Alvia Fountain |
“We had lots of picnics on the beach, while living at Butts Farm. ...the word would get around that we’re not going to work Sunday and then we would all…go out on the beach…cook your food and carry it with you and play in the water, oh that was a lot of fun…”
“There was one little area on the beach that we considered as our area. I don’t know if anybody told us that was our area; but whenever we went over there, that was the area we went to. It was unprotected rocks and every other thing then, but it was our area. It was located almost where Spanish River Park is now.” |
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James Goddard |
“When I got to the age for courtship, we had different places you know….We used to see all the latest bands up there (Boynton). ...Louis Jones, Buddie Johnson, Sweetheart of Rhythm, Lonnie Hampton, all of them used to come up there. We also used to go to Delray.”
“As far as blacks and whites getting along, well, the people, as far as I can remember back in years…They were friendly and as far as I know there were no problems to speak of… because you stayed in your community and you did your thing, and they stayed in their community and they did their thing.” |
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Tom Wright
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“You did your farming and in the summertime you picked huckleberries or grapes and you sold them. ...Then we would go and turn a turtle on the beach. It was legal then, and then we would bring in here and the entire neighborhood would share. There wasn’t anything thrown away...they butchered the turtle and then divided up the meat.” |
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Walter Dolphus
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Molly Rich
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Willie Mae
(Fountain) Jackson
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Jacqueline Harvey
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Almetta Fountain
Broyles
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This lady worked as a day maid at the Ken Gillespie house on Palmetto Road and lived in the village. |
"My parents left South Carolina …and they came here seeking a better life….My father did nothing but farm…and we worked, my two brothers and I worked on the farm with him. My father had many patches of hot pepper, string beans, eggplants, and tomatoes... My father did not own the land that he farmed. ... Pearl City was nothing in1917 when we came here. Our house was on 10th Street ...one of the first wooden houses built.”
“We ate well. We had a lot of fresh vegetables. We had lots of fish and my mother raised her own chickens. You see, Pearl City really wasn’t the city, it was the country. Even downtown Boca Raton was all woods. Even the whites that lived here raised animals. Anyone that wanted to raise chickens, they could. They had hogs too. They raised their own hogs and chicken right in the backyard.”
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Aunt Dora (boy and girl unknown) |
A family from Deerfield. |
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Employees Christmas party
1964-1965
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Employees Christmas party
1964-1965 |
Jackie and Walter Garner. |
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Wilbert & Agnes Demery. Lee Wright Demery’s kids. |
Left, front: Barbara Demery with Dorothy Demery (mother), Carolyn Brown (Almetta’s daughter), Linda Fountain, and L. Chapam. |
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Ambro George, circa WWI. One of the earliest Black settlers, maybe the first. Lived on 11th Street . Died in Boca Raton . First wife: Susie Mae Wilson, son O. D. George. Second wife: Naricissa. Third wife: Minnie. |
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Hiram Fountain, Estella Glades at the ball game where Causeway Lumber Company used to be located. |
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The Lampkin and/or the Sharp family.
Ida Mae Sharp, TJ Lampkin Nellie, Benjamin Ward Sharp. |
“We always had a couple of places where we could go and dance, sit down and have a few drinks or maybe go to a baseball game. We always had a team from different towns.... Baseball was very popular. We always had a place to go swimming.... So there was always something for us to do.” |
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Mr. Schmidt "Smitty" lived in a palmetto shack. |
"Our recreation was fishing. We done a lot of fishing, salt water and fresh water both.... You didn’t have to have a reel and shrimps and all of that stuff to go fishing.... You used a king pole no matter where you went fishing, in the ocean or anywhere.... My mother did a lot of quilting. We kids played in the yard... My daddy...if he could find an old wagon for you he could always make something out of it. We’d play lots of softball in the sandlots. ... About 15 or 16 years old, it was the same thing. Nothing to do. The first movie that I went to, I was in high school, in Delray, and that was the most exciting thing I had ever seen in my life.”
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“Mr. Willie Wright he had a store there (on 11th Street where Mrs. Martin’s house is), and later on he built a little room on the side that we had a piccolo in. We played the piccolo and danced there and he sold beer for the people who could drink beer and those that didn’t he had sodas. They had a good time right on, you never thought about it. In fact, I never had a drink until I was 21 years old.”
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“Moonglove,” Pearl City. |
Sea turtle eggs. |
Turning a sea turtle. |
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Randolph Johnson in front of Willie Wright's store. He was an usher at Ebenezer Church before 1943. |
"The kids in Pearl City played ball, hop scotch, and things like that, things you could do that didn't require any uniforms or equipment. You know if you never had a thing, you didn't miss anything. It was just a matter of a regular routine, day by day, and you just accepted that as a way of life and got moving."
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| “Back in the 1920s and 1930s, Hutchinson had a store . . . That was the first grocery store in Boca Raton . Hutchinson Store, then later on you had Bill Brank…right next to the Post Office where the Haggerty Building is now. …So if you needed…some little something during the week, you might go to one of those stores and then the families would get together like every two weeks and would go to Delray to a supermarket to buy groceries. At first it was…every month…because you were living off the land. …We had three or four service stations and two restaurants…To ride the bus to Fort Lauderdale would cost 25 cents and a round trip was 45 cents.” |
Alice Brown |
Mary Lee Jenkins |
Archie Carswell |
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| “The 20th of May my aunt would have a picnic on the beach and Jimmy Goddard had a generator. He would take his piccolo (jukebox) on the beach on his truck and he would set it up, and we would play on the beach…and she would have fish fries…whatever she had was for the kids, for the young people. …She’d make a cag of punch.” |
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