Firecrackers and the Model T

When they added the living room onto the front of the house they built a fireplace. It never did draw well from the day it was built.  But they used it anyway.

The living room was first used as the office where the railroad men settled their tabs, and there was a tall large glass enclosed cabinet where cigars and tobacco products were kept on hand for sale to any of the men who used those products.

One Sunday they had a house full of company and the weather was cold and Chuck had a hard time getting close enough to the fireplace to get warmed up, and he had little to no patience. 

He went to his room and got a hand full of firecrackers and worked his way around till he got close enough to the fireplace to throw the firecrackers into the fire. 

A pathway cleared quickly when the firecrackers began blasting, but mischievous Chuck was in trouble again big time with both parents.  Got his backside warmed royally, but not the way he had planned.

And even though he got a spanking, he always thought that had been one of his most fun pranks of his life,

His brother Hoyt was eight years older than Chuck.  He did a lot of the driving for the family, and a lot of the mechanical work needed to keep the cars running good.  One of the cars was a Model T Ford. 

Mechanics were pretty simple back then.  I’m not sure of what the problem was, but Hoyt who was around fourteen at the time, took the transmission apart to work on it.  Hoyt was very meticulous.

As he took it apart he laid the parts out, systematically on an old sheet spread out on the ground; in the order that he took them apart so that when he put it back together it would be right.  Papa came home as he was putting it back together.  He stood and watched for a bit, and then told Hoyt he was putting it back together wrong. 

Hoyt explained “Papa it can’t be wrong, I’m putting it back together just exactly like I took it apart.”  Papa said “I don’t care how you took it apart and laid it out, you’re putting it back together wrong. This part here goes there, I know what I’m talking about, and you do it like I said.”

Hoyt said “Yes sir” and put it back together like Papa said.  And when he had it all together, he got in and cranked it up to test it out.  He pushed in the clutch and put it in reverse, he eased out on the clutch and gave it a little gas and the car moved forward. 

Hoyt put on brakes and stopped.  Papa asked him why he’d stopped and, Hoyt said “Cause it goes forward when I put it in reverse.”

Papa said “You didn't give it enough gas to know what it was doing.”  “Put it in gear and give it some gas!”  Hoyt did and the same thing happened.  Papa yelled at him “Get outta the damn car and I’ll show you how to do what I’m telling you to do.”

Hoyt got out and Papa got in.  He put it in reverse, let the clutch out, and really stomped on the gas pedal and went right through the back wall of the garage building. When he got the car stopped he got out and told Hoyt “Just go ahead and do it however you were doing it.”

To be continued

The Prized Pear Trees

Papa was always planting fruit trees of some sort because of the food source.  He had several varieties of citrus trees, such as grapefruit, oranges and tangerine.  He also planted fig, and peach trees.  And then he planted his pride and joy, two pear trees.  He paid twelve dollars each for them.

That was a very expensive price in the 1930’s. He gave those two pear trees excellent care.  They were about five feet tall when he bought and planted them. They were just getting over the transplant shock and starting to put on new growth.

Papa was sitting in his rocking chair on the front porch one day resting.  Chuck came around the corner of the house and said, “Papa you told me a damned lie”.  Papa replied, “Well boy, what is it you think I lied to you about”? 

“You told me a snake could crawl cause he had little feet inside, and I couldn't see them unless I built a fire under him, and then he’d stick’em out and I could see’em”.

Papa said “Well yes, I did tell you that, let’s just go and see”.  On the way around the house Chuck told him “I've burnt him till there ain’t nothing left but a skeleton, and he ain’t got no damn feet”.

Snake Skeleton

As they rounded the back corner of the house, alas there was one of the prized pear trees, limbs drooping, trunk scorched black, leaves seared and curled, and some already fallen or burned away.   And there hanging by the tail was the blackened skeleton of a snake.

Papa was shocked and heartbroken to say the least!  But, he decided not to punish Chuck because he had told him that tall tale about snakes.  He did have a serious talk with him about what he had done, and told him that he should have come and talked to him about where he could burn a snake. 

Had he asked, Papa would have told him the truth about how snakes crawl rather than a tall tale.  And there would have been no need in Chuck’s mind to burn the snake, to satisfy his curiosity.

Dead Pear Tree

The pear tree was dead of course!  Papa might have learned a greater lesson about this matter that day than Chuck did.  Don’t lie to your children or tell them a tall tale when they ask questions. 

They need to hear truth from their parents.  If you don’t know the answer to what they’re asking, be honest and tell them, but find the answer and tell them only the truth.

Times were really hard for everyone in those days, but were somewhat easier for their family because his dad worked for the Railroad and had a steady paycheck coming in. 

Papa Haven decided to add on to the house and build the garage apartments, one down and one up.  He had already added an upstairs to the main house and they had started a room and board for the railroad men.

Two black ladies who lived on the Haven property were hired to help Mama with the cooking, cleaning and laundry.  They lived on the property in a little house out in the back yard.  James was married to one of the ladies.

From the late 1920’s till early 1940’s it was a Family run business. Chuck’s cousin, Martha told me a story not long ago that I had not heard before about him. The railroad men would sit at the dining table and play poker, and they taught Chuck how to play.

Being the skeester that he was he discovered that he could see the reflection of the cards they were holding on the lenses of their glasses if he sat in a certain place. He would always win and they never did figure out how he did. They just assumed they had taught him too well!

She said, “He always thought it was so funny and he would laugh so much when he told this story.”

Pistol Packing Mama

Chuck’s mother was also a native of Cedar Key, her paternal grandparents and their family came to Cedar Key between 1880 and 1900 from George’s Creek, Barnwell, South Carolina. Her mother was Minnie Lucinda Oglesby Collins, and she was born in Otter Creek and moved to Cedar Key when she was young.

Back in the early days in West Lake Wales, it was during the Great Depression there was hardly any work to be found anywhere.  It was before WPA or the CCC camps got cranked up and going good. 

There was an area near the tracks where the hobo’s gathered. This is what the homeless were called back then.

They would ride the rails all over the country looking for work.  Chuck said there were at times twenty five hundred to three thousand men gathered there. 

Most would work for food, but a great number of folks had no food to share, they barely had enough to feed their own family.

A 25 Caliber Pistol

His dad thought that because he was gone so much at night working that he needed to get mama a pistol for protection, and teach her how to use it.  And so he did.  He came home early one night and decided he would test her to see how alert she was at night.  He certainly did not expect the reaction that he got.

He approached the house being as quiet as a mouse, sneaked up to the bedroom window and scratched lightly on it a couple of times.  She didn’t say a word or make a sound, she reached under his pillow next to her, and drew the pistol out, and put four shots through window. He ducked down to the ground, screaming “Gussie, Gussie it’s me!”

He showed his cap to all of the kids the next day and told them, “If I was two inches taller you wouldn’t have a Papa today.  She put two holes right through the top of my railroad cap before I ducked”. 

He never again till the day he died would even think about scratching on her window her again.  No matter where she lived! He saved that railroad cap for years as a reminder of how well he’d taught her to shoot, and also how close he came to an early death that night!

They had a big yard hog that thought she was a dog. Chuck had raised her from birth with a bottle; her mother would not suckle her because she was born with a full set of teeth.

She would try to jump up on you to be petted like the dogs did.  If any of the kids went outside the yard she would follow just like the dogs did.  They named her Minnie. 

The girls got into a habit of walking down to the train station every day to watch one of the passenger trains that didn’t stop in West Lake go by.  And every day Minnie would follow, and sit like a dog on her hind end with her front feet in front of her between her hind legs just like a dog sits, and watch the train go by.

When World War II was declared the two older girls, Ilene and Delores (Teeny) went to work in Warner Robbins, Georgia in one of the plants making war supplies.  Minnie was so used to the daily routine she would still go down to the station every day, and watch the train go by. 

She got to be quite famous among train crew and the passengers riding the train.  The conductor would announce for everyone to watch out the right windows and they would see an unusual sight coming up soon. 

And then ~ there sat Minnie on her haunches watching the train go by, but as soon as the train passed she came back home.  Minnie got so big Papa decided she would be good food on the table.

The whole family rose up in an uproar in protest against him.  None of them could bear the thought of eating Minnie; she was like a member of the family. 

Papa eventually sold her at the market.  She weighted over four hundred pounds when he sold her.  Of course she was desperately missed, but she was a little too large to have her jumping up on you to be petted, like a dog.

To be continued

Chuck’s Grandma Haven

Margaret Sanchez
Chuck's great grandmother

Her name was Louisa Jane Rawls before she married Charles W. Haven, and her mother was Margaret Sanchez Rawls. Louisa was born near Archer, Florida on August 30, 1865.

I am not sure when her mother moved to Cedar Key; there is a story about Grandma Louisa, when she was a little girl, written by S.E.Gunnell in Search for Yesterday, a series of Levy County History publications.

She was seven years old and wore long skirts, and she carried water in a big bucket from a fresh water pond at Lukens for her mother Margaret, that worked in the laundry at the Bettilini Hotel. The pond no longer exists.

The Bettilini Hotel burned down when it was struck by two burning barges that had broken loose from their moorings during the “Tidal Wave” which was actually a fierce hurricane that had a tremendous storm surge.

Grandma & Grandpa Haven
 standing in front of their
home on Haven Isle

Grandpa on his
rolling handcart

Louisa grew up and married Charles W. Haven November 9, 1879 and they too are listed in the 1880 US census on Depot Key, later named Atsena Otie. I do not know when they moved to Haven Island, grandpa was listed in that census as a railroad worker.

Louisa’s mother, Margaret, was born January 11, 1840 in Alachua County, Florida the daughter of Alexander Bonaparte Sanchez Sr.

Alexander was the son of Francis Xavier Roman Manual Sanchez, he was better known as Francis Roman Sanchez, and he was born February 28, 1792 in Saint Augustine, Florida.

He was a descendant of Jose Sanchez de Ortigosa, one of early families of settlers in St Augustine. Jose was born in Ronda, Spain in the Province of Málaga. He came to St Augustine about 1713. He married Juana Theodora Perez on January 18, 1714 in St Augustine.

Juana was already a native and a descendant of the Lansarete/Alvarez families. The oldest documented permanent family is the Solano family and the second oldest documented families are the Alvarez/Sanchez families.

My husband Chuck Haven and my children Stormy and Bo are descendants of this Sanchez family, as well as my grandchildren and great-grand’s. And so are numerous others in and around central Florida, and Cedar Key. The Sanchez family was a very large family with many descendants in St Johns, Duval, Levy, Gilchrist, Columbia, Hillsborough, and Alachua counties.

Much of my information comes from a study done by another Sanchez descendant in order to file for a Florida Pioneer Certificate. He was Norman K. Brewer, a great grandson of George Washington Sanchez and Norman’s wife is Ranny Elizabeth. (Sanchez 1713-1989 by Ranny Brewer).

They drove many miles, spent many hours pouring over files in Libraries, visiting and interviewing other descendants  and exploring cemeteries; and they compiled all their information so that we can have these records at our fingertips today. I have shared this information with some that I know are descendants.

I am so grateful for their work, I find genealogy to be quite fascinating I have spent many hours myself looking at all kinds of records and saving to my family tree on Ancestry.com.

I decided to post this story next on my Blog site because St Augustine will be the Celebration 500 in April of 2013 celebrating Ponce de Leon’s discovery of the land of Flowers in 1513.

This will give many descendants an opportunity to check out your Roots and see if you are a descendant of any of the original Families who settled in St Augustine, and also an opportunity to attend the Celebration 500!

The Real Rattlesnake

One day the boys did kill a big rattlesnake.  And prankster Chuck thought of playing a trick on James.  He was an older black man who lived with his wife in a small house on the backside of the Haven property that faces Short Street and the railroad tracks.  And he worked in the rail yard. 

An Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake

One of his jobs was to dump the coal out of the bin through the shute into the trains.   The boys thought it would be a grand idea to scare James with the snake.

They climbed up the ladder on the side of the coal bin, and coiled the dead snake in the top of the bin.  When the next train came through, James jerked the rope to open the shute to dump it, and some of it got hung up, and James had to reach up inside with a rake, and tug on it to get it moving again.

Needless to say the snake fell out barely missing James, landing at his feet.  Scared him so bad he danced a jig trying to get out of striking distance, but when he overheard the boys laughing in the bushes he realized the snake was dead he knew the boys had done it.  He said “I’m gonna git them boys, one of these days I’m gonna git em.”  He also knew Chuck had been the ring leader.

I remember another one of the stories Chuck told me about his Dad and James and a bunch of boys moving a house from across the other side of the railroad tracks in back of the house, over to this side near their house. 

Papa knew all the time schedules for when the trains ran.  He worked it out how they would move the house across the tracks at just the right time.

They used a mule, a dead man post and rollers.  They drove the post in the ground and attached the lines from the house to the mule.  The mule would take a turn around the post and then pull forward with the post taking the brunt of the force, the house moved slowly forward.
 

As the mule pulled it forward the boys were responsible to move the rollers from the back to the front and keep it moving till all of the slack in the line was taken up and tight against the dead man post.  They would move the post and start the process all over again.

I don’t remember how long he said it took them to move it. This was back in the late thirties.

Papa Haven, had only a third grade formal education, but he was a brilliant man.  He was also color blind, and when the Railroad eventually switched over to the various colored light system on a big board alongside the tracks up and down the line, he had to learn the new system.  

He could see the lights lit up, but couldn’t tell what color they were. Chuck worked with him and taught him the colors by the position of each light that signaled the engineer.  So that he knew what he needed to do by whichever light was lit up on the system board.

Papa had to memorize all of this.  Chuck’s older brother Hoyt and Chuck used to help Papa do all of his record keeping and make out the reports he had to turn in.

West Lake Wales was also a switching yard, and there was a Depot Terminal for passengers to leave and arrive.  The beautiful old building was torn down long ago, but it is still a switching yard.  The Depot Terminal was moved to Winter Haven.

To be continued .  .  .  .

Mischievous Boy

His Papa and Mama purchased property in 1924 in West Lake Wales, Florida.  They lived in a tent while Papa and Mr. Lamb, a neighbor who helped him, built the first four rooms that are now the center of the house.  As the family grew so did the house.

Chuck was born August 12, 1929 in the back bedroom of the house at West Lake Wales. It was one of the rooms added on to the four original rooms. 

He was a mischievous boy to say the least!  He got himself into all kinds of trouble from time to time.  He cussed a lot, and that was not allowed in his parent’s household.  He liked to smoke and that was not allowed either. 

His mother Gussie would frisk him before and after school and take his tobacco and papers away.  He soon learned to hide his can of Prince Albert tobacco and rolling papers underneath the house on top of one of the floor joists.

One day many, many years later he had to crawl under the house for some reason, I don’t remember, and found one of his cans of Prince Albert, it was still about half full.  This was when I heard the story.

One day on his way home from the bus stop he saw a beautiful rose blooming in one of the neighbor’s yard.  He thought it would be a nice gift for his mother.  And so he picked it and took it home to her. 

She said, “Charles, this is a beautiful rose, but we don’t have any growing in our yard.  Where’d you get it from, son?”  He told her where, and she said,      “Did you ask the lady if you could pick her rose?”  And he said, “No ma’am”.  She asked, “Did the lady give it to you”? 

Again he answered, “No ma’am”. “You stole this rose, didn't you son”?

He didn't consider that he was stealing it.  He just thought it was beautiful and it was okay to pick it for his Mother.  She said “If you didn't ask for it, and if she didn't give it to you, then you stole it.”  She told him, “Now you take it back to the lady and tell her you stole it, and you apologize to her.”

He walked back to the lady’s house dragging his feet, his heart heavy with dread and embarrassment.

He told me many years later it was one of the toughest things he had ever had to do, but he never took anything again from anyone without permission.  He knocked on her door and when she answered he gave her the rose and told her what he’d done and why he‘d taken her it.

She thanked him for being honest and confessing.  She forgave him, and told him how brave he was for coming back and telling her then she said, “If you ever wish to pick another rose for your mother, you just come and

ask me”.

Surrounding the West Lake property in those days were miles, and miles of palmetto and scrub.  There was also miles of Prairie, with a canal running through it.  Chuck and several of the boys he played with fished in the canal and caught freshwater turtle for the dinner table.



A Real Rattlesnake

They would also dig up gopher tortoise for food for the table.  Eastern Diamondback rattlesnakes were often found in the holes.  They usually killed the snake if they dug one up, but no one in their families would eat snake regardless of how hungry they were, yuck! 

On one of these occasions Richard Strickland, was doing the digging, and Chuck being the prankster that he was, took a dry palmetto frond and reached over and scratched Richard on the leg with the serrated edge of the stalk. The dry fan of the frond made a rattling noise.

Poor Richard was so intent on digging, and he thought he had been bitten by a rattlesnake and in stark fear he literally climbed the shovel handle and toppled over, screaming, thinking he was snake bit.  He grabbed his leg when he hit the ground, hollering, “He got me, he got me, and I’m dying”.

Chuck was laughing so hard he fell down. 

When Richard finally realized Chuck had played a joke on him he chased Chuck yelling “I’m gonna kill you if I ever catch you”.  He didn't catch him, and they remained friends till Chuck’s family moved away.

To be continued more of Chuck's Roots . . . .

Chuck's Roots

I am not exactly sure what year the Haven Family came to Cedar Key. Chuck’s great grandmother Sarah Bryan Haven is listed in the 1880 census on Depot Key which was later named Atsena Otie.  Her youngest son Henry is listed with her, great grandpa William G. Haven was born in 1820 in Georgia and died in 1870, in Cedar Key. Henry the youngest son was born in 1860 in Columbia County, Florida also died in Cedar Key.

Uncle George Haven, also one of her sons lived on the island that is now called Sunset Isle. Aunt Mable one of the younger daughters of Charles W, and Louisa Haven used to say they could only walk over to visit Uncle George when the tide was out and the shell road was exposed. Sunset Isle is the next island past Haven Isle, heading into Cedar Key.

H. B. Haven, Chuck’s dad’s Railroad career began in Cedar Key, after he returned from WW1; he started working on the train that came into Cedar Key as a fireman, before it was shut down. 

His father, who was Chuck’s grandfather, Charles W. Haven was the section foreman on the tracks between Cedar Key, and Waldo, and when they closed down the Cedar Key Train I believe it was about 1932, Charles W. Haven was transferred to Waldo.

Henry Burroughs Haven married Gussie Collins and they went south before the Railroad closed down, and in the beginning he worked out of Sebring, Florida.

Henry B. Haven was born on Haven Isle which is the first Island as you are leaving the mainland at the end of the # 4 Bridge. He was born in 1893 and even though he was only three years old when the ‘Tidal Wave’ of 1896 hit, and because it was such a traumatic experience, he remembered it vividly!

His dad, (C. W.) was gone at the time, working on the line. His mother and the five children were home alone. They had no idea what was coming, but they knew something was! There was very little communication in those days, and they paid close attention to the signs of nature.

All the birds left, and the tide dropped so much it was bone dry, and there was not a breath of air it was so still.

Grandma Haven figured there was a ‘big blow’ coming, their name for hurricanes in those days. And she figured the old house might blow away, and so she decided it would be best to take her children and herself out to the top of the railroad trestle which was higher ground.

She lashed all of her children and herself to the highest point of the trestle with rope. Papa told us he could hear the freight train coming, but it confused him at first because the sound was coming from the wrong direction and it was dark, the roar he was hearing was the first wall of water coming in. 

He said, “It came right up to the bottom of the tracks that we were tied to, and then it receded, and a smaller wave came back in, and then a third wave as large as the first one, and then it began to blow”!

Their small family survived due to grandma Haven’s wisdom. Charles W. and Louisa Haven lived on Haven Isle for many years after the great storm and had six more children before the Railroad was closed down. Their little house didn’t blow away, but the roof did blow off, so many others were not as fortunate.

It was a very destructive storm; with an immense storm surge that some estimated to be about 32 feet wall of water which was about 5 feet more than the storm of 1842. Many lives were lost, and there was tremendous property damage, numerous sponge boats were sunk along with the entire crews as well as fishing boats which were sunk along with their crews.

Among the fishermen that were drowned were uncle George Haven and his brother Henry and his son Frank. Their bodies washed ashore on a small island called Five Brothers, and you can see that island from # 4 Bridge to the west. They were out fishing when the storm hit, and were anchored down near the mouth of the Suwannee River. They were last seen alive at a fish camp on Ax Island.

Their bodies were found by Mr. Orlando Robinson’s daddy. He buried them on that Island, and as long as he lived, out of great respect, he took care of keeping the graves clean and replacing the clam shells that he had covered them with when he buried them to mark the grave sites. He also blazed a cross on one of the Sabal Palms that was growing on the island, but that Palm has been gone for many years.

After he died Mr. Orlando took over the care of their graves, and when Mr. Orlando, died his son, Curley, continued the tradition. After Chuck and I moved back to Cedar Key Mr. Orlando told us this story and Curley was going to show us where they were located, but never got ‘round-to-it’ before he died.

Cedar Mill on Depot Key
later named Atsena Otie

People had lived on most of the barrier islands until that time; there had been a Cedar shingle factory on Atsena Otie Key and the township was located there, but most everything and everyone were wiped out in the storm, and no one has lived on the outer islands since then except for brief periods of time.

 The township was relocated to Way Key which is now called Cedar Key. The entire group of islands was called Cedar Keys.

The story of their drowning was written up in a newspaper article in the Atlanta Constitution, October 8, 1896, page 4, and can also be found in “The Search for Yesterday” a Levy County, Florida history publication. Cedar Keyan’s are a resilient people, they rebuild after the storms pass.

Chuck’s dad, Henry Burroughs Haven, was a railroad man.  When he retired from the railroad, he had worked for the Railroad forty four years.  Many years of that time, was spent as an Engineer.

West Lake Wales where they lived was a Railroad Community. Almost everyone who lived there worked for the railroad in some job capacity. 

To be continued with more of Chuck’s Roots . . . .