John Justin Schumann, Vero Beach Beautification Day

 July 8, 2023

Beautification days started in 1928, and they seem to have had one in 1961, but they became a thing of the past not long after that. Daddy said they were like a holiday, only you worked. All the businesses closed and all the grovers came to town. The paper always publicized the event. Daddy remembers taking part a project that was downtown, and another one near the hospital. He said there is a picture somewhere of Grandad with a shovel, working on Beautification Day. I have a guess as to which person in the photo is Grandad, but I'm not sure enough to mark it for you. 






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shuman, Schumann

Image
September 5, 2023 Early in my research I ran across an article that suggested that John Franklin Schumann had changed the spelling of his last name, and that it had originally been spelled Shuman. Multiple artlices after that, including one of his wedding to Blanche Marie Jackman, left no doubt.  Just why he did so remains a bit of a mystery. While our first thought when we hear that someone has changed their name is that they are evading something or hiding something, John Franklin made multiple trips back and forth from Orlando to his home territory in Indiana, so that hardly seems the case.  My brother, Johnny, had told me a story a very long time ago, and I asked him about it again recently, about his penmanship in the signing of his name. He was in Granddad's office, most likely regarding some business related to the grove, and Johnny had either signed or endorsed a check, and had done so hastily. Granddad showed it to him, mentioned to him that "Schumann" was a very...
Read more

JFSchumann, The Importance to the community of organizations like the Exchange Club

Image
  September 4, 2023 John Franklin Schumann, while editor of the Vero Beach Press Journal, spoke at a meeting of the Exchange Club. He pointed out that much of the important business of the world is transacted around a dinner table, and that the Exchange Club and similar organizations are important factors in community building.  When Daddy and I talked about this article, he said that he had read on the article, and noted the other speakers and their enthusiasm about Vero Beach, and Florida. This article is from February 28, 1926, near the beginning of the real estate bust that caused so much havoc in Florida.  When I was a young adult, I was in Granddad's office in the new Press-Journal building, and noted the many plaques on his wall, and the many organizations of which he was a charter member. Daddy said that Granddad was very willing to support new organizations, and in reading this article, I wonder if that might have been something his father taught him.  The a...
Read more

John Schumann, Jr.; High School Basketball, Reserves Undefeated

Image
September 17, 2023 Daddy is still in touch with Roland Martens and his wife, and had learned from Mrs. Martens that Roland is beginning to experience Altzheimers. Daddy passed this article along to them, as he thought it might bring back some happy memories for him.  Daddy said that in 1947 they didn't even have a gym. The Naval Air Station that had operated at Vero during the war had a building they were no longer using, and the team used that. (It is possible that the whole Naval Air Station had shut down, my notes aren't clear on that.   
Read more