in NASA’s Office of Industry Affairs. An air terminal at NAS Jacksonville is named in his honor. While today’s Blue Angels pilot supersonic jets, they still fly in tight formations, as close as a foot apart.

“My ability and confidence to fly in tight formations came from my war experiences,” said Voris, who started the Blue Angels when he was 27 years old. “Flying close quarters is the mark of the Blues.”

Train Enclosure Project

 

The 2019 Train Enclosure Project

The 2019 Train Enclosure Project

If you’ve been by the Beaches Museum recently you will see a LOT of work going on with the building that houses the 1911 Cummer & Sons Locomotive! Known as the Train Enclosure, the building protects the locomotive and is always busy with visitors, field trips, birthday parties and more.

Do you want to be a part of the effort to repair the Train Enclosure? Donors of $20 or more to the project will have their name listed on a permanent sign that will be hung inside the Train Enclosure when the project is complete! List your name or that of someone who loves the train and they will be able to see it for years to come.

Join the City of Jacksonville, the Rotary Club of Ponte Vedra Beach, RG White Construction, Romano Bros. Roofing and McIntyre Stucco & Paint in making this project possible!

To donate visit the donation website or call Chris Hoffman at 904-241-5657 x 113. 

Karen Lamoree Named Beaches Museum’s Archives & Collections Manager

Karen
 
The Beaches Museum has hired Karen Lamoree as its new Archives & Collections Manager. Lamoree is responsible for the preservation, organization, and accessibility of the Beaches Museum’s archival material and special collections.
 
Lamoree earned a Bachelor of Arts in public administration with minors in economics and history from Clark University and a Master of Science in information science from State University of New York, Albany. She has held archivist positions at Brown University and the Wisconsin Historical Society. She has authored numerous articles published in Archival Issues and Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes.
 
“We are very excited to bring Karen’s experience and expertise to the Museum” says Executive Director Chris Hoffman. “We expect that she will not only hit the ground running in the care and protection of our community’s history, but also that she will work to expand awareness and access to all that we have to offer.”

Beaches Museum •
381 Beach Boulevard
Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32250