Julia Isaac Lapinski
Julia, age 5, and Eddie, age 2
By Victoria Register-Freeman
Resident Community News
“On some days I bet my mother drank 20 cups of coffee because she had a cup with everyone who dropped by,” says a smiling Julia Isaac Lapinski as she remembers her extended family childhood on Dellwood Avenue in Riverside. “Aunts, uncles, neighbors all dropped by on a regular basis.
“In many ways my parents were living examples of the American Dream. My father came from Lebanon as a young man. He became a butcher and by the time he met my mother, he owned his own home and a business. One of his businesses was Joe Isaac’s Grocery on Oak Street.
“He met my mother when he was visiting a relative in the Dominican Republic. Mother was from Haiti and spoke a Creole dialect. They were married in Port Au Prince and then came to the U.S. to live in a fairly crowded house. My father’s sister, his brother and two boys lived in the house already.
“Eventually, everyone moved out except my parents and my brother and I, but family stories remained. I had been baptized in Haiti; the upstairs of our house became an apartment; Amelia Isaac, my third cousin, and her
brother were helped into one of the Titanic’s lifeboats by John Jacob Astor. The stories were the fabric of family.
“My earliest memory of the neighborhood was a candy store on the corner of Dellwood and Margaret Street. It was run by a man named Victor who was kind to all of the neighborhood’s children. And there were lots of us. I remember being friends with an Italian family who lived near my house. I loved Italian food. They loved Lebanese food. We ate at each other’s table. Indeed, we were multi-cultural before the term was popular. In addition to the Italian neighbors, I had Jewish neighbors and some neighbors with German heritage.
“When I think of food, I am reminded of the “Boom Boom Man.” This was a black man who used to drive around in a truck that somehow made a booming noise. He would come into the neighborhood and sell veggies out of the back of the truck. And, of course, milk came to our door in glass bottles. Home delivery was taken for granted.
“As far as education, I started at Annie Lytle then on to John Gorrie and finally graduated from Robert E. Lee, carrying a rose and wearing a long white dress. I-95 was being constructed while I was at Lytle. My friends and I had to go through a tunnel to get to Riverside Park which was right in front of the school.
“A teacher at Lytle made a huge difference in my life. Her name was Mrs. Jeanette Jones and she saw immediately that I was very shy. To overcome my shyness, Mrs. Jones made me the nurse’s helper. This job made me step out of my comfort zone a little. I was pleased she had such faith in me. Years later when I was enrolled at Jacksonville University, she helped me once more when I was having some difficulty with an assignment.
“At Robert E. Lee I was in the National Honor Society and Y-Teens, a national service organization. The Y-Teen meetings were a wonderful way to visit lovely homes in the area. Today when I go by the Crenshaws, I remember Jennie Crenshaw. Another friend of mine was Marlo Marcus. We danced at the Henson School of Ballet on Edgewood Ave.
“One particularly memorable moment happened downtown when a cousin and I talked to Johnny Tillotson, a recording star. We were so excited that we got on the bus to go home, dizzy over the incredible conversation, and missed our stop. The concerned bus driver drove back down the route to our stop to let us off.
“Getting a driver’s license was a big deal made even more important because my mother and my aunt did not drive. My mother depended on me for transportation. My father gave me driving instruction on the almost deserted River Road in Orange Park. Indeed, going off in the car was a special event. Sunday drives were special. The family would drive and park near the river. Then my brother and I would get out and throw rocks into the water.
“For a little more excitement there were mother-daughter shopping trips downtown, and movies at the 5 Points Theater and the Edgewood. During the summer, there were trips to Kingsley Lake and Strickland’s. An uncle of mine from Haiti used to come to the U.S. with my cousins. When there got to be too many of us to pile into the family car, he purchased us a station wagon.
“When it came time for college, I remained a homebody and majored in education at Jacksonville University. I became a teacher, married Vincent Lapinski and had three boys—Paul, David, and Brian. We have 11 grandchildren. Through the magic of Facebook, I am reconnecting with folks from 40 years ago. It is amazing.”
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