John & Louise Adams Ropp
Long-time Avondale residents John and Louis Ropp have a lot to celebrate this year. On July 28, the couple will celebrate John’s 90th birthday followed by their 54th wedding anniversary in September. Questions about the Ropps’ early courtship brings heartfelt laughter from Louise. John patiently shakes his head and looks skyward, well aware of what’s […]
Gladys Cariani O’Heir
Gladys Cariani was in her earlys 20s when met her future husband, Walter O’Heir, but they didn’t hit it off at first. Even though a friend introduced them, she was reluctant to agree to a date with him. Fate intervened and one morning Gladys needed a ride to work. Walter picked her up in his […]
Lillian Margulies Meizlik
Lillian Magulies Meizlik, “Aunt Lil” to her friends, is truly a “golden girl.” At 99, she radiates the same poise and elegance that can be seen in the photographs of her when she was a striking tall young woman, one who always wore a red rose in her hair. “She’s the type of person you […]
The Way We Were: Merle Dekle Teate
Although her vision and hearing are fading, once Merle Dekle Teate, 97, of San Jose settles into a favorite chair overlooking her backyard and lake, her Maltese poodle Angel tucked by her side, she’s eager to share timeless memories. Still a lovely Southern lady with the sunniest of personalities, Teate’s home off San Jose Boulevard […]
The Way We Were: Ann Stiefel Joiner Brewster
Ann Stiefel Joiner Brewster will celebrate her 90th birthday in November. She grew up on Avondale’s Hollywood Avenue with her father Clarence, a pharmacist with a Forsyth Street pharmacy and her mother Amy Stiefel. She lived near many friends who all attended school together. She and her friends could not wait to enter junior high […]
Jean and Helen Benjamin
When Helen Benjamin, 80, first heard about property her father-in-law planned to buy and develop, it didn’t sound great. L. Walter Benjamin, Sr. took his two sons, L. Walter Jr. (deceased) and her husband Jean to see woodlands off San Jose Boulevard just south of San Clerc Road. The Beauclerc Country Club and golf course […]
Patti Golden
Patricia Kirkpatrick Golden, 76, was lovingly raised by her maternal grandmother Annie Meredith at 2743 College Street, a two-story home near the intersection with King Street. They had moved to Jacksonville from Macon, GA in 1953 when her grandfather died, because Annie always wanted to live in the “big city” of Jacksonville and she had […]
Dr. Linda Fisher
Teaching is in her blood. Dr. Linda McLucas Fisher, now 72, was the only child of teachers Leonard and Margaret Cox McLucas. The family celebrated her first birthday in their new Murray Hill home on Attleboro Street after moving from Sanford, FL with Fisher’s maternal grandmother Maud Medill Miller. Her father was a new coach […]
