Columns

The Way We Were: Bonnie Nelson Gum

The Way We Were: Bonnie Nelson Gum

Young Bonnie Nelson “couldn’t wait to move to Jacksonville” from Kingsland, Ga., after her high school graduation in 1933 and vowed, “If I ever get there, I’ll never leave.” Born in Italia between Yulee and Callahan in her grandmother’s house, Bonnie recently celebrated her 104th birthday on Sept. 12 with a party, coconut cake, and […]

The Way We Were: The Howell Siblings

The Way We Were: The Howell Siblings

Charles, Sonja, Una and John Howell grew up in what Sonja describes as a homogeneous Ortega neighborhood, but their family history is international, taking place in Brussels, Paris, Sweden, Jacksonville, and New Mexico. At the core of the siblings’ memories, however, is their mother’s Swedish heritage. Sigrid Jonsson Howell, described by family and friends as […]

The Way We Were: Dulce Anaya

The Way We Were: Dulce Anaya

For over 50 years, Dulce Anaya, prima ballerina, and St. Nicholas resident, has brought the magic of her craft and exacting technique to hundreds of dancers as founder/director of Jacksonville Ballet Theatre as well as a founder/director of The Jacksonville Community Nutcracker Ballet. Many of her students have gone on to professional careers as dancers […]

The Way We Were: Henry Darwin Rogers

The Way We Were: Henry Darwin Rogers

Dashing. Daring. Dapper and Debonair. Ian Fleming of James Bond fame would have found new inspiration for novels based on the incredible adventures of Henry Rogers, a man who has tangoed, samba-ed and passo dobled his way around the world as easily as he has navigated the stage of First Coast Nutcracker for 41 years. […]

The Way We Were: Margarette Jeanne Hardage Chambliss

The Way We Were: Margarette Jeanne Hardage Chambliss

A conversation with Jeanne Hardage Chambliss is an amusing, witty journey filled with interesting stories of growing up in Riverside, her extensive world travels, fascinating people she knows and has known, her 40-plus years of teaching experience, and what it takes to live and die.  Chambliss’s family helped shape her into the memorable person she […]

The Way We Were: Michael Trower Carlucci

The Way We Were: Michael Trower Carlucci

The San Marco area was a completely different world 60 years ago, filled with the imaginings of an atomic age side-by-side with hand-mixed cherry cokes, gender-divided dances, and freedom from parental oversight.  The Bolles School was still a military school, Jacksonville International Airport was called Imeson, and kindergarteners still pedaled around on Schwinn bicycles unaccompanied, […]

The Way We Were: Neill Wade McArthur, Jr.

The Way We Were: Neill Wade McArthur, Jr.

Neill McArthur has done some serious traveling in his lifetime. He mentioned 20 countries he has visited and that didn’t include visiting the Russian Federation twice, where he had problems with his passport and his hotel reservations were cancelled because the King of Saudi Arabia reserved the entire hotel and displaced the other hotel guests.  […]

The Way We Were: Katherine Monahan

The Way We Were: Katherine Monahan

Once upon a time, 79 years ago to be exact, a little two-year-old named Katherine and her three older sisters found themselves living on the east side of the St. Johns River, in the Granada neighborhood just south of San Marco. Their father, J. Reedy Brown, worked for National Distillers, maker of some of the […]