Individual Notes
Note for: Thomas Hansen Braddock, -
Index
Individual Note: Florida Times-Union Dec. 23, 2008
A glass bottle with a plain white label is filled with caramel-colored sweetness. In neat, cursive handwriting, its contents are explained: "pure sugarcane syrup."
Fresh syrup - the kind made in a backyard, not in a factory - is getting harder to find every year, as are the farms from where it comes. And that worries Tom Braddock, a local farmer and former city agriculture director.
Braddock, 77, has been bringing bottles of syrup to Jacksonville's mayor and City Council for more than 30 years. He's City Hall's version of Santa Claus, quietly delivering the bottles - as well as boxes of apples and naval oranges - and leaving only a "Merry Christmas" behind.
A lifelong advocate for farmers, Braddock started the tradition in 1975, after he was appointed head of what was then the city's agriculture department. When he retired 20 years later, he kept the tradition going.
"The smiles on their faces are just worth the whole thing," he said. "People get a blessing from just giving."
City Council Director Cheryl Brown says Braddock never expects recognition or anything else in return.
"He is so quiet about it," she said. "He comes in and he just wants to share. He just puts it down."
When asked for his address in order to receive a thank-you card, he politely declines.
Brown began working for the city around 1990 and said she looks forward to Braddock's annual gifts, which once included canned vegetables in Mason jars.
"It was always delicious," she said. "Everything was just good always."
These days, he buys fruit from a local, family-owned wholesale company. And although he no longer makes his own syrup, he looks for someone who knows how to prepare it for him.
The art of making syrup is dying, he said. But he has plenty of memories of when it was done right, using a kettle boiling over a fire like his father taught him how to do when he was growing up.
"It's beautiful. Golden. That's how it looks when it's cooking," he said Monday, thumbing through pictures of a former colleague grinding sugar cane.
This year, he bought his syrup from a farmer in Southern Georgia "just across the St. Marys River." Before that, there were friends in Suwanee County. The youngest syrup maker he knows is in his 40s.
"It's very possible I won't be able to find a source in the years ahead ... of good syrup," he said.
That's part of the reason why Braddock continues to bring his special gifts to City Hall each year. He wants to remind the city's decision-makers that there would be no food on supermarket shelves without farmers.
Although the department he once headed is now an extension office within the city's Recreation and Community Services Department, Jacksonville's shrinking rural farming communities should not be forgotten, Braddock said.
"I would just have to say to them, 'Fellas we got a nice city, but don't you forget there's more to the city than downtown,' " he said.
It's the same message Braddock has been spreading for decades. People don't understand how important Florida farmers are to the nation, providing fruit, vegetables and even livestock for consumption, he said.
He said farms die when their owners become too old and don't have children to take over the land, or when the new generation isn't interested in the family business.
But there are some encouraging signs for the industry, Braddock said. The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Florida, where he graduated with a master's degree in animal science, is thriving, he said.
He travels to Gainesville often for various meetings and, of course, home football games. He delivers syrup there, too.
Although technically retired, Braddock works six days a week. At his Northside farm - a portion of 2,500 acres his father accumulated and later divided among his children - there is always one project or another to tend to.
When he was young, he explored those same woods on horseback. Now, he gets around in an SUV, checking on his breeding cattle or taking note of a fence that needs repair.
Braddock doesn't have any children of his own, and developers have already come calling. He suspects that one day, when he is no longer able to tend to his farm, his land will go in that direction.
But he has no plans to stop his Christmas tradition.
Individual Notes
Note for: James Earl Huntley, 17 MAY 1917 - 23 JAN 1994
Index
Individual Note: [Broderbund Family Archive #110, Vol. 1 A-L, Ed. 5, Social Security Death Index: U.S., Date of Import: Jun 25, 1998, Internal Ref. #1.111.5.115349.43]
Individual: Huntley, James
Social Security #: 261-01-4398
SS# issued in: Florida
Birth date: May 17, 1917
Death date: Jan 23, 1994
ZIP Code of last known residence: 32208
Primary location associated with this ZIP Code:
Jacksonville, Florida
Individual Notes
Note for: Frank Craig Richardson, 23 SEP 1920 - NOV 2008
Index
Individual Note: Times Union:
FRANK RICHARDSON: He did so much for Florida Baptists
He served in the Army Intelligence Corps as a special investigator.
Posted: November 25, 2008
By Charlie Patton Copyright 2008 . All rights reserved.
FRANK RICHARDSON: He did so much for Florida Baptists
Frank Richardson, a longtime Jacksonville resident who handled the financial affairs of the Florida Baptist Convention during three decades of growth, died Thursday following a brief illness. Mr. Richardson was 88.
The funeral will be today at 10 a.m. at Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church, 4001 Hendricks Ave. Burial will take place at 2 p.m. in the Live Oak Baptist Church Cemetery outside Callahan.
Mr. Richardson joined the Florida Baptist Convention as comptroller and director of business services in 1953. He retired in 1982.
Among the accomplishments of which Mr. Richardson was proudest was his role in developing a retirement program and group insurance plan for Baptist pastors and their staffs, said his son, Craig Richardson of Chapel Hill, N.C. He also worked to assure that money was spent in the way donating churches wanted it spent, his son said.
"He was a good steward," said Kyle Reese, pastor at Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church, where Mr. Richardson had been a member for the last eight years.
He was "a genuinely good and kind human being," Reese added.
Born in a small town in North Carolina, Mr. Richardson played college baseball at Mars Hill College and North Carolina State University before World War II, during which he served as a special investigator for the Army Intelligence Corps.
He returned from the war to get a bachelor's in business administration and accounting from Stetson University, where he also earned a master's degree.
He was active in civic affairs in Jacksonville, including serving as president of the Civitan Club of South Jacksonville.
He served for many years as a deacon and Sunday school teacher at Southside Baptist Church and then at Deermeadows Baptist Church, where he and his wife were founding members.
In retirement he devoted much of his time to gardening. "He had an outstanding rose garden," said his brother-in-law, Robert Rowe of Jacksonville.
Besides his son, survivors include his wife of 60 years, Libby Braddock Richardson; daughter Susan Richardson Renard of Jacksonville; a sister, Willodean Hovis of Bessemer City, N.C.; and three grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church or Stetson University.