The Way We Were: Pat and Betty Geer
Pat and Betty Geer met in Jacksonville in the 1960s, raised a family here, and continue to reside locally. They were high school sweethearts at Robert E. Lee. Loyalty to God, school, and country is what they learned and what they taught their children. “Time changes all things,” Betty said wistfully. “But I wouldn’t want […]
The Way We Were: Bill and Mary Dudley Schmidt
It doesn’t happen often. But sometimes, Cupid’s arrow pierces the same heart twice. Such was the fate of Bill Schmidt. He was only 15 years old when he met his first love, his first wife, the mother of his two children. But cancer came. On the day he turned 48, the widower’s heart beat with […]
The Way We Were: Joe Joseph
“I’ve seen Jacksonville change over the past 70 years,” said Joe Joseph. Joe is the first generation of the Joseph family to be born in America, in Jacksonville’s St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1947. His family established themselves in Florida in stages. His great-grandfather immigrated to Tarpon Springs on Florida’s west coast in the late 1890s […]
The Way We Were: Jimmy Kelly
We reap what we sow, the saying goes. There’s a Jacksonville man who’s living proof. Jimmy Kelly, a native Floridian raised in Ortega, is a civic-minded man. He has helped hundreds of kids in our community, and animals, too. The joy he gives always comes back. Kelly was born in late November of 1951 at […]
The Way We Were: Norman Abraham
He has fed mayors, council members, judges, salesmen, construction workers, doctors, hospital workers, bankers, firefighters, policemen, and retirees. When invited to speak at Rotary meetings about his business experience, it’s rarely possible to find a room with a single person who has not been a patron of at least one of his eateries. He is […]
The Way We Were: Anne Coyle
Anne Coyle recognizes the difficulties of today’s COVID crisis, “but it is nothing compared to 1918. That was a time of war and a time of flu,” she said of what occurred more than 100 years ago. The Spanish flu pandemic during WWI hit her mother’s family hard. Coyle’s mother was the eldest of eight […]
The Way We Were: Joe and Joni Bifano
When it comes to true love, the third time is the charm, the saying goes. And that’s how it was for Joseph James Bifano. As a young man working in his hometown of Sheboygan, Wis., on the second floor of J. C. Penney in the boys’ department, there were at least two occasions when his […]
The Way We Were: Sissy Barker
It’s quite the paradox, but amid multiple moves across state lines, Sissy Barker has maintained throughout Jacksonville a consistency in friendships and family, which marks the theme of her life. Born to Sara and Paul Hattaway on Thanksgiving Day 1936 in Augusta, Georgia, Sissy Barker’s real name was Cynthann. She was named for her father’s […]
