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Named Best Museum 2022 by Miami New Times

I arrived in Miami on a bright August day in 1993. I was 8.

I was born in Dallas, and had moved with my parents to Caracas, Venezuela, and Santiago, Chile, by the third grade, and then we ended up in Miami. I started at Bay Harbor Elementary that September.

My parents were nomads: my father was from Colorado and my mother was English – they met in South Africa in their 20s. It did not look like they would ever settle down.

But Miami touched my mother, Wendy, the way no other city ever had or would. That first week, when I was in third grade, we lived at the Newport Beachside hotel while we waited for the moving trucks. My mother was out on the pier, marveling at the pelicans. She watched a woman capturing one of them.

That woman was Darlene Kelton, and that meeting changed my mother’s life, and my own.

Darlene ran a pelican rehab center with her husband, Harry, in Pelican Harbor Marina. They had just recently moved their operations from a tool shed to an actual building. My mother, always an animal lover, started volunteering. By the time I was in the fourth grade, she was bringing me along.

Harry and Darlene’s work was not limited to pelicans. One December night I came home to a new family member – a baby skunk. My mother had not been able to find a home for it, but my father was adamant – no skunks in the house. My mom named her Petunia, and wouldn’t you know it, Petunia and my dad fell in love. Petunia got a Christmas stocking with carrots and broccoli a few weeks later.

Growing up at Pelican Harbor Seabird Station was a special experience for me. I did not have many friends. And my mother’s passion was infectious. As “the kid” I got to do the fun stuff – climb trees to rescue entangled pelicans, sit on the pier and scan the horizon for birds. It was my sanctuary, too.

I started at Miami Beach High School in 2002. I still remember how excited I was to get my driver’s license – not to go joy-riding with friends but to pick up injured seabirds all around Miami.

When I was a junior, my mother got a call to go pick up 25 pelicans injured in Hurricane Dennis up the coast. We filled our Kia Sportage with supplies for other centers devastated by the hurricane, and brought back all those pelicans to raise here. My mother was so proud to make a real difference to the community here – to contribute to keeping Miami a safe place for wildlife.

I went away for school – biology, of course – but came back in the summers to work.

I remember one call from a teacher in Liberty City asking us to come pick up turkeys – turkeys! – in the school parking lot. I thought she must be mistaken, but I trekked out there and sure enough, there were two turkeys in a day care center parking lot.

I caught the female first. That one was easy, but the male saw what was coming and was not about to go quietly. He was a strong one. And the most embarrassing part?

After putting him in the crate, I looked up to see a long line of 5-year-old faces laughing hysterically at my takedown by turkey.

When I finished my master’s degree, I came back to Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, and to my mother’s dream.

By then she was the executive director of the station, with big plans for a bigger facility. She was also president of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association and was training rehabilitators as far away as the U.S. Virgin Islands.

We were also the recipient of about 40 birds contaminated in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Last year, we took in 1,665 animals of 128 species – more than 20,000 animals since the Seabird Station opened in that old tool shed.

We have also had some great adventures, rescuing pelicans from the most unlikely places: the Miami International Airport short-term parking lot, the pool deck of the Canyon Ranch hotel – during a tropical storm, and the clothing-optional Haulover Beach (the pelicans fit right in)!

In November 2010, my mother got her second – and terminal – cancer diagnosis. She passed away Aug. 6, 2011, and I was elected executive director on Aug. 7, 2011.

I write this article for her. Miami and its wild residents were so tremendously special for her. They gave her life and purpose. And in turn, her love for this place was passed down to me.

It was January 1926 when we moved to Miami.

Daddy, Dr. George D. Conger, had graduated from the University of Tennessee Medical School and brought mother, Annie Laurie Thomas Conger, and my sister and me to the promise of Miami.

I had just turned 4 and my sister, B. Anne Conger (later Cooper), was only 5 months old. My parents bought a 40-foot wide piece of property on Northwest 28th Street near 22nd Avenue. They paid $9,000 for it. They were completing an apartment building when in September the Great Hurricane of 1926 devastated Miami. The roof was blowing off as we sought shelter next door.

Later we heard that my aunt, Grace Thomas, who was only 16, had tied herself to a telephone pole to keep from being blown away. While living on 28th Street a neighbor, James Donn, had planted royal palm trees along the street. He started Exotic Gardens in 1914. By the time we moved from there, I was 9 and was the same height as the trees. Today those trees seem to reach to the sky. Christmas 1929 we cut down our Christmas tree from a field on 36th Street, between 16th and 17th avenues.

By this time Daddy bought another piece of property on 28th Street with 50-foot frontage for only $1,000. I attended Comstock Elementary until we moved to 35th Street near 17th Avenue. I went to Andrew Jackson Elementary, then next door to Andrew Jackson Junior High. By the time I was ready for high school, they expanded the junior high to a high school. I was in the first graduating class of Andrew Jackson Senior High in 1939.

By that time there were seven Conger children, all of whom graduated from Jackson High School. The family included Anne Conger (Cooper), G. Drew Conger, Mary Conger (Johnson), Laurie Betty Conger (Cauthen), Phyllis Conger (Hotham), and Merle Conger.

Allapattah was a great place to grow up. The area along 36th Street had some thriving shops – a dry goods store, which later became Jackson/Bryon’s, the Allapattah 5 and 10 with its creaky floors, Live & Let Live Drugs, the Style Shop, Coral Cotton, Smith Drugs, Firestone and Bill Ross’s Frosty Freeze. Later there was a Royal Castle and a Food Fair. Church was an important part of the neighborhood; the Congers were active members of the Allapattah Baptist Church community.

Our memories included movies at the Regent and Dade theaters and vaudeville shows at the downtown Olympia and Miami theaters. As a senior in high school, I went horse backing riding in Greynolds Park for PE, near a pineapple farm.

The best memories were driving with daddy on his house calls. We drove to the far reaches of Dade County. At the end of 17th Avenue at 79th Street there was a huge tree in the middle of the street, north of that was a dirt road. He drove as far west as the White Belt Dairy or to Hialeah where there was a hotel, started by pioneer John DuPuis, near the Hialeah waterworks station at Red Road. Baby deliveries were done at home, it cost less money and people often paid the doctor for services with services or goods.

Miami had so much to offer. There were Conger family picnics at Greynolds Park and Haulover Beach. As a young adult, my sisters and I would take the bus downtown to go dancing at the Frolics on Biscayne Boulevard at about 14th Street, where we saw Harry James perform for 50 cents.

About that time my baby brother, the eighth Conger child, Thomas, was born. While I was attending University of Miami in the cardboard buildings, we went to USO dances at The Pier on South Beach, the best place ever. It was here in 1942 that I met the love of my life, Val Dziewguc Dayton.

He was sent to northern Africa because of the war but we wrote letters. I graduated from UM and then spent months trying to find a medical school as there were none in Florida at that time. Schools were busy educating the men for the war. I attended the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) medical school for its two-year program and completed my medical degree at University of Tennessee. Val completed his pharmacy degree from Ole Miss, returned to Allapattah to run Conger Clinic Pharmacy in the office building my father had built on 35th Street, east of 17th Avenue.

It was across the street from the beautiful home he had built for his family in the mid 1930s. It was two stories with beautiful oak floors, a wraparound porch with a terra cotta-tiled floor and an imported Cuban barrel tiled roof. By 1952 I completed my internship at Mount Sinai on Miami Beach and was housed in the old Nautilus Hotel. I joined Daddy’s practice in the 35th Street building as Dr. Helen Conger Dayton.

By then we also had our four wonderful children and we moved into a new house on 30th Street and 21st Avenue. I practiced medicine and delivered babies at Edgewater Hospital on Northeast 49th Street just off Second Avenue, and was one of the first doctors at North Shore Hospital. Daddy and I practiced medicine in Allapattah until the 1980s.

By then there were 21 Conger grandchildren. Today there are 24 great-grandchildren and 5 great-great-grandchildren. All together, there are 40 Conger family members who call Florida their home.

In May 1946, at age 7, my mother and father brought me from Toronto, Canada, to Miami to save my life. I had a chronic lung condition (from birth). I was so sickly I weighed only 35 pounds.

The wonderful weather in Miami made me healthy in no time. My parents, Mamie and Ben, had given up their family, friends, home and job to make me well. They knew no one in Miami. My father was a hotel bell captain and he got a job at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach.

The Roney Plaza was “the hotel of the day” in the U.S.A. There was no Disneyland or Disneyworld or Las Vegas or Atlantic City. The wealthy and celebrities of every kind kept the Roney completely booked from December to May. From June to November, Miami and Miami Beach became a ghost town. There were no tourists and visitors coming here and many of the local citizens went to North Carolina or farther north to get away from the tropical hot weather and hurricanes.

In those days we had one to two hurricanes every summer, but they weren’t officially named until 1953 and only with girls’ names. We were so ignorant of the danger of a hurricane that in 1947 my father drove home on the McArthur Causeway from work on Miami Beach during the “eye” and had to practically swim from downtown Miami to our apartment. Then he had to walk across a large front yard in the dark.

The next morning when we looked out at all the destruction, there were multiple “live wires” laying all over the yard – it was a miracle nothing happened. Because my father worked in the hotel business, he often had to work weekends until 8 p.m. My mother and I would go downtown on Sunday morning (there were no malls yet) – go to the movies at the Olympia movie theater (now the Gusman Theater) – eat dinner in the Walgreen’s basement across Second Avenue – then walk through Bayfront Park (there was no Bayside) and go to Pier 4 and watch the fishing boats come in. My father would pick us up on Biscayne Blvd at 9 p.m. – perfectly safe.

In 1952 my parents bought a brand new house made from Dade County pine for $9,000 with monthly mortgage payments of $39. In those years no one in Miami even locked their homes or their cars. I went to Shenandoah Elementary, Shenandoah Junior High and Miami High School – go Stingarees!!! I was captain of the Flagettes with the marching band at Miami High.

Every New Year’s Eve Miami put on the Orange Bowl parade along Biscayne Boulevard and up Flagler to the courthouse – this was the only nighttime parade in the entire U.S.A and I marched in it all three years of high school. The college national football championship game was played in the Orange Bowl every year on New Year’s Day and the entire country got to envy our beautiful, bright and usually sunny weather. We performed in the half-time extravaganza each year.

In the spring of my junior year, the band’s majorettes and Flagettes were invited by the Cuban government to participate in the Spring Festival in Havana. We spent five days there and enjoyed the Prado, the Malecon, Morro Castle and more. It was there that I learned to love Bolero music. I went on to Jackson Memorial Hospital School of Nursing and experienced a fantastic nurse’s training.

I graduated in 1959. My first paycheck was $249 take home for two weeks. I met my husband, Rudy, on a blind date in 1957. He had come to Miami in 1942 to recuperate from rheumatic fever and eventually became an excellent athlete. When he was 16, he had rowed from the mainland to Key Biscayne (before the Rickenbacker Causeway was built) just before a hurricane hit. Key Biscayne had been a mango plantation and there was a dilapidated barn still standing that Rudy had to climb up onto the rafters to keep out of the rising flood waters.

One of our favorite ways to end our dates was to go to “watch the submarine races” (who remembers what that meant) at Crandon Park Beach – perfectly safe. Then Rudy would make a mad dash to get me back to my dormitory by my midnight curfew listening to Moon Over Miami played by the DJ, Rick Shaw, on the car radio.

We married in 1958. Our four children, Mark, who passed away in 1997, Lisa, Val and Gene are all native Miamians. Because our children’s early years were in the ’60s and ’70s, they learned another language from their neighborhood friends and classmates and today they are fluent in Spanish.

My husband became a psychiatric nurse at the VA Hospital, one of our daughters is a nurse and we have four more members of our extended family who are nurses – that profession has served our family well.

Our family has always enjoyed boating, fishing, scuba diving and also camping in the Everglades. My husband, who passed away in 2010, loved the Everglades so much that anyone who went hiking with him would be the lucky recipient of a walking seminar about the plants, trees, birds, alligators and survival in the Everglades.

My brother, Scott just retired as a city of Miami police officer after 28 years served.

We have watched Miami change into a major metropolitan city with a wonderful diversity to be embraced and enjoyed.

My Miami story began on March 24, 1944, when my father’s B-24 Flying Liberator, the “Thunder Bay Babe,” was shot down while on a mission to bomb the railroad marshaling yards at Steyr, Austria. Flak hit one of the bombs over Mostar and the plane exploded. Out of a crew of 10, my father was one of the four survivors.

He was captured by the Germans and interned at Stalag 17-B in Krems, Austria. In April 1945, he was liberated by advance units of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army. After 13 months of captivity he was sent to Miami Beach to regain his health.

My mother had moved to Miami Beach in 1944 to recover her health after a battle with rheumatic fever. She was working as a telephone operator when she met my father on a blind date.

Six weeks later, on Oct. 18, 1945, they were married at St. Patrick’s Church in Miami Beach by Father Francis Dunleavy.

They moved to a small cottage in Coconut Grove across the street from the fire station. My father worked for Burdines, Morgan Pianos on Biscayne Boulevard, Truly Nolan and then Eastern Airlines. My parents moved to Hialeah, to a small flat-roof house by the race track. My dad’s supervisor at Eastern Airlines wrote a letter to the phone company asking if they could install a phone line to my parent’s neighborhood. My dad was a flight attendant and his supervisor needed to reach him by phone.

My father had served as an altar boy in his youth and was very familiar with Latin. During his time as a POW, he studied foreign languages and became fluent in German, French and Spanish. Capt Eddie Rickenbacker, the president of Eastern Airlines, heard about this young flight attendant who spoke fluent Spanish and made sure my dad was part of the flight crew that accompanied him on his tour of South America. My dad also served as an interpreter.

My maternal grandmother, Gladys Long, moved to Miami in the late 1940s. She got a job with the Dade County Building Department and worked on the 15th floor of the old courthouse. The Dade County Jail occupied the upper floors of the courthouse.

My father taught me how to drive a stick-shift car in the Woodlawn Cemetery. He said we could not hurt anyone there.

I was born Oct. 11, 1951, and my parents Jack and Valerie Newman adopted me through the Catholic Charities Bureau.

My mother, an only child, depended on my pediatrician, Dr. Wesley Nook, for advice on how to raise me.

I recently attended Dr. Nook’s funeral at Plymouth Congregational Church in Coconut Grove. He was 100 years old.

The first house I remember living in was at Oak Avenue in Coconut Grove. I went to kindergarten in an old stone building in Peacock Park. I walked to Coconut Grove Elementary School to attend the first grade. I remember going to Liles Pharmacy, the Florida Pharmacy in the Engle Building and best of all, the Krest Five & Ten store next to the elementary school.

In the late 1950s, my father got a new job as a traveling salesman for Northan Warren Co., selling nail care products and cosmetics to women.

We moved to a new house at 8770 Caribbean Boulevard in Whispering Pines. This was our first house with central air conditioning! I rode my bike with friends to Perrine Elementary School.

We had been going to St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Coral Gables, but there was a disagreement over the building of a new sanctuary and many of the members left, including my parents.

We now attend Christ the King Lutheran Church across the street from the old Parrot Jungle. The founding pastor was the dynamic Carsten Ludder. George Williamson, owner of Williamson Cadillac, also a member, made sure that Pastor Ludder always had a bright red convertible Cadillac to drive.

We used to cook breakfast at Matheson Hammock Park or go swimming at the protected pool. My favorite beach was Tahiti Beach, with its floating raft that had a great diving board.

In the early 1960s my father was promoted to regional sales manager and we were transferred to Atlanta. The Northan Warren Co., had been sold to the Chesebrough Ponds Co. I attended Margaret Mitchell Elementary School. I will never forget that school because I was sitting in class taking a Weekly Reader test when another teacher walked into our classroom and whispered something to our teacher. The date was Nov. 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated.

I eventually graduated from Stetson University in 1975. I shared the bathroom and the telephone with William Bryan Brock III and Louis Wolfson III, who both still live in Miami.

After graduation, I found a job as a “fuel allocation engineer” at the Shell gas station on Le Jeune Road across the street from the National Airlines hanger.

I returned to Christ the King Lutheran Church and was a member for almost 25 years. My grandmother and I could usually be seen in the same pew every Sunday. One day, Jim Harris, the personnel director of the Dade County Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, called and asked me if I was still interested in a job. On April 13, 1976, I was hired as a correctional officer to work in the county jail system. I had many interesting assignments: housekeeper, booking desk, courts, transportation, training bureau supervisor, firearms instructor, operations, supervisor of Ward-D at Jackson Memorial Hospital and shift commander at the Women’s Detention Center. I was appointed to the board of directors of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association. Sometime later, Nelson Perry, then president of the PBA, asked me if I would be willing to serve as the chaplain.

I did not feel that I was qualified but he assured me that all I would have to do is open the meeting with a short prayer. This began the happiest 18 years of my life.

I retired in 2006, after 30 years of service to Miami-Dade County’s citizens.

I love Miami and never plan to move away.

No matter where I go – whether to Versailles, Vizcaya, St. Patrick’s Church, the Biltmore Hotel, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden or Lincoln Road, I have wonderful memories of living in Miami.

It was a cold, snowy, winter day in 1967 when, while sitting in my junior high geography class in South Philadelphia, I first read about this tropical paradise called Florida.

The book told of beaches, palm trees, alligators, the Fountain of Youth and Bunny Yeager. I knew then that I wanted to be there, but being 14 at the time, the dream was repressed.

We had Atlantic City, where my parents and their parents vacationed, but the ocean water was cold even in June.

In 1973, while attending Temple University, the dream of going to Florida bubbled up.

Maybe it was the movie Midnight Cowboy, or maybe it was because it was December, but I got on a Greyhound and headed for Miami Beach.

When the bus dropped me on the corner of 17th Street and Washington Avenue, I looked up and saw Temple Emanu-El. I returned to Philly and two years later, in August 1975, I packed my bags and transferred to the University of Miami.

My first job was as a doorman at the Mimosa, where I parked cars for the rich and a little famous. It was 75 degrees in December and, as I worked and people were giving me money to park their cars and open their doors, I saw the bus pass by that Ratso Rizzo had been riding on in the movie, and it was carrying more escapees from the Northeast. I rented a “kitchenette” at the oceanfront Betsy Ross Hotel for $400 a month in the summertime, including a phone, electric and maid service. This was too good to be true!

I left in the winter because it went up to $400 a week. From there I lived in a garage apartment on North Bay Road where I would watch the Bee Gees drive back and forth to their recording studio in a nice Cadillac.

In May 1980, I went to Israel again for 10 days. When I returned to Miami, the Mariel Boatlift had happened, as well as the riots. I remember walking home down Lincoln Road in the 1980s from the only club on Ocean Drive, The Carlyle, and fearing for my life.

During the riots, I drove tourists back and forth from the beach to the airport watching the city in flames.

There were so many great places to eat on Miami Beach at the time. I still have the cholesterol and triglycerides to prove it. There was Wolfie’s, Pumpernicks, the Concord, Rascal House, the Famous, the Embers, and Curry’s.

My favorite was the King David Deli on Washington Avenue. There were several kosher butchers in Miami Beach and the bakeries were unreal.

I remember dancing at The Forge to the Bee Gees, and even took my mother there when she visited from Philly. I remember going to the Marco Polo Hotel and the Wreck Bar, where greats like B.B King and the Staple Singers performed to a small audience. I caught the tail end of an era.

I continued my education all along the way, earning a second bachelor’s in criminal justice from Florida International University in 1981. I began working as a counselor for Douglas Gardens Community Mental Health Center on Lincoln Road.

From 1985-86, I studied and worked in Israel and returned again to Miami Beach. This time I brought my parents with me and they lived on Miami Beach enjoying the weather and thawing out from 70 years of living in Philly.

I believe the move increased their years. They both attended what was an active Jewish Community Center on Espanola Way.

It was the 1980s and the celebrities returned with Miami Vice and Scarface.

I was star struck once again and chatted with Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas, and spoke with Mickey Rourke while he trained at the Fifth Street Gym.

I completed a second master’s and then a doctorate in psychology in 1997 from the Carlos Albiezu University. I became licensed as a psychologist in 2001 and have had a practice in Miami Beach since then.

It’s great to see the rebirth of the Jewish community with new synagogues, kosher restaurants, and a soon-to-be Jewish Community Center, for which I’ve waited 37 years.

I’ve been to 30 states and 15 countries – but I always find myself coming back to Miami Beach. Must be in the stars.

After being discharged from the Navy in 1947, I went back to Deland in Central Florida to stay with my parents. After three months of adjusting to civilian life, I made plans to enter Embry Riddle School of Aviation, based at Opa-locka Airport, to get an aircraft and engine license. Serving in the Navy as an airplane mechanic made me aware that I liked working on airplanes.

When I arrived in Miami to enroll, the classes were filled until late 1951. I enrolled for the 1951 class and returned to Deland. A close friend, Dr. Garwood, dean of men at Stetson University, advised me to get a degree while waiting. I followed his advice and graduated with a degree in business administration in 1951.

I married my college sweetheart, Marilyn Pitts, who also graduated in 1951, began aviation school and started working part-time for Loffler Brothers Oyster House in Coral Gables. I traveled to work on a Cushman motor scooter, while my wife used our 1947 Chevy to get to her job with Lindsley Lumber. Later, she worked for the state of Florida and retired in 1991.

In the 1950s, 36th Street was the main road at Miami Airport. Eastern and Pan Am each had their own terminals on 36th Street, and National Airlines had their hangars on the east side of Le Jeune Road across from the airport.

It seemed like there was a Royal Castle on every corner offering five-cent hamburgers and five-cent birch beers in cold glasses. There was a mom-and-pop restaurant close to the Seaboard Rail Station on Seventh Avenue named the “Shrimp Place.” Dinner was 75 cents and included the entree, 2 sides, bread, drink and dessert – and the shrimp were fresh-caught.

After finishing my class at Embry Riddle, I was employed by Pan American World Airways and retired in 1991. When Pan Am moved their maintenance department to New York, I worked for Eastern Airlines for four years until Pan Am moved back to Miami and recalled me.

In June of 1952 we joined Riverside Baptist Church, then on Ninth Avenue and First Street in downtown Miami. We are still members of Riverside Baptist Church, which is now located in Kendall.

Having been a scoutmaster while in college, I agreed to work with a group of boys from fourth through 12th grades. This group was called Royal Ambassadors, or R.A.’s . In addition to mission education, the boys learned canoeing, cooking, games, sports, crafts and nature study. I still work with these boys. My wife worked with the girls in a group called Girls in Action. They did mission education and crafts and games, also.

In 1953, we purchased our first home in Virginia Gardens, a five-minute commute to Pam Am. It was a three-bedroom, one-bath new home with a garage for $11,000. We put $385 down and paid $80 a month. Needing more space, we relocated in 1960 to Westchester, where we bought a home on a one-acre lot. We still live there.

As church attendance grew, it became necessary to think about building a larger sanctuary. The old sanctuary had been built in 1922 and was renovated after the 1926 hurricane. Under Dr. James Parrish, the church began construction on the new sanctuary in 1958 and finished in July 1959. The new building was beautiful, with a tall steeple and green and white furnishings inside.

On the way home from Sunday evening church service, we would stop at the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop on Southwest Eighth Street and purchase a dozen fresh, hot doughnuts. With our three children in the car, they were all gone by the time we arrived home.

By the end of 1970, attendance at Riverside Baptist was very low. Many members had moved to unincorporated Dade County, where new homes were available. The church building was sold downtown, and property was purchased on Southwest 104th Street. We had our first service in the new building on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1977. Last fall, the church celebrated its 90th anniversary.

This year marks two important events in our family’s life: the 50th anniversary of our arrival to Coral Gables and the 50th anniversary of the company my parents founded in Miami.

This was my dad’s second start in the auto parts business – as a teenager he worked in the automotive field in 1938 in Cuba.

When Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist in 1960, my parents, Jose Ramon and Dolores Hernandez, realized it was time to send my sister and me to the United States to be brought up in the freedom they cherished. At that time they had five auto parts warehouses, the American Motors dealership, and several gas stations in Cuba.

We lived in Tampa with our aunt and grandmother for nine months.

On May 13, 1961 (Mothers Day), my parents surprised us by arriving in Tampa, never to return to Cuba.

We drove across Tamiami Trail in a green Rambler, with a U-Haul in tow. My parents, my sister Teresita, my grandmother Teresa, my aunt Carmen and I would see for the first time the city that we would forever call our home, Coral Gables.

My parents had friends who were living in the Gables. Our new home was a small house at 109 San Sebastian, off Douglas Road. The house had a screen door that was only closed before going to bed. Our bikes and toys were left on the front lawn and nobody thought of stealing them.

Thanks in part to his good credit with American companies, my dad was able to start a small auto parts warehouse in Miami on Flagler Street, AAA Million Auto Parts. It was a couple of blocks away from Miami High, and since we had a water fountain, all the kids who walked to school were always welcome to stop inside for some air conditioning and a cold drink.

As a child in the 1960s, I remember a different Coral Gables. The summer movies at the Coral and Miracle theaters cost a quarter, popcorn was a nickel and we got to see two movies. We would go to Miracle Mile, without adult supervision. I remember the old Woolworths, McCrory’s and Jefferson’s, where we were rewarded for good grades. We spent a lot of time at the Coral Gables Country Club, The Big Five or the Westbrook Country Club.

On the days we had off from school, my sister and I would help out at the business, a pattern that continued with our own children in the 1980s, and hopefully will be repeated with my granddaughter, Sofia. We all still enjoy living in the City Beautiful and working in the family business.

I went to a new school, Dade Demonstration Elementary on Douglas Road (now the English Center), where we watched space launches on a TV in the library. Elementary school lunches were only a quarter. Ponce de Leon Junior High was a very different place. I remember the entire school going to the field and listening to a bugler play Taps while they lowered the flag. We didn’t know what had happened until the principal said over the microphone that President Kennedy had been shot and died. This was something I will never forget.

When we went to Coral Gables High, all the girls had to wear dresses since slacks were forbidden. A full lunch cost only 35 cents. While I was a sophomore at Gables High, the schools were integrated for the first time. The school day began with the Lord’s Prayer and later with a “moment of silent meditation.” Times sure have changed.

The University of Miami, where my sister and I attended, cost about $3,000 a semester, a lot less than what a private elementary school costs now. There were still two sets of water fountains and bathrooms everywhere, a remnant of the segregation era.

Five years ago, at my father’s funeral, we were surprised to meet many people from all walks of life who came to pay their respects to a man who had done them many favors.

I remember a homeless man standing in the back. He said he had walked many miles to see my dad for the last time. Unbeknownst to us, my father had bought him lunch for over five years.

My mom, Dolores, is 90 and comes to the business every single day. Now as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of my parents’ business, we look back fondly on our time in Coral Gables and look forward to making the city as nice a place for my grandchild, Sofia, and my nephew, Joseangel.

On June 29, 1973, we waited all day long for the movers to come for our furniture. At the time, I lived in an apartment in Flushing, New York, with my family. I was 16 and had just completed my junior year in high school. We were moving to Miami, where every Cuban living up North dreamed of living.

The movers finally arrived late in the afternoon. Although everything was packed, it seemed to take an eternity for the truck to be loaded with all our furniture and boxes. Finally, the apartment was empty, and my father, grandparents, older sister and I drove off in our Chevrolet station wagon. It was nighttime, and my sister and I sat in the front with our father singing along to songs playing on the radio so he would not fall asleep. We stopped in Washington, D.C., for the night.

Sometime in the afternoon on July 1, we drove up to the front of our new house in Kendall. My mother and younger sister were there waiting for us with members of the Cosculluela family, lifelong friends who were instrumental in our move to Miami. We could not believe our eyes. This four-bedroom, three-bathroom house with a pool was to be our home. We had arrived in paradise.

In the summer of 1973, Miami was not the metropolitan city it is today. Kendall ended at the turnpike. Dadeland was anchored by Jordan Marsh and Burdines. Across Kendall Drive was the Dadeland Theater, where we watched the latest James Bond movie, Live and Let Die.

Our mother took the Palmetto Expressway every morning to her job at the Flagship Bank on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. She and her fellow co-workers would take the trolley on Lincoln Road at lunchtime. There was a Burdines on Michigan Avenue and a small Saks Fifth Avenue store behind Burdines.

In Kendall, there was a Jefferson National Bank on the corner of 97th Avenue and Kendall Drive where my grandfather opened his first checking account.

Miami Dade College was much smaller. My older sister attended college there and worked part-time at Jordan Marsh in Dadeland, where she was not allowed to wear pants to work. Florida International University was relatively new, and all college-age students whose parents could not afford the University of Miami attended Miami Dade for the first two years of college and then the last two years at FIU. It was not yet the four-year university it is today.

My younger sister and I attended school at Loyola on Coral Way, east of 107th Avenue. Emilio Cosculluela, who passed away three weeks after we moved to Miami, was the owner of the school. I was a senior; my sister was in sixth grade. My senior class consisted of 30 boys and girls. Most of my teachers were Cuban, and some taught their classes in Spanish.

My second day of class, I stayed home from school, throwing up. I asked myself, “What was I, a New York City girl who rode the bus to her all-girl Catholic high school, who hung out with American girls smoking cigarettes after school, and who rode the subway into Manhattan, doing in Miami, Fla.?”

I did go back to school on the third day. I wore my uniform – plaid skirt, white blouse, knee socks and saddle shoes – and rode in the car with my father, who worked in the school, and my younger sister. I soon got used to my classmates speaking “Spanglish,” the boyfriend/girlfriend couples who spent the day glued to each other like old married couples, and the math teacher who taught trigonometry in Spanish. I even taught some of my new friends to smoke.

It took me a long time to think of Miami as home. It is now 38 years since our arrival in sunny south Florida. I graduated from Loyola, Miami Dade, FIU and the University of Miami. I met my husband here. He moved to Miami from Chicago the summer before I did. We were married in Little Flower Catholic Church 29 years ago. Our children were born at Baptist Hospital. Our son will be married next summer, and our daughter is coming back after attending culinary school in Michigan. We live in the village of Kendale, not far from our first neighborhood.

I sometimes wonder what my life would be like had we stayed in New York. I still love to visit the city we lived in when we first came from Cuba in August of 1961. I prefer cold weather and snow to the heat of Miami summers, but Miami is my home. I root for the Miami Heat and the Miami Marlins, and if I liked football, I would root for the Miami Dolphins, too. Miami is a very different city in 2012. It is a city I have grown to love.

In December 1945, I got my first glimpse of the palm trees, beach umbrellas and hotels on Miami Beach. After six years of being exiled in England, I managed to get passage on a tramp steamer in Norway so I could join my family in Mexico. We had all been dispersed from our home in Germany by the Holocaust.

The North Atlantic was cold and miserable, but eventually we rode along the coast of South Florida in the Gulf Stream. It was delightfully warm, and I spent most of the days in my swimsuit on the captain’s bridge, looking at the coastline with his binoculars. That’s when I fell in love with this area.

At the time, I was “stateless” and knew that I could not get into this paradise. I was reunited with my family in Mexico after two weeks in Cuba. I lived in Mexico City with my parents and two sisters for 2 ½ years and learned to speak Spanish. My sisters immigrated to New York City, and I planned to join them there.

When I did get my U.S. visa, I looked at a map and concluded that my dream land (South Florida) was almost on the way to New York. I decided to see if I could get a job and stay in Miami. At age 23, I arrived with $200 and a suitcase full of out-of-fashion clothes. I landed a job as an English/Spanish secretary, even though my first languages were German and French. My stay in Mexico had paid off.

I rented a garage apartment at Northwest 76th Street off Seventh Avenue. I rode the bus to my job at the airport. When the bus route was discontinued, I bought a motor scooter. There were no expressways, so I could putt-putt my way to the airport every day. My only problem was going to Hialeah via the 103rd Street overpass. The scooter barely made the “hill.”

Every weekend, I drove over the 79th Street Causeway to the beach. The police stopped me quite often. I was terrified because of what I had experienced as a Jew in Germany. Eventually, I learned that the Miami police were just being friendly and wanted to chat with a young woman on a motor scooter. I saved my money, and after a year I bought a used car.

I worked for a freight-forwarding company and managed it for years until I finally got the title of manager. I was one of the first women in that position. My name is now on a black marble monument at the entrance to the Port of Miami. The monument is dedicated to the pioneers of the freight business in Miami.

When I got married, I was glad to change my name from Wiener to Hoffner. I was originally from Hamburg, Germany, and didn’t want to be known as a hamburger or a wiener. I remember a neighborhood restaurant called Jumbo’s on Northwest Seventh Avenue. I believe it still exists. We liked Junior’s at 79th and Biscayne.

Occasionally, my husband and I went to Tropical Acres in Fort Lauderdale. That was a very special treat. Our shopping area was Little River. There was a nice restaurant called Watson’s and, of course, the movie house. For movies, we also went south on Biscayne Boulevard to the Mayfair.

At times, I shopped downtown. I loved Burdines and Hartley’s. Woolworth’s and Grant’s were wonderful dime stores. My greatest experience in downtown Miami was going to the old federal courthouse. That is where I became a U.S. citizen in 1951.

One thing that detracted from my chosen paradise was racial prejudice. The rule was “separate but equal,” but life was definitely not equal. My husband, who was not Jewish, was shocked to find that he could not take me into certain places that were “restricted” – that meant no Jews or blacks.

He also told me that when he was working as a tile-setter he had a black helper. The helper was just as skilled as he was, but he could not join the union. He did the same work for less pay. I am happy to say that these injustices no longer exist.

In 1963, I went to work in the cargo department of British Airways. During the 13 years that I worked there and in retirement, I enjoyed the airline travel privileges to see the world. After retiring, I volunteered at the Holocaust Center at FIU, transcribing the life histories of survivors and liberators.

I now live in a condominium overlooking Biscayne Bay and look at Miami Beach from the opposite side. I walk every morning and enjoy the sunrise. Sometimes I swim in the pool. When I first gazed at the beautiful shore so many years ago, I couldn’t imagine what a wonderful life I would have. I still love it and feel so lucky to be here.

My Miami memories are not only vivid in my mind, but they are also dear to my heart.

My family and I moved from Orlando to Coral Gables in 1949. My dad, Rabbi Morris A. Skop, was the first rabbi in the young Jewish community of Coral Gables. Our first home was an old, scorpion-infested abode on Minorca Avenue near Le Jeune Road.

Because of my dad’s religious convictions, my brother, Eli, my sister, Shirah, and I were forced to attend a private Jewish academy in South Beach. During my fifth and sixth grades, I attended Coral Gables Elementary. I loved assimilating with my new non-Jewish friends and became quite popular.

My dad’s first congregation was called the Coral Gables Jewish Center and was on Palermo Avenue. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism was rampant at the time, and we constantly received phone calls imploring us to “Go back to the beach, Jew.” On one memorable Sunday while my friend Arnold and I were riding our bikes, we discovered a misfired stick of dynamite on the temple’s front lawn.

On Saturdays, our mom would pack us a lunch and we would spend the day at the Miracle Theater watching movies. My dad, who was a big humanitarian, assumed the position as a chaplain at the then-Pratt Veterans Hospital, which later became known as the Biltmore Hospital. He was also a chaplain at Homestead Air Force Base. We finally moved into a lovely home on Riviera Drive near Coral Gables High School.

My memories of restaurants include Jimmy’s Hurricane drive-in on Bird Road, The Hot Shoppes, The Red Diamond, The Big Wheel, The Studio, Shorty’s, Old Hickory, The Pub, Pizza Palace, King Arthur’s Court, Black Caesar’s Forge, Joe’s Stone Crab, The Merry Go Round, The Varsity Inn, Royal Castle and many more.

We would swim at the Venetian Pool, Crandon Park, Matheson Hammock and Tahiti Beach. Our mini vacations included stays at The Americana, The Roney Plaza and The Fontainebleau.

My college days involved attending the University of Miami, where I graduated cum laude as a pre-med student. Our social excursions then included being guests at the Sir John Hotel, where I met a young Cassius Clay, later to become Muhammad Ali.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting a dear friend, Jimmy Pontera, who lives next door to O.J. Simpson and who helped my brother and me reminisce and rekindle our past.

Those were the days, my friend.

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