SONS OF DEWITT COLONY TEXAS Archival New Articles Librarian Ms. Julia Yancey Dowdy Hogenboom Turns 101
An article in the Ocala Star Banner of 18 Feb 2007 announced that Ms. Dowdy celebrated her 101st birthday on February 16 with friends, cake and ice cream. She was born in Charlotte, NC. Ms. Dowdy was the librarian at Lake Weir High School and the wife of Reverend Hogenboom, pastor of the Weirsdale Presbyterian Church. The article related that her secret to long life is strong faith and a healthy outlook. [I suspect a good set of genes also contributed, does anyone remember the Dewey Decimal System?--E.W.] (Information provided by Don Phillips) Spring 2007: Ole Coach Pfeil and Master Math Teacher George Cope still actively farming in Marion County. On one of their periodic hunting and fishing forays back to the Sunshine State from their homes on Gulf Coast Texas and the Rocky Mountains, Einstein Wally (McKeehan) and Real Bubba Ray (Steele) pulled Big Dog (Don) Phillips out of church on a Sunday morning and held a mini-reunion breakfast at a local diner out toward Silver Springs in Ocala. On the spur of the moment they decided to do a historic (nostalgic) auto tour of the Lake Weir area. They covered most of the historic Belleview and Weirsdale landmark sites with perfect recall of events that happened there, like the ole Belleview Pit (later Dairy Queen?), Smith Grocery parking lot and the tree where the Belleview Chief slept on his watch, the Polish poultry farm where EW shoveled 3 ft thick chicken manure for $.50/hr, the site where EW got a borrowed pink Cadillac convertible stalled on the tracks, the ole Summerfield railroad station and the super athlete lighter stump and pulpwood workers whose sons and daughters are now likely football and basketball stars, circling the lake with uncountable and unprintable stories of events at each landmark, the ole Weirsdale packing house that provided us employment and gas money during citrus season, the G&S building where ole Boat's office is now empty, Nelson's Fish Camp (where Mel Tillis played guitar with ole man Hunt while Bubba listened), the Ocklawaha and nearby mudfarms. We caught Mr. Cope at home by accident who was as fit as ever among his orange groves and beehives on the lake. Finally we caught up with Coach Pfeil on his impressively lush multi-acre truck farm in Ocala despite his recent ailments that he doesn't seem to let bother him. He maintains the farm (with the help of his son's family) and a roadside stand on the "honor" system. Knowing the ole Coach, we joked that he probably has a hidden video system over the stand monitoring activity from his easy chair and widescreen Sony TV in his modest two room place on the property. Big Dog and Bubba Ray grilled the ole Coach on the various athletes under him over the years both at Lake Weir and in south Florida. His best stories were of those he personally had influenced, both the individual and their families, to persist in school with passable grades to play football. In the end, he admitted that "Grumpy" Chapin was the best running back he ever coached at Lake Weir, if not in his career. SONS OF DEWITT COLONY TEXAS |
