The Mackle Company

HAROLD DRAKE STEWARD

GRANDAD

MARCELIA BEARMORE STEWARD

GRANDMA

01 COVER

02 INDEX

03 INTRODUCTION

04 GENEALOGY

05 THE EARLY YEARS IN NEW JERSEY 1896 – 1923

06 THE SOUTH FLORIDA VISIONARIES

07 PHINEAS PAIST

08 THE FAMILY’ FIRST YEARS IN CORAL GABLES 1923 - 1926

09 BUSINESS 1924 – 1929

10 FAMILY LIFE IN CORAL GABLES THRU 1935

11 BUSINESS 1930 – 1937

12 FAMILY LIFE 1935 – 1942 ON MIAMI BEACH

13 BUSINESS 1937 THRU WWII

14 FAMILY AND SOCIAL 1943 – 1960s

15 BUSINESS POST WAR THRU 1949

16 BUSINESS IN THE 1950s

17 BUSINESS IN THE 1960S

18 BUSINESS IN THE 1970S AND 1980S

19 FAMILY 1970s AND 1980s

20 MORE ON THE FLASH DRIVE

INTRODUCTION

As the unofficial family historian, I have written books about my father (The Frank Mackle Jr. Story), my father’s parents (The immigrant and the Bostonian) and - in collaboration with my mother before her passing – her story (My Memories).

In that latter work we included the highlights of her father’s (Harold Steward’s) career. There are also sections in my other two family narratives about my grandfather.

He deserves so much more.

My grandfather was “Grandad” to me, “Hal” to my dad and others. I never knew my father’s father. Grandad was as accomplished in his field as was my father in his. Fortunately, for my research, his work, his business career, was as publicized as was my father’s. But, as I was obviously closer to my dad than to my Grandad, my knowledge comes mostly from research. Over my lifetime I indirectly came to realize what an amazing life he led, both as a person and as a businessman. I never talked to him about it and – like my father – he did not talk about it. It was only late in my mother’s life that I began to collect scrapbooks that his son’s Jack (Harold Jr) Steward and Jerry Steward shared. Of course, my father was a great influence on my future although he never steered me one way or another.

Personally, I was not that close to Grandad although he and my grandmother Marcelia (Grandma to me, “Mars’ to husband and friends) live close by as I grew up. There were occasional golf games with myself, Dad, Grandad and Jerry. Grandad was an avid racegoer so Dad and I occasionally were with him at the track, either in New Jersey or at the old Tropical Park in Miami. In the late 1940s Grandma and Grandad bought a summer home in Belmar, New Jersey. And from the mid-1950s through the 1970s My mother and father first rented and then purchased a home in nearby Sea Girt New Jersy (and later one in Spring Lake). So, I did have some interaction with them each summer. There we also visited occasionally with my mother’s relatives, Aunt Jean and Aunt Mildred. And of course, we would see my grandparents at Christmas and other holidays.

In fact, as I am researching his incredible career, I am a little jealous that I was not closer to him. I was interested in architecture but that probably came from my mother who was an amateur designer often sketching out her next home or a home addition. I went away to college enrolled in an ambitious six-year program which would give me degrees in Arts & Letters, Engineering and Architecture. While I only completed the Arts and Letters degree (with a major in Civil Engineering) I too have been an amateur house designer over my lifetime.

So, as I have covered the highlights of his career in other works I (at this point) have decided to use this narrative mainly to detail his business accomplishments based on the scrapbooks I now have and other research I have done recently.

A lot of the family narrative is taken directly from my mother’s book as it is the best (only?) source I have of the Steward family from the mid-1920s to the 1940s

It is worth noting that Grandad, soon after arriving in Miami in 1924, became a partner with Phineas Paist who already had been the primary Architect for George Merrick’s Coral Gables, opened in 1921. Grandad was intimately involved with him on every project after that including some of the most notable buildings in the “City Beautiful”. Paist must have been the “outside person” as history books correctly give him a lot of credit as one of the pioneers of Coral Gables. However, my grandfather is rarely mentioned. He made a huge contribution to Coral Gables as well as to Miami. I hope to correct that oversight.

I will also include references or links to books by other authors which chronicle their work.

I may sprinkle a few anecdotes that I do remember about him along the way that are not included elsewhere.

FRANK E. MACKLE III

GENEOLOGY

Harold Steward was born on November 7, 1896 in Neptune New Jersey.

His parents were Charles H. Steward and Charity Perrine Steward.

As can be seen in the accompanying Ancestor Chart, I have been able to trace my grandfather’s lineage back to the early 1800s and my grandmother’s lineage back to the Revolutionary War period of the mid to late 1700s.

The amazing thing I have noticed is that every record I have found on both sides are of ancestors born in Monmouth County New Jersey, Nowhere have I found an immigrant record. Neither have I found ancestors who were born elsewhere in the U.S.!

Obviously, they came from somewhere at some point. But – so far – those records have eluded me.

For many years, my mother would say that her family had native American blood and that she was part Indian. However, a DNA test I took a few years ago erased that idea. The DNA test indicated my heritage is entirely European. My mother did say she thought the story came from her uncle Albert who was known to be a great kidder.

So that explanation goes in the trash bin! 😊

And the search goes on!

JANE HAULENBEEK RESEARCH

Although I don’t believe I ever met her, my mother’s first cousin, (Elizabeth) Jane Haulenbeek, stayed in contact from New Jersey throughout my mother’s life. I took it that they had been close friends early on and maybe reconnected on our family trips to New Jersey.

In any event, she is/was an amateur genealogist (as I am) and did considerable research on my mother’s side if the family, especially the Bearmore lineage.

I have a copy of her work. I have not had time to verify or study it so I have not yet included it in my records.

As you can see, from the first page she indicates that two Bearmore brothers came from French port “sometime prior to 1790” and “landing in New York City, they proceed to Hightstown N.J.

However, no authority is given.

And, as she cites the service of Lewis Bearmore in the colonial army in the Revolutionary War (documentation which I do have) they must have arrived long before 1790.

Below is Page One of her research.

THE EARLY YEARS IN NEW JERSEY 1896 - 1923

Harold was the second four children of Charles and Charity Steward. His brother Roy was two and a half years older, his sister, Myrtle was fifteen months younger and His sister, Hannah was nine years younger.

Harold was born in Neptune, Monmouth County New Jersey on November 7, 1896.

The family lived in various locations in Monmouth County New Jersey through at least the mid-1920s. My impression is that most of them and their descendants are still in that area today. In the twenty years of my youth, I met a number of them on our summer trips to New Jersey and my mother was still communicating with her cousin Jane Haulenbeek who was still in the Monmouth County area as late as the 1990s. Grandad and Grandma Steward would be one of the few who came south seeking greener pastures and new experiences.

Grandad attended Asbury Park High School.

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 1905

Upon graduation in the Spring of 1914, he was accepted and, in the fall, attended Syracuse University where he studied architecture.

His parents lived in the Glendola area of Monmouth County, NJ during and after his time at Syracuse. The local newspaper noted several times when he returned from school to his parent’s home.

Harold Steward and Marcelia Bearmore were married on May 18, 1918.

The Bearmore family and – on her mother’s side - the Newman family were, historically, prominent in the Monmouth County, New Jersey and Belmar, New Jersey area.

From my mother’s book …

My grandparents on my Mother’s side were George and Alfreda Bearmore. They had eight children, Jerry, Albert, Marcellia, my Mother, Virginia and Mildred. The other three died in childbirth. They lived in Belmar New Jersey and grandfather was a police officer. They also grew vegetables in the back yard.

Harold’s draft registration date was June 5, 1918 only days after they were married and he, according to my mother, was sent to Texas for training. The Department of Veteran Affairs shows his enlistment date into the Navy as September 19, 1918 and his discharge as April 10, 1919

However, this article indicates he was stationed at Camp Vail in Little Silver New Jersey at the time of his marriage. That camp would later be named Fort Monmouth.

Both could be correct.

Although the European war had been raging since 1914 the U.S. declaration of war did not come until April 6, 1917. The U.S. was part of the conflict until an armistice was signed on November 11, 1918 five months after my grandfather registered for the draft. According to Google the average training time for draftees in WW1 was six months.

I never heard any tales of his military service. So, looking at the dates, it is likely that – although anticipating he would be sent into the conflict – the war was over by the time his training ended.

Harold was 21 years old and my grandmother, Marcelia was 18 when they married. Documents indicate that they were married in Jersey City about 55 miles from Belmar, NJ.

Apparently, (again my mother is my primary source) Harold had not completed his Architectural studies at Syracuse, probably due to the war and his impending marriage) but earned his degree in night school after being discharged from the Navy.

My grandparents gave birth to their first child, Janet, on November 5th 1919.

Their second child, my mother, Virginia was born on December 18th 1920. Harold was employed as a “draughtsman” according to her birth certificate.

By 1923 my grandfather must been well aware of the boom that was going on in South Florida.

It was in that year that the family made the trek to Florida. It was probably by automobile as my mother recounts tales of them driving back to New Jersey each summer.

Grandad must have seen the tremendous opportunity there for a young architect. He had made a trip to Florida in 1917, even before the launch of Merrick’s Coral Gables and by 1924 – as a young architect he must have read about the early work of some of South Florida’s great pioneers.

Henry Flagler had been bringing people to Florida by rail since the late 1800s

George Merrick had launched the city of Coral Gables in 1921 and was selling lots and homes like hotcakes.

Carl Fisher built the Dixie highway and was the developing Miami Beach by 1920.

The following chapter recounts their work.

THE SOUTH FLORIDA VISIONARIES

HENRY FLAGLER

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 – May 20, 1913) was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of the Florida East Coast Railway. He is also known as a co-founder and major investor of the cities of Miami and Palm Beach, Florida.

Early life and education

Flagler was born in Hopewell, New York.

Flagler attended local schools through eighth grade. His half-brother Daniel had left Hopewell to live and work with his paternal uncle Lamon G. Harkness, who had a store in Republic, Ohio. He recruited Henry Flagler to join him, and the youth went to Ohio at age 14. He later joined Daniel in a grain business started with his uncle Lamon in Bellevue, Ohio, and made a small fortune distilling whiskey. He sold his stake in the business in 1858.[4]

In 1862, Flagler and his wife's brother-in-law Barney Hamlin York (1833–1884) founded the Flagler and York Salt Company, a salt mining and production business in Saginaw, Michigan. He found that salt mining required more technical knowledge than he had and struggled in the industry during the Civil War. The company collapsed when the war undercut commercial demand for salt.

Business and Standard Oil

After the failure of his salt business in Saginaw, Flagler returned to Bellevue in 1866 and reentered the grain business as a commission merchant with the Harkness Grain Company. Through this business, Flagler became acquainted with John D. Rockefeller, who worked as a commission agent with Hewitt and Tuttle for the Harkness Grain Company.

By the mid-1860s, Cleveland had become the center of the oil refining industry in America and Rockefeller left the grain business to start his own oil refinery. Rockefeller worked in association with chemist and inventor Samuel Andrews.

Needing capital for his new venture, Rockefeller approached Flagler in 1867. Flagler's stepbrother Stephen V. Harkness invested $100,000 (equivalent to $2.18 million in 2023[7]) on the condition that Flagler be made a partner. The Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler partnership was formed with Flagler in control of Harkness' interest.[8] The partnership eventually grew into the Standard Oil Corporation. Standard Oil Articles of Incorporation signed by John D. Rockefeller, Henry M. Flagler, Samuel Andrews, Stephen V. Harkness, and William Rockefeller

Although Standard Oil was a partnership, Flagler was credited as the brain behind the booming oil refining business. "When John D. Rockefeller was asked if the Standard Oil company was the result of his thinking, he answered, 'No, sir. I wish I had the brains to think of it. It was Henry M. Flagler.'"[44] Flagler served as an active part of Standard Oil until 1882, when he stepped back to take a secondary role at Standard Oil. He served as a vice president through 1908 and was part of ownership until 1911.[45]

Florida: resort hotels and railroads

When Flagler's first wife Mary (née Harkness) fell sick, his physician recommended they travel to Jacksonville for the winter to escape the brutal conditions of the North. For the first time, Flagler was able to experience the warm, sunny atmosphere of Florida. Two years after his first wife died in 1881, he married again. Ida Alice (née Shourds) Flagler had been a caregiver for Mary. After their wedding, the couple traveled to Saint Augustine. Flagler found the city charming, but the hotel facilities and transportation systems inadequate. Franklin W. Smith had just finished building Villa Zorayda and Flagler offered to buy it for his honeymoon. Smith would not sell, but he planted the seed of St. Augustine's and Florida's future in Flagler's mind.

Although Flagler remained on the board of directors of Standard Oil, he gave up his day-to-day involvement in the corporation to pursue his interests in Florida. He returned to St. Augustine in 1885 and made Smith an offer. If Smith could raise $50,000, Flagler would invest $150,000 and they would build a hotel together. Perhaps fortunately for Smith, he couldn't come up with the funds,[47] so Flagler began construction of the 540-room Ponce de Leon Hotel by himself, but spent several times his original estimate. Smith helped train the masons on the mixing and pouring techniques he used on Zorayda.[48]

Realizing the need for a sound transportation system to support his hotel ventures, Flagler purchased short line railroads in what would later become known as the Florida East Coast Railway.

His next project was the Ponce de Leon Hotel, now part of Flagler College. He invested with the guidance of Dr. Andrew Anderson, a native of St. Augustine. After many years of work, it opened on January 10, 1888, and was an instant success.

This project sparked Flagler's interest in creating a new "American Riviera." Two years later, he expanded his Florida holdings. He built a railroad bridge across the St. Johns River to gain access to the southern half of the state and purchased the Hotel Ormond, just north of Daytona. He also built the Alcazar Hotel as an overflow hotel for the Ponce de Leon Hotel. The Alcazar is today the Lightner Museum, next to the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine that Flagler bought from Franklin W. Smith. His personal dedication to the state of Florida was demonstrated when he began construction on his private residence, Kirkside, in St. Augustine.

An immense engineering effort was required to cut through the wilderness and marsh from St. Augustine to Palm Beach. The state provided incentive in the form of 3,840 acres (15.5 km2) for every mile (1.6 km) of track constructed.[51]

Flagler completed the 1,100-room Royal Poinciana Hotel on the shores of Lake Worth in Palm Beach and extended his railroad to its service town, West Palm Beach, by 1894, founding Palm Beach and West Palm Beach.[1] The Royal Poinciana Hotel was at the time the largest wooden structure in the world. Two years later, Flagler built the Palm Beach Inn (renamed The Breakers in 1901), overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach.

Flagler originally intended West Palm Beach to be the terminus of his railroad system, but in 1894 and 1895, severe freezes hit the area, causing Flagler to reconsider. Sixty miles (97 km) south, the area today known as Miami was reportedly unharmed by the freeze. To further convince Flagler to continue the railroad to Miami, he was offered land in exchange for laying rail tracks from private landowners, the Florida East Coast Canal and Transportation Company, and the Boston and Florida Atlantic Coast Land Company. The land owners were Julia Tuttle, whom he had met in Cleveland, Ohio, and William Brickell, who ran a trading post on the Miami River.

FLORIDA EAST COAST RAILWAY

Such incentive led to the development of Miami, which was an unincorporated area at the time. Flagler encouraged fruit farming and settlement along his railway line and made many gifts to build hospitals, churches and schools in Florida.

By 1896, Flagler's railroad, the Florida East Coast Railway, reached Biscayne Bay. Flagler dredged a channel, built streets, instituted the first water and power systems, and financed the city's first newspaper, The Metropolis. When the city was incorporated in 1896, its citizens wanted to honor the man responsible for its growth by naming it "Flagler". He declined the honor, persuading them to use an old Indian name, "Mayaimi". Instead, an artificial island was constructed in Biscayne Bay called Flagler Monument Island. In 1897, Flagler opened the exclusive Royal Palm Hotel on the north bank of the Miami River where it overlooked Biscayne Bay. He became known as the Father of Miami, Florida.

On August 24, 1901, 10 days after his divorce, Flagler married Mary Lily at her family's plantation, Liberty Hall, and the couple soon moved into their new Palm Beach estate, Whitehall, a 55-room beaux arts home designed by the New York-based firm of Carrère and Hastings, which also had designed the New York Public Library and the Pan-American Exposition.[58] Built in 1902 as a wedding present to Mary Lily, Whitehall (now the Flagler Museum) was a 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m2) winter retreat that established the Palm Beach "season" of about 8–12 weeks, for the wealthy of America's Gilded Age.[citation needed]

Whitehall (Now Flagler Museum)

Florida East Coast Railway (FECR), Key West Extension, express train at sea, crossing Long Key Viaduct, Florida. photo from Florida Photographic Collection

By 1905, Flagler decided that his Florida East Coast Railway should be extended from Biscayne Bay to Key West, a point 128 miles (206 km) past the end of the Florida peninsula. At the time, Key West was Florida's most populous city, with a population of 20,000, and it was also the United States' deep water port closest to the canal that the U.S. government proposed to build in Panama. Flagler wanted to take advantage of additional trade with Cuba and Latin America as well as the increased trade with the west that the Panama Canal would bring.[citation needed]

In 1912, the Florida Overseas Railroad was completed to Key West. Over 30 years, Flagler had invested about $50 million in railroad, home and hotel construction and had made donations to suffering farmers after the freeze in 1894. When asked by the president of Rollins College in Winter Park about his philanthropic efforts, Flagler reportedly replied, "I believe this state is the easiest place for many men to gain a living. I do not believe any one else would develop it if I do not..., but I do hope to live long enough to prove I am a good business man by getting a dividend on my investment."[59]

In March 1913, Flagler fell down a flight of marble stairs at Whitehall. He never recovered and died in Palm Beach of his injuries on May 20, 1913, at 83 years of age.[64][65] At 3 p.m. on the day of the funeral, May 23, 1913, every engine on the Florida East Coast Railway stopped wherever it was for ten minutes as a tribute to Flagler. It was reported that people along the railway line waited all night for the passing of the funeral train as it traveled from Palm Beach to St. Augustine.[66]

CARL FISHER

Carl G. Fisher was born in Greensburg on January 12, 1874.[1] In his early life in Indiana, with family financial strains and a disability, Fisher became a bicycle enthusiast and opened a modest bicycle shop with his brothers. In 1904, he and friend James A. Allison bought an interest in the U.S. patent to manufacture acetylene headlights, a precursor to electric models that became common about ten years later. Soon, his firm supplied nearly every headlamp used on automobiles in the United States as manufacturing plants were built all over the country to supply the demand. The headlight patent made him rich as an automotive parts supplier when Allison and he sold their company, Prest-O-Lite, to Union Carbide in 1913 for $9 million

Fisher operated in Indianapolis what is believed to be the first automobile dealership in the United States, and also worked at developing an automobile racetrack locally.

In 1912, Fisher conceived and helped develop the Lincoln Highway, the first road for the automobile across the entire United States

Collins Bridge across Biscayne Bay between Miami and Miami Beach, Florida, opened in 1913 as the "longest wooden bridge in the world."

Following on the success of his east-west Lincoln Highway, Fisher initiated efforts on the north-south Dixie Highway in 1914, which led from Michigan to Miami. Under his leadership, the initial portion was completed within a single year, and he led an automobile caravan to Florida from Indiana.

At the south end of the Dixie Highway in Miami, Florida, Fisher saw another opportunity. Fisher, with the assistance of his partners John Graham McKay and Thomas Walkling, became involved in the real-estate development of a largely unpopulated barrier island near Miami. They invested in land and dredging, promoted deed restrictions, and provided much-needed working capital to the earlier Lummus and Collins family pioneers to develop Miami Beach. For example, Fisher funded completion on the first bridge to link Miami to Miami Beach. The new Collins Bridge crossed Biscayne Bay directly at the terminus of the Dixie Highway. Cars were charged a toll to cross.

Fisher is one of the best-known promoters of the Florida land boom of the 1920s, which inculcated racial deed restrictions into Florida culture for decades. Prior to the hurricane in September 1926, he was worth an estimated $50-100 million depending on the source. This unforeseen storm reduced Miami Beach to rubble. Fisher's financial endeavors never fully recovered.

GEORGE MERRICK

https://www.coralgables.com/department/historical-resources-cultural-arts/history-coral-gables

Reverend Solomon Greasley Merrick, a Congregational Minister, and his wife, Althea Fink, moved their family from Duxbury, Massachusetts, to the Miami area in 1899, after the harsh northeast winter claimed the life of one of the twin daughters.

As a result of this family tragedy and lured by the vision of warm weather and sunshine, Reverend Merrick took his life savings and purchased a 160-acre tract of land west of Coconut Grove for the sum of $1,100 sight unseen.

He and his 13-year-old son George were the first to arrive at the homestead and were disheartened to find a mostly un-cleared tract, with only scattered guava trees and a crude wooden cabin. But the two quickly went to work, preparing for the arrival of Mrs. Merrick and the other four children: Ethel, Almeda (Medie), Helen, and Charles. The Merricks would later have another child, Richard, the only family member to be born in Coral Gables.

Aided by Bahamian workers, Reverend Merrick and George worked tirelessly, clearing the land of pine and palmetto and planting grapefruit and avocado trees. The family grew award-winning green beans, peppers, guava, tomatoes, eggplant, and okra. Young George would take the vegetables by mule and cart to Miami, where he sold them.

In 1906, the groves began to bear fruit, and the family was able to ship the first carload of grapefruit out of Miami to the northern market. Prosperity allowed the Merricks to construct an extensive addition to their wooden cottage. Madeof native coral rock quarried from what would later become Venetian Pool, the addition was designed by Althea and adapted features of New England-style homes to the South Florida environment. The Merrick family named their new home “Coral Gables,” and their growing grapefruit groves the “Coral Gables Plantation.”

George Merrick enrolled in Rollins College in Winter Park in 1907 and then entered New York Law School in 1908. However, his studies were cut short when his father Solomon took ill in 1909, compelling George to come home and help manage the plantation. Solomon Merrick died in 1911, leaving George in charge of the family and the business.

By 1920, Merrick had expanded his land holdings from 160 acres to 1,600 acres. Having been involved in promoting and selling at least 15 subdivisions in the Miami area, he had the land, expertise, and money to move forward with his plans for creating a city. He assembled a team of architects, artists, and engineers. By early 1921, Coral Gables was wholly mapped out on paper. The first lots were sold later that year.

Before long, George Merrick’s original $500,000 ran out. Merrick went from bank to bank seeking financing –and being turned away. Help came from an old college friend. Merrick had not seen Jack Baldwin since they both attended Rollins College when the two met again accidentally. By then, Baldwin had opened an insurance office in Miami. The two men caught a train to Baldwin’s home office, and there, Merrick convinced the company to finance the construction of 100 homes. Baldwin would become vice president and treasurer of the Coral Gables Corporation, which was created in 1925, and was one of Coral Gables’ first City Commissioners.

By the time the city was incorporated on April 29, 1925, building permits had amounted to more than $25 million, and the assessed valuation was more than $90 million. The development was so successful that in that same year, Merrick was offered $10 million by New York interests for his holdings in Coral Gables. He refused the offer. After all, his objective was always the creation of a wondrous city, and he still had a lot to accomplish.

George Merrick’s Team

The success of George Merrick’s development of Coral Gables can be attributed to the team of experts he brought together. Though the guiding vision was uniquely Merrick’s, the expertise to translate that vision into reality came from talented artists, architects, and planners.

Perhaps foremost among these was Merrick’s uncle, Denman Fink, who was involved with the project since its inception. He served as Art Director for the Coral Gables Corporation and later was a Professor of Painting at the University of Miami. Fink is credited with the design of landmarks such as Venetian Pool and City Hall, as well as the development of the city plan, including the entrances, plazas, and other public spaces.

While Fink was the artist that conceived the designs, master architect Phineas Paist carried them to completion. Originally from Pennsylvania, Paist studied at the Drexel Institute of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and later in Europe as a Cresson Traveling Scholar. After coming to Miami, Paist was the associate architect on James Deering’s estate, Villa Viscaya, before becoming Supervising Architect of the Coral Gables Corporation.

Finally, landscape architect Frank Button is credited with laying out the grounds for the city’s winding drives, tree-lined boulevards and grand entrances. Button’s work includes the Charles Deering Estate in Buena Vista, Chicago’s Lincoln Park extension, and the grounds of the Vermont state capitol. For his work in Coral Gables, Button imported tropical plants from around the globe

The Building of Coral Gables

Much of Coral Gables was built at a meteoric speed between 1921 and 1926. At that time, what we know as Coral Gables High School was a tent city for construction workers building the city. Hundreds of workers collaborated in the building of Coral Gables, a significant portion of whom were stonemasons from the Bahamas who were experts in coral rock construction.

The site that is today the Venetian Pool was originally a quarry pit that provided the building material for many of Coral Gables’ early houses. The coral rock was also crushed and used to pave the city’s streets. Soon, the quarry became an eyesore. Merrick asked Denman Fink to transform it. The result was a free-form lagoon and palm-fringed island surrounded by shady porticos and vine-covered loggias. Originally named the Venetian Casino, the pool was built in 1924 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Several significant structures were built during the construction boom. The Congregational Church, for example, was the first church in Coral Gables and was built on land donated by George Merrick to honor his father. Merrick also paid for the construction of Coral Gables Elementary School in 1924.

The Dade County School Board later reimbursed him. The Miami-Biltmore Hotel, designed by well-known New York architects Schultze and Weaver, formally opened on January 15, 1926. George’s brother, Charles, constructed the Granada and Alhambra Entrances. These were two of the four entrances completed in the1920s.

By October 1926, Coral Gables boasted more than 4,000 structures representing an investment of more than $150 million. Structures included 2,792 private homes and apartments, 112 office and commercial buildings, 11 schools, 10 public buildings, two hospital buildings, two university buildings, and six hotels. Already 100 miles of streets had been paved, and 125 miles of sidewalks had been built.

Merrick’s intent, as described in the Corporation’s literature, was to produce structures as permanent as the solid rock with which they were built, an ideal to which the city still strictly adheres

PHINEAS E. PAIST

Source:

https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/26477

Born: 8/28/1875, Died: 5/2/1937

Phineas E. Paist was born in Franklin, PA, the son of George W. and Margarette (Dempsey) Paist. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, as well as the Drexel Institute (life drawing classes), and the Darby School of Painting (watercolor) and then began work with architect S. Gifford Slocum, an architect ordinarily associated with New York City who maintained an office in Philadelphia from approximately 1887 to 1890. During this early period Paist also worked for a second architect from out of town, Charles Schweinfurth. From 1893 until 1900 Paist lists himself successively as draftsman and architect in the Philadelphia city directories, and it may be speculated that his association with the office of G. W. and W. D. Hewitt began at this time. Certainly by 1900 he was employed by the Hewitts in their office in the Bullitt Building.

In 1902 Paist received the Cresson Traveling Scholarship, when enabled him to visit Europe. When that scholarship was extended for another year, Paist attended the ateliers of Chifflot and Duquesne in Paris. In 1906 he returned from Paris and rejoined the Hewitts.

When G. W. Hewitt retired, Paist succeeded to a partnership in the firm and the name became Hewitt, Stevens & Paist. From 1909 until 1911 the office was known as Hewitt & Paist, but after Alfred Hoyt Granger, formerly of Chicago, joined the firm in 1910, the name was revised to Hewitt, Granger & Paist, and as that it continued until 1915.

In 1915 Paist began practicing on his own with an office at 1613 Chestnut Street. He is last found in the Philadelphia city directories in 1918. Following a brief period in New York City, Paist relocated to Miami, FL, where he soon associated with Harold Drake Steward (Paist & Steward). Eventually, according to Harold D. Steward, " . . . the firm was invited to come to Coral Gables, Florida to assist Mr. George Merrick who was the Founder and Developer of the City of Coral Gables. The firm designed a new City Hall, the Ground Sales Building and the Coral Gables Administration Building, plus many other fine buildings."

Paist died in Miami, having served as president of the Florida South Chapter of the AIA.

THE FAMILY’S FIRST FEW YEARS IN CORAL GABLES 1923 - 1926

The Steward family arrived in South Florida in 1923 according to my mother Virginia Mackle.

Harold and Marcelia arrived in Miami with two daughters. Janet was three or four and (my mother) Virginia was two or three. Brother Jack (Harold Jr.) was born three years after their arrival.

My mother (in her 90s but still with a good memory) described their first years this way.

Our first two years in Miami Dad rented a house in Coconut Grove. Then he built a house in Coral Gables at 1015 Castile Avenue. It was a two story house on the back of a lot leaving room for a later addition in front ... After the hurricane Dad added to the house and it was lovely with a beautiful patio in the middle of the house and rooms all around.

In 1910 I took her (age 90) on a tour of Coral Gables looking to see if her first Coral Gables home was still there. It was and this is what we found.

A peculiar second article appeared in the Miami News on January 25, 1925 where – attending a function of the New Jersey society they were called to put out a fire near the lighthouse on Key Biscayne.

One can only peculate as there was no bridge to Key Biscayne at the time and they were new to South Florida. I am guessing, at that time, it was common for groups from the same state all fairly new to the area) to gather for events. And, obviously transported to the island by party or sightseeing boat, maybe this was Harolds first experience on South Florida waters, a passion he took on later. The article includes similar groups from New York, New England and Iowa although no other groups are reported to provide fire extinguishing services!

Interesting that included in the group with Mr. and Mrs. Steward are Harold’s Parents Mr. and Mrs. C.H Steward and George Bearmore, presumable Marcelia’s father.

This must have been the trip back to New Jersey that my mother mentioned in her memoir.

A month or so after returning the lives of the Steward family would be very disrupted

Source: https://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/1920s/GreatMiami/

1926 – Great Miami Hurricane

In the early 1920s, Miami, Florida was the fastest growing city in the United States. The boom that put Miami on the map so rapidly would quickly turn to bust during September of 1926.

On September 11, 1926, ships notified the U.S. Weather Bureau that a hurricane existed about 1600 km (1000 mi) east of the Leeward Islands. It passed by Puerto Rico on 15 September and then continued onto the Turks and Caicos, which it battered with 241 km/h (150 mph) winds. On 17 September, the hurricane traveled through the Bahamas, still packing winds of 241 km/h (150 mph). Initial reports from the U.S. Weather Bureau told Floridians that the storm would not hit their state, which was believable as the skies over Miami were clear and the seas were calm. The residents of south Florida were largely unaware of the natural disaster that would affect their state until forecasters issued a hurricane warning just before the powerful storm made landfall early on 18 September.

As the Category 4 hurricane made landfall in Florida, the eye passed directly over the city of Miami. With the passage of the eye, hurricane-force winds ceased after dawn and people thought the storm was over. Residents, many of which were new to the region due to the 1920’s land boom, left their places of refuge and crowded the city streets. Unaware that they were experiencing the relative calm associated with the hurricane’s eye, people were caught by surprise when conditions rapidly degraded again and became just as harsh if not more intense than earlier in the morning. Those who were outside became victim to flying debris and heavy rainfall. A 3 m (10 ft) storm surge inundated Miami Beach and other barrier islands- at the height of the storm surge, waters extended all the way across Miami Beach and Biscayne Bay into the City of Miami for several city blocks. Others who tried to escape Miami Beach when conditions had weakened were caught driving over the causeway as conditions worsened, and perished. Due to the residents’ misinterpretation of the lull in hurricane conditions, the majority of deaths associated with the hurricane occurred after its eye had passed over the city.

Devastation throughout Miami was clearly evident after the hurricane. Boats of all sizes were brought onto the city streets. The waterfront was flooded under 0.9-1.5 m (3-5 ft) of water. Many buildings were completely destroyed, others lost their roofs, and many of Miami’s prestigious oceanfront hotels were filled with sand. The rising waters of Lake Okeechobee flooded communities on its southern shores, most notably the town of Moore Haven, where a several hundred people drowned after a weakened muck dike, which had been constructed to protect Moore Haven, broke in several places. Total casualties from the hurricane are estimated at 373. Total damages from the hurricane were estimated to be $105 million (1926 USD). This equates to over $1.2 billion in current dollars (2010 USD). Due to the tremendous pace of growth in this vulnerable hurricane area (Miami is the 4th-largest urbanized area in the United States, behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago), if a hurricane of parallel force were to strike the same region today, damage would be catastrophic. It is estimated that current losses resulting from such a storm could amount to as much as $157 billion (2005 USD), which would make a hurricane of that nature the most expensive Atlantic hurricane of all time.

More than 85 years later my mother described her experience.

I was only five years old but I remember the 1926 hurricane. It was so scary. Several windows broke and the house started flooding so Dad decided to take us to the neighbor’s house and we were nearly blown away. Brother Jack was four months old and Dad was carrying him and had me by the hand. Mother had Janet.

Just as an aside I remember in the early 1950s – I was only six or seven - seeing a great ship in Bayfront that had been sunk in Miami harbor twenty-five years earlier and was now on dry land and being used as an aquarium!

The Great Hurricane of 1926 is considered to be the end of the first South Florida boom.

It would be a few years before Miami, Coral Gables and Miami Beach would begin to grow again.

But the Paist Steward business would continue

In fact, Miami, would fare better than most American cities.

SOURCE: https://historymiami.org/greater-miami-depression-parti/

(edited for length)

Greater Miami and the Great Depression

By Paul S. George, Ph.D.

The collapse of the stock market in October 1929 ushered in the Great Depression and brought an abrupt end to America’s Jazz Age. The Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in American history, was marked by massive bank failures, factory closings, rampant joblessness, deflation and a growing despair among the populace that good times would never return. Greater Miami exhibited each of these characteristics in a decade long economic struggle.

In 1930, two of Miami’s largest banks failed as many Miamians lost their savings in this financial collapse. Only the First National Bank of Miami remained solvent under the leadership of Ed Romfh, a highly-respected banker and former mayor of Miami. In the immediate aftermath of the latest bank failure, the closing of the Bank of Bay Biscayne, the city’s oldest bank, crowds of panicky Miamians jammed the E. Flagler Street lobby of the First National Bank. Above the crowd from the vantage point of his mezzanine level office, Romfh spoke in a calm and reassuring voice. He invited nervous depositors to withdraw their savings while assuring all within earshot that his bank was solvent; many withdrew their savings; others took Romfh at his word and kept their money there. Many who did withdraw their money then hurried to the nearby United States Post Office in the Federal Building at the intersection of Northeast First Avenue and First Street to purchase money orders. Throughout the day, the Post Office treasurer sent his men back through the bank’s rear door to make cash deposits collected from people using postal money orders to conduct transactions in that era of widespread bank failures. This practice brought a large infusion of cash to the downtown post office, and, ultimately, to the First National Bank of Miami, its repository, reinforcing Romfh’s confidence that his bank would survive the financial crisis.

In fact, Ed Romfh was so confident of his bank solvency, that his was the only bank in the United States that refused to close on the bank holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 6, 1933, two days after his first inauguration. Romfh’s First National Bank of Miami would continue to flourish in the years and decades following the Great Depression.

Shows President-elect Roosevelt speaking from a Buick convertible. February 15, 1933; History Miami Museum archives.

Franklin Roosevelt played an outsized role in U.S. history and even that of Greater Miami. After enjoying an extended pre-inauguration vacation highlighted by fishing expeditions in the waters around Miami and south Florida, the incoming president agreed to speak on February 15, 1933 in Bayfront Park, a popular green space in the process of becoming the city’s “front porch.” Even with the nation’s banking system in a free fall, a jovial Roosevelt spoke briefly from a tourister car parked at the edge of the park’s bandshell. Immediately after, he completed his remarks shots rang out from one of the front rows of seating at the bandshell. Guiseppe Zangara, a troubled, self-styled anarchist, who blamed his chronic stomach pain on, among other things, heads of state, was the shooter. While Roosevelt escaped the assassin’s bullets five persons, including Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago, were not so lucky. Cermak succumbed to his gunshot womb less than three weeks later. Zangara, an Italian immigrant, pled guilty to murder; he was sentenced to death and died in the electric chair in the Florida State Prison at Raiford just five weeks after the crime.

Almost immediately after his inauguration, President Roosevelt, working with overwhelming Congressional support, began implementing the New Deal, his program for fighting the Great Depression, one far more vigorous than that of his failed predecessor Herbert Hoover’s approach to combatting the economic malaise and rising hopelessness that had settled over the country since 1929. Highlighting the New Deal were a series of agencies and programs to put unemployed Americans to work in meaningful jobs to improve the country’s natural and built environment, its culture, entertainment, learning, etc. The funding agency here was the Federal Emergency Relief Agency (FERA). Through its efforts 16,000 greater Miamians received federal assistance.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), the largest of the New Deal agencies, hired unemployed writers to produce a valuable guidebook to Miami. Musicians looking for work provided music under the auspices of the WPA in different venues of the city. Artists and architects drew murals for courtrooms, schools and other public buildings under the auspices of the WPA.

Other agencies included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which built the verdant Matheson Hammock Park and Greynolds Park, two of Dade’s premier parks. The CCC also constructed components of Fairchild Tropical Garden, lying next door to Matheson Hammock. Another “alphabet” agency, the Public Works Administration (PWA), built numerous new public buildings, including the Art Deco styled Miami Beach Post Office, Coral Gables Woman’s Club and Library and Coral Way and Miami Shores Elementary schools, each an architectural gem bearing the streamline style of the 1930s. The PWA also constructed Liberty Square in Liberty City, which was one of the first public housing projects in America. But the PWA’s most famous construction project was Roddy Burdine Stadium, named for the great merchant prince of retail and president of his eponymous stores. Originally a 24,000 steel and concrete arena, it would host from its opening in 1937 until its demolition in 2008 many of America’s most monumental football contests and other noteworthy events. Long before then, in 1949, it was renamed the Orange Bowl for the New Year’s Day classic that emanated from it.

The New Year’s Day Orange Bowl game, which began in 1933 as the Palm Festival, was one of the most important of numerous events designed to draw visitors to the area and provide them with first rate entertainment. The Palm Festival became the Orange Bowl festival a few years after its inception. By the late 1930s, its New Year’s Day games were broadcast nationally. The festival quickly added a New Year’s Eve (held initially in the afternoon) parade to its offerings, and, later, many other events. The parade and the floats comprising it rumbled through the streets of downtown Miami to the entertainment of thousands of onlookers. The annual All American Air Maneuvers, held in an airfield in northwest Dade County, featuring skilled pilots of both genders engaged in daring maneuvers, also wowed large audiences of aerial enthusiasts from their beginnings in the late 1920s until America’s entry into World War II in the early 1940s (and briefly after the conflict).

Other tourists and locals turned to gambling as an activity that plagued the city and region into the 1950s and beyond. Organized crime entered Miami and its environs in the 1920s, when the Capone gang used the area as a source for bootleg liquor, which flowed into Greater Miami in unimpeded fashion from Bimini and other parts of the Bahamas. Gambling replaced rumrunning as the most important syndicated criminal activity after the termination of National Prohibition in 1933. Gambling clubs arose throughout south Florida, including the city of Miami, Miami Beach and other parts of the county. Major crime figures, Meyer Lansky and his brother Jake Lansky, members of the old Capone Gang, and the S&G Syndicate, operating out of a posh office on Lincoln Road, were behind the operations of many clubs and other gambling operations.

Legalized gambling was also pervasive, with pari-mutuel wagering at venues offering horse and dog racing, as well as jai alai. The Florida legislature even legalized slot machine gambling for two years in the mid-1930s, easing the way for the ubiquity of these devices throughout the area.

These offerings, along with the area’s weather and waters, led to a steady rise in tourism, enabling greater Miami to confront the challenges of the Great Depression more successfully than many other parts of the country. Many tourists arrived on one of the two railroad lines serving the area as well as by airplane. Pan American Airways and Eastern Airlines led the way with both establishing their headquarters here. Out of this development arose Pan American Field, later known as the 36th Street Airport, and still later as Miami International Airport. Pan American Field rested on the south side of N.W. 36th Street near 52nd Avenue before developing in an easterly direction. By 1934, Pan American Airways had built a stunning Art Deco-styled building for its growing fleet of seaplanes at Dinner Key in Coconut Grove. The carrier’s busy seaplanes not only moved passengers and cargo, especially mail, to growing destinations north and south but these machines and their striking terminal also became major tourist attractions!

The Pan American terminal at Dinner Key closed in 1946, and for the past seventy year has served as Miami City Hall. Like other municipalities, the city of Miami has had its share of political volatility, and even rancor, in this building, as well as those city halls that predated it.

For its role in investigating the actions of the Termite Commission and setting the stage for the exit of three commission members, the Miami Daily News won its first Pulitzer Prize for the “most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by any newspaper during the year.” Among the Miami Daily News staff involved in investigating the mayor and commission was Ann Mergen, whose searing political cartoons critiqued the actions of these municipal leaders. Mergen is believed to have been the first woman editorial cartoonist in the country drawing for a daily newspaper.

The population of the United States grew from 123 million in 1930 to 132 million in 1940, a 7.3 percent increase, which represented the nation’s lowest rate of growth for any decade before or since. Clearly, the weak growth was one of the ramifications of the Great Depression, as people were hesitant to increase the size of their families with the financial challenges facing many of them.

Shows the intersection of Flagler Street and W. 1st Avenue, including the 1904 Dade County Courthouse and the location of present-day Cultural Center. History Miami Museum archives.

But the Depression Decade of the 1930s was, as noted, a surprisingly vibrant time for the Miami area. The City of Miami’s population rose sharply, increasing, in rounded off figures, from 110,000 to 172,000, while Dade County saw its numbers jump from 143,000 to nearly 268,000. Miami Beach, now an ever more important tourist center, experienced a sharp rise in its year-round population, which spiraled from 6,494 to 28,000. The area’s eternal assets of weather and water, combined with the aforementioned growth in tourism, the rise of new industries and a robust construction sector, helped account for this growth.

The first half of the 1920s represented a breakthrough for the young community of Miami Beach as a tourist resort. But it was followed by the inevitable dip in the numbers of visitors in the aftermath of the boom’s collapse and a ruinous hurricane that struck the area in 1926. Further exacerbating the city’s economic problems was the onset of the Great Depression. By the mid-1930s, however, a rise in tourism, assisted by the attractive American Plan, a hotel package offering affordable room rates and meals, attracted many visitors. Further, major industries, like steel and automobile manufacturing, were becoming unionized, with workers winning benefits like pensions, health insurance and paid vacations. Accordingly, many workers enjoyed for the first time the splendid offerings of Miami Beach.

To meet this growth in tourism and residential population, hundreds of new hotels and apartment buildings were constructed in the second half of the 1930s, most of them south of Lincoln Road, landing the tourist resort, despite its modest population, in the top ten cities in America in terms of the value of building permits issued. For the most part, the architects designing here had been unknown prior to this period. Indeed, it has only been in recent times, with the rising prominence of South Beach’s internationally famous Art Deco district, that the roster of architects from that era, men like Henry Hohauser (Park Central and Essex House hotels), L. Murray Dixon (the Victor and Tides hotels) and Albert Anis (the Winterhaven and Clevelander hotels), among numerous others, has become familiar to aficionados of the new design style, sometimes called streamline or moderne, an eclectic style, influenced by the sleek machines of the 1930s, the decade’s automobiles, trains, airplanes and ships, with their rounded contours and streamlined looks. Many of the hotels lining Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue, as well as apartment houses west of there, exhibit this style, which features eyebrows, vertical and horizontal lines, rounded contours, finial spires, terrazzo floors and the employment of keystone in portions of the building’s facade. Lobbies sometimes showcased the painting wizardry of Earl LePan, with his iconic south Florida flora and fauna images as a backdrop. Today the term “Art Deco” defines this style.

The term “Art Deco” emanated from the famed Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, which appeared in Paris, in 1925, and featured stylized representations of natural forms, employing geometry, vertical lines and an absence of three-dimensional decoration. For Miami Beach and elsewhere, it represents an earlier version of the streamline style, which dominated buildings of the mid- 1930s and onwards.

Since the preponderance of these hotels overlooked the warm waters of the Atlantic, their style reflected that location and included, in addition to the above elements, those of nautical design, such as portholes, ships’ decks, etc. Often, this hybrid style is referred to as Nautical Moderne or Tropical Moderne.

The management of these South Beach hotels looked forward to their best season yet as the winter of 1941-42 approached. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, however, quickly nullified this outlook, leaving ownership and management at their wits end as the nation went to war on December 8, 1941, the day following Pearl Harbor. But by the spring of 1942, greater Miami became a major training center for the nation’s war effort with more than 150 hotels offering thousands of hotel rooms pressed into service as barracks for the Army Air Force officer’s candidate school, an officers training school and a basic training center.

In the meantime, the City of Miami, lying five miles west of “the beach,” was showing signs of recovery, too. An article by Oswald Garrison Villard, in a March 1935 edition of The Nation, spoke to the city’s economic progress during the Great Depression. Villard, a grandson of famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, observed that “If one were to judge Florida by the appearance of Miami one would have to say that the depression is all over in this state. The streets are thronged with the tourists the city must have in order to live, since it has no other trade; the hotels are jammed; the night clubs flourish; there is building everywhere, with lots beginning to go fast; the newspapers are carrying more advertising by one quarter than a year ago; the FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration) reports only 4,000 cases…on the relief roll, of whom 1,300 are Negroes and 900 single or widowed women, as against a peak of 16,000 in 1932 and 10,500 in November, 1933. The visitors are spending money freely… “ and “there can be no doubt whatever of the revival of building.” Yet so much remained problematical, headed by rampant gambling, beneath the surface.

The national unemployment rate stood at eighteen percent as late as 1938. The following year Europe was at war and war-related manufacturing eliminated the unemployment crisis in America. Two years later, with the U.S. entry into the war, a new Miami had begun to emerge.

So, between the growth of Miami’s population, and the programs of the Roosevelt administration pouring federal dollars into cities with an emphasis on good architectural design it appears that the place and the era was, actually, a fertile time for architects!

Which might explain my mother’s statement in her memoir, My Memories.

I knew there was a depression but I didn’t realize how bad it was. We lived the same as before.

My uncle Jerry gifted me with a rare copy of a sample album produced by William A. Fisbaugh, noted photographer of Coral Gables and more.

Here are a few of his Coral Gables photos from the early 1920s just to get the flavor of how young and undeveloped this great city was. The entire album is can be viewed on the Flash Drive that accompanies this manuscript.

FAMILY LIFE IN CORAL GABLES THRU 1935

Life for the Stewards in Coral Gables from their arrival until the mid 1930s is best described by Virginia Steward Mackle in her My Memories

Every summer we would drive up to New Jersey to visit the family. My aunt Virginia took my sister and me to the Asbury Park boardwalk. … I remember how good the food was. Most of the vegetables were rom their garden. The corn on the cob and the tomatoes were so much better than here. After dinner we would walk up to the ice cream parlor. The best I’ve ever had.

Our brother Jerry was born in August 1929. Janet and I were very close during these years

We lived in the Coral Gables house for ten years. We attended Coral Gables Elementary School and then Shenandoah Junior High. …. Our house was just a couple of blocks from the Venetian Pool and we would walk over to swim on the weekends. Our family would go to Tahiti Beach at Cocoplum where there were hundreds of horseshoe crabs. We also went to the Biltmore Hotel pool to swim sometimes. … There was a streetcar running from the Colonnade building in Coral Gables to downtown Miami. Janet and I – as teenagers - would occasionally ake the trolley to the Olympia Theater in Miami.

Often Mother and Dad and some of their friends would go to the dances at the Coral Gables Country Club. It was just a few blocks from our house and Janet and I would walk over to sit on the golf course and listen to the music and watch them dance. The dance floor was on the patio under the stars. Most weekends they had a big band playing.

When we were ten and eleven Dad bought a sailboat named the Bug-a-Boo. I think it was a 28 foot sloop big enough for the whole family. We would sail over to a small deserted island in the bay and build a fire and cook hamburgers and hotdogs and roast marshmallows. That island is now Grove Isle.

When we were about thirteen and fourteen we spent summers at Camp Ton-a-Wanda in Hendersonville, North Carolina and Jack and Jerry went to camp Pinnacle. I loved the horseback riding. About the same time Mother and Dad bought a summer home there.

My grandfather was an avid golfer all his adult life. I do not know when he took the game up but it was probably in Coral Gables in the late 1920s or early 1930s, most likely at Coral Gable Country Club or at Biltmore Country Club. It is evident from newspaper articles that he liked the competition of tournaments from the start. In those days the papers reported the entries and results of local club tournaments. This is the earliest I have found.

Starting in 1933 (according to my newspaper research) he was on building committee of the Little Theater in downtown Miami and later in 1934 and 1935 he was included in a list of “officers and directors”

Early on – as mentioned earlier - vacations were back to their home area of Monmouth Township New Jersey which included the towns of Belmar, Bradley Beach Asbury Park and Glendola (which in now in Wall Township). Belmar being where Grandma was from.

Then around 1933 or 1934 they bought a home in Hendersonville, North Carolina. For the next few years, the girls and later Jack and Jerry would go to camp in North Carolina. They were still spending summers in Hendersonville as late as 1950. When I was a child, we would visit them there.

As a segue to his business accomplishments in the period and beyond Grandad was always very involved in city and county government affairs as well as civic and professional associations including an unsuccessful candidate for the Coral Gables City Commission in 1931.

Other than that one political attempt, he was typically a part of commissions and boards or recommendations … these contributed to the workings of local governments but were also important to the success of Paist and Steward as well as Steward and Skinner.

One other note. My wife, when asked and not knowing the answer, said my position was “Vice President of Going Out of Town”. At age 35 Grandad was doing the same thing. But travel was a but different then.