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Minnie (Iverson) Randolph - Part 3
Dateline Atlanta, GA 1947: “Her husband was William
Beverly Randolph, a wealthy Floridian, who was also a spoiled scion, she says,
and when her son, William Beverly Randolph II, was 12, the elder Randolph died
and left her with a frozen orange grove, no money, and a growing son.”
Pine Castle’s Hoffner Avenue of today, heading east
from Hansel Avenue, crosses first land that in 1870 was the northernmost tip of
Will Wallace Harney’s historic homestead. After that, nearer to Marinell Drive,
Hoffner Avenue encroaches on a peninsular having Lake Conway on either side,
acreage that is yet another historic homestead dating to the early 1870s. Better
known for its third owner, Charles H. Hoffner, who bought the abandoned homestead
after Florida’s Great Freeze of 1894-95, this property had originally been the
homestead of William Beverly Randolph I.
Mary Caroline “Minnie” Iverson, daughter of pioneer
Alfred Holt Iverson, became the second wife of William Beverly Randolph, son of
William & Mary (Pitts) Randolph, landowners in 1870 of extensive land at
Fort Gatlin as well as proprietors of the Orange House Hotel at Fort Reid. They were also in-laws of Pine Castle's very own, Will Wallace Harney.
Widow Minnie (Iverson) Randolph was interviewed a
second time on August 3, 1947 when she was 89 years of age. At that time, Minnie
was still a fulltime employee, President of Randolph Beauty Shop of Atlanta,
Georgia. She had been interviewed thirty-two years earlier, in 1912, at which
time the Georgia newspaper proclaimed Minnie Iverson Randolph as “one of the
most successful of Atlanta’s women in business.”
As a young girl, Minnie came to Orange County in the
late 1870s, living first near Maitland with her father and stepmother. The
family later moved further south to Shingle Creek. By the mid-1880s, Miss
Minnie was investing in land, buying for example a town parcel on the corner of
Central Avenue and Gertrude Street in downtown Orlando. Minnie then married
William B. Randolph on June 10, 1884, and their first and only child, William
B. Randolph II, was born near Pine Castle in 1892.
Mrs. Minnie Randolph traveled to Atlanta in 1895 for a
singing debut, where she was proclaimed to be “one of Florida’s most-delightful
sopranos”. Later that year the freeze occurred, and Minnie relocated with her son to
Atlanta, where she went to work in the advertising business. By the early 20th
century, Minnie changed careers once again, entering the beauty business.
“I simply had to do it,” said Minnie in 1947 of
entering the Beauty trade, a career change that led to her training the
first-ever class of beauty operators at Atlanta Opportunity School.
Doris Lockerman, Woman’s News Editor for the Atlanta
Constitution in 1947, described the 89 year old Minnie as keeping a “doll-size
little body straight as a ramrod, her blue eyes mischievous and clear, ‘though
I read every night lying down, and her crown of white hair high on a lofty
head.”
“I think children ought to be taught family
backgrounds,” said Minnie Iverson Randolph, for it “would give all youngsters a
feeling of confidence.” Although she spent only a brief time as a resident of
Pine Castle, Minnie’s upbringing at Orange County’s 19th century
wilderness had no doubt implanted – as Will Harney himself described his
fellow Orange County pioneers – “as having the pluck and energy” necessary to
face adversities head on, tackle every challenge life presented - and rise to success at a time in our history when few women ever entered the business
world.
THE perfect holiday gift this season: Central Florida History by R. L. Cronin
In May of 2018 this author received the following email: “I am a direct descendant of Wm Beverly
Randolph, Sr (my father is his grandson) and was completely awed by your tree.
I spoke my great-great grandparent’s names for the first time today! My father’s
Randolph lineage was always mysterious. My father was raised an only child by
his mother and never spoke of Randolph relations other than Minnie.”
Mary Caroline ‘Minnie’ Iverson died at Dekalb, Georgia
on July 2, 1953.
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